The Real Housewives of Potomac Reunion Recap: Maternal Instincts

One of the long-standing rules of Housewives is, whenever possible, keep the drama focused on the actions of the women themselves and minimize extending critiques to spouses and children. For the most part, fans tend to hold to this boundary, save for the partners who choose to participate in the drama on-camera and online. Ashley Darby’s ex-husband, for example, dominated airspace for seasons due to his penchant for drunken debauchery and (alleged) sexual harassment while filming; it was impossible to avoid the Australia-size elephant in the room year in and year out.

Kids are a little trickier, however. We are coming up on 20 years of Housewives, and as viewers and fans we’ve gotten to see their children grow up, become young adults, and interact with their parents with what is likely an excessive level of intimacy for strangers watching from our borrowed Peacock accounts. Try as we might, it’s hard not to render judgments on how the women function as parents and their impact on their children over the years when we get to be proverbial flies on the wall for their development. Moreover, the women judge each other on these very metrics, and Potomac might be the strictest of all the franchises in this regard.

As I’ve said before, one of the core engines that drives Potomac (and Black women in certain social circles of the DMV generally) is the performance of matriarchy and a strong Black family unit, whether real or imagined. Lest we forget, one of the main ways these women were connected at the start of the franchise was that they were all active in the same chapter of Jack and Jill of America, which, for the uninitiated, is a social club for mothers and children (or alternately, if you listen to the detractors, an elitist and colorist organization preserving bourgeois identity among Black America). That foundation comes across strongly in how someone like Gizelle chooses to position herself on camera: She will wade into the mess and freely stir the pot, but she is laser-focused on making sure the world sees her as a proactive and involved mother, as are Wendy and Ashley.

That standard is exactly why they’ve reacted to Mia’s actions with such open revulsion. It is one thing to hem and haw about the realities of their marriage. Many Housewives have been cagey about their marital affairs until it was time to disclose the fracture to the public; we’re currently watching Dorit and Kyle go through this handwringing on Beverly Hills after years of speculation. If it were just the open question of what was truly the nature of her situation with Gordon, I think this wouldn’t resonate with the cast so much; Wendy and Gizelle might have made a fuss about it but would have eventually left well enough alone. After all, claiming to be “weeks away from a divorce” was Ashley’s calling card three years in a row; Mia offering that lie certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented. (As far as I can tell, she is still legally married.)

As questionable as the marital affair may be, what has taken all of the women over the edge is how reckless Mia has been in dealing with her children as she navigates her incomprehensible personal life. In the last year, we have endured open speculation about her child’s paternity, discussion of divorce with the children on-camera, and open speculation about her children’s location as she continues to jet-set among Atlanta, North Carolina, and D.C. In an era of constant monitoring and surveillance on socials, most parents are adopting a way more cautious approach to the part of their lives they expose to the public, and in particular being more conscious of a child’s inability to consent to this level of exposure. Mia, however, has chosen to brazenly bare it all without any consideration for the harm that can bring.

Her lack of understanding why her behavior this last year has been viewed as so unseemly by cast and viewers alike is ultimately why the drubbing led by Gizelle and Wendy was long overdue. After a season spent keeping track of her inconsistent stories and excuses, one large forum was needed to put it on the table. She knew Gordon didn’t want to deal with coparenting issues on camera, so why did she keep engineering it to happen? She revealed last season that Jeremiah was conceived via IVF, so why did she spend an entire year insisting that paternity was up in the air and suggesting that Gordon’s paternity test was invalid? If mothering is so cherished to her, why did she find the first excuse possible to attack Gizelle’s parenting, going so far as to try intimidating her in a newly revealed scene from the drag night? And, perhaps most shockingly, does she even live in the DMV full-time anymore, or has she secretly moved to Atlanta and is hiding her relationship from the cameras?

Suffice to say, Mia has no satisfactory answers for all these questions and only phantom tears, which none of the women humor whatsoever. Given their frustrations, I understand why the women have landed at their current conclusion: That Gordon, Inc., and Mia are all in on this devil’s arrangement to bring the chaos on-camera and Mia is simply scrambling as everything has backfired. I don’t know if I entirely agree with that; Gordon’s certainly lashed out of his own volition, and I do personally find some of his behaviors in line with my experiences with people prone to manic episodes. But whether or not it was a conspiratorial truce is largely irrelevant — it defies reason why Mia would continue to explore this conversation and humor her new relationship on-camera when so much remained in flux and the only people who stood to suffer from the constantly shifting circumstances were her children. Like it or not, what kids need the most is stability, and Mia’s life as it is currently set up is the exact opposite of that. And for that reason alone, Gizelle felt justified to publicly call her a bad mother without a hint of hesitation, a dragging that she had held in for far too long.

When Mia came onto the franchise, her ability to let insults roll off her back was an asset; a cast that holds grudges is the nail in the coffin for any franchise. Over the years, however, her devil-may-care approach has mutated into an inability to accept any criticism, real or imagined, and view it as unfounded hate or maliciousness against the chaos of her life. Even if these women were her real-life friends, friends don’t simply allow you to self-destruct; they challenge you, hold you accountable to the standards you have all set for one another, and encourage a redirection when you falter. Mia, unfortunately, has never been receptive to any of that in her time on the show and defaults to tears and mumbled half-apologies only when cornered. This time around, however, there are no more excuses or half-truths she could give to explain her antics away; all the women have for her is scorn. And true to her nature, she tries to pull the big joker stunt of walking offstage. Unfortunately for her, she has completely run out of grace among this group, and no one, not even poor Jacqueline, felt the urge to run after her.

See you all next week for the conclusion of the reunion!

Cherry Blossoms:

• Overall, the girls did try to mix it up a bit more in the style realm this season, and I am glad we got a few humorous moments to acknowledge their misses. Wendy was indeed giving Popeye’s arms with that blue dress, Mia hasn’t yet found a Fashion Nova look she won’t wear, and the pointed shoulders in Keiarna’s confessionals were an abomination, but I’ll respect a commitment to a swing and a miss. A full-size shirt will never see Ashley Darby coming, I fear — her new implants have given her a new lease on life, and it seems that she’s intent on getting a return on investment.

• I get that Ashley feels the need to make her presence known at the reunion and avoid only talking about her marriage for four seasons in a row, but feigning an issue with Wendy because she called her new partner “Jack Harlow” is a desperate reach, even for her. For one, I can think of a million celebrity lookalikes that would be remarkably more insulting. Gold chain-era Mark Zuckerberg; T.J. Miller’s character in Silicon Valley; Napoleon Dynamite; Sam Bankman-Fried with a recent bleach job. All that is to say Ashley is entitled to feel a way, but in the grand scheme of things it’s far from a major affront; I’m glad Wendy quickly dismissed this nonissue.

• Why, exactly, is Jacqueline on the stage? She’s not speaking on the surprising circumstances of her pregnancy, not really talking about her personal life, not really defending or explaining Mia’s actions in a real way, and Karen is not there for her to exact righteous revenge (not that I would trust her to be witty enough to land it). Jassi barely lasted a full segment, but we have to humor Jacqueline’s aimless ramblings for another week?

• Stacey Rusch continues to keep me on my toes. This week, we finally got to see the veil lift a bit on her “prim and proper” act, which we all long suspected was a front. She’s cursing out poor Vivien over her dresses (who has already responded in kind) and insisting that her and TJ came to an amicable end, the only natural resolution that could come out of the fiasco of watching their “friendship” play out on television. There seems to be a bit more to the story that we will find out next week, and I am eager to see how Stacey responds to that unexpected plot twist. I am also glad we acknowledged the elephant in the room about her wig installs; she is a stunning woman and I’m sure that brief style note will take her very far next season.

• I am not a couples therapist, but never in my days have I heard of a couple moving in, moving out, and planning to move back into a new home while one buys a condo for themselves successfully making it to the finish line. Perhaps Keiarna will be the first, but it feels like she is simply slow-walking the inevitable demise of her relationship because she’s understandably afraid to rip the Band-Aid off. Relationship aside, she won’t be able to do a second season of her man mean-mugging the camera until producers run away; if she plans to return, she will likely have to leave that man to his own devices.