The Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: Rise and Shrine

Fellow readers, I usually follow these recaps in a relatively linear fashion that aligns with the episode, but if you would be so gracious as to tap into your holiday spirit and humor me a bit, I would like to present to you a bit of, say, Potomac-themed, speculative fiction:

Springtime 2023 has made its breezy arrival in Maryland. Cherry blossoms are making their first bloom. Recently cast newcomer Nneka Ihim sits down for her first confessionals before filming with any cast, NC45 and banana powder firmly in tow. “Oh, Wendy Osefo?” she says. “Yeah, I know who she is. I’ve run into her a couple of times at some events, and her sister is cool with some of my family.” *flounces out of Prince George’s County*

Wendy, on the phone venting to her mother while her husband and his veneers stare into the distance. “I can smell the bullshit. It’s happening again. They cast a girl — an Igbo girl at that — who claims to know me when, at best, I feel like I can place her face at some parties. Now, Ashley’s telling me that she’s saying I’m not a real doctor and that I’m Osu? This is some low vibrational behavior, and we all know that me, my four degrees, and my inexplicably gaudy sense of style have elevated past these attacks!”

And scene. No need to call me August Wilson or anything, but I think I did all right!

This is my best approximation of the behind-the-scenes happenings that led to the conflict revealed (I’ll break it down later). By my estimation, someone (likely production, as we saw) informed Wendy of what Nneka had said, and it annoyed Wendy because Wendy doesn’t know Nneka. They don’t have pictures together; they don’t associate. I am sorry, but Nigerian parties and concerts are huge — saying you saw each other at those sorts of functions does not associates make; that is passing acquaintances at best. But they do have people in common, clearly, so when Wendy made her frustrations clear to her internal circle, her people took it into their own hands, which Wendy clearly did not know — and I am going to stick by Wendy not knowing because, frankly, she is just not that good of an actor.

Before we dive deeper into that issue, however, Nneka has to pick up her husband at the airport — he is in travel medicine — while he is inexplicably in scrubs (maybe it’s in case somebody doesn’t have time to ask him what his profession is?). They use the drive to talk about how diabolical the Osefo family is, and then we get a FaceTime from the famed cousin-in-law, Lebe, breaking down the two calls, which specifically reference “clout chase,” “messiness,” and “shrine.” Iyke takes the time to bring up that his “college pal” from UMD, Eddie, unfriended him on Facebook as a sign of ill intent, which is up there with “Have you tried my homemade sourdough” as the most elder-millennial sentence of all time. Now, do I think Eddie probably looked up the couple his wife was venting about, realized he was following one of them, and unfollowed one to spare himself the headache? Yes. But considering that (1) UMD has a current undergraduate program of around 30,000 people, and around 3,000–4,000 of those are Black, and (2) the way we (yes, I said we) used Facebook in college in 2008 was that almost everybody who wasn’t Ted Bundy got added to our network. A connection isn’t indicative of anything.

Karen has finally accomplished what no other cast member was willing to do: get all the main girls together (sorry, Charrisse) for an all-cast event. Now, pickleball as a sport makes me itch — it just feels like white people make up games when they’re bored and call them “luxury activities” — but anything that frees us from the Bravo sound-bath industrial complex is fine with me at this point. Thankfully, it is impossible for a Karen Huger event ever to be straightforward, and she takes the “pickle” part of pickleball entirely too literally, dressing her and poor Ray in green and with literal dill pickles galore.

All the girls are worked up about their first real cast meetup. (Ashley’s under-the-sea backyard hoedown did not count). Candiace sits with Mama Dot and relays her concerns about her first time seeing Robyn since the reunion, how she should act and whether they could move on. And I note my concerns that Mama Dot has the same wig on that she has had in all three flashback scenes of the show, just with a few pieces put in under. Dot’s perspective is the same as it is every season: They should all grow up and move on. (And Chris needs a job.)

Robyn and Gizelle have their own sit-down before the event, which is a fascinating watch. Gizelle is not one to hold her tongue when she feels righteous or slighted — at times, performatively so — and it is obvious that she feels that Juan acted poorly toward her. She is trying to make that clear to her friend with some grace, and Robyn is not even willing to hear this charitable version. Now, we can choose to give Gizelle credit for having the conversation on-camera and not covering up that Juan yelled at her, or we can be annoyed at the double standard at how she’s choosing to handle it. Naturally, we have double standards for our close friends; that’s just reality. I think she gave enough of a hint that it was not mild whatsoever, and Robyn’s dismissals were so feeble that they were not worth even entertaining; your husband screamed at your best friend because his hearing is bad from coaching? Did she even believe that when it came out of her mouth?

The easiest way to move past a tense situation, of course, is to gossip about something else, so Robyn pivots to talking about Nneka’s information that she had promised to keep private. Robyn relays it in the most warped, bad-faith way possible, saying that Wendy’s mom has a shrine and is doing voodoo. I spoke to this in passing in last week’s episode, but a lot of this is bad-faith readings of some cultural barriers Nneka seems to be leaning into. “Have I prayed with you before?” is essentially a dramatic way of asking, “Are we close?” or “Have I spoken to God with or about you?” (“Have I prayed against you?” is the same, but the inverse.) The ultimate point Mama Wendy is making in her prayer-warrior way, whether you agree or not (and I think she was doing too much), is that we don’t know each other like that. We don’t pray together, so don’t invoke our names or speak like you know us. Nigerians have all sorts of dramatic ways of saying things. My favorite one belongs to my friend, who will never tire of telling someone that “sense has chased you your whole life, but you are faster.”

The actual pickleball activity doesn’t go too badly … if you consider a four-by-four match that completely abandons following the rules they learned as “not bad.” They had fun, and that’s what matters! There was definitely an initial cooling-off period required. Thankfully, Karen Huger comes to the rescue, whipping the girls into shape like the substitute P.E. teacher she was secretly destined to be.

The event going so well is what makes the actual decline all the more frustrating. Wendy is taken aback by Nneka’s news when they had initially started by agreeing, “I don’t know her.” Instead of taking Wendy aside, Nneka continues to press about this cultural conflict in front of the group. Wendy is fighting against information she doesn’t know, so she’s flailing, resorting to stunts. At the same time, Nneka continues to press and calls her mom a witch over the alleged “shrine” — which Wendy connects to the Osu rumors — leading to the production speculating on witchcraft among the cast, which is beyond inappropriate. Not only that, but the husbands get involved over a Facebook unfollow, with Iyke being unwilling to stand behind the conviction he had in the car when Eddie said to his face he didn’t know him. All of this is very disappointing, and I am not looking forward to seeing it continue to play out. See y’all next week!

Cherry Blossoms

• Karen and Mia have evolved to European air kisses. Progress!

• How much longer will we entertain the Robyn and Juan vs. the World thing? They entered a pickleball court in all-black battle gear, and literally nobody cared but them. It’s a complex at this point. If you want to be stuck in misery, congratulations. People don’t have to root for you, but you are too boring to be the world’s most hated couple.

• Candiace might be sharp, but sometimes, she lacks basic common sense. Why would Robyn want to be friendly with her at this point after everything she’s said on Twitter? It is not her personal diary; we have all read what she has said about her former friend. They have to have a sit-down before they can return to pleasantries.