I feel sort of horrible about the fact that I'll end up watching the second half of the Real Housewives of Washington, DC reunion show tonight. I watched the show religiously for work this season, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as the other installments of the franchise that I've followed (mostly New York, a little Atlanta). I tend to think it's because the show was a little too real. The animosities between the characters were real, they weren't motivated by pretend slights and misunderstandings. A marriage dissolved, and even if we didn't see the worst of it, the unpleasantness we did get on-screen was tremendously sour and snippy.
By contrast, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which premiered last week after the first half of the DC reunion show, is the kind of fluffy, stupid reality the franchise does best. These women's absurdly pampered lives have nothing to do with the rest of our experiences, but that's the fun of it, peeking in at a place we'll never be allowed and that we don't necessarily want to spend time in at all, a little amused, and a little envious, and dead sure that if we had that kind of money we wouldn't be nearly that tacky. We don't want reflections of larger realities from this franchise, we don't want genuine emotion, we want to spy, and to gossip.
As a side note, is there anyone who enjoys watching Andy Cohen on screen? I find him weirdly off-putting and tacky. I think it's partially the absolutely repulsive set for Watch What Happens, and part of it is this deeply-fake bonding with women he makes an extraordinarily good living making look bad on-screen, and who may hate him, but have to kiss up to him. There's just something sour about his appearances. He's over the line between real and fake, but too far in the wrong direction.