The Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: Who Made the Potato Salad?

The Real Housewives of Potomac
Lease Is Up, Giddy Up
Season 10 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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When I talk about Housewives, I generally like to explore the broadly feminine-coded social dynamics the cast employs. It’s no secret the pressure cooker of the Housewives platform ends up feeling like a case study of a bunch of Regina Georges all battling it out via thinly veiled bullying and passive-aggressive smear campaigns to see who will reign supreme. But while seasoned watchers are intimately familiar with the underhanded tactics women use to jockey for security and status on the show, we rarely have an episode that perfectly depicts the distortions that enable these moments. Enter Angel Massie.

Angel has had a rough go of it so far this season. At any given moment, she wildly vacillates between being held hostage by a river of tears or scrambling to keep her story straight, and her inability to think on her feet without much support always has her trying to fight for respect within the group. I don’t think anyone is shocked that she has struggled to make inroads to date, and if that were the bulk of what the women chose to zero in on, there really would be nothing notable to take issue with. Unfortunately, the Potomac franchise does not exist in reality but instead is a mildly dystopian parallel universe commandeered by the chaotic whims of Big Sister General Gizelle Bryant; therefore, Angel being a general pill doesn’t suffice as a legitimate reason to take issue with her. Instead, she has to be broke, on the brink of eviction, and with a husband who hates the cast.

This week, we see Angel scurrying to pack up her rental as she and Bobby quite obviously mistimed the contract for the stay with the length of the stay. While it’s definitely embarrassing that she got caught slipping up like that, the circumstances she finds herself in are not new for the Housewives franchise, for which many women largely fly in for filming. Cynthia Bailey has lived in California for the better part of a decade and seems to keep Lake Bailey only so she can have a guaranteed filming location for her annual three-episode arc on Atlanta. Meredith in Salt Lake City has made an open bit out of being in a new rental every year while pretty much living in the Hamptons outside of the filming schedule. At this point, franchise locations are kind of like airline hubs — you don’t have to live in Atlanta to fly Delta, but if you need a connection, you know your odds are better going through that route. Angel clearly getting a rental because it wasn’t clear if she would last past this season is not a surprising move, even if she should have recognized that she needed to add a buffer of at least a month for any potential end-of-season pickups. The absence of logistical planning is what’s embarrassing.

Angel’s lack of project-management skills should be plenty of material in and of itself — she is harried and trying to throw a Pack ’n Play into a cardboard box while her husband seems to be sitting outside fully nonchalant over the situation. But instead, Tia brings news of Angel’s situation back to Gizelle and the spin cycle starts immediately. First, Gizelle accurately picks up that Angel booked the house only to film in, but as her wheels start turning, Tia begins to realize she is responsible for the next game of telephone to make its way through the group. In short order, Gizelle, Wendy, and Ashley sit down and the rumors take on new life. All of a sudden, the end of a short-term rental agreement means Bobby is too broke to afford a house, they are getting evicted, and Angel is only pretending to be a “top-tier WAG.” In one of the most telling moments, Gizelle freely lies that Bobby doesn’t like Eddie and the other husbands, and while she admits she made that up, the ease with which she stated it without so much as blinking is more revelatory than the retraction. 

While the pile-on and rumor spreading aren’t shocking, you would think this group of women would have at least a nominal amount of awareness around how hypocritical they sound. Ashley spent two seasons in distress over her financial future post-divorce; Gizelle spent a decade being mocked for a “$900,000 teardown” while her bestie schlepped from townhome to townhome; Wendy came on the show burdened by seven-figure debt and lives closer to the Pennsylvania border than Baltimore, much less Potomac. The girls claim Jassi is part of the group, but she has to hop on the daily Southwest trip from DFW to BWI just to shoot a scene. Angel may not jell well with the women, but their actions this episode reflect more poorly on the group than they do on her. 

Nothing crystallizes this more than how the women act at the low-budget potluck they throw in what has to be the most insulting homage to Beyoncé Gisele Knowles-Carter since I heard Jacquees remix “Bow Down.” The women are so tickled with themselves that they found an opportunity to poke at Angel again with a catfish tray that they can’t even realize they are the ones who look pathetic for spending more time on a tired joke than on throwing an event worth filming. I have seen better-decorated events at a high-school food fair — and better homemade food, while we’re at it. Chain-store chicken, watery potato salad, and catfish (with no hot sauce or tartar sauce, mind you!) sounds like a meal I would serve to someone I hated, yet the women genuinely think Angel is the one who should feel shame at this moment. Angel may do herself no favors on the likability element, and I am curious about how she plans to try to finish the season from Colorado. But for the women who have been loudly maligned as a “low-budget” franchise income-wise to try to make a classist attack against a WAG makes about as much sense as me giving advice on marriage. 

Next week, we’re gonna get to the root of a subject near and dear to my heart: diaspora kids trying to heal from multigenerational African family trauma. See you all then! 

Cherry Blossoms

• Stacey handled Keiarna during their one-on-one sit-down without breaking a sweat, but I am tickled that she knew she had to come dressed to the nines for this face-off. Stacey is always a beautiful woman, but she absolutely made sure to show up with a laid-back, bust-down wig and a fully done face lest Keiarna try to zero in on any random aesthetic insults. 

• Thiemo finally makes it to a group event, and it’s a low-budget potluck with folks bringing baskets of Popeyes chicken. I think it’s safe to say we won’t see him filming with the collective again anytime soon. 

• Stacey’s potato salad was indeed an abomination, but I felt bad watching her daughter realize in real time that the other kids (namely Wendy’s) were absolutely not rocking with the pile of mush and paprika she called potato salad. 

• I don’t even know what to say about Wendy’s financial expenses at this point. Why are her renovations over six figures for a modestly sized home in Finksburg, Maryland? Why does her daughter have four phones? 

• I don’t know why we were subjected to ten minutes at a nondescript polo event with Tia’s Sotheby’s team, but outside of my eyes bugging out of my head at Ashley not knowing that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is the Negro national anthem, we could really have kept all that. And yes, I know all three verses to James Weldon Johnson’s song, courtesy of my second-grade teacher, Ms. Napper, who drilled it into us every day.