There’s A New Real Housewives Franchise On TV

So many Real Housewives franchises on TV, so few hours in the day to keep up with all of them. The challenge to keep your Housewives intake at recommended weekly levels is real. It may have also gotten a bit harder this month.

On April 2, Bravo launched its latest franchise, The Real Housewives of Rhode Island. Set in the tiny New England state renowned for its Gilded Age Newport properties, it’s the first new offering in four years. And if the first two episodes are any indication of its ambition, RHORI is looking to make its mark as a scrappy contender for audience attention.

Here’s everything you need to know about the new series.

The cast isn’t influencer-pilled

Bravo’s attempt to fold influencers into its mix in the last couple of years has been a disaster for the NYC franchise and made Beverly Hills feel like even more of a slog. Though it’s not entirely influencer-free, Rhode Island’s cast still feels like something of a course correction. The women, at least at first glance, appear to have personalities in addition to platforms. They’re eccentric, over-the-top cutthroat attention seekers. In short, they have the baseline requirements for Housewife status.

The women also seem to know one another—some go back as far as middle school—and they bring drama-ready relationship issues to the mix, including an open marriage/age gap scenario that’s introduced in the first episode.

There are familiar reality TV faces

Reality TV fans may recognize one or two familiar faces within the cast. Ashley Iaconetti is a former Bachelor contestant—she was the virgin who cried a lot in Season 19—who met her now-husband, Jared, during a successive stint on Bachelor in Paradise (how’s that for a meet-cute?).

Real Housewives of New Jersey alum Dolores Catania also appears as a “friend of” on the show. It’s not just her appearance that warms the Bravo fan’s dark heart—her presence underlines the bizarre reality of the Housewife ecosystem, too. As we learn in the first episode, Dolores and cast member Liz McGraw, who bear a striking resemblance to one another, share the same plastic surgeon. This surgeon-sharing, however, does dovetail with one issue with the series: it’s occasionally difficult to tell the women apart.

The drama kicks off almost immediately

RHORI doesn’t waste much time with introductions before it starts laying the groundwork for future conflicts between the women. There are digs, snide remarks and clear antagonisms within the first quarter of the premiere episode; in fact, the first fight kicks off well before the 30-minute mark. The formula for the guilty pleasure reality TV franchise isn’t exactly original at this point, but the ladies of Rhode Island seem game to add their own twist—regional accent and all.