In 2020, Jenna Lyons starred in “Stylish,” a thrillingly, almost decadently awkward reality series on the service then called HBO Max. This was putatively an “Apprentice”-style show intended to find Lyons, a recognizable face to style-watchers as the former creative director and president of the retailer J. Crew, an all-purpose consigliere. But the show leaned all the way into its star’s evident discomfort with having to make choices. Lyons, a striking but diffident presence onscreen, shrank from defining the role the series’ “winner” might play, or from revealing much at all about her vision for her own post-J. Crew future. The uncertainty the halting, abrupt Lyons left in her wake made “Stylish” a must-watch for historians of aughts fashion personalities, but seemed, too, to ensure that this would be Lyons’ first and last foray into reality television.
Not so! Lyons now returns as the marquee star of a revamped, if not always refreshed, “The Real Housewives of New York City.” As, likely, the person best known to the largest portion of the audience — Lyons appeared on “Girls,” and dressed the Obamas — she’s a point of entry. And her struggles to engage make this season, in its early going, feel strained and unappealing. Its first three episodes struck this viewer as outlet-store fare — a flashy garment with amateurish tailoring.
But this new cast, in aggregate, is enthusiastic, inclusive, bright, and ebullient — and they are working hard to sell their show. It’s notable that from “online content creator” Sai De Silva to “brand marketing and communications professional” Brynn Whitfield, these women tend to have a professional stake in keeping people talking about them; little, even in the early spats, feels unfiltered. Say this much, though: The spirit, and the diversity of background if not of approach to camera, represents a welcome change for a venerable franchise. “RHONY’s” previous season was constrained by COVID and stalked by the specter of open racism, with a network investigation into one of its cast members. This viewer had long since walked away from the show, as its depiction of substance use in particular had gone from “Grey Gardens” kooky to Aronofsky-movie dark.
Little of that dolefulness is in evidence here. And yet there’s something to be said for the long relationships built between castmate-coworker-frenemies on shows like this over time. They’re starting from zero, and their fights have comically little heft, as in a bickering match over which of the women said that cheese is gross. (Amid this long imbroglio, castmate Jessel Taank tells Lyons that her plan to serve cheese at a party will “ruffle so many frickin’ feathers.” We’re a long way from Scary Island.) The long shadow of Bethenny Frankel — whose self-belief in her own Wildean way with words now defines a certain stripe of reality-TV star — looms over these women as they strive to find moments of dissension even as they’re getting to know each other. Erin Lichy, working with a “caviar caterer” to set up a party spread, announces that she’s preparing “a bougie snack for these bougie bitches.” She ends up getting mad that model Ubah Hassan goes to the grocery store to get a sandwich rather than eating her caviar. The show has always dwelled in the picayune at times, but these and so many other moments feel like attempts to find the fight, to gin something up.
On the plus side, Lyons’ utter failure to understand why ditching a group vacation provides her peers an opening to play at being angry with her at least generates some real voltage. And production is working overtime, too, with two separate ice-breaking cocktail party games played in the first three episodes. The “two truths and a lie” segment is notably punishing in its length and complete lack of tonal variation — but for Lyons’ contribution. In the midst of others boasting about their own prodigious experiences, she confesses that a partner once fell asleep when they were being intimate.
Lyons is gun-shy about brand-building since her exit from J. Crew and since — as she discusses on camera — being publicly outed very early in her journey toward finding her queer identity. An expert at image curation when it comes to posing for still photographs, Lyons won’t discuss many things, including her current dating life, to the consternation of De Silva, a say-everything influencer who doesn’t get how their public profiles differ. And yet in being so concealing, she reveals a sort of appealingly unvarnished view of herself as a person who’s scaled great heights but still doesn’t quite get how to engage with 2023-era self-promotion. The rest of the women understand that you’re meant to only seem like you’re being self-effacing, while actually showing how clever you are.
There are more sharp moments here, often pertaining to how self-styled ultra-contemporary New Yorkers engage with what used to be cool. An endless argument over some women ditching a dinner that happened off-camera because of the perceived un-hipness of the venue features a genuinely amusing running joke about whether the restaurant is more 2005, 2006, or 2012. (The eatery’s name is bleeped out, but I’m pretty sure I figured out what it is.) And Lyons’ directive that guests to a casual hang at her house wear a dress code of “black, gold, metallic, or khaki” yields both amusing side-eye and the somewhat heartbreaking realization that an era of fame pegged to “Girls” and the Obamas is both deliciously nostalgic and, well, a long time gone.
Time will tell if this franchise has the juice to go the 13 seasons old-line “RHONY” did before its reboot, or even just another couple of years; the crew need to shake out their awkwardness, and get to know one another better. And the show needs to figure out how best to deploy its one member whose first blush of fame happened before Facebook bought Instagram. Lyons can be a brilliant agent of chaos, a person whose presence left castmates starstruck before her bluntness left them dumbstruck. At other moments, she fades from the screen, and a cast made up of people who are practiced at image creation are forced to go round-robin. Being the Bethenny, the one who sees through everyone else’s foolishness, works only when you have far less savvy peers, though. And so far, all but one of these women are playing the same sort of game.
“The Real Housewives of New York City” will debut its 14th season on Sunday, July 16, at 9 p.m. ET, and will stream on Peacock.
