This is Auckland, where new money meets old. Alex Casey is going to try and laugh at The Real Housewives of Auckland through her weekly power rankings – because if we can’t laugh then all we have is the void. Click here for previous instalments.
We return to the power rankings this week after the horrific racist shitshow wherein Julia Sloane referred to Michelle Blanchard as a boat-n*****. If you missed it, we covered the episode from a 70 minute #realpod to this incredible, vital piece written by a Black woman living in New Zealand on why the moment mattered.
“When Sloane used the racial slur against Blanchard, my heart broke. It broke for Blanchard. It broke when I saw Blanchard’s pain. It broke in the same places that never get a chance to heal.”
Keep those words in mind when you listen to the last entry to these power rankings. And with that, let’s dive in.
1) Michelle Blanchard
Following last week, Michelle was determined to block out the evil forces of yonder with this extremely powerful Beyoncé-inspired hat:
As if that wasn’t enough to shut the whole thing down, Michelle emptied her own metaphorical bag of linguistic sex toys right onto the bouncy curls of bewildered dog trainer Dan…
I will pull you up on one thing Michelle. You said you hated guns at the clay shooting this week, but my files beg to differ…
2) Gilda Kirkpatrick
REMEMBER HOW GILDA IS JUST CASUALLY FINISHING HER SECOND BOOK FUSING COSMOLOGY AND ASTRO PHYSICS WITH EDUCATIONAL CHILDREN’S FICTION AND HAS ALSO FIRED AN AK-47 BEFORE?
Gilda organised her book launch with her extremely grating friend, an MC and man-about-town named Mark. Together they looked at photo walls, sampled canapés and bought TEN BOTTLES OF $2300 WHISKY LITERALLY FROM OUTER SPACE.
It seemed like things were going great until he commented that nobody looks good eating a big ol’ canapé… especially the ladies.
Take two oversized sliders in a napkin and leap straight into jail there cobber. Actually, no, give them to me.
3) Marley & Doggy Style Dan
I think it is safe to say that the greatest Housewives romance is not Angela and her fake Skype boyfriend Kirk, nor is it Louise and her love of fine theatre… The deepest, most eternal love of all was revealed this week to be between Michelle’s cool dog Marley and his Josh Groban-esque dog handler named Doggy Dan.
Here’s hoping Dan takes up Michelle’s offer to live/work out in her pool house, because I don’t think Marley could handle them being torn apart again.
4) Anne Batley-Burton
This week we we finally let into the secretive inner sanctum of the cat colony known as “The Parnell Pussies”, which just turned out to be an empty Thai takeaway container filled with cat food and tucked behind a bush. Not a kit in sight!
Anne loves her invisible pussies more than life itself, and revealed these disturbing plans for her own cremation ceremony.
Ever the animal-advocate, Anne opted out of the clay bird shooting this week despite everyone explaining endlessly that the clay birds were not real birds. She had her mink earmuffs on and had her head wrapped in the skin of a fox, so she couldn’t quite hear their reasoning. Anne then went on to eat a dead fish.
5) Louise Wallace
All I am dying to know this week: what the hell was the TV that Louise auditioned for and didn’t get? I crunched the numbers, scanned the books and holy-ed the Moses and here are the only viable options.
I am truly devastated that, despite rubbing Angela’s chakra-healing red food colouring all over her hands like a little greedy cake-decorating queen, Louise still didn’t get the part. Turns out chakra oils are about as powerful as all that “dancing, farting yoga” tbh.
6) Angela Stone
Hey everyone! Angela’s got another vital textbook coming out about how to be real! If that wasn’t enough, noted Auckland social pages photographer and permanent gun-holster-wearer Norrie Montgomery arrived on the scene to take her cover shots. What a rush.
Norrie wasn’t done with putting Angela in a racy oversized white shirt number, insisting that she go full naturalist in a bubble bath shoot. Nothing weird about this at all. Hold those damn towels like you life depends on it Léa, because it just might…
111) Julia Sloane
Call 111, because we urgently need a waaah-mbulance for pick up via the tiny violin shop please and thank you.
666) The Edge
And finally, here is a clip from The Edge morning show the day after last week’s episode. Warning: contains offensive racial slurs and really atrocious, head-desking, gut-wrenching takes:
If you love devouring reality television as much as we do, be sure to check out UnREAL on Lightbox below. Trust us, you’ll never see reality the same again.
