Episodes
-
By the beginning of July, I have entered my now-annual "Love Island" fugue state. I fall asleep watching new episodes, and I wake up and immediately reach for my phone to scroll social media reactions. I try to recap the major plot points to my husband, who is usually baffled by the onslaught of details and my feverish emotional state. It's all I know how to think about about at the moment. So I was thrilled to get a chance this week to chat with, Anna Peele, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of "Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind 'Love Island.'"
As a relative newbie to the "Love Island" universe, I'm always looking for more insight about the show's history, influences, and impact, and Peele's deeply researched and reported book is the motherlode. She analyzes the show's forerunners and how executives put together the show that has evolved into an international mega-franchise, and breaks down that franchise's rocky introduction to the American market. She offers insight into how producers actually shape â or don't shape â storylines and character arcs, and into how contestants perceived their experiences.
In our conversation, we discuss the evolution of the "Love Island" format, what made it tricky to bring to America and how it contrasts with "The Bachelor," the significance of the show's hosts and inimitable narrator Iain Stirling, how contestants experience being in the bubble of the show's set, our takes on the most recent "Love Island" USA seasons, and much more.
Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
It's a hot romance adaptation summer. After years suffering through a rom-com movie desert, streamers have discovered that rom-com television series might just be where its at. At a time when heterosexual dating has never seemed bleaker and toxic men are wreaking societal destruction at the highest levels of government and tech, it makes sense that a lot of us are yearning for the uncomplicated fantasy of safe men to love.
In mid-May "Off Campus" became a runaway hit for Prime Video. Based on the first book in Elle Kennedy's sexy hockey series, millions of viewers fell in swoony, embarrassing levels of love with the romance between Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) and Hannah Wells (Ella Bright). The show shot to the top of the streaming charts, launched a viral soundtrack, and spawned a spate of thinkpieces about why women in their 30s and 40s couldn't stop watching. (The two of us were among them.)
So when we saw that "Every Year After," a show based on Carley Fortune's bestselling novel "Every Summer After," was also coming to Prime Video, we were anticipating another banger. Unfortunately, where "Off Campus" broke through with fans and critics, "Every Summer After" decidedly did not. Is it still #1 on Prime Video? Certainly. But it feels like people are doing more hate-watching than crush-watching.
These two shows share surface-level similarities. Both are part of Prime Video's obvious push to recapture the magic they found with "The Summer I Turned Pretty," both are based on popular novels, and both feature young hotties finding and bungling and finding love again. So we wanted to dig into what made them land so differently.
Part of the issue is tone (fun vs. somber), part is that ineffable chemistry between two leads that either leads the audience to invest in a love story or detach from it, and part of it might just come down to structure. Where "Off Campus" effectively integrates trauma into a sparkly, sexy series, "Every Year After" seems to view grief and trauma as totalizing. (Even "Every Year After's" big sex scenes somehow manage to feel dark and dour.) As Angie Han wrote in her review of "Every Year After" for The Hollywood Reporter: "So besotted with its own heartbreak, it forgets to sell the romantic fantasy that would make it worthwhile in the first place."
Before we wrapped up the episode, we took a slight detour into Bravo-land to give our high-level thoughts on "Summer House: The Aftermath." (TLDR: It was mostly a nothingburger, West deserved to be fired, Ciara forever, and Lindsay did some good tough love work.)
Hope you enjoy! Xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
Missing episodes?
-
Another week, another feast of televisual content about the high crimes and misdemeanors of Amanda Batula and Westling Wilson! Tuesday night brought not only the premiere of "Love Island USA" (see our coverage over on Love to See It), but part two of the "Summer House" season 10 reunion and episode three of "In the City." Both Bravo shows now revolve primarily around investigating how long this couple have been sneaking around, and the more episodes come out, the worse it looks!
The second installment of the three-part "Summer House" reunion didn't ease off the gas. Amanda is pressed to consider whether West would take their relationship as lightly as he's taken his past romances, which actually seems to strike a nerve â and leads her to flee the stage in tears. Ciara and Kyle reveal, in side chats, that they've been in touch with West's recent ex Meija, and have learned just how serious and longstanding their relationship was. Dara offers a devastating read on West, who, meanwhile, sits in vacant silence for most of the episode. Kyle is asked about his tantrums this season and his self-admitted history of being inappropriate with other women, which he attributes quite liberally to Amanda's coldness and their dead bedroom. ("Hurt people hurt people," he explains.) We discuss Amanda's fragility and lack of remorse, the void onstage where West should be, Kyle choice to lean into a victim narrative, and the coming reckoning over West's secret off-camera girlfriend.
"In the City" kicks off with its own perspective on the Amanda-West-Ciara-Kyle saga. Amanda welcomes the other two tripod legs of her "perfect little trio," West and Ciara, outside the building where she's signing a one-year lease on her new apartment. (So much for that one-month trial separation.) West calls her "Manders!"; Ciara gives her sound advice about staying involved in Loverboy so that she's aware of her and Kyle's joint financial situation.
As Amanda sits for a confessional, beaming and gushing about her best friends, the camera glitches out and jumps forward to May 2026; producers ask a more sullen version of Amanda whether she had a crush on West at the time of this scene, and she dutifully denies it. Chilling stuff! Meanwhile, Lindsay goes on a bad date with a hunk ripped straight from "And Just Like That...", beefcake-themed nostalgic food delivery business and all. Whitney's boxes arrive from L.A. and Kenny, spiraling at the prospect that his new live-in girlfriend will actually have decor and possessions that take up meaningful space in his apartment, teases her until she cries â laying the groundwork perfectly for Lexi and Yvonne to tell their new pal that Kenny has been telling the guys that he questions their "spark" and sees their future as "murky." The Kenny-Lindsay clash continues over a group brunch. We discuss all of this, plus our overall take on "In the City" so far.
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
Between Ciara Miller absolutely eating Amanda Batula up at the "Summer House" reunion, "Off Campus" becoming a full-blown obsession (check on your millennial friends, people!), and right-wing pink pill influencers melting down about Alex Cooper's pregnancy... we had a lot on our minds this week.
So what is the Rich Text podcast for other than brain dumping to each other and all of you?
We started this episode by getting into part 1 of the "Summer House" reunion. The entire Bravo-verse has been eagerly awaiting this moment of catharsis for Ciara Miller. And it was, indeed, satisfying to see Ciara eat Amanda Batula and West Wilson up, with strong assists from Mia, Carl, Kyle and Lindsay. We discussed Amanda and West's detached affect, whether they were actually there to apologize and take accountability (spoiler: no), the messiness of the timeline, and what it means for Ciara to be allowed to have her anger on full display. We also detoured briefly into some non-Scamanda standout moments, including Bailey going hard after Ben, and KJ opening up about his mental health struggles.
After a lengthy discussion about "Summer House," we took some time to dive into our latest all-consuming television obsession: "Off Campus." The Prime Video hockey romance series is firing on all cylinders. The fervor that it has inspired among so many viewers reminds us of the heyday of the WB (complimentary). We got into Claire's massive crush on Belmont Camelli, why the show is hitting so hard, the show's construction of healthy masculinity, and what the cast's press tour can tell us about this particular cultural moment.
Finally, we talked about the deranged meltdown some women on the right are having in the wake of Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper's pregnancy announcement. Turns out that you can have casual sex, date around, get married and have a baby in your 30s! Who knew?
Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
After 10 seasons of anchoring "Summer House," it's time for the show's preeminent Peter Pan party boy, Kyle Cooke, to say goodbye. Kyle, along with his erstwhile wife Amanda Batula and longtime friend Lindsay Hubbard, are being shipped out from the Hamptons share house to the new Bravo series "In the City."
On Tuesday night, Bravo aired a finale-premiere combo that saw Kyle, Amanda, and Lindsay closing one chapter and opening the next. But this transition didn't hit the way production clearly anticipated while filming last summer; there's no clean break, no bittersweet transition to a new era. Instead, there are dangling threads galore. We already know we're gearing up for a season of watching Kyle and Amanda's marriage fall apart, and their current storyline has far more to do with their "Summer House" ex-colleagues West Wilson and Ciara Miller than with their new "In the City" cohort.
Despite the spanner thrown in the works, the "Summer House" finale packed a punch. Carl and Lindsay finally sit down and talk for the first time since their on-camera breakup two seasons ago (so that Carl can profusely apologize, of course). West explains to Ben that he knows Ciara couldn't handle casually dating and he doesn't want to lead her on, just hours before kissing her and trying to get her in bed. Ciara tries to give Amanda the kick in the ass she needs to do something about her crumbling marriage, and they share an emotional goodbye. And then Amanda sits Kyle down on the stoop of the empty house and tells him she was going to stay at a hotel â alone.
"In the City" opens with the news of their breakup this winter, and a scene the couple filmed after the news broke that Amanda was dating their friend West, before the episode rewinds to last September when filming commenced. We see some brutal post-couples-therapy conversations between a frazzled and angry Amanda and a clueless Kyle; we meet Lindsay's baby daughter, who already has the same death glare perfected; we meet Bachelor Nation's own Whitney Fransway and her extremely unlikeable boyfriend Kenny, who keeps calling her a "doll." Plus, Amanda questions the murky origins of Danielle Olivera's relationship with her married boyfriend, and Lindsay's bestie Yvonne cheerily admits that her husband once didn't notice when she went to San Diego unannounced for multiple days. Weird vibes!
We dig into all of it in this episode. Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
When we stepped into the Lawn Club in downtown Manhattan last Thursday night, we immediately knew we were among our people â reality TV people, that is. Reality stars, producers, casting directors, content creators, podcasters and journalists, all together in a room listening to the dulcet tones of John Denver as remixed by DJ Kyle Cooke, thanks to Vultureâs Reality Masterminds event.
The wide-ranging content package and celebration were a great reminder that reality television has become a legitimately important piece of the entertainment industry, complete with its own media ecosystem. After 10+ years of covering reality television as journalists, podcasters and cultural critics, it's satisfying to see that ecosystem taken seriously and given its due. Plus, we got a great party out of it.
So on this week's podcast, we decided to gossip. We review Kyle's DJ-ing, discuss which members of the "Summer House" cast were there to support him, and talk about our favorite reality sightings -- Boston Rob and Rob C. hanging out together! Kristen Kish! Kathy Hilton! Andy Cohen! Ariana Madix! Various gorgeous realtors! We also got into the Jenn Fessler-West Wilson drama that came out of the night and then share all of our many thoughts about the latest episode of "Summer House."
In the back half of the episode, we wanted to dive into a few other things that have been on our minds, including the way that Threads is melting Claire's brain, and the intense discourse about Olivia Rodrigo's babydoll dresses and bloomers. Are her fashion choices subversive? Tools of the Epstein class? Somewhere in between? Emma and Claire have slightly different viewpoints on this topic, but we can agree on one thing: Social media platforms are where nuance goes to die.
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
In 2006, âThe Devil Wears Pradaâ was already on the brink of being a paean to the bygone glory days of magazines. The hollowing out of print media was already well underway. The brief boom of digital media was in the offing, but that would quickly collapse as well. The prosperous era of Vogue that the original movie was satirizing has ended. Twenty years later, we are all â magazine editors, digital journalists, freelancers and self-employed newsletter purveyors â fighting over the meager scraps that remain.
This is the world that âThe Devil Wears Prada 2â places us in. A world where plucky journalist Andy Sachs has found professional success and acclaim, neither of which protect her from her insolvent publication laying off its staff. A world where Miranda Priestleyâs Runway still has prestige and cultural impact, but must chase web traffic and produce fashion spreads on shoestring budgets. And a world where, just as in this one, tech billionaires treat vital industries like playthings.
It is the sad state of the media that brings Andy, who has just been laid off via text while receiving an industry award, back to Runway. The magazine has been savaged online for spotlighting a brand that a later exposĂŠ revealed to be using sweatshop labor, and their prodigal daughter, now a respected and unemployed investigative reporter, is hired to restore the publicationâs journalistic gravitas. Meanwhile, Miranda is fighting to save her promotion to global head of content for Elias-Clarke, which owner Irv Ravitz has been dangling over her head. But before their happy ending, Andy and Miranda also must navigate McKinsey consultants, tech bros, and billionaires who see no distinction between the art of fashion and A.I. slop. To save their careers, ultimately, they have little recourse but to find a billionaire they trust more than the other billionaires.
In this episode, we discuss the filmâs depiction of a media industry that has been ravaged by late-stage capitalism, of goofy tech billionaires, and of billionaire divorcĂŠes. We get into the idea of the âgood billionaire,â who uses her wealth benevolently, and why it always seems to be a woman. We also talk the changing face of fashion, as unevenly depicted as it was in this movie. And we discuss âTDWP 2â as a girlboss movie (complimentary?!), and the space it makes for female ambition. Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
"Summer House" and "The Valley" are two Bravo shows about young(ish) people on opposite coasts working through a plethora of banal relationship horrors. In this episode, we dive into the last few episodes of both shows.
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
It was only a matter of time before the tradwife novels arrived. Not only have we been fascinated by these women â and their addictive yet alarming blend of aestheticized nostalgia porn, motherhood and domestic arts tips, and veiled (or not-so-veiled) reactionary politics â for at least half a decade, they are public figures optimized for projection, psychological speculation, and sheer fan fiction. After all, how well do we really know these women? Beneath their carefully constructed images, the precisely curated videos and photos of maternal and wifely bliss they show us, what are they truly thinking? What drives them? And what darker or less wholesome parts of themselves are they cropping out of the frame? These are not the self-narrativizing, confessional mommy bloggers of 20 years ago: they're the opening scene in a horror movie or a thriller, and we're just waiting for the grisly reveal.
This week, we're discussing the book du jour, Caro Claire Burke's buzzy tradwife novel "Yesteryear." This isn't the first tradwife novel â for example, our friend Jo Piazza published an extremely fun murder mystery set in this world last year, "Everyone Is Lying to You" â but it is at the center of the cultural conversation right now. So this seemed like an excellent time to discuss not just Burke's literary take on the topic, but also the unique allure and unique problems of the tradwife novel.
In "Yesteryear," we follow the story of Natalie Heller Mills, a Christian tradwife influencer whose profile is unmistakably inspired by the ur-tradwife, Hannah Neeleman (known as Ballerina Farm). She has five photogenic children and one on the way; she has a handsome cowboy of a husband; she has two nannies, and an on-site content producer. She has a closet full of expensive dresses and cashmere sweaters that she wears each morning to collect eggs from the chicken coop, and a rustic kitchen with hidden appliances. But one morning, she awakens in a version of her life that she barely recognizes, a wholly unromanticized homestead with no microwave, no cashmere sweaters, and no nannies. Instead, she has four children she doesn't recognize, and a hardened, weathered husband who will brook no disagreement. As the novel progresses, we learn more about how Natalie built herself an influencing empire, and the scandal that was threatening to destroy it â and, ultimately, why she ended up back in 1855.
It's an irresistible premise, especially for those of us who have contemptuously dismissed tradwives as living out a safe, cosplay version of a past that was always more dangerous and oppressive than their content seems to admit. What would a modern tradwife do if she awoke on a real homestead? She couldn't hack it! Right? Burke is a compelling writer, and her heroine is unlikable, unreliable, and deeply fascinating. The novel plumbs her psyche for all the resentments and wounds that have formed her into such a bitter and calculating person â and, ultimately, an unstable one. There's a lot in the book that makes it an obvious hit (no wonder it's already been optioned for a project starring Anne Hathaway!). But we also found some aspects of the book disappointing or perplexing.
In this episode, we dug into the idea of tradwife fiction writ large, and the challenges we see as inherent in the genre. We also talk through the whole of "Yesteryear" (so a huge spoiler alert here!) and touch on some of the major themes. And we discuss some of the aspects of the book that didn't work for us, like the glossing over of her experiences of pregnancy, postpartum, and the effects of having a large number of children, as well as the relative absence of broader political context. And did that big twist work for us? We're a little bit torn!
We hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
During the season 3 premiere of "The Valley," there is a scene that lit us up with rage.
Kristen Doute's fiancĂŠ Luke Broderick is having a heart-to-heart with fellow castmate Jesse Lally about his relationship. âOur relationship is completely lacking intimacy, which is tough,â he says. â[Kristen] shuts down every advance. At what point do you stop trying?â On its face this seems like a normal thing to express frustration to your friend about... until you realize that Luke is whining about not getting enough sex from his partner who is just THREE MONTHS POSTPARTUM. The man legitimately wants a gold star for not pressuring Kristen for physical intimacy before she has been medically cleared by a doctor.
This scene also made us think about similar conversations we've seen between Jace Terry and Mikayla Matthews on the latest season of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives." And then, in episode 2, not only did Luke bring these "issues" up again, but we saw a similar exchange between Danny and Nia Booko! Three makes a trend, so we knew we had to discuss. We got into why so many men seem unable to grasp that their partners might need some physical space after a traumatic medical experience like birth, what it says about how male partners use weaponized incompetence, and how the Bravo community is responding to these on-screen issues!
In this podcast episode, we also take a slight detour to discuss our April 6th outing to see Mark Ballas and Whitney Leavitt together in Chicago on Broadway! We recap what the show was like, the energy in the room, Whitney's theater-kid vibes, and what this means for how she is constructing her career trajectory outside of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives."
Hope you enjoy! Xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live," Joan Didion famously wrote at the outset of her 1979 essay collection "The White Album." This was always descriptive, rather than self-congratulating. It's not that our souls are fed by art, but that we need to convince ourselves that our lives are more than random chaos. In order to continue on, in order to give meaning to lives filled with pain and drudgery and confusion, we must edit and construct. We must, as the girlies say, romanticize our lives.
And wives are asked to endure a great deal by romanticizing it. Perhaps that is one reason we are so gripped by their raw confessions.
In two much-discussed recent memoirs, Lindy West and Belle Burden puncture the fairy tales of wifehood that they once bought into, reiterated, and sought to embody. In "Adult Braces," West's followup to her hit memoir "Shrill," she reconsiders the triumphant ending of her earlier book: her marriage. In "Adult Braces," she admits that her marriage was troubled from the start by her husband Aham's insistence that they embrace polyamory, a desire she hoped to dispel by becoming the perfect wife. She learns that Aham (who has since come out as nonbinary and uses he/they pronouns) has secretly acted on their arrangement and has a girlfriend, Roya; as she processes his betrayals, she rents a van and road trips to Florida to find herself. When she returns, she is ready to turn their couple into a throuple. Her vision of a happy marriage has been revised.
But for Burden, the happy marriage disappears into a puff of smoke. After almost two decades of marriage, during which she gave up her legal career to raise their three children, she discovers that her husband is having an affair with a younger woman. Soon after, he walks away from not just Burden, but their children, their home, and their entire life. Left to pick up the wreckage, she spends the memoir sorting through her ideals of marriage, wifehood, and motherhood, trying to understand how she surrendered herself financially and emotionally to a man who could sever himself from her so abruptly.
Both West and Burden find themselves grappling with the crumbling of the stories they told themselves, and reevaluating the wifely roles they sought to embody. They linger over the value that being married to men granted them in the eyes of the world, and the terror of having that taken away; they consider how their anxiety about being a perfect wife (and, in Burden's case, mother) may have made them brittle and exhausted. But we also see what relief they find in being able to sink into having a partner to protect, if not control, them. If there is a cost to pay, well, it's a bargain they were happy to make.
In this episode, we discuss both books (and West's ill-fated rollout, the fevered discourse around the state of her polyamorous marriage, and Aham's furious public response). We delve into their conceptions of ideal wifehood and how they revise them as their marriages founder. We discuss the much-rumored death of millennial feminism, and whether embracing the right ideology can ever really make you happy. And, of course, we discuss how being a Good Wife always, always means doing PR for your husband â and consider whether a divorce memoir is so alluring because the author can finally stop spinning.
Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
It became clear that "Love Story," the FX-Hulu limited series about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, had broken through in a major way when Curbed ran an article titled "Kennedy Cosplay Is Eating The City."
Young women were flocking to C.O. Bigelow, the pharmacy where Bessette shopped for her headbands, in droves. Panna II, where the fictional Kennedy and Bessette went on their first date (likely apocryphal) was being discovered by a new generation of New Yorkers and tourists. The same thing was happening with Bubby's and The Odeon and even the stoop outside of the couple's former Tribeca loft. "It seems the city is caught up in 'Love Story' mania," wrote Clio Chang.
Except it wasn't just New York City. Seemingly out of nowhere, we were all being deluged with reels and TikToks about how to recreate Bessette's '90s minimalist style or style your boyfriend like JFK Jr. or shop for vintage Calvin Klein and Yohji Yamamoto. A mini-series had officially become a cultural flashpoint.
"Love Story" itself, executive produced by Ryan Murphy, is a totally passable, very schlocky, incredibly imperfect cultural product. But what felt more interesting than the piece of art itself was interrogating why it was able to pierce through in an increasingly atomized pop cultural ecosystem. What is it about JFK Jr. and CBK that still has us collectively in a chokehold, nearly 30 years after their tragic deaths?
To interrogate that question, I felt like there was only one guest that could fill in while Claire was out on vacation: writer and iconic New Yorker Glynnis MacNicol. Not only is Glynnis a friend, but she also happens to have a somewhat outsize knowledge of '90s New York and Carolyn Bessette. She even wrote a fabulous essay for the NYTimes about the "Love Story" phenomenon: "Carolyn Bessette Was Living the Dream. Then She Met John.Carolyn Bessette Was Living the Dream. Then She Met John."
In this episode, we get into the mixed critical reactions to "Love Story," why '90s nostalgia has gripped the masses, the intersection of fashion, politics and Hollywood wrapped up in JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's pairing, and whether this "love story" is actually more of a horror story. Hope you enjoy! Xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
We watched Netflix's latest experiment in romance, the age-blind dating show "Age of Attraction," with a blend of boredom and horror that eventually shaded into a spicier blend of horror and fascination. The show's finale dropped this week, and we are finally ready to weigh in. So let's go!
"Age of Attraction" brings together a group of mixed-age singles to explore relationships without learning each other's ages, in the interest of showing that age is just a number, that we shouldn't put each other in boxes, yada yada yada. The show concept is not only ludicrous on its face, as singles can see each other while dating and should be able to assess what age their potential partners are, but is quickly given the lie during a quick montage midseason, which reveals that all of the couples who turned out to be close in age were summarily cut from the show. (You guys age-blind dated too hard, sorry!)
This is a show that invites us to both gawk at and romanticize relationships between people who are decades apart and in completely different life stages. We are asked to consider the deeper compatibility between a 38-year-old father of tween daughters and a 22-year-old who seems just about old enough to be hired as their babysitter. After all, he is young at heart, and she is desperate for a man who is emotionally mature enough to listen to Taylor Swift without spontaneously combusting. (Dear God, are the Gen Z lads okay?) We are told that a 33-year age gap has nothing to do with the breakdown of a relationship between a 60-year-old man who treats his 27-year-old girlfriend like an underperforming intern; they simply didn't share communication styles.
The immaturity on display is immense, and it is mostly from the older partners, who are drawn to the youthfulness of their younger loves but also easily retreat to the authority of their bigger ages to regain control in their relationships. This is particularly unsettling when it involves one woman being pressured for sex by her older boyfriend, who clearly hopes to defeat her boundary through superior debate skills. But it's not just Vanelle and Jorge; unhealthy dynamics are all over this show.
In this episode, we discuss the show's concept and structure, the cultural moment it's speaking to, and how the central relationships unfold â plus, that reunion trailer and how it hints at the state of these romances today. Hope you enjoy! xo
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
Season 4 of "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" is a dark one, but its darkest moments arrive in the second half of the season. Most of them involve star Taylor Frankie Paul, whose toxic cycle with her ex Dakota Mortensen is fully reignited as the season progresses, even as she's gearing up to star on "The Bachelorette." By the end of episode 10, it's abundantly clear that Taylor is in no way prepared to cut off Dakota, responding with coy ambivalence when he asks her to save him a rose. And she's in no way prepared to take on this role.
As we were preparing our coverage for the second half of this season, more news broke: Taylor and Dakota were involved in a domestic dispute last month, and both have alleged physical violence by the other. The police were called, though no arrests were made. Dakota has also reportedly accused Taylor of other assaults, and of abusing their young son. There is an ongoing investigation with DCFS, as well as with the local police, regarding these allegations. (Note: We will be discussing these allegations in some, though not excessive, detail in this episode. Please listen with care.)
Taylor has said very little publicly about these reports, and ABC and "The Bachelorette" production have said even less. It appears that the show will air as scheduled; the network clearly hopes to weather the storm. But the backlash to ABC's decision to cast Taylor, who already had a documented history of domestic violence (she was still on probation for the prior incident while filming the show) has been intense.
In this episode, we discuss what we see unfold between Taylor and Dakota in the last five episodes of "SLOMW," as well as the current allegations and the implications for "The Bachelorette" and the reality TV genre as a whole. Then we turn to the other women's storylines for this batch of episodes, notably Whitney and Jen's falling out, Layla opening up about her struggles with an eating disorder, Jessi and Jordan's functionally defunct marriage, and Jace and Mikayla's separation.
Related Reading and Resources:
National Domestic Violence Hotline
"Taylor Frankie Paulâs Turn on âThe Bacheloretteâ Is Coming Under Fire," by Shivani Gonzalez, NYT
"âThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wivesâ filming on pause amid Taylor Frankie Paul investigation, sources say," by Rebecca Cohen, NBC
"Cinnabon Cuts Ties With âThe Bacheloretteâ and âThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wivesâ Amid Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen Domestic Violence Investigation," Jack Dunn, Variety
"Taylor Frankie Paul Breaks Silence After Domestic Violence Investigation News: 'It's a Heavy Time,'" by Liza Esquibias and Benjamin VanHoose, People
"Taylor Frankie Paul Says Domestic Violence Headlines Feel 'Like the End of the World' in First Televised Interview Since Scandal," by Rachel McRady, People
"Taylor Frankie Paul's ex Dakota speaks out amid domestic violence investigation," by Sarah Hearon and Ryan Coleman, EW
"The Price of Perfection: Layla Taylor on Mormonism and the weight of belonging," by Shaquille Heath, The Cut
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
There are few moments more off-putting in season 4 of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" than when Jessi Draper's husband, Jordan Ngatikaura, earnestly tells the camera that "DadTok is a lot funnier than MomTok." But in a way, it also sets the tone of the season.
"SLOMW" is now a reality show about Mormon (and lapsed Mormon) mom content creators who have become bonafide celebrities. And that celebrity status is kind of upending everything in their lives â most prominently, their patriarchal family structures and their wider ambitions.
Many of the husbands are navigating stepping into primary caregiver roles and trying not to lose their own identities in the process. Some, like Jordan, are lashing out and resentful as a result. Others, like Connor, are purely magnanimous, while the rest of them fall somewhere in the middle. DadTok becomes a refuge for a lot of the male partners (or in the case of Dakota and Chase, former partners), which is part of why Jordan is so desperate to insist that the brand can stand apart from MomTok.
At the same time, the women are getting a plethora of opportunities outside of MomTok â "The Bachelorette," book deals, modeling gigs, "DWTS," Broadway shows, major brand deals â while still keeping one foot firmly planted in MomTok world. It's these two overarching dynamics which create the majority of conflict throughout season 4. And then, of course, there's Taylor and Dakota. Those two are a hurricane of toxicity that stands alone.
In this episode, we'll get into all the major action of episodes 1-5: Jessi and Jordan's marriage, DadTok heading to Vanderpump Villa, Whitney and Jenn moving to LA for "DWTS," Taylor and Dakota's total inability to detach from each other, and the fascinating pre-"Bachelorette" storyline the show is crafting for Taylor. In a separate recap next week, we'll dive into the back half of the season.
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
And she's finally ready to talk about it. So, let's get into it in the way we know best â a podcast chat. đ
If you haven't already linked your subscriber Rich Text feed to your podcast-listening app of choice, instructions are here.
-
If youâre a Substack subscriber, go check your email for a gift link to access Rich Text! (If it's not there, it will be within an hour or so.) Everyone else, welcome!
A little over five years ago, we started Rich Text on Substack because we needed a change. We had been at HuffPost for a decade, from the peak of its heyday to its somewhat ignominious acquisition by BuzzFeed. We had cycled through different positions as writers and editors, and we had survived round after round of layoffs. We had started Here to Make Friends, a feminist reality dating show podcast, and it had lasted despite occasional attempts by management to pivot it to video. We had been lucky enough to collaborate with brilliant editors, writers and producers, but we had also watched those colleagues leave. We were burnt out and rudderless. Our hope was that a little side project on Substack would give us a low-stakes, chill place to mess around, blog, try random stuff, and get back in touch with our voices. A creative refresh, if you will.
Then, almost exactly five years ago, the layoff cycle finally came for us. We were called into our virtual HR meetings with a taped (but unedited) âBachelorâ recap still dangling. It was never published. But we werenât ready to say goodbye to podcasting, and we were suddenly energized by the possibility of taking control of the show, of our writing, and of our creative futures. Substack became not just a space to experiment, but the home base of our entire body of work. And our wonderful subscribers allowed us to keep doing that work â while paying our bills, including Claireâs eye-popping daycare tuition.
In so many ways, our time at Substack gave us all of the things we had ever hoped for. We were able to build, brick by brick, a tiny media company of two. We were able to pay for our health care (Emma) and child care (Claire). We found a vibrant community full of brilliant, challenging, funny people â all of whom wanted to analyze culture in the way that we did! After years of being limited to âBachelorâ recaps on our podcast, and following the whims of editorial leadership when it came to story selection, we were able to truly take the reins, writing and podcasting about all the reality shows, rom-coms, weird viral essays, prestige dramas, and sociopolitical trends our little hearts desired. And we got to do it all on our terms, for the best audience in the business. We have never taken these gifts for granted, not for one single day. We recognize how very lucky we are to be able to make a living doing something that we truly love, and we're incredibly, profoundly grateful to all of you for supporting our work.
But as with any media ecosystem, even a relatively scrappy indie one, there came challenges. After years of natural growth and support from Substack staffers, both waned. The platform began to prioritize bringing over large, institutional publications and celebrity writers over mid-size publications like ours. Discoverability became more challenging, and Substack kept ending up in the news because of its tacit support for Nazis and transphobes. The latest big development is that Substack has partnered with⌠Polymarket. All of these things left us with the looming sense that we would have to make the leap to another platform at some point in time. But, of course, making a big change is really fucking scary. Especially when that change could upend your ability to pay your bills.
So when Patreon reached out, it felt like a golden opportunity to make a leap with real support â and one we might never get again. Patreon is a platform built originally for podcasters, which is a big part of what we do on Rich Text. We loved the idea of being in a place where audio content is truly valued, and where we can be an active part of shaping what the newsletter product will be in the future. We loved that the financial investment that Patreon was willing to make into our scrappy little media project would allow us to rebuild without complete and total panic haunting us at every turn.
Patreon, of course, isnât perfect. No platform will be. But the hope is that we can write our next chapter sustainably. We want to set ourselves up so that Rich Text is something we can continue making for the next five years and then another five years after that. And we feel like some of the new features weâll have access to on Patreon â organized collections! The ability to pay for one-off posts or series! More tier options! â will allow us to grow in a healthy way.
Now that weâre here, in our unfamiliar new home, surrounded by moving boxes and art we donât know where to hang yet, it feels a little scary and stressful. Thereâs a lot to do. But that also means a lot of possibility. All the same things you knew and (hopefully) loved back at Substack will be here: weekly recommendations and podcasts, occasional essays, subscriber chats. Weâre also looking forward to experimenting with new features and bonus content â and implementing your feedback from our big reader survey last month! â as we figure out what will make Rich Text itself an even richer text in the coming years. There will be more conversations about the motherhood divide, our personal lives, reality television scandals, bizarre made-for-streaming holiday rom-coms about sexy snowmen and viral essays that set your group chats ablaze. There will be more writing about girl culture, the ways fatherhood is treated vs. motherhood, books we love, TV we love, and progressive politics.
Trust us: We KNOW that asking you to change over your subscription to a whole different platform is super annoying. The whole point of a subscription is that itâs seamless! You should never have to think about it! We, too, hate dealing with the process of moving our information over to a new app, linking up custom podcast feeds again, etc. We did not make the choice to inflict this on you lightly. We really believe that Patreon will be a more sustainable and welcoming space for our work and for this community. And we are here â along with the REAL HUMANS of the Patreon team â to make this transition as easy as possible!
â ď¸ Important note for Substack subscribers
If youâre coming from Substack, we're gifting you access to our paid membership on Patreon. You should have received an email with your redemption link and details on how to claim it.
Check your email for details on claiming your FREE access
If youâre still running into issues â submit a support request
Whatâs included on Patreon?Free Membership
Weekly Recommendations: Get our weekly dispatch on what weâve been reading, watching, listening to, buying, and making.
Weekly Podcast Previews & Occasional Full Episodes: Listen to periodic full-length episodes of the Rich Text podcast.
Essays: Read our occasional musings on topics cultural, political, and personal.
đŹ Frequent Texter ($6 per month) đŹ
Access to Rich Text Podcast Episodes: Access our weekly member-only podcast, and the full archive of episodes.
Weekly Recommendations: Get our weekly dispatch on what weâve been reading, watching, listening to, buying, and making.
Essays: Read our occasional musings on topics cultural, political, and personal.
Comment Access: Post comments on any post and join the community!
Rich Text Chat: Connect with other members and discuss your favorite topics, from appointment TV to political news to random gossip, in private, subscriber-only spaces.
Reminder: If youâre coming from Substack, your gifted access link is in your email. (If it's not there, it will be soon.) Make sure to redeem it so youâre all set.
Thank you for being here! xo Claire & Emma
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
The bosoms, they are heaving. The corsets, they have been unlaced. With the release of Emerald Fennellâs âWuthering Heights,â a film that offers such a stickily horny and romanticized take on Emily BrontĂŤâs tale of emotional trauma and Gothic horrors that multiple critics glossed it as âfan fiction,â it seems that the cultural triumph of the spicy historical romance has been made complete. The arrival of âBridgertonâ season 4 part 2 (the sexy half!) just a couple of weeks later only underlines this. And, generally speaking, weâre not complaining! (Though, in the wake of the overwhelmingly steamy âHeated Rivalry,â the bar for success has been raised.)
But, after absorbing the sight of Jacob Elordi lifting Margot Robbie effortlessly by the corset strings to the throbbing beats of Charlie XCX, weâre left wondering if things have been taken a bit far. What is lost from âWuthering Heightsâ when it is reduced to a tale of star-crossed lovers who have a boinkfest all over the moors? Is our obsession with smut giving all of us, including Fennell, just the teensiest bit of brain rot?
In this episode, we discuss the ongoing boom in sexy costume dramas and its implications. Then we dig into âBridgertonâ season 4 part 2, which manages to bring most of its storylines to a satisfying conclusion after a part 1 overstretched with table-setting. We get into the impossibility of a happy ending for our class-crossing couple that didnât rely on one fortuitous exception for one lucky illegitimate maid, and the rather rote sex scenes. In an unlikely twist for the romance series, the heart of this drop was its depiction of grief, which was the subject of its most deeply felt and moving scenes. We also discuss Penelopeâs retirement, Varleyâs return, Lady Danburyâs voyage, and what seems to be coming next for the series.
Finally, we turn our focus to âWuthering Heights.â We share our prior relationships with the BrontĂŤ novel, our first impressions of the movie, and our reactions to all the finger-licking and smashed egg yolks. We try to figure out why Robbie and Elordi felt like uncanny dolls, or children in adult bodies, and we talk about Sara Petersenâs essay about the removal of mothers and motherhood from this adaptation. We also discuss the discourse around the whitewashing of Heathcliff and the notable choices Fennell made in casting and storytelling that seem to pointedly center whiteness â and intentionally sanitize the central couple to present them as romantic heroes.
References and reading:
âEmerald Fennellâs Wuthering Heights Is Fan Fiction,â by Annie Berke
ââWuthering Heightsâ Is Pure Fan Fiction,â by Emma Camp
âFinally, a Smooth-Brained Wuthering Heights,â by Allison Willmore
âWuthering Heights Has No Space For Mothers,â by Sara Petersen
âMargot Robbieâs hot take on filmmaking goes viral as critics slam her latest movie, âWuthering Heightsâ,â by Jude Cramer
âWuthering Heights: Emerald Fennell Defends Her Controversial 'Version' of Emily BrontĂŤ's Classic Novel,â by Benjamin VanHoose
âWuthering Heights is at its heart a story of class and race. Emerald Fennell has got it all wrong,â by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
âHow the Latest "Wuthering Heights" Interpretation Is More Than Just Whitewashing; Itâs a Pattern,â by Jess, the PrideBrarian
âJacob Elordi, Heathcliff and the Controversy Over âWuthering Heightsâ,â by Esther Zuckerman
"Is Heathcliff White?â by Jasmine Vojdani
Timestamps for easy listening:
0:00 â Whatâs going on with all the period piece smut?
6:27 â The second half of âBridgertonâ S4
41:50 â Emerald Fennellâs âWuthering Heightsâ
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
In 2009 on âTell Me Lies,â Lucyâs life is crashing and burning right into the ground. In 2009 in the real world, Tyra Banks was teaching young women how to âsmizeâ on the hit show âAmericaâs Next Top Model.â This week, we dive into both versions of the late aughts â fictional and reality.
After three dark, twisted, and completely fucked up seasons, âTell Me Liesâ came to an end on Tuesday. Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer announced the news on Instagram on Monday night, writing that âthis was always the ending my writing team and I had in mind, and we are insanely proud of it.â She added that the audienceâs âincredible response to this season inspired us to explore whether there was another organic way to continue the story, but ultimately we felt it had reached its natural conclusion.â So in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, viewers were left to see if the team could stick the landing and wrap up all of the chaos that had been building in both the 2009 and 2015 timelines.
The result was a mixed bag. Some major plot holes that left us yearning for a fourth season, but also some âimperfect justice.â The seriesâ ambiguous final moments leave some things up to viewer interpretation, and as two culture critics, we often find that thatâs where the real fun begins. (Plus, that âToxicâ needle drop was simply perfection.)
We also traveled back in time to the glory days of âANTM,â via Netflixâs new documentary, âReality Check: Inside Americaâs Next Top Model.â The three part docu-series, which features interviews with Tyra Banks, Ken Mok, Jay Manuel, Nigel Barker and Miss J. Alexander, as well as prominent former contestants like Shandi Sullivan, Danielle Evans, Whitney Thompson, Keenyah Hill, attempts to grapple with the dark and complex legacy of the reality juggernaut.
And boy is there a lot of darkness to sort through.
âReality Checkâ attempts to contextualize âANTMâ within the racist, homophobic, fatphobic time period it emerged during, and the even more racist, homophobic, fatphobic industry that it was attempting to broaden. But what becomes clear is that whatever lofty goals Banks had when she created âANTM,â were overshadowed by the utter lack of protections in place for the cast members â who were predominantly vulnerable, very young women. Not only were the aspiring models cast subjected to microaggressions â Ebony Haith, a Black cast member from Cycle 1, has her hair texture mocked by white stylists during makeover day; Thompson, who won Cycle 10, shows up to castings where theyâve refused to pull clothes in her size â but also to physical dangers. (Sullivanâs story of being sexually assaulted on camera in Milan during Cycle 2, and then being framed as a cheating harlot on national television, is particularly harrowing.) And unfortunately, the decision makers interviewed still seem unwilling to take full accountability.
In this episode of the Rich Text podcast, we get into it all, from our own experiences watching âANTMâ as teenagers, to the lingering questions âTell Me Liesâ left us with. We hope you enjoy!
Timestamps for easy listening:
0:00 â The âTell Me Liesâ series finale
43:12 â The twisted legacy of âAmericaâs Next Top Modelâ
Share Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the â¤ď¸ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!
Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod ⢠Subscribe ⢠Request a free subscription
-
A decade or so ago, it seemed like the coolest kind of mom to be was a bad one. They blew off PTA meetings, were fueled by rosĂŠ, and wrote irreverent blogs about their childrenâs tantrums and diaper blowouts. They rejected the sentimentalized idea of motherhood as a sacred calling in service of which a woman must relinquish her independence, her sexuality, her anger, her very identity. Smash cut to 2026, and the mothers of America seem to be locked in a constant, frenzied battle about who can gently, authoritatively, attachedly, and and intensively parent the best. The government lionizes white, conservative mothers who bear large broods, while separating immigrant mothers from their children and smearing liberal women who oppose the administration as âgangs of wine moms.â The labels of âgood momâ and âbad momâ seem more oppressive than ever. How did we get here?
- Show more
![[PREVIEW] How 'Love Island' Became A Reality Dating Juggernaut](https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts122/v4/11/af/e4/11afe480-09e5-1ce5-8b15-d80229ea4933/mza_16509557775175889825.jpg/80x80bb.jpg)