The cast of “Real Housewives of New York City” keep lightly poking the bear when it comes to Rebecca Minkoff’s Scientology ties in this week’s new episode in the Hamptons.
I have changed my mind. Despite dismissing Erin’s marital storyline during the premiere as a weak spot of an otherwise solid episode, I now long for something, anything, to break up the monotony that is The Real Housewives of New York City Hamptons trip. Start another fight with your husband, Erin! I promise I’ll enjoy it this time.
RHONY is at a standstill, as the Hamptons once again brings about the least engaging aspects of an otherwise promising cast. The Hamptons just isn’t their Blue Stone Manor, though I’m not sure anything can compete with that bizarro world, to be fair.
The trip started with an intense duel between Ubah and Brynn, and it ends with the ladies throwing up over the sink while Sai narrates, “We’re all laughing. We’re all having a good time. And when the group is good, the group is good. We’re all a lot of fun.” That would be more persuasive if they were willing to show, not tell.
I mean, why did we hear about Ubah and Brynn’s big, emotional make-up through confessionals, instead of it being filmed? Kind of a bummer. It’s objectively funny, though, that the second they rehash this on camera, the two fall apart again. They’re carrying an otherwise drama-less season, so I don’t really care if their attempts are sloppy. I’m grateful for the effort.
So, why didn’t the Hamptons trip launch RHONY to new heights? As we saw with the ill-fated Season 13—a season so bad, so haunted by COVID that Bravo decided to entirely reboot the show—isolating the New York ladies is rarely a method for success, when the city atmosphere is such an essential aspect of the show.
Here in the Hamptons, the group are forced to grapple with their relative unease around each other, as the “still getting to know each other” aspect becomes abundantly clear. Whereas early RHONY circumvented this issue by showing the Housewives at their separate Hamptons homes, locking them all in Erin’s blindingly white dungeon makes the show feel especially claustrophobic.
They really do try their best to make something happen. At the grocery store, Sai asks Ubah and Jessel to guess the prices of groceries, and those two have no idea. How fun! At Shabbat dinner, the ladies play a game of Never Have I Ever, revealing salacious details about their sexual lives. But the truth is, unless the game you’re playing is “Who would you throw off the wagon?”, put the deck of cards away.
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Still, as with any episode of this wondrous franchise, the episode has many moments of intrigue. For as slow as the season has been, the addition of Racquel is welcome, as shown by the tennis scene. Racquel’s familial backstory is heartbreaking, and it’s nice to get to know her on a deeper level. One of the nice things about Racquel being the sole full-time newbie is she gets a necessary spotlight to color in her blanks, whereas the six Season 14 stars have to battle for backstory while pretending they’ve been a “friend group” for years. In some ways, we have a better understanding of Racquel than we do Ubah and Jenna.
For, as great as Ubah’s tornadic drama has been, it’s also a bit confusingly presented. It’s not entirely clear why we’re in the middle of an Ubah vs. Brynn feud, or how it’s gotten so dire that Brynn’s crying to Erin that she wants to leave the trip early. Erin’s advice being “take a nap, for real” is really all there is to say. Like, it can’t be that serious.
Another gem of this episode is Erin questioning how Rebecca Minkoff can have two such opposing religions, Judaism and… Scientology. Good question! Rebecca is a bizarre little character, who I find kind of endearing in her lack of TV-ready energy. I wouldn’t suggest Bravo dives deeper into Scientology, but I do enjoy my Real Housewives stars off-the-wall, and she’s a welcome reprieve on a cast of normies.
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Too bad we don’t really explore her this week, as the most interesting subplot this season is “the Real Housewives deal with their new friend who’s a bit weird and also in an alleged cult that is scary and super problematic, and they’re all playing hot potato to see who will poke that bear first.”
Perhaps the cast were just sleepy in the Hamptons, merely going through the motions. Even making Shabbat dinner, pranking the girls with a fake cockroach, and throwing up in the sink, the cast slides through the episode in relative slow-motion. You know how they say New Yorkers walk faster, talk faster, fight and make up faster? The Hamptons simply wrapped these ladies in a comforting slog, making them too zen to fight with gusto.
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Thankfully, this lull has ended and we return to regularly scheduled programming next week, with Jenna finally hopping into drama at Jessel’s Clueless-themed birthday party, after weeks on the sidelines. Back in their natural habitat, the ladies of New York just might thrive again. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, if you look for it.
