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Witchy Liberal Ghouilish Goblin Gook

 

 

 

The episode begins with Ramona meeting her new black trophy friend Bershan for lunch. While the always upbeat Bershan is elated to bask in Ramona’s presence, there may as well have been a bubble caption over Ramona’s head reading “Are we really trying to pull this off?”. Ramona starts off by telling Bershan that she “can always tell it’s her” by her deep (masculine) voice, but then perhaps catches herself, and rephrases the comment more palpable “resonant sounding voice". While discussing Bershan’s first encounter with the ladies at Eboni’s recent black history lesson in Harlem, Ramona does her best to get Bershan to jump on the “we all hate Eboni” train, but to my great disappointment, Bershan isn’t exactly biting. However, she does agree that Eboni’s “delivery” needs a little work. Talk about an understatement. Ramona then informs Bershan that she’s "in", that is has been officially accepted into NYC’s White Society Lady’s Club!

 

 

Eboni arrives at Sonja’s for a two hour trek to Philadelphia to meet her “matchmaker”, which is really just an excuse to plug her friend’s phony business. They are traveling first class in a bus that looks more like a private plane on wheels. Of course they could have saved a lot of time and money by just zooming the stupid meeting, but I guess Eboni is putting some of that free Biden money to good use. Matchmaker Devyn seems like a nice enough chick, but I was thinking how fun it would have been to throw Patti Stanger a bone. Damn, if she were only black. Anyway, Sonja basically tells the matchmaker that she wants out of life is a hot well-to-do and well hung Italian or French man (any age).  Sorry Sonja, you're not my type, but maybe if you "bi" me something ... or however that joke went.

 

 

 

Leah has organized a five day trip for the ladies to Salem, MA. She (and by she I mean production) has rented a “tour bus” which is just her groupie chick name for a Class A Motor Home. The women, including Bershan, all pile in for the four-hour drive to Salem. It must be an ungodly hour because Ramona, Eboni, and the hostess herself all immediately head for the one of the many train-birth-like beds on the bus. This leaves Bershan alone with Sonja and Luann … and of course the poor hapless masked-up driver. During their drilling-the-newbie conversation with Beshan, she re-iterates a little more about her breast cancer diagnoses, revealing that the doctors told her that she only had three months to live. So she made a deal with God, and here she is telling her story FOURTEEN YEARS LATER! Most of this episode was just fun; that is until Eboni and Leah had to go and ruin it. But more on that later.

 

 

 

The women arrive at the 100 year old Hawthorne Hotel (named after the author), and are greeted by the star-struck hotel staff all wearing black, including the manager, who begins to exaggerate the hell out of the hotel’s disturbing history. The manager informs the gullable group that the joint is haunted and that one hundred some odd witches were burned at the stake right there in the hotel. But when called out, she changes her story to “well, not exactly here at the hotel, but here in Salem” (as if we needed the clarification).   I'm thinking where is Carlton Gebbia when we need her?  We get sage burning in their rooms and over-the-hill horny lady talk of having sex with ghosts in the middle of the night. Apparently none of these women have ever watched American Horror Story, because everyone knows that F-ing a ghost is never a good idea.

 

 

Leah has instructed everyone to wear black latex, and Ramona and Ebony end up in matching leather catsuits for Leah’s “leather and latex dinner” at a tattoo parlor! Yes you read that correctly. Sidenote: Ramona actually wears her catsuit better than Eboni, and throughout this episode I am struck at how insanely good Ramona looks for a woman of 63. Anyway, Ramona (and we the viewers) immediately question having dinner at a grimy tattoo parlor and then Leah reminds us (in flashback) that “tattoos” trigger Ramona, especially slutty tramp stamps. It turns out the place is really decked out and puts Slurinda’s Halloween-themed Blue Stone Manor to shame. Sonja meets a pair of twins who are supposed to be creepy, but she just flirts with them.

 

All is going well until production cues Luann who to ask Sonja how her trip to Philly was.  Sonja reports that she and Eboni has so much fun enjoying girl talk, and then added that Eboni is not always “preachy teachy”. Really? I guess we haven’t met that Eboni yet. Predictably, the conversation turns to race, but this time Eboni doesn’t bring it up; it’s Sonja, who is evidentally on some kind of (hypocritical) campaign to repair Eboni’s obnoxious personality. Eboni says that she simply wanted to make it clear where she stands on these issues, and claims that she IS capable of having fun. Again, really? Evidentally, her idea of “having fun” is asking WHICH women are aligned with white supremacy. Luann immediately says, “I don’t know what made you think we were aligned with white supremacy,” as visions of hooded klansmen dance in her head. If two snowflakes like Eboni and Leah can't knock some sense into Luann, no one can.  Even politically challenged Leah asks Eboni how she defines “white supremacy,” adding that as soon as people (she means Luann, Ramona and Sonja") hear that term, they immediately shut down. Forget the fact that these clueless old racist white women are basically paying Leah and Eboni’s bills.  Just THIS MUCH respect please.

 

 

Ramona knows where this is going all too well, and gets up to walk away, but she is coaxed back and then tries a different approach by just dismissing the conversation and dancing. This only frustrates Leah more, and she then screams that Ramona is PRECISELY the problem with this country. “You’re a moron. You are what is wrong with this world,” Leah says, not allowing Ramona to talk. Eboni says all she wants is for all the women Ramona to declare that they aren’t white supremists damnit, but more importantly, she is determined to get Ramona to "admit" out loud that she is a Trump supporter.  Oh the horror, gasp!  But for whatever reason, Ramona won’t address it.  So Eboni tries another approach and says that not everyone who voted for Trump is a white supremacist, but some of them are ... she just wants to make sure Ramona is not one of them. Ramona finally responds, “Am I supposed to apologize for being white? My mother was an immigrant. She came here with nothing!”. Together, Leah, Eboni, and and unfortunately, even Bershan tell Ramona that yes, we all struggle, but it’s not the same for black people.

 

On one hand, this episode managed to accomplish what it set out to do (that is annoy the hell out of us many of us), but I’m also just laughing that these mixed bag of nuts think they are accomplishing something profoundly socially relevant with these preachy episodes. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all or these conversations (hell, it's largely why I started this site), but there is a time and a place, and I just don’t think that the Real Housewives is the place for it.  Also, there isn't enough time for it, and besides that, the deck is stacked and we (more free thinking logical people) are at the mercy of Bravo's liberal editing.

 

On a related note, recently a caller on Andy Cohen’s radio show blasted him about the political preachiness of the HW series of late, and true to form, Cohen shut the caller down by claiming that “we can’t (and have no desire) to dictate the HW’s conversations”.  Insert LOL emojis here.