Sign Out
By Shamira Ibrahim, a freelancer who explores identity, cultural production, and tech
Photo: Bravo
As someone who has been insufferably nosy since I was a child, I love gobbling up everyone’s drama besides my own. I’m the person who discreetly turns off my noise-canceling headphones on the bus to try to listen in on …
Sign Out
By Shamira Ibrahim, a freelancer who explores identity, cultural production, and tech
Photo: Bravo
As someone who has been insufferably nosy since I was a child, I love gobbling up everyone’s drama besides my own. I’m the person who discreetly turns off my noise-canceling headphones on the bus to try to listen in on someone’s dramatic breakup call on the L train tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. When the kids are getting rowdy in Chipotle, I have one eye on my burrito bowl, and the other on the chisme. I am committed to the mission of catching any gossip around — after all, that’s why I got into journalism in the first place.
To that end, an episode like tonight should really be my bread and butter. Over the course of the hour-long runtime, all the girls bring their lingering tensions and disagreements to the table and air everything out. The problem is, for half of these conflicts, I don’t even understand why there’s an issue, and for the ones I do, I find it hard to believe the women care about them. It’s kind of like only hearing the side of the conversation where someone is just roundly cussing someone out: I don’t know what happened to you, or why and how that happened, so I can’t tell what side I’m supposed to be on with limited information.
The biggest simmering conflict, as always, is Stacey. Ashley and Gizelle continue to beat their steel pan and sing the same song — they don’t know who Stacey really is and can’t figure out how to bond with her, and apparently, her hiding that she dated (and possibly even slept with) Chris Samuels is supposed to be proof positive of that. I don’t know why I am supposed to care about what single people do together. If Chris Samuels was intrigued by Lady Fraulein of Detroit and her Sound of Music lederhosen lingerie, why do I care? I don’t get why Stacey is just unwilling to say, “yeah, I climbed that mountain, so what?” But either way, this is just such a non-issue to me, and neither is Stacey declining to be a bridesmaid in Jassi’s seemingly doomed wedding. Sure, Stacey made a gamble on the fact that Jassi would likely not come back to the show, but in what world would I believe that Jassi and Stacey were ever close enough to justify being in the bridal party for any reason other than television purposes? If Stacey wants to skip out and build her cannabis empire for her daughter instead, I am simply unbothered.
Even more confusing is the sit-down between Wendy, Gizelle, and Keiarna. At some point after the meetup at the harbor, Wendy decided to relay a version of the issue back to Gizelle, a move that I find interesting, considering Wendy made a big fuss about Keiarna’s alleged commentary to Jassi about her. Nevertheless, we are now hashing out issues from two years ago that were actively resolved on the reunion stage. It was not a secret that Keiarna felt abandoned by the cast after the assault — she said as much, and it was addressed with Andy, as was Gizelle’s emotional state when she was dealing with her father’s sudden passing. Why is it being framed like Keiarna never said anything or is being underhanded, and why is Keiarna only pointing this out in a confessional? These are the sort of moves that raise Keiarna’s alarms about Wendy, and she is right on the money about how Wendy is moving chess pieces around for her convenience. The problem is that Keiarna lets her frustration take control, and Wendy ends up winning the conflict by default. Thankfully, Tia yet again rises to the occasion and smooths the fight over and helps Gizelle and Keiarna, at the very least, return to a common ground while Wendy exits stage left. It’s exhausting that Keiarna seems to be incapable of just expressing the dynamics that we are all seeing play out without letting her emotions overwhelm her, but I do believe she has Wendy’s number, and it’s only a matter of time before someone more capable decides to pull the rug out from under her.
Even more befuddling is how much I am supposed to care about Jassi and her marriage. The newlywed seems gripped by insecurity about her marriage and her presence on this show, and it is resulting in her doing entirely too much. Jassi dangling this alleged conversation between her and Keiarna is a big nothingburger to me — all these women are talking trash about each other, and Wendy is clearly no exception, outside of when she chooses to be offended by it. Even less significant is why she and Tia start going back and forth about filter abuse: news flash, all of these women are abusing FaceTune one way or another, and I simply do not care which housewife makes their enhancements look “more natural” versus the other. By the time we get to Jassi cursing out Tia, fork in hand, over an ill-timed joke about their chef hitting on her, I am more confused than Kim Kardashian while she’s sitting for the California bar exam. The only way that such a minor joke would set a fiancée off is if her engagement was already in a delicate place, and that is none of the housewives’ jobs to fix.
Jassi’s penchant for confrontation is a bit too “Madeline tries to self-produce” for me, but she is remarkably good at rolling with the punches and leaning into the fun when she wants. The on-screen bachelorette party has been done plenty times over, particularly on RHOA, but Jassi’s infectious personality makes the girls dressing up to give her lap dances and spank her feel fun and fresh. That is, until Angel flies in on her wings and brings her dark cloud with her. It is tough to make sense of, but apparently Jassi at some point took her to the side and quietly let her know that people have been direct messaging her with rumors about Angel being a bully and a mean girl, which Angel claims is tied to a specific incident involving a woman she did not like interfering in the early days of her relationship, and something around allegations of her stealing money from her then-boyfriend before they got married. Nothing about it made much sense, and Jassi clearly did not want to bring it up on camera, but a drunken Angel couldn’t contain her emotions and ended up crying on the phone to her husband, which seems to be what she’s done each night since they’ve gotten to Nevis. At this point, I’m inclined to empathize with the cast. I get that Angel is in a very sensitive place and is still so freshly postpartum that she is pumping and dumping the entire trip. But the women don’t know Angel well enough to get a read on what may set her off, and she’s not communicating her boundaries well either. If she needs to be handled with kid gloves for the moment, that is more than understandable — it’s just not something she can reasonably demand on a show like Potomac. She either needs to manage her expectations or figure out a way to channel her emotions into something else. At this point, I’d be more than eager to see the rumored mean girl that Jassi heard about come out and play — I’d much prefer a wicked witch than a girl who runs to her husband for comfort at every sign of distress. Next week, Monique finally makes her return to Potomac in what might be the least anticipated storyline to date. See you all next week!
• My new favorite thing is flipping through old clips of Stacey’s tenure on QVC. For the last week, I have randomly been yelling to myself, “talk about length, talk about drama, talk about stones, talk about comfort!”
• I know this is a work trip, but Wendy pushing herself to continue filming through a sinus infection is a level of commitment I simply do not have. Give me the antibiotics and let me sleep this off, please.
• The chosen outfits for the bachelorette night ranged from surprising but well-executed (Cowboy Keiarna, Domme Wendy) to befuddling but on-brand (Ringmaster Gizelle, Lederhosen Stacey). Then there’s Ashley, who dressed up as an Ass-stronaut and licked chocolate off Jassi’s chest. I’m genuinely happy that Ashley is thriving in her queerness and sexuality, but at this point, it also seems like she has nothing else to talk about, which is a shame.
The Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: Much Ado About Nothing
Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.