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.

LeeAnne, Rich, and castmates at their 2019 wedding, which played out on the show.

LeeAnne Locken, Rich Emberlin, Real Housewives wedding

Photo by Thomas Garza

LeeAnne, Rich, and castmates at their 2019 wedding, which played out on the show.

tv media real-housewives

Animal News

Latest animal to die at Dallas Zoo is young male gorilla named Zola

Dallas Zoo

Zola RIP

Another animal at the Dallas Zoo has died an untimely death: Zola, a young Western lowland gorilla, died on Wednesday, November 5, at age 23.

The zoo does not know why Zola died. According to their post, he showed symptoms of lethargy, reduced appetite, and signs of discomfort at the end of October. A necropsy will be performed.

"Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to begin breathing on his own afterward, despite the extraordinary efforts of our veterinary and animal care teams," their post says. "With his comfort as our priority, we made the difficult decision to let him go peacefully."

The zoo did not announce Zola's death immediately, instead waiting two days until Friday afternoon at 3 pm. Politicians and government agencies prefer to choose Friday afternoons to post news that is negative or controversial, since fewer people, and definitely fewer journalists, are online on Friday afternoons. It's called the "Friday news dump."

The death is very inconvenient for the Dallas Zoo since they were just about to ship off their male gorillas, which also include Juba, B'Wenzi, and Zola's half-brother Shana, to the San Antonio Zoo. Animals are very dear to the zoo — until it's time to ship them off to another zoo.

For now, the relocation of the other three male gorillas is "temporarily on hold" but the zoo says they will be moved "when the time is right," and that is all you need to know about that.

The zoo has already said that they'll be shipping in other gorillas to replace them — although we do not know which gorillas and from where. The Association of Zoos & Aquariums, the overseeing body for zoos, only divulges that kind of intel on a "need to know" basis. Right now, you and I do not need to know. If we did know which gorillas were coming and where they were coming from, we might ask questions that would force the zoo to explain what it's up to.

Zola was born at the Bronx Zoo in 2002 and became internet famous as the "breakdancing gorilla" for splashing in pools and puddles. Some animal experts attributed his actions to frustration at being locked inside a zoo. He was relocated to the Calgary Zoo in 2009 when he was only 7 years old — zoos always play up what great bonds and family ties their animals have, until it's time to ship them somewhere else, and then suddenly the bonds and family ties don't matter.

Unfortunately, Zola did not "integrate well" at the Calgary Zoo, so he got shipped off to the Dallas Zoo in 2013.

At least now he won't have to be relocated again.

Death count
Zola's death is one more in a long-running series of deaths at the Dallas Zoo in recent years, the most previous being Jata, a 7-year-old painted dog who died in June 2024. Jata also showed signs of lethargy and decreased appetite, reportedly due to kidney disease.

Whenever a death occurs, they always wax on about their "extraordinary" veterinary and animal care teams — and yet, so many of these deaths were either unexplained or completely caught their teams by surprise.

Zola the Western lowland gorilla is the latest to join this death march of animals at the Dallas Zoo:

Jata, one of the zoo's three African painted dogs, died in June 2024, at seven years old.
Ferrell, a 15-year-old giraffe, died in December, 2023, following "an unexpected fall in the barn" that injured the giraffe's jaw so badly, they were forced to euthanize him.
Ajabu, a 6-year-old African elephant who died on May 8, 2023, from the herpes virus.
Pin, a 35-year-old lappet-faced vulture, died on January 22, 2023, cause unknown.
Jesse, a 14-year-old giraffe, died on October 29, 2021, cause unknown.
Auggie, a 19-year-old giraffe, died in late October 2021 of liver failure.
Marekani, a 3-month-old baby giraffe, sustained a mysterious injury and was euthanized on October 3, 2021.
Kirk, a 31-year-old chimpanzee, died in August 2021 due to "surprise" heart disease.
Keeya, a 6-year-old Hartmann's mountain zebra, died in March 2021 due to a mysterious unexplained head injury.
Subira, a 24-year-old silverback gorilla, died suddenly in March 2020, due to a cough, or maybe cardiovascular disease. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hope, a 23-year-old Western lowland gorilla, died suddenly in November 2019 after being at the zoo for only two years.
Ola, an 8-year-old female African painted dog, was killed in July 2019 by two other painted dogs, less than a month after she was transferred to the zoo.
Witten, a 1-year-old giraffe, died in June 2019 during a physical exam under anesthesia when he suddenly stopped breathing.
Adhama, a baby hippopotamus, mysteriously died in 2018.
Kipenzi, a baby giraffe, died in 2015 after running in her enclosure.
Kamau, a young cheetah, died of pneumonia in 2014.
Johari, a female lion, was killed in front of zoo spectators in 2013 by male lions with whom she shared an enclosure.

And in February 2021, they lost a crow called Onyx who was part of their "animal ambassador team," "participating in a training session" for a bird show. He was never found.

animals