Season 3 of Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip is obsessed with Jen Shah

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter, The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by editor Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.

This week:

The real stars of Real housewives

I learned in my [redacted] Years on this cursed earth not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Given that lately it seemed like the horse had either lost my address or retired entirely, I almost forgot that lesson. Fortunately, my most trusted spiritual advisors, the Real Housewives, came to remind me of this.

The new season of The ultimate girls’ strip from Real Housewives premiered this week and debuted amid much fan skepticism. Season 3 of the Peacock series was filmed in July 2022, a full seven months ago. Not just has another season of UGT already filmed, but whole seasons of Potomac And Salt Lake Citythat both cast members had on the trip were broadcast in full.

This means that the drama that transpired during those seasons, on the road, and at each show’s reunions was shown to fans out of sequence. The relationship dynamic between the stars has shifted so many times and so extreme that it’s worth watching UGT would probably be confusing at best, if not outright annoying.

So praise my faithful gift horse. Yes, everything I said above absolutely applies to the new episodes. But as I devoured them with the same gusto as the complimentary bag of SunChips on a Delta flight after not eating all day (I’ve been traveling a lot lately), I felt stupid for my doubts. Those concerns are mere quibbles — a phrase that made me chuckle. These are eight real life housewives from across the Bravo Nation making TV in Thailand. Even a slightly confusing season is a miracle.

What surprised me the most at the premiere was who turned out to be the breakout stars. When franchise veterans come together like this, there’s an open fight for pole position. Yet the housewife who received the most attention was the one who wasn’t even on the trip now that she was incarcerated Salt Lake City Star Jen Shah dominated the lion’s share – or the elephant’s share; this is Thailand – of conversation.

Salt Lake City‘s Heather Gay was at the villa just minutes before being grilled over her support of Shah, who just days earlier pleaded guilty to crimes for which she had maintained her innocence for a year and a half. As we watch now, we know that Shah is in prison and Gay has spent months answering for her ride-or-die attitude, making this renewed litigation a bit draining. Given how long all of this drama is seeming to viewers now, it came as a surprise — and a detriment to UGT‘s much-delayed debut – to see how it dominates the episode. But at least it was juicy TV, especially seeing housewives from other cities fascinated by the whole scandal.

There were two other adorable breakout stars in the episode. The first is Pepsi, the mansion’s concierge, who cannot hide how simultaneously tickled and confused he is by these women and their behavior. All while displaying an infectious enthusiasm while interacting with him.

The other is Miami Star Marysol Patton’s stomach troubles, mentioned second only to Shah. They even affect her ability to consume “cookies,” which, knowing Patton, is a big deal.

I can’t wait to see and hear more from these three – and the actual housewives who are on the journey.

Broadway’s twisted turd – I mean turn.

The camera roll on my iPhone is a carefully curated combination of blurry sunset photos, images of food shot so badly that chefs should ban me from their restaurants, and screenshots of tweets and memes I forget to delete. The latter category is possibly the most important.

Sometimes you take a screenshot of something and as you scroll through the photos on your phone you see it again and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter that recovers bits of the will to live that escaped with your soul while you were going through the hell of your week.

There is a new, very important entry in this personal canon, with the screenshot of this tweet a Page Six story.

The thumbs up! I can’t! Apparently this has happened. What a time to be alive.

GOOPed and gagged

A court case is currently underway in Utah over a man alleging that Gwyneth Paltrow recklessly hit him on a posh ski slope in Deer Valley, then drove away after the impact and seriously injured him. Paltrow is countersuing, claiming he exaggerates and takes advantage of her fame.

You see, there are people who have been hurt and these are real operations that should not be taken lightly. That said this tweet made me laugh and laugh and laugh. (It’s also in the Camera Roll Screenshot Hall of Fame.)

Impossible? Things happen every day!

If you’ve seen the Whitney Houston and Brandy version Cinderella as a child, as a teenager or as a [redacted]-year-old man on a last Sunday afternoon the following photos will mean a lot to you. Even if you don’t know what the hell the words “Descendants: Rise of the Reds” mean.

What to watch this week:

successor: The greatest show on television continues to be great. Who would have thought!? (Sun. on HBO)

Yellow jackets: The hottest TV shows continue to deserve excitement. It’s a bee joke. (Stream now; Sun. on Showtime)

The Big Door Prize: This is how it was described to me Teddy Lasso-meets=severance pay, which I can’t calculate exactly, but which I’m intrigued by. (Wednesday on Apple TV+)

What to skip this week:

Great expectations: Maybe it’s time to lower them! (Sun. on Hulu)

love is blind: That was a fun little experiment that’s just exhausting now. (Now on Netflix)