The second episode of the Real Housewives of Rhode Island will premiere tonight. (Well, Wednesday, depending on when you read this. Thursday on Peacock.) The show has produced a social media furor almost as big as the botoxed lips of its stars – not really a surprise for one-degree-of-separation Rhody and our “know a guy” culture.
The immediate draw may be to count how many of the faces you know IRL (I scored a four!), but there are interesting elements to draw you back in. The show makes Rhode Island look beautiful, with sunny, aerial footage, gleefully mislabeled by some editorial assistant in LA who doesn’t know Wakefield from Providence. And through the shenanigans of its stars, it produces enough SMH energy to keep viewers entertained.
Basically, it makes our state look beautiful but dumb, which also describes most of the people in the show.
One of the participants trying to figure out what the Fourth of July was a celebration of may have been priceless television, but it was not anyone’s finest moment. (The conclusion: It has something to do with Plymouth Rock).
The show is full of RI moments, and it’s funny. The humor could seem to be at the expense of the characters we’re supposed to be growing attached to. But as anyone who’s followed the Real Housewives Universe knows, there’s a certain amount of planning involved in the unscripted performances. The participants are in on the jokes, and already in the first episode, they’re playing up the catfights. The Rhode Island accents are delightful – I mean, awwwsum. The gaggers with caviar are sure to become a BBQ staple this summer, and capture the spirit of these “real” RI royalty – not the highfalutin society folks of Newport or old-money Providence, but newer, entrepreneurial royals with a heavy concentration in South County. They are all brunettes and can be hard to tell apart – but they’re conveniently labeled with subtitles far more accurate (I think) than the ones identifying locations. The ridiculousness includes a secret, prominent boyfriend with his head removed in every photo (Internet insiders identify him as the junior Frank Caprio), in-depth discourse on the importance of picking seeds out of lemon slices, and a fun trip down a grassy hill at a party, when three of the housewives take so long to pick their way down the hill in stilettos, they decide the party has to move downhill to them, because they ain’t getting back up.
It’s enough to make for a fun viewing, especially with friends, especially with friends who will do a shot every time one of the housewives says something you’d only say in RI. Or throw one back every time one decides to throw a party. Add a sip every time a scenic shot is mislabeled. A shot every time they’re obviously drinking water instead of alcohol could work. But don’t try a shot for every dismissive hair flip – you’ll end up dangerously hammered.