Okay, so how are you doing? Have you been getting enough sleep? Drinking enough water? Taking breaks from the abyss? Practicing self-care? LOLOLOLOLOL me neither. Mostly I’ve just been spending half the day staring off into space coming to terms with a tweet I saw from a Black woman about how fighting white supremacy is a life-long commitment, because we white people can never truly be rid of it, even if we fix our brains, because the world is still white supremacist and we are white within that world. Excuse me?! You mean this isn’t a finite task for which I can follow a series of discrete steps and eventually arrive at a finish line where I can finally be like “Phew! We did it! No more racism!” Well that is not ideal for me and my debilitating aversion to ambiguity and crippling need for control, I gotta say!!! Which is probably part of why I’ve spent the other half of my time watching people cathartically destroy monuments to white supremacy. It’s destroyed! There’s closure! I love closure!
Anyway, a weird week! But also a successful one in some ways because, wow, we really made some progress really fast, didn’t we? Had you even heard of defunding or abolishing the police before all of this? I had not! And I have been ready to storm the Bastille since everyone’s favorite revisionist history subject George W. Bush stole the 2000 election! So that’s pretty incredible. There’s a momentum toward progress for the first time since Trump got elected. Funny what happens when a government just shrugs off its responsibilities and lets its people fall into a state where they literally have nothing to do but stare slack-jawed at the hell into which their country has devolved until righteous anger courses through their veins like blood! Who could’ve seen a revolution coming?!
How does this pertain to Real Housewives of New York? Well I’m glad you asked: It relates in that it doesn’t at all! I do not know what I am doing, there’s just elephants in the room and if it’s one thing we do in Housewives it is address room elephants! So! I guess it does relate! See? Shut up!
Ahem! We begin this episode right where we left off last week—the morning after “Hurrikin Leah”—so we're still in Newport obsessing about Leah's drunken behavior. Elyse (UGH, Elyse) says she’s never witnessed the likes of it in all her days.
And Leah’s like “bitch whet?” Like Elyse has known all these women for 20 years and I’m sorry to bring this up every recap but, like, we are still talking about the same women who just a couple-three eps ago were wiping their urine-soaked vaginas on the stalks of a corn maze and emerging from probation after threatening to kill a cop! But Leah doing drunk somersaults while screaming is somehow the nadir? In what world, Brenda Walsh?! I mean I know I beat this dead horse every week but I will never stop speaking truth to power about this!
Because let’s get down to brass tacks! We would not be having all these conversations about Leah’s ~*behavior*~ if she weren’t out here only 10 episodes into her first season already ECLIPSING BITCHES and STUNTING ON HOES who’ve been on this show for 12 years! As the great Nene Leakes once put it…
And that’s the Lipton Brisk of it all henny! That’s the Bigelow Constant Comment of the thing, beloved! Lemon?! Milk?! One lump or two, darling heart, because tea has been served and it is extremely hot and very strong and steaming out of a pot made of the finest bone china!!! JUSTICE FOR LEAH MCSWEENEY!!! *bangs gavel*
But see a true queen doesn’t need to fight for a crown so Leah just concedes that she was feeling angsty and sad about the break-up she had with her boyfriend Pita Chip—her pet name for him because he owns a pita shop. So she got messy to blow off the steam, which she called “cathartic,” and I’ve never known love like this before.
Anyone who uses the word “cathartic” to describe a night they spent drunkenly throwing chairs and kicking reality show cameras while literally roaring at people is my soulmate and I will ride for this bitch to the ends of the Earth I swear to God. This is self-actualization!!!
Anyway, remember how last week the entire thing that sparked all the conflict and resulted in Leah being on a rampage was the controversy over her sister Sarah coming up to Newport? Well, she shows up, and these bitter old women immediately start shading her and calling her old even though she’s five years younger than Leah and 437 years younger than the rest of them.
They all get introduced and Sarah, who’s a new mother, tells them this is her first 24 hrs away from her baby and JFC what a HUGE mistake.
Staying home attached to a breast pump would be preferable, I assure you Sarah. RUN BITCH!!! But she stays and, if nothing else, Elyse (UGH, Elyse) says she likes her already because they have the same hairstyle which LOL shut up Elyse (UGH, Elyse) go home.
Anyway, the women ask Sarah where she lives and she tells them Williamsburg, Brooklyn and of course these women all squeal and coo like, oh wow that's so cute for you! Oh bless your heart, you live in Brooklyn! As if it’s a fucking Oklahoma pig farm and not a neighborhood where an efficiency studio is $3500/month. Dorinda even goes so far as to say that she and her daughter Hannah have discussed taking a weekend trip to Williamsburg to explore. A literal trip, with a suitcase! And a hotel!
For those who don’t know New York, here is a map from Dorinda’s house to Williamsburg.
IT IS ONE SUBWAY STOP OUT OF MANHATTAN! YOU CAN WALK THERE FROM LOWER MANHATTAN OF A CLEMENT SUMMER’S DAY IF YOU ARE SO INCLINED! How have these women spent their entire lives in this city and don’t know this shit?! GUILLOTINE.
Anyway once lunch is over, Leah, Sarah and Tinsley take a selfie and for some reason, Tinsley just says this.
Literally apropos of nothing. Nobody asked. No one mentioned kissing. One minute they’re taking a selfie and the next Tinsley is talking about tonguing her sister, who’s name is Dabney but my friend Brooke thought it was Dilbert and so that’s what we’re calling her. Anyway Sarah, as one would, asks how long ago this was, and Tinsley’s like “Idk, ten years ago,” and at first Leah thinks she says it was when they were 10 years old but then realizes Tinsley sucked Dilbert’s face at the age of *thirty-four American years of age* and WHAT IN THE WORLD.
Legit this has nothing to do with anything and it is not addressed or contextualized in any way and I almost cut it from this recap because it serves no purpose and is just a non-sequitur and I work very hard to give these pieces of shit an ~*arc*~ and a ~*flow*~ but this is just too weird to leave out. So Tinsley and her sister Dilbert make out sometimes and that is a thing that happens in the Mercer family of Richmond, Virginia, United States! Neat!
Now it's nighttime and the ladies are getting ready to go out for the evening. Dorinda pops by Luann’s cottage and Big D has been drinking alone in her room all afternoon and is already slurring. It’s 6:30. Anyway Luann is like “What are we drinking?” and Dorinda replies, “I talked to John” (her newly ex-boyfriend) and starts crying. And heeere we go. A record scratches and Dorinda gets weepy and my friend Brooke texted me, “Oh no, dark Dorinda…”
And look I genuinely love Dorinda, and I’m genuinely sad for her, but I need her to get a therapist. A real one that isn’t a vitamin salesman, who has a degree and a license and is skilled at masking her yawns during long, drawn-out trauma stories like my therapist Rachael, bless her.
Anyway Luann gets Dorinda together and they all head into town where Tinsley has planned a dinner party at her friend’s restaurant, and let’s take stock: We’ve got all this angst towards Leah about her behavior the previous night; Sarah tagging along whompst everyone has decided to hate for no reason; and Dark Dorinda drunk and crying at 6:30 pm. What could possibly go wrong?!
They go into the restaurant and by way of a sidebar, Luann, who is arguably the most beautiful of these women, is wearing one of Beverly Hills housewife Lisa Rinna’s QVC dusters.
I just… Is Luann okay? Her outfits this season are reading “cry for help.” I need a wellness check! By whatever city agency we are creating to deal with wellness checks when we abolish the police, thank you so much!
Anyway. They get to their table and out the gate, practically the entire group beelines for the bar, to Tinsley’s ire. Ramona starts throwing herself at a dude at the bar with the most awkward line about how he forgot his pants because... he's... wearing... shorts? Completely normal shorts??
He then says he’s from Arkansas and Ramona bursts out laughing as if he said he’s from the fucking International Space Station. I mean again, how do these women know nothing about New York?! It’s not quite to the level of Los Angeles but nearly everyone in New York is from somewhere else and Arkansas is a perfectly normal place from which to be! Anyway, dude is not amused.
Now in the interest of transparency, he is kinda hot and I would def Yankee Doodle that dick and call it macaroni but yo, he is a sentient pair of Vineyard Vines seersucker pants and has Big MAGA Energy. I mean you can fucking SMELL the Charlottesville tiki torch butane through the goddamn screen. Also eew, cut your nails you basically have a French manicure. Or is that Ramona’s hand? I’m too lazy to go back to the Hulu to find out IN ANY CASE, Ramona continues engaging him and oop! There it is! He works in National Security! Most likely a full-tilt Nazi! We got a live one!
(UPDATE!!! Turns out Leah discovered and posted on her Instagram story at some point that he in fact IS a Nazi, at least in the figurative sense, and a sexist bohunk in the literal sense, and ran a thankfully unsuccessful bid for a seat in Congress in Missouri! I knew it ~*in my bones*~)
Of course this makes Ramona even wetter because she's basically if one of those needlessly lavender-scented trash bags was a person, and she’s also an idiot, so she replies, “For like the government?” and this dude is like…
Her next line is, “Ooh so do you have like a black belt?” which makes no fucking sense and like THIS is the legendary Ramona flirting we hear so much about?! This is more embarrassing than that kente cloth stunt the Congress pulled the other day! EYE am better at flirting than this and I am a person who takes every flirtatious come-on literally! Some dude’ll be like, “So, what are you doing after this?” and I’ll be like, “Oh, just heading home to make some pizza rolls and watch that episode of Designing Women where Julia gets her head stuck in an antique banister, what about you?” And then the dude is like,
Anyway, all Vineyard Vines says is “Yeah I have multiple belts” because he can’t believe Ramona’s this big of a moron. Meanwhile, Tinsley is getting madder and madder because these assholes won't come sit the hell down and stop embarrassing her in this place where her friend did them a favor. Tensions are rising. Meanwhile Ramona, who couldn’t take a fucking hint if it jumped up and bit her on both breasts, asks Vineyard Vines if he's single and LOLOLOL he's engaged and not in any way interested and tries to pawn her off on his gumpy friend who looks like Matt Gaetz.
Now the other women go over to the bar to swarm these dudes and help Ramona land him and it’s the saddest shit you’ve ever seen. We find out his name is Courtland, because of course it is, that is the date-rapiest name I've ever heard in my fucking life, and now Sonja is trying to land him. Tinsley has fucking had it and starts cock-blocking.
But while Courtland may or may not be into Sonja herself, he is definitely into them tiddies.
So Tinsley changes tack and starts scolding Courtland for trying to cheat on his fiancée.
And how do you suppose a sentient Lacrosse stick named Courtland reacts to THAT? Put a pin in that and we’ll get to it in a minute. Meanwhile, things are, just generally, off the goddamn rails with these women.
And the terrorized locals are starting to stare.
Meanwhile, back at the table, Dorinda is wasty-pants and talking to Elyse (UGH, Elyse) about... something? Nobody knows, not even the editors.
So all other options exhausted, Leah decides that she's gonna go crash this ship once and for all. As the youngest and hottest woman there by a mile, she’ll go over and REALLY cock block them. And bitch it WORKS. She goes and sits a seat down from Courtland and look at the shock on his face when he sees her.
She and Sarah introduce themselves and he tries to play it cool and pretend like he can’t be bothered, so Leah and Sarah laugh at him because he’s a giant fucking tool, and now big-dog Courtland, who as you’ll remember is already pissed off about Tinsley lecturing him about his fiancée, is visibly angry. Sarah brings up how said fiancée wouldn’t be too keen on this whole situation with Leah and Sonja and thar she blows! Poor little Breitbart McProudBoy gets his fee-fees hurt and snaps.
Men are trash! In any case, their work is done—Courtland has run out to go jerk off to Joe Rogan while crying in his Land Rover or whatever it is Courtlands do. Sarah and Leah explain to the ladies what happened and what a dick he is, and given how uptight Ramona and Sonja like to be about ~*etiquette*~ you’d think they’d be clutching pearls, right? But instead they get all mad—especially Ramona's thirsty ass. No dick and outsmarted by two women a sixteenth of her age? Not in Ramona Singer’s Newport, Rhode Island!
So we’ve got the women fighting at the bar, Dorinda still off the rails back at the table, everyone is staring and just as we reach what feels like an apex we go to Elyse’s interview (UGH, Elyse) and I’m all set for a cathartic wave of hatred, but instead she subverts expectations by saying something so wonderful I screamed at a volume and pitch that shattered all the windows in my apartment.
GERIATRIC. Do you know how ANGRY Ramona and Sonja are going to be about that comment?! I mean UGH, Elyse but also UGH!! ELYSE!! This rush of oxytocin is making me feel like my entire life might have been a lie but I’m so delighted by this insult I don’t even care!!! Am I an Elyse stan now?!?!!!!
Everyone finally moves to the table but that only makes it worse. Tinsley tells Ramona she's perturbed because she went to a lot of trouble to plan this dinner and Ramona would never tolerate this kind of behavior, and Ramona bellows “WHO. CARES.” into Tinsley’s face. And I mean BELLOWS INTO HER FACE. The cameras weren’t placed right to get a good visual but Ramona stands up out of her chair and LEANS DOWN into Tinsley’s grill and just thunders into it with her whole chest. Shit is going sideways at 90 mph.
Tinsley erupts all like, you certainly cared last night when the bad behavior was coming from Leah, and Ramona goes a-bellowin’ again, but this time, she picks the wrong one: She bellows, “Don’t compare me to Leah” with utter disgust and Luann shoots Ramona the look of death all like, bitch SLOW DOWN.
Luann tries to broker peace but Ramona says everything is all Sarah's fault and that she’s “guilty by association” for being Leah's sister. And bitch, how do you think Leah reacted to that?
Look at those eyes. She’s going to fucking rip out Ramona’s throat with her teeth in front of this entire restaurant. Now Leah is yelling at Ramona and Ramona is unhinged and tries to kill herself with the decorative autumn corn from the centerpiece.
Leah yells at Ramona that she should be so lucky to have Sarah’s class and manners and Dorinda stands up and is like I'm too fucked up for this, I’m out.
Then while they’re all screaming, Sonja has a meltdown and does this.
And then the editors, God love them, cut to me in the background.
Then Sonja and Ramona start mean-girling and openly shit-talk Sarah—whompst may I remind you has left her infant daughter for the first time ever to come do this and is also directly across the table!!! Like middle school lunchroom shit!
At this point, Luann has fucking had it. She has had it!!! My Aunt Kris always tells this story about how once she and my mom took me to a Big Boy for lunch when I was like three and there was a little girl on the other side of the booth partition the same age who was misbehaving really bad, screaming and climbing on the table and being a general hellion, so I decided she was my sister in arms and became a hellion too. Things rapidly devolved into chaos and me and this little girl kept trying to climb the partition to get to each other and our respective families would have to yank us down by our diapers and restrain us in our booster seats and this went on and on and on. They were both able to briefly get us under control, but as soon as her dad’s guard was down the little girl leapt at the partition again and he lost it and yelled at his daughter, “SIT DOWN AND EAT!!!” So then I climbed up the partition again and yelled “YEAH SEE-DOW AN EAT!!!” whereupon my mom fucking snapped and shot up up out of the booth and peeled me off the partition by my belt loops and yelled “KRIS DOGGY BAG THE DAMN FOOD AND MEET ME IN THE CAR!!!” and stormed out to the parking lot with me over her shoulder as the little girl and I shrieked and reached for each other while the Big Boy spontaneously burst into flames behind us and sirens wailed in the distance.
Anyway that’s basically what happens to poor Luann here except with GROWN-ASS WOMEN IN THEIR 50s. She’s rockets out of her chair and is like GET UP WE’RE GOING BACK TO THE HOTEL.
But it's too late. We’ve gone too far down this road. Our only escape is to let it come to fruition. And Leah, dear reader, has had it.
It happens too fast to get a picture of it, but Leah stands up and with so much force it makes a “whoosh” sound in her mic she whips a fucking ravioli into Ramona and Sonja’s faces. And Ramona is so pickled slash stunned she just… sits there with ravioli on her face.
Leah storms out of the restaurant with precisely *carries the one* zero fucks to give.
Embroider that on a pillow. Needlepoint it onto a sampler and hang it above the hearth.
For her part, Ramona says she's “very disappointed” in Leah and that “being disappointed with someone is worse than anger” and guess if Leah gives a fraction of a fuck here I’ll give you a clue:
Honestly this is fucking inspiring. Be the walking around the streets of Newport, Rhode Island with a martini in your hand that you want to see in the world, namaste.
Now you would logically assume that this would be the end of the madness, but there’s an epilogue, one wherein Luann has so completely crossed over that she lights the decorative corn on fire in the middle of the restaurant as if it’s sage while Elyse (UGH, Elyse) is like bitch what the fuck are you doing.
And outside, Leah and Tinsley make out and literally nobody says anything about it and it is never acknowledged or addressed in any way, shape or form ever.
And then we cut and it’s the next morning! So okay then! A whole shitshow! And now everyone is pissed. Sarah is mad that she left her baby to come all the way up to Rhode Island to be bullied by a couple of 83-year-old 7th graders, which FAIR, and Leah says she doesn't even know how to move forward with these women because they’re so passive-aggressive and Leah is just regular aggressive, like a normal person.
Meanwhile Luann is filling Dorinda in about the previous night and Dorinda looks genuinely crestfallen that she missed Leah fast-balling ravioli into Ramona’s fucking face.
Newport trip completed, now—as if we haven’t endured enough—we must go back to New York and watch Luann have a meeting about her fucking cabaret show with some homosexual whose nose is so far up Luann’s ass I don't know how he can even breathe.
Anyway, Luann’s new show is apparently about sex or something and she's like “Who doesn't want to see me being naughty?” and that sound you hear is literally every human soul in the entire universe simultaneously screaming "NO ONE.” Or…wait, I guess it should be “EVERYONE” otherwise it’s a double negative. Whatever the point is no one wants this! No one has issued the request!
Then, while discussing how Luann has to include her “signature songs” (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) in the new cabaret this grifting queen has the temerity to compare Luann to Barbra Streisand.
…so ergo, Luann must sing…
Seriously please come run me over with a riding lawn mower.
Thankfully, they shift topics to including Sonja’s human-disaster ass in the show, which for me is honestly a draw. I’ll go on Ticketmaster right the fuck now if Sonja’s trainwreck mess is gonna be in this! My girl Melissa (hey girl!) and her mom Martine went to Luann’s last cabaret all ready to laugh their heads off but it was so boring they almost left. Like it wasn’t even good enough to laugh AT. Can you imagine? Like consider the circumstances and the ~*material*~ with which we’re working here. Also Melissa and Martine are fucking BOOZEHOUNDS so you know they were bombed and yet this shit was still that boring? You hate to see it. Adding Sonja, though, is a golden ticket. I mean last time she appeared in Luann's show her dress fell off so.
Finally, at long last, we reach the final scene: Dorinda is throwing a traditional English tea party which, in the wake of all the Newport drama, has a “Relax, Relate, Reset” theme which of course is code for "Rehash, Reheat, Retribution" or something IDK there's a joke here somewhere and I'm not finding it but the point is this is all a pretext under which to dress up like British women and fight more while wearing fascinators.
Everyone shows up looking darling and very British and then Elyse (UGH, Elyse), who never met an ounce of goodwill she couldn’t immediately squelch with her fashion sense, shows up on some Pretty Woman bullshit.
I mean that is the most Rodeo Drive 1989 by way of a strip-mall Dress Barn nestled between a Sally Beauty Supply and a Petland I have ever seen in my fucking life. Why is this purse? Elyse (I’m sorry I must commit to the bit UGH, Elyse) is so beautiful but always so ill-advised. Sad.
Anyway everyone is studiously avoiding Leah but it doesn’t matter because she’s straight-up shitting on hoes with this look. We just, we fucking stan.
Because she’s an adult, Leah apologizes first. She tells Ramona she’s sorry and, of course, Ramona goes all Miss Manners and then brings up the Hamptons melee again, and Leah loses her patience.
HOLD IT RIGHT THERE EVERYONE STAND THE FUCK DOWN LEAH’S TURN-UPS ARE ALL THAT IS HOLDING ME TOGETHER THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!
Then Ramona says she was so disturbed by the Hamptons she couldn't sleep for four days, which is so fucking ridiculous I yelled at my computer in rage and woke up my roommate. Luann isn’t having it and gives her the most bitch please look that has ever bitch pleased.
Dorinda tells Ramona to get over herself and that all of them have been messy AF at one point or another, and then we get a montage of these women being trainwrecks that includes the best Sonja Morgan moment of the entire series, where she somehow falls under a table? I can’t even describe it, you just have to watch it (it’s at the 4:19 mark if this embed screws up). It is the funniest thing I have ever seen and my friend Brooke and I had to pause the show and call each other so we could scream about it.
Anyway Dorinda’s scolding works and Ramona and Leah make up and both start crying because they both have a soft spot for each other. In her interview, Leah attributes hers to projecting her mommy issues onto Ramona, and the mental image of Ramona watching that at home and seething at being equated with Leah’s mother will sustain me for all of my days.
Then Sonja and Tinsley finally arrive and the latter looks rigoddamndiculous.
Like go home and change you are 44 fucking years old. Dorinda immediately pulls Tinsley aside for a private talk and OMFG are you serious we're doing this again? I watched in slack-jawed disbelief. Are we actually going to be asked to watch these two fight ag—oh my God we are. Dorinda confronts Tinsley about how she’s been getting together with her ex-boyfriend Scott again and if she doesn’t come clean about it to the girls, Dorinda will do it for her and ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHO FUCKING CARES!!! Tinsley won't admit that they're back together and Dorinda's like…
And like YES DORINDA WTF????!!!! WHOMPST AMONGST US HASN'T KEPT FUCKING AN EX ON THE LOW CUZ THE DICK IS BOMB?! Dorinda just got out of a six-year relationship with a man she hated WHY IS THIS EVEN INTERESTING!!!
And honestly, this is where this program shows its hand because none of this makes sense. This is Dorinda producing. Tinsley has nothing to do on this show and this is Dorinda doing what Bethenny used to do, just without the Producer credit. They go back to the table and Dorinda blows up Tinsley’s spot and she starts crying because she’s afraid to talk about Scott because she doesn’t want to ruin it.
Which is sweet and relatable and here I am once again being forced onto Team Tinsley without my consent I AM SO SICK OF THIS SHIT. Thankfully the tide turns and the fight turns into a girl power roundtable with all the women urging Tinsley on, and we get this excellent closing line from Leah as she tells Tinsley what to say to Scott:
And so's the episode!
So that’s that. Episode 10! We’re almost halfway through the season, wow time flies! Thank you as always, like and subscribe and Patreon and all the things and oh speaking of Patreon! An update on the donations! So I split it between ActBlue’s bail fund and since J.K. Rowling and that Russian ice skater decided to be transphobic dingleberries I gave the other half to The Okra Project, a great org that serves the Black transgender community. It is named after okra because get this: apparently the reason we have okra in the US is because abducted Africans brought it on slave ships so they’d have something to eat on the journey and then planted it in the US so they’d have a comfort food from home, which is among the most heartbreaking and infuriating things I’ve ever read. Go donate to something.
Ok that’s it, take care of yourselves and, as with last week, let’s all do one thing this week to fight white supremacy okay? Okay wonderful go be great!