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Three episodes into Bravo\u2019s Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition, I\u2019m ready to call this experiment a noble failure. The highly produced Wife Swap format clashes with the surprisingly nuanced family drama we get on Real Housewives, which means the women we know and love are flattened into two-dimensional types. There\u2019s very little commitment to the idea of actually trading lives \u2014\u00a0Angie was never going to use a composting toilet<\/a> \u2014\u00a0and the show seems completely averse to conflict. On top of that, the third episode of the series sets itself up for failure by casting Emily Simpson, a solid supporting player on The Real Housewives of Orange County<\/a> but arguably the least dynamic personality in that cast. While Emily\u2019s family has been central to her story line on the current season, Wife Swap steers clear of depicting her son\u2019s emerging diagnoses<\/a>, reducing the conflict in her household to the idea that she doesn\u2019t appreciate her husband enough. It\u2019s a dull, predictable angle in an episode that repeatedly asks, \u201cAre we doing enough to thank men?\u201d<\/p>\n As always, we start by meeting both families. As RHOC viewers know, Emily and Shane have three kids: 12-year-old Annabelle and 9-year-old twins Luke and Keller. Emily estimates that household chores are divided 60-40 in Shane\u2019s favor, while he says it\u2019s more like 70-30. Wife Swap explains this as Emily shirking her stay-at-home-mom responsibilities by ending up on a TV show. As Shane laments, \u201cI\u2019m an attorney and most of my time is spent with domestic duties.\u201d Please don\u2019t gaslight me like I didn\u2019t watch that man fail the bar multiple times; there\u2019s a reason Emily became the primary breadwinner. Emily is also struggling with Annabelle, who has inherited her mom\u2019s attitude and the grouchiness of any adolescent forced to grow up with an Evolution Media camera crew in her home.<\/p>\n Over in Park Ridge, New Jersey, we meet Caley and Erik Svensson and their children, Graham, 11; Adelaide, 7; and Georgina, 5. Wife Swap often goes for class-based culture shock, but the Svensson home looks fairly opulent. It just happens to also be a farm with horses, chickens, goats, and an indoor pig named Pikachu. The major contrast between the families here is that in the Svensson household, Caley does all the domestic duties herself, which has created some palpable resentment. \u201cMy pet peeve when it comes to Erik \u2026 I mean, where do we start?\u201d Caley says. For his part, Erik feels like he\u2019s a \u201cwalking ATM,\u201d which is a \u201cthankless job.\u201d I\u2019m sure this man works hard as a medical director, but the editors do him no favors with all the footage of him sleeping in. Caley hopes that doing the swap will show Erik how much she does for their family, and I guess Erik hopes that she might come back hating him less. For now, she squirms away when he tries to touch her (\u201cYou treat me like a venereal disease,\u201d he gripes), and they don\u2019t so much as hug good-bye.<\/p>\n When Emily gets to her temporary new home, she isn\u2019t put off by the farm of it all, having grown up on 12 acres in the middle of nowhere, but she is very distressed to see Crocs. (She responds to Pikachu exactly as I would, saying, \u201cOh my God, you\u2019re a pig!\u201d) It\u2019s not long, though, before she\u2019s put to work, first by mucking the stables, a gentle euphemism for shoveling horse shit. \u201cI haven\u2019t worked that hard in 16 years,\u201d she admits. That evening, ahead of the family walk, it\u2019s up to Emily to halter Navajo the horse because Erik is completely inept at anything involving the animals. And it\u2019s not just the animals \u2014 Erik has also fully relinquished bedtime duties and meal-making, despite some half-assed offers to help. After one day, Emily has correctly clocked that Caley does everything and Erik hides in his office and \u201ctepidly kind of interjects sometimes.\u201d At least she manages to find joy in collecting chicken eggs with Adelaide, who is about a thousand times more interested in hanging out with Emily than Annabelle is. Emily suggests naming the chickens, which just means assigning them to various RHOC cast members. \u201cThe disheveled chicken?\u201d Emily says with that familiar glint of evil in her eye. \u201cThat one\u2019s named Shannon.\u201d<\/p>\n Over in Orange County, Caley is delighted to discover that she\u2019s traded places with Emily Simpson. (I do wish it had been Heather based on Caley\u2019s threat to Erik, \u201cYou\u2019re screwed if it\u2019s Terry Dubrow, let\u2019s just say that.\u201d) I think Wife Swap could have used more fourth-wall breaking to distinguish itself from the non\u2013Real Housewives version. If Caley is a Bravoholic, let\u2019s lean into that! Instead, we just get an intriguingly shady comment that Emily\u2019s house looks bigger on TV. Aside from Annabelle mostly ignoring her as expected, Caley is warmly welcomed by the Simpsons. She\u2019s also shocked to learn that Shane prepares dinner for the kids, and that he\u2019s taking her out for (Brittany Cartwright voice) date night. \u201cShane cooks, he cleans, he\u2019s scheduling date nights. I didn\u2019t think these husbands exist \u2014 apparently they do,\u201d she says in a confessional designed to make Erik squirm.<\/p>\n At dinner, Caley explains that her husband wants a traditional housewife and that she feels guilty about not bringing in money. Shane counters that domestic work is still work, a point that I did not think needed making in 2025, but here we are. The next day, Caley gets to sleep in and then go out for coffee with Emily\u2019s bestie, Gina, which feels a little more like living a Housewives fantasy. (Or would if they were using that time to shit-talk Katie Ginella.) Gina is visibly depressed by Caley\u2019s description of a life free of me-time and social engagements, where, \u201cI\u2019m usually talking to the pig who\u2019s eating lunch next to me.\u201d When Caley says, \u201cThe last person I please is myself,\u201d it really looks like Gina might cry. She does offer some helpful advice to Caley about the importance of taking time for herself, and I found myself grateful that Emily\u2019s closest friend is one of our most level-headed Housewives and not, well, the namesake of a disheveled chicken on the farm.<\/p>\n When it comes time to institute new house rules, Caley goes easy on the Simpson family, though I\u2019m sure Annabelle would beg to differ, given how horrified she is by the limited screen-time policy. Caley also has Annabelle help her prepare family dinner, since Emily asked the new \u201cmom\u201d to try to break through Annabelle\u2019s shell and bond with her. This is a hilariously big ask for anyone encountering a 12-year-old they\u2019ve never met, but particularly silly when you consider Wife Swap\u2019s brief filming schedule. Nevertheless, Annabelle does sort of warm up to Caley, especially after she\u2019s allowed to choose what to put on for family movie night. On the whole, though, there\u2019s really so little conflict here \u2014 Caley\u2019s new rules all fall under the umbrella of the Simpsons spending more time together, and that\u2019s not something any of them (except maybe Annabelle) would push back against. As nice as this is, it makes for a largely boring hour of television.<\/p>\n At least Emily is putting Erik to work on the farm over in New Jersey. When he finds out Emily\u2019s first new rule is that he\u2019s in charge of the animals, he moans, \u201cWhy does everybody hate me?\u201d When he learns the next rule is giving him bedtime duties, it looks like he might jump out the nearest window. I can\u2019t say any of this makes Erik likable, but his dramatics do give the editors something to work with. Naturally, when it comes time to actually perform the household chores he\u2019s foisted entirely on Caley, Erik marvels at all that his wife gets done. \u201cHow does she do this every day?\u201d he wonders. He\u2019s equally unprepared for the date night Emily requests, especially after she reveals that Erik has to prepare something himself. It\u2019s clear she\u2019s going to regret that when we see his cooking method, which involves dumping a pile of ground beef in a pan. Thankfully, his kids are eager to help. I was particularly charmed by little Georgina, who dresses up as a chef and comes up with the restaurant name Glorious.<\/p>\n Over the course of their dinner, Emily uses her self-producing Housewife skills to get at the root of the conflict between Erik and Caley. It turns out that Erik doesn\u2019t do more around the house because he doesn\u2019t feel sufficiently valued. Personally, I think a great way to be more valued would be to do more around the house, but the situation is more complicated than it looks, according to Emily. Because Erik doesn\u2019t feel appreciated, he\u2019s stopped trying and instead hides out in his office. He is particularly lacking in gratitude and affection from Caley, who low-key forced him to get all these animals he never wanted and won\u2019t sit down to watch basketball with him. I can understand Erik\u2019s perspective here, but it\u2019s frustrating to see Wife Swap brush off his learned helplessness as a reasonable response to not getting enough credit for being a financial provider. Emily says she sees her own husband in Erik, and it makes her sad that she isn\u2019t more thoughtful about Shane\u2019s feelings. Fair enough, though I can\u2019t help but wonder how often Shane expresses his gratitude toward Emily for the six-figure Bravo salary she brings in.<\/p>\n On her last day, Emily decides the whole family should go fly fishing because that\u2019s one of Erik\u2019s favorite activities, and while it ends up being a total disaster, he appreciates that she tried. \u201cI realize that I never actually just make the effort to do some type of activity that Shane would like to do,\u201d Emily shares. She\u2019s also emotional thinking about all the good times she\u2019s had with the Svensson kids, wishing for the same kind of bonding activities with her own. \u201cWhy do I not put more time and effort into my own family?\u201d she wonders, which is a more important takeaway to me than how she needs to give Shane more credit. Meanwhile, it\u2019s not clear what Caley got from the Simpsons, except confirmation that it\u2019s nice to have a husband who helps out around the house. I did laugh when she said good-bye to Keller and Luke and asked if they might want to get a pet pig, to which Keller replied, \u201cIf it\u2019s big and juicy.\u201d That kid has exceptional timing.<\/p>\n The final sit-down between Emily and Caley is a tearful regurgitation of the same ideas that they\u2019ve both expressed repeatedly, namely that family time is important and so is appreciating your husband. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s useful for Caley to hear Emily say of Erik, \u201cMaybe why he doesn\u2019t help out more is because he doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s getting what he needs.\u201d But Wife Swap is too surface-level to really investigate why Caley is so repulsed by the idea of intimacy with her husband, which hints at a more deeply rooted issue than mere marital frustration. Emily suggests that Caley give Erik a hug when he comes home from work, exactly the kind of bland family advice you\u2019d expect from a show this hollow. The month-later check-in reflects some progress, including that Emily took over car-pool duties for a week (before ceding them back to Shane), and that Caley now has weekly lunch with Erik at work. This shrug-worthy resolution has me feeling about Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition like J.K. Simmons at the end of Burn After Reading<\/a>. What did we learn? I guess we learned not to do it again.<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n