Episode 5: Error on the High Seas

Unfortunately for people interested in how these ladies police boundaries, the Housewives looked like they were gonna take it down a notch. That was, until the dramatic twist at the end, also known as the pants drop heard round Potomac. This week, Gizelle was a language star, and we also got some interesting utterances from Katie, Mama Karen and Ashley’s mom.

This week centered around Karen's decision to throw a yacht party to show Ashley how to "properly" host an event. (And Gizelle is STILL mad that Ashley's party didn't have an open bar). Though Karen claimed that she wanted to do this without hurting Ashley's feelings, the indirectness at the party was palpable. Karen all but said that the point of the party was to teach Ashley how to host, and Ashley had the best reaction behind her back.

Ashley-“I’m like, girl, bang, where’s the next cocktail?”

Ashley's somewhat more laid-back nature keeps getting her in trouble with these women, but I love her more and more each week. Unfortunately, her husband had to go and act a fool, and the whole thing was not a good look. Michael, being Australian and perhaps having a little too much to drink, decided that he wants to take off his pants and jump overboard. NO ONE was having it, and Gizelle took this opportunity to remind Ashley that her blackness is in question.

Gizelle- “We don’t do this...we black, Ashley. Black people don’t do this”

In this situation, Ashley does her best to talk Michael into putting his pants back on, and eventually the whole thing calms down. However, despite the fact that Ashley seems much more comfortable being a black woman than Katie does, this is the second time that her behavior (or someone she's responsible for, in this case) has been called into question for not being "black" (recall the humping incident as discussed in Episode 2). Michael might not understand all of these rules since he's white and Australian, but despite all his money, he is jeopardizing Ashley's social connections with the rest of the ladies. FWIW, I think that a lot of the behavior policing that that the Housewives engage in is ridiculous, but I cosign with Gizelle here. What the hell was Michael doing?

In case we doubted Ashley's blackness, this episode introduced us to her mother, who kept it all the way 100. Ashley clearly has a lot of respect for her single mom, and wants to help her out financially, but like all good moms, her mom doesn't wanna burden her. She will take some of that Patron though. 

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Ashley to Mom-"Oh you tryna turn up?”

Mom- "Well, I know you got the bar stocked”

Ashley- "People think that I have a wooden leg, you have a wooden leg".

We also learn, right after this exchange, that Ashley’s mom recently had to file bankruptcy. This is especially interesting in light of her putting Robyn on blast for the very same thing last week. Maybe Ashley could relate and was genuinely concerned for her.

Meanwhile, in another part of town...Gizelle was on one this week, and she had some beautiful one-liners. 

Gizelle- “These are my Robin Thicke pants”

Gizelle- "There’s something called scrubs, no I’m not dating those”

Giselle- “Forever? Ooo, no. You need to pump your breaks, slow your roll, back it all da way up, sit it on down”.

Gizelle- “Ooo Karen you shady! You know what, that’s not shady. That’s full blown eclipse”

Particularly in that last one, Gizelle goes all the way black with both her segmental phonology AND her intonational patterns. For you linguists out there, I heard her use multiple instances of zero possessive morpheme, zero copula, appositive pronouns, and th-stopping. Basiclaly, Gizelle turned on ALL her AAL features this week. Maybe it's something about Herman. 

Gizelle-“LAWD somebody help Herman. Jesus help Herman”.

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Poor Herman. He seems nice enough, but this man is just SO corny. Gizelle is clearly not feeling it, but she keeps wanting to give him chances. She says something about him that requires a whole essay to unpack, but I'll leave it her.

Gizelle-“In the flesh we working with Herman, we working on his swag. Just tell me you spent one night in jail, and we’re good"

Gizelle finds a reasonably attractive, educated, nice, straight, single black man who ran for Congress, and then she mad he ain't a little more hood. Girl, bye. 

  

Other Linguistic Observations:

Katie- "She says that she’s got like a great “roller deck”.

Oh Katie, it's called a Rolodex. To be fair, that's a weird ass word and also, no one has a Rolodex anymore (except maybe Karen). Also, the thing is pretty much a deck. 

Random Thoughts:

Ashley, why are you making this poor man interviewing for your assistant position vogue for his life? It did look fun though. 

Charrisse, you did not actually text your husband that you want a divorce. For women so obsessed with decorum, that seems wildy inappropriate!

Episode 4: Desperately Seeking Marriage

This week had a lot less explicit discussions about race and what black people "do and do not do", but it was much more enjoyable than watching Katie beg Andrew to marry her last week (cringe). Though Ashley was again the target of much derison for violating etiquette rules by committing the unforgivable sin of googling, I suspected that some of the shade she received was also part of a cultural miscommunication. Fortunately for Ashley, Mama Karen keeps kinda taking her side, even though she incessantly talks about her behind her back.

Karen- "She's [Ashley's] only 26. Her frontal lobe just came together last year".
Gizelle-"Did it come together when she made the decision to bring us to the bottom of the barrel?"
Karen-"She could use some guidance. She just doesn't know how to entertain mature women"

Karen is deeply upset with Ashley's party throwing behavior, and this comes up again at Ashley's birthday party. For a bunch of very rich women, these ladies are ridiculously thirsty for an open bar. You would think they were grad students.

Karen- "Make sure your guests feel like guests without them having to spend a dime. I'm jus' sayin'"

Gizelle-"No open bar, what type of party is this?"

Fortuantely though, Ashley reputation was salvaged in the end because Michael bought her a Porsche. It was a close call, though. Note to self: a rich husband can bail you out of awkward situations with bougie women.

Karen- "Ashley lost 5 points for that cash bar, but she gained 3 for the Porsche". 

The main story with Ashley, however, was that she googled the housewives and made the mistake of telling Katie about it, who subsequently told ERBODY. 

Katie- "Guess who's been Googling us...Ashley"
Karen- "Oh hell to the no. You don't get this far in Potomac without some bruises and bumps. We don't talk about it and we don't Google each other"
Katie-"And Robyn being in foreclosure, just thinking that was a funny thing to say...people's financial situations are their own."

Now Ashley was wrong for bringing up Robyn's finances like that, but I understand why she Googled. These women brag and brag about how high profile they are and then get mad when people find stuff out about them. But I also suspect that they're experiencing an age/class/cultural disconnect. In this type of community, especially since it's a black community, snitching on someone's finances is not okay. And Ashley may not know the depths of how bad that is because she didn't grow up in that type of community. In the end though, the only one really justified in her level of anger about Googlegate is Robyn, and this led to the best quote of the week.

Gizelle to Robyn- "Katie informed us that Ashley has been Googling all of us"
Robyn-"What is wrong with the child?"
Robyn to Gizelle- "So do I wanna go to this party, knowing that the little girl has been going behind my back and talking shit?"

Robyn-"I have heard about people being thirsty...Ashley is dehydrated. Somebody (pause) give her a glass of water".


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The gif above is my interpretation of what Robyn actually meant, but couldn't say because she's a RHOP.

Eventually though, Robyn confronts Ashley (at her birthday party!) and does accept Ashley's apology. But Ashley stays on notice for ish like this, week after week.

Robyn- "I am annoyed but i'm not mad because i realize she's young...but baby girl better watch what she says".


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Linguistic Observations:

Gizelle, who is normally r-full (it means she pronounces her "r"s), gets super emphatic when she needs to tell us that she could have her ex back anytime she wanted. And interestingly, she turns r-less in that phrase. This is of note because it's a stereotyped black feature, and Gizelle seems only to use it when she needs to make a very clear point about the kind of woman she is.

Gizelle-"If I wanted to get back with Jamal, he'd be sittin right HEA"

The second observation this week is just about Mama Karen's use of "IJS"
Karen- "Make sure your guests feel like guests without them having to spend a dime. I'm jus' sayin'"

Oh Karen. IJS is the most shadetastic way of throwing shade. It's a classic, just like Karen herself. The only other thing that would've made it better is if she was sippin tea when she said it.

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Random Unrelated THOTs (see what I did there):

Katie-"It's the Mrs. room. It's my room now". 

Oh Katie, you're truly the most thirsty and Andrew is pretty patient. You low-key just remodeled this man's condo while he was out of town and got away with it!

Charrisse-"We didn't have a lot. I had to put perms in my hair myself". 

When Charrisse is discussing her earlier financial status, the best way she can think to express it was that she had DIY perms. The horror! Especially compared to the questionable weave she rocks now, but that's none of my business.

Episode 3: What A Little Whiskey Can Do

After last week's dramatic discussion on racial identity, how could the Housewives possibly up the ante? This week we saw a little less etiquette policing, a little more overall shade, and lots of racially uncomfortable undertones.

Let's start with Katie.

Katie- "My family is old money. My mom's family founded black colleges and universities and my dad's family made their money bootlegging during prohibition. My dad was actually one of my mom's professors".
Oh, biracial Katie. I don't know about Katie's family in particular, but all of this makes me a bit suspicious. In the 70s, a white male professor gets involved with one of his black female students and now it's just a cute family anecdote? 


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Also, note the implied respectability politics here. Katie's black family is framed as being involved with education, while her white family made their money illegally (lol, omg, those adorbs bootleggers, amirite?). I highly doubt that if the family situations were reversed, socialite Katie would be bragging about it. #twiceasgood

Katie had some relationship issues this week, but one of the bright spots was her growing friendship with Ashley. However, this led to one of the most awkward exchanges in this week's episode during Katie and Ashley's dinner with their respective #richwhitedudes.

Katie- "Isn't it exciting hanging out with like, an interracial couple? I like it
Katie's White Dude-"Absolutely"
Ashley- "Do you feel sometimes like you don't have a lot of interracial couple friends?"
Katie- "We don't at all. Like none."

Katie finally found someone she can relate to! Another biracial lady with a #richwhitedude! Taken alongside her comments from last week, this is further evidence that Katie sometimes feels like she doesn't fit in with the rest of the Housewives, which seems at least a little related to her identity choices.

Speaking of Ashley, she had this week's most exciting storyline, and she handled it beautifully.
Everything about that bathing suit shopping sequence was just...off. Karen felt the need to assert herself as the matriarch, but she took surprisingly well to Ashley, for now.

Karen to Ashley- I was just gonna give you one tidbit of advice though, because you are new to the community" (dramatic pause). In Potomac, the women especially, you know, we've earned our position. so it's respect that gets you into the circle. It's a hard circle to get into, but I like you so you have an introductory". 

Subtext: Girl, watch yourself. You're alright for now, but remember that you're on probation.

And Ashley knows it.

Ashley: "It's so nice spending time with these Potomac women who aren't judging my character, just my figure".

Ashley is foreshadowing some future trouble, because Karen warned her about how they do. And low and behold EVERYONE had something to say about Ashley's whiskey tasting.

Karen- "I couldn't believe that THIS is the place she invited us to, to have a whiskey tasting. I am dressed to the nine, and I didn't know the attire was flip flops"

Robyn- "I'm really shocked that ashley is hosting a whiskey tasting. It seems like a grown up man thing and Ashley's like a little girl". 

Gizelle- "I'm Gucci down to my socks and y'all told me to go to the basement. I typically don't venture out this way"

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At this point, I was terrified for poor Ashley. She knew whiskey might not be their thing, and this whole event was a big, big risk. But in the end, she came out on top after confronting Gizelle about calling her a THOT.

Ashley to Gizelle- "You're being nicer to my face than you were behind my back...you called me a THOT for God's sake".
Gizelle-"You were humping her...typically hoes do that"
Ashley- "Hoes have sex with other people. Did I have sex with her?
Gizelle-"That's ho-ish behavior".

But ultimately, Ashley did get Gizelle to apologize, which touched Charrisse so much that it helped smooth things over between her and Gizelle as well.

Charrisse- Considering that she's 26, Ashley is behaving more mature than both Gizelle and I.

In the end, Ashley ends up with a win. And even Mama Karen can laugh about it.

Karen- "Ashley, now that you're in the circle, if I catch you humping another woman, I will pull you off of her"

One more thing. Mama Karen managed to make an awkward racial comment this week too, but it was more subtle. She's a little too excited about the whitest white dude ever who shows up to take her daughter to prom and it feels a little like she sees it as a come up for Rayvin.

Karen- "Interracial dating in Potomac is normal. We tell our children to look for a good person who has the milk of human kindness, so the fact that Rayvin's date is a Caucasian young man, it's a true reflection of what Ray and I taught Rayvin".

You taught your daughter to be interested in...what exactly? And this storyline, alongside Karen continuously comparing Katie and Ashley to her daughter, looks a lot like she's hoping that Rayvin will find her own #richwhitedude.

One moment of linguistic interest stuck out this week, along with the general intonation and discourse strategies that I've been seeing since jump.

Ashley to Karen-"I'm tryna get to know yo fashion sense, honey". 

Because of their power differential and Ashley's less glamorous background, we might be surprised that she said this to Karen, but it gets received in a good-natured way. Karen's treatment of Ashley has shown that maybe aside from all the etiquette policing, she's actually got a sense of humor.

Random Unrelated Thought: Katie, you cannot shoehorn Andrew into marrying you! And relatedly, I've also got some judgment towards that dude from Washington Life magazine who was all "what you don't have is a husband right now". Katie knows, dude. Trust us, she knows.