TV Hot Take

Bravo cuts off Real Housewives of Dallas' 'Jesus juice' after 5 overserved seasons

The Real Housewives of Dallas are cordially uninvited back to the party. Bravo has switched off the show after five seasons.

"There are currently no plans to bring The Real Housewives of Dallas back next year, and beyond that, nothing official has been decided," Bravo said in a statement.

That leaves the door slightly cracked for a return, perhaps to stream on NBC's Peacock, as The Real Housewives of Miami is doing after being canceled in 2013.

But as Newsweek points out, even a return in the digitalsphere would likely take a fan campaign, which — with a paltry 337,000 viewers for the Season 5 premiere and 578,000 for the season finale in May, one-quarter of the show's New York and Atlanta franchise viewership — isn’t likely to happen. Especially not in Dallas, which pretty universally face-palmed the show, or flipped it the bird altogether.

CultureMap was all in when RHOD launched in spring 2016 as buzzy bubble-gum TV — turn off your brain, grab your favorite carbs and a bottle of wine, and spend an hour spotting DFW hot spots and laughing as the rich Dallas women dissed Plano. In the first few episodes, we learned the fun new terms “Jesus juice” (white wine) and “charity world” and raised a Botoxed eyebrow or two at the amount of childish “poop and pee” talk we were subjected to. (Pour more Jesus juice! We’re having a good time!)

Despite low ratings, RHOD got another season, then another and another. Cast members came and went. On screen, they fought like cats and accused each other’s husbands of cheating like dogs; threw parties and threw glasses; drank too much and refused to eat weird food; took trips to Austin and trips to Mexico.

Off screen, the Dallas “Bravo-lebrities” launched beauty products and jewelry lines, and even a brand of pink dog food.

There were some beautiful and meaningful moments, like LeeAnne Locken’s State Fair proposal and glittery but heartfelt wedding. Stephanie Hollman shared her gut-wrenching experiences with suicidal ideation. Brandi Redmond let viewers along on her infertility and adoption journeys.

But by the final season — filmed and aired amid the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, racial reckonings, and deeply divided political landscape — the show had gone off the rails in ways it couldn’t really recover from.

In a world experiencing so many harsh realities, this reality TV show didn’t provide the fun, carb-loaded, Jesus juiced-up distraction it could have. Instead it became a laborious exercise in who could out-"racism" and "non-racism" and "anti-racism" who, which carried over from the screen to social media.

In a year when nonprofits in the Dallas “charity world” were desperate for funds and local businesses were desperate for shoppers, the show threw one long, indulgent birthday party for one cast member and had the women stupidly spanking each other with charcuterie boards on a shopping expedition to a local business.

And in an economy where so many workers lost jobs and struggled to care for their kids at all, viewers were expected to sympathize with a doctor-"housewife," who is married to a kajillionaire, about the guilt she felt for wanting to stay home more so she could take her kids to the family’s hotel for tea parties.

Viewers were practically screaming, "Look, lady. Stay home or don't stay home. Make up your mind. You have a choice, K? BRB, headed to the food bank for pickup."

And then: So. Much. Fighting.

Mother-daughter fighting, tequila-shot fighting, dim-sum fighting, who's-the-bigger-bully fighting, who's-the-better-Christian fighting, secret-crickets-on-pizza fighting, you-insulted-Bigfoot-hunter fighting ... fighting is as much a part of Real Housewives franchises as designer bags, but for the love of Birkin, there'd already been enough fighting on the nearby cable news stations every night since early 2020. During the pandemic-slash-election season, they could have zipped their unmasked lips and done something interesting.

It seemed, more and more, like this once-fun, fancy-Dallas-people "fantasy" was just fake drama being put forth as throwaway entertainment in a world — and a city — that had moved on to more valuable investments. By the last season, RHOD wasn't a feel-good escape; it was a cringey crash-and-burn.

So, raise a glass of Jesus juice to the fun that was the first few episodes, and hope the next Dallas-set show treats charcuterie boards with a bit more kindness.

A vintage photo from Season 1, way back in 2016.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

A vintage photo from Season 1, way back in 2016.

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Movie Review

Spanish film La Bola Negra showcases unique slice of gay history

Photo by Carla Oset/Netflix

Miguel Bernardeau and Guitarricadelafuente in La Bola Negra.

For a long time — too long — gay characters in movies tended to appear as either side characters with no real stories or as tragic figures who were usually unable to express their true selves for fear of what the world at large would think. That has changed in recent years, but the remnants of the past can still haunt, as the new film La Bola Negra demonstrates.

The film takes shape in storylines involving three different men: Carlos (Milo Quifes), a young man in Granada, Spain in 1932 who wants to join an exclusive casino (aka social club); Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who unwillingly joins the military during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, only to have desires aroused in him when he’s asked to guard an enemy detainee; and Alberto (Carlos González), an out gay man in 2017 whose inheritance from his recently-deceased grandfather opens up a world he knew nothing about.

The film goes back and forth between each man, detailing how they handle their individual situations and the complications that arise in their individual lives. Along the way their stories are deepened through people they meet who either welcome them with open arms or shun them for various reasons. While tragedy bonds their stories, so too does hope, resistance, and love.

Co-director/co-writers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, along with co-writer Alberto Conejero, have expanded Conejero’s play, La Piedra Oscura, which was inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca’s unfinished play, La Bola Negra. Lorca, who was killed during the Spanish Civil War, had only finished four pages of the work, his first to feature an openly gay protagonist. It’s clear there’s a desire by the filmmakers to honor the legacy of Lorca as both a playwright and a gay man, and the seriousness of their pursuit is evident throughout the film’s 160 minutes.

Calvo and Ambrossi do little handholding to guide viewers through the three distinct stories, an approach that mostly works but occasionally leads to confusion, especially as more characters are added to the equation. None of the stories are overly complicated, but they take their time with each, making the long film feel even longer. Only Alberto’s story contains any kind of development that might be considered surprising, making it tough to fully engage with the other two.

Where the film does come alive is when it brings in two well-known actors for brief-but-fascinating stints. Penélope Cruz plays Nené Romero, a singer who entertains the troops and further expands Sebastián’s mind. Glenn Close pops up as Isabelle Durand, a scholar of Lorca who helps Alberto with a unique discovery he makes in his inheritance. Both actors bring up the level of the film significantly through their performances.

Quifes, Guitarricadelafuente (the stage name of Spanish singer Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, no relation to Javier), and González all put in good work in their roles, even if none are overly engaging. They are often overshadowed by supporting actors like Cruz and Close, as well as Miguel Bernardeau as Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the captured soldier; Julio Torres as Alberto’s partner, and Alberto Cortés as Lorca, who brings a symmetry to the film as a whole.

La Bola Negra — which means “the black ball,” represented both literally and figuratively in the film — is an ambitious film that becomes a slight victim of its filmmakers’ aspirations. Although each of the three stories contain interesting elements, a strong emotional connection is lacking overall despite good-to-great performances.

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La Bola Negra is now playing in select theaters; it debuts on Netflix on December 2.

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