I've Run Out of Housewives to Watch Until RHOSLC Comes Back

I was a late adopter of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, mostly because I was one of those snobby (get it, “snobby?”) TV watchers who only wanted to watch HBO and prestige shows. Today, I literally have seen every Real Housewives franchise in totality except the original Real Housewives of Orange County; the much-maligned one season of Real Housewives of D.C., the early seasons of Real Housewives of Miami — but I’ve seen the newer seasons on Peacock, and the since-canceled Real Housewives of Dallas. I really hope Bravo comes back to Texas though and goes for Houston this time.

I always, always thank (and blame) my BFF, teacher and artist, Jada Prather, for introducing me to Real Housewives of Atlanta after having only seen one episode 10,000 years ago (it was Sheree’s fashion show with no fashions. How dreadful.), and back then I was not impressed. But Jada, being Jada, and the fact that we were roommates at the time with one TV between us, kept watching RHOA, therefore, I kept watching it until something magical happened — Kenya Moore and Porsha Williams (then Stewart) joined the cast in season 5.

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I knew who Kenya was from the giddy-up. She was a former Miss USA, model/actress, and “professional pretty person” who I’d admired just like actress and singer Vanessa Williams, the first Black Miss America who was stripped of her title unfairly) and veterinarian Debbye Turner, the third who was also from my home state of Missouri. (She came to my junior high once and taught us all how to properly “wave” as a beauty queen.) As I obviously used to REALLY be into Black beauty queens, I’d watched Kenya for most of her career and was instantly curious to see what she would be like on the show. Child, she did not disappoint. While I did NOT appreciate how people kept saying she was Bipolar (so lazy and a common, disrespectful trope on reality shows to “diagnose” your cast members like 90 percent of these people are on the mental illness spectrum), I loved how quick she was with a comeback and how willing she was to show her interior life, which was, in the beginning, one of dating crappy dudes and white refrigerators in raggedy extended stay hotels. She was giving “lightning rod villainess icon” from jump. Plus, she was relatable. I too was dating dudes who were better left unmentioned and living in rentals with the most low budget of appliances.

Porsha, on the other hand, was — at the time — this sort of pampered, bougie Black princess of the Civil Rights Movement who was “intellectually uncomplicated,” and married to an annoying and controlling former NFL player. She didn’t know what the Underground Railroad was despite her lineage (her grandfather was Civil Rights icon Hosea Williams) and somehow, she was incredibly funny and loveable. I just wanted her to win back then because, well, she seemed to have a lot of potential that had been in storage for most of her life as the emphasis it seemed had been placed all on her looks and less on her brain. The show kind of forced her to exercise it — usually in her various angry exchanges with Kenya — and this beautiful, also iconic Housewife came out of it, who the minute she got out of her oppressive marriage, she also got out of her clothes and became Queen of Thotlandia. Nothing was ever too revealing or too tight ever again. And in later seasons she even found her own voice as an activist in the Black Lives Matters movement.

Of course, she squandered a lot of her goodwill when she had her own show (Porsha’s Family Matters) that was a trainwreck where her ego and propensity to rage went on a rampage with the father of her child in the final, chaotic episode.

I still wish she were on Real Housewives of Atlanta again though. But I wish a lot of people were still on RHOA, from Cythnia Bailey who showed up as a friend this most recent season to Kim Zolciak-Biermann, who I cannot stand but enjoy the unpredictable energy she brings, to the most iconic Housewife of them all, the meme machine, Nene Leakes (who seems perma banned from Bravo for that time she sued Housewives creator Andy Cohen — and fellow St. Louisan — for allegedly being a racist.)

She seems to want to come back and “the people” (the people are me) want her back, but Andy is giving “crickets” while paying the whole situation dust.

(Side note: I think Nene still has me blocked on Twitter. I, for the life of me, have no clue why but I’m honestly kind of flattered. I only wrote two articles about RHOA back in the day and the only one I remember is the one where I called Porsha “intellectually uncomplicated” during a very tongue-in-cheek defense of her pretty pampered princess shit. I’m sure I said something mean, as I was wont to do back in my blogger days, so girl, I’m sorry. Most haters are just confused fans anyway. But that’s a topic for another blog.)

That said, RHOA is so bad this season. Not worse than last year’s very dull season, but I’d rather see them bring back the “way too nice for this shit” Kim Fields or a drunken Shamari DeVoe than what we have going on right now. Like, bring them all back. What’s Claudia Jordan doing? She did that one good read that one time. Bring her back. Eva the Diva is “booked & busy” on BET, but hell, can she and her divorce and all her kids make a cameo or something? This is an SOS, all hands on deck kind of situation. We need more than two seconds with Kim Zolciak-Biermann and Lisa Wu in a forced reunion scene where it was obvious none of them really speak to each other, or in DeShawn Snow’s case, don’t speak at all.

All the manufactured, “poke the bear” shit with Kandi and Kenya this season is so exhausting. Like, even they’re exhausted and they’re watching themselves on the show along with us, wondering why production rolled with this over that.

Things on my Housewives gateway drug have gotten so bad, y’all. Like, someone clearly needs to be fired (or hired) but I’ll never advocate for what they did to my beloved Real Housewives of New York.

While I love, love, love that this cast is much more diverse than the previous, Upper East Side, WASPy iteration (plus think Brynn is my kinda chaos), this show is very zzzzzzzzzzzz. But I was so desperate for some Housewives action, I actually watched it.

Maybe it’ll get better? Like, I appreciate that no one is trying to murder their liver on this thing, but this cast of all Bethennys is not doing it for me. Something about this last episode where Jessel was trying to argue that, she too, comes from struggle was giving “bougie kids in St. Louis County arguing over whose parents grew up the poorest.” Meaning … what girl, what? Like, yeah, Drake “started from the bottom and now we’re here” but the point is no one wants to actually BE from the bottom if they can help it. Most people would love to just “start from the middle” like I did. The middle is a much easier feat to pull off. And if you start at the top? Congratulations, you won the genetic lottery.

I don’t get this “I too ate a Vienna sausage once” kind of fight. Especially while wearing couture at your party filled with fashion icons in your expensive NYC apartment. Like, nobody wants to be called a snob, but … girl, you're kinda a snob.

Anyway, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, now 100% felon free with Jen Shah in prison, is returning early next month and I cannot wait. I’ve already seen the first episode and I’m not going to say anything about it other than Lisa Barlow, Mary Cosby and Sept. 5th can’t come fast enough. This dearth of good, insane, wild Housewives action while watching two once stalwarts of Bravo flounder is frustrating. Housewives is how I turn off my brain after a long day in the journalism mines. The news is heavy. Bravo, typically, is not. Plus, ever since I finished all 10 seasons of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Lisa Vanderpump spin-off Vanderpump Rules there’s nothing on in the background while I’m cooking!

Don’t make me have to finally visit the OG RHOC. I really don’t want to. I really don’t.

But I will if this shit doesn’t turn around.

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