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Television

Five Ways The Real Housewives of Dallas Can Step up Its Game for Season 2

We compared our wives to the heavyweights on RHONY, and we have some thoughts.
By Caitlin Clark |
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After being forced (in the name of journalism!) to dip my toes into a particular Bravo franchise when the Real Housewives of Dallas premiered last spring, I was certain I’d get hooked. I thought it would be by the complex relationship between LeeAnne Locken and Tiffany Hendra, but alas, the raven-haired queen of Charityworld and her even-keeled friend couldn’t hold my attention for any longer than Andy Cohen will let a caller say hello on Watch What Happens Live.

Of course, once I was in, I began to wonder about these housewives they call real. Hearing time and again that RHOD was (for lack of a better word) “garbage” compared to the other franchises made me curious. Answers ultimately came in the form of The Real Housewives of New York. Predominately older and exceedingly wealthier (I shudder to think of where a Plano housewife would dwell in the Upper East Side), that well-produced gaggle of city gals created some of the most compelling television I’ve seen this year, and I watched The Night Manager. That entire Tom at The Regency plot could have been lifted from a Tennessee Williams play.

Granted, RHONY has been on the air since 2008, allowing us years to get acquainted with the Countess, the “Ramona Coaster,” and Bethenny’s remarkable and bitchtastic rise to Skinnygirl™ fame, but a revisit to the pilot makes it all too clear that these ladies were on another level from the start.

Real Housewives of Dallas will never be a New York City or even a Beverly Hills. Those cities attract the kind of fame-thirsty but talentless settlers that happily allow themselves to be produced and prodded in order to peddle eponymous lines of chardonnay. But even so, Dallas must certainly foster its own brand of reality television bite (there has to be a reason we claim so many Bachelor contestants). Our bawdy broads may not vacation in the Hamptons or be kin to Paris Hilton, but I truly believe they can step up their game in this newly confirmed second season to erase an unforgivably boring Austin trip and constant scatological talk from the nation’s collective consciousness. Here’s how I believe they (and Bravo) can do it.

 

  1. Stop Traveling by Bus

Even before I began watching the Real Housewives, I knew why the franchise appealed to so many people: wish fulfillment. I want to see yachts, private planes (we know at least one Dallas housewife has experience with those), and even a silly limo from time to time. If I wanted to see grown women ride a bus, I’d watch Orange is the New Black.

 

  1. Find a proper rival for LeeAnne.

LeAnne is the indisputable MVP of the RHOD. She’s the only housewife that can even attempt to hold a candle to the intense bitchery of Luann de Lesseps (nay D’Agostino?) or the self-preservation skills of Bethenny Frankel. The show needs a worthy adversary who can go toe-to-toe with LeeAnne (Heidi Dillon?) and create some true dramatic arcs that extend beyond the storytelling of a single episode. A soft-spoken, Charityworld newcomer who randomly tells LeeAnne she feels sorry for her isn’t going to cut it. Speaking of Brandi…

 

  1. Enough with the house husbands.

Some of the darkest moments of RHONY’s latest season alluded to Jules Wainstein’s impending divorce from diminutive husband Michael. No matter what you think of these women, it really is a new level of sad to watch a marriage fall apart on national television. But where RHONY kept those moments on the backburner, RHOD placed them front and center, forcing us to witness that incredibly dull and oddly chilling scene between Brandi and Bryan at an empty Texas de Brazil. I absolutely refuse to discuss Stephanie and that 1950s sitcom dad she calls her master husband.

 

  1. Leave the kids out of it.

Seriously, it’s upsetting. These kids didn’t sign on for this, and I didn’t sign onto BravoTV.com during my lunchbreak to see them.

 

  1. Let’s get some more real Dallas women, shall we?

Just as Ivanka Trump will likely never agree to do RHONY, a Candice Romo or Kimberly Schlegel will probably steer clear of the Bravo casting couch. But surely we can at least get a Highland Park mom, a Hunt relative, or someone who we might actually associate with Dallas to grace our screens next year.

 

Andy Cohen, hear my plea!

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