Drowning in a sea of despair, horrific headlines on all ends, and a Bravo schedule thinner than ever, life for the reality fan has rarely felt more helpless. Thankfully, The Real Housewives of Miami has returned as self-assured as ever, with a premiere so fantastic it wipes away months of worry.
Right away, Bravo hits us with a dopamine rush of salacious headlines and the words every man wants to hear: “Adriana was right.” Yep, the best friend-of of all time—a Housewife in the hearts of many—Adriana de Moura is always vindicated in the eyes of good TV.
Wednesday’s Season 7 cold open tosses us right into the deep end as Alexia Nepola picks up the pieces of her broken marriage, blindsided by a divorce filing that came just a month after last year’s reunion—complete with a voice-over appearance from none other than Teresa Giudice.
And just as we nestle ourselves into this new reality, Bravo flashes five months forward to reveal a twist those of us who read every Bravo headline already know all too well: Alexia and Todd are back together, sort of! Kind of! Maybe! Who knows, honestly?
The queen of receipts in her head and heart, Alexia need not conform to societal norms. She’s living a love that us mortals could never comprehend, publicly flaunting her ex-husband-turned-situationship-slash-current-boyfriend as though it’s just another Wednesday. Because for Alexia, it simply is. That’s what makes her one of Bravo’s best Housewives.
The scene between her and Marysol is already a winner when Lisa Hochstein enters and the RHOM do what they do best: flip on a switch. Suddenly, the Alexysol power duo turn on Lisa for her anti-Larsa behaviors, having remained chummy with Marcus Jordan despite his and Larsa’s brutal break-up. What happened to women supporting other women? As we all know, both Lisa and Larsa have famously been feminist warriors who put others first. I’m aghast to see Lisa act selfishly and lack self-awareness!
That’s another great thing about RHOM. To quote the former Mrs. Todd Nepola, “You’re both right and you’re both wrong.”
A Miami feud is best viewed from the voyeuristic lens of understanding that everyone sucks a little bit, but they’re largely right about their foe. So yes, Larsa actually has a point for once. Lisa totally sucks as a friend and has no leg to stand on supporting her boyfriend’s dalliances with Marcus after two seasons of cursing the ground her ex walks on.
And Lisa? Well, she’s right to antagonize Larsa, because it’s funny. Lest we forget, Larsa spent the last season asking Guerdy “like… how do you know?” about her cancer diagnosis, before tattling to some “really good girls” who have never met Guerdy. A little comeuppance is good and necessary—and it’s so, so enjoyable when it comes from the most annoying woman to ever grace our screens (said with love!).
But wait, there’s more!
The third feud introduced in the premiere is a bit of a head scratcher, the most random duo to feud since Cindy Barshop was heckled about the New York social order by Sonja Morgan.
Since adopting two new sons, Julia feels slighted by Guerdy, who was less-than-excited for her (allegedly) and didn’t know how to hop on a Zoom call, despite existing through 2020 like the rest of us. Hmmm…
We see a clip of said Zoom call, complete with Lisa camera-off with a stock photo of her bangin’ body on a boat (fitting), while Julia’s fellow castmates celebrate the family’s new additions. Guerdy, however, could only muster up a “congrats!” text.
Julia and Martina are disgusted with Guerdy, and it won’t be long before this cold war heats all the way up. The description for Episode 3 teases a fight between the two that “leaves everyone in shock,” aiding rumors that Julia threw a drink on Guerdy. Stay tuned.
The final fight teased by the premiere is a decisively slower burn: Julia vs. Adriana. The two besties have gone through it all on camera: relationship rumors, a rock-solid friendship pact, and the growing tensions of one metaphorically sleeping with the enemy.
After a season-long dalliance with Alexysol, Julia has grown closer than ever to the treacherous duo, leaving Adriana decidedly in the dust. Given Adriana’s tendency to handle rifts calmly and rationally without ad hominem attacks, surely that won’t be an issue! Of course, not yet, at least.
For now, everyone’s favorite friend-of has a French man on her shoulders, a solo storyline we won’t get to follow because Bravo hates me specifically and wants Adriana fans to suffer a life of quiet desperation. We live in a world where Erika Jayne is entering her 10th full-time season, while Adrianators ration the same six crumbs we were left with a decade ago. Life is often cruel and unfair.
Thankfully, what RHOM lacks in Adriana mojitos, it makes up for in absolutely enthralling entertainment. The premiere party—Jody’s birthday party, for some reason—explodes with a Lisa vs. Larsa gutter feud, a tennis match of incompetent communication.
The party has it all. Jody and some random guy go for “a shot and some AC” in his bedroom behind closed doors, which totally isn’t sketchy at all. While he’s away doing whatever he’s doing, Larsa rolls up to celebrate Lisa.
“But don’t forget when life wasn’t so good and you were, like, sad and your friends were really there for you,” Larsa says. She’s so sweet.
The thing is, Larsa’s ultimately got a point that it’s messed up for Lisa and Jody to continue hanging out with Marcus. Larsa’s rarely right, but that doesn’t mean this broken clock can’t tell time once in a while.
Rather than solve the issue with love and respect, the two hit each other with a series of low-blows that escalate the situation to a point of no return. That’s being a Real Housewife. Conflict resolution is not in the job description—that’s down the hall and to the left.
It’s so much better to rummage through your friends’ closet and toss every skeleton in their face. Yes, Lisa’s a total hypocrite for being around Marcus! Yes, Larsa has had two to six fake breakups! And yes, their friendship was about as real as Larsa’s butt from the planet moon—which is to say, totally, 100 percent real. Believe women.
“She’s crazy. She’s always drunk and stupid. And she’s a b—-,” a teary-eyed Larsa says in the bathroom, before returning to the scene to call Lisa a perpetual victim who lives in “Lisa Land.”
Ah, it’s so good to be back in Miami. We have suffered for so long waiting for a savior, and who else could rescue us but Larsa Pippen? Don’t get me wrong, there have been two or three non-consecutively good moments on this season of Atlanta, but one episode of Miami just goes to show how deprived we’ve all been.
Here’s to a summer of sordid drama helmed by the most delusional cast on Bravo, one so good they knew better than to let Alexia’s marital drama take center stage.
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