![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/b28285bb02fda0028fba07df1b46788394-rhony-s16-ep1.rsquare.w400.png\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
All media about New York City is selling a fantasy. It\u2019s always fashionable people with creative jobs who can afford to live in Manhattan, gorgeous little bars full of non-creeps and cocktails that don\u2019t cost $37.50, writing in the window seat of your West Village apartment just like Carrie Bradshaw, and no one is ever going to die falling off your floating staircase with no banister. That last fantasy is the one we get in the opening moments of this long-delayed season of RHONY, where Carole Radziwill, back in the zeitgeist for reasons both good<\/a> and bad<\/a>, is typing away on her computer about Manhattan and giving us a voiceover in her best Sex and the City impersonation.<\/p>\n \u201c[New York] is a collection of millions of stories where every street holds a chance to dream bigger, to chase the impossible, to lose everything, and to start again,\u201d she says. This might even be the thesis for this mini-reboot. Fans might say that RHONY was chasing the impossible (trying to find a better cast), lost everything (a failed reboot), and is now trying to start again. This episode is trying to sell us the fantasy that the new RHONY is better than the old RHONY. I\u2019ve certainly been fooled before over the past two seasons, but, you know what, I\u2019m starting to feel this fantasy.<\/p>\n Sure, sure, we\u2019re only an hour into the new season, but this episode felt fun, zippy, honest, funny, and dramatic, all the things we want from an hour of reality television. Now, the Eileen Davidson Accords<\/a> not only prevent us from judging the new cast members until we\u2019re five episodes in, but I think, by extension, that can be applied to a season as a whole. It needs time to settle in, to find itself, to get its rhythm. Heck, our returning champion Carole wasn\u2019t even in this episode other than clacking away on her keyboard. But even seeing promise is like the exhilarating thrum of walking into a Manhattan loft party and sensing that someone there, something that might happen, some sort of new cocktail or affair or adventure is just inches away and is going to change your life forever.<\/p>\n The episode starts, boldly, with newbie Daisy Toye who is struck by the terrifying occurrence of Martha Stewart showing up at her home. Apparently, this happens all the time because Daisy is Martha\u2019s makeup artist as well as traveling companion, sounding board, and whipping boy. Martha going into Daisy\u2019s kitchen is what we all fear. Martha is going to show up, see the store-bought pie, and then shout at you. Then she will see your hanging pots and tell you all the ways they are poorly hung; she will see your kettle and tell you that it is a travesty, and then she will leave in a gorgeous butter yellow dress as you\u2019re a sobbing mess in the corner of the shared bathroom in your two-bedroom apartment that costs you $280,000 a month.<\/p>\n Daisy and Sai are friends who met at Scores, the infamous strip club, but they both insist that they weren\u2019t strippers. Like a lot. They tell us four times. They weren\u2019t strippers. I believe them; however, what were they doing there? Were they the accountants? Did they grill the steaks? Bathroom attendants? Pasty sticker-onners? Daisy said that\u2019s where she learned to do makeup, so why was she spending so much time with the girls in the dressing room? Was she the cleaning staff? I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n Speaking of Sai, she now lives in the Financial District along with the entire cast of Summer House and every post-grad who doesn\u2019t want to admit to having family money. Jessel goes to visit her house with a regifted candle and asks how Sai\u2019s husband David feels about the move. Sai gives us a sheepish, \u201cI don\u2019t care.\u201d Yes, she says that David hasn\u2019t worked in years, that she\u2019s been supporting the family financially, that he finally found a job but it\u2019s not enough, and that she has been living a lie for the past two seasons to protect him, their family, and herself. We\u2019re 10 minutes in, and she\u2019s already crying about her failed marriage and admitting what we all knew: the first two seasons she wasn\u2019t being truthful about who she was. This is what I mean by promise, people.<\/p>\n Sai also has a fun scene where she and Daisy go shopping at The Real Real brick-and-mortar, and you can see how much fun the pair has together. As 23-year-old party girls in the early-aughts, you know that they were absolute terrors who would ask you for a $100 bill to do a line of your blow and not even subtly put it in their purses and leave with it. Amen to that, sis. Daisy finds a $1,300 leather jacket that looks amazing on her, and when she tries to purchase it, the tall, young gay man behind the register says that someone just bought it online. \u201cNo!\u201d Daisy shouts.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d he drones back.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNO!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMmmmmyeahhhhhhhhhh,\u201d he says finally, snatching it away from her and waving for them to leave. Sorry, not even the fiercest former Samantha Jones wannabe can defeat the Gen Z stare.<\/p>\n Next we meet another newbie, Hailey Glassman, who I remember from my days at Gawker 1.0 (RIP) when she was dating former reality star Jon Gosselin. If I remember correctly (and I never forget a tabloid story), she was 22 back then in 2009. That means (2026-2009, add that to 22, divide by 9, square that, divide by pi, carry the one) Hailey is only 39. Hmmm. Okay.<\/p>\n When we first meet Hailey, she is smoking what I would guess is a weed pen while rollerblading through the middle of the street in a fur coat. It reminds me so much of Kelly Killoren Bensimon jogging through traffic, and I would rather not be reminded of KKB unless it is necessary. (It also reminds me of a joke about the worst thing about rollerblading that I will tell you for a small fee if you DM me.) She has a pied-\u00e0-terre in Hell\u2019s Kitchen because when she lives with her husband, he won\u2019t make the bed or do any of the dishes. Okay, sure. I get this Charlotte York Goldenblatt behavior of having an apartment you can escape to, but wouldn\u2019t it be cheaper to, I don\u2019t know, pay someone to clean up after your husband? Just a suggestion.<\/p>\n When Erin Mew Mew Lichy comes to visit, Hailey says that she also hooks up with women and she\u2019s allowed to date ladies but can\u2019t mess around with other guys. Great! I love a modern arrangement. She then says that she was hooking up with a lady who was servicing her with a dildo (I hope it was Bedroom Kandi<\/a>), and her Double-D boob broke her nose, and she had to go to her cosmetic surgeon to have it reset in the middle of the night. Erin then complains about her daughter and drones on about all sorts of things that no one can even pretend to care about.<\/p>\n Jessel is at home with Pavit, talking about how he needs to make his new job of being a food influencer more lucrative. She\u2019s planning a party for the Year of the Whores. Yes! This is a theme I can get behind. I love whores. I self-identify as a whore, even though I don\u2019t charge. Okay, I charge for off-color jokes in recaps, but not for sex. You get that for free (and I will possibly throw in a joke gratis). Just as Sai is being open about her divorce, Hailey is being open about her affairs with women, and Daisy is being open about her husband being boring, I think we should all be more open and celebratory of sex work. Sex work is work! It\u2019s called a hand job, not a hand philanthropy.<\/p>\n Everyone arrives at Jessel\u2019s party to celebrate whores, and we meet the other newbie, Erika Hammond, who married a billionaire in front of the pyramids. You can read all about it in <\/a>People <\/a>magazine<\/a>, which might make you want to punch her in the face, but it\u2019s okay; she started a fitness class based on boxing, so she could probably kick your ass as well as buy it.<\/p>\n Erika doesn\u2019t say much, but she does have a chat with Hailey and her date, Allison, who\u2026 Wait. Now that I\u2019m thinking about it, how does a boob break a nose? I\u2019m not especially familiar with the female anatomy, but if it\u2019s a Double-D then it\u2019s probably pretty big, which means it\u2019s also probably pretty fleshy and squishy. How is it going to hit the nose with enough force and tensile strength that it\u2019s going to break it? Is this sort of like when Kyle Richards \u201cbroke\u201d her \u201cnose\u201d while \u201cfilming\u201d <\/a>Halloween Kills<\/a>, but she really just wanted an excuse to get another nose job?<\/p>\n At the party, Jessel gets up and gives a speech about how it\u2019s Chinese New Year, and she\u2019s welcoming the Year of the Horse. Ooooooh. Year of the Horse. That makes so much more sense but is not nearly as exciting. She says that the outgoing year is the Year of the Snake, and she hated it and doesn\u2019t like being called a \u201csnake.\u201d Erin immediately knows that it was her she\u2019s referring to because of course. Of course Erin called her a snake, totally knows she did it, and will somehow find a way to make this a slight against her.<\/p>\n Erin goes over to talk to Jessel, who explains what is going on. She says that at the finale party for Ultimate Girls Trip (Sundays at 9 p.m. on Bravo and the next day on Peacock), Erin told several people that Jessel is \u201cfake,\u201d \u201cthirsty,\u201d and \u201ca snake.\u201d Jessel levels these accusations, and what does Erin say? \u201cI said those things, yes. About you, yes. I feel that way, but I haven\u2019t told that many people about that, so who?\u201d This is why Erin is so necessary for this reboot. I mean, the gall! The Ramona Singer levels of delusion and self-centeredness. There is owning it, and then there is this, which is just admitting that she is a terrible person but upset that someone revealed her secrets and wants to know who. Erin says in confessional, \u201cI was with a bunch of fucking Housewives; what do you expect?\u201d Exactly. You expect them not to tell your business to the rest of your cast? I mean, come on. (For the record, it was Chanel Ayan<\/a> who told Jessel because she is a gift that keeps on giving and deserves to be on television any chance she can.)<\/p>\n Because she is so bad at this (which makes her so good at this), Erin keeps insisting about who ratted her out while both calling Jessel the \u201cthirstiest person I know,\u201d saying that she stays up at night figuring out ways to twist a story, and then tells her to \u201cquiet\u201d multiple times like she\u2019s talking to a child. Jessel then kicks her out of the party while Daisy is across the room telling Erika, \u201cI\u2019m okay if we talk about the most personal things about me, but if you say I\u2019m fat then you\u2019re not a friend.\u201d Guys, we are back. We are so back we are front again.<\/p>\n Erin drapes her white puffy coat over her shoulders, collects the lawyer for Deux Moi who just happens to be her husband, and walks out onto the wet asphalt of Chinatown. Her left heel falls into the crack between the curb and the sidewalk, and she wrenches it out again. These damn streets, they aren\u2019t made for walking or living or trash collection or traffic or bicycles or romantic walks or rollerblading or traffic jogs. They\u2019re not made for anything but torture, expense, and getting you from one job to the next because you can only afford to live here if you work more than one job, if you hustle, if you dream and chase that dream right into a rat-infested subway that is prone to flash floods. Carole told us in the opening, \u201cNew York doesn\u2019t ask us to be perfect; it asks us to be bold. There are countless cities in the world, but there is only one New York.\u201d Finally, may this show be just as perfect as its city.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Housewives Institute Bulletin<\/p>\n Dame Brian Moylan breaks down all the gossip and drama, on- and off-screen, for dedicated students of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n