Real Housewives of Rhode Island Reunion Part 2

Kia ora, hello and welcome to Anyway! The blog where I unpack the chaos of reality TV.

We’re wrapping up The Real Housewives of Rhode Island with Reunion Part 2, and we pick right back up where we left off: Rulla yelling at Jo Ellen and calling her a slut. Jo Ellen fires straight back, telling Rulla she’s going to break that new smooth ski slope nose if she keeps running her mouth. Apparently everyone knows that Jo Ellen is a whore, but according to Rulla, her sweaty, bloated husband is no whore because he "made a mistake." BOO RULLA, boo.

Andy tells the ladies to pipe down because he has something really important to ask: when will Rosie’s house be completed? Nobody gives a fuck about the house, ANDY. Let the ladies fight! This is the most entertaining Rulla has been all season! Instead, we’re discussing the boring-ass square footage of Rosie’s house for what feels like the millionth time. Rosie then disappears to get her fucking binder. Can Bravo please release some kind of statement to Bravolebrities that a binder is not necessary to bring to the reunion? It was funny when Monique did it for the first time on Potomac. Now it’s overdone, and I don’t believe you have anything of significance in that binder. Forget the binder, Rosie! We have more important issues to discuss. Andy brings up Rosie’s bleeding butt. Yikes. I guess we don’t have more important things to discuss.

The way Kelsey seems fixated on Rosie is a little stalkerish. Does anyone else feel that way? I know we’re at the reunion and rehashing things is the name of the game, but these were issues you apparently had with Rosie even before filming began. Let the mouse go, Kelsey! We then discover Rosie didn’t bring a binder at all. No, no. She brought an entire fucking briefcase. I should have known better than to expect brown leather with antique gold finishings. This "briefcase" is a sparkly tin case with a speaker-cassette aesthetic. It’s more of a glorified child’s lunchbox than a briefcase.

Alicia tells us Billy basically stalked her. He was incredibly persistent. No wonder Billy and Brian get along so well. They have the same pastime. Andy wants to talk crackahs, and Alicia tells us she’s working on bringing out her own line. She then explains she stays lean from all the Jane’s Fonda she consumes... participates in... I don’t know. She says "Jane’s Fonda" about ten times and I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Then Alicia tells Andy she eats elements, and I’m thinking Earth, Wind, Fire and Water? Is Captain Planet around the corner? No. She means almonds. Alicia’s accent is truly a wild ride. Please don’t ever change, Alicia!

Alicia says Billy made her sign a prenup, which made her realise things aren’t a fairytale. She talks about how he still hasn’t put her name on the house, but it’s on a trust. Rulla tries to explain what a trust is to Alicia, and she has not one fucking clue. Ashley, who still believes fairytales are real, reassures Alicia that Billy would never leave her without anything. I hope that’s the case, but even if it is, Alicia’s trauma from what her father did to her family is still with her.

It’s time for a break, and lucky us, we get to go backstage and see the husbands. Why do we have to watch these dickheads get involved in women’s business? I could do without seeing them lolling their heads off about things that don’t fucking concern them. Andy talks about the very serious brain tumour Kelsey had removed. He also gives us the very unserious line the Miss USA announcer used for Kelsey, which went something like, "It’s not a rumour, the doctor’s removed that tumour." Kelsey explains how they discovered it and that she put off surgery until after the pageant, even though she could have lost her peripheral vision in the meantime. Perhaps the brain tumour was affecting the part of her brain that makes good decisions because FUCK THAT. I’d be saying, "Remove it now, please!"

We also find out Kelsey’s ex had agreed to be on the show until he found out it was Real Housewives because, apparently, Real Housewives are gabby bitches. I’d love to know what reality show this man thought he was going to be on. Clearly, the show he was auditioning for with Kelsey was about couples, so how did he think he wasn’t going to be talked about? The logic isn’t logic-ing for me.

Andy asks for a show of hands for who thinks Rulla was actually sick. They all put their hands up, which was definitely not the case while they were filming the season. Jo Ellen thinks the illness was psychosomatic, a mental, stress-induced illness that took a physical toll on her. For some reason, we’re now talking about Brian’s ex-wife, who’s a Spanish teacher. Jo Ellen starts speculating about whether Rulla and Brian are even married. She wants to know when their wedding anniversary is. Rulla says, "Ask Brian when he gets out here," then immediately says, "That’s none of your business." Jo Ellen is putting in good Housewifery here, and Rulla in no way, shape or form is shutting anything down with facts.

Are Brian and Rulla married? When is their anniversary? Is Brian a polygamist? Did they have a child out of wedlock? Is that still something people give a fuck about? Did Brian ever learn to speak Spanish from his ex-wife? These are all questions we, as the viewers, are now asking. Jo Ellen has receipts of when Brian filed his divorce on her phone. She goes to show Rulla, and I half expected Rulla to throw the phone across the stage. It actually would have been much more on brand for her to claim it was AI. "THE PAGE IS AI! THIS ENTIRE WEBSITE IS AI! WE’RE ALL AI!"

Andy says, "This man is a known liar, Rulla." Rulla appears to be in a tailspin. She wants these questions directed at the wax figure presenting as Brian, her husband, not her.

We take another break, and now the husbands are being mic’d up to join the ladies on stage. Andy goes around asking the husbands serious questions about their businesses. Well... everyone except Jared. Jared is still the butt of every joke. Andy wants to know whether the ice machine at Audrey’s has been fixed. Apparently it has, and thank fucking God for that because here I was thinking, "If they don’t fix that ice machine, Audrey’s is going under."

Gary wants us to know that all he did was touch Jen’s boobs, and he won’t be donating his sperm to her, which is bittersweet to hear. On one hand, this cast already has enough complicated connections. On the other, it probably would have made for great television. Kelsey thinks the relationship between a sugar daddy and a sugar baby is complex and difficult for people to understand. Uhhhh... no. It’s definitely not. You fucked him, he paid for shit. Pretty simple.

Gerry tells us a friend called him and put Brian on the phone to let him know Liz was with another man. Liz reiterates she wasn’t trying to hide anything at the time. Andy presses Billy about the prenup and trust. Billy says he and his lawyer have agreed to amend the prenup and that he’s recommended monthly meetings with Alicia to go over their finances. Alicia wants absolutely nothing to do with it. Lawyers? Snoozefest. Meetings? Boring. The money side of Alicia’s brain has absolutely no drive for due diligence.

We also discover Rosie isn’t the only one with props. Billy has brought an agreement giving Alicia 50% of Pizza Mama if she’ll drive their daughter to dance class once or twice a week, which is honestly kind of ridiculous. Also, I’m not sure we want Alicia back on the road. She ran over someone.

Andy asks Brian how he’s doing. He’s doing fucking fantastic. Andy points out how audacious it was to go on a reality show in the middle of an affair and asks whether he ever thought, "Oh, this is gonna come out?" Brian responds with "No comment," apparently because he’s bound by an NDA. Rulla and Brian are now trying to bamboozle Andy and everyone watching. This pair of knuckleheads. Seriously.

We move on to the polo match, and suddenly we’re talking about dirty panties being left in a bed and Rulla’s butt smelling like garlic, which is a complete record scratch for me. What the hell does this have to do with anything? I don’t want to be gross, but garlic would probably be one of the more normal smells that a butt could have, right? Great. Now I feel physically sick.

ANYWAY, Brian is now straight-up lying to Andy Cohen’s face about why he took his ring off. Jo Ellen has more receipts and catches this idiot in another lie about buying his mistress a bag. This dummy may know how to cut people’s bunions off for a living, but he sure doesn’t know how to cover the tracks of his affair. Ohhhh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Andy asks Brian when his divorce was finalised. He says 2012, which is yet another date added to the mix. Brian wants to know what Jo Ellen’s objective is. Again, she says she’s not a liar and that she was trying to bring evidence to Rulla. Rulla says, "You say you’re a girl’s girl, then why are you doing this?" Jo Ellen is being a girl’s girl by telling you your lying-ass, cheating-ass husband is still lying and cheating.

Everyone starts asking Brian when the affair ended, and this man has gone full West Wilson on us. Completely mute. Enough said for me. When he finally does pipe up, he blames his inability to talk on the NDA again. Nobody is having it. Andy now wants to know why the hell Brian was tracking his wife. Yet again, it’s something he quote-unquote "cannot talk about." At this point, I’d like Brian escorted off the stage and sent off to the colonies because he’s of absolutely no use to us.

Apparently he’s glad he got arrested for stalking and domestic violence because it brought them closer together, which is probably one of the more deranged things I’ve ever heard someone say on reality TV. Jared, Ashley’s barista husband, has never appealed to me more than in this moment. He looks straight into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, to give us a look that can only be described as, "IS ANYONE ELSE FUCKING HEARING THIS?!" It’s so funny. I’ve never agreed with Jared more. In fact, I’ve never agreed with him full stop. The fact he doesn’t even have to say anything is incredible. His face says it all. I’d also like to point out it’s the exact same face I’ve made every time this man talked about Audrey’s this season. Swings and roundabouts, Jared.

Andy is also finding all of this hard to digest. He asks Rulla if she trusts Brian. No. No, she does not. She’s traumatised. Apparently, according to Brian, if someone commits a series of sins against another person, that’s no reason to throw everything away. I don’t know what fucking delulu planet this man is from.

Rulla says this is Brian’s last chance, and Ashley wants her to know she’s better than this man will ever be. Ashley says she really wanted to call him a slam pig, and I’d just like to say to Ashley: you’re on Real Housewives, girl. Go ahead and say what you’ve got to say. I think we can all agree the term "slam pig" seems much more fitting for a gross, middle-aged, lying, cheating husband than it does for slut-shaming a young woman who likes to have sex.

Andy wraps things up by asking the women if there’s anything they would do differently. Ashley wishes she’d spoken up more. Rosie and Kelsey straight-up lie to everyone in the room by saying they want to move forward. Rulla wishes she’d shut Jo Ellen down sooner, and Alicia wishes she’d worn more makeup.

The ladies present Andy with his very own masquerade mask, and honestly it looks very similar to Ashley’s makeshift mermaid crown from Block Island. I assume she went to her nearest craft shop, bought them out of every beach-related decoration, glued them onto a paper mask and spray-painted the whole thing gold, which is actually really sweet.

They all toast themselves and Bravo with Dirty Shirleys.

Cheers to Rhode Island, bitches.

Thanks for reading.
See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!