Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears: Candiace Dillard-Bassett is a woman in a reality crisis. She is visibly watching herself be iced out of the cast, and her petite frame is swimming like hell to fight the tide. Housewives storylines generally follow a standard arc: conflict A, drama, resolution, onto conflict B. But Candiace has been unable to escape the quicksand of last season, still fighting the battles of her grudges on the show and on social media. Even Wendy has something new to latch onto: as irritating as I find the Nneka drama, it allows her to move past discussing last season’s tensions with Mia and Robyn. For Candiace, however, everything reverts to needing to be heard for how she feels about last season, and she continues to run into walls at every turn, which only makes her stamp her feet louder as she continues to be dismissed
After nine episodes of Deep Space: On Tour, we finally land an episode where Candiace is steering the ship, with a Mother’s Day Brunch event alongside Parfums De Marly. It’s a well-conceived event — lovely location, perfume bar, musical ambiance — but the drama is all about the guest list. With Candiace wielding power, Gizelle is now excluded, but she is still trying to stitch together a semblance of a relationship with Robyn, who politely declined but finally agreed to a long-overdue one-on-one for the duo to air their grievances.
The division within the ensemble is a shame because the brunch would have made for a top-notch all-cast event. As it stood, there was plenty of fodder already, especially with the help of some of the girls’ mothers. For one, Mia and Karen have developed to in-person hugs, which is huge growth in their relationship; the grand dame cannot say the same for Charrisse, who triggers a slow-moving eye-twitch whenever they are within 25 yards of each other. Ashley sheepishly admits that her divorce is merely awaiting her signature, and her family is pressuring her to file the papers; Charrisse, who showed up with her daughter Skylar, aptly pointed out that she is likely still slow walking a transition to a new financial lifestyle.
Despite not being on the show this season, Jacqueline remains a topic of discussion for the second episode in a row. While Mia and Jacqueline have not spoken for almost a year, she has kept in touch with some of the other girls, including Charrisse. Charrisse tells Mia that she spoke to Jacqueline, and Jacqueline cried; she also reveals that Nneka joined in later, and Jacqueline apparently spoke poorly of Mia to Nneka. Both Charrisse and Nneka framed that unfavorably, but considering the terms that Mia and Jacqueline left things on, it is not a surprise that Jacqueline would not have good things to say, and the things that Nneka said in her confessional that were revealed to her about Mia’s behavior, if anything, sounded like a warning to Nneka not to get too close to a castmate that would publicly embarrass her oldest and best friend on a national platform. It is up to Nneka to choose whether or not to heed that advice and move judiciously.
Wendy and her mother were smartly nowhere to be found; if you have to gamble on a mother known for theatrics in a group scene with an antagonist, opt for the “pre-planned book event.” Wendy’s reduced presence allows us to get to know Nneka more organically: we meet her sister, Njideka, and get genuine insight into their family dynamic as high-performing daughters of a first-generation immigrant family that won the lottery alongside their hard work and succeeded in the American dream. Seeing the inside jokes that roll off their tongue and the natural banter they have amongst each other is a much more refreshing side of Nneka that still allows us to understand the pressure that she feels she’s under, with a highly accomplished sister who has proverbially “accomplished it all”: the career, husband, income, and family to boot. Hopefully they continue to build out these parts of her so we continue to understand Nneka more and invest more in her journey instead of just viewing her as an oppositional force to Wendy.
While Gizelle may not have been at the Mother’s Day Brunch, she does manage to lock in some mother-daughter time in a joint brunch with Karen and her daughter Rayvin (I loved her jacket in that scene; was it Diesel? ) It is lovely to see Gizelle and Karen return to their early seasons banter — even revisiting old quarrels over Jack & Jill cookie competitions — as their next generation offers each other counsel as Grace prepares to transition to college. While I critique Gizelle for using the family scenes to hide out when she is in the hot seat, it can be mixed in well with banter and narrative building when appropriately executed, and these two daughters are very well aware of the fabulous diva moms who have raised them. They can talk about navigating social lives and dating in front of their mom and even get discreet matching tattoos together. Karen, of course, believes that she is prepared for the pain of repeated injections because of her usual botox and filler routine.
We finally have the tête-à-tête between Candiace and Robyn, and the nuances in the discussion show exactly why, despite Candiace’s valid frustrations, she is stuck in a storyline roadblock. Robyn is no longer interested in being friends; Candiace is not interested in acknowledging that she did anything out of bounds as a friend. There is simply nowhere for them to go. Whether or not Candiace is correct in principle in saying that she was stating her opinion as others state their opinions publicly, the fact is that she live tweets and goes to the blogs in a way that the others do not. Candiace was furious at the situation, and she should own that and not insist that she didn’t mean to offend Robyn. What Robyn is pointing out, without saying it directly, is that Candiace publicly implied — outside of the greater conspiracy of it all — that she was not doing her job, which is coming for her paycheck as the primary breadwinner.
Robyn is bold for claiming she would do the same thing again, considering that Juan continues to humiliate her. Simply put, if she wants to protect her marriage, which is her God-given right, she must leave the show. But Candiace is not why Andy and Bravo production demanded that you account for the story you put behind a paywall and freely admitted that you (1) saw coming and (2) expected a cast member to bring up for you. It’s a frustrating refrain for her to keep repeating, and Candiace can rightfully exploit the hypocrisy in that. Still, she is trapped in a cycle of emotional immaturity that makes even the most standard conversation trying. She quickly starts ramping up into a vent about how Robyn associates with awful people (read: Gizelle), and she has a right to express how that makes her feel; you can almost see her begin to hyperventilate over her visceral reaction to losing control over the situation and her emotions. It’s tragic and sad to watch, and despite my thinking that Candiace is not completely invalid in her feelings, there’s just nowhere for her to go. Robyn is right: if this is how Candiace feels, then she shouldn’t be interested in maintaining a friendship, and there’s nothing more for them to discuss or try to salvage. Next week, we are taking ourselves to Surry County. See you then!
• This Wendy Youtube talk show story arc is all over the place. Plus, last I checked, the show went on a hiatus around the holidays and has yet to return after filming six episodes. I wish the best for her, but she really needs to focus on one or three things instead of being in the business of everything.
• Karen telling the CCO of Parfums de Marly that they were in the same family because they both sold at Bloomingdale’s and then continuing to shill her products at the event made me choke on my green juice.
• Was Juan faking sleep to get out of a basic conversation with his wife, or did he actually fall asleep during that massage? I don’t care either way, but it’s quite sad that they do not seem to be on the same page.