Jo-Ellen versus Rosie was a cute little frenemy situation, but Jo-Ellen versus Rulla? Oh, these are two women at war.
Photo: Bravo
Historically, the Real Housewives franchise has shied away from pulling talent from other reality shows. It’s why Andy Cohen was admittedly reluctant to hire Bethenny Frankel after her Apprentice stint and why the Snooki conversation almost always gets shut down when it comes to RHONJ. But we’re in a new era, where Rachel Zoe (of The Rachel Zoe Project) is on RHOBH, K. Michelle (of Love & Hip Hop) is on RHOA, and now Ashley Iaconetti (of The Bachelor) is on RHORI. That means Bachelor fans have a little bit of a leg up as we meet all of these new faces — and one thing they know about Ashley, which newbies are quickly catching on to, is that she’s a crier.
We saw her cry last week at the coffee shop, and now she’s holding back sobs as she’s pushing her kids on the swings and telling Jo-Ellen her life story. She’s open that the business isn’t as lucrative as they hoped, but she’s most upset that Jared is unhappy because he feels like he isn’t bringing anything to the table. Her attempts to let him relax when he’s not working mean that she’s the one who has to bear the brunt when it comes to the kids, which in turn exhausts her — so it’s a vicious cycle. But if we ever make it through an episode of this show without her crying, I feel like she should win a prize.
Meanwhile, Liz and Kelsey are getting lunch with our last clam-holder who has yet to join the party, Rulla. She’s a financial planner (and one of the only female boat captains in the state) married to a podiatrist for nine years, and the other women describe her as very calm and monotone. She also bristles when Jo-Ellen’s party comes up, saying that she has standing beef with Jo-Ellen because she’s been stirring up rumors about her and her husband. As Liz explains, there are “echoes” all throughout Rhode Island that Rulla’s husband Brian has a mistress, but it seems like it’s more than just rumors. Jo-Ellen found photos of him cheating, and while Rulla first thought she was just being helpful, she turned on her after finding out that she was sharing them far and wide.
In any case, Rulla maintains that the affair happened last summer and that he’s no longer involved with her. “But he is, ma,” Liz whispers to her across the table, telling her she has to drop the pride act. “You’ve been through stuff with Gerry, you didn’t kick him to the curb,” Rulla fires back at Liz, alluding to mutual cheating between Liz and her own husband. But Rulla says her situation is different because she has kids, whereas Liz only has step-kids. Being that Liz raised Gerry’s kids since they were young, she understandably takes offense at this.
But let’s move on to happier subjects: I am obsessed with Alicia. She arrives at Kelsey’s house to smooth over what happened on the Fourth of July with just crackers in tow because the line was too long to get cheese. When the conversation turns to her aversion to driving, she says something that made me wheeze-laugh so hard that I think it truly did irreparable damage to my lung capacity. “I don’t like highways, I’ve gotten in accidents, I ran over a woman, I’ve gotten almost driven off a bridge … so I’ve been there, done that with driving,” she says in her confessional. I’m sorry — she RAN OVER A WOMAN? The producer in the room had the same follow-up question. “What do you mean you ran over a woman?” she asks off-camera, a sentence that rings in my ears like beautiful poetry. “Yeah, I ran over a woman,” she repeats, as if it was something that happened to her, and that’s that. I have nothing but questions. Who was the woman? Is she okay? Can we get her on the cast?
Luckily for Alicia and the pedestrians of Rhode Island, when the whole cast heads to a vineyard for lunch, they’re driven there in a sprinter van. After a brief tour of the grapes (not tomatoes), during which Kelsey asks if rosé is wine, they sit down for lunch to discover that there’s an extra placecard. Rulla is coming, and Jo-Ellen is furious. It almost feels like we’re watching her find out in real time that Rulla, her nemesis, had been cast on the show, and it’s a thrilling discovery to bear witness to. Her side of the story is as follows: She found the photos that Rulla’s husband’s mistress posted, told Liz about them, Liz then told Rulla, Rulla then begged Jo-Ellen for the pictures and she sent them. Six months later Rulla and Brian were calling Jo-Ellen’s place of work and wrote emails to her HR department trying to get her fired. She’s shooting the messenger, but the messenger shoots back.
Luckily for Jo-Ellen, who is visibly on edge at the news, Rulla ultimately FaceTimes to cancel. “She’s not sick, she gets headaches because she’s stressed out from taking too much Ozempic. Get a turkey leg from Ashley,” Jo-Ellen says before the camera cuts to Ashley in her Medieval Times-like corset. Jo-Ellen versus Rosie was a cute little frenemy situation, but Jo-Ellen versus Rulla? Oh, these are two women at war.
And speaking of war, as they enjoy their lunch, Kelsey utters the five seemingly innocent words that are the Real Housewives equivalent of launching a nuke: “I have a little game.” If a Real Housewife ever invites you to play a “game,” run. Sure enough, her idea (or rather, production’s idea) of a game involves them all having to answer anonymous questions from the other women about various rumors. Ashley reveals she lost her virginity when she was pushing 30, Alicia denies ever hooking up with Jo-Ellen’s husband, Rosie denies that she ever had an affair with some unnamed basketball coach, and Jo-Ellen denies being a swinger — though admits having had a threesome and says Rhode Island does have a rich swinging culture. Put it on the pamphlets!
As for Kelsey, she denies ever being in a polygamist relationship, but in the same breath admits that she is dating someone else while her boyfriend is in Miami. She presents this as if it’s the most conventional thing in the world. Rosie does some research to help wrap her head around Kelsey’s game of semantics, and informs us that “polygamy” is if you’re married, so technically what Kelsey is doing would be considered polyamory.
Last up is a bit of friendly fire, with Alicia using her anonymous question to ask about the rumor of Liz having her own boy on the side. Liz not only denies this — explaining to us that she simply has a male best friend who keeps her company during her husband’s long fishing trips — but gets upset at Alicia for even asking it. But Alicia makes it clear that she knows it’s not true, she’s just asking so Liz can get ahead of it and set the record straight. Liz doesn’t necessarily see it that way, but I don’t think anybody should pick a fight with Alicia unless they want to get run over.
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the sheer amount of material we’re working with already. There are so many different rumors (or “echoes”) about these women that by episode two we’ve already had to sit down and do a lightning round to get through them all. These are professionals at work, and I’m perhaps most excited to report that I can already tell them all apart (mostly).
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