This week:
- Celebrating my best friends. (The Real Housewives.)
- The concept of celebrity sex passes.
- A monologue I will never forget.
- Patti LuPone deserves the world. Or at least a dock.
- The best TV clip of the week.
We’ve Been Blessed With 20 Years of Greatness
Twenty years ago, the clouds parted, and a single ray of sunshine beamed down, casting its warm, glowing light over the gated community of Coto de Caza, California.
There, the saviors were discovered: these angels in jewel-toned sky tops, with wealth to flaunt and love tanks to be filled. From the gilded enclave, they were transported to our lives—via family van—not just changing pop culture as we know it, but the personalities and friendships of the fans who found a new community as their devout followers.
Bravo launched the Real Housewives franchise 20 years ago, and now, the twentieth season of its flagship, The Real Housewives of Orange County, is here.
In the now-streaming premiere episode, the OG of the OGs, Vicki Gunvalson, is back, poignantly returning as a full-time cast member alongside several other core favorites: Shannon Storms Beador, Tamra Judge, and Heather Dubrow. It plays like an unhinged family reunion. The chaos is familiar and relatable, just as it is horrifying and cringe-worthy. It’s emotional and exhausting, yet still hilarious and cozy.
It’s taken two decades for these women, plus the nearly 200 other Real Housewives, to bring legitimacy to the televised circus of their lives, to the point where cast members rank among the biggest stars in entertainment, catchphrases and memes are now an everyday part of our lexicon, and the parts of their lives that they share in such extreme (sometimes loud, sometimes volatile) ways are discussed and dissected by the most intelligent and inquisitive minds in our culture.
Plus, they’re just a whole lot of fun.
So, on the occasion of anniversaries and the temptation to think about the many ways this juggernaut franchise has impacted TV and society, it’s refreshing to take an elegant swan dive—or, in some of the Housewives’ cases, a graceless belly flop—into where it all started.
The Season 20 premiere of RHOC opens with footage from the 2006 series premiere, a grainy, subdued, more traditional documentary-style aesthetic than the sleek production we’re now used to. You can almost imagine David Attenborough narrating: “And here, we see the women in their natural habitat: Saks Fifth Avenue. A remarkable evolution is on display, with shades of blonde hair not typical in nature and noses that appear to have been significantly altered, perhaps several times even.”
I wish I could say I was but a wee child when RHOC premiered, but alas, I remember its launch clearly and how instantly obsessed I was. So the memory-lane tour of Vicki’s family milestones almost doubles as home movies for me; I remember where and who I was at each of those events. I loved the transition from those sentimental clips to the montage of the show’s most explosive moments, should we momentarily forget the spectrum from endearingly wholesome to outrageous that these shows thrive on. (Just as in life!)
The episode itself was a natural mashup of the classic tenets of Day 1 Real Housewives and the elements that, for better or for worse, have now become mainstays.
Shannon and Vicki clumsily pal around Puerto Vallarta like twin Cathy cartoons come to life. The whisper chain of who is talking about who behind their back, versus confronting the group in person, as ever, requires a team of FBI agents to unravel. (Or the world’s real most talented detectives: Bravo fans.)
The healthfulness of each woman’s relationship is inscrutable. Heather is throwing a $75,000 party, proudly dropping the pricetag. Everyone is arguing about something that was said “in the media,” “on a podcast,” or “in the blogs” instead of actually on the show. (My biggest Housewives pet peeve.)
I’m so grateful we’re at the point where referring to the Housewives as pointless trash or guilty pleasures is merely the talk of ignorant fools. It’s entertainment, but it’s reality, heightened though it may be. Our aspirational society has long coveted the lives of the wealthy and glamorous, all while judging their excess and delusion, and taking cruel pleasure in their downfalls. For 20 years, Real Housewives has offered that escape, all while infusing its ever-dramatic programs with empathy and humor.
That we’ve gotten this far? To quote Vicki, “This is definitely a woo-hoo moment.”
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Jon Hamm
The highest accomplishment an actor can receive is not winning an Oscar or being the industry’s most lucrative box-office star. There is something far loftier and more prestigious. There is no achievement greater than being designated someone’s celebrity sex pass.
The idea of the celebrity sex pass is that, if you are in a committed relationship, you and your partner can select one famous person whom, should the opportunity arise, you are permitted to sleep with and receive no infidelity-related repercussions.
As a woefully single person (DM me, boys!), I do not have to enter such a contract. I can sleep with all the famous people I want, because it’s just that easy, right? But it is a psychologically twisted dare that, apparently, couples joke about, fully aware that such a conquest is rare. The chaos agent in me, however, always wonders, when I hear about this sex pass, what would actually happen if…
That question is now an entire movie out this weekend, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. From the filmmakers behind Wet Hot American Summer, the comedy chronicles the fallout when one couple’s innocent hypothetical of the sex pass proves much more complicated when it becomes a reality.
When one woman’s fiancé hooks up with his expressed celeb crush, assuming his partner was, as per the concept of the sex pass, cool with it, she spirals. Determined to get even, she sets out on a Wizard of Oz-esque odyssey to Los Angeles, on a mission to bed her revenge crush: Jon Hamm.
The movie is a spiritual sister to Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar—a very high compliment—loaded with cameos of stars playing themselves. (There’s one, let’s say, “friend” who delivers her funniest performance in years.) It’s silly and slight, but it will have you thinking about your own pass…and wanting to make sure your wife is never in the vicinity of Jon Hamm.
Reality TV Has Never Been More Real
Being a reality TV star means being willing and unashamed to reveal everything about your life, no matter how low a point it is or how embarrassing it is. By that metric at least, Bravo mainstay Kyle Cooke may be the greatest reality TV star yet.
Cooke, an original cast member on Summer House and now on In the City, delivered a monologue in the latest episode of the latter spinoff that had me, at once, silent—slack-jawed in disbelief at what I was hearing—yet also involuntarily cackling. It was the strangest physical reaction: a transfixed guffaw.
Forty-three-year-old Cooke, you see, was telling a roomful of his friends (and the cameras recording for the world to see) the story of how, tantalized by the promise of “amazing poops,” he overdid it on fiber supplements and, in the aftermath, “ripped” his… well, you should just watch him tell the story here.
I’m not kidding: This is what I tune into reality TV for. Sure, give me the soap opera, the fighting, and the glamour. But give me the comedy, too, the kind that comes from what I can only describe as a beautiful, confessional aria about the misguided pursuit of “amazing poops.”
I happened to watch this episode the same day it was announced that the other series Cooke is on, Summer House, had scored its first Emmy nomination in the Unstructured Series category after 10 years. Absolutely yes. This is the television that should be winning awards.
And folks, always remember to use your fiber responsibly.
The Ship of Broken Dreams
Patti LuPone and her shipful of gays are stranded at sea, and the diva is not having it. The gay cruise that the Tony-winning legend is performing on was barred from entry to both Turkey and Egypt this week, the assumption being that the countries do not want the LGBT passengers ashore. Well, you foolish nations, you offended the wrong Mama Rose.
LuPone posted an epic statement on Instagram, which I have already committed to memory and commissioned to be stitched as a wall tapestry that I will hang in my apartment. She was aghast that “a magnificent ship – full of gay men. And me” was denied entry “simply because of who is on board.” Her pledge— “I am furious, but I am sailing”—is quite possibly the most powerful call to resistance I’ve ever read. I’m kidding. Sort of.
Opens in new windowWhen I tell you I have said “I am furious, but I am sailing” in response to every slight I’ve experienced in the last week, I’m not exaggerating. And I have a lot of grievances; I’ve been doing so much metaphorical furious sailing.
Listen, is it possibly an odd time to be vacationing this way, given the reason a cruise was last in the headlines? Arguably. But listen, there is only so much time left before the diarrhea lettuce comes for us all, so why not enjoy things when we can and be super gay at sea with an admirably righteous Patti LuPone.
Give Him an Emmy Award
It hurts to see someone else living your dream—being slapped by Carly Corinthos on General Hospital—but if someone is going to do it, I suppose it should be John Oliver.
Opens in new windowMore From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
I welcomed my first shirtless podcast guest, and we gossiped about Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Trump, and more. Watch here.
I still don’t understand why the Emmys don’t ask me to choose the nominees. So here’s my rant. Read more.
Guys, it was only a week ago that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married. Wild. Read more.
What to Watch This Week:
The Five-Star Weekend: The beachiest beach read of a TV show I’ve ever seen, and I say that with enthusiasm. (Now on Peacock)
The Invite: This hilarious movie is expanding nationwide this weekend, and I can’t recommend it enough. (Now in theaters)
The Real Housewives of Orange County: Twenty years! This is history, y’all. (Now on Bravo)
What to Skip This Week:
Moana: The Rock’s wig isn’t even the worst part of this movie. (Now in theaters)
Little House on the Prairie: We’re now arguing about “woke” Little House on the Prairie. Help. (Now on Netflix)
