Cranston is essentially the center of the universe
Outside of Rhode Island, Cranston might barely register on the map. But for many of the Housewives, the city just south of Providence with a population of roughly 82,000 carries more cachet than Newport’s Bellevue Avenue.
The episode opens with Alicia Carmody and her longtime fiancé Billy Kitsilis, who is the owner of Pizza Mamma, Angelo’s Palace Pizza, and Antonio’s Pizza by the Slice. They live in Providence, and are getting ready for a visit from Carmody’s “big Italian family.”
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In the next scene, Carmody’s mother, Anita, is sitting in a car full of other women driving from Cranston to Providence. It’s only a 15-minute drive, but for many Rhode Island natives, that’s just too far.
“Alicia wants to move back to Cranston some day, really bad, ‘cause she misses being with family,” her mom said.
“You gotta pack a lunch just to go there,” Sharon, Carmody’s aunt, adds.
Carmody said when she was pregnant, she and Kitsilis moved to Providence. “That was terrible,” she said flatly.
Left to right: Ashley Iaconetti and Kelsey Swanson.Seacia Pavao/Bravo
Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon’s coffee shop is popular, but not a huge moneymaker
Ashley Iaconetti found love on “Bachelor in Paradise”, where she met her husband, Rhode Island native Jared Haibon. In the premiere, Iaconetti opens up about their South Kingstown business, Audrey’s Coffee House & Lounge, which they opened just four years ago.
“Now is it a huge moneymaker? No,” she said. “We thought it would make more money than it is.”
Haibon, working the espresso machine, exposes more issues: “The ice machine’s not working again? … It’s always something, I swear.”
Elizabeth “Liz” McGrawScott Eisen/Bravo
Their social circles — like the rest of Rhode Island — are smaller than you think
The show leans hard into the state’s famously tight social web. The saying goes that in Rhode Island, just about everyone is no more than two degrees of separation.
Cast member Jo-Ellen Tiberi previously dated fellow star Kelsey Swanson’s boyfriend’s brother (the boyfriend was not identified in the show, but described as part of one of Rhode Island’s “most prominent families.”)
Cast member Liz McGraw revealed how she and her husband, Gerry McGraw, were related before they got married.
“Gerry and I were married about six months, and that was when, you know, the whole Ancestry DNA thing was blowing up,” she said. “We are related, somewhere down the line.”
It’s clear that Rhode Island’s small size creates a lot of drama among the women. McGraw puts it best: “It’s Rhode Island – when someone says something, we all hear it.”
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.