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It’s masks off in Newport on ‘The Real Housewives of Rhode Island’
In episode 6 of the show, we learn that Kelsey Swanson is finally ready to leave her wealthy boyfriend.
It doesn’t get more Rhode Island than a vacation to… somewhere else in Rhode Island.
Yet even before that peak-Rhody moment in Episode 6 of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island,” we had another. In a quick shot before the episode got going, we see walking Quote-Machine and Peak Rhode Island-character Alicia Carmody— who introduced the world to red pizza chips at a beach picnic, and drank a Narragansett beer at Rail Riders — drinking a Del’s with no straw.
To the uninitiated, this is Rhode Island’s Unofficial Official Drink, being consumed in its traditional manner. I nominated Alicia as our Unofficial Rhody Food and Drink Ambassador, opening eyes around the world to the wonders of cheeseless pizza and frozen lemons.
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Now let me make like I have some cheeseless pizza and frozen lemons in front of me and dive right in. Here’s what went down in Episode 6: “Newport, New Problems.” As per usual, I’ll stick with first names.
Kelsey’s break-up
As was hinted at in previous episodes, Kelsey Swanson is finally ready to leave her wealthy boyfriend, his mansion and 79 TVs. Her older BF “won’t budge” on kids or marriage, while Bill (Bravo title: Kelsey’s Other Man) wants both.
Kelsey texts some of the group, letting them know “we finally ended things” and she’s moving out. She and Liz McGraw (and Liz’s cat, who, PS, looks like a mini-leopard, yikes) FaceTime. Kelsey says her relationship has “run its course.”
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Kelsey tells the camera: “it wasn’t just one specific moment.… it kept building.” In past episodes, Kelsey explained that she went straight from living with her parents and waiting tables to living in her older wealthy boyfriend’s mansion. For half the year, he lived with another woman in Florida. She also had Bill here in Rhode Island.
She says she’s now ready for a husband and kids, but has never worked and is scared to leave the luxe-life.
Kelsey tells Liz how it played out: They were in bed and she told him she felt the relationship had run its course. “And he said he felt like I was making the right decision.”
Liz’s eyes pop.
“He didn’t even fight it,” Kelsey says.
“Yeah, but that told you all you needed to know, babe,” Liz says.
Destination: Rhode Island
In a Peak Rhody “we don’t like driving” move, Liz and Alicia host a girls’ trip to the exotic land of…. Rhode Island.
Newport is “30 minutes from where I live. That requires an Uber driver for me. I will not drive there,” Alicia says. (Put it on a bumper sticker.)
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They explain a bit about Newport’s mind-blowing mansions. I don’t need to tell a New England audience about Newport mansions — heck, they film “Gilded Age” here.
The group will stay in what they call the largest privately-owned mansion in Newport: Seaview Terrace.
Former WJAR Channel 10 reporter Rosie Woods DiMare tells the camera, “I mean, look: I really don’t care if I’m sitting in a mansion or in, like, a Motel 8. I don’t care about that kind of stuff. Not really. Although I am building a pretty big house.” (This detail will matter later.)
While packing for the trip, Rosie tells her husband Rich she felt “really weird” after the Newport sailing trip, (see recap 5) but feels she’s since made a “course-correct” and is on good terms with most of the group.
Rich tells her she just needs her to work on Kelsey, who fought with on the sailing trip, and who said last week: “I’ve tried to see the good in Rosie. I cannot find it.”
Rosie says “a lot of people who have big on-air personalities are actually not like that in real life… I’m just shy and awkward… I can be fake, if you want me to be like Jo-Ellen… Do you want Fake Rosie or do you want Real Rosie?”
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Meanwhile, Jo-Ellen Tiberi is shopping for the trip with her sister at Sonya’s in Cranston. They bring up some emotional childhood issues. Jo-Ellen says her sister was, “I don’t want to say the favorite child, but there’s definitely favorites.”
“I wish mom felt like that about me,” she says. She says she never had a “motherly bond” and “wanted my mom’s love, instead she pushed me away.” Jo-Ellen says she doesn’t know how to forgive her mom. “Gary gives me love that I never received as a child from my mom.”
Moving out
Liz arrives to help Kelsey move out of her boyfriend’s mansion. “I am terrified,” Kelsey says, adding she met him when she was 20 and has never worked. She later adds she doesn’t know certain parts of adulthood. “Bills, mortgage payments. People talk about principal payments. Principal of what?… I never even knew what my dad’s career was.”
Kelsey cries, saying she’s “happy and sad.” Liz points to the mansion and says “this is what most people aim for— you are courageous enough to step out and forge” your own way.
Rhody staycation, sans Rulla
Because the drive is more than 30 minutes, they rent cars. Because she’s Liz, she rents a fleet of vintage Rolls Royces. And because she’s Alicia, she gets in the Rolls Royce and immediately grabs a snack. “Let me get a crackah, hold on.”
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Rulla Pontarelli doesn’t show. Alicia says Rulla needs this trip more than any of them (see recaps 2-5.) She tries to call Rulla. Rulla doesn’t answer.
They arrive in Newport, walk into the mansion — 18 bathrooms, 29 bedrooms, two actual butlers holding Champagne — and choose their bedrooms. Kelsey says she’s choosing a room at the opposite end from Rosie.
Then Alicia organizes a doll tea party. (Yes, her doll obsession from episode 3 resurfaces!) I immediately thought of the eccentric Mrs. Fish’s doll tea party from “The Gilded Age.” (Mrs. Fish and Alicia: two unique spirits.)
“I just think dolls are so pretty,” Alicia says. “As a child, I knew that I loved beauty. I loved clothes, I loved purses, I loved little high heels. I liked it at 3 years old, and I like it at 41.”
All dolled up for their dolls, they go outside to the tea party. Jo-Ellen says everyone looks “cute. Rosie, you look like a stripper.” Rosie tries to play it cool: “That was the plan.” Jo-Ellen makes a regretful cringe face to the camera: “I should’ve just said, ‘You don’t look good.’”
As they sit with their dolls, Jo-Ellen asks Alicia: “I want to know what these dolls mean to you?” Alicia explains that since “billions of years ago… every girl, most of them, just connects with baby dolls.” #History101.
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After laughing at Alicia’s history lesson, they ask about Rulla. “This is wicked rude that she’s not here,” Jo-Ellen says.
Eyes wide open
After a quick but hilarious shot of Alicia in huge headphones sweeping the mansion grounds with a metal detector — “Someone’s done this before, then,” she says when no diamond appears — it’s time for a dinner party.
Wearing “Eyes Wide Shut”-esque masquerade masks that Liz has selected for each of them, it’s time for eyes wide open, as the dinner game is to “reveal” something about yourself.
Jo-Ellen goes first, taking off her mask, and revealing that she feels she has issues stemming from “trauma” in her childhood. “My mom sent me away to a behavioral program,” which made her feel like her mom didn’t love her.
Next, Liz takes off her mask and reveals that her tough exterior (a sheep in wolf’s clothing, as she put it) stems from “incredible loss” at a young age. Her mom died when she was 15. “I have abandonment issues… I’m hard to get to know.”
Ashley Iaconetti’s turn: She says when she was on “Bachelor in Paradise” she was nervous because she didn’t have “a sob story.” That stresses her out because that will change one day,’ she says bursting into tears. “That’s petrifying.”
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Jo-Ellen tells the camera: “Ashley’s crying because she has nothing to cry about. Just put the mask back on.”
Kelsey says her relationship is the only thing she’s sensitive about. Rosie tells the camera, “I actually had no idea that Kelsey broke up with her sugar daddy. Last I’d heard she was seeing numerous people.” (See, all previous recaps)
Kelsey says her ex still pays for her health insurance, car insurance, and has agreed to pay her rent, “I’m taking what I’m entitled to,” she said, adding that she sees it “like a divorce.”
Alicia says she saw “dark things that no kid should’ve seen.” Her father left her “homeless.” Liz points out that she wasn’t homeless— she lived with her grandparents.
Rosie says she has anxiety. Growing up, she tried to make sure her mom was happy, and “still feels selfish choosing myself sometimes.”
Kelsey says Rosie was actually being honest. Rosie gets defensive. Ashley says it was a backhanded compliment, insinuating that Rosie has never told the truth before.
Boiling point
After dinner, Rosie and Ashley are discussing the “backhanded compliment” in their bedroom. Kelsey and Jo-Ellen listen at the door. Kelsey tells the camera she wishes Rosie had said this to her face at dinner: “She slinks like a slinky.”
Kelsey opens the door and asks what they were talking about. Ashley says Kelsey gave Rosie a “backhanded compliment” and wants to know what exactly Rosie lied about previously.
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Kelsey says Rosie is exaggerating the square-footage of her house and renovation. Ashley is baffled as to why this would matter to her.
Kelsey says Rosie is lying about leaving her job due to medical reasons, that she was fired. (See recap 4) In a flashback to that episode, we hear Rosie say colitis is “why I quit NBC 10.”
“I went on medical leave because I couldn’t stop bleeding out of my butt,” Rosie says now. “Why would I say that when I could say I got fired?”
At some point, others had gathered in the room and were hearing both sides of the argument like a “Law & Order” episode. At the end, Kelsey walks out.
Favorite quotes
“I’m, like, turning the other cheek like nobody’s business. Like, Jesus would be so proud of me.” — Rosie.
“She’s gorgeous though, this b****.” — Alicia, mask on, talking to her reflection.
“We get it. You know, what’s it called when the horse is dead?” — Alicia, when someone was beating on a dead horse.
“It’s like Cinderella’s hardage. Carriage? Cardige?” — Alicia trying to describe a lawn structure that looks like Cinderella’s pumpkin-shaped carriage.
“Do I have all of my N’Sync Barbies still? Yes.” — Ashley
“Fakade. Fackaddea.” — Alicia trying to pronounce “facade.”
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Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.
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