There’s an end in sight for Season 8 of The Real Housewives of Potomac. There are only a few episodes left of this season, and we don’t know if we should cry because it happened or celebrate that it’s nearly finished.
In last week’s episode, the ladies concluded their trip to the Dominican Republic. While there were pockets of fun during their excursion, the trip was mostly just another reminder that the Potomac ensemble operates less like a friend group and more like a gaggle of coworkers.
This week, during Real Housewives of Potomac Season 8, Episode 16, “Boiling Point,” Charrisse Jackson Jordan re-emerged from the abyss. She decided to invite the entire RHOP cast to her home for a crab boil. With the full cast on the guest list, it seemed like a surefire way to ignite some movement in the group. Who doesn’t want a little bit of bickering with their crabs? Here’s what went down this week.
Is Keiarna the key?
Although RHOP fans are still all over social media calling her Keiana, Keiarna with an R has become a growing presence over the last few episodes. She went with the cast to the Dominican Republic and got fully immersed in the Housewives experience. Her future seems promising.
This week, we saw her invite Candiace and Wendy to her medspa to have a laser hair removal treatment. Candiace said they were going to “snatch the hairs” out of her “coochie.” Wendy opted to target her underarms.
During the spa visit, Candiace commended Keiarna for how she handled the group. Keiarna also shared a fresh perspective on the beef between Candiace and Robyn. She said she could sense the “love” between the two, and that’s when it became clear how Keiarna could make herself useful on this show. It’s not by lasering hair.
As Keiarna slowly gets more involved in the RHOP group, it becomes clear that she could be the person to help bridge the gap between Wendy, Candiace, and the Green-Eyed Bandits. She’s one of the few people who can get along with everyone and the trip solidified that. Perhaps this newbie will be the one that bridges the gap between the two sides. It clearly won’t be Nneka.
A debrief with Charrisse
Charrisse has been missing in action for a good chunk of Season 8. She’s technically considered a friend of, and she has an official cast picture. We finally saw her return in Episode 16. She must have been busy counting inventory in her champagne room while the rest of the ladies were in the Dominican Republic.
This week, Ashley and Robyn went over to Charrisse’s house to get her caught up on all of the drama that went down on the vacation. The RHOP OG seemed unphased by it all. The important part of this scene was the story she shared about a masseuse doing in-house visits who offered her a “vaginal massage.” Thank you for that anecdote, Charrisse.
With Charrisse filled in on the Dominican Republic trip, she decided to extend an invitation to the entire RHOP cast for her annual crab boil. It’s a bit of a call back to Season 1, although Charrisse claims it happens every year. For some reason, we just haven’t seen it again until now.
Charrisse explained that she wanted to invite everyone, even Karen, to the crab boil. With so much division in the group, Charrisse has likely been recruited by the producers to try to make some progress on the issues. Then, in an interesting move, Charrisse revealed that she invited Mia’s ex-BFF Jacqueline Blake to the crab boil.
Last season, we saw Jacqueline and Mia blow up their relationship over petty TV drama. More recently, we learned that Jacqueline and Mia’s relationship was way more complex than what we knew. At Karen’s event, Mia bravely revealed that she was sexually assaulted by Jacqueline’s boyfriend when they were teenagers. Mia said she always placed a bit of blame on Jacqueline for that, which impacted their dynamic well before the RHOP cameras started rolling.
We can assume that Charrisse didn’t know how deep the issues were between Jacqueline and Mia when she invited her. On the other hand, Ashley did know, yet she still encouraged Charrisse to invite Jacqueline. It’s messy, but Charrisse seemed determined to get some drama out of her crab boil, no matter the expense.
Grace has flown the coop
The drama between the Housewives on Season 8 has been a bit of a headache to follow. On the other hand, one of the highlights of the season has been the storyline of Gizelle helping her daughter Grace leave for college. In Episode 16, it finally happened. Grace left for Florida and Gizelle became one step closer to having an empty nest.
We saw Grace say goodbye to her twin sisters and the comfort of Motel Gizelle. No matter how you feel about Gizelle, you have to admit that it was touching to see her send her oldest daughter off to college. Later in the episode, she went to hang out with Karen, whom she has been confiding in during this whole process.
At Karen’s house, the Grande Dame prepared some slice-and-bake cookies for Gizelle and busted out some booze so they could unwind over Grace’s big move. Karen gave Gizelle Don Julio 1942; she had an airplane bottle of Fireball for herself. Can we also talk about how Karen just sliced through the plastic wrap on those cookies? What a character.
Over cookies and booze, the ladies talked about their empty-nester feelings. Gizelle said that she feels like something is missing with Grace out of the house. Karen gave her some words of encouragement.
“You’ve done your job,” Karen encouraged Gizelle. “She will let you know when she needs her mama.”
Then, the ladies shifted their conversation to Charrisse’s crab boil. Gizelle really wanted the Grande Dame to make an appearance, but Karen still wasn’t ready to resolve her issues with Charrisse. If you recall, the last time they came face to face, the two OGs were slamming tables and screaming at each other. Karen said she’s just not willing to even entertain Charrisse right now.
Oddly, Karen also claimed that she couldn’t go to the crab boil because of Ray’s allergy to crabs. No one is sure if that’s true. What we do know is that the last time Karen wasn’t willing to move past her issue with Charrisse, so she’d be skipping out on the crab boil. That’s one less mouth to feed.
Mia and Jacqueline talk it out
Karen denied her invitation to the crab boil, and Wendy claimed she had another engagement. However, the rest of the cast plus Jacqueline arrived at Charrisse’s house ready to bust down some Baltimore crabs. Unfortunately, the meal didn’t live up to their expectations.
The ladies dragged the food in their confessional interviews. Honestly, you could tell from the screen that this crab boil was a bust, flavorwise. Where was the sausage and the potatoes? Where was the Old Bay Seasoning and the butter? Have they skipped the last seven annual crab boils at Charrisse’s house because no one wanted to eat her dry crabs? Thankfully, there was a ton of drama to unpack and some super-strong cocktails at the bar to keep the women entertained.
Mia and Jacquline were the first to confront each other, and instead of having a messy back-and-forth in front of everyone, they calmly sat in a secluded area and talked through their issues. Of course, they had to talk about the on-screen drama from yesteryear, but the most important thing they talked about was the incident that occurred when they were younger. Jacqueline admitted that she had no idea it happened until much later, and Mia said that felt good to hear. After years of feeling deeply betrayed by her friend, she could finally hear another side.
Realistically, Jacqueline and Mia knew that their decades-long beef couldn’t be resolved in one sit-down at Charrisse’s house. Jacqueline and Mia didn’t hug it out. They’re on handshake status, just like Mia and Karen. Still, this was incredible progress, and it’s the type of healing that all of the RHOP cast should strive to achieve.
A clash at the crab boil
While Mia and Jacqueline showed some maturity in how they approached their problems, the same couldn’t be said about Candiace and Robyn. At the crab boil, they tried to talk through their issues for the millionth time. Of course, it went nowhere. It never does.
The two of them were going back and forth, arguing about the newest reasons they hate each other. Candiace revealed that there was a betrayal of trust from Robyn. She claimed that Robyn shared their private texts with a blogger and podcaster in an attempt to make Candiace look bad. That opened the door to so many questions.
First, why are we just now hearing about this? Second question: who is this blogger? There are a lot of blogs out there, and they could literally be talking about someone with 10 followers. Context matters, but Candiace and Robyn go out of their way to avoid it.
We’ve seen Housewives fight over stories getting leaked to Page Six and Radar Online. Arguing over something someone sent to some mysterious blogger took things to a whole new level of convoluted. Then when Robyn admitted to sending the text to the blogger with zero shame? Please. This felt like two desperate people scraping the bottom of the barrel.
With Robyn and Candiace screaming at each other over a blogger, Charrisse intervened and started hollering and thumping on the table to try to get them to stop. It felt painfully contrived, and everyone called out the fact that it was a recreation of her outburst at the Season 7 Mexico trip. Then, for some reason, Candiace started crying.
Ultimately, Charrisse’s crab boil was a bust. Mia and Jacqueline made some progress in their relationship, but the rest of the cast are stuck in their ways. It seems like no one can take accountability for how their actions are impacting the group, and ultimately, the likeability of this show. Either way, we’ll be watching.
The Real Housewives of Potomac continues on Sunday nights at 8/7c on Bravo.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON REAL HOUSEWIVES OF POTOMAC SEASON 8, EPISODE 16? WOULD YOU WANT TO ATTEND A CRAB BOIL AT CHARRISSE’S HOUSE? DO YOU THINK IT WAS WRONG FOR ROBYN TO SEND THE PRIVATE TEXTS TO THE BLOGGER?
