The only thing worse than a long string of never-ending speeches at a wedding reception is a long string of never-ending speeches at an anniversary party. At least at a wedding, you’re gathering to celebrate a newly forged bond of love; you can suck it up, get another dessert or a drink, and sit through the tenth speech. At an anniversary party, the only thing that guests are commemorating is the fact that a couple managed to last for a few years without a nasty divorce battle. Nothing says, “Congrats on not hating each other” like your begrudging attention.

That’s precisely the reason I can empathize with the Real Housewives of New York cast in Season 14’s sixth episode, aptly titled: “Anniversorry, Not Sorry.” Erin’s 10-year wedding anniversary is on the horizon, and she’s throwing a massive party to honor the occasion. It’s one of those things that everyone is excited about until the actual day of the event rolls around, when it seems as though the rest of the women would rather be anywhere else. And I can’t blame them! Erin’s party is swanky but stale, there’s zero sense of intimacy to it. Luckily, the familiar, warm dynamic of the modern New York Housewives is enough to heat up her frigid function.

It’s only one day after Jessel’s charity event, and somehow, no one got sick from the rancid white wine that was served. In fact, everyone’s downright jovial. Ubah waltzes into the swanky Park Avenue showroom of a jeweler simply known as “Jacob.” This is not some ultra-secure, cramped Diamond District locale either, Jacob&Co is prestige all the way. Erin arrives and admires the posh wares before getting down to business. “I love it, but why am I here?” she asks, echoing the exact same question that had been rattling around my head. Ubah surprises Erin by providing the loaned-out jewelry as Erin’s “something borrowed” for the party. Given that the diamond earrings Erin picks out are worth a cool $220,000, I think it bests the Zabar’s gift basket I got my parents for their wedding anniversary (although that chocolate babka is priceless).

Elsewhere, Brynn is shopping at Kirna Zabête, a very chic boutique that Jessel clomps into like a house inspector trying to test out the soundness of a building’s foundation. As if she hadn’t already topped my personal cast ranking after last week’s Tribeca fight, Jessel’s complete lack of self-awareness continues to be my new favorite part of the RHONY reboot. My second favorite would have to be her commitment to making fun of all the other Housewives at every possible moment. “Did you read Erin’s party invite closely?” she asks Brynn. “There’s just, like, a lot of sponsors.” The editors cut to the invite, at which point I counted 18 different, completely random sponsors that neither Brynn nor I had ever heard of. “It’s like a Coachella poster,” Brynn adds. “Am I going to have to order bottle service at this party?”

As if more Jessel bits weren’t enough to prove that I’m God’s favorite, we then check in with Jenna as she’s working on an interior design project. I had just been lamenting the lack of transparency regarding Jenna’s design career in a post-Stylish with Jenna Lyons world, but it looks like she’s still doing design work on a freelance basis. That’s a revelation as glorious as it is crushing, knowing I’ll never be able to afford her expertise.

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Her next renovation is for another one of her equally kooky friends, actress and influencer Emily Hampshire. A quick cursory search reveals that Emily is the one of those actresses who has been in everything that I’ve been told to watch for years, but never have. However, I am supportive of any quirky, sapphic oddballs that can get Jenna back into designing (so I can steal all of her ideas and do them poorly on a budget).

Jessel then gets her own solo scene at home, which is really just an improv showcase in her living room. I’m so serious, this woman should be teaching a master class in lightly antagonistic insult comedy. She sits down to take a look at preschool applications for her twin toddlers, and readies a barrage of hilarious indignities to hurl at her husband, Pavit. “We’ve narrowed it down to two [schools],” Jessel says in her confessional. “I mean, I’ve narrowed it down to two, Pavit’s been sitting on his ass fiddling with his bawwwes.” Get Amy Sherman-Palladino on the horn, we are looking at the British Mrs. Maisel.

The preschool applications ask Pavit and Jessel to list charitable boards that they’re a part of, because that’s what you do when your child’s preschool demands a $65,000 tuition. Then, Jessel plainly asks her husband the funniest, most hostile question in the same casual cadence she probably does when asking what he wants for dinner: “Are you part of anything, except for like, the fried chicken committee?” For a brief moment I thought she was just ribbing him for really loving fried chicken, until Pavit fires back, “It’s the Street Food Association of New York!”

This scene really reveals how the trailer editors buried the lede in the Season 14 trailer; all of the best jokes were saved for the actual episode. People need to know that reboot has so much more than what its previews offered!

Bravo

As if those weren’t enough to leave me on the floor, Jessel ends the scene by typing a brief bio for one of her twins. “Rio is thoughtful, intelligent, and socially inept,” she types confidently. Socially inept. It’s a good thing Jessel has Pavit to balance out her eccentricities and stop her from using the wrong words, otherwise, Rio would’ve ended up at—*shudder*—a public preschool!

The day of Erin’s anniversary party arrives, and the guests of honor have to take a moment to lie in bed. “It’s going to be a long night,” Erin says to Abe, issuing the understatement of the year. The event is at Hall des Lumières, a giant, old bank building in Tribeca. For being in what Jessel thinks is New York’s most up-and-coming neighborhood, it’s quite refined. Too bad it’s just simply too big. The giant space jam-packed with all of the signs advertising the party’s sponsors makes it look more like BravoCon than an anniversary soiree. But hey, I can’t fault her for taking advantage of the cameras to get her costs down. I appreciate the frugality, even if that desire to remain economical flew out the window when it came to timing her guest’s speeches.

Brynn is hanging out in a corner, wearing sunglasses at night and shoveling cocktail sausages into her mouth; Sai is on the verge of passing out because none of the catered food is suitable for her pescatarian restrictions; Jenna walks in and tries to jokingly grab Erin’s ass from behind three separate times before Erin notices, embarrassing Jenna; and Ubah isn’t even there because she has COVID! Things are off to a peculiar start, but end up more sad than strange as the night progresses.

Jenna reveals that she and her anonymous girlfriend of over a year and a half have broken up, which would already be enough to dampen the spirit of a party celebrating everlasting love if there wasn’t also a line of people at the side of the stage to start giving speeches. “You guys, he has four pages in his hand,” Jenna says, spotting the first speaker’s notes. I’m not sure that Jenna Lyons—one of the most unrelatable Housewives in franchise history—has been more down to earth than that moment.

The speeches drone on and on, leading Sai to start seriously considering chucking her deuces and escaping to the Nobu location around the corner for some food she can actually eat. “Should we go and come back?” she asks the group, who all have no idea what to say (though they clearly would like to tag along).

A moment later, Erin’s sister stomps over and scolds the group for talking during the endless orations. Brynn responds exactly as any grown adult should when being talked down to like a child: “Are you going to go around and tell each one of these people too? Everybody is talking.” By the way, Erin and Abe got married in July 2012, and this episode was filmed in December 2022. This party is late as hell! It’s one thing to get mad for talking on someone’s actual anniversary, it’s another to get mad five months after the actual date.

The speeches finally wrap up, but a shot of Brynn, Jessel, Sai, and Jenna huddled in the back of the room suggests that it’s too late—they’ve already been lobotomized. Sai manages to claw her way out of catatonia and trot her little legs out of the venue to go to Nobu before anyone else can grab the mic. It’s admittedly a bit rude to leave the entire party without saying goodbye to the host, and Erin calls it out as hypocritical, given that Sai had criticized Jenna for trying to leave Erin’s Hamptons home in the middle of the night without notice. But in all fairness, Sai was probably starting to see stars.

Only six episodes of Season 14 have aired, but Sai has complained about Erin not feeding her guests for three of them. Mazel tov to the happy couple, but Erin should hang up her party-planning hat for a minute and just focus on what she’s best at: her Tribeca ambassadorship.

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