The Real Housewives of New York City gave us so much this season—more than we deserved, really.
They gave us dry cleaner parties and Rey. They served drug and bra parties. There was cheating and business stealing and vaginal bleeding. The Berkshires happened.
The reunion episodes started strong but petered out ending with the most boring episode of the trio. Note to Bravo: If you didn’t have enough material you could have just shown the uncut footage from the Berkshires and submitted that for an Emmy.
The touched a bit on the spell Bethenny has put on Carole, which of course both women denied. (This really was not Carole’s season, was it? What did she really do besides bring back that tea lady and pretend to write a book with Adam?)
The ladies also heaped some incredibly condescending praise onto Sonja for managing not to get wasted this season. What will never not be remarkable is the gall of Dorinda Medley to, with a straight face, lecture the Lady Sonja Morgan—or really, anyone who isn’t a new rehab patient—about her drinking.
But the final journey into the reunion mostly centered around Tom cheating on Luann. Bethenny pretended to play coy over who gave her the photos of Tom making out with another woman at the Regency—a woman who, by the way, was an ex-girlfriend of Tom’s.
Luann tearfully explained why she chose to forgive Tom and conveniently forgot to mention that she really really really really really wants to get married to a man with a pulse. How is it that the biggest scandal of the season became unbelievably boring when they all sat down to talk about it?
In promos for the episode, Bravo built drama about Ramona possibly having additional information about Tom cheating.
Ramona kept baiting Luann who, to her credit, didn’t fall for it. She kept asking Luann if she’d want to know if Tom cheated on her—would she REALLY REALLY want to know?
All that bullshit was actually just a display of Ramona’s television skills after 8 seasons under her belt. She knew good and goddamn well she didn’t have any dirt to reveal but acting like she did ensured Bravo could edit her into the promos and up her screen time. I’m not mad at it, but I’m also pretty mad at it.
Now the end is finally here. Other than one of those jumbled together “special behind the scenes” footage episodes, that’s likely all she wrote for Season 8 of the Real Housewives of New York City.
While the reunion episodes may have largely disappointed, we still have all the absolutely delusional, self-absorbed, ugly, absurd lunacy of the 23 preceding ones. And so, no matter what happens after this, please remember: we’ll always have Season 8.