Through my years of film and television analysis, perhaps the thing I am proudest of is how varied my viewing habits are. I am not pretentious and enjoy a whole spectrum of media through a variety of genres. There is no greater testament to this than the fact that I have a unique fondness for reality television. I always have. Though dominating TV screens, the format has historically been written off as trashy and unsophisticated. It is viewed as an inherently less valuable or worthy strain of media. And to be clear, I understand where that comes from. A significant portion of reality TV is just plain bad. It’s uniquely unpredictable in quality and has undoubtedly produced some of the most heinous things to grace the small screen (I have been equal parts fascinated and horrified reading about TLC’s new series Milf Manor, which I can’t believe got greenlit by a major network). However, the top echelon of reality television, where an effective premise and clever structure meet innovative production and great casting, is home to some of the most deeply compelling and electrifying viewing experiences one can have. When reality TV is operating at its highest form it’s an irreplicable sensation.
Reality TV as a distinct genre is a uniquely modern phenomenon. Really only emerging in the 1990s, it has slowly warped into the megalith it is today. There are a handful of obvious classics which, regardless of whether you have a personal relationship to them or not, are undeniably iconic and shaped the genre into the massive ecosystem it is today. Big Brother, The Hills, Survivor, Jersey Shore, The Bachelor, Jackass, The Simple Life, Dance Moms, Catfish, Teen Mom and Keeping Up with the Kardashians all fall into this cannon. The evolution and ever-growing popularity of such shows has led to an oversaturated market. We are living in a vast wasteland of disposable reality TV with little to no effort given creatively. However, if you know where to look, it’s also arguably a golden age for the genre. There are a solid number of shows which transcend the reality vs fiction binary and are simply some of the most compelling things currently airing.
Amongst its many unsuccessful projects, Netflix is home to two of the most promising recent examples. The Circle, a US adaptation of the Channel 4 show, is a thrilling and cutthroat game of strategy and deception. Players live alone in isolated apartments with no stimulation and can only communicate to each other through the Circle, a social media network where they can present themselves in any way they choose, including as other people. Love is Blind, on the other hand, is an utterly unhinged experiment which begins with strangers in pods who are unable to see each other and ends only weeks later with legally binding marriages. It’s a spectacular car crash you can’t look away from. In my opinion, the current reigning champion of the format in terms of both widespread popularity and high-quality production is Love Island. A show in which a group of single, absurdly attractive people in their twenties are put in a tropical villa with no access to the outside world and forced to live together 24/7, while having to make romantic connections to make it through. I agree with the critique that the show has slowly become more sanitised with each season and lost the rough around the edges quality which initially made it so endearing. However, the British Big-Brother-meets-the-Bachelor romantic escapade has produced both legitimately moving, long-lasting love stories and breath-hitching dramatic spectacle.
However, stepping back and examining the entire landscape of reality television, there is one shinning jewel in its equal parts illustrious and questionable history. Dominating the mid 2000s and still thriving, it’s the true magnum opus of what is possible with the format and one of the signature works of entertainment of the century. It’s the summation of all of the enchantingly deranged chaos that reality TV can bring and the one example of when the genre is truly elevated to Shakespearean levels of drama and tragedy.
On 21st March 2006, inspired by both the increasing dominance of reality TV and the success of scripted soap operas like Desperate Housewives, the American TV network Bravo premiered their new reality series The Real Housewives of Orange County. Unknown at the time to Bravo, it would be only the first instalment in the now legendary Real Housewives media empire. In the 17 years since then, the show has exploded into a full-fledged franchise with a slew of other instalments set in New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, D.C., Beverly Hills, Miami, Potomac, Dallas and Salt Lake City (and that’s not even including an international expansion of the brand from Dubai to Melbourne).
I had always been vaguely aware of the Real Housewives, though never understood what was appealing about the shows. I was under the false assumption that it followed the rather dreary lives of very ordinary women and imagined it to be dull. Then, last year, I was compelled to start The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, after seeing headlines about its high-profile legal drama (we’ll get to that). Being the newest of the American instalments, at the time there were only two seasons, in comparison to the classics like New York or Beverly Hills which boasted more than 10. And so it seemed like a far less daunting journey to embark on. I apprehensively began the first episode, Welcome to Salt Lake City! And as I saw the unhinged Jennifer Shah clad in gaudy head-to-toe designer attire scream at the leader of a strict cult-like Mormon church, Mary Cosby, for once telling her that she “smelled like a hospital”, it was love at first fight. They had me hook, line and sinker.
Salt Lake City is coloured by a specific cultural and religious context. With the city being the home of the Mormon church, all of the women featured are Mormons or ex-Mormons. I believe it is this strict religious conditioning, and for some the experience of having been excommunicated from the church, which propel the women to lash out at each other so spectacularly. Racing through the manic first season, followed by the Game of Thrones-level second season, I finished the gripping Salt Lake City filled with an insatiable desire for more. I had caught the Housewives bug and there was nothing to do but descend further into the madness.
With Salt Lake City allowing me to dip my toe, I was confident enough to embark on a journey through one of the iconic instalments in the franchise. I decided on New York City and thus, my next adventure began. Though a wealthier and higher-status group of women than that of Salt Lake City, New York City has a uniquely rough around the edges quality. It makes its characters authentic and endearing. I suffered through the short but boring first season and better, but still somewhat dull, second one (I have seen some recommendations to skip these early slow burners. However, I personally think it’s vital to get the full context and understand the foundations of these women’s relationships). But once past that initial hump, I embarked on a journey through 11 more seasons of unbridled insanity and loved every second.
After finishing all 256 episodes of New York City, I had an overwhelming void which needed to be filled. And so, I turned my attention to the other of the two most iconic and beloved Real Housewives instalments, and the most popular one; Beverly Hills. It was a strange adjustment from the less polished, street smart women of NYC to the suave and elegant ladies who inhabited Beverly Hills. Though the women are more image obsessed and perhaps less multi-faceted than those of NYC, Beverly Hills is the most thrilling series overall from my viewing. Packed with legitimate tragedy and meaningful friendships, but also strategy, lies and betrayal, it’s a masterclass in reality television from start to finish.
Having completed Salt Lake City, New York City and Beverly Hills, I’ve barely made a dent in the context of the full Real Housewives empire. However, I’m nearly 600 episodes deep and have covered both of its most iconic instalments as well as its most recent. So, I feel somewhat qualified, and very eager, to try and break down why I have been so enamoured by my Housewives journey, and why the show is so phenomenal. What does make it the gold standard for reality television?
The setup for a Real Housewives series is deceptively simple. However, it’s the perfect breeding ground for a hurricane of drama, connection, betrayal and tragedy to ensue. Most reality shows see strangers forced together into new situations. The Real Housewives, however, often referred to as a ‘docu-soap’, is unique and somewhat closer to a traditional documentary. It finds groups of women who already know each other. Many have pre-existing friendships and often complex history. The women who are wealthy, and almost all married or divorced, function in the same high society circle and have various connections to each other, creating an organic ecosystem of friendship which is ripe for tension and breakdown. All Bravo has to do is capitalize on this already high-drama environment and give them a little push with its ingenious production and structuring.
And while most reality shows start from square one each season, with a new cast, the Real Housewives keeps the same cast throughout. There’s always a little shake-up between seasons, with certain cast members leaving when they feel like their time on the show is up (or getting kicked off) and new housewives being added to the mix as replacements. But generally speaking, you are watching the same group return season after season, allowing you the unique privilege of watching them and their relationships to each other evolve in real time. When agreeing to be on the show, the women accept that they will have to be open and share so much of their lives, including the ugliest and most tragic parts. So, as you follow them through years of their life and through every up and down, you really feel like you know them in an intimate way. It’s also what makes their relationships with each other so complex, as they are compound with years of intricacy.
Drama is far too simplistic of a word to describe the complex and multi-layered storylines which fuel the Real Housewives. The most common misconception from those unfamiliar with the show is that its conflicts are all ‘he-said-she-said' (or in this case she-said-she-said) arguments of petty gossip. And the series certainly has more than its fair share of that. However, with shifting alliances and betrayals, keeping up with a season feels like watching 3D chess. The stakes are often extremely high, and the fallout is explosive. Arrests, lawsuits and serious accusations are flung around the groups of women, while referencing stories being leaked to the press is part of the natural vernacular. The level of intensity spikes so ferociously because often, the consequences are huge.
Beverly Hills epitomizes this. In season 3, Adrienne and Paul Maloof threaten to sue Brandi Glanville when she reveals the scandalous secret that Adrienne, who speaks in detail about having carried and delivered her own children, actually used a surrogate. Later, in season 6, Lisa Rinna, with participation from others, speculates that Yolanda Hadid may have Munchausen syndrome and not actually be suffering with serious Lyme disease as she claims to be at the time. Later again in season 10, the openly bisexual Brandi Glanville returns and has a fierce war with Denise Richards, claiming that the pair slept together while Denise was with her now husband, which Denise vehemently denies. This got so contentious that the season does what no season before had done. It includes multiple fourth-wall-breaking moments in which Denise acknowledges the camera, addresses producers and shuts down conversations about the topic. She eventually tried to threaten Bravo with legal action to not air anything related to the story, though of course they did.
The later seasons of Beverly Hills are also dominated by the Erika Jayne bombshell. Erika Jayne, at the time Girardi, first appeared on the show in season 6. Her long-time husband, the much older Tom Girardi, was a tremendously successful attorney. The Steven Soderbergh film Erin Brockovich (2000) is based on the iconic trial he played a huge part in. However, during filming of season 11, Tom was arrested and charged with five counts of wire fraud. It was revealed that a portion of the couple’s extravagant wealth was coming from settlement money belonging to clients of his, including as they say on the show; “widows and orphans”. Though always proclaiming to have a good marriage, upon Tom’s arrest Erika suddenly and suspiciously announces that she is divorcing him. This launches the next two seasons of constant turmoil between the ladies as to whether or not they believe Erika had knowledge of Tom’s crimes (she claims she did not) and unrest at how cold and unsympathetic she appears, constantly centring herself as the victim and viciously lashing out at any who dare to question her.
This is a mere taste of the celebrity-stuffed Beverly Hills line-up. While all Real Housewives series feature high prominence people well known in their respective circles, Beverly Hills is a web of celebrities and celebrity-adjacent characters which makes it uniquely exciting. Sisters Kim and Kyle Richards were successful child stars, in addition to being the aunties of Paris Hilton. Paris’ mother Kathy appears in later seasons. Camille Grammer is wife of Frasier star Kelsey Grammer. Actress Denise Richards is the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen. Eileen Davidson and Lisa Rinna are each soap opera actresses, with Lisa married to recurring Mad Men star Harry Hamlin. Teddi Mellencamp is daughter of singer-songwriter John Mellencamp and, perhaps most famously, Yolanda Hadid is mother to Gigi and Bella Hadid. In addition to this, there are a slew of other appearances. Joe Jones appears briefly during his relationship with Gigi Hadid and Charlie Sheen makes a phone-call cameo, while long-time friend of Housewife Dorit Kemsley, Boy George, performs at one of her lavish parties. Recent Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis is a close friend of Kyle Richards, appearing in multiple episodes. And Lisa Rinna’s supermodel daughters respectively date Scott Disick and, randomly, Eyal from season 4 of Love Island (though perhaps meaningless to many, that’s a crossover I got a particular kick out of).
But if you ever needed proof of just how truly insane the scope of the Housewives franchise is; there is a running storyline in season 6 surrounding the OJ Simpson murders and trial. One-season housewife Kathryn Edwards was previously married to NFL line-backer Marcus Allen, the best friend of OJ Simpson. Long-time Beverly Hills recurring guest Faye Resnick, on the other hand, was best friends with Nicole Brown Simpson. The pair therefore knew each other around the time of the murders. However, in the years after, Faye wrote a book in which she claimed she had insider knowledge that Nicole was having an affair with Marcus Allen. She even alleged that OJ found out, which was a large motivating factor towards the murder. She claimed that Kathryn knew about her husband’s affair and turned a blind eye. Kathryn, still married to Allen at the time of publication, vehemently denies this. She was deeply offended and never got the chance to confront Faye about it until decades later, when fate landed them both in front of the camera on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. That’s right, you come to the Housewives for petty arguments and stay for OJ Simpson lore.
One of the key structural features of a Housewives season is lavish vacations. Usually, there is one big cast trip towards the end of each season, which is eagerly built towards and acts as the natural climax of the building storylines. With a stunning, usually tropical backdrop and a healthy dose of escapism for the viewer, the women may drink obscene amounts and are generally looser than in their day to day lives. They also cannot escape each other. So, while this often leads to some of the most tender moments of friendship and bonding, it also leads to simmering tensions coming to a boil. They are very often explosive and end up as the best and most thrilling part of a given season.
Salt Lake City’s Season 2 domestic trips to Vail and Zion are unhinged, as I will discuss in detail later. Beverly Hills’ season 4 trip to Puerto Rico is memorable for the civil war which breaks out when Brandi Glanville claims that Lisa Vanderpump, supposed best friend of Kyle Richards, was conspiring to show everyone a defamatory tabloid article about Kyle’s marriage. And with the trip beginning with the mother of all dinner party battles in episode 16 Amster-damn! and ending with Brandi slapping Lisa Vanderpump across the face on a disastrous boat ride in episode 17 Amster-Damn Slap, season 5's Amsterdam is legendary. Season 7 Hong Kong deserves a mention for episode 16 Big Buddha Brawl alone. It features a hilarious fight on a junk boat, an unexplainable meltdown from Erika Jayne in a restaurant and an iconic scene of Lisa Rinna asking a horrified Dorit “were people doing coke in your bathroom?” in, in reference to a classy dinner party she attended at Dorit’s. And season 9’s getaway to Provence, France is a personal favourite for the wine tasting which descends into drunken hysterics. It just keeps escalating in chaos through the night in the regal manor, in episode 19 Thirst Impressions.
However, it is New York City which reigns supreme with iconic vacations. Season 5’s St. Barths is a classic. It features Luann cheating on her boyfriend with a man dressed as a pirate and getting caught because she was talking in French on the phone to a friend, unaware she was being recorded, which the show broadcasted and subtitled in episode 13 Pirate Booty Call. It additionally has Aviva telling Ramona and Sonja that they are both ‘white trash’ in episode 14 Slutty Island, as Ramona memorably yells back “taaaake a Xanax, calm doooown”. Season 7’s Turks and Caicos features a failed intervention with Sonja about her drinking in episode 12 Lord of the Manor, a breakdown from Ramona about her husband’s affair in episode 13 Sonja Island and an argument about a random naked man being allowed to sleep in the house after a night of partying, much to the dismay of some of the women. This leads to Luann delivering the iconic line “don’t be all, like, uncool” in episode 15, fittingly named Don’t Be All, Like, Uncool. Season 10 Cartagena, Columbia deserves a mention, if for nothing else the double dinner bust-up in episode 16 Guess Who’s Arguing at Dinner?, and the women literally fearing for their lives on a boat-ride from hell across the ocean in episode 17 Ship Happens, in which the turbulence on the water is so extreme they end up crying and vomiting. Disaster is only then amplified when they all get food poisoning, leading to Sonja wearing an adult diaper on the plane home. However, season 9’s Mexico is my personal favourite. In an exquisite mansion it features explosive fights and drunken antics so wild they lead to skinny dipping, Bethenny and Sonja making out and Dorinda being so drunk at dinner she accidentally stabs her own hand with a knife while on a tirade at Bethenny, all in episode 18 Make Out, Make Up. It also has a healthy dose of emotional resolution and genuine bonding. And, in episode 16 Three Tequila... Floor!, Luann is so drunk she falls into a bush and can’t get out. It’s the full Housewives experience in all its glory.
However, New York most famously boasts the trip which I once named the Citizen Kane of reality television. I’ll try and not repeat myself too much here because in my piece I did last year on my favourite episodes of television of all time, I wrote a lengthy summary of The Real Housewives of New York City season 3 episode 12. This is the legendary Sun, Sand and Psychosis or, as it has been long-since named by Housewives fans; 'Scary Island'.
Episode 11 Housewives Overboard is the perfect prologue. Bethenny, Kelly, Ramona, Alex and Sonja are on a trip in the Virgin Islands hosted by Ramona, as a pseudo-bachelorette trip before she and her husband renew their vows, with Jill and Luann staying in New York. And in Housewives Overboard, while on a yacht to their destination, Kelly begins to display bizarre and erratic behaviour. She and Bethenny had been long-time rivals, but here their ‘fight’ is more so just Kelly targeting Bethenny, going off on her in a nonsensical fashion that makes the women uncomfortable. This tees up episode 12, Scary Island, perfectly, as they arrive at the extravagant cliffside villa which creates a magnificent backdrop for the vacation from hell. Kelly’s behaviour only gets stranger. On the first night, Bethenny leaves personalised goody bags outside the women’s doors as an act of kindness, and an olive branch to Kelly. But Kelly is so disturbed by this gesture it makes her cry. She takes it as some sort of torment. She appears not only paranoid, but unintelligible as she yells nonsense down the phone to Jill, who is back in New York, about dreams she has had of Bethenny murdering her.
It culminates at an unimaginably deranged dinner in the villa. Enhanced by alcohol Kelly, as the name of the episode suggests, has what can only be described as a psychotic episode. It is impossible to convey the derangement of the Scary Island dinner party in words, because it’s truly the most bizarre thing I have ever seen on a reality show. But to give you a brief overview of the kinds of things Kelly slurs in a borderline incomprehensible fashion during this verbal rampage: she accuses Alex of channelling the devil, says that Bethenny coming on vacation not long after her estranged father passed away is “creepy”, interrupts an emotional moment of reconciliation between Ramona and Bethenny to ask them “are you guys going to make out with the tongue?” and of course, states that Bethenny HAD TRIED TO KILL HER MANY TIMES BEFORE. When she storms off after all of this, much of which was a slur of nonsense and botched phrases, she returns to the table only minutes later to ask the traumatised women “does anyone want a jellybean or a lollipop?”. Bethenny’s face (who was pregnant at the time so was fully sober) as Kelly offers her a jellybean minutes after telling her “I feel like you’re trying to kill me every night” is one of the greatest achievements in the history of the television medium.
As important a Housewives staple as trips is dinner parties. These overlap, with many of the best dinner parties happening on vacations. However, in their own right, dinner parties are the housewives' equivalent of the battlefield. Armed with information they’ve acquired and having consulted with allies beforehand to secure support for their position, it’s where they come prepared to smack down, and almost never disappoint. Whether it be a fierce one-on-one, a civil war where the group is split into two warring factions or an all-out Hunger Games-style battle royal where multiple different one-on-ones are happening simultaneously, James Cameron couldn’t stage action set pieces as thrilling.
I’ll discuss them in detail later as part of an analysis of the season, but Salk Lake City’s season 2 Episode 17 Who’s Calling Who a Fraud? and episode 19 Cinco De Mayhem see back-to-back nights of all-out war across dinner tables on the cast’s trip to Zion, with each one leading to multiple storm-offs. New York’s drunken battle in Cartagena in season 10 episode 16 Guess Who’s Arguing at Dinner? has two different arguments happening simultaneously at opposite ends of the dinner table. On one end, Bethenny and Carole are painstakingly and pointlessly debating who is at fault for the breakdown of their friendship. Going around in circles, they rake through their text messages to prove who said what in an exhausting, petty game of semantics. On the other end is Luann, who is sober after getting a DUI and going to rehab, and Dorinda, who is in denial about having a drinking problem. Luann lightly notes that Dorinda gets aggressive when drunk and in response, Dorinda slurs out a series of incredibly cruel insults including digs at Luann being divorced and the phrase “at least I didn’t get a mugshot”. With Ramona, Sonja and Tinsley trapped in the middle of the pairs, it’s pure chaos and it’s marvellous.
Season 11 Episode 4’s Making Up is Hard to Do also boasts the iconic ‘gangster lunch’ in which Bethenny attempts to mediate a failed reconciliation between Dorinda and Luann in the middle of a packed Italian restaurant, resulting in a scene that could have convincingly appeared in The Sopranos. Later, in episode 15 Life is Not a Cabaret, Bethenny finally reaches her breaking point with Luann. She believes Luann has been selfish and inconsiderate of tragedy in her personal life. This leads to a full-fledged panic attack at a restaurant in Miami, including her crying and yelling the phrases “YOU’RE A SICKO” and the titular “LIFE IS NOT A CABARET!”, at Luann, who was a cabaret star at the time. And a recap of New York’s best dinner party scraps would not be complete without a mention of Aviva Drescher’s final hoorah as housewife. In season 6 episode 20 The Last Leg, after finding out that the women had been speculating that she fakes or exaggerates some of her many apparent illnesses, she confronts the group at a table. She finishes by delivering the legendary line “the only thing fake or artificial about me is THIS!” and slamming her prosthetic leg onto the table.
Beverly Hills, the reigning champion of the dinner party showdown, boasts numerous shining examples. Season 1 Episode 9 The Dinner Party from Hell is an indisputable classic. Spiritual medium Allison DuBois makes a guest appearance to defend her friend Camille Grammer against Kyle Richards, dramatically puffing on an electronic cigarette while telling Kyle “[your husband] will never emotionally fulfil you. Ever.” And while Carlton Gebbia, the kooky self-proclaimed witch (as in, she actually practices witchcraft) got the boot after only one season, I will never forget her screaming “DON’T YOU DARE COMMAND ME!” across the table at Kyle in season 4 episode 14 The Birthday Witch, at Kyle’s husband’s birthday party, no less! However, season 5 episode 16 Amster-Damn! contains a scene so unbelievably explosive it is universally acknowledged as the peak of Housewives dinner party fight scenes. If the Real Housewives dinner party arguments are wars, this is the Armageddon, nuclear apocalypse of the franchise.
Throughout the season, recovering alcoholic Kim Richards has become increasingly annoyed by Lisa Rinna speculating that she has fallen off the wagon. The speculation over Kim’s sobriety has also led to a vicious feud between Kim’s sister Kyle, and current best friend Brandi. The pair got into it so aggressively over Brandi putting a wedge between the sisters, it even got physical between them six episodes prior in episode 10 House of Cards. So going into the Amsterdam trip Kim is mad at Lisa and Kyle, Kyle and Brandi are seething with hatred for each other, Lisa is mad at Kim for being mad at her, and Eileen, Lisa’s closest ally, is angry at Kim by extension, and in turn Kim at her. Yolanda Hadid and Lisa Vanderpump are there to simply observe the chaos.
Things come to blows at a restaurant on their first night when Lisa Rinna, unable to help herself, once again teases the subject of Kim’s sobriety, tearfully but strategically mentioning her sister who died of an overdose decades prior. This launches Kim into a tirade. And as she is at Lisa’s throat, she and Brandi go for another round with Kyle when Kyle sides with Lisa over Kim, which Kim and Brandi find outrageous. As things continue to escalate, with daggers being thrown across the table left and right, Eileen Davidson gets one of my favourite lines from any housewife. After attempting to jump in on Lisa Rinna’s defence for how Kim is speaking to her, Kim tells her “Shut your fucking mouth, I’ve had enough of you, you beast”. And Eileen replies “Beast? How dare you!” with the breathy, high-pitched voice of a Disney princess. It’s a better line delivery than anything in her decades as a working actress.
Things go off the rails when Kim retaliates by insinuating that she has scandalous information on Lisa’s husband which she could reveal, birthing the now iconic line “let’s talk about the husband”. This triggers Lisa profoundly, and Kim only repeats it. The scene escalates and the next ten seconds deserve to be slowed down and turned into a play-by-play like an iconic sports moment. Lisa jumps to her feet and splashes her white wine at Kim across the table. She screams the phrase “YOU NEVER GO AFTER MY FUCKING HUSBAND” as Kim continues to yell “EVERYBODY WILL KNOW! EVERYBODY WILL KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T WANT”. And as Kim repeats this, Lisa purposefully smashes her glass on the table, sending shards flying everywhere, including onto Kim. The ladies all jump up in panic, Kim is stunned, and Kyle flees out of the nearest door as if being chased.
I’m paraphrasing, but Alfred Hitchcock once famously explained the difference between shock and suspense in movies by using the example that shock is a bomb going off in the middle of a scene which you don’t expect, while suspense is knowing that there’s a bomb that’s going to go off at some point in the scene, and just not knowing when. And the Amster-damn! blowout is a true embodiment of that definition of suspense. From the minute the ladies sit down, there is a ticking time bomb just waiting to be detonated as they tiptoe around it. Every minute is more painstakingly tense than the last and when the bomb finally goes off, it is spectacular.
Though mostly wineglass smashing-less and not quite as explosive as Amster-damn!, there are a myriad of other Housewives fights which take place away from the dinner table but are absolute edge-of-your-seat, high intensity viewing. Fuelled by fury and bitterness and often contextualised by years of history/ previous altercations, they go so far beyond a basic argument. Each one could be annotated and dissected like a scene from King Lear or viewed in an IMAX theatre like an Avengers movie.
New York season 8 is a gold standard season and features another of my favourite episodes in television history. With the women confined in a house in the countryside for what becomes a bloodbath, its comparable to The Shining or the end of Home Alone when the house is one big death-trap. Perhaps the only evidence needed for its insanity is the fact that timestamps are put into the episode, so you can fully understand the frequency of the fighting and when each new round unfolds.
Starting in Episode 8, All the Countess’s Men, the ladies arrive at Dorinda’s lavish second home in the Berkshires. Resembling a grand English manor, the house is decked out for the holidays and Dorinda has put considerable effort into hosting this Christmassy sleepover. In what would soon be seen as perhaps the most ironic things ever said in human history, Dorinda tells Ramona before anyone else arrives “This is my sanctuary. This is where, you know, I don’t want to have to deal with anybody’s craziness or problems they’re having with each other.” Then Ramona’s dog, who she brought, defecates on the carpet. And this can only be seen as an omen of how this fateful evening will play out.
Luann and Jules arrive, then later Bethenny and later again Carole. Things between Luann and Bethenny are passive aggressive from the jump. Bethenny makes her entrance mid-conversation, just as Luann is saying something offhand about “untrustworthy people”. Bethenny jokes “untrustworthy? Are you talking about me already?” to which Luann retorts “of course!” With Bethenny sporting a new haircut, a wavy bob similar to Luann’s signature style, Luann immediately says “Look at the hairdo! you’re looking more like me every day” Bethenny gives a snappy “well you might be looking more like me every day” before making a joke about how Luann “matches the mantlepiece” because of a necklace she’s wearing. Luann mentions the guy she’s been seeing and Bethenny knowingly asks “isn’t this Ramona’s ex?”, referencing the much-discussed fact that he had previously gone on a few dates with Ramona. Everything is said with a smile and the façade of a joke, but there’s daggers underneath every sentence, preluding what’s to come. Bethenny alludes to Luann drinking a lot and sleeping around in a joking manner. And things finally erupt when Luann retaliates. She claims that years prior, during filming of the first season, she had been the one who gave Bethenny the idea for the name of her iconic “skinny girl margarita” which became the inception of her brand Skinny Girl. And with that, the damn has been broken. Episode 9 December: Berkshires County picks up immediately where we left off and is 43 masterful minutes of unbridled insanity.
Once they’ve kicked off, the pair are completely out of control. It goes beyond the original catalyst for the argument and leads to them unleashing years' worth of gripes and saying some of the ugliest and pettiest things about each other. The episode becomes a cycle of Bethenny or Luann hearing the other bitch about them to one of the other women and using it as an excuse to tear into their opponent again. Luann hears Bethenny recapping the Skinny Girl claim to Ramona. After a brief aside so Ramona can add her own gripes with Luann to the pile, for seeing a guy she dated, Luann overhears Bethenny telling Jules about the hairdo situation. Luann then talks to Ramona about how she can hear Bethenny talking to Jules about it, which BETHENNY overhears. It’s just a snake eating its own tale in perpetuity. It's maddening and glorious.
The episode climaxes when Bethenny, in an attempt to ‘call Luann out’ for her hypocrisy in sleeping around while acting like she doesn’t, screams “YOU FUCK EVERYONE!” before saying “You are a slut and a liar and a hypocrite and a snake.” It’s one of the most shameful things any of these women ever say to each other. There are attempts made by others to intercept but there is no stopping this fight to the death. The gloves are off and each insult is crueler than the last. I would use the analogy of an MMA fight or some kind of sport, but I can't. Because it truly feels like any unspoken rules of conduct are broken and they both go so far over the line, racking up foul after foul.
They yell back and forth at each other until they retreat, lick their wounds and then one finds the other a short time later and the next round begins in a different room of the house. There’s a cooldown period in the middle of the episode where it feels like we may have finally reached a stalemate. But then Bethenny overhears Luann mocking her and we’re off again. The cherry on top is the hysterical Dorinda who had planned this weekend as an idyllic trip and watched it be torn apart in front of her and turned into a warzone. In tears at the women’s behaviour and disregard for the effort she put into organizing the weekend, she yells “IF NOONE CAN BEHAVE THEMSELVES THEN YOU’LL ALL GO HOME! CAUSE I DECORATED, I COOKED, I MADE IT NICE! I’M ASHAMED!” “I made it nice” would go on to become her iconic catchphrase and be incorporated into her tagline in a future season. The only moment more wonderfully absurd is when Luann goes to sit on the curb and smoke a cigarette during a temporary ceasefire. Timid housewife Jules is already sitting on the curb and is on the phone with her family because her elderly father is seriously ill in hospital. As Luann joins her, Jules tries to explain this to her. Only for Luann to completely tune out what an obviously shellshocked Jules is saying about her father potentially dying as they speak. She proceeds to go off about Bethenny, completely oblivious and expecting Jules to sit there and listen to her ramble.
As if things couldn’t get worse for Luann, she’s also trying to patch things up with Carole Radziwill. Or as Luann once memorably calls her “Carole Rats-ville”. The two had a prolonged feud because Carole began dating Luann’s young personal chef and family friend. Despite Adam being nearly thirty, Luann has been extremely hard on Carole because of their age gap, even calling her a paedophile in the middle of an event for, wait for it, a children’s charity. But because Luann doesn’t need any more enemies right now, Ramona talks her into sending Carole a text to try and make things less awkward. Jules and Carole overhear this conversation by hiding in a closet (I swear I’m not making this up). And rather than text Carole something sincere or heartfelt, Luann sends the legendary text which simply reads “Hi it’s Lu. Sorry I called you a paedophile. Sorry you missed my party, I hope you can come to my next one”. There is nothing I have to say to stress the legendary derangement of that text. It simply speaks for itself.
There’s an awkward opening of presents, a traumatised Dorinda retreating to watch Law & Order alone and Carole, Jules and Bethenny discussing fantasies about sleeping with women. Then the episode ends, of course, with Bethenny walking into the kitchen in her pyjamas only to overhear Luann once more talking about her. This leads us into episode 10 Unhappy Holidays which sees our final round of battle, including Luann delivering the appropriately festive line “you’re compiling a list and checking it twice to take me down” and Bethenny waking up the next morning with what she calls an argument hangover. And with that, another masterpiece of the reality TV genre is added to the Real Housewives of New York City roster. And the best and most uniquely Housewives aspect of this all is that, though it certainly changed the dynamic, Bethenny and Luann would remain friends for years to come.
The season as whole has a fantastic trajectory with Bethenny and Luann at its core. It centres around the eventual engagement and impending wedding of Luann and notorious NYC playboy Tom. The women spend the season trying to convince Luann that Tom can’t be trusted and will break her heart, especially Bethenny, which was much of the motivating factor towards their Berkshires war. Then it all climaxes in a bombshell. On their trip to Miami, the women attend Luann and Tom’s engagement party, while Bethenny arrives to their hotel the next day. Then, in the season finale; episode 20 Say It Ain’t So, she and Luann sit down in her hotel room as Bethenny prepares herself to break devastating news to Luann. In a now iconic exchange Luann says, “Please don’t let it be about Tom” while Bethenny simply replies, “it’s about Tom”. Bethenny drops the bombshell that a friend of hers saw Tom kissing another woman in a hotel bar. And she has a picture to prove it. It’s explosive. It also gets bonus points for birthing what has since become a trending audio on Tik Tok, as Luann uses text dictation on her phone to send a text to Tom saying “how could you do this to me... question mark”.
New York offers many of these bursts of insanity and bloodshed and drama pulled straight from a telenovela. However, from my viewing, there are two outstanding examples of seasons of the Housewives, which are masterpieces from start to finish. They feature lengthy, complex controversies that stretch across entire season arcs, and they expertly showcase the thrilling, strategic and high-stakes nature of the show. That’s Salt Lake City Season 2 and Beverly Hills season 9.
After a first season of Salt Lake City filled with throwing glasses at elaborate surprise birthday parties, threatening to drown each other in lakes, calling each other “hoodlums”, a spiritual medium needing to intervene and do a group therapy session after a traumatic Las Vegas trip and the line “you’re gonna listen to Mary who fucked her grandfather?” after the revelation that Mary Cosby is married to her step-grandfather (don't ask), I was in complete and utter awe. However, I could have never foreseen the masterpiece which awaited me when entering the next season.
Season 2 opens with raw behind-the-scenes footage typically not aired on the Housewives. We can see crew setting up the cameras and microphones up as the women board a van which is due to take them on their winter vacation to Vail, Colorado. As they are waiting to depart, Jen Shah receives an unexpected phone call, seemingly from her husband. She talks in a hushed tone, covering her mouth with her hand and occasionally glancing nervously at the camera pointed at her. When the call ends, she turns to Whitney Rose and quietly asks her to turn off her mic-pack, something we never see on the show. Whitney reluctantly does so. Jen says something vague about her husband being in the hospital and flees suspiciously. Then, a mere 12 minutes after she leaves, helicopters and police cars with the FBI and American Department of Homeland Security show up to arrest Jennifer Shah for wire fraud and money laundering. We later find out the details of her alleged crimes, being that she purposefully and continuously targeted elderly and vulnerable people and scammed them with phony subscription services.
As dramatic score music pumps in the background, we see the women, still in the van, reacting to the news as Lisa Barlow says “how did they know she was here? Somebody had to have told them she was here?” A fast-paced trailer of what’s to come later in the season plays, showing the women sat around a table in a heated discussion about what to do and their potential involvement, intercut with slow-motion footage of Jen Shah leaving the courthouse. Finally, we hear a producer off-screen ask each of the women in their confessional interview “what do you know that you’re not saying right now?” before asking Meredith Marks “so do you know who tipped off the feds that day?” Meredith doesn’t respond. The intro plays, with Jen’s tagline for the season being “the only thing I’m guilty of is being Shah-mazing" (a pun on her last name). Then, the words “2 months earlier” appear on screen and the season proper begins. I was floored.
What follows is a cutthroat season of shifting alliances and intense speculation, fuelled by Jen’s arrest and alleged crimes but also by the knowledge uncovered by Lisa Barlow that Mary Cosby’s church is a cult where her congregation are funding her lifestyle and worshipping her. It repeatedly builds in tension with secrets shared and alliances formed before leading to confrontations so explosive and hostile, it’s like the Game of Thrones of reality television. The stakes are ridiculously high. Rather than a season about who called who what name, this is a season in which Meredith admits to hiring a private investigator on Jen and there is a legitimate conspiracy about whether she tipped off the feds. And rather than finding out petty gossip about each other through the rumour mill, Lisa Barlow finds out first hand that Mary Cosby had members of her church congregation remortgage their houses to give her the money she demanded, funding her lavish lifestyle. It is one of the most brilliant seasons of television I’ve ever seen, reality or not.
The season peaks beginning with Episode 9 I Was Driving Carpool! The episode starts with an Italian cooking class hosted by Mary Cosby which devolves into chaos, leading to Mary memorably calling Whitney Rose “little girl”, and ending with the long awaited arret of Jen Shah, as shown at the beginning of the season. Their trip to Vail, immediately after Jen’s arrest in episode 10 Highway to Vail, in which they are all in shock and attempting to grapple with the consequences is completely exhilarating. Seeing them sit around a table in episode 11 Old Testaments, New Revelations and put all of their various differences aside to have an honest conversation about their thoughts and suspicions about Jen, many of them revealing questionable behaviour from her that they had previously not revealed and Meredith dropping a bombshell that she hired a private investigator on Jen, feels like a scene from Succession.
It is only then topped by their trip to Zion a handful of episodes later. It’s a trip which veers so far off the rails before it even begins, with a physical altercation in the van on the way there, in which Jen has to be physically restrained by a producer while lunging across the van at Lisa in episode 16 Holy Mother of Zion. The trip features the mother of all screaming matches over dinner between Meredith and Jen in episode 17 Who’s Calling Who a Fraud? It’s an episode which contains one of my favourite lines in television history, as is referenced in the title. Meredith is storming away from the dinner table as Jen continues to yell insults at her, including bringing up Meredith’s private investigator, which had gotten back to her. Without thinking, she offhandedly uses the phrase “you’re fucking fraudulent” in reference to Meredith being disingenuous. Never has someone so masterfully saw her opening and took it as when Meredith stops at the door, turns around, and in the most sickly-sweet sarcastic voice says “who’s calling who a fraud? Love you baby”. Shakespeare himself could not have conceived of a better line.
And episode 19 Cinco De Mayhem, where the women have a Cinco de Mayo-themed dinner in the garden the next night, erupts into a fast-paced screaming match of unparalleled levels between multiple pairs. It’s complete with a drunken Jen Shah stuffing lettuce in her mouth and, in what is potentially the most talked about moment from the show, Lisa Barlow having a ‘hot mic moment’. She storms away from the table and goes into her bedroom, slamming the door on the camera. Then, unaware that she is still being recorded on her mic, she launches into a lengthy and explicit, venomous rant about her supposed best friend of over a decade Meredith Marks. She calls her a “whore” who has “fucked half of New York” among a slew of other insults. I cannot even imagine the experience for Meredith of seeing that on TV when the episode aired. Though Zion is certainly the climax, the last stretch of the season is similarly gripping. As a contained season of reality television, it just doesn’t get better than this.
Beverly Hills season 9, though with no federal crimes at the centre and generally less of an open blood battle vibe than Salt Lake City season 2, is similarly thrilling. It’s even more complex in its multi-layered politics of drama. And it’s all because of a scandal which has been dubbed ‘puppygate’. Puppygate simultaneously makes for one of the most hilarious and absurd plotlines of all time, while also exposing the intense scheming and cut-throat nature of the chain of power. It leads to the until-then queen of the show, being run off and disgraced. The main players involved are Teddi Mellencamp, Lisa Vanderpump and Dorit Kemsley, in addition to two employees of Lisa Vanderpump named John Sessa and John Blizzard. The pair worked for Vanderpump Dogs, a shelter ran by animal lover Lisa Vanderpump. And the catalyst for the nuclear fallout, is a puppy named (prepare yourself) Lucy Lucy Apple Juice.
The season opens, in episode 1 Lucy Lucy Apple Juicy, with Teddi and Kyle visiting Vanderpump Dogs. While admiring the puppies, staff member John Sessa walks over carrying Lucy Lucy Apple Juice herself. Though at the time, we the viewer are unfamiliar with the puppy. Teddi makes a comment to Kyle, drawing attention to Lucy. Kyle doesn’t know what Teddi is referencing, leading to John saying “You don’t recognise her? It’s Dorit’s dog. She’s with us again.” It is explained that Lucy was adopted from Vanderpump Dogs by Dorit. However, she gave her away shortly after and Lucy ended up in a kill shelter, where she was rescued by Vanderpump Dogs once more. Interestingly, it is Lisa herself who doesn’t seem too angry about the situation. Being close with Dorit and her husband, she is hesitant for it to be brought up on camera, saying “Stop! I really don’t want to talk about this now” and “It’s handled... it’s not her fault.” But the damage is already done and the story then gains traction in the group. However, Dorit claims that they couldn’t keep Lucy because she had bitten her young kids. She claims she gave Lucy to someone she trusted, having no idea Lucy would then be left in a kill shelter by that person. And Lisa seems to be fairly forgiving, saying that she was disappointed in Dorit for not just calling Vanderpump Dogs but understands that there was no ill intention at play. Dorit is frustrated at the issue being discussed so much among the group.
But if you thought that this was the central conflict of puppygate, I’m so sorry to tell you that you are absolutely wrong. Because that would be far too simple.
In fact, war breaks out when it is revealed that the scene in the first episode was a complete setup! The context here is that there had been friction in the previous season between Teddi and Dorit. Friction which, though “resolved”, Teddi did not forgive so easily. We discover that Teddi had been friends with Vanderpump Dogs employee John Blizzard for some time, which she had kept secret. They had been texting back and forth. She claimed that he was not only the one who told her about Lucy, but he encouraged her to talk about it on camera so it would make it onto the show as a storyline. Transcripts of their text messages, offered up by Teddi herself, reveal that they had texted beforehand to completely stage the scene from the first episode with fellow employee John Sessa. They planned that he would bring out Lucy Lucy Apple Juice when Teddi and Kyle arrived, knowing that Kyle was unaware of the situation, so that Teddi could casually bring it up and then Dorit’s actions could be exposed. It was disguised as a casual, organic moment but in reality, was a strategized seed-planting of what they knew would no doubt grow into a storyline where Dorit would receive negative traction.
But if you thought THAT was the central conflict of puppygate then I must tell you that you are once again sadly mistaken. Hold onto your seats because we must go even deeper into the madness.
We peel back another layer when Teddi claims that the mastermind of this whole setup was not in fact her or John, but LISA! As the oldest, richest and most prestigious housewife, Lisa Vanderpump had eternally been the unspoken queen and focal point of Beverly Hills. And throughout the show, there was on-and-off back chatter about Lisa “manipulating” people or using them to do her dirty work. In season 6 Erika Jayne famously called her a “sniper from the side” in addition to Brandi Glanville’s claims that Lisa tried to encourage her to bring up negative stories about Lisa’s ‘best friend’ Kyle and Kyle’s season 2 reunion line comparing her to chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer. However, through all of this, she seemed impenetrable and impossible to knock off her top spot. Until now.
Stay with me here: Teddi claims that she was told by her friend John Blizzard, and John Blizzard claims that it was John Sessa who repeatedly told him to tell Teddi, knowing that they were close and wanting it out there because of how outraged he was at Dorit’s actions. However, Teddi claims that John Sessa and/or Blizzard were encouraged to initiate this whole fiasco by Lisa herself, their boss, as a covert way to expose Dorit, while seeming like she had no involvement. Teddi shows an excerpt of her text messages with Blizzard, which appear to confirm that Lisa instructed him. Though episodes later after Lisa Vanderpump attains printed out copies of all of the pair’s messages and confronts him with them, he claims that the part Teddi showed was taken out of context and he never explicitly implicated Lisa.
And as if this all wasn’t contentious enough, gasoline is poured on the fire by once-friend but now long-time nemesis of Vanderpump and professional pot-stirrer; Lisa Rinna. Rinna had previously taken a hard stance on Vanderpump’s supposed manipulation with Munchausengate in season 6, where she alleged that Vanderpump was the one who planted the initial seed of conspiracy that Yolanda Hadid had Munchausens and was not actually ill with Lyme disease. Vanderpump of course denies this. And though she has no personal involvement in puppygate, Rinna won’t miss an opportunity to throw her hat in the ring. She firmly believes Vanderpump staged it all to get Dorit mad at Kyle and Teddi for talking about it and direct the attention away from herself, telling the pair “You have to see what part you’re playing in this... because [both of you] have had some stuff with Dorit. And they gave you that information because [Vanderpump] does not want to take responsibility for it. She’s dolling it out so she can go ‘Oh dear, I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t want to talk about it.’ She just set you all up.”
The whole thing is harder to follow than economic policy and believe it or not, I actually had to leave out a lot of detail in that already lengthy synopsis. But despite however legitimate you do or don't believe Teddi’s claims to be, it plants enough doubt among the women to finally turn the tide on Lisa. And then, their smoking gun arrives when Radar Online publishes a negative story about Dorit rehoming the dog, which at the time was not public. The ladies think that all signs point to Vanderpump, accusing her of selling the story. This is not a new allegation, with past housewives like Adrienne Maloof having previously accused Lisa of selling stories to Radar Online. In a confrontation between the two couples who had been friends for years, Vanderpump cuts off Dorit and husband PK when they refuse to believe that she had no involvement in the article. And when her long-time best friend Kyle Richards goes to her house and claims that she too is led to believe that Lisa leaked the story, she flips. The scene is as guard-down and frazzled as we ever see Vanderpump and she and her fiercely loyal husband Ken eventually kick Kyle out of their house.
From that point she basically removes herself from the rest of the season, refusing to film anything with the group. Then, she doesn’t show up to the reunion. This led to her being fired from the show in its strict rule of reunion-attendance which will be discussed later. Whether you believe she did or didn’t strategize the puppygate inception or leak the story is irrelevant. Because the high bitch of Beverly Hills has been run off the show in the most pitiful manner. It is a thoroughly thrilling saga from start to finish. Through a season of battle, we finally watch the dragon have its head cut off with the sword of puppygate and her best friend Kyle swinging it in its final death blow.
But drama and conflict, no matter how engrossing, is not enough to make a show truly impactful. And amidst the complex and callous battles and takedowns of the Housewives, what makes it so deeply compelling is the humanity and relationships at its core.
The women are all as deeply flawed as they are strong-willed and formidable. They’re so compelling. As I witnessed Jen Shah display some of the most outrageous behaviour I had ever seen in the first season of Salt Lake City, and would soon be horrified by her crimes, I also witnessed the anguish caused by her absent husband who is constantly travelling, and the legitimate trauma she carries from when he did not even come home from a work trip to attend her father’s funeral. Ramona Singer similarly displays her fair share of horrendous behaviour on New York, including throwing a plastic wine glass at Kristen Taekman’s face during a season 6 trip to the Berkshires (if you take anything from this piece; never arm a housewife with a wineglass). However, watching her across thirteen years of her life, I saw the complexities in her quirks and odd behaviour, and slowly picked up that much of it originates from her abusive childhood, leading me to a place where I feel strong affection for her and an instinct to defend her. So often, reality shows fail because their cast of characters are fundamentally unlikeable. And while the Housewives certainly has its share of highly unlikable villains at times, from Lisa Rinna to Jenn Shah, it’s a showcase of fascinating, empathetic women who all make for spellbinding television.
There are countless examples of compelling personalities who appear in the Housewives universe. However, it is Bethenny Frankel from NYC, my favourite housewife of all time, who I believe embodies this greater than anyone. In the first season of New York City, premiering in 2008, we meet Bethenny Frankel as a 37-year-old woman with the vivacity and spirit of someone in their early twenties. While a moderately established qualified chef trying to kick-start her healthy snack and alcohol brand Skinny Girl, she was unlucky in love and stumbling her way through the NYC social scene. Where some of the other ladies like Luann de Lesseps were obsessed with oozing class and status, there was something spectacularly raw and rebellious about Bethenny. She was by far the least wealthy of the women, and owned this, as well as being the only one not married or with children. This set her apart from the rest of the cast and seemed to make her an odd fit for the show. By definition, she was not actually a housewife.
However, she was immediately the core draw of the show. With a biting sense of humour and a mean temper, she was savage and playful and had no problem bearing all sides of her life. This is where, through the early seasons, we slowly begin seeing Bethenny’s past bleed through. Though all smiles and jokes on the surface, she repeatedly hints at extreme abuse in her childhood and trauma which led to no contact with her parents. Her harsh exterior shows cracks on further inspection, revealing a deeply damaged person who has had nobody to rely on but herself. It becomes clear that Bethenny’s savage nature, which some of the women are offput by, is a defence mechanism which she has used to protect herself since she was just a child, wanting to appear impenetrable. This is a likely reason why she seems to fall from one bad relationship to the next, with men who, when push comes to shove, never seem willing to truly embrace her; flaws, baggage and all.
This leads her to Jason Hoppy, who she seemed happily settled with in seasons 2 and 3 of the show. And in that third season, she found herself both pregnant and engaged to him in a short space of time. It’s not surprising that Bethenny was the fan favourite. So much so that, after the third season, she left the show in favour of doing her own spin-off. With the rise of Skinny Girl in conjunction with her pregnancy and engagement, Bethenny Ever After focused on her getting married, becoming a mother and balancing this with business. Seasons 4, 5 and 6 of NYC, though certainly still good to varying degrees, have a Bethenny-shaped hole which producers failed to fill. Then, she returns in in season 7 and it is equal parts heart-breaking and glorious. It’s what injects life into the show.
Though last time we saw her she was swept up in the honeymoon phase, her husband Jason ended up hurting her like almost every other man in her life had. And she later admits “I knew it wasn’t right when I married him”. She returns to the show during a long and painful divorce, though with newfound success and deeply dedicated to her daughter Bryn. And upon her return, any remaining secrecy revolving around her past falls away. Bethenny bears her soul in some of the most painful accounts of tragedy imaginable. She meets with her abusive stepfather after years of no contact in which she tries to wrestle with her past, allowing this to be included in the show in episode 7 Family Matters. Some of the flashes of her childhood we get from her here are deeply upsetting, like when she cavalierly says “We had a real nice melting pot of my mother trying to commit suicide in the kitchen in front of me, we had abuse, we had alcohol, we had gambling.” and later references that she started going to nightclubs at fourteen when her mother was “in the nuthouse”. She confronts him about being violent and “getting crazy on [her]”. Though perhaps what is most disturbing and revealing about her lack of self- worth is that, despite this, she insists that he is the one person who was good to her as a child. He appears completely narcissistic and unempathetic. When their conversation gets heated at one point, he asks why she is so obsessed with the past. And she furiously but devastatingly blurts out “because it’s hard for me to have sex with a man and trust a man because I would watch my mother get the shit beaten out of her and dragged down a hallway and call the cops the next day and then hear them having sex”. And as he continues to justify his actions, Bethenny simply pleads repeatedly “I’m the child. I was the child.” It is harrowing.
Then, in episode 8 The Cavi-Art of War, she allows the cameras into a session with her therapist, which makes for one of the most raw and fascinating scenes I’ve ever seen. Most notably, she recounts a particular memory in which her stepfather dragged her mother down the hallway by her hair before beating her with a telephone in front of a five-year-old Bethenny. Still minimising her trauma and not allowing herself to acknowledge its impact, her therapist pushes her. At first, she is on the defence. She snaps back at him when he asks her what her childhood was like, saying “well when you walk in, and you see someone who slit their wrists what do you think it was like? A party?” in reference to her mother’s suicide attempt. She admits that “[her childhood] was terror... I remember it... You don’t know where to run or hide and it’s very scary”. But even after this acknowledgment slips out, she immediately jumps to undermine it saying, “It wasn’t as dramatic either then, as much as it sounds”. He simply asks, “so do you think a five-year-old girl watching her mother be dragged down the steps and hit with a phone feels nothing?” And whatever remaining cover cracks and falls away. Through strained sobs she lets out a weak “No.” It’s one of the most startlingly raw scenes I’ve ever seen play out in front of me. In tears, she simply says “But it happened. There’s nothing I can do... it’s there”
We now have a clear picture of Bethenny Frankel, a young girl who witnessed and experienced things no child should ever have to, leading to her growing up incredibly fast. The cycle of abuse was only perpetuated by the men in her life. We hear of the dark turn in her marriage, which went as far as Jason being arrested for stalking her and mercilessly dragging her through the courts for years to torture her. And while she is able to cling on to genuine bonds for a while, Bethenny’s friendships, similar to her relationships, suffer because of how deep her issues go. She becomes slowly isolated from the other women until she has no real allies left. And if all that wasn’t enough, years later her on-again-off-again fiancé Dennis Shields was found dead of a drug overdose. As we see her struggle through grief, never-ending torment from her ex-husband and increasingly disintegrating friendships with the other women, Bethenny finally exits the show for good after season 11.
For my money, there has never been a more compelling reality TV personality and as silly as it may seem, I felt and intense attachment towards her. Yes, I cheered during her many explosive moments in arguments, from her telling Ramona to “mention it all!”, screaming at Kelly Killoren Bensimon to “GO TO SLEEP!” during the Scary Island meltdown and having a prolonged feud with Dorinda Medley over an oversized nutcracker (yes you read that right). However, I watched her through over a decade of her life and saw her have so much thrown at her with almost no reprieve. My heart broke for her over and over, I rejoiced for her in her moments of triumph, and I find her to be so profoundly brave for willing to be raw and transparent. She’s the heart and soul of NYC and I adore her.
In conjunction with this, what makes following the changing dynamics of the Housewives so compelling, is a dense and tender foundation of genuine friendship. Though unfortunately falling apart very recently, best friends and second cousins Heather Gay and Whitney Rose have one of the most authentic friendships through the first two seasons of Salt Lake City. Though Lisa Rinna begins her descent towards full-fledged villain of Beverly Hills after Eileen leaves, her and Eileen’s friendship during Eileen’s much shorter time on the show grounds her, with the two sharing a warm and touching bond. Kyle and Teddi develop a beautiful friendship later in Beverly Hills, as do Sutton and Garcelle who join the show at the same time during its later seasons and make the unlikeliest of duos, but bravely stick up for each other in the face of mean girl energy.
And it is New York which has some of the most complex and gorgeous displays of female friendship I’ve ever seen. Carole and Dorinda are two women who don’t spend much time together normally and, on the surface, may not seem compatible. However, the pair have the unfortunate commonality of both being widows. They share a deep and irrevocable bond stemming from season 7, when Dorinda accompanies Carole to London to retrieve her husband’s ashes, something she had been putting off for a long time. The pair coincidentally had both lived in London with their late husbands during different eras. Season 7 episode 17 London Calling, which focuses on the pair’s trip, is stunning. There is a scene of them in their hotel room trading stories back and forth of their husband’s illnesses and deaths and how they reacted which is simultaneously one of the most devastating but heart-warming things imaginable. It’s a moment of connection as authentic as they come.
Season 3 of New York, among many other things, is a masterpiece in its portrayal of female friendships. Leaving season 2 of the show, Bethenny and Jill Zarin are thick as thieves, with Bethanny having spent an entire summer living in Jill’s house and them growing very close. However, somewhere in-between the filming of the seasons they had a fallout, stemming from a time when Jill’s husband Bobby was in the hospital and Bethenny, unaware of how sick Bobby was, was not as present as Jill had hoped. The short season is a journey through a tense and turbulent friendship breakup which is painful to witness. Bethenny makes attempts to make amends, with Ramona even secretly staging a meetup between the women at her apartment so that they can make up. However, Jill flees calling it an ambush and is repeatedly seen to be stubborn and unwilling to compromise. By the end of the season, Jill has woken up to the error of her stubbornness, saying she misses Bethenny. But she’s too late and for Bethenny, that door is closed. In the season finale, episode 14 Rebuked, Reunited and Renewed, the pair meet up in a café for a tearful post-mortem of their friendship, expressing their heartbreak at it ending while acknowledging that it simply doesn't feel possible for them to be friends again. It’s a mournful and poignant scene as Bethenny, through tears, tells Jill “Look, this last six months […] the most monumental things that ever happened in my life have happened then. Like I got pregnant, I fell in love, I got engaged, I lost my father. And you weren’t there. You weren’t the person that I turned to.”
Years later, after she had left the show, Jill’s husband Bobby passed away. In a full circle moment in season 10 episode 11 Faux Weddings and a Funeral, Bethenny attends the funeral. And as the camera lingers outside the building after the service, it captures the moment that the pair see each other again for the first time in years. And there is no anger or resentment, just an intimate, tearful moment shared by two people who used to know each other so well and are united in this moment in their shared love and grief for Bobby. They embrace and, in tears, Jill tells Bethenny “Bobby loved you.” I challenge anyone to watch the scene and remained dry-eyed.
However, as the devastating downfall of NYC’s dynamic duo is unfolding in season 3, Bethanny finds solace in new, burgeoning friendships with Alex and Ramona. She’s always known them and for the most part got along with them. However, the overbearing presence of Jill in her life seemed to dominate her space for friendship in the group. And once Jill is removed from the equation, Ramona and Alex really show up for Bethanny in an unexpected but moving way. During an extremely tough season where she is juggling her friendship breakup and her estranged father dying in conjunction with the personal developments in her life like pregnancy and engagement, Ramona and Alex are there. There is a tenderness in how they show Bethenny new facets of friendship she hasn’t previously felt from them. It feels like getting to watch people fall in love with each other in a platonic sense, as Bethenny allows herself to lean on them. In fact, in her devastating café meeting with Jill, she says “I mean, ironically, people that I never thought would be there for me, people like Ramona and Alex were pretty incredible.” The season is a stunning depiction of female friendship in all its forms, showing the heartbreaking end of one, but also the birth of new bonds.
Alex McCord only sticks around for one more season, but Bethenny and Ramona continue to have an incredibly complex dynamic for years to come, being similarly hot-heated and guarded, and having abusive childhoods. Upon Bethenny’s return in later seasons, we see them lash out at each other and repeatedly butt heads. However, when push comes to shove, it is Bethenny cradling a sobbing Ramona in her arms in Turks and Caicos as she breaks down amidst her divorce from her cheating husband. And after Bethenny was hospitalised for intense menstrual bleeding and put on bedrest, it is Ramona coming over, telling her they don’t even have to talk but she is going to sit in the other room and read her book, just so Bethenny knows she’s not alone. We see them have multiple tearful conversations swapping stories of their abusive childhoods. And while Bethenny can be absolutely furious in her reunion fights, Ramona is the one person whose conflict hits on something a little deeper, as Bethenny often cannot even summon anger, only sadness. They’re incredibly broken mirror images of each other who have one of the most stunning on-screen dynamics of all time.
Perhaps, somewhat similar to them, is the tragic turmoil of sisters Kim and Kyle Richards. The sisters were part of the original Beverly Hills line-up and from the get-go their dynamic is a strange one. The child stars were raised by a single stage mom with rumoured toxic tendencies, who passed away some years beforehand. And though Kim is the older sister, it is Kyle who is seen to take an almost parental approach to her relationship with Kim. Kim seems constantly unsure of herself, and Kyle often comes across as a little bossy and controlling, even taking on a motherly role to Kim’s children. Then, season one ends in one of the signature Housewives scenes of all time in episode 13, chillingly titled Unforgivable.
After a party, the pair find themselves in the back of a limo. With Adrienne Maloof and Kim’s date there to witness, a dam breaks and years of resentment and family trauma flood out. Kyle lurches at Kim across the limo and says something she would never be able to take back: “You are a liar and sick and an alcoholic”, exposing what had before then been purposefully kept out of the show, that Kim has been a struggling alcoholic for years. Their previously murky relationship immediately crystalizes for the viewer. In the devastating argument Kyle also throws out the incredibly nasty “my husband has helped you every month and stood by you and taken care of you like you’re a second fucking wife!” and Kim eventually retaliates with “YOU STOLE MY GODMAN HOUSE” in reference to a years-long dispute over the ownership of their late mother’s home. This scene is the inception point for the following years of Kim and Kyle warfare. While they go in and out of closeness and affection and are apparently now on “good terms”, it is quite clear as a viewer that this incident fundamentally broke something in their relationship which could never be repaired.
However, no discussion of the tragedy of Beverly Hills would be complete without a recount of what is probably the darkest thing to happen in the history of the Real Housewives franchise, and how it led to the show’s most prevalent meme.
If you are a long-time internet user you are most likely very familiar with this image:
However, the actual story behind it is more tragic than you could imagine.
From the minute we are introduced to the sweet Taylor Armstrong and her husband Russell in the first season, there’s something unexplainably off about their marriage. When they’re together they seem distant and unaffectionate, and Taylor speaks about their relationship in an aloof, unconvincing manor. Then, in the season 2, clues start to appear that Taylor is in an abusive situation. In episode 2 Blame it on the Altitude and episode 3 Rocky Mountain Highs and Lows, on a group trip to Camille’s ski home in Colorado, Taylor drinks too much and in her drunken state, lets slip alarming information which alludes to Russell abusing her. She is vague enough and intoxicated enough that the women are unable to fully make sense of it, but they become concerned. However, when sober, Taylor tries to rescind what she let slip. This propels the season into ongoing tiptoeing around what exactly is going on in Taylor’s marriage, and whether the ladies should take action. In the end it is Camille Grammer who fully exposes what, until then, had not been explicitly stated on camera. In episode 11 Tempest in a Tea Party, with all of the women, including Taylor, present, she says that Taylor told her off-camera that Russell beats her, including once breaking her jaw. Taylor becomes distressed upon the leaking of this information and when Russell finds out, he threatens Camille with a defamation lawsuit.
Things come to a boil in episode 14, the iconic (for all the wrong reasons) Malibu Beach Party from Hell when, at a girls-only party in Malibu, Taylor once again drinks too much and becomes distressed. Camille’s friend Dedra makes the misguided and insensitive decision of criticising Taylor for not returning Camille’s calls and not showing support in the face of Taylor’s husband trying to sue her. And Taylor, in intense pain only enhanced by intoxication, has a complete breakdown. As Kyle attempts to hold her back, she lunges across the table in tears, pointing her finger, and screams “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SHE’S DONE TO ME! YOU HAVE NO IDEA!” in regard to Camille publicising her abuse against her husband's wishes. It’s a deeply disturbing moment. I hate to imagine how Taylor was punished by Russel when he found out that his abuse was being exposed because she told a friend in confidence who then made it public. Then, the screenshot of her pointing her finger and screaming was removed from its context, put next to a cat at a dinner table. And thus, a legendary internet meme was born.
In the most tragic conclusion imaginable, Taylor shows up to a party in the penultimate episode, episode 19 Night of a Thousand Surprises, with a black eye. She reveals that she is really leaving Russell this time, after finally reaching her breaking point. She would later reveal at the season reunion that around that time he also tried to drown her in a swimming pool. Russell must have figured out that the season of the show, which would soon be airing, would be centred around him beating his wife. He then committed suicide. And though he was a clearly despicable person who I have no sympathy for, it just makes things all the more tragic for Taylor, who is left broken and a single mother to her young daughter.
But insults cannot be thrown, nor lies told or betrayals made, without consequence. Because the final key feature of a Real Housewives season is the reunion. A significant part of the storytelling of the show, and sometimes even more impactful than the season itself, every season of the Real Housewives ends with a reunion. And these are not just quick fluff pieces where the women discuss where they are since the season ended ala the always underwhelming Love Island reunions. These are interrogations. Andy Cohen, who is not just the presenter but also a producer and key figure behind the scenes of the franchise, sits down with the women. They’re sat across two couches, angled so they’re facing each other, with Andy positioned in the middle. And here, the housewives reconvene like they’re in a US Senate hearing to hash out every dirty detail of the season that has just ended and answer for their crimes (figuratively speaking but also sometimes literally).
By this point, the season has aired in its entirety, so any backtalk or snide comment has been revealed to them. And though it’s been phased out now, for most of Beverly Hills and New York, the women each had a blog on Bravo.com where they were obligated to make public blog posts about their thoughts on the episodes as they were airing. Andy, who is deeply invested in the show and knows everything about their lives, sits down and absolutely grills them. Clips and montages are played, showing key moments from the season for them all to reflect on, as well as excerpt from their blogs read and relevant shady social media posts shown. They film for sometimes up to ten hours, which is then edited into a two or three-part episode. When you get into the Housewives, it becomes habit to spend each season desperately anticipating the reunion, where many of the show’s most explosive showdowns and emotional turmoil unfold. They’re such a dramatic space and such a key part of Housewives warfare, that there is even a whole analytical though process behind the seating arrangements. Production chooses where everyone sits. And who is on what couch and which two housewives get “first chair”, putting them closest to Andy, are vital details.
All three of the series I’ve watched have their fair share of legendary reunion highlights. And I want to give a particular shoutout to the moment which had me in tears of laughter in which Andy, completely deadpan, reads aloud word-for-word the transcript of Lisa Barlow’s explicit hot-mic rant about Meredith Marks in the Salt Lake City season 2 reunion. However, I feel it is Beverly Hills which makes for the most deranged examples of how wonderfully chaotic the reunions are. At the end of season 5, at her first reunion, Lisa Rinna stands up and first yells her now iconic line “own it baby!”. At the same reunion, Kyle and Kim’s years-long fallout goes so deep that it results in them screaming at each other about an obscure incident not even included in the show where Kim’s dog bit Kyle’s daughter's hand, concluding with Kyle shrieking “MY DAUGHTER ALMOST LOST HER HAND!” while Andy and the rest of the women just observe in confusion. Kyle also gets an iconic dig in the season 2 reunion when she tells Lisa Vanderpump “Being friends with you is like playing chess with Bobby Fischer – every move is calculated.” And the season 7 reunion contains one of the most bizarre television moments I’ve ever witnessed. Earlier in the season, Lisa Rinna gifted Kim a giant stuffed rabbit for the birth of her first grandchild, in an attempt to make peace. Kim accepted it at the time but didn’t want to keep the gift because of its ‘negative energy’. So, she waited until the reunion and produced it from behind the couch to give it back to Lisa on camera and tell her that she couldn’t accept it, leading to Lisa walking away in tears saying “this just doesn’t feel quite right”. It’s a moment so absurd it feels like it exists in its own alternate dimension.
It’s such a fundamental part of the show to see the women have to have their hands held to the fire that, when Adrienne Maloof didn’t show up to the season 3 reunion of Beverly Hills, the precedent was set that if you don’t attend a reunion, you are immediately fired from the show (not including special circumstances like Kim Richards and Luann de Lesseps each being in rehab during their respective shows). This is a consequence which has since been faced by Lisa Vanderpump after season 9 of Beverly Hills and Mary Cosby after season 2 of Salt Lake City.
Through love, loss, triumph and despair I have been absolutely enthralled by my journey through decades in the lives of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, New York City and Beverly Hills. As tense and thrilling as it is legitimately poignant, The franchise is one of the most electrifying media experiences I have ever had. There is nothing else quite like it and perhaps never will be.
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