We are living in the golden age of Real Housewives spin-offs, where the executives at Bravo (and Peacock if ya nasty) are throwing every possible concept at the wall and seeing what sticks. Their latest offering merges Wife Swap with our beloved Bravolebrities — but no, Housewives from different cities aren’t swapping lives with each other. Instead, glamorous Real Housewives (and Emily Simpson) will be swapping lives with everyday people, starting with RHOSLC’s Angie Katsanevas, who is trading places with a mom of three who lives off the grid in Idaho. A classic Crappie Lake scenario, if you will.
Initially it’s jarring to see a scene of Angie at home with her family that’s shot in a totally different way than we’re used to seeing on Housewives. Since it’s following the traditional Wife Swap formula and structure, our intro to her and her home life (which some of us are already acutely familiar with) is much more produced to lay out a narrative. Basically, the story arc they’re setting up is that Angie is uptight and her husband Shawn and daughter Elektra both want her to chill out. They hope this experience will facilitate that, and Angie hopes it’ll make her family miss her. Sure, let’s pretend that’s why we’re doing this and not just because it’ll be funny to watch Angie out in the sticks.
Actually, “sticks” might be generous. The family that Angie is swapping with are the Flakes (which is also what I call my dating pool), who live completely off the grid in Challis, Idaho. Lindsay and her husband Tanner explain that they and their three young kids made that lifestyle change in an attempt to deal with Lindsay’s rheumatoid arthritis, and when they say off the grid, they really mean it. We’re talking no running water. And yet they seem to have at least some awareness of the Real Housewives, because after Lindsay finds out what city she’s going to, she wonders if she’s swapping with Lisa Barlow. Can you imagine? Lisa Barlow wouldn’t have even made it all the way up their driveway before she turned around.
Granted, it looks like Angie might do the same upon seeing the compost toilet. “I don’t dare use the restroom for the next three days,” she says in horror. Meanwhile, Lindsay is having a grand old time checking out Angie’s heated bathroom floors, iconic sunglasses collection, and reading her house rules off of a — you guessed it — scroll.
When Lindsay’s family arrives to greet Angie, she gets to learn even more about this homestead lifestyle, beginning with the outdoor tub that she’s expected to bathe in. Hopefully she stocked up on dry shampoo from Lunatic Fringe before she left, but things are looking up after they take her to a vantage point on the property with the best view. They get there on ATV, one of which is driven by a child, and Tanner tells Angie more about his wife’s health struggles that led them to leading this kind of life — and while that gives Angie a better understanding, she still wouldn’t mind having a real shower. She also gets to bond with their daughter Hazel, which Angie says is particularly a treat given that Elektra is pulling away as she enters her teenage years.
Back in Salt Lake, Lindsay is stuck doing all of the deep cleaning that Angie normally does each night (while Shawn and Elektra watch television). But fear not, this wasn’t just an elaborate trick to get a random woman from Idaho to clean their house — Lindsay gets a taste of the finer things the next day when a nail tech comes to the house ahead of her trip to the gym and salon. But while she’s lifting weights in the gym, Angie’s lugging five-gallon jugs of water on the homestead — and that’s nothing compared to having to “change the toilet.” That’s right, she has to empty the compost toilet like it’s a garbage can. Is Bravo giving her hazard pay?
When it comes time for the wives to take over their new homes, Lindsay tells Shawn and Elektra that they’re going to be spending the night off the grid in their backyard — and Elektra’s face drops like nothing I’ve ever seen before. No showering, no phones, and I can tell she’s hoping the crew will yell cut after getting the footage they need and they’ll be able to go back inside … but alas. “I don’t want to be self-sustaining,” Elektra says.
As for Angie’s rule change, she’s taking them all out to eat — dessert and all, and those organic-fed children nearly fall over upon seeing milkshakes arrive at the table. Her next rule is making Tanner take her on a night out (despite the kids’ concerns that that’s cheating) so they can let their hair down. “And I say that with all due respect, ‘cause Tanner doesn’t have hair,” she adds. But the trip to the dive bar proves to be a good reminder of what the grid does have to offer.
Just when I felt that the episode was dragging, a hero comes to save the day. Mary M. Cosby saunters right into her pal Angie’s home and I fell to my knees to rejoice. Now, THIS is what I want to see. “Is she skinning a chicken?” she asks as she stumbles upon Lindsay gutting a fish in the backyard with Shawn and Elektra. Mary’s reaction to the fish being gutted, and her aversion to the “placenta,” is funnier than anything else that’s happened all episode (and perhaps in all of television history full stop).
While their attempt to sleep in the backyard doesn’t go to plan (Shawn and Elektra bail, and even Lindsay wasn’t feeling it), the next day they set out to build a garden so they can grow their own food. Unless it’s grape leaves, I don’t see this endeavor being a long-term success once Angie comes back.
Speaking of, when it’s time to go, Angie gives the Flake kids a parting gift that only she would — sunglasses with the Greek flag on them — and gets emotional talking about the experience. She says that she learned there’s really no right way to do things, and that the whole experience put her relationship with glam and materialism into perspective.
She gets back to Salt Lake, where she’s finally able to meet Lindsay and the pair can talk through what they learned in classic Wife Swap fashion. Angie tells her that when she first rolled up she felt pity for their situation, but soon learned that they actually “have everything.” In turn, Lindsay’s own misconceptions — that she’d be living a relaxing, easy life — were also disproven by Angie’s many chores and having to “be on” all the time in front of the cameras. To me, that’s the most interesting thing that we’re barely even touching on: the idea of this regular mom having to do everything that comes with being a reality television star. Sure, the cameras are there, but how much fun would it be to watch one of these swappers have to throw a glass of wine, film Cameos, or maybe even get arrested? Whoever is swapping with Melissa Gorga should have to spread a life-altering rumor about Teresa! Or, at the very least, they should break the fourth wall and talk about how weird the process of filming a reality show is compared to their usual lives. While the Simple Life element never really gets old, leaning further into the reality of reality TV would give this premise something far more interesting to sink its teeth into.
