| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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- The sure-to-be breakout of the Traitors Season 3 cast.
- The surprising biggest summer music festival star.
- A dispatch from a Bravo party.
- A majorly nostalgic throwback.
- God bless Dolly Parton. (Always.)
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The Second Coming of Dorinda Medley |
She cooked. She decorated. She made it nice. But did she murder? The biggest news in the pop culture world this week was the reveal of the Season 3 cast of The Traitors. Because the show cannonballed into the watercooler with its past season, which featured a 15 Minutes of Fame parade of reality TV stars in the cast, there was intense scrutiny and excitement over who Peacock might draft for its Season 3 roster. Which Real Housewives? How many Survivor contestants? What absolutely random British politician? Host Alan Cumming delivered the cast announcement as only he could—Clueless by fashion, Shakespeare by elocution—and the internet responded in kind: raving about how savvy and gloriously random the cast list is. |
There are the expected: six Bravo personalities, Boston Rob from Survivor, and perhaps reality TV's most notorious personality at the moment, Tom Sandoval. And there are the WTF choices that this genre thrives on, like Zac Efron's brother, Dylan, and Britney Spears' ex, Sam Asghari.
But if you ask me (which nobody has), I can tell you who is the most thrilling addition to the Clue-esque series: none other than former Real Housewives of New York City star Dorinda Medley.
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A show like The Traitors, in which the cast must figure out who among them is a "traitor" that can "kill" one of them off each night, thrives in the very specific realm of what I call "sophisticated chaos." That's a delicate tightrope to walk, one on which most reality stars make the mistake of inelegantly trampling down. The misconception is that someone who is purely a loud, belligerent mess makes for good reality TV often poisons modern shows. A loud, belligerent mess that uncorks organically is beautiful entertainment; one that is either calculated or too disastrously unhinged is unwatchable. Dorinda Medley is the best kind of reality star because what she thinks she's presenting is at wild odds with her actual behavior. In most circumstances, Medley is a voice of reason, an intelligent and grounded person who serves as an audience surrogate because of her ability to rationalize and her level of taste. So when she, fairly reliably, becomes a slurring, intoxicated whirling dervish of screaming nonsense, it's more fun than when other reality stars completely lose it. You expect them to be a disaster. When Medley unravels, it's like you're looking into a harrowing funhouse mirror: If someone as "together" as she is can become so unhinged, does that mean it could happen to me too? Worse: has it happened? That personality will make for perfect TV on a show like The Traitors. She's someone who I can see brilliantly strategizing and breaking down the specifics of the game, which is a necessary element of the series. I can also see her completely losing her shit at the elimination table, concocting nonsensical rivalries, and, after a few wines, sloppily monologuing as if she's making the world's most salient point, only to sound like a sentient bottle of vodka. One of the reasons The Traitors exploded in popularity last year is because it's a TV show perfectly positioned to produce moments that go viral. Forcing some of the most magnetic personalities in reality TV to execute humiliating tasks is one thing, but then requiring them to deliver speeches about why they don't trust each other is pop culture gold. That's how we got moments like former Housewife Phaedra Parks saying things like, "I do too much because you do too little," last year. Medley, who will arrive at the Scottish castle with an entire backlog of viral moments and memes from her time on Housewives, is poised to be the show's successor to Parks. That The Traitors has a reach that expands far outside the Bravoverse means that an entirely new audience will be exposed to her penchant for inebriated poetry. Let's just hope that production isn't stingy on the wine.
How perfect is Medley for a show like The Traitors? Take a look at all these posts on social media that imagine exactly how Medley's time on The Traitors might unfold. Clearly, she's the fan favorite of the new cast, complete with some of the greatest hits of her RHONY memes. (Click on the images to watch the videos.)
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The Countess Global Takeover |
It's a good week to be a former Real Housewives of New York City star. While the cast of the rebooted version of the Bravo reality series is currently filming in the Big Apple, alumni from the original run seem to be triumphing in their own rights. Dorinda Medley is destined to become a viral sensation in Season 3 of The Traitors, which just started shooting in Scotland. Sonja Morgan, "the straw that serves the drink," finally sold her Upper East Side townhouse in an auction. (If you're a RHONY fan, you know what a years-long saga this has been. To put it in terms of a traditional narrative series, Sonja selling her townhouse is akin to Jim and Pam finally kissing in The Office, or Ross and Rachel getting back together in the Friends finale. We've been waiting years for this moment, and it's just as gratifying as those TV milestones.) But no graduate of the Bravo tentpole of fabulous lunacy is doing better right now than Luann de Lesseps. "The Countess," as she's known—a title she held because of a past marriage—performed at the Mighty Hoopla pop music festival in the UK. Suffice it to say, this is the first time a Real Housewife has performed at a music festival. Nelly Furtado, Jessie Ware, En Vogue, Eve, and Rita Ora were among the major acts on the lineup. That Luann de Lesseps was among those major names should seem like a joke. But it wasn't. It was barely even ironic. If you watch the videos of her performing, you'll see that it was a triumph. |
Mighty Hoopla is a festival that raises awareness for issues facing the LGBTQ+ community, to the point where, when you Google it, one of the automated questions that the search engine pulls up is, "Can straight people go to Mighty Hoopla?" So, suffice it to say, the crowd there is the target audience for Countess Luann's novelty pop songs and cheesy cabaret act. Still, it was wild to see this Real Housewife strut her way on stage to a crowd of thousands of fans at a legitimate music festival, all losing their minds in support of her and singing every word of her songs. You know it's time for an intervention when you are about to seriously type the sentence "I am proud" in relation to a Real Housewives star. And yet, I got a little teary seeing all the videos of Luann's performance. She turned a music career that was very much a silly—albeit entertaining—joke into a legitimate act. My only disappointment is that she's no longer on the Bravo series, so there weren't cameras capturing the moment. |
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I Watched What Happened Live | The intention wasn't for this week's newsletter to be so Bravo-focused, but then again, my intention is never for anything to be entirely Bravo-focused—before I spend every brunch, cocktail party (wedding reception, birthday celebration, Bar Mitzvah, funeral…) talking exclusively to anyone who will listen about Bravo.
I attended a party this week celebrating the 15th anniversary of Andy Cohen's Bravo talk show Watch What Happens Live, which had a clever guest list: All the Bravolebrities in attendance were ones who had appeared on the show at least 15 times. Among the people at the party were Real Housewives of Salt Lake City stars Heather Gay and Whitney Rose, Summer House stars Carl Radke and Kyle Cooke, and Vanderpump Rules favorite Scheana Shay. Both feuding Real Housewives of New Jersey sisters-in-law Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga were there—Presidential Medals of Freedom are owed to the Bravo publicists who worked to keep them on opposite sides of the party the entire night.
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I've long championed the series as the most fun late-night show on TV, with merits that go far beyond just being a boozy dish session with game celebs; more than most series in the genre, WWHL manages to break real news because the guests are so willing to answer the cheekier, gossipy questions Cohen has no qualms asking. So I was tickled by what Cohen had to say in his speech at the party: "We have kept this show as stupid as we possibly could. We have a Watch What Happens Live glory hole. We have a gay shark. We have referenced poppers more than any other late-night show. This is what we do." Bless him for that. |
There are certain movies that are indisputably perfect, and Sister Act is one of them. This isn't me trying to mischievously piss off cinephiles. It's objectively true: It has an immaculately structured screenplay, a supernova lead performance from Whoopi Goldberg, and an impeccable sense of tone. A lot of Gen X-ers and millennials nostalgically champion Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit because of the music, but the original is flawless.
With that preamble out of the way, it was a treat this week to learn that Goldberg had reunited members of that Sister Act 2 cast to sing one of those memorable numbers to commemorate the film's 30th anniversary. Will I admit to getting a little misty in the eyes when the original actors sang "Oh Happy Day," as Goldberg beamed at them with pride? No, absolutely not. Definitely didn't happen.
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It was announced this week that Dolly Parton will be creating her own collection of wine and will also be collaborating on a Broadway musical about her life, and nice things like this happening that are tailored specifically to greatest interests is how I know that God is real. |
More From The Daily Beast's Obsessed |
There is a Love is Blind mobile game (?), and it is apparently really good (???). Read more. If you're not watching Interview With the Vampire, you're missing out on one of the hottest shows on TV. Read more. Why is everyone so giddy about J.Lo's personal and professional setbacks? Read more. |
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| The Watchers: The directorial debut of M. Night Shyamalan's daughter doesn't make a great case for nepo babies. (Now in theaters) Am I OK?: It's never a good day to make a movie that, if critics don't like it, they can turn it into a pun in a headline. (Now on Max) The Acolyte: This new Star Wars prequel is a $180 million waste of time. (Now on Disney+)
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