Reality Recap: Receipts, honesty, Potomac

This week, Jax revealed that Tom Sandoval checks in ‘more than anybody’ on Jax after his split with Brittany, which isn’t a shocker at all. But what did come as a shock was Page Six reporting that Brittany started hooking up with Julian Sensely, a friend of Jax’s, shortly after their split. For the first time ever, I’ve found myself in agreement with Teddi Mellencamp on Alexis being ‘hard to watch’ on this season of Real Housewives of Orange County. Southern Charm fans everywhere are keeping Patricia Altschul’s butler, Michael, in their thoughts after she revealed he suffered another stroke. And Andy Cohen says we can expect ‘calm’ from the RHOC reunion, despite a series of some pretty heated episodes in the second half of the season. 

Shannon pulls out receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots

If we’re talking about heated episodes in the second half of the season, we saw the kickoff point during this week’s episode of Real Housewives of Orange County. 

In a conversation with Gina, Shannon is describing going into her phone to send Alexis “the text” that will make it clear she is not invited to London. And what pops up from six years ago? A damning text that vindicates Shannon and reveals Alexis to be a liar liar pants on fire.

All season long, literally starting in episode one, Alexis has denied her role in the lawsuit her ex, Jim Bellino, filed against Shannon and Tamra. Shannon kept insisting that Alexis’ signature was on documents, but Alexis continued to fire back, absolving herself of any role whatsoever in the lawsuit.

But this week, Shannon pulled up a text from Alexis in which she is essentially taking responsibility for suing Shannon, letting her know that she would be hearing from their lawyer. Gina’s jaw drop was pretty indicative of how it felt seeing that. I don’t think many audience members believed Alexis in the first place but in the Bravoverse, it’s receipts or nothing. 

The woo-woo part of me sees the bigger picture of all of this. It’s giving “everything happens for a reason”, because had Shannon not implemented those boundaries with Alexis and chosen not to send the text letting her know she wasn’t being invited, she would’ve never discovered the proof that was right under her nose the whole time. So the moral of the story is, stay true to yourself and the garbage will take itself out.

Erin does her job and talks about stuff on camera

This week on Real Housewives of New York, we finally find out why Erin was so pissed about Abe talking about shrooms on camera last week. And though I may be undecided about how I feel about her, I am not undecided in saying that Abe is entirely in the wrong.

According to Erin, Abe sold a pretty large amount of their Bitcoin without her knowledge a few years ago. She only found out much after the fact when she thought about using the money they had invested in Bitcoin to pay down a chunk of their mortgage and she saw it was all gone. She says he sold it for much less than they purchased it for, and as a result, they took a sizeable loss. Erin also revealed that this wasn’t Abe’s only money mishap. She says they had been driven into debt before after running into some trouble over a handbag business they used to run. 

Two things come to mind about this conversation – the first is the irony in discussing your personal finances on camera, but not something so trivial, trendy and talked about as psylocibins. But that just points to the fact that it wasn’t about the shrooms in the first place. It was about this.

My second thought is about how juicy this is. As an unmarried woman that doesn’t consult with anyone before I do anything money-related, it’s so interesting to sit in on this conversation. Look how judgy I was last week telling Erin to do her job and talk about her stuff on camera. And here she is, talking about her stuff, her stuff stuff, on camera. 

With the new season starting, X accounts everywhere are drudging up clips of the OG cast to illustrate why the new version could never compare. But what this cast has that the OG cast didn’t is marriage. When it came to marriage, the OG women had been there, done that. They were a bunch of older divorcees looking for…nvm. In this cast, though, we get the best of both worlds.

I have so enjoyed seeing the way Pavit and Jessel have navigated their difficulties. I was really doubtful of him last year with that sketchy, 24-hour trip he took to Vietnam. But he really did just want to go get some food, which is such a rich, badass thing to do. Now, he’s taken the criticism he got over how suspicious it looked and has started a really successful foodie page on Instagram. And it’s good. I watched a video he made the other day and I don’t even live in New York. I guess what I’m saying is, sometimes we forget the role that husbands play on a show about their wives. 

Real Housewives of Potomac is back, baby

The Real Housewives of Potomac are back and messy as ever. Between Ashley’s gift box to Karen after her DUI, which included a painting kit and prepaid Uber gift cards, and the group’s frenemy dynamics between the women coming out to play, this cast is showing us why even without Candiace and Robyn, they can still provide entertainment.

At Gizelle’s ‘Hattitude’ event, things got tense pretty quickly over the discussion surrounding Karen’s DUI. We’ve seen quite a few DUIs over the years, and it’s so interesting watching each group navigate how they deal with it. Does the person who got the charge feel awkward drinking around the group? Are they outwardly judgemental? Does it work?

We saw Karen take a very firm stance about the role of friendships after her DUI, saying that this will reveal who her real friends are. And she’s right. Look at the divide we saw this season between Tamra and Shannon. Most of that started after Shannon’s DUI with how unsupportive of a friend Tamra was when Shannon needed her.

The other huge tension at the event was the conversation surrounding whether Mia did everything she could to protect her kids from the fallout after her separation with G and her overlapping, on-and-off again relationship with Inc. Gizelle claims that Mia didn’t protect her kids by having her son’s paternity questioned on national television.

I tend to extend a ridiculous amount of grace to moms navigating separation. And I don’t tend to agree with Gizelle. But in this situation, she’s right. She could’ve kept her storyline to the dissolution of her marriage without letting the uncertainty about her son’s dad be aired on TV. But how do you just tell half the story? 

Last year, I praised Mia for dealing with so much on camera. And this week I learned that I can still be in absolute awe of people’s vulnerability while still having concerns that perhaps it’s not the safest or smartest thing to do to share so much, particularly when kids are involved. Just another case of the nuance of being a reality TV viewer.