Season 14 of The Real Housewives of New York City premieres tonight, inviting viewers to once again perversely covet the wild antics of extravagantly rich people instead of just burning down society and switching to socialism.
The brand-new cast includes Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan, Erin Lichy, Jenna Lyons, Jessel Taank, and Brynn Whitfield, all of whom will be juggling their families and careers whenever they can take time away from being cool for the cameras — and not being, like, uncool. Mileage may vary depending on whether we’re counting Brynn as a housewife, considering she’s not even married.
Bravo decided to reboot the series after low ratings for Season 13, along with tension among cast members over race and politics, per Time. In addition to those issues, difficulties with scheduling and filming amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to a canceled Season 13 reunion, with Bravo deciding to simply reimagine the show instead of Dial of Destiny-ing the former cast.
Bravo recently released a sneak peek at the premiere, which you can watch below:
So far, Sai seems to have a problem with people’s feet in her house, and Brynn wants to murder her. (Not really, she says. But it’s only the first episode!)
Time will tell whether the new cast can prove as watchable as the old, which is responsible for some of the best reality-TV memes of the past few decades. This younger batch of housewives certainly seems a lot friendlier to each other, but Bravo knows they have to deliver on the ratings front in order to sell this reimagining as a success.
Let’s hope the network is saving the knock-down, drag-out fights for later in the show. Otherwise, we’ll just have to wait until the next round of Real Housewives of Atlanta to get our quotes.
The show is set to return Sunday, July 16, at 9 p.m. EST.
