The Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: Mamma Mia
While Mia Thornton has been filled with little beyond contradictions and Restylane throughout her seasons on the Potomac franchise, her penchant for inconsistent storytelling has for the most part been outweighed only by her propensity for entertainment. When you make good television and are willing to roll with the punches, many are willing to forgive the odd transgression or two. This season, however, Mia is pushing the boundaries of what both viewers and her fellow castmates find to be acceptable, and this week their frustrations with her decision-making finally began to spill onto the TV.
On its face, Mia’s current position is absurd. She has made a hill out of demanding that the cast hold Karen accountable at every opportunity. At the same time, her personal life is a walking Maury episode and the longer she keeps up the charade, the more her fellow Housewives look at her sideways. The scene at the GNA wellness event — which has now rebranded into ClassPass with branded tees — is a perfect example of this friction. Mia takes advantage of Karen’s being MIA to slip in as many jabs as possible about Karen’s alcohol habits and pending legal issues, only for her to take the women aside and reveal to them details about the on-camera fight we saw last week. If Mia is going to (correctly) claim that Gordon had no right to disclose her personal health information regarding an alleged abortion, then it is equally irresponsible for Mia to claim that every hostile interaction they have is Gordan “in mania.” Perhaps it is, but Gordon is not sharing that information willingly, nor is it necessarily evident on-camera.
According to Mia, Mister Incognito offered to pull back from the situation as she figured out how to co-parent healthily, an option that briefly had me relieved that functioning brain cells were reentering the conversation. Still, that plan lasted about as long as my last “social media break.” Watching the fracas from afar, Gizelle Bryant’s gears are finally starting to turn. The green-eyed bandit may live for onscreen drama, but even she finds this whole scenario tactless, and bringing Mia down to size also puts her in better standing for any future conflicts with Karen. Gizelle finds herself in an interesting position this season. She usually drives so much of the story, but this time around, she is taking a back seat and trying to figure out which horse she plans to hitch on for the rest of the season. With Mia’s recent antics, she has decidedly taken her out of the running.
The issues continue at Wendy’s birthday party, where Gizelle finally confronts Mia about the inconsistencies in her story. Gordon and Incognito can barely stand each other and he’s a massive trigger, yet Mia is on Instagram posting videos and photo shoots of them all getting along — what is really going on here, and how do her children benefit? To be fair to Mia, I do think that people are assuming Gordon doesn’t know how to manipulate cameras as well. Gordon, after all, was the first person to bring up the drama with Inc and allegations about paternity on-camera, not Mia, and he certainly seems to time his temper tantrums to when he already knows he has a call time to film for the show. But Mia could just as soon choose not to document this part of her life so sloppily and extensively for the time being. It doesn’t seem to be doing anyone any good, and the sensationalism of the drama isn’t reaping the returns she may have expected by bringing this to all of our screens — both the fans and the wives seem disenchanted by it all.
Perhaps Mia is so focused on maximizing the entertainment value of her personal life because she looks at someone like Ashley and is terrified of the possibility of that being her future. Ashley and Mia have a lot in common when it comes to their life experiences: rough, working-class upbringing before becoming “self-made,” then thinking that they would be able to cling to their marriages as a life raft to class migration. Both of them have tragically come to realize that marrying an older man is not a honeymoon, and they are seeking to figure out what comes next. Ashley seems to have never prepared for this possibility, and we are watching her try to wring a coin out of every opportunity possible: she is booking drag-king shows, shilling GNA screen tees and QR codes, and even trying to persuade her cast to give her nonexistent musical career some pity streams. Mia must have heard 30 seconds of the torture ritual known as “Healing and Thriving” and simply gone into a fugue state, deciding that as messy as it may get, there was no way she wasn’t going to secure her future both with a man and on the cameras. I might understand that impulse, but I certainly do not have to respect it. Unfortunately, it seems that her castmates don’t either.
Ashley has tried to keep her personal life separate from the show to her detriment and is now forced to carve out a lane and share more of her life than she is comfortable doing. When you have two kids at home and a mortgage to pay for, you can no longer afford to be skittish about whether or not your ex cheated on you as you try to mediate a settlement. It may make you cringe to hear your family freely tell you that they always thought that walking canker sore was a controlling turd, but you will grin and bear it because you have no other option; your livelihood is dependent on people wanting to hear your story after years of closing that part of your life off to the cameras. Even as a veteran, Ashley is uncomfortable with the Faustian bargain she has made for success in reality TV, which is why she attempts to deflect by stirring up messes in everyone else’s lives. Mia has no such scruples, and for better or worse, what we are seeing on our screens is a consequence of that lack of restraint.
Cherry Blossoms
In current events, Ashley Darby has finally filed for divorce. Hopefully, the negotiations will take less than the next five seasons because I certainly can’t take much more of this journey.
• Karen went to her first court date dressed like Sister Mary Clarence and seemingly got a continuance to September (which, if I recall, was part of her recent attempts to get the arrest thrown out, which failed). I, like most of you in the comments, really wish she would go the plea-deal route so that she could speak about this openly and move toward embracing her complicity, but it seems that we have a long way to go until we get there and it likely won’t be this season.
• While Karen and Mia’s civil war is starting to wear out its welcome, this episode was filled with bits of high comedy. Their stilted non-hug at Wendy’s birthday event was top-tier, as was Gizelle gleefully telling Karen, “I am so happy you’re free and amongst us.”
• Wendy’s 40th birthday looked lovely (save for the plastic gold top hats for the servers), and I am happy that Eddie’s family made it. I was genuinely in tears when I realized that Wendy chose to celebrate her 40th on Ashley’s actual birthday. Watching Ms. Darby try to find passive-aggressive ways to remind the guests that it was her birthday as well, including sporting a tacky lace frock, seemed like a bit straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
• Speaking of the birthday dinner, TJ chiding Stacey felt like a bit much. I consistently come away wondering if TJ even likes Stacey, and I think Ashley is right to express concern and skepticism.
• It is fascinating to see just how much of the episode is predicated on Karen’s presence or absence. If Karen is there, we have to gossip among ourselves and see which cast member is going to take up the mantle of trying to hold Karen accountable this time; if she skips an event, it is gossip and speculation as to why or for what reason.
• Vivien watch: Our flailing “friend of” made the cameras in one scene again this season. Vivien, we speak your name.