RHODC Recap And Fact-Check Episode #7

The imposter Redskinette: D.C. 'Housewives' recap and fact-check (#7, Sept. 23)
By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts


Welcome back to "The Real Housewives of D.C." -- this episode brought to you by The Washington Post. No, really. We basically wrote the script for this one. All the stuff about how Michaele isn't really a Redskins cheerleader? Hello! -- the Housewives were only able to go there because the Post broke that news to the world. In fact, though the show doesn't admit it, it's clear to behind-the-scenes experts like ourselves that much of this episode was taped after the White House gate-crashing incident (again: brought to you by the Post), and that when the other 'Wives are talking about all the craziness with the Salahis, they're actually talking about stories they'd just read in the Post. After the gate-crashing. Which, in Bravo time, supposedly hasn't happened yet. Yes, more time travel. You're excused for feeling dizzy.


Photo: Jamie Christian



It opens at Cat Ommanney's home in Chevy Chase, where she and her photojournalist husband Charles are choosing photos for her memoir, "Inbox Full." (Apparently this is a real project. She told the NYT a few weeks ago the book has been back-burnered, but she said on Bravo last week that it's coming out in December.) A (seemingly editing-enhanced) moment of tension as they disagree on some detail. (The producers, who until recently were still patching this show together, seem to be catching up on the news of the Ommanney split and layering some foreshadows into the story.) Their relationship is "not always a rosy and sparkly as it seems," Cat tells the camera (bangs-less, which is to say, post-split). Charles outlines his upcoming business trip - photo shoots with Peter Jackson, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Geither. (Well played, Charles.) He won't be back until Sunday. (Minor-chord music hints at marital woes.)

At last, the cheerleading scene! Michaele Salahi shakes her pom-poms at Tareq in the "Thomas Jefferson Suite" at the Willard Hotel. (Should we assume this was comped in exchange for camera time, like the Four Seasons' Oprah suite?) "We still got it! It's alumni, but we're still rolling." She then goes on to tell the camera, "I'm a former Washington Redskins cheerleader for the NFL." (No. This is simply not true. In December, after the White House incident, the Redskins Cheerleader Alumni Association did the research and found that, despite her longstanding claims, she was never on the squad. She just showed up to alumni events -- and heck, even paid alumni dues! This story seemed to take the Salahi saga to a whole new level; it was one of the most-read stories on washingtonpost.com for several days.) We then see her alighting at rehearsal for an alumni performance -- big hugs for everyone -- and the quirky music and awkward steps are producers' cue to us that maybe she doesn't know what she's doing. (Indeed: The other cheerleaders told our colleague Paul Farhi they were freaked out by the whole thing, since no one remembered her and she didn't know the basic steps. Not all but a lot of faces are fuzzed out -- presumably they didn't sign Bravo's waivers. Oh, and there's some pretty serious time travel here, too: This rehearsal was Sept. 18 of last year, though much of the other action we see on this episode is November or December.)

Stacie Turner hosts an ice-cream party at her 16th Street Heights home -- kids invited. Usual gang, which is to say, everyone but Michaele, to whom the conversation quickly turns. Says Mary Amons: "Why do you think Michaele would claim to be a Redskins cheerleader?" Stacie tells the camera that "people are talking about Michaele, and the rumors are swirling." Phrases are thrown around like "pathological," and "what is the deal with these lawsuits?" (And just as Mary calls [bleep] on Michaele, I am calling [bleep] on Bravo. This scene was clearly taped after the White House incident and the revelation of various Salahi scandals and peculiarities -- notably, ahem, in our pages. It's very choppy and abruptly edited, probably because producers are having to edit around specific talk of the state dinner incident, which they don't plan to bring up until a later episode.)

But, a change of subject: Mary talks about her kids moving back home, including Lolly who has quit her miserable job. Stacie jokes, "You would not quit your job if it were miserable if you had rent to pay." (She says it lightly, but producers dub in a oh-no-she-diuhn't whoosh.) But then when Cat joins the teasing, Stacie's friend Erika suddenly turns on her: "That's the mean girl coming out! You're always negative every time I see you!"

(Did I mention that Erika Martin Hughes was in the room? Don't know much about her other than that she's very photogenic, and she has a "boutique lifestyle management and personal concierge service" ready to help you run your life. She's been on the sidelines of earlier episodes -- scowling at Cat during that Tyra Banks business and other racial-tension moments - but here she STEPS IT UP in such a way that you wonder why she's not a full-fledged Housewife. Seriously, why? Is she too cool to agree to wear pink sequined "Sex and the City" castoff cocktail dresses in the camera interviews? All I can say is: The season-two cast overhaul probably starts here. If there is a season two. Lisa de Moraes tells us Bravo won't decide for several weeks. But Erika is so ready. On Twitter she promised to speak the truth to the world tonight. I admire that she follows fewer people than even I do on Twitter, and that one of them is Idris Elba.)

Suddenly, ladies are yelling at each other, and most come to the defense of Cat. "Are you not placing judgment at this time?" Lynda Erkiletian asks Erika. Erika says she's tired of everything being all about Cat. Cat stalks off in tears and gathers her kids. Everyone follows, trying to console her, even Erika eventually, but she kind of makes it worse, apologizing but then telling Cat, "don't give me bad body language." Cat's all, "don't tell me what to do. Cameras pan to the baleful looks on little Jade and Ruby's faces. (This is child abuse -- the fact that they're getting exposed to all this drama, for starters, but especially the fact that they're getting filmed through the whole thing.)

At Mary's house in McLean, she and Rich and Lolly talk about Lolly's decision to quit her job as an executive assistant. Rich, skeptical, tells the camera, "Birds do have to leave the nest. Sometimes you have to kick them out to help them fly." (Is this why the Amonses are selling their six-bedroom McLean mansion? So their five cusp-of-adulthood kids won't be able to move back home?) Lolly says she wants to stay home for a while to work on her art. "Art's a hobby!" Rich says. "Art's never going to be a stable job!" Lolly says "that's not true!" (No, actually, it is true.)

The usual gang (everybody but Michaele) files into the office of D.C. Councilmember-at-large David Catania (You remember him from Edwina's odd party in episode five) to discuss the District's pending gay-marriage bill. (We're told this scene was filmed about a week before the gay-marriage vote, so mid-December... and therefore after the unmentioned White House incident. Cat's bangs are even beginning to grow out) You know who else is here? Well, Erika... and Paul Wharton. (Yes! We've missed Paul, the guy who single-handedly keeps the plot in motion; he's been all but AWOL the past three episodes, and I'm beginning to suspect this was a deliberate power move by Bravo, trying to limit his exposure as he films a new Paul-centric reality pilot -- you know, so he doesn't become too big. Because Paul Wharton was raised in a secret government camp designed to create and train the perfect Bravo reality stars.) Paul immediately notes in his camera interview that Cat greeted everyone except for Erika (see what I mean?) and complains that she's bringing down the whole love-and-unity vibe (but he's smiling... because he's glad to have deftly imposed thematic coherence on the scene). Anyway: Paul, Lynda, Cat and Erika are all in favor of gay marriage. Mary says she hasn't thought much about it "because it doesn't affect me" -- and Paul executes an exaggerated double-take (drama!) before telling the camera "a lot of Mary's friends are gay!" Everyone gangs up on Stacie and Jason Turner as they cite religious concerns that marriage should be a man-woman thing. Stacie's all for civil unions; Paul tells the camera if she doesn't support in gay marriage, he doesn't want to be friends. (Snap!)
Mary, Erika and Stacie meet at the Occidental Grille, a historic restaurant in the Willard Hotel, on Pennsylvania Avenue a block or so from the White House. (It's not identified, but we recognize it, and I'm thinking that this was their mid-December visit. If so, they've hidden the kids from the camera.) More debate about gay-marriage, then they switch to the Cat-Erika problem. This is intercut with footage of Paul and Lynda on the same topic over drinks (at Palette, the bar-restaurant at the Madison Hotel -- strangely not ID'd here either; they've either abandoned the old policy of lingering over every restaurant's name, or maybe the Madison already hit its shout-out quota in past episodes). Stacie criticizes Cat's rudely "Cat-like behavior," but Erika seems willing to move on. Paul and Lynda go deeper, though, talking about Cat's frustrations with Charles. "We're the only friends she has here," says Paul. Lynda wonders "what's keeping her there [with Charles] if it's really that bad." (And I have to wonder whether this conversation -- more heavily freighted with Ommanney marital woes than we've otherwise seen -- was maybe-who-knows-perhaps taped long after everything else. Who knows.)

Brief scene at the Willard Hotel: Michaele shaking her pom-poms at her mysterious "assistant" Jen, talking about the generational differences in cheerleading. "The girls every decade get better. See how I'm little [up top]? You wouldn't call me a brick house. [But] when you see the millennium girls!" (We think she means "millennial.") Jen is all, "boob jobs!" And Michaele tells the camera that she'd like some plastic surgery herself, no, haha, just kidding. Scene over.
Then the Salahis have a meeting with Virginia state Del. Dave Albo (R-Fairfax). The topic seems to be county regulations that restrict events at wineries (a real issue: there had been complaints about parking, noise, etc., when the wineries host weddings and other parties, which led to a wave of strict local ordinances limiting their practices. UPDATED 12:20 Friday: Albo sponsored a successful bill to limit counties' regulatory powers over farm wineries. The legislator told us he met the Salahis through this issue about four years ago and told us in an email that he likes them: "Granted, they are eccentric. But having wacky friends is fun!" While the meeting we see here was a little awkward because of the cameras, he said it was a real discussion of state business.). Tareq and Michaele basically claim that these restrictions caused all their family strife "because Fauquier wasn't letting us run our business" and now they want to fight for other wineries. (Yeah, this seems like a stretch. You can read for yourself about the Salahi family feud. And then read some more.)

Brief mother-daughter scene at the Amons house. Mary tells the camera that Lolly's "more like a girlfriend to me," only 20 years apart. Lolly chides her over the gay-marriage issue: "Gay people aren't just our hairdressers, they're our senators!" (Give us names, Lolly!) Mary agrees that gay marriage is probably a constitutional right, but then can't quite quote the Constitution, and Lolly prompts her: "Certain unalienable rights? Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness?" Quirky music, and Mary's all, oh yeah, that's what I mean. (Poor Mary, always the butt of the joke. And btw, that's actually from the Declaration of Independence.)
Cat meets Jason Backe for drinks on the patio of the Four Seasons (again, not identified, for some reason -- hey, while they were there, they should have asked for the Oprah Suite). Her bangs are quite short here again (which suggests it's maybe November) as she complains about life in "Chevy bloody Chase, and all the filthy desperate housewives who do nothing other than walk their dogs." More chatter about the Salahis crashing the Congressional Black Caucus gala, Jason along for the ride. "D.C.'s a small town," Cat says. "I'm surprised they haven't been exposed so far." (Or HAVE they been exposed already? Doesn't this sound like a backdated hindsight conversation?)

Finally, a completely trippy scene, in which the Salahis visit one Matt Carson, a laconic Piedmont-preppy type whom they tell us is a former Oasis employee who is supposed to help them write their "tell-all book" about all "the family dysfunction." (Turns out Carson was an unsuccessful candidate for a Virginia House of Delegates seat last year, running as Independent who opposed the Patriot Act. He also self-published a 2007 novel about good ol' boys launching a revolution against the government. Small world: Apparently he got a former Post colleague of ours to blurb it!... Awkward question, but -- why did Bravo blur out all the artwork on his walls? Matt says he has no idea: They were just innocuous prints, nothing dirty or racy. Must be a copyright thing.) The cameras catch Carson swallowing hard and smiling awkwardly as the Salahis lay out their literary vision, entitled "Wine, War and Roses" and haggle over who gets the credit or, you know, the money. "It's standard with these things, they give advances," Tareq says confidently. (Yeah, well... that's if you find someone else to publish it. This book project -- which Carson tells us he walked away from and never got written -- is not to be confused with their new book, "Cirque du Salahi," a collaboration with author Diane Dimond. Which, after making a lot of noise about shopping around to New York editors, they ended up self-publishing. It's available only via Amazon.) Tareq says he wants the book to be about Oasis's "huge successes," being "top 10 in the world." (Top 10 what? Though an acknowledged pioneer in the fledgling Northern Virginia industry, Oasis wine never had a reputation outside the region.) Irony alert!: Michaele tells the camera she's had such adventures since marrying Tareq; "sometimes I wake up and think, oh my god, we're going where? We're going to meet President Obama?" More irony alert: "I would love for it to have a happy ending."

Coming up next week: The state dinner incident! Michaele in Erwin Gomez's salon that fateful day, seemingly wondering how to handle the lack-of-a-paper-invitation thing. (Or we can only guess this is next week; Bravo says there are two more episodes left this season.)

Who wins this round? Erika. If everyone loves to hate you, then you know you're a star.

RHODC Episode #6 Recap and Fact-Check

Article from the Washington Post.


For better or for worse: D.C. 'Housewives' recap and fact-check (#6, Sept. 16)
By: Roxanne Roberts And Amy Argetsinger

Welcome back to "The Real Housewives of D.C.," the episode in which Mary's daughter raids her closet, Lynda gets a new house, Stacie searches for her parents and drama erupts at Oasis Winery... Uh, is this a rerun?

Bravo



No. It's not. It just felt that way. This episode magically avoided the season's two other repetitive obsessions ("Did Lynda call Michaele anorexic?" "Is Cat a racist?"), but it was otherwise almost nothing but retread -- not to mention rewind. Yes, this week we once again caught Bravo pulling off some more sneaky time travel. More on that later.

The episode opens at Mary Amons's (for sale!) mini-mansion in McLean. She greets Cat Ommanney at the front door with a little faux-British accent of her own. "Caaahhhtherine! Welcome, dahhhling!" (Seeing this now will make you feel a little less awkward later in the hour when she greets Stacie with "gir'frien!") Glasses of white wine. Talk about marriage, mothering. Cat tells the camera that "the fact that Charles travels so much and has left me alone so much, sometimes I felt like a single mom again, except seven thousand miles away from everyone I loved." (Does she mean, in London? Because that's only about 3,700 miles away from Washington. Give her a break, though; it's tricky converting from kilometers.)
(Also, note that Cat, in her camera moment, is bangs-less -- unlike her moment in Mary's house, where she has bangs -- which means that she gave this interview just recently, after her split from Charles Ommanney. Note the past tense slipping in. Also note that Bravo has given her subtitles! Can the average Bravo viewer really not understand the accent?)

Mary says she struggles with "mother's guilt." And -- have you heard? -- "I've had a big struggle with Lolly staying out of my closet." She's installed a biometric lock to keep her out! (We knew this! From the first episode! And assumed then it was just supposed to be a one-shot joke, not a damned story arc.) She tells Cat that her mother had a baby after Mary had Lolly, and that she and Rich lived with her parents for the first year of their marriage. "My sister and my daughter are the exact same age. Because I was young and naïve, it skewed the boundaries."

(Can we stay on this topic? Please? Thus far we can count three things we'd rather be watching a reality show about: Mary and Rich's first years together; Lynda's career as an R&B backup singer; Cat's brief snog with Prince Harry. And we get this instead. Bravo just showed up at the wrong time in everyone's life.)

Stacie Turner, at home in D.C.'s 16th Street Heights, gets a call on the speakerphone (reality TV dictates that this is the only way to answer the phone) from Michaele Salahi -- who wants Stacie to help her search for a house in D.C. Stacie brags to the camera about her real estate business (a Sotheby's agent at the time of this taping, she has since returned to Long & Foster where she began her real estate career): "I'm the person to call because I know D.C., and I'm the best at what I do." (Other D.C. Realtors, please take this to our comments thread.)

Lynda Erkiletian, at home in Georgetown, meets with her new German shepherd puppy, in anticipation of her move to McLean. She explains that when she last lived in McLean, her house was broken into. She doesn't think Ichiban, a stout little pup that resembles Churchill, is up to the job of watchdog. (WASHINGTON INSIDER ALERT!!!) Lynda announces that Dawn, the dog trainer, "trains the White House puppy, Bo." (This is actually true: Dawn Sylvia Stasiewicz of Merit Puppy Training got the coveted Bo assignment, and has reaped a nice publicity bonanza ever since.) "I was impressed by your training at the White House," Lynda gushes. Says Dawn, "It's a very bright dog. And they're a wonderful family." Then Dawn takes the name-dropping to the next level: Bo "is related to Sen. Kennedy's dog Cappy." (True.) Ichiban meets the German shepherd, and there is sniffing of butts. Lynda says something about how men need training too, and maybe women, and... whatever. Next scene!

The Four Seasons in Georgetown, where Stacie is meeting Tareq and Michaele. They are, believe it or not, staying in the "Royal Suite." (This is the Four Seasons' top-end suite, where Oprah is widely assumed to have stayed during the Obama inauguration. 4,000 square feet, massive private terrace. Goes for about $15,000 a night. How can the Salahis afford it, you ask? Well, the Four Seasons is a discreet place, and we'll never know for sure, but one can speculate that for the amount of camera time lavished upon the suite, this was a promotional arrangement for the Four Seasons, agreed to at a time before the Salahis were known for showing up uninvited to the White House with a trail of debts in their wake.)

As Stacie wonders to the camera where the money is coming from, Tareq explains that they're tired of staying in hotels when they come to D.C. for business, that they want to buy their own place. What kind of place? Michaele winces at the word "condo." Tareq says they need to "have 200 to 250 guests on a regular basis." What's their price range, Stacie asks? Says Michaele: "It could be the $100,000 home, or it could be the $12 million home." (Quick and sloppy D.C. real estate tutorial: $100,000 gets you a one-bedroom in Anacostia, the city's poorest sector. $12 million gets you an embassy. A NICE embassy.) Stacie wonders how they intend to finance this. "Through the business," says Tareq. Stacie tells the camera, "The winery is defunct. Do they think I'm stupid?"
At Cat's home in Chevy Chase, Md., she is doing the dishes, and explaining to the camera that she learned that morning that one of her friends back home had taken his life. "The girls woke up to hear me crying." Mary consoles her over the phone. Lots of "love you, love you" back and forth.

Lynda goes to check out her new McLean mini-mansion with Mary and a woman named Deborah, identified as her designer. (This is Deborah Kalkstein, a Georgetown-based decorator -- at one point, an early contender for a larger role on this show -- and owner of Contemporaria, where Mary, Cat and Jason Backe drank-and-shopped in episode four.) "Mary and I are going to be neighbors!" Lynda cheers. "We're so close, we're a stone's throw away." (They're just under a mile away from each other, in fact -- well, until Mary moves. Lynda actually now lives much closer to Colin Powell, whom Mary bragged in episode one lived just down the street. As the crow flies, Lynda's about 200 yards away from the former Secretary of State's house... Is this stuff interesting to you? Let me know and I'll keep going.) Lynda says that the house needs a lot of work, and "that's where astrology becomes of value." She never makes any big decision without consulting an astrologer. She burns a bunch of sage and smudges it around the place: "Whenever I purchase a new property, I think it's important to clear the energy." (Bravo plays whimsical music over this -- your cue to go ahead, laugh!) Lynda explains that she was raised Baptist, converted to Judaism at 20. She sprinkles holy water outside the house and declares "I love everything holy!"

Michaele and Tareq pick up Stacie in a white stretch limo. (Remember: They operated a limo service for a while, which explains all the limos in their life). Stacie takes them on a tour of Washington real estate. Spring Valley, the far western corner of D.C.where, says Stacie, "a lot of politicians live" (sure, some do); then, without announcement, an area that looks more like Foxhall or Embassy Row. Michaele sighs over a home that Stacie pegs at $20 million and not for sale. Stacie tells the camera she wants a bank statement or other evidence that the Salahis can afford this kind of real estate. Then she asks him straight out what the deal with the winery is. "Most of the rumors are true," he says, explaining that his mom sued him (true; as we've discussed before, she sued alleging he ran their business into the ground, he countersued; the winery and Tareq's businesses based there both filed for bankruptcy). "She came back after never being in the winery at all and really made a mess of things." Adds Michaele, "It became where the mom was wanting to push Tareq out." (Note: "the mom"?) Stacie offers that maybe they'll patch things up, and Tareq says no, "that chapter is closed." Stacie is horrified. The limo pulls up to the Four Seasons and Michaele exclaims, "we're home!"
Back in McLean, Mary interrupts Rich watching an unspecified sporting event on TV to complain, again, about Lolly taking clothes from her closet. Again. Apparently, "I forgot to close it." Says Rich (sounding like a man who has already seen season 1, episodes 1-5) "Do I need an Internet counter on my forehead for the number of times we're going to have this exact same conversation?" Mary tells the camera she doesn't like his sarcasm.

Back at the Turner house, Stacie is cooking dinner when Jason comes home and, apropos of nothing (or, perhaps, as if nudged by an invisible hand, perhaps belonging to one of the many Bravo/Half Yard personnel hanging around the family home but unseen by us the viewers -- and do you ever stop to think how weird that must be?), asks when Stacie is ever going to find her birth father. "It's been two and a half years!" Stacie tells the camera (for those of you who missed episodes 3-5), "I was surprised to find out my mother was Caucasian and my father was Nigerian." Jason says Stacie's birth mother will never help her find her father, that they need to go to the next level and confront her son -- Stacie's half-brother -- on Facebook. (This seems kind of drastic. It's also the most intriguing plot development on this episode. So of course, they drop it for the rest of the hour.)

Lynda, back at her Ritz-Carlton apartment, getting dressed, in a poufy silver trench-coat-style dress. (Familiar? For a while, one of the few photos we had of Lynda was in this dress. It's what she wore in Washingtonian magazine when they put her on their best-dressed list last year.) She calls to K.C., who is both her assistant and her son's girlfriend, to ask her for help buckling her shoes. Then she sweeps off to a gala with two of her sons, Sam, 16, and Mihran, 19, and boyfriend Ebong. (Leaving poor K.C. behind. Cinderella!)

The gala turns out to be the annual fundraiser for Men Against Breast Cancer. (And now... wait a minute! This event was held last Oct. 20 at the W Hotel. That was several days before Paul Wharton's birthday party, portrayed in episode two. And the gala was nearly three weeks before Oasis Winery grape-stomping party, of episode four. We know, however, that you, the sophisticated viewer, are up to the challenges of the non-linear narrative. I think Bravo enlisted David Lynch to direct this one.)
Mary and Cat are also there, and the highlight of the gala is a men's fashion show. "Women behave badly at men's fashion's shows," Lynda notes. "It's like they're at a strip club." Look, there's Paul Wharton walking the catwalk! (We missed our friend Paul the Plot Engineer the last two episodes; sadly we only glimpse him briefly this week. His hair is flat-ironed and somewhat longer than usual) Also: Fox5 anchor Will Thomas! (Will, you rascal you! No wonder you managed to break the story of the non-invited Salahis getting tossed out of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gala -- after, of course, we broke the White House story. Seems that Will was embedded with the Housewives!) Mary glares at Lolly on the far side of the room in a black bustier -- Mary's of course.

A man described as Lynda's ex-boyfriend comes by the table to say hi. (And this is true: Christopher Reiter, now 42, dated Lynda for a couple years. He owns Muleh, a furniture boutique and importing business in D.C. and is currently dating Juleanna Glover, the uber-hostess and GOP lobbyist who helped Half Yard Productions make some of the original introductions around town to find their "Housewives" cast.) Cat is struck by Reiter's groovy '70s Euro-chic style. "You dress absolutely identically to a very good friend of mine... who just died really recently, and it's like, whoa." She starts to cry, and tells the camera "it was just like a spirit or an angel coming to the table." Lynda tells the camera "it gave her the opportunity to just open up, let go, cry, and feel the pain." Lots of hugs.

Back at home, Cat tells 11-year-old Jade about crying in public and wrestles with her decision to skip her friend's funeral. "I think just go with your gut," Jade tells her. Cat tells the camera: "I know people say mothers shouldn't be best friends with their children, but we've been through a lot together."

In McLean, Mary and Rich have the Turners over to dinner. Mary greets Stacie with "my gir'frien!" (Producers decide not to linger on this; they hazed Mary enough in episode one, apparently.) Mary is a big fan of the Turners after they stood up for her at Oasis when Tareq started making bizarre charges about Lolly. Mary says that Jason's response "was a high five." And, "he definitely was the tender warrior in the group. His feather" -- at this, Mary wiggles her hand from behind her head -- "was like rrrrrwahahah!" Everyone smiles and laughs as if they get the references. (I don't.) Anyway, her point being, "you had our back." Stacie expresses surprise at the Salahis' recent behavior, having enjoyed them in Paris. Mary tells the camera "it's just a matter of time before Michaele and Tareq burn the bridge with Stacie and Jason, because they do that with everyone." She tells the Turners that she knows people who grew up with Tareq and that "there's a reason he was sent to military school." (In fairness, the Post in its extensive bio of the couple didn't find any noteworthy bad-teenager stories.) She adds that they have a "track record" of not paying their bills. (Post stories did find that.) But she defends Michaele, whom Mary sees as "lost" and trapped "in a co-dependent relationship."

Michaele and Tareq pull up to Oasis Winery, this time in an ordinary SUV. Tareq talks about "our family war" but his hopes for "a grand reopening, bringing it back to life." Michaele says she ran into Tareq's mother Corinne, who she said was mad that Michaele was talking to his father Dirgham, whom Michaele insists is a fan of Michaele. "Corinne, I don't know why she's so mean to me." Cameras pan over empty vines, shriveled fruit. Tareq talks about the "over-the-top designs for renovations." (It's one of those awkward reality-TV conversations clearly arranged for the sake of the cameras, otherwise, why would these two people deeply involved in the matter for so long need to deliver so much exposition to each other?) The two say Dirgham wants them to carry with the family business: "A new generation is here," says Tareq.

And then: Sirens! Sheriff's cars show up to the winery, and Tareq goes out to talk to them. Michaele tells the camera, weeping, that Corinne called the police trying to have them (and presumably, the production crew) removed from the place. Michaele gets very emotional: "It's affected my life greatly. It's affected my health, my well-being." (Note that the week this episode is airing is the week that the Salahis, in promoting a new book, announced that Michaele has multiple sclerosis.) She adds: "I've stayed because I love Tareq, and I got into it for better or for worse... Life's short and being cruel or making fun of someone or suing them or attacking your own child -- the whole thing is devastating."

Coming up next week: Michaele attends out at a Redskins cheerleader alumni event, and it's clear that Bravo will gleefully reveal what the Post months ago revealed -- that she never was a Redskins cheerleader, despite claiming to be one. Oh, and a big screaming match over whether Cat is a racist or whether Cat is simply a jerk -- yes, THAT old story.

Who won this round? We're no longer keeping score.

Alex's RHODC People Blog

Article from People.

By:Alex McCord

Isn’t it funny — this week two Housewives broke down and cried, and sparked two completely different reactions in my house.

My first thought was that a human with feelings ought to be touched when Michaele cried about Tareq and his family. But I wasn’t. Why? It’s the build-up of the seemingly self-inflicted strikes against them in the media. The Congressional Black Caucus, the White House, the Redskins, that Whoopi beat her up, that they want to fund an $8 million house through their business, which doesn’t appear to be doing well given the defunct winery and the lawsuits. It makes me — and everyone else I talk to — unsympathetic, to the point that when we heard sirens at the winery I just wondered whether Tareq and Michaele didn’t have permission to film there and that’s why the sheriff showed up. Haven’t the police arrived each time they’ve been to the winery?

By contrast, I nearly cried along with Cat when she broke down over the news that her friend had committed suicide. Maybe it’s because most of us have been there, have gotten absolutely god-awful news at a time when it wasn’t safe to let go, and completely go to pieces because someone had to watch the kids or go to work or get things done. We saw Cat mostly hold it in until she saw her friend’s doppelganger at the cancer benefit, then the supremely awkward moment when she grabbed a stranger who dressed like him and practically petted his head. I found myself being glad that the guy in question was someone connected to Lynda, whom we’ve seen has a spiritual side to her, and seemed to get it.

Going backward in this episode, I couldn’t quite relate to the closet drama between Mary and her daughter . . . until I remembered my favorite sweater that our first au pair borrowed and put in the washing machine. Note to self: SO glad we have two boys! My closet is safe unless either of them turn out to be drag queens.

Stacie ran the gamut of emotions this episode, from being vulnerable over the potential Facebook search for her birth father to all-business when it came to advising the Salahis on their house search. How many realtors high-fived when Stacie gently but firmly told them they needed to provide a financial statement to prove they were qualified to buy, given all the stories in the media and the winery lawsuit. Michaele seemed to be happy to just stay at the Four Seasons forever, which would be fine as long as the bill gets paid!

The Salahis might be looking, but Lynda was buying, and brought her designer, her astrologer and a bale of sage to the new house. One thing I’ll say: No matter how much holy water you use, it will not make the concrete steps look better. You need a jackhammer for that.

Next week’s episode looks interesting — are they addressing marriage? Didn’t quite get it but stay tuned . . .

RHODC Epidsode #5 Recap and Fact-Check

Article from the Washington Post.


Mean girls: D.C. "Housewives" recap and fact-check (#5)
By: Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger

Welcome back to "The Real Housewives of D.C.," and episode five -- we've crossed the halfway mark! The home stretch! It's the episode where Tareq and Michaele Salahi toss around a lot of vague but ominous accusations about Mary Amons's daughter that as best as we can tell are (1) misleading and (2) misdirected and (3) way overstated, and this edition of our weekly recap and fact-checking will attempt to make sense of it for you. These accusations hang over the rest of the episode, giving it a yucky aftertaste that nonetheless does not diminish its boringness. Hey, everyone psyched for season two?

Photo: Bravo

It opens where we left -- Stacie and Jason Turner and Mary lingering over a dinner at Oasis Winery, where they are the guests of Tareq and Michaele (who seem to have reached some tenuous legal ceasefire with his mother enabling them to be on the premises). The dinner was already tense, thanks to the topic of the Salahis apparently crashing and getting tossed out of the Congressional Black Caucus dinner. (True story.) Tareq apparently has a look on his face, so Mary nudges him to share (or maybe the producers have nudged her to nudge him), and then he unloads, in a rapid slur.

"So I'm just going to say something. I don't know every detail about everything. There's been this dialogue about a car that you know we had, and unfortunately the car got taken." Oh, and also, adds Michaele, "all the United States team gear."

Tareq goes on to implicate Mary's oldest daughter Lolly -- though he's careful to say that it's actually "this agency [that] came to us" and told them that Lolly had something up on Facebook "admitting" something about a "joy ride." And most damning, there were photos: "They" -- whoever they are -- "were all wearing my jacket, my jersey and my polo mallet!" Mary gets incredulous and then weepy, and the Turners jump in to say, basically, "whaaaa?" And Tareq continues, saying "the FBI has been investigating this.... There's a federal investigation and everybody's going to jail!"

(Time to break in now. We, too, do not know every detail, but our reporting indicates that this was a relatively minor incident -- a year and a half old already by the time of this dinner - that did not involve the FBI, nor implicate Lolly. It goes back to May of 2008, when the Salahis' America's Polo Cup organization hosted a match at Lansdowne Resort in Northern Virginia. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office confirm they received a report of missing clothes and polo gear, as well as a complaint about a car that had been moved from where the owners left it - it was found, a short time later, in the same valet parking area. A "possible suspect" was identified more than a year later, after police received new information, and some of the items were returned. Though there are a couple of active warrants -- for larceny and unauthorized use of a car -- they apparently haven't taken a whole lot of precedence, because they still haven't been served. No one has been arrested. The full police reports are not available since the case remains open. But the sheriff's department confirmed that Lolly's name was not part of the investigation.)

Mary calls this accusation "out of left field" and "the worst sucker punch." Jason is in disbelief that Tareq would accuse someone's daughter like that: "No. Stop. I am so uncomfortable with this line of conversation." (It's another moment when you sense that the Turners have pulled back the curtain for us and are expressing genuine shock that they've lent their names and lives to an increasingly sordid TV show.) Michaele insists that "the charity was hurt, the polo players were hurt." (Their charity has indeed been beset with problems, including a state investigation into its practices.) Mary tells the camera that Tareq "had a lot of wine to drink... He is an angry drunk." Michaele accuses her of condoning stealing. It's all very ugly. Mary walks off, a tissue to dab her eyes on one hand, a big glass of red wine in the other.

Sullen limo ride home for Mary and the Turners. Mary can't figure out what the exact accusation is and wonders why Tareq would bring this up at the end of the evening, out of the blue. Jason suggests that "maybe it's all [bogus]."
Next, we're at Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon in Friendship Heights. Over foot massages, Catherine Ommanney and Stacie tell Lynda Erkiletian (absent from the winery trip and most of last episode) about the Salahi weirdness. Lynda, to the camera: "Even if that story were true, would you do that in public, at a dinner party you're hosting?" (She doesn't even need to invoke one of her Rules of Washington here.) At the salon, she bursts out laughing. "I'm sorry, this must have been devastasting for Mary -- but he is a whackjob!" Cat wishes she had been there for Mary (she left early). Stacie regrets she went to Paris with them. "They're living a kind of farce."

Back at Mary's McLean house (which -- breaking news! -- the Amonses just put on the market this week, after 16 years there). Family discussion about What the Salahis Said. Mary tells Lolly: "He dropped the name FBI, you, polo gear and a car being stolen." Says Lolly: "He's ker-RAZY!" Mary tells the camera that "she did post something on Facebook -- but this in no way implicates her in an FBI investigation." (Oh, come on, tell us more! I can't find Lolly's Facebook profile these days, but I'm sure it's been scrubbed and privatized. Which, you know, the smart thing to do.") Rich Amons gets the two best lines of the night: "He breaks all kinds of man-rules by attacking, one: my wife, two: my daughter." Then when Mary asks how they should deal with Tareq the next time they see him, Rich widens his eyes and shrugs: "Depends on how much alcohol I've had!" (hahaha) Lolly is unrattled by the accusations: "Are you worried someone's going to believe him? Someone's going to be, like, 'Tareq Salahi is such a credible source?' I don't think so." (Starting to wonder if there's more history between these families than we realized... or maybe Lolly was just a diligent Washington Post reader who had followed the early stories about Tareq's family feud and polo-circle squabbles.)

Michaele heads into dinner with a dark-haired young woman in a sparkly top named Jen, described as her "assistant." They're at Palette, the restaurant at the Madison Hotel (which is just across the street from Washington Post! I highly recommend the pulled-duck hoagie). Michaele (seemingly still operating under the mistaken assumption that "isn't Cat Ommanney controversial?" is the driving plotline of "Real Housewives of D.C.") talks about how controversial that Cat Ommanney is, all balky and eye-rolling at the winery last week. "It's not being a Washingtonian," declares Michaele. "It's not being a Washingtonian lady."(As of Thursday night, Google found exactly five non-gibberish uses of the phrase "Washingtonian lady" in history, one of which comes from a 1902 novel, and two others referring to Seattlites. But you know, by tomorrow, we'll all be saying it around here.) She adds that, with Lynda, Cat and Mary, "it's like the Wicked Stepmother and Evil Stepsisters, and I feel like Cinderella."

And then the producers really lay the smack down on Michaele, who is allowed to natter on vaguely about "Lolly's involvement," blaming Mary for opening that conversation at dinner, and agreeding with Jen that it was mighty dumb of Lolly, or anyone, to post incriminating stuff on Facebook. Says Michaele: "If you're out there doing crazy things, it's going to come back." (Mwah-WAHH! We here at the Washington Post have been given a lot of credit -- and deservedly so! -- for breaking the story of the uninvited guests at the White House state dinner... but let's remember too that the Salahis kind of gave away the game by posting on Facebook all those now-iconic photos of themselves cozying up to Biden and Rahm at the dinner.)

Back to Mary's house. Rich, over a glass of wine, says he's searched the records, but "I couldn't find anything with Lolly's name in any police jurisdiction in 100 miles." Mary tells the camera that "Michaele and Tareq make [stuff] up because they want to deflect their own [stuff]."

Lynda, at home in Georgetown, is talking to Stacie on speaker phone (the only way you're allowed to talk to each other on reality TV, though you can also do it by holding a tiny cellphone in the upraised palm of your hand, like you're about to blow a kiss off of it). Remember how Lynda has been househunting? (She sold her Ritz-Carlton condo for beaucoup bucks.) Well, now she's getting advice from her new Realtor friend, Stacie. Stacie is glad to help (though it all seems beside the point, since Lynda divulges she's already signed off on a counteroffer). Stacie, though, gamely turns this into a minor bit of faux-drama character development: "McLean is beautiful, but it's Virginia!" she tells the camera. "She lives in Georgetown, on the water. Buying in McLean is a good investment -- however, I don't see Lynda as a suburban girl."

At the tea room of the Mayflower, Cat clinks champagne glasses with our old friend Edwina Rogers. (Remember, Edwina was an early candidate last year for a major "Housewives" role. In some ways she seemed perfect for it, what with her controversial yet charming habit of giftwrapping presents in uncut dollar bills. But she did not ultimately sign on.) Cat announces to the camera that "Edwina's one of the most powerful lobbyists in D.C." (With all due respect to Rogers, who has a fine career, she has not typically been considered in the stratosphere of this intensely competitive field.)

Says Edwina: "Cheers! Welcome to the United States! I hope you're being treated well!" And then later, "I understand you're working on a book... What a fun profession!" (Bless her heart, Edwina is just a little stilted with the cameras. You wonder if she was still in the mix at the time of this taping; the producers mess so much with the chronology it's impossible to tell when this champagne tea occurs.) And then: "Did I tell you I'm working on health care reform?" Cat snarks a "good luck with that," and that it seems like an "oxymoron" for a Republican to be working on health care, and "would you like to pay my medical bills?" which she then begins to enumerate. Edwina giggles politely, then stares as Cat natters on about how terrible the U.S. health care system is. "Is that a cucumber sandwich?" asks Edwina. How did she vote? Edwina says she's a Republican, voted a straight ticket. "What about Sarah Palin?" asks Cat. Edwina kinds of stares at her. "She was on the ticket. You can't split the vote... [but] I think she would have been fine." Cat is all eye-rolly as usual. Then Edwina, gamely sticking to the notes, explains, "the reason I brought up health care is I'm going to have a party for Washington insiders, Republicans and Democrats." (Oh, help us. No one talks this way, not about their own parties or their own friends, unless maybe they're reading off the same "Rules of Washington" cue cards prepared for Mary and Lynda most weeks. So anyway, we'll have that insiders' party to look forward to.)

Back at the Madison, this time the hotel bar, where Lynda and her boyfriend Ebong are meeting Jason and Stacie. When the Turners arrive, Lynda says, "We just started having a cocktail, you know how that is - I said, it is Washington and it is raining!" (No, I actually don't know what that means. There are no rules of Washington and rain and cocktails. That I know of. But I find nothing in her cocktail-directed logic to object to.) Topic of conversation #1: Lynda defending her decision to move to Virginia. Just "for a few years... I love my city! I love it here!" Stacie confides more concerns to the camera: "It's somewhat surprising to me that Lynda would move out of D.C. now. D.C. is so much hipper and cooler and cutting edge." (And now, a word from McLean-dwelling Roxanne Roberts: "Do I suddenly live in the sticks and no one told me? Drama for people who don't know Washington. Fact: Five minutes from McLean to D.C. over Chain Bridge, 15 to Georgetown.") Lynda declares that "I will come back."

Topic of conversation #2: Stacie's search for her birth parents. As established last week, she now knows that her birth mother is white, her father from Nigeria -- which is where Ebong is from. "He is my brother!" Stacie cheers, and wonders whether he can help her find her father. She talks more about her mother's reluctance to get to know her. Lynda calls it "heartwrenching" and expresses sympathy for the mother: "What if she spent her whole life wanting you... She had to make these decisions because of ignorance." Stacie's not buying it, but appreciates the sentiment. Which leads us into the D.C. Housewives' perennial topic of conversation #3: Race relations. Lynda declares that growing up in the south, "I experienced reverse racism. I wasn't waited on because I was white!" Says Stacie, coolly: "That is interesting." (On her Bravo blog this week, Lynda hearkens back to her teenage experience as a backup singer for R&B star Candi Staton, and honestly, I wish we were seeing a reality show about that.) Some flirtatious banter about how we're all alike in the dark, and about Ebong's nappy chest hair, and the scene ends cordially.

Back at Mary's house. So many of these kids -- Mary's, Lynda's, Cat's -- just blend together, but now and then one stands out. And of course, once again, it's 14-year-old Megan, still feeling her oats after her scene-stealing cameo a couple weeks ago. "What are these wrappers all over your floor?" Mary asks. "Did you eat HoHos up here?" Says Megan, winsomely: "I kind of fell asleep on a HoHo." (It doesn't really make sense, but Megan bats her eyelashes at the camera and waits for the Disney Channel to discover her.)
Lynda shows off her new home to Ebong and her kids (and maybe some of their plus-ones; hard to tell, but it seems like a big crowd, and I'm pretty sure they're not all hers). She loves the kitchen, frets about the safety of the pool. (So you know, she paid $2 million for it.) Stacie once again looms into the scene, telling the camera with concern: "It will be interesting to see how she fits in." (Spoiler alert: Lynda's going to be fine, okay? She's just moving across the river, all right? Really!)

Cut back and forth between Stacie and Jason at home, and Cat at home, all dressing for Edwina Rogers's lobbying event. "We're Democrats, but we're open minded," says Stacie. Cat decides to dress "inappropriately," and goofs around with flouncy minis, feather boas, etc. Stacie frets about encountering the Salahis again but vows "to rise above the drama."

The party is at The Madison -- again! (In fact, in the same room where Bravo hosted the "Housewives" premiere party last month... is everybody even now?) The chyron describes it as "Edwina's healthcare party" (which -- oh, just make up your own joke). It's a fairly empty looking party, actually. (Were guests afraid they'd be asked to turn their head and cough? Never mind, I'm letting you all make up your own jokes.) Michaele, in a hot-pink dress, declares that she wants to get to know Edwina's friends, and starts introducing herself around. Cordial hugs when the Turners arrive. But Jason tells the camera: "I felt a change in the temperature with them. Not from them, but from us."

And now, here's our weekly installment (in no way prompted by producers, we're sure) of Lynda Erkiletian's Rules of Washington. Says Lynda: "Washington, D.C. has a special etiquette: You can think what you want, but you can't say it to their face." (Unfortunately this runs directly counter to the Rules of Real Housewives, as explicated by New Jersey's Teresa Giudice -- oh, go click it and then come back.)

Hey, look! It's a real celebrity: D.C. Councilmember-at-large David Catania! He tells Michaele he likes her hot-print dress. Stacie is pleasantly surprised to see him, though she knows he "has headed the health care initiative for years." (Chaired the health committee, that is.) He talks with Stacie about how insurance companies need to be able to "provide a product people can afford," and she seems impressed. (Don't think this is the last you'll see of Catania on "Housewives"; he welcomed the cast and crew into his office last December when the council passed the same-sex marriage bill. Catania was, at one point, one of the most prominent openly gay Republican officials; however, he's now an independent.)

Oh, and then Cat walks in dressed up as Sarah Palin. Brunette wig and all. Heads turn, but everyone seems to figure out it's her in about a second. Charles Ommanney (her now-estranged husband) is there as well. Cat tells the camera, "Charles is not a fan of Sarah Palin's, so we have a lot of fun getting me to look like her." (This is a pretty damaging thing to say about a journalist who has a reputation for objectivity and neutrality; she did a similar thing in episode one, nattering on about Bush vs. Obama.) There is some bitchiness in the room -- Michaele and Jen laughing that people might like Cat better if she goes undercover more often, Cat snarking about Michaele's "artificial dress, artificial personality."

Then, drama! An ambulance crew takes someone out of the hotel on a stretcher. We're told it's Edwina, suddenly taken ill. Vertigo is mentioned in passing. (We contacted Edwina Rogers about this incident, will update with what we learn.)

Then a super-weird exchange -- fraught but nonsensical -- between Cat, Michaele and Jen (who at the winery stepped out of obscurity to tell Cat she was being "bitchy," and suddenly the cameras focused on her like she'd just descended from heaven -- well played, Jen!). Cat's all, "you said I was bitchy," and Jen's all "you're taking it way too seriously." And then Michaele turns on Cat and says, "Did you just have a brunette wig on?" And Cat says, "Yeah, did you just have a shocking-pink dress on?" And Michaele says, "I'm still in it -- where's your wig?" (And does any of this make any sense? It's so fifth grade!) Michaele tells the camera that Cat "likes to give it out but she can't take it." Cat tells the camera that Michaele "is so superficial... you're so full of [expletive] Michaele."

The scene, and episode, ends with Michaele bantering flirtatiously with another guest, a short, older man identified as "Robert Foster, President and CEO of Global Consulting." (Yeah, no luck Googling him; he also appears to have kept his company out of The Washington Post. Seems like a nice guy, though. Maybe he gave the camera guy a fake name. If you know him, email us.)

"In this city, honey, your credibility is everything," Foster tells her, "and once it goes..."

"It gone," says Michaele.
"It gone," he echoes.

Who wins this round? No one. Everyone loses.

RHONJ Reunion Part Two Recap/Review

Article from NJ.com.


By:Vicki Hyman/The Star-Ledger
Did the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" reunion leave you, like me, feeling a little verklempt? Did you also start to tear up when Jacqueline Laurita tells Danielle Staub that she wants to let go off all her anger, and Danielle tells her she's sorry and that she loves her, and they share an interminable hug, and we realize that we won't have to sit through any more pointless luncheons where the ladies discuss Danielle even though they hate hate hate talking about Danielle, or watch footage from incredibly inappropriate mother-daughter outings, like that trip to the gynecologist, or hear Teresa Giudice deny that her house is in foreclosure as the bankruptcy rolls on (the schadenfreude has long since worn off), or stop ourselves from hurling our highballs at the screen every time Ashley Holmes sneers "Whatever" ... for at least nine more months? Yes, the second season of "Real Housewives of New Jersey" is finally over. Whispers: Please no lost footage special. Please no lost footage special. Please no lost footage special.

Photo: Bravo

The second half of the reunion show was a lot like the first part -- Teresa snarling epithets at Danielle, Danielle deny, deny, denying any and all accusations lodged against her, then stalking off the set, Jacqueline jumping off the couch to follow her and being restrained by Andy Cohen -- hey, has he been working out during the breaks? Okay, the head in the high-end purse was a bit of a curve ball -- that was Danielle attempting to illustrate how yanking out hair extensions also pulls out actual hair -- and we enjoyed Kim Granatell's surprise visit and even more surprising hissy fit at Teresa. Kim G. wants on this show bad. But nothing was as shocking as Jacqueline's change of heart in the last few minutes.

"The more you would say, the more angry I would get, and the more I wanted to lash out at you," she tells Danielle. "I hated the person I was becoming, and it's gotten so ugly and out of control now. I just don't want to be in that place anymore, and I really don’t want to be this person that’s angry and attacking you all the time."
Danielle tells her she's truly sorry for everything that's happened -- Teresa rolls her eyes -- and promises that Jacqueline won't hear another word from her on the subject. When Andy asks her if that means she'll drop any (as far as we know, just rumored) litigation, Danielle says, "I will contact my attorney and make sure there is peace for everybody."

Photo: Bravo

Teresa then tells Danielle that she's never tried to spread rumors about her, which Danielle takes as an apology of sorts (we didn't), and Danielle gets up and hugs a flabbergasted Teresa. Then she turns to Jacqueline and envelops her in a hug and whispers, "You have my word, no more ... I'm moving on and I'm happy. I'm in a happy place ... I love you and I don't care who else believes it." The hug lasts for 43 excruciating seconds. Then she reaches out a hand to Caroline Manzo and tells her she's sorry for anything she did to her.

Caroline shakes her hand. Then she says, "This is the biggest crock of s--- I've seen in my life." "I have to be honest. If I'm a bitch, I will own it. I am not a coward. I am not a phony. This was phony." Oh, Caroline, I think I'll miss you most of all.

Danielle Staub produces a mannequin head to demonstrate the damage done when Ashley Holmes yanked out her hair extensions.
Other highlights:

-- Vis a vis the baby cancer benefit and Danny Provenzano calling Chris Manzo a gay slur, Danielle maintains that she can’t take responsibility for other people’s actions but says she did talk to Danny about that afterward, and that exchange was left on the cutting room floor. No one believes this. “I no longer speak to him as a result of that,” Danielle says. She must mean off-camera, because Danny made several appearances after the benefit episode. But then we established during the first part of the reunion show that Danielle is not friends with Danny; she just tapes with him. She also claims that she didn’t know about the entourage at the benefit until she was on her way there. “I’m not responsible for that.” Caroline: “You blame everybody else … Own up to one thing.”

-- Caroline says her neighbor told her that he often sees a white Range Rover outside her house, which just so happens to be the car Danielle drives. Teresa asks, stalk much? “Do you not think I have better things to do with my time than to drive down the street in Franklin Lakes?,” Danielle says. Last we checked, she’s unemployed and her two children are in school, so, um, no, we don’t think she has better things to do.

-- Jacqueline defends her parenting techniques and says that she and Chris took away the car they gave Ashley at the end of last season. Meanwhile, Jacqueline manages to score a point when she shows Danielle a Twitter exchange in which one of Danielle’s followers told her he wants to see Ashley commit suicide for his birthday, and she responded, “I hope your birthday wishes come true.” Danielle admits she does correspond with that particular follower, but she says her reply could have been in response to another tweet entirely. Danielle apologizes, sorta. “I’m sorry. I would never do such a thing, ever.” Denying you did something kind of negates the apology, doesn't it? Danielle also admits “it wasn’t right” to call Ashley a coke whore, which stemmed from a rumor she heard from Kim G. and her daughter. Kim G. flatly denies saying anything about Ashley using drugs.

-- Speaking of denials, Teresa is still saying she didn't start the fight at the North Jersey Country Club. “I was genuinely trying to say hi to her," she insists. And we genuinely do not buy that.
-- Jodi from Lodi asks Caroline if she’s willing to go to lunch with Kim G. now that she’s no longer friends with Danielle. Kim G. smiles beatifically at Caroline, who, after a pause, says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That was perhaps my favorite moment until …

-- Andy brings up Teresa’s blog entry in which she bemoans the lasting damage done to her psyche by seeing Danielle and Kim G.’s “old lady butt cracks” during the visit to Squeeze Lounge and some impromptu stripper pole lessons. “Sorry,” Teresa laughs to Kim G. “How old are you?” And Kim G. rips into her: “Let’s not go there and start with me. Because you know what? You’re going to go down if you start s--- with me right now.” “Don’t ever speak to me like that again,” Teresa tells her. Danielle tells Kim G. that playing both sides “made you look pathetic, and I hope you get everything you want from this. Be careful what you wish for.” Probably the wisest thing she's ever said.

RHONJ Reunion Part One Review/Recap

Article from NJ.com.

Vicki Hyman/The Star-Ledger
The "Real Housewives of New Jersey" reunion: Zero to crazy in 90 seconds flat. Yessir, that's about as long as it took for Teresa Giudice to unleash her first zinger at Danielle Staub, all while ostensibly answering host Andy Cohen's innocent question about what they think about that other Jersey reality show. Teresa was put off by one of the female cast member's willingness to jump into bed with a guy she just met. "I'm old school, like, you need to get to know someone, not after a week you sleep with someone, like certain people in this room, but we're not going to go there right now ... Keep asking questions. ... Wait, you know what, let's go back to that one. I think Danielle could relate to them, right Danielle? Because after a week you met Steve, you slept with him in my Shore house, in front of your kids. That was okay, right?"

Photo: Bravo

You have to give Danielle credit for keeping a preternatural -- okay, preternaturally creepy -- calm about her most of the evening. "You really are insane aren't you?" she calmly tells Teresa.

"You're a pig," Teresa shoots back. "Look at yourself. You're disgusting. And you're desperate."

Consider that an amuse bouche. The drama reaches a fever pitch soon after, when Jacqueline and Teresa complain that Danielle didn't call to congratulate Jacqueline Laurita on the birth of her son, Nicholas. (My burning question: If they think Danielle is such garbage, why would they even care at this point? Why wouldn't they welcome Danielle being incommunicado?) But then Danielle drops a bomb on Teresa: "Did you you acknowledge your nephew?" We don't know what she's talking about, but we can certainly guess what she's getting at. Teresa is taken aback, but snaps to fairly quickly. She gets up, stalks over to Danielle, and screeches in her face, "Do not break up my family!" This is one of the few times I am happy to be hearing impaired. That did not look pleasant.

Andy tries to pull Teresa away, and Teresa pushes him back. Hilariously, he collapses into his seat as Danielle strolls off the set, Teresa cursing and throwing a pillow at her. Teresa screams, and I quote, "Bwouaaaaaaaaaah!" Spellcheck, don't fail me now. Andy and Caroline Manzo move in to calm her down. Filming is suspended, except, of course, it isn't. We see a group of people trying to calm Teresa, while at the other end of the set, Danielle paces, saying, "I can't bring up something that's the truth ... but they can lie about me?"

When Andy approaches Danielle, she takes him to task for letting the situation get out of hand. "I could have quite possibly been hit there, so someone needs to be on her. If she moves her ass off that couch again, I'm leaving." "I'm not gonna let her get up," Andy assures her. Yeah, you and what army? Back on set, Teresa is screaming at Andy to get Danielle back in there, and Andy sternly tells Teresa that she can't get off the couch again. "I'm not going to hit her," Teresa says. "She's not worth it."

Backstage, Danielle is almost in tears while her entourage calms her down. On set, waiting for taping to start, Caroline tells Teresa to be smart. "Don't let your emotions to get to you. She wants this. She wanted that moment. You just gave it to her -- again." It may be true that Danielle wants it, but isn't it also true that Teresa fired the first shot? Like the last time?

Well, that was very dramatic, wasn't it? The rest of the evening kind of pales in comparison. There is just one more point I'd like to bring up before delving into the other skirmishes of the evening: The very idea that that all this drama is anything close to "reality." In that regard, there were two illuminating comments made during the reunion. First, when Jacqueline brings up rumors that Danny Provenzano split from his wife while filming the second season because he allegedly had an affair with Danielle, Danielle says, "I don't hang out with him. I tape with him, and that's it."

And when Danielle and Teresa start to bicker about how much Teresa talks about her, Teresa snaps, "Bitch, I don't talk about you. Okay? I'm doing it right now because we're on a freaking TV show ... I never talk about you. Unless it's on camera, thank you." Which basically means that all that time spent talking about Danielle this season -- we'll conservatively estimate it as 85 percent -- was put on for the camera. Of course, the only surprise is that the producers let those acknowledgments air at all.

Caroline does insist, however, that she's been real throughout the season. "I know what I am as a person, okay, and I could sit here and you could throw something at me and I'm going to own it," she tells Danielle. "I've been like this," she says, waving her hand in a straight line. "You've been Mr. Toad's Wild Freaking Ride. That's what I see when I look at you. It's a matter of convenience, what it is at the moment that works for you."

Other highlights (or lowlights):

-- Andy raises the question lingering from last season's reunion show: What did Danielle do to Dina Manzo that made big sister Caroline so mad? Danielle says that Dina thinks Danielle was working to get custody of Dina's daughter Lexi taken away. Danielle denies this. "Why would I do such a thing ... I don't think she's an unfit mother." Jacqueline says that Danielle's lawyer put some sort of gag order on Dina so she couldn't discuss the allegations. Danielle allows that she may have, because Dina lied about the situation in an interview. "Do. Not. Speak. Of. My. Sister" Don Corleone, er, Caroline tells Danielle. Jacqueline tells Danielle to shut up and calls her a piece of garbage. Look who's finally growing a spine!

-- Teresa confirms that Joe didn't get her a huge diamond for their anniversary; it was a yellow sapphire cocktail ring. When Andy asks her about a New York Post report that detailed their bankruptcy filing, including $20,000 in credit card debt to Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, Teresa scoffs. "Do we believe everything the New York Post writes?" She flat out denies the credit card debt, even though the bankruptcy papers that list $20,000 in debt to the three major department stores were written up by her own lawyer. Which she signed. She says Joe didn't tell her about the depth of their financial problems because he was protecting her, and that she doesn't read the negative things that are written about her. "Are you keeping out the negative or do you think you're a little bit in denial?" Andy asks her. "Keeping out the negative," she says firmly.

-- When asked whether Caroline regrets taking a shot at Danielle's children by saying they don't have light -- or as Caroline now describes it, "innocence" -- in their eyes, she says she doesn't. Danielle insists that her children have light. "Do you know they cry at school every day?" Jacqueline asks her. "Because of rumors that they hear ... I feel bad for them." Leave the girls and their light, or lack thereof, out of it, please.

-- Teresa swears that Joe was not drunk the night he was arrested for DUI after crashing his car. He only went to a nearby friend's house and downed a couple of shots because "he was all shaken up," Teresa says. Danielle finds this hard to believe. So does my turtle.

-- Danielle refuses to confirm or deny that she's dating duet partner Lori Michaels, or, as Andy puts it, swimming in the lady pond.

-- Danielle denies that she's making any money off the sex tape that's currently in circulation, and denies Jacqueline's suggestion that she and her bed partner made the tape in order to release it.

-- When Andy says that the father from the baby cancer benefit claims that Danielle never donated any money after ruining the event, Danielle tries to set the record straight. With no help from Caroline. "I went door to door" -- "Lie." -- "collecting" -- "Lie. Lie." -- "commitments" -- "Lie." -- "of $6,000" -- "Lie." Then Caroline really rips into her: "You came into my place of business looking to cause a problem. You brought danger to my son in the shape of that Sweathog reject 'Okay, Mr. Kot-ter or whatever the hell his name is fool. Your intent was to come and cause a scene to try and defame my husband."

-- When Caroline asks Danielle to explain what Danielle meant about greeting her son Chris pleasantly at the benefit and calling it a "psychological F-U," Danielle claims that it was just an acknowledgment that they were putting the families' differences aside. Oh, please. "You do not sit here and try to make a fool out of me," Caroline says. "I am looking at the fool."

Next week, part two of the reunion: Danielle walks off the set again! The return of Kim Granatell! And best of all, a head in a bag!

RHODC Recap And Fact-Check

Article from the Washington Post.

Time-travel, crashing 101, and old news: D.C. "Housewives" recap and fact-check (#4, Aug. 26)

Welcome back to "The Real Housewives of D.C." -- the episode with seedless grape-stomping, family mysteries, and, best of all, time travel! It's also the episode when the show's producers finally started to catch up with the nine-month-old headlines (i.e., party crashing) that spoiled all its suspense long before it aired. (At least in OUR world, that is. In recent days, we've seen TMZ break the astounding news that someone has sued Tareq Salahi for an alleged unpaid debt of $4,000, and RadarOnline reveal that he's embroiled in a feud with his mother. To which we can only say: OLD! Those of you who choose to get your "Housewives" recaps from The Paper That Brought You Watergate already know that for the Salahis, a $4,000 lawsuit is chump change -- a Post investigation last year found at least 30 such lawsuits filed against them since 2004, many in the five figures -- and the messy, sad family feud over Oasis Winery has been simmering in our pages for three years now.)

Photo: Bravo

It opens with Lynda Erkiletian, in her Georgetown Ritz condo, cooking for her boyfriend Ebong... and her roughly college-aged kids, two of whom are wearing colorful patterned footed PJs. (Maybe they felt the need to ramp it up, personality-wise, so as not to get lost on Bravo's cutting-room floor.) She talks more about her search for a new home (she sold the Ritz place around the time this was being filmed last fall and moved to McLean). "The apartment just is not big enough," she tells the camera. "I'm going to miss Georgetown -- nothing like security and a concierge and 24-hour room service." (True, actually -- that's what it's like living in the Ritz.) But, "everything I've put my family through in the last five years, I owe it to them to give them a yard." (Aren't these kids too old to need a yard? Of course, one's never too old for footie pajamas...)

Stacie Turner sits in her living room with three women identified as her sorority sisters (she is a Delta Sigma Theta), back in town for Howard University Homecoming. One of them asks (in an apropos-of-nothing way that I'm sure wasn't prompted by a producer) for an update on Stacie's search for her birth parents. Revelation: Her birth mother, it turns out, was white, of Scandinavian descent -- and her birth father was a Nigerian man she met in the Peace Corps. Who doesn't know that Stacie exists. And the birth mother is doing nothing to help Stacie (who was adopted out of foster care, now her big cause) find him, and has been keeping Stacie a secret from her white family, which Stacie finds hurtful. And frustrating -- she wants to know who her people were. (This is easily the most interesting thing to happen on this show thus far, so obviously producers have to cut away from it pretty quickly.)

Mary Amons arrives early at the opening of Ted Gibson's new salon in Chevy Chase. She tells the camera that she feels responsible for getting him established in D.C. "People like to call Washington the Hollywood for ugly people," she explains. (Someone supposedly said this once, but mostly it's lazy feature writers using it in the same indirect way Mary does -- "It's been said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people..." -- so they can pivot away with a cheesy transition like, "but whoever said that must not have met THESE eligible bachelors/stunning singles/Beltway trendsetters/whatever blah blah blah...") Anyway, says Mary: "I want to put us on the map." But then Michaele shows up in a white backless dress, hugging Ted over and over and saying she loves him. We see Mary bristle, a bit jealous; and wary, too, as Gibson thanks Michaele for "sponsoring" the opening party. All Michaele did, says Mary, is bring some wine.

(And hey! It turns out that this party about to unfold is the ur-D.C. Housewives party, the big camera-mobbed party last fall, the one that pretty much confirmed who the main Housewives would be. You know -- the one we keep running the same damn picture from. That was so far back we didn't even know yet who the mysterious blonde British woman was.)

(And hey again! It also turns out that we are time-traveling! This party, according to the Reliable Source archive of all things Housewives, was way back in September -- just a few days after the America's Polo Cup event we saw in the first episode. And the Gibson salon party was a couple weeks BEFORE the Washingtonian best-dressed party we saw in that same episode, nearly a month before the Paul Wharton birthday party featured in the second, and at least a few weeks before the Turners' Paris trip we saw in last week's episode. It could be that Bravo is taking reality TV to the next level by experimenting with the non-linear narrative form so well deployed by Fellini, Altman, Tarantino, and ABC's "Lost." It's an approach that, upon second or third viewing, renders the hugs and "I love you"s exchanged here by the recently feuding Michaele Salahi and Lynda no longer nonsensical but deeply poignant -- we're in the past, you see, before the ugliness began and they were still friends. Or maybe Bravo got lazy, kind of like when they accidentally inserted footage that made it look like a 3rd District D.C. cop car was escorting the Salahis to a party instead of a Park Police vehicle. Reality!)

Highlights of the party: Mary tells the camera she thinks the Salahis "use their wine to get into places and get to know important people." She smirks to Catherine Ommanney about "people who get into charity just to promote themselves -- social climbers." And Cat exclaims, as if the two of them have discovered some rare affinity, "I despise social climbers!" (Poor social climbers. Won't someone stand up for them?) Then Mary tells the camera, "In D.C., there is a certain standard of integrity that you must demonstrate, otherwise you're not going to make it." (Make up your own joke. I'm getting tired.)
In McLean at Mary's home, we see her oldest daughter Lolly talking about her new job as an executive assistant and her hopes to find a place of her own -- which Mary reminds her better have room for her big, heavily shedding dog Kona. (We met Kona in episode two; Mary has since clarified on her Bravo blog that he is part Bernese mountain dog, part English mastiff.)

Michaele places phone calls inviting everyone to come grape-stomping at Oasis Winery. Lynda can't make it on account of her son's ball game, but she tells Michaele how much she'd like to see her: "I miss my old Michaele-ah." (Lynda appears to be the only person who pronounces the name this way.) To the camera, though, she says "I prefer to save my energy for people I love and care about."

Then we have a scene with Mary, Cat, and Ted Gibson's husband/partner Jason Backe at Contemporaria furniture store in Georgetown (and briefly meet its owner Deborah Kalkstein, who is said to have been in talks early on with producers about maybe being a Housewife; didn't happen, obviously). Mary is irked with Cat for dissing her idea of painting her dining room high-gloss black, and for making fun of the chairs in the store. (Or so it seems -- a definite sense of pique is at least suggested by the editing of this scene, but who ever knows.)
And then, in another magical apropos-of-nothing moment, Jason announces, "I've been dying to tell you this story all day" -- which turns out to be the story of how the Salahis crashed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner. He says the Salahis invited him and Ted, but when they arrived, it seemed the ticket only said, "admit one." But the Salahis told him not to worry; they maneuvered their way past security, and once in, started working the room and looking for empty chairs. Until finally, "five or six Secret Service walk over" and escorted them out. Mary is horrified, considering that she'd used some of her precious social currency to introduce Ted and Jason around town: "It does not look good to sneak into a party, especially when Secret Service is involved." Says Cat: "I'm really embarrassed for everybody!"

(So, this was a real thing. The news of this particular breach broke last November, a few days after the Salahis became world-famous for crashing the White House state dinner in November. The Salahis, asked about this incident in their first post-crash interview on "Today," insisted that they were there properly as guests of their lawyer Paul Gardner -- which then compelled Gardner to hire his own lawyer. What a mess, huh? However, this is the first we've heard that Ted Gibson and Jason Backe were along for the madcap ride; in Jason's telling, it seems the hairstylists did not get bounced out with the Salahis. We tried to tease out some more details from the hair guys, but Gibson's publicist responded that he's not discussing this.)

A black stretch limo drives around to pick up the whole gang, or much of it, for a day of grape-stomping -- Stacie and her husband Jason, Cat and Mary (both sans husbands), and Jason Backe. (Hey, where's Paul Wharton this episode? Not the same without him!) Meanwhile, Michaele and Tareq are raising an Oasis flag at the winery. "We're back!" Michaele explains, before telling the camera: "This is the first time we've had guests here since the ruling from the judge. It was two and a half years of litigating." (Hmmm? Yeah, this is the family feud we keep telling you about. Tareq's parents Corinne and Dirgham, the founders of Oasis Winery, sued him a few years ago for an amount that ultimately reached $3 million, alleging he ran their business into the ground by embezzling funds and taking wine without payment for his own enterprises; Tareq countersued. Eventually, the winery filed for bankruptcy, as did Tareq's business, and the judge last year dismissed the suits after both sides essentially ran out of money. His parents also filed to evict Tareq and Michaele from their apartment at the winery.)

The drama appears not to have subsided, though. Tareq and Michaele have hired private security, to ward off any interference from his mother. "My mother disrupts everything we try to do," he says. Corinne is on the property (her face is fuzzed out; apparently she didn't sign any waivers to join this little goat rodeo), and the couple fusses that she has beckoned a reporter to the scene. (We know him! Dan McDermott, publisher of the Warren County Report, which has diligently covered the drama around the Salahis in Front Royal and Hume, Va. Dan was either saddened or relieved today that he didn't fully make it on screen. Last fall, he told us about his surreal adventures stumbling upon this shoot -- read about it here, at the end of our story about the making of Housewives -- which involved producers at first shooing him away, and then -- after Tareq delivered to Dan an on-camera soliloquy about how screwed up his family was -- kissing up to him to get him to sign a waiver. Alas, in the end, they didn't use that scene.)

Tareq calls the gang in the limo and leaves a message advising them to pull up to the right of the winery, since "we've had some issues with my mother trying to disturb the day." This gets the gang talking. Mary offers that the only time she's ever seen Michaele without Tareq was way back in the day "when she was behind the counter at Nordstroms selling me makeup." (Catty? Maybe. But true.) Jason Backe tells everyone the story of the CBC gala, which freaks out Stacie. "It's just rude, disrespectful, especially to the African-American community." And when she hears that Tareq has guards at his place: "I've got two young kids, I can't be walking into something with security in the middle of Virginia!" (For a beautiful moment, it seems that Stacie is about to say, "Hey, I didn't sign on for a TV show like THIS!" Bless her heart, she stays in character, doesn't break the fourth wall... but you know that even nine months before the Whoopi-Michaele smackdown, that's exactly what's what she's thinking.)

At the winery, Tareq explains that "my mom is unpredictable, you never know what she is going to do." Cat tells the camera (months later, judging from her grown-out bangs) that all this security is ridiculous. Tareq, in jolly host mode, insists that everyone's going to have to stomp out three gallons of grape juice; he blows a whistle at them. Cat thinks this whole scene is weird, and says so. She refuses to play: "I'm not stomping, I'm spectating... I hate being bossed about." There is much griping about Cat being a bitch, but she endears herself (to us, the viewers) by gaping at the weird staginess of the whole thing: "Is this my life? Is this my life?" Mary and Stacie gamely get into the grape-stomping vat with Michaele (everyone absurdly wearing at least one item of white clothing into the vat), but soon Mary is badmouthing the whole scene to the camera as well: The grapes, she said, aren't legitimate winemaking fruit but the same as the "seedless grapes I have in my refrigerator." (Dan McDermott tells us he learned from a Front Royal grocer told him the Salahis came in that morning to buy a big crate of grapes and tried to haggle over the price. Have we already mentioned that Oasis is more or less defunct, the vineyards no longer producing grapes?) Still she and Jason insist on declaring the event was "great" and "fun," to which Cat replies several times, "Bollocks!" Then, of course, she leaves early with Jason Backe.

The remaining visitors sit down to eat in the winery's vat room, and Michaele starts gossiping about the just-departed Cat. (The following conversation is poignant, because you sense that Michaele is still under the illusion that this is just another season of "Housewives," where they sit at dinner tables and talk about the others, and that Cat is the antagonist character, the Teresa-the-table-flipper if you will, and she herself is the heroine.) Mary sorta defends, or at least explains, Cat -- "If she gets the sense she's not into it, she's out." Says Michaele, "It's not good to insult people -- or do you feel good about that?" (This is a tautology comparable to hating social climbers.) Mary is nudged by the invisible hand of the producers to bring up Jason's story of how they crashed the CBC gala -- and the Salahis sort of dismiss this by saying, well, that's ludicrous. Michaele, to the camera: "No one gets into a place where the president is speaking without tickets!" (On her Bravo blog, Michaele acknowledges there was "a little drama" that night, but denies that "Secret Service" escorted them out. She's splitting hairs here -- CBC officials made it clear the Salahis were escorted out, but by a different breed of security personnel working the event, not Secret Service.) And then she turns it into a why-are-you-talking-about-me-behind-my-back thing, and oh god, we're back to the debate over whether Lynda said that Michaele is too skinny (FOUR episodes they've devoted to this!), with an added back-and-forth about was Mary making fun of Michaele before the Ted Gibson party, or was that just Lynda and Cat. (Ladies, please. If you can't say something incendiary enough to start some table flipping, maybe best to say nothing at all.)

And then, the invisible hand nudges Mary again to look at the tense-faced Tareq and say, "You have something to say." And he say, "I'm just going to say something..." -- and, cliffhanger! The previews make it seem very exciting: Mary asking if Tareq is implicating her daughter, and Tareq threatening that "everybody's going to jail!" and Mary weeping. (We think this involves a criminal charge that Tareq attempted to file against friends of Lolly Amons -- we told you a little bit about it at the end of this story about reality TV hijacking the news cycle -- but we'll just wait to get into it next week. Hell, it's all old news anyway, if it's even news at all.)

Who wins this round? Stacie and Cat, for subtly revealing their deep remorse for being on this show. Cheers!