New ‘Housewives’ different from others

McClatchy Newspapers

Mary Amons, one of the five women of “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” says this show is “a little different” from all the other “Real Housewives” series popping up like mushrooms on the Bravo network.

She says the Washington, D.C., edition is not about “catfights or drama.” She also stresses that fellow cast member Michaele Salahi and husband Tareq’s White House party-crashing adventure last November is “just going to be one small snippet” of the show.

“Our producers were more interested in featuring these five ladies and what they do and bring to the city,” Amons says. “I think that the American public is going to be really interested and inspired.”

But Amons also acknowledges that she hasn’t seen any of the finished product yet.

“The Real Housewives of D.C.” delivers precisely the kind of decadently tacky take on rich and privileged lifestyles that fans of the franchise have come to expect. And if the first episode is any indication, it is absolutely not the show that Amons and fellow D.C. “housewife” Stacie Turner apparently believed they were making.

In the premiere episode, Amons, a lobbyist’s daughter who grew up “hanging out” with members of the Kennedy clan, drunkenly tells Turner, the show’s only African-American cast member, that D.C. hair salons need to integrate. “We have different hair, different needs,” Amons posits to reactions of eye-rolling and jaw-dropping from party guests, “but why do we need to be in different salons?”

That is about as provocative and substantive as the discussion gets.