Reality Recap: Real Housewives of New Jersey (02JUN13)

OMG...new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey means new drama, new insanity, and new taglines (!!)!

Season 5 picks up right where last season's reunion show left off...everybody hates Teresa, Jacqueline/Kathy/Melissa/Caroline are a little boring, and Joe Gorga is just trying to get his poison out. Throw Hurricane Sandy into the mix and some sass from little Gia, and you have the perfect start to what looks to be a rather explosive season. No fights yet, no christening drama...but it's just the beginning! What did y'all think of that SUPER awkward play-date?! And how about Caroline's meddling at dinner with Joe?!? So excited for #RHONJ Season 5!!!!

Memorable Quotes of the Night / New Taglines:
Teresa (tagline): "Haters are gonna hate, but I just love, love, love."
Melissa (tagline): "Sexy life, loyal wife, take a page from my book."
Caroline (tagline): "Love me or hate me, I always speak the truth."
Jacqueline (tagline): "I've face my share of challenges, but I'm tougher than I look."
Kathy (tagline): "If you can't take the heat, get out of my kitchen." 
Rosie: "I don't go online. They're all freaks."
Jacqueline (on Gorga/Giudice drama):  "It's right up there on my priority list with bleaching my asshole."

Clutter Top Ten: Reality TV Shows

1. The Real Housewives of (EVERYWHERE). From Orange County to Jersey, from HOT-lanta to NYC, Housewives are everywhere, and every franchise offers a unique and different perspective (and dramatic interpretation) of daily life as a "housewife".  ATL and Jersey offer the most high-drama situations, but New York and Bev Hills always deliver in the style department. Ultimate guilty pleasure...we'd love to be apart of the Savannah Housewives if you're looking, Mr. Andy Cohen.

Best City: ATL...with a close second to the beautiful Garden State.

2. American Idol. The original singing competition (at least of the new age lot of singing competitions) has spawned the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and even William Hung. Would the world be the same if we hadn't met Simon Cowell? I think not. 

Best Season: Carrie's was good, but we love what Phil Phillips did last year.

3. House Hunters. HGTV's popular House Hunters and House Hunters International are TV bliss.  You can pop down in front of the boob-tube and watch hours of people trying to find their dream home on HH. No high drama situations here. Just good old, family fun.

4. The Real World. The beginning of our downward spiral into reality mayhem.  Recently, the series has gone a little more Jersey Shore than in its initial seasons, but whether this series is breaking ground on gender, race, and sexuality based issues or just an hour of pure debauchery...we will always tune in. 

Best Season: Seattle.

5. Top Chef.  Bravo's series of chef v. chef competitions is stimulating, gave us Tom Colicchio (and Padma), and coined the phrase, "please pack your knives and go" (which we say ALWAYS).  Tons of awesome food which yielded tons of awesome cookbooks and several celebrity chefs in the making. We love Iron Chef (on Food), too, but Top Chef offers that Bravo charm (read: drama).

Favorite Chef-testant: Richard Blais of course

6. Design Star. HGTV's competition show, Design Star, faces interior designers head to head in a design-off to the death for a show on the network. DS has birthed two of our fave TV designers, Antonio Ballatore (who follows us on Twitter!) and the bubbly Ms. Emily Henderson, one of our Top Ten favorite bloggers.

Favorite Challenge: The White Room Challenge (which got its own spinoff!)

7. Jersey Shore. Gym, tan, laundry is one of our many life mottos, thanks to the men and women of MTV's epic Jersey Shore.  Snooki, Mike, Pauly D, and the gang taught us how to party, how to look right, and how to talk like an idiot someone from New Jersey.  This is the best show about the Jersey Shore starring people who are not actually from NJ! It's a "blast in a glass".

Best Season: Any in Jersey (read: NOT Miami/Italy)

8. Trading Spaces. Week after week, Paige Davis' TLC show gave a new meaning to the term "home invasion".  Designers broke into willing civilian's homes and redecorated willy-nilly to the delight of viewers all around the world. Trading Spaces begat Genevieve begat Vern begat all the HGTV regulars. It is the beginning and the end.

Favorite Trading Spaces Parody: Bunifa (MAD TV)

9. Wipe Out. Wipe Out is a show that shouldn't exist.  It's literally people getting pummeled for little cash on television for the amusement of millions (or maybe just us??).  It is terrible...and then it is awesome...and then terrible.

Great Wipe Out Montage: HERE

10. Candice Tells All. Candice Olson hosts half the shows on HGTV (Divine Design, Candice Tells All, Design Star) and she does it looking flawless and effortless.  Her taste is always ultra luxe/ultra refined and we D-I-G her!  That is all.

Reality Recap: Newlyweds (06MAY13)

Newlyweds: The First Year, Bravo's newest reality show about couples in their first year of marriage kicked off tonight following some OC Housewives debauchery.  The premiere episode was chockfull of introductions/tears/craziness so let's just jump right in...

We first meet Tina and Tarz (real name: David)...a glitter-ful, Bollywood princess meets Tarzan look-a-like (re: his nickname "Tarzu") who have been together for four years.  She's ready to get on the "baby train" and he's running a start-up and wants to wait.  Trouble in paradise and we just started.  We see some loving, tender moments in bed when he says he loves her without all the makeup (the "real Tina") and she loves that he looks like an "idiot" but is actually a "nerd".

Tina: "I'm out there doing what any bride does before her wedding day...glittering the lawn."
Tina (to her neighbors): "We're going to have some noise...suck it."
Tina: "My religion is glitter."

Next, we are introduced to Jon and Kathryn who are moving in together before the wedding...into Jon's home...in Long Island...three days before the wedding.  Kathryn is "very excited" to be moving in, but three minutes into the episode she has already cried twice. She's also about ready to redecorate the house the minute she walks in...pump the breaks, Kath. In Kathryn's defense, Jon's closet was full of his ex-fiancé's clothes and he brought up the ex at least three in five minutes.  There's minor Guidice/Gorga drama at a nail salon between Kathryn and Jon's sister, but first impressions, Jon and Kath are a little boring.

Jon (about Kathryn): "She has wonderful...upper...breast."
Kathryn (on Jon's clothes): "This is definitely farty."

Jeff and Blair are a Homeland Security background investigator and a former boy-bander who are sixteen years apart in age and days away from marital bliss.  (Blair cries five minutes into the episode too.)  Blair was raised with a silver spoon (and apparently loves carbs)....they fight over donuts and pilates at the Farmer's Market and compromise with just a pie instead of a pie and donut.  Blair has a Meg Ryan moment with the pie and then they dive into a discussion on finances....awkward.  Jeff is charging Blair "rent" and a peaceful Farmer's Market adventure devolves into pre-marital discord.  As they signed their domestic partnership paperwork, later, though, Blair compared his love with Jennifer Hudson and Sandy Bullock's Academy Award wins. That's love. Blair/Jeff are our favorites (so far)!

Blair (while dancing with Jeff): "I can feel you getting a little warm down there."
Blair (on divorce and death): "It brings up the two D's and I'm not talking about Dolly Parton's breasts."
Blair: "I want a rent controlled marriage."

Kim and Alaska are our fourth and final couple...thank goodness, because we are already getting confused with all these people.  Alaska is smooth as hell from the jump off.  Giving her a "black diamond" ring at her surprise birthday party at a bowling alley.   Alaska is an A&R rep at Warner Bros. and Kim is a wardrobe stylist for Usher/Drake.  They're a power-couple in training, prepping for bicoastal domination, although they've never lived together and they have major drama in the shower section of the home store over showering together...she wants to, he refuses.  Kim later meets with her bridesmaids and demanded they lose ten pounds for the wedding...she has a vision for her wedding, y'all.

Kim (on Michelle Obama): "I love Michelle...what she's doing this season, she looks great."
Kim: "You're the man of the house...I have no say."
Kim (on her bridesmaids' weight): "I'm not talking about Mary Kate...I'm talking about losing weight so it looks good on film."

Reality Recap: Real Housewives of Orange Country (06MAY13)

In a season of OC Housewives where ladies we thought were friends seasons past are now worst enemies (Tamra/Vicki, Gretchen/Alexis) and enemies are besties (Tamra/Gretchen, Alexis/Vicki)...this week's episode was more of the same in trying to figure out the age old question..."Why does errybody H-A-T-E Alexis?"

Last week, Alexis showed up to a party she was (sort of) invited to at Tamra's new gym...awkwardness, followed by all hell broke loose.  Tonight, Jim gave Alexis a scriptural pep-talk during an hour long pre-bedroom routine in the bathroom, Lydia (almost) joined Team Tamra at lunch with Mrs. Barney and Mrs. Dubrow, and Vicki just did Vicki.  (Vicki's side story about living with her daughter and dating Brooks is SO convoluted that we generally run to the bathroom during her face-time).  We're officially Team Tamra, despite her bizarre behavior at the Cut Fitness dinner. 

We're digging new Housewife, Lydia, and her hippie mom, Judy, who apparently dropped acid as a young mom and smoked copious amounts of weed prior to going shopping with her teenage daughter.  Judy was COVERED in glitter and was vehemently against bags (because she was once a tree) while shopping in the OC with Lydia...she does not believe in bags but does believe in plastic surgery. 

P.S. We also cannot get into Gretchen's side story about Slade's kid's surgery.  It's too sad, and it's too hard to take Slade seriously.  Bubbly, dumb Gretchen is totes better than weepy, adult Gretchen.

Memorable Quotes of the Night:

Lydia (about her mother): "When you guys meet, she'll like sprinkle you with fairy dust." Then...“You can’t really have a bad conversation with someone when they’re sparkly with fairy dust.”

Alexis (to Jim): "Your new flannels came in today."

Judy (Lydia's Mom): "Before we get started, I would like to fairy dust you."

Lydia: "Growing up my mom was a hippie, and did acid, and thought she was a tree."

Judy: "I don't believe in bags."

Vicki: "I want Brooks back in my life." ...geesh.

Judy (at her pot-free brunch): "All the good chi comes out of the purse."

Lydia (to Judy): "You're so flighty, and land of the bunnies, and silly."



Judy: "God made marijuana, man." Then..."I think I'm more normal when I'm loaded."

Oh Judy...

Reality Recap: Don't Be Tardy...

On our favorite Housewife spinoff (at least until Phaedra gets a show called "Everybody Knows"), Kim and Kroy are moved in, babied up, and living their (crazy) life.  The 30APR13 episode, titled "The Blonde Side", showed Kim/Kroy going to the psychic, getting body wraps, bitchin', moanin', getting mummified, and Kim learning football.

Kim, the original accidental racist, loves being wrapped up in a spa on national television. (We've seen this before on Real Housewives of ATL.)  She also loves her man and her family, and while her new home pales in comparison to the "Queen of Versailles'" (check that one out), she loves her new home, too. Everything but the home gym which causes momentary TV drama.

Kim playing football, drinking wine was HIGH-larious.  Explaining that drinking makes her learn better, we understand more clearly why she is our role model.

All in all, good episode.  Why is it only a half an hour, Bravo? 

Some of the classic lines of the night:

KIM: "I want to get Kroy in the sack, that's how I remember he needs to get sacks."

KROY: "A twinkie is soft and creamy...like breast milk."
KROY: "My body makes the money."

LARGE FOOTBALL PLAYING WOMAN: "Welcome to football, baby."
OTHER LARGE FOOTBALL PLAYING WOMAN: "You don't want to see us in lingerie playing."

KIM: "First down then four down...down, down, down."

KIM: "Couple of glasses of wine, I'll try these drills now."

ALL: "Drink!"

Reality Recap: Real Housewives of Atlanta Reunion (Part III)

Sunday's Real Housewives of Atlanta Reunion was the third part in the RHOA Season 5 Reunion trilogy.  And in true trilogy fashion, Andy and the big wigs at Bravo (does that include Kim Zolciak?) saved all the fireworks for last.  If you haven't watched this season of Atlanta, we'll hit the highlights:

• Kenya, former Miss USA (and don't get that wrong) and new RHOA Housewife, is crazy.
• Nene Leakes put her crazy away because she has two network TV shows ("New Normal" and "Glee").
• Kim Zolciak is gone.  She done quit. 
• Kandi and Phaedra and Cynthia are all the same.  We still love us some Phaedra and are excited for Kandi's other show, but they weren't standouts this season.

Part III of the Reunion pitted Phaedra against Kenya (again).  This time about whether Apollo and Kenya were "pushing up on" each other.  Pregnant Phaedra seemed nonplussed by the whole incident, although, Kenya's fan flapping did distract most of the ladies (Note to Self: buy a fan and use it during arguments).  It also showed other-new-Housewife, Portia Stewart (Kordell's wife), coming out of her shell for the first time in her rookie season.  She cried, screamed, and even sounded (slightly) intelligent. 

All in all, things are the same as they ever was in HOT-lanta with the exception of Nene Leakes as the senior stateswoman, and misplaced voice of reason, amongst the new hotheads.  We'll miss Kim, but we already set our DVR's for her spinoff show!  We will not be tardy for that party!! 

Cheers, y'all! 
- Brooke