Oscars Outsider - Selfish Trek w/ Comrade Britain of Soy Trek (VPR S10E13, RHONJ S13E13)

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

On episode 13 of Bravo Outsider, we explore the similarities between Reality TV and Star Trek with special guest Comrade Brit of Soy Trek. We recap Real Housewives of New Jersey S13E13 and Vanderpump Rules S10E13 to analyze the dynamics and themes of these shows.  Prepare to be amazed as we reveal the unexpected connection between two seemingly unrelated fandoms - Star Trek and Real Housewives! Joined by Comrade Brit from SoyTrek, we uncover the parallels between these TV sensations and discuss the role of reality television in our culture, particularly in relation to unionized jobs and the current Writer's Guild of America strike. By comparing fan-favorite shows like Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Real Housewives, we find fascinating similarities in themes of moral ambiguity and complex character development. Explore the unpredictable actions driven by normal human emotions and how reality TV characters can't be easily categorized as heroes or villains. Plus, get an in-depth analysis of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, uncovering the intricate relationships between Teresa, Melissa, and Joe, and the passionate responses from their fan bases. Don't miss this entertaining and thought-provoking conversation as we navigate the worlds of Star Trek and reality TV, discussing narrative structure, character development, and moral ambiguity in both franchises. Listen in as we expose the ridiculousness of these shows and how they reflect real-life experiences. Join us on this unique journey and witness the incredible intersection of Star Trek and Real Housewives that you never knew you needed!  Subscribe and listen now on YouTube and Apple Podcasts! #BravoOutsider #VanderpumpRules #RealHousewivesOfNewJersey #StarTrek Find Soy Trek on Instagram https://instagram.com/soytrek and at https://soytrek.com [https://soytrek.com/] Find Comrad Brit on Instagram https://instagram.com/dogg.vorbis Find Dylan on substack at https://dylanferguson.substack.com/   [https://dylanferguson.substack.com/] Music by FASSounds from Pixabay

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bravo Outsider Podcast. I'm Craig Midwinter and as always I'm joined by my co-host Dylan. Dylan, are you wearing lingerie for daddy? No, I'm actually dressed like a dork wearing a suit. Not just because of what we're going to be talking about today. Maybe partially, but mostly because I wanted to show off my Florida Panthers tie. Let's go cardiac cats. Yeah, second round.

Oh, yeah. and having a glass of Romula nail over here. Oh, very nice. As Rev. My favorite garbage cooler because I like, you know, I like to bring props because I apparently don't know what a podcast is. Well, each week we're joined by an outsider to get their takes on the week's episode. This week, joining us from SoyTrek is Comrade Brett.

Reality Television, the Final Frontier. These are the Soyages of the U.S. Bravo Outsider, our ongoing mission, to explore strange new episodes, to seek out new wives and new situations, to boldly watch what this, they, them, has not watched before. Excellent. I cheered up a little. That was emotional. That, thank you. That music always gets me. It's, uh, hits you right in the fields. It really is iconic, the, the music to, the, the music to, the, intro to Star Trek. For me, it was just like childhood, like the only good times with my dad, basically.

Well, we were just kind of chatting before things got going. And I was saying there's probably a very small crossover, like intersection of fans that are fans of like real housewives and fans of Star Trek. So this is mostly to like indulge me. But yeah, if there was a Venn diagram, it would just be the room you're sitting at right now. That would be in the interstitial space. surprised because like the first time I had really heard of real housewives in like the modern era, I was listening to like my favorite Marxist conspiracy podcasts, Truonon, and, and they had an

entire episode about real housewives. And I'm like, really? I guess folks like me like that kind of thing. Yeah, I listen to that episode too. It's a great one. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And I'm like, well, okay. I mean, if Liz likes it, it can't be all bad. It's, it's interesting. It's, it's, uh, especially from like a cultural anthropology perspective, like looking in from the outside, it's like real interesting. Yeah, for sure. I think like it's, it's definitely like, uh, culturally significant for sure. And I think like it's a very like narratively dense experience, which is something that you also get with Star Trek in a, in a very different form. and when I was kind of like proposing our discussion topic before we get into it,

I was a little bit nervous that it might not be like very fruitful for things to like pull out and like we might be making a stretch of it. But I was like actually shocked by how many notes and how much like came to mind as I was really mulling over the ideas. So I'm really curious to get your takes. But before we get there, do you want to kind of give a background on kind of your past experience with any sort of reality TV or if any of these shows were previously on your radar in any respect? So I'm going to be quite honest. I feel like reality TV in a lot of ways is antithetical to my beliefs. Or at least it has been used in antithesis of my beliefs as a Marxist and as an active. IWW member. I'm very like pro-union and historically reality TV has been used to try to, you know,

create shows and productions with less union jobs. Because basically on reality TV, the only unionized work usually there is going to be the editor, who is like kind of the powerhouse of the whole thing. But, you know, no unionized writers, no unionized like set designers usually. I don't know, maybe in this. It seems like the production value for this is high enough to where they might have set designers and stuff like that. But so, you know, historically, I've just like never watched reality television because, you know, it is kind of inherently pro-capitalist and anti-union. Now, I also say that like full discretion here, I do like some media that is inherently pro-capital.

and anti-union, like, I'm a big wrestling fan, and I understand what of you is too? Sean, our previous guest. Oh, Sean's, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, the episode I was listed. So, yeah, I'm in that, honestly, yeah, it doesn't really reflect my value set, but I'm still into it, but I feel like reality television in general is like, a lot of it is like one big ad, you know? Yeah, I can kind of see where you're coming from there. Like, we've got some upcoming discussions that will get into it a bit more in later episodes,

but I think this is a good opportunity to kind of wade into the territory because there is like a real life example of kind of this reality television being at odds with unions going on right now with the writer's strike. Yeah, yeah, right. I thought it was especially like pertinent now. And I'm like, oh, that's a weird thing because I was going to kind of bring this up anyway. and then after you invited me, it came up and I'm like, oh, shoot, how am I going to talk about this now? But I guess it's more pertinent. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure, well, I shouldn't like assume,

but I am sure that there are like union positions that kind of make up the gap. I'm sure there's a producer's union or something that, you know, people that are like filling those storytelling chairs that would otherwise be filled by writers, they would be in another, you know, unionized role because it's kind of like, it's a canvas for like editors and producers more so than it would be writers. Oh, absolutely. Or actors who are also unionized generally. Yeah.

And I doubt there is a reality TV actors union. But there should be. That would be interesting. Because, I mean, the thing, too. is like these people are all very directly benefiting from the exposure that reality television is giving them, especially in a Vaynerhouse Rules, like, it's a big ad for all these different little micro companies that they all have. And it's interesting. And also, like, they are absolutely workers that need protection.

Like, by putting themselves out there, like, more so than even actors because they're putting their true reputations. on the line and to not have, you know, a set of protections in place that, you know, collective bargaining could provide for them. You know, they, they definitely should be looking at unionizing. Although I think the idea of, you know, reality, TV personality being a profession is kind of like, it's kind of nebulous. Because if you're on like a single season of like Big Brother and then that's, that's it. Are you, you know, can you get like?

Does that qualify? Yeah, exactly. So, but yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think you also brought up the point of the political lens that we view reality TV through. And that's another discussion that I want to get into in a future episode. But since you brought it up, I think, like, obviously the cast members, especially on the Real Housewives where they're very affluent, I think they, they they typically would probably lean pretty like conservative but i kind of find that the lens

that um these shows are presented through doesn't lean as far right like no definitely no the the creatives behind this obviously don't i don't think they necessarily have any sort of political agenda definitely not as much as the people on the show seem to sometimes have yeah i mean i think that they are at least catering to the um the politics of the general audience of these shows which very accessible yeah yeah yeah which like it skews female it skews um it skews gay and like it skews to demographics that would typically be left of center not you know yeah not absolutely super like far left and but um traditionally more left than right.

Yeah, like suburban white, yeah, gay and women. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I want to jump right into our discussion. So I selected an episode of Star Trek deep space nine to kind of compare and like contrast

against real housewives and Vanderpump rules. Just mostly to use that as kind of like a launching point into a discussion, more broadly about Trek because I think you mentioned in our the conversation that we were having before we got rolling, it is very interesting to take two seemingly separate pieces of art

and try to juxtapose them against each other and, you know, see what comes out of that comparison and what comes out of that exercise. So I'm really excited. I selected an episode from Star Trek Deep Space 9 season six called In the Pale Moonlight, which... I mean, I'm going to be honest, you selected the episode of DS9. This is, if you want to introduce people to this show and get them to, like, love the main actor, the captain, like, you show them this episode.

Yeah. And so how I kind of, like, arrived at this, not only is it, like, an episode that, like, kind of stands out in my mind as, like, being a particularly, engaging episode of Deep Space Nine, but also I think it bucks a lot of the conventions of Trek in a certain way. And I think that when I was rewatching it, I was especially surprised to see certain like structural components in it that really reminded me of real housewives. Before I like take over the conversation with what I've identified. Did you want to kind of give your, what your perspective of,

like, this exercise was when I announced it? Yeah, sure. Like, so I thought like, you know, I love taking way too much meaning in everything. And so I thought this was going to be a fun exercise. And it was, like, and I watched the DS9 episode last night, right after I watched Real Housewives and Vannerhouse Rules. And it was, I'm sorry, is it Vanderhouse or Vanderpump? Vendor Pump.

I've been calling it Vanderhouse because I'm just thinking House rules for some reason. Sorry. Vanderpump rules. But like, so this DS9 episode, like the perspective of the entire thing is done from one person's perspective. And that's like completely juxtaposed to the reality thing where it's just a bunch, you know, an ensemble. And it's always showing their different perspectives, kind of, but just only in the situations that they're in. And then kind of like how they're talked about in other situations, which is interesting. And it has similarities therein where, you know, in the DS9 episode, it just follows the captain Benjamin Sisko as he goes around.

And I don't know if you noticed, but every single scene has Benjamin Sisko in it in the episode. And so it's just him making a bunch of deals, dropping hot gossip, telling people to shut up or I'll kill you, you know, stuff like that, which is, you know, a lot of what like the Real Housewives is, but to a lesser degree. Yeah. More like throwing drinks and things like that. But, yeah, I don't know. What was your perspective? Why did you choose that episode in particular? Because I assumed you've seen it before.

Yeah, yeah, I have. And actually, so what kind of got me thinking about this episode in particular? I was going through an exercise of one thing that I was planning on asking you was to, if there were any, like, characters in these shows that you kind of correlated to any of the characters on Star Trek. And I was going through that mental exercise for myself. And it was like, it was actually like very challenging because I was, you know, there was one person. that on Vanderpump rules that stood out to me like right away as a direct like comparison. We'll get into that one when we get there.

But everyone else, I was like, oh, it's, it's Garrick. Oh, it's Garrick. It's Garrick. It's Garry. He's such a, like, a gay, catty bitch. And I love everything. I mean, I, I, like, I feel something deep in my soul for, for Garrick. I feel like I am a Garrick in a way, in a much more benevolent way.

I don't, like, kill people or anything like that. but like, you know, I love always having planned ahead of other people. And that's what the episode is kind of about. Benjamin Cisco tries to, the captain, tries to do a plan to give their side an upper hand in a war. But his plan fails miserably. And he had made the plan with Garrick in the first place. And then Garrick turns around and had another plan all along. to do violence and achieve the same goal.

And, you know, he does it in a much worse way, but both of them were planning on doing a war crime. Garrick just does the slightly worse war crime. And Benjamin Sisko is like, God damn it! And he punches him a couple times. It's, uh, it's, it's, it's really fun. It's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's a much more exaggerated version of, and obviously it's sci-fi. So there's a lot of allegory to real life there.

Yeah. Um, but it's very exaggerated in every way. But, uh, you know, um, the one character that I kept on thinking about when watching real housewives, uh, was Senator Vrenack, the Romulan senator. Oh, okay. Because his side, it is winning the war at that point, the side he's allied with. And he just comes on board and he is just malicious and just like, dissing, uh, Benjamin

Cisco the entire time. and just like dropping shape. He's dropping. He's the shadiest bitch. And he's like every single one of the women but like two on Real Housewives from the episode we saw. Yeah. I think like when I was watching this episode just like story wise. And I think this would probably be hard to pick up on without like a lot of context on Real Housewives or these types of shows.

Absolutely. Because it didn't like seem like I wouldn't be able to tie this episode of Deep Space 9 directly to an episode of Real Housewives. But I think that I could tie this episode of Deep Space 9 to like a season of Real Housewives. Like this is like the dynamics that we see play out over the course of this episode of Deep Space 9 is very similar to something that we constantly see on Housewives where. someone has a plan and does it like has a plan on how they are going to like use a piece of information or like get to whatever their end goal is and they put it into into action and you know they have to recruit like some other member of the cast in order to like help them or just you know bounce ideas off of and you see the snowball effect of you know putting that plan

into place and bringing other people in and just how things, you know, have a bit of a like a domino effect. And that's exactly what happens in this Deep Space Nine episode. And that's something that you see, you know, almost every season of Real Housewives. So I thought it was like particularly fitting. And then when I was rewatching it for this, I had forgotten that the way that this is structured is, um, is interspersed with Cisco giving his, you know, his personal log. Yeah, which is so reality television. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Confession booth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly like a confessional.

And it was really like really interesting to see that. Mm-hmm. And I think like that, you know, Star Trek always is or almost always is like prefaced with, you know, captain's log or other, like some other officers log. Like every episode is actually like. framed as, you know, someone's perspective. And it's, uh, typically like a senior Starfleet officer. Absolutely. Um, so like you can interpret every episode as being like from a character's, you know,

perspective. And I mean, I think it's, that's the same sort of mechanism that real housewives uses when they are trying to frame certain. pieces of a scene or story in perspective, they will use that Housewives, either their title card or giving their confessionals and do that same sort of storytelling mechanism. And now that I think about it, like they do have like a constant narrative that basically they open up with and then they execute at the end. Like in Housewives, it was the bridal shower in Vanderpump rules. I mean, the whole thing basically in one way or another was about

Rachel or Rochelle and Tom and their poll Did They Don't They? Which Tom did. I know for a fact. It has to. He's a terrible, terrible, terrible liar.

Terrible liar. Worst liar ever. Also, gayest mustache I've ever seen. It's fabulous, but bisexual lives. So he shaved it off live on, well, I guess not live,

but during a recording of Howie Mandel's podcast where he gave. Do you like do it to go back in the closet or something? So you're spot on. He he was sleeping with Raquel. Oh, excellent. Yeah.

And it's like it blew up. I mean, not excellent. That's bad because no, it's excellent. Oh, is it? Okay, good. Well, I mean, it's excellent for like 40 something and she's like 20 something. Yeah. Well, we see her turn like 28 or something like that and I think she's 40. Yeah, she was turning 28th and that.

that episode. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But yeah, it blew up off camera. And so they had to get all the like production teams rolling again in order to capture the fallout so they could tack it on to the end of this. Oh, of course.

Of course. I mean, that's what this whole episode's about. You got to pay off with that Chekhov's gun there. Yeah, for sure. Before we move into Vanderpump rules, Dylan, you're like a bit more of a like Star Trek outsider I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love the original series. I watch the original series all the time. Like I will constantly just revisit those episodes. Like for me, I don't watch a ton of scripted TV, but that's my favorite show. Like, like, for me, you just got a show with a bunch of, of cool actors wearing like really dope, brightly colored mod outfits. And they're, they're visiting a planet where there's got to be like some classically trained theatrical actor wearing a toga, you know, walking among like, foam rubber spires and Greek Greco-Roman columns and he'll be like vanquished and turned into a glittering slime creature because somebody pointed out a flaw in his aesthetics or something. That's like the greatest thing that that TV.

The episode will be called like who has seen the hands of time or something like that should rules. I love that stuff so much. So I never really like went beyond that. This is the first time I've ever watched an episode of Deep Space Nod was just for this. Wild. What would you think? What was your impression? It was cool.

It was cool. I liked it for sure. I was surprised by how good the cast was. Like, they're kept being actors. They'd be like, oh, he's in it. You guys were talking about how awesome Garrick is. Andrew Robinson. Andrew Rules.

Such a good actor. If you haven't seen him play Liberacee in I think the 1987 made for TV film, it's available on, like, YouTube. That sounds like great cast. He's incredible. Oh, I can picture it. He's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

I mostly think of like Hellraiser, a dirty hairy where he's, where he's the bad guy. Yeah. So just a very talented actor, even though he's wearing that alligator face still doing it. I think that like Trek has a very, um, it has a way of like, like,

latching on to actors that might not be like into Trek when they get cast. And I think he's like, he's a very iconic example of it because he's like, he wrote, um, uh, one of the Star Trek novels, like one of the like most acclaimed. Yeah. thread in time.

Yeah, thread in time or something like that. Yeah, so, like, he is Star Trek royalty. And I agree that, like, Garrick is, like, one of the best characters in track. And to, like, kind of get into characters in Trek versus Housewives, I think, like, that's one of the things that are kind of at odds between these two series. Like, I think, like, all the characters on Trek for the most part, they're, they're modeled after kind of like, you know, pulpy heroes and like architects, archetypes within that vein that they will use to, like, Star Trek is just like a series

of like morality plays that play out like week after week. And so they will like plug these characters in. They will like choose whatever theme they want to explore in this story and like create some alien or some like planet or some like conflict that. will, you know, they can use as a proxy for that idea that they want to explore and then like crank it up to 11 and, you know, play it out. At least like that's where I think like Trek really excels. But a lot of the characters, especially like within Starfleet are very like very rooted on the like the good side of the like good versus evil spectrum. they don't oscillate very much.

They certainly like, if they do kind of move their position, they don't really, it's not kind of like a long progression in most cases from one side to the next. It kind of resets at the end of the episode or, you know, the arc, the storytelling arc. And that's one of the things that like stands out about Garrick is he is a character that is,

is, you know, very, like, nebulous and, like, he oscillates on the fence. Like, is he, is he good? Is he bad? Like, you know, there's so many, like, questions surrounding him. He's neither good nor bad. He's effective. Yeah. And I think that that's, like, that is a housewife, like a good, like housewife.

And I think all, all the characters that you see on on housewives, they're never really rooted in like in good or bad they are constantly like fluctuating between like good guy and bad guy and if you're watching for long enough if you are like like rooting for a particular housewife you will see them like become the villain and then go back to the hero and like I mean there's a couple that will just like be firmly like rooted in like villainy and just like stay there, but for the most part, they, like, they fluctuate through the, the gray area. And so that's why he kind of stood out to me as, like, a very, like, I wanted to select an episode that had Garrick in it because I think he's the most interesting character to kind of

explore within, you know, this comparison context. Yeah. Yeah, that was one of things that really jumped out for me, too, compared to, like, original track, which, you know, they often have, cool moral puzzles at the heart of an episode. But like the crew of the Enterprise in the original show is like a well-oiled machine. They're all kind of on the same page. You pretty much always see them like, you know, being in line, like following commands and stuff. They're like a, always shown as a good team that knows how to act properly. But in the ship in D-Space 9, it really struck me how there's like this atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia and like, and he's geek the captain keeps consulting with these people who he doesn't really like very much

and doesn't know how much you can trust them and they don't know how much they can trust the captain and that kind of that that weird atmosphere of not really knowing if people have secret agendas or if they do have secret agendas if you can still work with them anyways i thought that was pretty cool um that that moral murkiness which like you said Craig that's one of the things i love most about reality tv as much as the showrunners may want to have heroes and villains it all becomes a murky, human playing field where people aren't like just good guys and bad guys.

And it's all everybody is, a lot of these people seem really shitty, but you're also like, you really love them because you recognize their like normal human emotions and how, and how hard it is to try to put them in a box and put them on a straight track, like a beat on a wire and be like,

you're going to this point. But no, they start doing something else because they're people. And people are just going to act in the, in unexpected way. And I like the way that like moral readings kind of get blown up in a way. Not blown up. You can still very much put a moral lens on any house white show.

But trying to put a character in a box is going to be a fool's errand unless you're really trying to force it. Yeah. I think like that atmosphere that you're talking about, the like sort of the paranoia that you see within this episode of Deep Space Nine and you see it like a lot in Deep Space Nine. and you see it like a lot in Deep State sign, they really set like Voyager up to like be able to excel there, but then they just like they dropped it so quickly. Like the idea for Voyager is like you've got like, you've got a crew of like Bejurin freedom fighters

that have to merge with a Starfleet crew. And, you know, there should be like a lot more tension like you see it they you see them set it up right there is tension in the first season but they just totally threw it off within like the first half and sorry to correct you but it's Maki Freedom Fighters um that I just oh yeah compulsion um but yeah yeah they really did drop the ball on uh Voyager but I think all of that like the moral grayness and everything really kind of maybe Maybe why, like, DS9 is by far the favorite Star Trek of Marxist and apparently a lot of Marxists actually like, like, reality television too, is because there is like this moral grayness that recognizes the fact that people and things can always change based on their material conditions.

There is no such thing necessarily as a moral good or a moral bad. there's just what can help more people, basically. Yeah, and I think this episode in particular, like you do see characters change on on Deep Space 9, at least specifically like Cisco. We see this episode as like a culmination of like him, him learning from his experiences and evolving, which is something that you see in Housewives and reality TV in general a lot.

Like their past experiences play a real, have a real impact on how they deal with future situations because they're real people. And as constructed as the situations are, they are still responding as real people. And you see that in this episode of Cisco where he's like, you know what? I can live with like what I've done. And I contrast this with kind of the storyline that Picard has in the next generation where he gets assimilated. you see him, like, you see him, like, affected by it, but only in isolated, like, situations that play for the story. It's not as, like, deeply of, like, a reorientation as, like, as Cisco seems to experience.

Absolutely. Totally agree. Cool. Well, uh, let's, let's jump into Vanderpump Rules. All right. First off, did anyone on this cast remind you of any Star Trek characters? Oh, I actually. didn't really,

really write any of that down. As we're going through it, I might start making some comparisons. I mean, in general, everyone seems just a little bit romulan, because they all seem pretty backstabby, which is the big Romulan trip. Maybe there's a couple

Ferengis here and there. You know, some of the worst fillers do look a little like the Ferengi cheekbones, so You know, yeah. Yeah, not in general. Yeah, they were just an interesting cast of characters, though. I generally liked this show a lot better than Real Housewives.

Yeah. That's something that we've been hearing a lot. And this is a particularly, like, great season of Vanderbump rules. And New Jersey has been great, but I think, like, it really requires a lot of, like, context in order to appreciate. it. Too many characters almost or just like, it's just an overload, especially watching an episode for the first time. I don't feel like I get to

know anybody by the end of the episode. Whereas in Vanderpump rules, I, uh, you know, I, I got at least one villain and one person who I don't love, but I think she's kind of a baddie. So I'm down with her. Is it Raquel? It's actually, uh, Lala.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's, she's very, she seems honest, at least. Yeah, Lala is one of Dylan's, like, very noted favorites. I, like, appreciate Lala, like, quite a bit as well. Yeah. I've been defending her a lot this season, even though she's had some terrible episodes, which I pointed out, but you get two sides of her. She can be extremely self-serving and say terrible things,

but it can also be, like, a straight-dealing real friend who, like, really stands up for the other woman in her life. So, like all these characters, she's got a lot of completely. complexity, but, but I, I generally like her. The reason I brought up, Raquel, is because she was the person that I immediately identified a, uh, a proxy for in Star Trek. And, uh, Barclay. I thought like, this is, this is Barclay because, wait, wait, wait, slow it down for that, the non-Trekies.

Which ones, which ones Barclay? Reginald Barclay, uh, he was on TMG and Voyager. Um, yeah, but he wasn't in the episode we watched. No, no, no, no. He starts out on TNG as a very socially awkward guy, probably like autistic code in a way, like, has a very hard time, like, dealing with social interactions and stuff. And they have some stuff about that. But then by the time he gets to Voyager, he, um, he, like, becomes, like, a real, like, player in the series and, like, helps Voyager communicate with Earth before they get home, which helps him a lot. And, uh, it's, uh, yeah, it's a nice story arc for him.

But so, uh, so where do you think Raquel is in? in his story arc right now. So I think, like, Raquel is, she's on a journey kind of, like, finding out who Raquel is. Like, she's on this, like, journey of self-siscovery and, like, trying to work out that. And I think, like, it was a huge part of this episode, right? It was almost like the culmination of that storyline in a way, I think. Yeah. And one of the things about, like, Barclay is, like, when he's first introduced, like, he's, like,

very underestimated and like really at like um kind of a yeah like he said like he's really awkward and kind of reaches like a turning point in his life and um i think he still never really fits in by the end of voyager like even when he's like you know he has like a strong hand in like getting voyager home um he's still like battling his own demons and He is. I mean, he has, like, friends, though. He has, like, a friend in Deanna, and he has the respect of his peers at that point, too. Whereas before he was really struggling, especially on, on the Enterprise and TNG. Like, you never saw an episode with Barclay where he was, like, you know, really doing well for himself. Yeah. And you could still see him, like, potentially, like, taking a heel turn, you know, maybe after Voyager ends, he becomes a conservative radio personality or something. for those who don't know, the actor did. That's BM those.

Dwight, Blake Schultz. Um, but yeah, like this is something that we see with Raquel, like taking an off camera like heel turn as well. Like she's having this episode, or this like arc where she's like kind of finding herself.

There's still like questions about her, but she's like coming into her own with, with a friend group. And, um, I just see, saw so many parallels between her story and like Barclay both like within the you know the the the trek world as well as in the meta too I'm sorry can I can I ask a couple questions here maybe just

one so how does do they all know each other from like a restaurant or something what's like so I get the general impression that a couple of them work at this sur place or whatever yeah so when this started it was actually a spin off of real host lives of Beverly Hills they they like did a backdoor pilot so So there was a two-hour long episode of Real Hostoids of Beverly Hills, which was actually, you know, an hour of real hostways of Beverly Hills and then an hour of the first episode of Vanderpump. And Sir is the like restaurant of Lisa Vanderpump, who you see a little bit in this, this episode. She was a, by the way, just to like context for how fucking tacky these places are, it stands for a sexy, unique restaurant. Oh, my God.

They look like the worst restaurant. That is, oh my God, that is a sequined dress. a restaurant. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. But yeah, she was a real housewife of, real housewife of Beverly Hills at that point.

And that's kind of how it tied in. And Sheena, who you saw on this was kind of the character that got followed in, like from real housewives of Beverly Hills because she was actually sleeping with one of the other housewives of Beverly Hills husbands. And it just kind of bled into, into this. I actually didn't know that that story.

Yeah, 10 years later, here we are, I guess more than 10 because they took a year off. But yeah, so they all, they all like started as servers, S-U-R-V-S-R-Vers, or like bartenders at this restaurant. And for the most part, it's a lot of the, like, if not the first season cast, but like the first like three, four seasons worth of cast members that are still on. this show wild all right um that's actually the only question I had okay answers answers most of my my questions uh what sort of highlights did you have uh from from watching this I'm gonna be honest I have like uh about 1,500 words of notes here um it's pretty dense um so I mean it starts out the first thing that popped me off was the

guy they go to a farm and the guy says this is like a real life animal crossing which is just one of the most detached things I've heard in my life. This guy never thought about where eggs might come from. And he thinks they come from talking animals in a video game, apparently. I do think he was kind of saying that to Raquel, like condescendingly. Just kind of being like, Raquel, it's just like that game you like. Perhaps, perhaps. Yeah, there was no laughs, though.

So I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's see. Tom's friend, I don't know what his name is. He has the world's worst goatee. Absolutely. Oh, he's name is also Tom. Oh, he's also Tom.

Who has like an extremely minute goatee, you mean? Like barely there. Under his chin? Under his, it's hiding. Yeah, exactly. It's like in hiding. And I'm like, why would be in people? I would hide if I was that goatee.

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. It's, yeah. Let's see, what else? I'm anti-yirt. Yeah. I'm just anti-yirt.

They sleep in tents. Okay. I was trying to, figure out what like what this place was. This was very confusing. We've seen on, Greg. Yes. But it wasn't. It wasn't like glamorous at all. It was weird. It like, I don't know. We've seen a lot of these like weird places that like housewives go to or on Vanderpump rules like that are set up for like they're just like rich people isolated experiences that you can have if you got lots of money. But this one was like it was not glamorous at all. It's no like it was like thrown together by the production. staff. It looks like they had like, there's some guys who got some land like out in the desert, like lots of people do, right? And it's like, it looks like in the middle of their like whole nomad land set up,

they put an IKEA showroom like just right there. Yeah. And it's just there to be like an Instagram backdrop basically, I think. Yeah. Having said that, I think that looked pretty fun. It looked like they're having a good dive. But I thought it was a ridiculous fucking thing. Like it's just so silly.

This like this very like staged setup of like houseplants and like, and like pseudo-Nordic furniture like next to what I presume is like an off-screen trailer park. It's really hilarious. Let's see. I kind of liked Lala immediately, at least when she admitted to having sex with

was it Ariana or someone in the back of a car? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. We just love that. Anyone who's that Kurt, you know, just brings that up. I love them immediately. This was a really good.

episode for Lala I found and I think yeah she was she is getting the edit as being like the one who is like taking on the detective role in the the scand-of-all which is how this like yeah this is how the controversy has been labeled but yeah I I love that we got her kind of framing the like the walking back like the rewind and fast forward say of, you know, how this story started kind of, like, breaking within their friend group or how the, like, the speculation kind of started disseminating. And it, like, immediately rewinds to that, like, shot of Ken, like, shuffling in and, like, giving that. Okay, we got to talk about Ken. Yeah. Ken is the drunkest old British man. I think he's a drunk, old rich man. I think it's just Alzheimer's, man. I think it's just Alzheimer's, man. I think it's just Alzheimer's. No, no, he's like, he is, he is gin red.

That is the color of his skin at this point. True. This is actually like more life that we've seen out of Ken in years. Like his eyes are like, he just has some hot goss and he's like, hey, hey, hey. He just drops a bomb in the middle of the room. Yeah, yeah. Calls for a dog and shuffles out. Yeah, he's so good.

That's all he's there for. Yeah, exactly. He just, yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. And I like how like Lisa, like completely like, blows away the like the context where like him walking in and saying like directing it to Lisa being like I can't believe that Tom and Raquel spent the night together like as

if he's delivering news to her but then Katie's like how does he know that and Lisa's like oh well I told him earlier everyone knows like yeah yeah the whole like a thing where Lala breaks down the conspiracy was good like you said with like in the hall of the mountain king playing. That was an interesting choice. Yeah. Though that was going back to something you said in the previous episode, Craig, that really should have been Kristen's moment if she was still on the show.

That would have been. I know you said that like she would be the one like connecting pieces of red yarn on the photos. Yeah. And I'm sure she is doing that just like off camera. She's just in like a bar in St. Louis somewhere talking everybody's ear off and like showing them diagrams about it and stuff. But putting Lala in that position. and was felt like a little shoot-in.

Like it was felt like an obviously more recent voiceover that they recorded, but obviously wasn't from a confessional because they didn't show any shots of it. But it was a fun moment that I guess like in Kristen's absence, why not have Lala be the Colombo piece of it together? I like that we got it. Ken should have just had the over and have a cigar and just in a little dog in the other hand and just been going around being like, just one more thing.

I feel like it got like a more, it got like an updated kind of look to the package versus what we would have got for Kristen. Because yeah, like you said, with Kristen, we would have got her like, like, frantically like smoking a cigarette and like, yeah, pointing at the yarn on the wall. But then we got kind of this more updated, you know, we got the VHS fast forward, like an allusion to like kind of the 90s packaging and we got her like voice injected. Like there was a fast or a rewind segment that was just to like highlight how dope of a party

the Labor Day party was. I really liked the editing that they were doing. At first it was a little hard to follow with the like the rewind and like the security tape footage type stuff and then like the kind of flashback because they did a lot of like little different tricks. And I imagine like you get more and more used to it. But, you know, having not watch reality television, I am not used to like scenes and cuts going like this fast and what,

unless I'm watching like, you know, an action movie or something like that. So, yeah, it's super interesting. But eventually I think by the end of the episode, I got used to it. And I decided I liked it. So yeah. So interesting. What else do I have here? Let's see.

Oh, yeah, the Sir restaurant. So Lisa, she's the one wearing that pink dress, right? Because we need to talk about that pink dress. It is, it is. Like, I don't know what happened with that thing. But, um, and she like has the audacity to say Raquel comes in looking like a bag of shit. Like, she looks like a pink bag of very specific shit. So.

Yeah, Lisa has like very questionable taste. Like, I don't know. Anytime you see Lisa dressed up, like, You can, it's like one of those looks that you can kind of like smell the perfume. Yes, too floral. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Bergamont forward.

Like, she only buys like, Chanel and stuff that smells exactly like it. I think like there's, uh, on housewives, there's like a few places where you get like, um, you get treated to all your senses and like, like Lisa is a housewife you can smell. There's also like Julia on Real Housewives of Miami. Like her house, you can smell that house because there's just animals everywhere. Oh, no. Oh, no. But yeah, just like, yeah, Lisa is a very like sensory experience.

A little too much for me to be honest. Yeah. I like more muted tones and that one's loud. Oh, I liked when James and Tom got high as fuck together. I wish I could have seen that whole scene. It looked like it was in another episode. Yeah, we only got a couple of seconds of that, unfortunately. Yeah, it wasn't in another episode, unfortunately.

They were saying they were like in a professional weed lounge or something like that. I'm like, I want to see a professional weed lounge. We don't have those here. Those aren't legal where I'm from. Yeah, so then here I wrote, I don't know, probably like 200 words about Tom and Raquel and my theories on it. But you already cleared that up. Oh, I want to hear the theories. though.

I mean, so Tom and Raquel have obviously, like, been fucking for a while. Tom, so Tom, he's trying to get into the restaurant business, right? Something like that, trying to get his own restaurant. So, yeah, he's actually him and the other Tom are like part owners of a bar called Tom Tom Tom with Lisa Vanderpump. Uh-huh. Oh, okay, because I took a note of the Tom Tom shirt because I was like, why is he wearing a fucking shirt with his own name on it twice what is up with this asshole but that makes more sense

then he and him and like schwartz are trying to start another like bar restaurant because they're like they're just like they've got a fraction of ownership in tom tom they want to be like independent of lisa van derp like restaurant empire right which seems to be crumbling by the way but oh yeah they want to uh They want to kind of separate them themselves. Yeah, that makes sense because that, yeah, what she's doing is some weird boogey shit that. So, yeah. So like a thing I wrote here is like Tom, you know, going into the restaurant business for his own. Everyone fails in the restaurant business.

You know, it's the highest failure rate of any, you know, sole proprietor or partnership business that you can ever get into. And so if you're, especially at that age with experience. in the restaurant industry. If you're starting a new restaurant, you're basically doing it for one reason if you're a person like Tom, and that's to fuck the waitresses. And Raquel is a waitress.

And so he's got a certain type, which is younger waitresses, I'm sure. You can probably attest to that. I haven't watched this series, but I assume he's had more than a few. So, yeah, immediately. And also there was one confession here where he talked about him and Raquel,

And just the way his eyes were, I'm like, this dude's fucking wrong. It's so obvious. Yeah. And also the conversation towards the end of the episode that he has with Lala and Ariana where, you know, Lala is doing the like the cop bit where she's trying, like holding him to the story and interrogating him in front of Ariana. Like he's so, he's so bad at line. He's terrible at line.

He's so cooked. Yeah. My favorite moment of like just how cooked he is is that like Arianna is kind of like talking to it. But she's like, she's not raising her voice. She's not grilling him. But she's like asking the questions and he's just like, you know, tripping over his own feet. And I just love at one point where she just kind of like, you know, they've been partners for a really long time. At one point she just kind of reaches out and like wife something off his chin. And it's such like a gesture that like a mother would do to a lying little child. Like it's just like it's just so like like, you know, I'm not getting angry. I need to fix you. Yeah. But. Yeah. But. But like I'm in control here and I know that you're just being an idiot. Like yeah. I just love that little little moment. Yeah, I think all through this episode we see examples of like Tom Sandoval being a very like shitty liar or like dealing with lies very like shittily because even when they're when they're glamping and he is kind of recapping what happened that night with like Raquel staying over. He is like already told Brock. that he like that Raquel dipped out and that's the word that we hear like yeah yeah he loves

try to hide behind the potential ambiguity in the term dipped out yeah you know trying to like imply that she left but then just being like no I use dipped out to mean went to sleep at another room like just like loves using a term that's not specific yeah dipped out could be mean going to sleep there with him like yeah he keeps doubling down to that term he keeps doubling down to that term because he knows that he can kind of sort of hide behind the ambiguity, but it doesn't work. He's a 40-year-old man. How long has he been doing this? This is ridiculous.

It's like, yeah, like, he's a 40-year-old man and a 10-year reality TV vet. Jesus, like, he should be way better at that. He should just become,

he should have an open relationship because clearly he wants the freedom to do that, or he just, like, hasn't found the right partner. And clearly he's also bisexual, in my opinion, but, you know. I think that's something that like a lot of people have kind of like at least like projected on on on Tom and I'm wondering like where the I mean I'm going to say I think both Tam Sandoval and Arianna are bisexual to a certain degree like and yeah Ariana has has has has has other women like yeah yeah yeah and Tom Sandville isn't necessarily that um.

in the sense that he will like make comments about like checking out guys and stuff. I know a lot of straight guys do that too. Yeah, just as a gag. Yeah. But, but, you know,

I think he's kind of, uh, it's also like they're in a West Hollywood world where it like, it's like more in their, you know, area. I think it's, it's a little easier to lean into,

um, being like not totally straight all the time. You feel less like you're forced to be straight all the time. Maybe if you live in like in the West Hollywood or something. So they can like kind of explore that a little bit more. But, um, but,

He's never been like, I don't think he's ever said like I'm bisexual. I don't think he's ever like, you know, identified that way on camera. I'm going to say if he's still around for season 13, that's when it's going to finally drop. He's going to find the right guy. Trust me. Yeah, maybe Raquel will, uh, will bring, uh, bring someone in. Uh, and, uh, you know, they can explore that. Hell yeah.

We'd love to see it. Um, let's see, uh, Schwartz. Schwartz is a real piece of shit. even though I know what I know about Raquel now, him coming in and saying that she has a type, which is taken men, that's some real shitty shade to be thrown in public to someone, especially when there's like,

you know, active rumors. Like, come on, man. Yeah, I, I think the way that he,

like, put this out there was like really creative by his standards. like the like oh she bit her lips she she's now she's got like a taste for blood so watch out yeah and the way he brought it up too which i thought was extra shitty to be honest was he said i don't want to kill the vibe but which is like which is like i don't want to be racist but it's one of those things where it's like yeah he wanted to kill the vibe he knew exactly what he was doing um so russ schwartz a big piece of shit And then the next thing, though, that I loved is when Raquel wasn't invited to the party.

And so Schwartz says, you can be my date. And then she's like, yeah, a friend date. Yeah. And then you can see the life drain out of his face. I loved that moment. It's so good. And then the scene after that, he spends like the entire scene just staring at the fire, just like, staring into the middle distance, just like shaking his head.

It was never going to happen. It's beautiful. Beautiful. This is kind of like four. I love the use of like a fire for that reason because you see a fire raging and you have an automatic instinct to like reflect on every poor choice you've made. That's true. Which is why I don't go around fires because I've made a lot of poor choices.

Also as someone who's like typically like pretty introverted, it's like a great like reason to not have to engage. in like conversation. It's a dog at a party. It's a dog at a party. It's the TV playing in the corner of the bar. Let's see. What else?

Oh, I'm really interested in this Activia commercial. Transformer 6. Yes. Let's see. What else do I have here? Raquel, apparently she tried to become Miss California for like her entire life. but she aged out at 28?

Is that when you age out of being attractive? Yeah. Yeah. According to Donald Trump set the rules for these pageants. That's true. That's very true. Yeah. Yeah, I wrote a big, you know, screed here about, you know, beauty pageants. But, you know, I think we might be on the same page there.

Donald Trump had one. So that's not a good sign. But I think it is interesting to kind of like bring up pageants as a contrast. to reality TV, like more specifically housewives because I think like there is a underrepresented demographic of women on on television.

Like as soon as you age out of like pageants, you're also like aging out of like being on TV as like an actress for the most part. But like that's when you're in the range of like being a real housewife. And it's it's kind of like a venue. for like an underrepresented demographic. Because you, you either see like young women in, you know, the 27 and underage category or like really old ladies on TV. You don't see, you know, the demographic that you see on Real Housewives portrayed as like main characters anywhere, really.

So it is kind of an interesting, you know, a progression for her to age out of like, pageant, tree and then, you know, half her star kind of rise this season on Vanderpump rules and ultimately like crash into the earth, but still like rise. Yeah. Nice. Let's see. Lala makes a great camel toe joke. Love that.

She's definitely like the funniest person on this episode, if not just so. She uses the term bumping peepees to her mother. She did. That was great. I love that too. Like that person I bump peepees with and I'm like, what? Girl, what? Okay.

But that was really fun. I think her business is, I think, dumb. I'm not, it seems like kind of a goop, like a whole lifestyle business. Am I right there? Like it's just like, it just has a book. Well, she's got a makeup. She's got a makeup thing. Robs and makeup and stuff because she was taking pictures for robes on this episode, right?

Yeah. I think it was just for her, for the makeup, but she, yeah, they were in matching, like, I thought it was, I thought they were selling robes. And in that case, I was like, they're just, like, drop shipping robes. That's not, yeah, really real business. I think, like, her business has a bit more, like, validity than Christina Kelly's business, which was the other business that we saw. Oh, it was, like, like, shirts and stuff.

It was, yeah, I don't know. I got, like, strong pyramid scheme vibes from this. It did seem Avon-ish, like a green Avon kind of thing. Yeah, and I don't know. I've never been to like one of those like parties or whatever, but just the way she had like set up all the product at the front in this one like closed off section. It was like kind of hovering around just gave me those vibes. I, yeah, I'm fortunate enough to not have to like deal with old high school friends like hitting me up for. joining their to be their downline or whatever.

But that's like what I pictured in my head, just like a scaled up version of it. Nice. Oh, we didn't talk about James yet, really, except him getting high. James seems like an interesting character. His chin is perfectly dimpled. Very interesting to look at.

I couldn't stop staring at that dimple. I don't know how I feel about James. I don't know how he feels about James. to score this yet, Craig. Yeah, we're waiting for the verdict on this anxiously. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

It's he, he's, I don't know if he's trustworthy or not. We didn't really get to see a ton of him in this episode. He says he's losing his friends, namely Schwartz and Sandival, which are the two shittiest people on the show, I think.

Yeah. And so I'm like, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe James is like headed in a right direction. Yeah, we're seeing growth from James. Yeah. All right.

I'll score for you. Craig. No, I yeah, I don't think that this is like particularly like prominent episode for for James.

We did get a really good like line from him in the confessional like yeah, I regret Richella. It was a like super dope proposal and I wasted it on you.

Yeah. So about that. So Richel was that a place that he proposed in to Rochelle or? So, yeah, kind of. Okay, yeah, yeah, because I get the general impression that he proposed to her. She said, no, they broke up. But also he's another 40-year-old guy.

Yeah, it was on the like Coachella grounds, which is like, was a sacred place for their relationship. That sucks. But the thing is, it wasn't during the beginning. He got those little, like, balloons, you know, like those get well soon balloons that have letters and like spelled out. out like Rachella in the sand. It's so good. It was so grudge. It was hilarious.

Yeah. And he spent $15,000 on this proposal. Wait. She said yes. She said yes. But then they look up after. Oh. Yeah. Well, because his big complaint, well, whatever.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, he seems bitter about that. But, you know, he was like an almost 40-year-old guy proposing to a 27-year-old. I don't know what he expected. Yeah, he's a little younger than some of the other guys, I think, James is, right? Or I'm not too sure what is he. Yeah, I think he's about like early 30s.

Oh, never mind that. Okay, I thought for some reason, I thought he was one of the 40-year-old guys, but now. Yeah. Let's see. That's pretty much all I have for this episode. Dylan, how about you? Yeah, I really liked it. I like the whole, like clapping bit.

I thought it was really good. I like the culmination of like the Raquel kind of like trying to self-actualized storyline, which has been like a big throughline on this season. Just somebody who didn't seem to have much personality, just kind of learning to express herself and the tension between that and what we know about. What's becoming more and more clear that she's been doing behind camera is like really, really juicy to be, like really interesting. like character dynamic.

And I did think it was kind of sweet how she was getting a lot of support from the people there, which is something that she hasn't really had a lot of yet. Like we've seen earlier episodes where she tried to do like a girl's trip with Lala and Katie and Christina. And it just went like really badly. Like they offered her like no emotional support whatsoever. Yeah. The worst people for her to go on a girl's trip with.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was like her early attempts to try to like establish. herself more in the friend group and try to figure out who she is post pageantry. I've been going really poorly. And then here we've got one where it's going very well for her,

where she is getting a lot of support. Obviously, a lot of extremely enthusiastic support from Sandoval, who again is like doing a bad job of hiding it, like just like, terrible. Just like jumping up and pumping his fists and kicking the air every time that she says. Like, I'm feeling good. Looking for drywall to punch. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Though almost kind of sweet the way that he's like so stoked her even though it's like he's he's being fucking asshole. And then Ariana being like very, very nice to her too. Oh yeah. Which is, of course, kind of a charged moment because she's sleeping with her boyfriend.

But it is still, regardless of that is like kind of sweet and nice. And I think that a lot of people will see this and say that it's like very, it's fake because like there's like a betrayal going on behind the scenes and that, you know, people are lying and stuff. But I don't think that necessarily negates the fact that there is like some like sweet emotional support happening at the same time. I think like Raquel is in a very vulnerable position.

And this is like this is probably the kind of thing that she really does need. And I think, even though there's like a terrible rot at the core of this friend group that does it preclude them being helpful and supportive to each other too? And I think that's one of the interesting tensions that's going on in the scene. And we get the galaxy light back again, which is great. Yeah. The image of the galaxy light when they go in the tent and she's beaming out her galaxy light,

which has been kind of a totem of her, like, useful cringe outlook. And the twist that we get in this time is that, well, they're all kind of having a bit of a love and for Raquel showing support for her. We get a camera pan up to the actual night sky, which at least through the camera's lens looks to be pretty much starless, just like a kind of a black void of a night sky. And I like that kind of contrast. You know, they're actually outdoors, sort of.

I mean, you can't see the stars like anywhere in SoCal. It's like just too much light pollution. Yeah. So it's, they've got their own like brightly lit galaxy inside. Like maybe it's kind of fake and it's like a very like insular and like incestuous friend group, which has like a lot of terrible things going out of too. But that doesn't mean that it can't have like its own beauty too. Like contrasted to that cold, dark void out there on the outside of the tent.

So I thought there was a kind of like complexity to that moment that was kind of sweet to be a little moving. Yeah. As well as being sad in a way too. I think that this like this galaxy light through line that we're seeing is you know when you you were first when you first brought up like this imagery and the symbolism that we were seeing I was like oh that's like that's a funny coincidence but now it is very clear that this is like an intentional thing that the editors are doing to like do visual like storytelling using this by. Galaxy light as symbolism. And, you know, it's really amazing to see. And I love that, you know, reality TV gives a canvas to, you know, producers and editors to, you know, express a story in this way and find imagery to latch

onto and use to tell a story in this way. So, yeah, that was a moment that also stood out to me that we got the galaxy light in the yurt. and I was very stoked to see it and like I'm excited to talk about it. And then I like logged on to Twitter today and I saw a tweet and it's like conspiracy theory. Tom Schwartz and Raquel both have this galaxy light. What if Tom Sandoval is using it to control their mind? Oh yes.

That's the shit I want. All right. Said me that tweet. I want to follow that person. Beautiful. That's the great shit. Yeah. Completely unhinged.

Yeah. Did you have any other highlights? No, I think we really covered my favorite bits. I did think it was a really good, nice episode that had a lot of depth to it. But yeah, I think we mostly went over the good stuff. I feel like it was like, yeah, it actually had a narrative that I could follow pretty clearly. And like, I think almost a point. Whereas in contrast, real housewives.

I was kind of very lost, to be honest. Yeah, I could see that. This episode in particular, which I assume we're getting into a second, the episode of Real House Boys of New Jersey was kind of felt like one of those like interstitial episodes for me, which is like not very narrative. Right, right. And I feel like a lot of it was incredibly contextual and, you know, having not watched it before and only like kind of listened, you know, to your previous episode, I was still like,

Yeah, I definitely can get where you're coming from. The one thing we haven't really talked about in Vanderpump Rules that I wanted to get into a little bit was Christina Kelly's heartsprang event. This was a scene that actually like stood out to me a lot because I think like Christina Kelly's like thirst for the camera to be around. Like it brought everyone in the cast together in like, you know, Everyone on Vanderpump rules as like a reality TV character has gotten like powerful enough to a point where they don't need to invite like everyone to an event that they're having. But Christina Kelly like she's not a main cast member and she's just like kind of like sporadically like showing up.

So she's the one too who's like grandfather or something just died as well. She seems to be that's that's Ariana. Oh that was area. Okay, never mind. Yeah. Sorry. I think I got it too. too conclusive.

Christina Kelly was the one that is like selling the like face sprays and like, was it the bomb? The thing at the end? Or? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I guess Arian was just, okay.

I got, I guess I got them conflated because, well, I mean, a lot of these people look the same to me, to be honest. So yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. I think like, I don't know, just the fact that like she needs everyone at the event so that like well as like a real person in the like the meta she wants to like promote her brand so

when there is that discussion about like oh Raquel wasn't invited to this thing and then you know they talk about or they joke about like Schwartz bringing Raquel as a date and then ultimately sheena ends up like texting Christina like hey is it okay if Raquel can come? And she says yes. And I think like Christina has like the least motivation to like be nice and include Raquel within the like the social context of Vanderpup rules. But like in the meta as someone that wants to get cameras there and like have her brand like showcased.

Like yeah, obviously she wants Raquel there because that means like it's. You know, everyone's going to be there. The best chance of there being a scene that'll be prominently featured in the final. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I will definitely say, like, running my own business, soy track, making merch and stuff, like, the less of an asshole I am online, the more I sell straight up.

Yeah. Yeah. You're just like, I don't know, people are more attracted to, like, if I start a tweet with, like, I love when and then talk about something in DS9 that I actually hate, like, people will like it more than, like, I hate when. the exact same thing. It doesn't make any sense. But like,

I know, people are just like, oh, I like the word love better in the, you know, and then it's sarcastic. I get sarcasm. Great.

It's wild. But I, I really love that this event. Like literally everyone is there, including like Katie's mom is, is at this party. Um, yeah,

I, I just thought it was interesting that, you know, she really set it up so that there would be some sort of confrontation here. And, you know, I don't think it speaks to Christina Kelly as like being necessarily a skilled reality TV personality, just like that she's got enough brains to like finally realize after 10 years being adjacent to this show that, you know, oh, if I'm going to leverage this

in some way and I've got a bit of a heightened profile this season compared to other seasons, I should invite everyone. And it did it did pay off because we got that scene. with Lala and Ariana. And, you know, that scene is being, like, shared around Instagram and TikTok and all of the other spaces where conversation about this show happens. So I thought that, you know, it was kind of,

kind of an interesting scene. If only to see some evolution of Christina Kelly, who has been a character that is, you know, been mostly just a blip on the radar. Yeah, now that, like, Raquel's actually been developed and we've actually been to be able to see some personality from her. I think Christina Kelly has inherited the mantle of being that side character who seems like as deep as a lunch tray and doesn't seem to have anything going on, which is not fair. Everybody has stuff going on. But, like, though the one who just seems like not telegenetic and like not interesting and just like you say there to like promote her brand.

I'm guessing like Raquel, like both of these people, Christina Kelly and Raquel, are kind of newer cast members to the series. So Christina Kelly might have even had an appearance in like season one, but she's never been like a full like main cast member. Whereas Raquel, she joined like season six is my guess, maybe season five as, uh, James Kennedy's girlfriend, and she's been kind of like this rigid side character, and this is her first, like, season really being, like, a full-blown, like, star of the episode. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Another thing that I wrote down that I loved about this scene was that it looks like Raquel didn't take an Uber to the Heart Spring event, but she took the red pill from Morpheus because she came right out of the Matrix.

I loved this outfit. I loved it was like 90s. She was wearing like the got like the got like the wailies like very. She's got like the whale tail like thongshund. Yeah. Yeah. Like I am hitting on her at the golf club 100%.

Yeah. It was. Yeah. It was very good. Yeah. The oversized like black jeans. Yeah. Great stuff.

Yeah. Let's move on to real hostwives of New Jersey. Britt, do you want to give your thoughts? Are your initial impressions on this? Yeah, initial impressions. I was generally like kind of very confused. The editing is very fast.

So I had to do like a lot of pausing like I do in Star Trek because I mean, that's contextually very dense as well. And there was just like so many context cues, so many characters here that like I mean, I could follow. I feel like on Vanderpump Rules there was probably a core, at least in the episode we watched of maybe six to eight characters that it really focused on.

And this, there are, I mean, what, like eight housewives? And then we also focus on their families. And, uh,

it was, it was a bit of an information overload for like 43 minutes. Cause essentially we can only spend five-ish minutes with each family, right? So. Yeah. Yeah. It was,

it was, it was definitely like a, um, uh, there wasn't a lot. a lot of narrative. There wasn't like an arc that we see progress through this episode that would be as as meaningful as the one that we saw in Vanderpumper.

Right. And I actually feel like this episode didn't really further any sort of story. Obviously, like, whatever happened before with a trip to Ireland, which I assume was maybe the last episode or the one before that, like. Yeah, it's the previous three episodes. Yeah. It obviously progressed a lot. of the story because basically this

the base the emotional core of this episode is largely like I didn't like what happened in the Irish trip and stuff like that so like this episode was kind of the denouement of the Ireland trip arc it's kind of just dealing with the aftermath of what happened in Dublin yeah yeah so I can understand

why jumping in on this episode might feel a little like a discombobulating yeah yeah but I mean there was there was stuff in scenes that I liked and you know certain little quirks and things that I enjoyed but like narratively I felt like this was a much, much weaker episode than the, uh, uh, Vanderpump rules and much, much weaker than, uh, in the pale moonlight.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think like, um, one thing that I wish we would have seen because like, I guess we got some of it last season, our last episode, but we didn't get it very much in this episode was just like seeing the, the husbands again. which are like a really, like, strong part of the, you know, the modern Real Housewives of New Jersey experience.

It's their, like, kind of like main characters. But we did get one scene between. It's a good Frank. Yeah, we got the. Oh, I love. We'll talk about Frank. I love Frank. Yeah, let's talk about Frank.

Yeah. Let's talk about Frank. Uh, God, one sec. Let me find my, my Frank paragraphs here. Uh, multiple. Um, let's see. Okay, so Frank thinks Paul is intimidated by his friendship and he's unhappy about it. So, so first off, oh, yeah, so Dolores is meeting Frank.

So Frank is Dolores' ex-husband, is that correct? Yes. Yeah. So, and Paul, who is Dolores' new boyfriend, is jealous of Frank in her's relationship. Yeah, that's kind of the speculation. I think that's like a correct read of situation. But he's saying, oh, I'm cool with it. Paul seems to be like kind of gaslighting the whole situation.

Like, oh, no, no, I'm cool. I'm just saying it's weird that you're friends with your ex-boyfriend kind of thing. Yeah. And so for context on this that you wouldn't have, Frank and Dolores have a very, like, a very friendly relationship that we've seen for years and years and years. It seemed really reasonable at the restaurant at least. Yeah. Yeah.

Like they were like best friends. and Dolores's like previous boyfriend David Frank was like super close with them and after like Dolores and David broke up Frank even lived with David for a while too like after surgery and like David would wipe his ass like that sort of like that sort of closeness

so for it to have this kind of like this wedge come in with like you know Polly kind of separating out Dolores and Frank are trying to stubbornly refuses to wipe his ass. Yeah. It's not cool. Be a bro.

Wipe a friend's ass. But yeah, it does like make an impact on their like, the relationship between Frank and Dolores and like the family dynamic. And like I understand why Frank is upset about that. And I also understand why people might not be sympathetic towards Frank for being upset about that. Because, you know, he was ultimately the one that.

blew up their family by cheating, like, way, way, way back in the day. So, um, but yeah, I thought that this was like an interesting moment that had been brewing. Yeah. Um, uh, also, Frank, um, obviously bisexual and sorry to keep making your Bravo podcast gay, but, um, like, I mean, he's, he's like overly tanned. He's got like the most manicured beard I've ever seen. And, uh, he's obviously roided to the gills and he only. only does upper body stuff.

Yeah. Like, this is, this is every single guy at my local leather bar. Well, and then he rolls up dressed like a game for a brother bar. Yeah. Which Dolores immediately mocks him for by doing YMCA gestures.

Yes, he is very, very, uh, Glenn Hughes from, um, from, uh,

the village people. Yeah. They only make the village people jokes when you show up dressed like a San Francisco leatherman. They never do it when you're wearing a cop uniform. Yeah. We, you know what?

That's the, that's the, that's the, we should. We should. Yeah. Cruising. That movie is something else.

I actually watched that like last year. I love cruising. It's freaking rules. Yeah. It is like overly gay. And I say that is like, you know, I'm gayer than a gay dollar bill. So it's really wonderful. Yeah.

I think like it's interesting like, I don't know. I think a lot of the men in, in Bravo in general. but like specifically in New Jersey would like be uncomfortable with that being projected on them like the vibe in like people who still call themselves metrosexual yeah yeah they probably still say that in that group they are in that like very um the husbands of like real house housewives in New Jersey give off like big time like cop vibes like they'll wear like tribal t-shirts yeah yeah yeah But I feel like Frank is someone that really bucks the image that he like, or at least that sort of that, that really like toxic male image that he puts off. He's like very emotionally like in touch and very like secure in who he is. Yeah. I actually wrote here that Frank seems like a non-toxic type of guy. I'm not wrong.

I hope he hasn't done some terrible stuff in the show before. Yeah, no, but that's my read on him from like since I first started watching him as well. Like, um, you know, for a lot of the like, um, men within New Jersey,

like I'd say they, um, they do, even they do have moments where they, um, they kind of, deviate from what you'd expect given the vibes that they

are putting off, they still have very, like, toxic traits. Especially, like, if you think about how Joe Gorga talks about his daughter, it's very kind of like, like, a toxic way of being like,

oh, she better not bring a boy home. Like, it gives off, like, no one's going to fuck her but me. Like, vibes. That's, protective father. Yep. Yeah. mine. Yeah. Frank seems cool, though. I like Frank. Yeah, I've always liked Frank. I've often

spoken his favor. It doesn't mean that he's always like done great things, but I, but I think that he's like a funny dude who is a little more open and in touch with his feelings, like you said, Craig, and that other guys are. And I liked the scene because I felt like he was kind of struggling to articulate what he wants from Dolores because he's not even quite sure what it is. Like, he feels like he's lost something. He lost his mother and he's, and he, he's afraid that, uh, that his longstanding, uh, closest with Dolores is kind of slipping through his fingers. And I think he's kind of grasping to try to figure out what exactly he wants from her, like concretely. I don't think he can really articulate it that well. I think he's just kind of trying to explain this feeling of

loss that he has. Um, in terms of like imagery, I do like that while he's talking about this, we get a little cut to him using a spoon to try to grasp this. this giant fried thing on the rod and just like the wrong. You're not going to grasp it. And yeah, that's a, that plus him like showing up just kind of breathless off his motorbike, you know, in a beater like looking like very vulnerable was like real, real Frank shit. Like this was a, this was a good moment if you're like, if you feel kind of sensitive to Frank to like relate to his situation. Not that Dolores has done anything wrong.

So I don't think she has. No, absolutely not. But that's the thing. It's not like it's not. versus Dolores. It's just like Frank trying to articulate his feelings about their evolving relationship. And I think credit needs to go to like both of them for like being able to have the healthy kind of dialogue that they do have where like Dolores is like feels comfortable enough with Frank that she can be like you know what? No, Frank. This is like, you know, this is how

I'm feeling. These are the boundaries that I would like to set and like where do we go from there? Like, I think even if you're, in a long-term relationship with someone, like getting to that level of, you know, having that kind of healthy dialogue and communication. That's challenging. It's challenging to build that, that forum. And that's something that you work very hard to, like, to have. And the fact that they are able to maintain that after being, like, divorced is, like, very

remarkable. So I think that, like, really speaks to, you know, you know, both of them. Not all the credit doesn't. go to Frank. All the credit doesn't go to Dolores. I think like this is just a relationship that I really love seeing on on this show. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. They seem to have a, uh, a good grasp on what it takes to have an adult relationship. Maybe not so much her boyfriend. He seems like the jealous type from the brief stuff it showed. Yeah. Now there's cop fives. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Paul. Yeah. Big time. Big time cop vibes 100%. Uh, do you have any other highlights from this?

Oh, we're doing highlight. Oh, I thought I was doing general impressions. Yeah. Oh, yeah, no. All right. It's just a different way to say it. Oh, fair enough, fair enough. Let's see.

So starting out the episode like, can you perhaps provide me some context with the Ireland thing? Because so Danielle said she was unhappy coming back from Ireland because all the girls were mean to her and quote, mean girls times a million. I don't know the math on that, but sounds bad. Check that. Yeah. She called Margaret a rat. What does she call Margaret a rat for doing? She actually called Rachel.

Oh, wait. Rachel. Rachel. Rachel. Yeah. No, it's understandably you get mixed up because Rachel has tried to cozy herself up to Margaret so much that she's just become like an extension of her body almost at this point. Gotcha.

Interesting. So why, why was she a rat to her? So there was like a conversation that happened like earlier in the season just about like, Margaret having an arsenal of information on the other girls in the group. Which he does. She's like the J. Edgar Hoover of this group. She is absolutely keeping dosies on everyone.

Oh, man. That's some that's some Garrick shit right there. That is some Garrick shit right there. Circle back there. Yeah. Yeah. And so Rachel immediately went and just spilled the beans to Margaret. And so Danielle called her a rat because she ratted her out.

That's fair. Apparently in like Italian culture, which is like a common refrain on New Jersey. I'm not like trying to specifically like stereotype. I actually just watched the Sopranos, so I felt very prepared for this, but I still was not. Yeah. So that's a big deal. That means like you couldn't call anyone a worse insult according to the Real Housewives of New Jersey. That makes sense.

Yeah. And I feel like the majority of these women. are Italian or, you know, at least partially. Yeah, there was the one Turkish lady, I think, who was doing the henna tattoos thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, other than that, it, um, the women were very, like, indistinguishable from the women on the Sopranos. Yeah. It was, yeah, it was interesting how, like, you know, much fiction played into real life there.

Yeah, culturally. It shows how much the Spranos got right to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, with, like, you know, like the animal print pants and shit like that. I'm like, people do wear that. Okay, well, I guess I'm wrong. Let's see. What else do I have here?

So, Rachel and her husband, John, are trying to, or Rachel's trying to adopt John's kid, her stepson, right? Who's been living with them for a while. I really liked this whole thing. This whole sequence made both of these people seem really nice. I don't know much about John, but anyone who's that quiet is either, like incredibly dumb or he's just got like accounting sheets going in his head. So he's one or the other.

He's not of average intelligence though. I know that much. He seems nice from what we had here. Just kind of a little detached. Yeah, we don't we don't see a lot. We haven't seen a lot of him. So Rachel is a new host wife this season. But yeah, I was interested in this adoption scene as well.

like mostly in the fact that she was surprised at the fact that they would have to like make an attempt to inform the biomom that there is an adoption. Like that seems like pretty expected. It is. But at the same time, there's like abandonment clauses in some states and stuff like that. So, you know, California definitely has some of the craziest laws on the book. So, oh, no, I'm sorry, this is New Jersey, isn't it? We're in New Jersey. Yeah, this is New Jersey.

I don't know about that at all. also like interesting timing that they like this isn't something that she you know has been on the show for years and has decided to adopt as part of her personal story but you know first season coming on the show I'm going to make like a point of doing this as a story the skeptic in me is like okay you're trying to like earn some grace from the viewers you're trying to like you know be framed as a good person and using your kid as like a chess piece because you don't have another storyline which feels like it could potentially be icky not to say that you know she hasn't always intended on doing this or like that she does like anything about that relationship specifically just the timing i would wait till season two to do that that's a good point if i'm being honest yeah it's almost surprising they didn't put these wheels into motion before the show or anything Yeah.

That does. Say this for your second season or like get the ball in motion before you start rolling. Yeah. Hmm. Suss. Let's see. Next we have the Jennifer scene and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Is it the lingerie?

Yeah, it's the lingerie. So apparently her daughter can't stop telling her. how she needs to wear a lingerie for for daddy. It's totally cool to teach your kids about sex and give them sex education, but like it's also cool to teach them to never say shit like that ever. Yeah. Because that's weird. Yeah.

It just like made me deeply, deeply uncomfortable, especially since like, so Jennifer brings it up and then the husband comes in and the kid brings it up again. And she's like, why are you talking about that? I'm like, you just brought it up. So either the editing was wonky or she is just like, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think like Jennifer is trying to build up her own, not necessarily in arsenal, but like just get some ammunition to come at Margaret because there has been this longstanding, like this war.

and she blames Margaret for her, like, nine-year-old wanting to be a love counselor because Margaret exposed... What's wrong with that? That's the weird thing is that she picks up on the fact that Olivia, her daughter, said she wants to be a love counselor as the proof that she's been exposed to things she shouldn't be. Instead of picking up on the fact that she's saying, like, you should wear lingerie to stop Daddy from cheating as the proof that she's been exposed to toxic bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Why are you focusing on the wanting to be a counselor thing?

That's not the thing that's wrong. No, yeah. Why does she want to be a counselor? Maybe look at her material conditions. Like, what does she actually observe in her life that would make her think she needs to fix people's relationships? No one wants to be a marriage counselor at nine years old unless they see a shitty marriage. I do.

Yeah, I do understand how that would be alarming, like, her being like, oh, I need to do this so that I can like fix mommy and daddy. Like, yeah, obviously that would be very alarming to hear from your child. So, like, I can see how that is, you know, something that raises flags and her wanting to kind of gather this so that she can, you know, come at Margaret with some receipts about the damage that she has done, not just to her relationship, but to her children, which are typically thought as off limits. It should be. Yeah.

That's fucked. So I can kind of see where this was motivated. But yeah, that's a great point that she, you know, that she picks up on this, you know, aspiration to be a counselor as being something that is, you know, awful. But, you know, it makes a joke of the like, oh, you need to wear lingerie for daddy. Yeah. But then, you know, I was thinking at that point, this marriage has to be terrible. And then the next scene proves it when Jennifer talks to her husband, Bill. And she's like, have you been spending time with the kids?

And he's like, yeah, pretty much not. I've been working. Apparently, he's a plastic surgeon, I think, or something like that. Yeah. I like, well, he's like, you know, I get home from caring for people all day. I'm like, oh, it's elective surgery. You can literally say no. No one's, they'll go somewhere else.

I'm not saying it's not a tough job, but don't act like you're at hospice care. Like, don't act like you're caring for dying people. Like, come on. And he's like, yeah, I've been working all these nights and weekends. and I'm like, I mean, unless he's an emergency plastic surgeon, which is a very real thing. But, you know, I don't think that's a no, no, because he has like a monogrammed like scrubs. And I'm like, yeah. And he wears that all the time.

Yeah. So, but, yeah, he seems very distant. And I mean, I feel like they should, they have a social contract that neither of them really understands at all. Like their marriage means very different things to the. the both of them, I think. Like, Bill obviously just wants a trophy wife, who's a housewife, takes care of the kids, so he can go do whatever the fuck he does. And then she, like, seems to actually want a husband, but also want the lifestyle that

him working all the time provides. So I feel like the two of them really, really need therapy. And then she's like, maybe we should go to therapy. And he's like, about this? No. And I'm like, wow, this sucks. That's like, in a way, I think a form of gaslighting. Yeah. They did go to therapy early in the season. But it's like it just was just Jen

ranting and ranting. And Bill just sitting there refusing to interact whatsoever. Right. And also yeah. Like no movement made. Therapy on camera is not real therapy. Let's be honest. Oh yeah. For sure. Yeah. Like if you put me on camera in my therapist's office, I would not get real help because I would not say real things, you know. Oh yeah. It's definitely. like on on housewives it is used as like a storytelling device or a way to like forward the plot so for sure i can see how he didn't find that like a meaningful way to like engage in bettering his his relationship for sure yeah um next we got teresa uh teresa looks like a million bucks she is obviously like had work done but it's like very good work at least on her body um her face is starting

to show a lot of signs, but like her ass for a woman, her age, amazing. Let's see what else. Dad calls and he's like the most Italian man in the show by far. His name is Joe. I'm surprised he's not a Joey.

I think they're divorced, it sounds like, because she says he can't come or something. No, not C-U-M. I'm sorry. He can't like attend something. like her he is a fugitive oh he's a fugitive really not a fugitive I think he's living in the Bahamas right now

because he was wearing like a yellow vest this is her ex-husband okay it's her kids yeah I'm sorry kids yeah yeah because they're getting a dress fitting or something at this point yeah so he's living in the Bahamas because he's been deported because

he's an Italian citizen oh yeah almost this whole life in America that's why he's so fucking Italian beautiful beautiful called it Both Teresa and Joe spent time in prison for tax fraud. And then he got deported because he, like, had never applied for his American citizenship, even though he'd been in the country since, like, he was, like, two years old. Wow.

Wild. He should have been a naturalized citizen, but I guess with the law and everything, they probably wanted to fuck him over somehow. Yeah. I get the feeling it was being made an example of. Yeah. Another note I had here For some reason, the 12-year-old daughter here looks like she's like the oldest daughter of them all.

It's very unsettling. Yeah, when she says like, I'm 12, I'm like, what? Yeah, I'm like, no, you're like the old daughter. Like, well, that's not right. So after that, we go to Margaret, who's getting lunch with her mom and Lexi and Lexi's mom. Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

these two women look like carbon copies of their mothers and they act like carbon copies of their mothers. It's very, very strange. So she says she's been bringing in her mom to help out with Lexi's kid, Nino because Lexi is separated and Nino was the kid, I think, from the very beginning of the episode or something. Yeah, Margaret's Joe like gives direction on like peeing in the toilet too.

Excellent. We love that. Aim down, not up. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's right.

That was one of the things, first things in the episode, I'm like, what? Okay. This kids like, I realized I'd do it all right. It was a big revelation.

So, uh, the ladies get their food and they just talk about how Teresa is nasty, uh, to Melissa and Joe specifically. Uh, why is Teresa nasty to Melissa and Joe? Is there a reason for that?

She's not. Oh, she's not. Maybe this is the tree hugger in me, but like she's, she's not. This is like Joe and Melissa like playing the victim and Margaret like siding with them for the purposes, like for strategic purposes because like that's the best place for her to align because she's traditionally been like at odds. And Lexi like glomming on to this because Lexi is just been introduced and is not even like a friend of cast member here. I don't think Teresa has done anything wrong within this context of the situation. And like, yeah, I think barely, barely anything.

I'm going to, we're going to get like blown up on Instagram for if anyone listens to this and hears me say this because Melissa fans are going to come at me. But no, Trees has done nothing wrong. Hashty Trees. Did nothing wrong. I mean, we could go into the weeds. of like all the supposed slights going back years or whatever involving multiple members of the family

but there's no need to because it just boils down to gamesmanship and like you said Greg I think yeah Melissa and Joe want to be the victims of the situations they've decided they're going to be and that's what it boils down to for me I feel like a lot of these controversies on here aren't so much like real is they are just like very manufactured

in like you know in a very like borderline personality disorder kind of way where it's just like you just build a case of evidence of like perceived little slights here and there until like this person's definitely against me and they're my enemy. Yeah. It's a, it's a,

it's, it's, it's, it's, strategic use. And like, um, when I was joking about like people on Instagram, like coming after me,

I'm not like fully joking because there probably will be people. This is like, Teresa and Melissa are like, you know, they are two characters that, that like there are battle lines drawn from like years and years. And like it is the most like toxic thing about the Housewives fan base is like Melissa fans versus Teresa fans like constantly like clashing. And so that's actually one of the things that I find really interesting about Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I've mentioned on previous episodes. But like Teresa is the. sister of Joe, who is Melissa's husband. So, um, yeah. So there's like real like family drama that like a whole fandom has like glomed on to and chosen side, which I think is like super, super interesting about New Jersey. Because like, you know, you see fan bases like get divided in battle across various franchises. But this is one that is like it really feels like your take.

making sides in like in family drama that is yeah because like to bring it back to star track like even if um you know someone DS9 is obviously my favorite but even if someone's like i like Voyager i like tNG in the end we're all just dorks so it doesn't matter i like them yeah yeah like i feel like this would be almost like if there was kind of a nearly equal-sized fan base that was so dedicated to the idea that, you know, Abrams track is better than, you know, the canon track or like, I don't know, I guess a more real-world example that you see is like people that are very dismissive of the newest iteration of Star Trek. like I think that it's not not real track.

So it's kind of got that level of toxicity to it where people are just like immovable in their like beliefs that they are correct about this and that they have, you know, the perfect read on the situation. Hmm. Wild. Next we got Melissa, um, whose daughter is on the honor roll. She's about 17 and, uh, her meathead dad loves her a lot. guy has terrible vibes, but he's really nice to his family. But this guy just like has terrible Jim Rat vibes. I can't really explain it other than that, but I don't know.

Just there's something about him. I do not trust this man. Suddenly there's a lot of beeping and he's like, who's that? The dad says, who's that? And then they go outside and they guess what? They bought their kid a Porsche Cayenne, which is like a punch. thousand dollar vehicle. Cool.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm not begrudging success by any means, but like, I'm all about taking care of your family, but that like, that represents the wealth of like six full years of minimum wage labor, which I think is excessive for someone who is not even old enough to have worked for six years. Yeah. I mean, but I guess some people are trying to change the labor laws to where she could have worked for six years right now.

Yeah. So, yeah, and also it's a Porsche. And if anyone's ever driven a Porsche, it's so much in maintenance, even if you know cars really well. And I'm assuming a 17-year-old Brilled girl does not know German cars well. So this is just like a bad idea, in my opinion. But, you know, it's their money. They can waste it out of they want. Mom says she used to drive a Toyota, is as though that's a.

bad car. And then the grandma says she used to drive an old Chevy. And I'm thinking all chevys were old like back when you were young. So, um, they just called them Chevy's back. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Of course it's old grandma. You are. Um, uh, yeah. But I mean, the dad did, even though he has these terrible, malicious vibes to the outside world, he does seem to love his family a lot. Like, he's the kind of guy who would like kill for his family. but also kill for other reasons, I think. Yeah, he'd kind of like to be eager to kill that.

Yeah, yeah. He'd like, yeah, if someone like, if like a burglar came into his home, he'd be like, it's time. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Melissa talks about what they did in Ireland and tells her husband, uh, when they were in a place and they do this flashback. And I, I had to pause because I was laughing so hard. she apparently they were like drawing things on a wall and she drew some stick figures that like represented his family coming from from Italy or something and she cried about the stick figures and I don't know the context behind this but her crying at stick figures for just three seconds like just had me dying I it was amazing even in context context was literally Melissa just being like it this represents your family and then as she pronounces the word family she can't stop

and then Teresa starts crying too. And they are literal stick figures. You're literal stick figures with like an Italian flag roughly drawn. And it's like they rented out this place where they let you draw on the walls like a kid and they drew on the walls worse than a kid does. It's amazing. I was just very confused on like who let them do that. Why did they do that? There was just so many questions.

But whatever producers like, hey, you're going to draw on a wall and then talk about it, that person's a fucking genius. They, they, like, bled a stone and got, like, magic gold water. It's incredible.

Yeah. Yeah, that, that was the highlight for this entire experience for me. I'm not going to lie. It's just her crying and stick figures. Then I had all my Frank notes. Oh, a note I had about Frank.

As soon as Frank entered the restaurant and I saw, like, there was a waiter in the background. everyone on the show is maximum like 5, 6 or 5, 7, right? Like, this seems like a very short show. The dudes are especially very short. Yeah, yeah.

Both Joe and Frank seem to be like very tiny guys. Yeah, and I... It didn't really click to me and tell this. Like, Vanderpump rules, I think has a lot more variation. But especially on like this Housewives of New Jersey, like, I saw just the waiter in the background. I'm like, that person is like a good foot taller than everyone else. the table.

It just like disarmory for a sec. And we have Frank. We love Frank. Go Frank. Team Frank. Then we get to the crux of the episode, which is what they've been talking about the whole time, the bridal shower.

And it kind of comes and goes back and forth between that and Teresa in a car. And Teresa is getting a call from her husband who says they're going to invite everything to their thing. except for Melissa and Joe. Yeah, this was a big moment. Yeah.

It was kind of the classic like hot mic moment. Oh, yeah, which I didn't believe for a second. Like, oh, you know they're recording and he's like, oh, really? It hangs up. I'm like, you're on a reality show, buddy. Come on. Don't play dumb unless you really are that dumb. And then that's funny.

But, yeah, come on. But yeah, so I'm guessing. that that was a big, kind of a split, another, another big chasm in the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, yeah, I've definitely seen a lot, like, Teresa and louie getting a lot of heat for this moment online, like, and obviously it wasn't completely innocent and it was a very, like, awkward moment, but there have been, like, way more damning, like, hot mic moments, like, no one's under the illusion that like no one's hiding anything from the cameras so right like it's yeah it's

really a lot of nothing and i think like trisa is not the most like cunning or strategic or like articulate housewife in the world and for her to just be like oh you know the cameras are on right it isn't like, I don't know, I feel like, yeah, you could read it to be like, oh, you shouldn't have said that. But like, I felt like, yeah, I don't know. It just seemed like, it just seemed like her being like, okay, well, the cameras are on. So now you've said that this is going to be like a big deal. this is not something that we had like agreed upon and then she immediately goes and kind of like corrects it and like you invite you're inviting these people you're inviting everyone and then

I think like what is something that you could probably latch on to more is when her daughter Melania is like why why would we invite them like I think that is more indicative of like the the family dynamic and that is like maybe a bit more damning than like Louis being like oh I'm not going to invite them because he could have even been trying to express like I'm not going to invite them yet because we haven't really discussed this right right yeah I don't know also I think louis has earned the right to be a bit of a dick after like successive episodes of pathetically prostrating himself before Joe and Melissa and be like stuck in the snake bit yeah and then just being like stop bit. Like, we don't want to, like, reconcile. That's not what we want to do. And after he's done

that so much, yeah, let him be a bit. Let him, let him be a dick. Let him be jokerified. Let him, let him, like, let him go off on them. You know, it's, it'll be funny, too, because, you know, he tried to, like, awkwardly misuse therapy speak for a couple episodes to try to win them over. Now let him awkwardly misuse therapy speak to go in, like, attack mode and call them out as, like, toxic energy vampires. It's hilarious. I want to see that. So I got to ask, where do you two fall on the Teresa Melissa split?

I honestly, I clear. Yeah. I'm honestly like, I really like. I think he used the term tree hugger. Yeah. That's what we call ourselves. That's what our tribe calls ourselves. But yeah, no, I do.

Like, I find, like, if I'm watching with my, with my heart. and just like, like, I feel like I empathize more with Trice. I feel like she comes across as more honest on screen. And I think she's just been like an iconic presence within like the housewife franchises that like, um, I want to see her continue to be on screen. And like I also like I very much appreciate what Melissa and Joe bring to the table. Like I love a villain. I love that they.

are like constantly like making themselves as like to be victims in order to like agitate things. I think that's like essential to the dynamic of what Real Housewives of New Jersey is. And if they weren't there, they would need to make some big changes to the show. So like it's not to say that I don't appreciate what what they have to bring. I just think like instinctually I buy into like Teresa's arc as like something that, you know, brings out that feeling of me, like, wanting to ride for her, I guess. And, like, she's not always right. Like, she is very often wrong.

And that's just part of, like, what you get when you're following these shows for a really long time. Like, if you're riding for someone, you see them become a villain and, like, you know, be wrong and have to deal with the consequences of being wrong and have to repair relationships and just, like, be bad or just, like, love being bad at certain points. And I think we've seen Teresa do all those things. And I think that she's a very dynamic housewife as a result. Like we saw it wasn't maybe this last season or the season before where it just opens up strong out of the gate.

Teresa's like spreading rumors about like Jackie and her husband like her husband like having an affair. And like she just kind of like owns that role. Like I think she's very dynamic. She can play a lot of different. characters on the series. She can play a lot of different roles throughout the franchise. And so I really appreciate Teresa.

And I've talked emphatically about Teresa for like the past three minutes. So I think, you know, you get a sense where I stand for. I ride for her. I would feel her loss if she was like off the show a lot more than I would. Melissa. There. How about you, Dylan? Yeah.

I maybe don't share as much of Craig's passion. but I haven't followed the show as long as he has. Crixman invested a lot more into it, I think. So I totally get that. And that's like kind of where I'm coming from, too, just in the sense that Teresa is, he's more like, well, because she's more like of a sloppy presence on camera. So there's like, it feels more relatively humid. Whereas I'm just irritated a little bit by Joe and Melissa's like urban homesteader act where they just like want to be like locked up in their castle and us against the world.

we're always right and we're always on the defense against everybody else who wants to attack us kind of attitude that I just don't really have much time for. Yeah, I think one thing that's like particularly irritating that you see in like certain characters on reality TV is like when they give off the vibe that they think they're getting one over on the audience. Like that they think that they have like tricked the audience into believing they are this one thing. And that is something that, you know, I think Melissa and Joe. like really embody and I think they are actually successful in it from what I read on comments like people like buy into what they're selling and like I don't like I think if you are going to ride for Melissa and Joe you need to buy into what they are selling whereas if you're going to ride for

Teresa you just need to accept her as this like imperfect like person that you know is going to like make mistakes and be bad and like you know but also have really like warm and and good moments and i think that's like it's a lot easier sell for me because you know um when teresa's bad she's not like selling this like good you know this good guy uh perspective so that's really interesting but one one thing that's like particularly interesting about their relationship is like they, you know, both like Teresa's kids and Joe and Melissa's kids all seem like relatively like good. Like they are seem like good kids in a way that you don't see like you see some like shitty like housewife children. And you know, for the most part these kids all seem like really grounded.

And given the like the ongoing tension between the family members and this kind of like toxic dynamic. that they have. That's really surprising. And I kind of like, I like what it speaks to in both cases about them as people. And I don't really understand even where it comes from on the Melissa and Joe side because I don't really. You know, privilege.

Yeah. It helps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. For sure. Yeah.

And then I guess all we have in the episode is Teresa's bridal shower at the end there. I found this to be. a really kind of unfulfilling end. It was kind of rambling. It didn't really have like any narrative tie up for me. And so I just, yeah, at the end of this, I was like, all right. And so Melissa feels attacked at Teresa's bridal shower, even though she wasn't going to be invited. Maybe she should feel attacked.

But other than that, it was just kind of, okay, I guess that's like the teaser for the next thing. So yeah, it was, ultimately, I didn't feel this pad as much of like. a point or a narrative structure to Vanderpump rules. It wasn't, I couldn't find it really saying anything outside of a few moments. And then the crying at the stick figures again, just fabulous. Yeah,

yeah, it was, it was, it was an interesting exercise in cultural anthropology to see people who, you know, I'm never going to be exposed to, except when I go visit my family and, you know,

spend a weekend on the shore. It's, yeah, it's wild to me. Yeah, I think like this episode, you know, there's a lot of episodes like this in over the course of the season where, you know, you're not going to get much out of it if you're just jumping in. I think like, you know, to bring up Star Trek again, like I think Star Trek when you're watching like really great Star Trek, it excels. at like um encapsulating a story within a like an episode and really exploring it like having very like strongly defined like problems that it is looking at um whereas like housewives is kind

of the opposite like i think like you can watch a really great episode of star trek and a really or like a really shitty episode of star trek and you know that um it you you'll still kind of get a sense of what it is. And they don't have the same, like, impact on, on each other. Whereas, you know, a shitty episode of Housewives or, like, a less fulfilling episode of Housewives, you know, it is way more rich if you've got, like, you know, years of watching Housewives. Yeah. Yeah, you can read a lot. You don't need the same, like, context to enjoy really good.

Star Trek, I think. I think, too, like the narrative structure, like the difference of how they're built as shows is like drastically different too. So I don't think you can really build a similar narrative in any meaningful way because there's so many moving parts of like the reality thing because every different person has a story that has to be focused on it sometime if they are a character. Whereas you can just ignore people when you're writing stuff. In a way, it's like with, you know,

Star Trek and really anything scripted, they're building something out of like clay, whereas like in reality television, they're chipping away at stone until they get the sculpture that they want, you know? Yeah. And I think like what is interesting is like structurally, and you brought this up before, like Housewives is an ensemble. And Star Trek also is an ensemble. Especially DS9.

Yeah. And like or especially like trek of that era like um, next generation enterprise Voyager. Yeah. They're all, you know, the the bridge crew like features so like prominently and it is, but it is often like them versus external threats or external like challenges and how they like coalesce as a group to like, you know,

use their strengths to. solve the problem or overcome the challenge. Whereas, like, hostwives, it's kind of the opposite. It's usually an internal problem or sometimes external, but like, how do we, you know, pit each other against each other in order to like blow this up and like leverage it for our own personal? It's, you know, a lot more. It's selfish track.

Yeah. So to speak to that, like originally Gene Rod. who created Star Trek. A lot of, you know, Trekkies talk about Gene's vision and how, like, newer Star Trek doesn't fit Gene's vision. But it never really has since the next generation because Gene's vision was that you would have episodes that were, you know, ethical dilemmas. But the one main thing is the crew never, like, interacted in a negative way. And there was never any drama between the crew, which is the exact opposite of something like this. But at the same time, like, you know, once you got into TNG, DS9, that's basically all it became because, you know what, that's interesting storytelling.

Yeah. Because interpersonal dramas combined with other things. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting how, like, distinct track of, you know, that era is versus the original series. Because, like, you know, the, um, the Kirk Spock McCoy, like, friendship dynamics.

that drives the original series and the original series movies, I think, is so strong. It doesn't like, you know, the crew doesn't like play as prominently as, you know, the crew does in Next Generation or anything that kind of follows it. Yeah, no, that's, that's interesting. And I don't think that there's any, like, Housewives series that kind of comes close to what, you see in the original series. So like when I was trying to, you know, think about how we're juxtaposing housewives against Star Trek, I couldn't think of any real parallels with the original series.

But I did see a lot with, you know, the second way of Star Trek. Yeah, like I feel like the only way you could even try to build a similar narrative is put like the three housewives that like each other the most on a road trip. And then that might be like original Star Trek. Yeah. You know, but other than that, like, yeah, it was just, no, it's, yeah, the narrative structures just don't really fit each other at all. But, you know, they're just entirely separate things for entirely separate people and

sometimes the same people. Yeah. What I love, I think about the Housewives shows, um, structurally is that they're both extremely dense and content and extremely meandering. And I like that. Yeah. It's like there's, there's narratives. everywhere being pulled out of everything, but every attempt to establish a grand narrative

kind of gets undermined by just the behaviors of the people. Right. So it's like everything's a story, but nothing works as a story at the same time. Right. And I love the way that, that it shows how easy it is to find storylines, but how hard it is to focus them when you've got like an actual humid element that you're trying to, you're trying to wrangle in there. Yeah.

That's one of the things that's, that's so interesting to be. Indeed. Dylan, did you have any other, or did you have any highlights that you wanted to talk about from New Jersey? We basically covered it all. Sorry, I write way too much, guys. I, uh, I, uh, I apologize. Like, I literally like recap the entire episode. If you've listened to Salt Trek before, this is exactly what I do there.

And that's why we have four hour long episodes. Yeah. That's totally cool. I just wanted to point out that I like that Teresa calls her vagina, Chuckalina, kind of joining Daniel's tradition. Amazing. Very creative. words to describe your own anatomy. I really enjoy that. Awesome. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much for doing this, Brett. Do you want to

plug your show and let everyone know where they can find you, especially the Melissa fans who might want to come after you? Oh, yeah. Come after me. Anytime. I don't care. I love the haters. I will either make you like me or eventually block you. It's that easy. Yeah, so I make Star Trek merch. It's very gay. It's a very communist. It's very fun and funny. That's over at soytrek.com.

And also I have a podcast called, guess what? Soy Trek. You can just find that wherever you get podcasts. If you like long-form Star Trek, where I break down every single thing about Star Trek in an episode of Star Trek with a funny idiot vegan guy. Yeah, you might like it, but probably not. I don't care. Awesome.

Dylan, want to let everyone know where they can find you? You can hear me talking about horror movies on my podcast Mind Over Splatter. If you want to find a bit of an overlap, you can look for the Hellraiser episode where I talk about Andrew Robinson. And about... Isn't Jeffrey Combs in there, too? or is Jeffrey Combson there? No, no. But you know, never mind.

He's in reamination. He should be in everything. Yeah, he's in a lot of horror movies. Another overlap is, I think her name's Terry Farrell, who plays somebody in. Oh, yeah. She's a star of Hellraiser 3. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. And I also talk in the Hellraiser episode about my experiences with Rev, the drink I'm drinking tonight. Love it. Love it. Love it. It's doing drunk on that and watching Hellraiser Inferno at like age 14. If I could make a recommendation for a crossover between horror and Star Trek, Jeffrey Combs in Castle Freak, which is from, I think, like, 1990.

Oh, yeah. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome movie. I've heard of it. It's, yeah, a really good, like, weird body horror. Very interesting, like, dark pacing. Like, I like it a lot. I think, yeah, if you're in a horror, you'd probably like it.

Nice. You can find me on substack, too, Dylan Ferguson, writing about movies. Nice. Awesome. And I've been Craig Midwitt. winter, you can find Bravo Outsider at Bravo Outsider.com. We're on Instagram at Bravo Outsider. TikTok at Bravo Outsider.

We're on Twitter now at Bravo underscore Outsider, as of today. I'll go at you. Yeah, and you can listen to us wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube. Until next time, we're going to dip out.