While we can all agree that Bravo pretty much dropped the ball with the Real Housewives of Miami with moving up the premiere date, the not so interesting cast, and let’s not even revisit the whole twitter hashtag mess – Is it the #RHMIA or #RHOM? Still not sure either. One thing the network did do right was airing their first ever live reunion show!
The best way to describe the one hour drama filled event? It was gooood! With that said, let’s get right to the recap!
The show began with the mandatory greetings by Andy Cohen to each of the housewife, and right away, the gala drama between Lea and Cristy is revisited with both ladies giving their own conflicting version of events. Lea states Cristy called her home the night before trying to attend, Cristy denies this. Cristy states Marysol promised to try to fit her in, Marysol denies this. Committee president Adriana then butts in, bringing up the fact that Cristy walked into the event with 3 people and not the 2 she claimed, which is fact so therefore I’m less inclined to believe Cristy’s version of events.
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The back and forth between the ladies continues with poor Andy trying to move on to a new topic unsuccessfully. When all is said and done, Lea states she got a check for two people, Cristy tries to defend her indefensible behavior, and the ladies fake shake on it so that Andy can finally move on.
It is now Adriana‘s turn in the hot seat and she is asked about the criticism from viewers that she brings a lot of drama into her own life, you know, by being late to her own events, forgetting to pick up her son, instigating drama at other people’s lunches, etc. Adriana is defensive and a tad too honest when she inadvertently acknowledges the fact that most viewers did find the show boring. “You know what, this is a reality show and if I’m boring, nobody wants to watch me. If everybody did what I did, this show would be rocking right now… If we had six Adrianas on this show, this show would be bigger than Beverly Hills!” Awkward!
The topic of Adriana forgetting to pick up her son is then brought up with both Adriana and Lea defending Adriana’s actions, while Larsa makes it clear she would never do such a thing with any of her four kids since she is a perfect mom albeit with not so perfect nannies.
Marysol‘s boring season footage is revisited and she reveals all is still well with hubby Philippe now that he has his green card. Just kidding on the last part… I think. When it comes to Lea’s mean green card joke, Marysol states she was a bit taken back at first but is a-okay with it now. Cristy reads my mind when she suspects Marysol is scared to speak out against Lea, who isn’t only the mayor of Miami but also Marysol’s boss as Lea hires her PR company to handle her events. Andy asks about the infamous arrest photos of she and her mother Elsa, and Marysol admits they were both indeed arrested for DUIs, adding that she has since learned her lesson.
And now the question we have all been waiting for all season. What work has Elsa had done on her face? Marysol pleads the fifth stating she has no idea thus bringing forth a moment of awkwardness before the topic turns to mean girls Cristy and Larsa.
Adriana is asked about Cristy‘s comments accusing her of kissing Lea’s ass all day because Lea introduces her to rich men. An angry Adriana denies ever saying Lea introduces her to rich men though oddly enough she doesn’t deny the kissing Lea’s ass 24/7 part. Lea also denies being Adriana’s pimp. And then boom! Adriana completely loses her sh*t when Cristy denies being jealous of her. Things get ugly when Adriana accuses Cristy of dating 19-year-olds. “At least I’m not giving blow jobs to 19-year-olds like you do,” says Adriana. Ouch. Adriana continues her crazy train, and from the few words I can decode from her strong accent, she feels Cristy is not real for using her ex-husband’s last name and still trying to live in his glory.
It’s Larsa‘s turn in the hot seat and her season montage is of herself being her own #1 cheerleader of course. The perfect one laughs off her comments stating it was all in jest. The “dinner from hell” is revisited and Andy brings up a good point when he states Larsa pressed Mama Elsa for the reading. Larsa admits this but states this was her first time in meeting Elsa and she simply did not know what else to talk about. She apologizes for hurting Elsa’s feelings but states her feelings were hurt as well.
Marysol admits Larsa’s comments about Elsa (calling her a bitch & ugly) did hurt her feelings and states Larsa was the one who kept pushing for the reading. The ladies keep going back and forth while the always messy Andy wants to know if any of Elsa’s predictions came true. Larsa answers no citing she is still happily married. Somewhere during the convo, airhead Alexia interjects stating being called “emotionally immature” is not a bad thing. Uh okay.
Marysol then states something Bravo would have likely edited out had this not been a live show, when she reveals she had to beg Bravo to edit out some of the meaner things Larsa said about Elsa. Andy cuts to break and we find out the real drama occurs in between the commercial breaks as the words of exchange got uglier with Marysol accusing Larsa of not being honest about her finances and Larsa calling Marysol old and obsessed with plastic surgery. Ai ya ya!
Larsa apologizes once again, and Marysol who appears to be crying denies she is crying though I suspect the toll of all the comments about her mom’s appearance, and not just Larsa’s comments, are to blame for the non tears.
Andy flats out asks Larsa about the rumors/reports that she and her hubby retired NBA player Scottie Pippen are having some financial troubles. The rumor is that Scottie has blown through most of the $100 million he earned during his playing years. “I mean I don’t know. You know, no. I mean I’m very comfortable. I’m fine. Everything’s great,” is Larsa’s response so I’m going to take that as a yes.
Alexia is asked about being a stage mom to her little model prodigy Peter, and she states she is simply trying to help out her baby who badly wants to be a model. We also discover Peter is no longer with his girlfriend Priscilla whom he bought a $600 ring for. When it comes to her comments about the people of Hialeah being a “lower person” class who read her magazine, Alexia states she regrets her comments and that she did not mean it in a negative way.
Following a commercial break, the show returns to an angry Adriana going off on Cristy about dating a certain “G-money” who might or might not be Cristy’s stepson. Larsa once again sorta protests against the rumors of her financial troubles as she states her husband made a lot of money playing and that she is a very happy person. So is she broke or not? Andy wraps up the show and all in all, it was a pretty successful experiment! Bravo Bravo.
And just like that, the first season of the Real Housewives of Miami is a wrap.
Thoughts – So by now, you are all aware the Miami season is the lowest rated housewives season for Bravo in recent years. The show averaged just over 1 million viewers an episode, a far cry from the RHOA which averaged close to 3 millions viewers for its third season. So why wasn’t the show a hit? Quite frankly, it was just a boring show with a cast that didn’t work.
The failure of the RHOM in fact should make us more appreciative of the good job those crafty folks at Bravo do when it comes to casting a successful housewives franchise. My take is putting together a successful show takes some genius and a little bit of luck. Unfortunately, the RHOM lacked both. Most of the women were boring, unlikeable and unrelatable, and unfortunately for the cast, they had no luck and were not able to get a big dramatic event to save the season aka a table flipping or limo fight.
And it’s not that the ladies were that boring, it’s just that something about this cast did not gel together. It simply didn’t work. Adriana for example was arguably the most interesting character on the show, but even she came off as boring and more like a parody than a real housewife. And then you have Lea Black, who is simply a great TV character, think Ramona Singer. But unfortunately, there was no one to call Lea out on some of her bad behavior aka blurting out mean comments about others. Marysol was too scared to call her out on the green card comment and Adriana could never call her out on anything, she introduces her to rich men after all – allegedly. So we have this great character in Lea saying these outlandish things that could have easily created some drama, but didn’t because no one wanted to go toe to toe with the social mayor of Miami.
Bravo also made a huge mistake by choosing to air this series coming off the high of the Beverly Hills Housewives. Perhaps if they had waited a few more months, this show would have fared better, perhaps. And then there was the whole twitter debacle with the few fans of the show that actually existed not knowing which hashtag to use. The assumed tag was the #RHOM but for some reason, some geniuses at Bravo decided to change it to #RHMIA thus confusing a lot of fans. And this is a big deal because having a show trend on twitter only draws more interest and more fans for the show. Shows like the Bad Girls Club and Basketball Wives are getting higher ratings with the help of the twitter.
I do believe there is still hope for the Miami franchise though with a total cast overhaul. If the show does return, I highly doubt it would or should be with the same cast. If it were up to me, I would either get rid of the entire cast or keep 1 – 3 of the cast members – let’s say Lea, Larsa and/or Alexia whom I believe to be the best characters. And say what you might about this season but the live reunion show lived up to the hype. I wouldn’t mind seeing the same format used for future reunion shows for the other housewives franchises.
UPDATE: Below are the aftershow clips –
TELL US – THOUGHTS ON THIS SEASON & THE LIVE REUNION SHOW? WHY DO YOU THINK THIS FRANCHISE FAILED? WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A SECOND SEASON?
