The Real Housewives of D.C. 1.07 “Perception Gap” Review

Two fat elephants occupied the room that was The Real Housewives of D.C. last night. No, neither one happened to be or involved the Salahis this time around. The culprits were actually the thorny topic of gay marriage and a wannabe Housewife who might have almost made the final cut of the D.C. cast, or was nowhere near what Bravo producers wanted. So in turn she acted a fool.

Let’s begin with the first one, which is David Catania’s gay marriage discussion with most of the cast. Paul Wharton was pissed at not only Stacie and Jason’s stubbornly, orthodox concept of marriage, but at Mary’s complete ignorance and nonchalant reaction to the cause as well. I will say this: the whole conversation was pretty tense, which I bet a lot of people would disagree with me on, but I’m really not talking about the nature of the conversation. I’m talking about how the only opponents to the gay marriage cause were pretty much Stacie and Jason, whose attire to the discussion matched their ideals: old and outdated. The Turners’ reasonings for their stance is based, if not purely then mostly, on religion, which they thought Lynda would sympathize with due to her being raised as a Southern Baptist. The Turners’ must’ve didn’t get the memo of Lynda studying astrology and dating a black man, or that Lynda has a sister who is a lesbian. In short, they were outnumbered and it looked painful, especially with Paul pile driving every excuse Jason shot out with a sharp and logical comeback.

I’m not saying the Turners should’ve converted their views to match their friends’ by no means, but they have to understand to some extent why they were in the minority in more ways than one in that scene. To give credit where credit is due, the Turners did kind of come to an ‘agree to disagree’ truce, unlike a certain friend of theirs.

The second elephant in the room last night is becoming tired, because it involves this unnecessary feud between Cat and Erika, Stacie and Mary’s friend, who is still none too pleased about Cat’s dislike of Tyra Banks apparantly. To be completely fair, Cat can be known as a bit of a pot stirrer, but she hadn’t even got her coat off good enough before Erika went on the attack. When the ladies were discussing Mary’s issues with Lolly later on, Erika singled Cat out for being a “mean girl” to Mary’s plight when in fact Cat, Stacie, and Lynda were all giving Mary hell on being Lolly’s safety net. In short, it wasn’t a viable excuse to go hard on Cat, and sounded more like an opportunity to do just that. To make matters worse, Erika kept up her campaign attack in front of Cat’s kids, which was not cool at all. Sure, Cat can be pretty mean and unnecessarily rude, but in this instance, what she got from Erika was not warranted.

In other news, Lolly quit her job, broke up with her boyfriend, and now wants to move back in with Rich and Mary. Despite Lolly’s attachment with home, she proved to be a smart cookie when Mary brought home the gay marriage debate and recited the Constitution when Mary wasn’t able to. If I was Lolly and my folks had money, I would just ask for a loan until I could get on my feet, not want to move back in.

Was there any Salahi tomfoolery last night? Of course, there was.

Michaele claimed to have been a former Washington Redskins cheerleader, which Mary (and the Washington Redskins cheerleaders) have declared false. Yet, Michaele managed to get in a uniform and cheer with the rest of the alumni on the field. The whole entire scene, as well as all the Salahis’ scenes last night, reminded me of a screen of static. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, because it was either gibberish, or my brain couldn’t process anything the two were doing at the moment. I do know that they talked to a Virginian delegate about the vineyard and to author Matt Carson on writing a book on the Salahi family drama. In both cases, the delegate and Matt Carson shared my confusion and awe of the insanity in front of us.

Notable bits included foreshadowing from Lynda and Paul discussing Cat’s situation of loneliness and Cat’s own foreshadowing with Jason Backe about the Salahis’ social climbing, party crashing ways. We know how the former and the latter both plays out, especially with the show finally getting to the latter scenario next week. Wonder if the Gatecrashing event will be a two-parter? Does it even need to be that long?

Thougts?