The Most Gloriously Chaotic Hour of Television This Year

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This Week

An all-time great TV episode.

The best acting performance of the week.

Big celebrity relationship news!

Photos I can’t stop thinking about.

Behold: Kim Kardashian’s acting debut.

A Perfect Episode of TV

There are four words that send a sharp chill up my spine, tingling my entire body—nay, soul—with a thrilling cocktail of giddiness, fear, and excitement: “dinner party from hell.”

When the aliens (who apparently exist and we somehow don’t spend every waking moment talking about) return from Earth to their home planets, they will report back on our society’s greatest cultural achievements in this medium they discovered called “television.” They will speak about the masterful comedy talents of Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and Mary Tyler Moore. They will go on and on about great HBO dramas like The Sopranos, The Wire, and The Leftovers. One will mention Oprah, and the rest will bow their heads in solemn respect. And then the sagest of the group, the one who took the most time to understand what makes great human TV, will chime in: “And let us not forget the classic dinner scenes from The Real Housewives.”

After this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, our alien friends have another example to add to the list.

I’ve said it before and I will say it until my dying day: You don’t have to be a reality TV fan, or even understand what in the world these grown women are going on about, in order to appreciate what makes these episodes riveting television. (And to the harrumphers who scoff at the idea of reality TV being “good”: Please do tell me how you built your time machine to arrive here with that argument that was already stale in 2012.) As I take my last breath, my last words—my “Rosebud”—will be, “Mention it all.”

Treat this like any other piece of writing about pop culture you’ve yet to see. If you’re capable of appreciating an advanced review of Killers of the Flower Moon, then you can do the same as I explain the invigorating experience of witnessing Meredith Marks summon a demon and begin slurring in tongues as her eyes bulge out of her head while demanding that an uninvited dinner guest “CAN LEAVE!” (Good luck to The Exorcist: Believer for presenting anything close to as compellingly supernatural when the film premieres next week in theaters.)

Still, if you are a Bravo fan, you’re fully aware that we were being treated this week with “All Tricks, No Trust,” the RHOSLC dispatch from Palm Springs featuring a proverbial “dinner party from hell” that belongs on a Bravo Mount Rushmore alongside similar (iconic) fiascos that aired on the Beverly Hills, New York City, and Potomacfranchises. The entire episode, though, offered primo Housewives chaos, veering from Shakespearean fights and power plays to award-worthy slapstick comedy.

The only background you really need to know is that the RHOSLC cast is on a trip to Palm Springs, where they are staying at Trixie Motel, the all-pink establishment owned by RuPaul’s Drag Race superstar Trixie Mattel. (Mary M. Cosby, in her first of many unintentionally hilarious one-liners: “Trixie Hotel…Is that a person?”) And Angie Katsanevas—always referred to, typically with scourge, as “Angie K.”—crashed the trip uninvited in an aggressive attempt to be accepted by the show’s stars, and yet is consistently confused why everyone was annoyed that she is there. (Mary M. Cosby: “Who is Angie?”)

Angie K. is a fascinating figure in the pantheon of Real Housewives. She is what I would call, in purely professional terms, a flop. No one wants her around. Her blinding desperation to be on the show blares from her like the neon lights of Las Vegas, at a level that’s in direct opposition to her ability to be even remotely entertaining. And yet here she is, a lynchpin of one of the greatest sequences in RHOSLC’s run so far.

After a half-baked activity in which pairs of the women dress each other as a gesture of trust and healing—Uninvited Angie K. has no one to do this with—the cast shows up at a swanky restaurant looking like they raided a Spirit Halloween store during a blackout. Angie K. seizes her opportunity for a storyline and confronts Meredith for being a “fake” friend, an argument that Meredith squashes like a spotted lantern fly on a city sidewalk by asserting she doesn’t think of Angie K. as a friend at all.

Meredith then turns the evening into her audition to star as Toni Collette’s character in a stage production of Hereditary, summoning some sort of dark spirit that suddenly and bafflingly takes over her. She begins bellowing at Angie K. about her manners and how inappropriate it is to bring up her issues when there are things like “children who are going to be disabled for the rest of their lives” happening in the world. (?????) She then chases after “security” (a waiter named Chad) to have Angie K. removed, and eventually runs to the parking lot, where she threatens to reveal “the rumors, the nastiness,” and “the husband.”

It’s important to note that each of these phrases is spoken in a different international accent. (The delivery of “security” has so many vowel sounds, Catherine O’Hara as Moira Rose would say, “That’s a bit much.”) The bizarre slurring even reaches a point where subtitles are put on the screen.

You’d think that when the group finally leaves the restaurant to go back to Trixie Motel, things would be over. But hidden camera footage in the sprinter van shows Mary dressing down Whitney Rose for getting in other people’s business and, at one point in the past, calling Mary and her husband “a pornography.” Heather Gay, who drank a bathtub’s worth of espresso martinis, is also there, rocking in a corner and trying not to hurl.

After an amusing lost-in-translation back-and-forth, Heather pops up from having her head spinning between her legs and clarifies: “Predator!” That’s what Whitney called Mary, not “a pornography.” With that, Heather hunches back over again.

Listen, is it high art? Well, one could argue yes. It’s certainly no Succession, just like Succession is far different from Abbott Elementary, which is a universe away from How To with John Wilson. But they’re all great shows. This RHOSLC season is firing on all cylinders and, like many Housewives seasons before it, proves that it is a great show too. And if you don’t agree? Well, let me grab Chad because “YOU CAN LEAVE!”

Nicole Beharie Is the Performer of the Week

I wouldn’t call the way The Morning Show tackles anything “nuanced.” The Apple TV+ show tends to rile up its impressive cast—Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Julianna Margulies, Jon Hamm, Greta Lee, Billy Crudup, and Karen Pittman—and has them charge at various ripped-from-headlines issues like a prestige television running of the bulls.

Don’t get me wrong. That’s what I love about this fascinatingly bonkers show. But while this unapologetic wrecking ball approach to topicality has worked (mostly), exploding subtle real-world conversations into loud soap-opera plots, the subject of this week’s episode—racial injustice in the workplace—begged for some hesitation. It’s a conversation not exactly suited for the OMG-they’re-going-there big dramatic swings The Morning Show is known for; “America’s Race Problem,” filtered through the Morning Show lens, could be fodder for cringe. The issue needs subtlety. It needs, it turns out, brilliant actress Nicole Beharie.

Beharie (who should be an Oscar nominee for her work in the film Miss Juneteenth) plays Chris Hunter, a Black woman who is the newest anchor of the network’s morning program. When a cyberattack leads to the leaks of internal emails, it comes to light that the network’s board member, Holland Taylor’s Cybil Richards, referred to Chris off-handedly as “Aunt Jemima” in an email exchange about undercutting her salary. Race- and gender-based pay disparity across the entire company then surfaces, as Cybil frets over being canceled over a flippant remark she doesn’t even remember making.

Beharie’s performance carries all the complexity that the episode needs. You see her embarrassment and hurt over the slur, and being thought of as underqualified; her mortification over being made the face—and victim—of the scandal; her fury at the systemic inevitability of it all. They’re all little earthquakes that dance across her face, even in the moments when she’s quietly processing. It’s sensational acting, especially when Chris recognizes that the unfair responsibility to expose how problematic all of this is—and save the company at the same time—will become her de facto responsibility.

For all the silliness there is to talk about when it comes to The Morning Show, the acting is the real reason to watch—a case Beharie certainly makes this week.

New Relationship Alert!

The Swifties were in a tizzy (that made me groan, but then giggle—so I’m keeping it) this week at the reports that Taylor Swift was hanging out with and maybe even dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. I don't really care about who Taylor Swift is dating, and I absolutely do not care that the alleged suitor is a football player. But I am obsessed with the manner in which this news was confirmed and then spread across the internet this week.

Jason Kelce, football man’s brother, gave an interview in which he said the dating rumors were “100 percent” true. He also said—which for some reason didn’t make it into all the gossip reports—“No, I’m joking. I don’t know what’s happening.”

I love this as a way of putting it out into the world that two people are in a relationship, even if they’re not. Just say it’s true, be obviously kidding, and hope that everyone ignores that kidding part. And that is why I’m so excited to announce that Jonathan Bailey, Jonathan Groff, and I are in a throuple and so happy together. It’s 100 percent true. No, I’m joking. You decide what to believe.

What Is Happening Here?

Two celebrity photos made their way onto my timeline this week, immediately imprinted on my brain, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them since.

The first is this photo of Ina Garten.

The second is this photo of Nicole Scherzinger.

I want to know everything there is to know about what is going on in these photos. I also want to know nothing. Let them live as they are: perfect, quizzical pieces of art for us to ponder forever.

Kim Kardashian, Thespian

My colleague wrote about this in his review for The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, and the internet’s been buzzing about it. But it bears repeating that this is the first line of dialogue that Kim Kardashian delivered in her series regular acting debut on American Horror Story: Delicate.

Sorry mom.

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

The Toronto International Film Festival proved that, strikes be damned, this awards season is as packed as ever. Here’s a rundown of the best acting performances. Read more.

With Elemental now available to stream, director Peter Sohn tells us how the film went from what seemed like a rare Pixar flop to a beloved global hit. Read more.

There are so many annoying kids in the world The Walking Dead universe. Here’s our detailed analysis. Read more.

The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar: Turns out Wes Anderson’s pretty good at making films. (Now in theaters)

The Golden Bachelor: A senior citizen season of The Bachelor: Finally, a dating show I can relate to. (Thurs. on ABC)

Starstruck: Be on high alert for potentially dangerous amounts of swooning. (Thurs. on Max)

Expend4bles: I have a rage fit every time I have to type out that movie title. (Now in theaters)

The Continental: From the World of John Wick: A new series featuring none of what makes John Wick work, and with Mel Gibson starring, as a treat! (Now on Peacock)

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