Psycho Babble and Cultural Sensitivity

 

The cast has gathered at Ramona’s Hamptons home and it’s the morning after the “Burning Man” party (whatever that is). Ramona, Sonja, and their dogs are all rising (in the same bed) and begin to discuss the events of the night before; that is what  they can remember. Luann visits Eboni’s room to borrow a nail file, but of course that’s just an excuse to get the dirt and quiz Eboni about her journey (with the ladies) thus far. Eboni explains to Lu that she left the party early because it was just “too much”, and reminds us that “she’s never spent this much time with a bunch of white women”. Also, she’s still upset that Ramona could not remember one of her caterer’s names, and referred to her as “the help”. Lu explains “that’s just part of the package with Ramona .. ”, and then we are treated to a truly hilarious package; that is twelve seasons of Ramona treating hotel staff like shit and forgetting people’s names. Eboni tells Luann that her grandmother was a domestic worker so she really doesn’t like Ramona saying “the help,” and she especially doesn’t like her making other people feel “less-than”. Sure bitch, whatever.

 

The women head out for the day to the proverbial winery in one of the East Coast's countless picturesque seaside towns. After a few (or several) glasses of courage, Ebon brings "Helpgate" up to Ramona at the winery, but it goes way better than anyone thought it would. Eboni tells Ramona that her use of the word triggered her and Ramona is immediately apologetic. Eboni tells Ramona that traditionally the term “the help” was used to devalue people like her grandmother, and Ramona is receptive to that, but then says, “I was calling her ‘the help’ because she was there to help me so I thought, ‘the help.’” Eboni then puts on her educating-the-white-people voice and says, “So you’re using it literally, I get that, but …” and within that ellipsis is all the racial oppression and classism in all of American history, so it really needs about 300 million dots instead of just three.

 

At the end of the conversation, Ramona says in confessional, “I loved it how Eboni, in a non-condescending way, explained to me why the term was not okay.” This is my worry about having one nonwhite cast member in RHONY, the perception that Eboni is there to educate all of these women and teach them about how they should live in this brave new post-reckoning world of ours, when it is really not her job.

 

I probably shouldn’t be judging Eboni after just a few episodes, but I am. Besides, let’s be real; the only reason we are even talking about this former Hooters chick is because she has allowed herself to be used as a pawn by Bravo. Note to Eboni: We need less references to your skin color and a lot more of “You can call it class, you can call it ass, you can call it whatever you want, but these lobster rolls are going in this Birkin!”.

 

As smoothly as Eboni handled Ramona at the winery, Leah does just the opposite. When Covid comes up, Leah gets back to asking Ramona whether she really donated plasma to science (a claim that she made at last season’s reunion that no one believes). Ramona says she went to some clinic and they took her blood and Leah, who has obviously done a fair amount of late-night Googling, says that it’s not just one visit, they have to do all this stuff to your blood and she would know whether or not she donated it. They go back and forth, and the other women encourage Ramona to “just come clean”, but of course that’s not happening. Eventually Ramona gives up and heads for the bathroom as Leah wonders if her interrogation irritated Ramona’s IBS.

 

The women leave the winery and visit one of the many cute boutiques in the picturesque seaside village. These shopping excursions on the Housewife series are always telling; awkwardly separating the “haves from the have nots”, and this one is no exception. Eboni, Leah, and (townhouse poor) Sonja sit idly by as Ramona and Lu buy up the store. Lu treats Sonja to a matching ugly AF black blouse with 1980’s style poofy balloon sleeves.

 

Throughout the entire episode, Leah is painfully psychoanalyzing not only Ramona, but the entire cast. At dinner she says they need a “plan” for how to handle Heather when she arrives. She then pulls up the stories about Heather saying that Luann is inauthentic and does hard drugs, and that she said that Sonja has a new face and she liked the old face better. Leah’s point is that if she talked this kind of shit about the women, what will she say about her, but maybe the women have forgiven her for this? Why is it Leah’s place to adjudicate whether or not they should be mad at someone she admittedly barely knows?

 

Everyone’s favorite floozy, Sonja, is trashed as usual, but is becoming increasingly combative and disruptive. She’s beyond wasted and keeps calling her friend William, some random gay banker, After ranting about how much she hates Luann’s boyfriend Garth and how much money she has raised for AIDS and “the LGBT,” she delivers one of the best, Sonja-iest sentences of all time: “We have to protect the poor. The poor are getting poorer and the homeless are getting homeless-LER.”. Finally she starts screaming at Ramona about her banking at Wells Fargo because it’s not her family bank (J.P. Morgan), but I think we will have to save the rest of that for next week, because, somewhere in New York, Heather Thompson was packing her overnight bag and hoping that her first trip back into the Housewives sphere would go well. There’s a knock at the door and a tall man in a chauffeur’s livery hands her an engraved invitation. She puts her finger into the flap of the envelope to slide it open, but then stopped when the driver gave a pronounced, “Ummm”, then looks Heather and says “Ma’am, it’s best if you not open it unless you’re serious about going through with it”.

 

I didn’t hate this episode as much as I thought I would, but I do have to wonder what geniuses at Bravo thought we were going to enjoy watching two broke ass bitches, one white and one black(ish) sermonizing and schooling women twice their age and 20 times as successful. It's freaking painful so far, and as a result, the ratings continuing to plummet. I don’t know how many more episodes of Leah’s psycho babble and Eboni’s phony cultural sensitivity training I’m going to be able to take.  But I'm loyal and will continue to watch and rundown this franchise, so you don't have to.