Carole finally has to talk about her association with the Epstein Files, but it’s Sai who has the worst time this episode.
Photo: Bravo
What a terrible, cursed day on Moskito Island. The women wake up and (gasp!) there is no one there to operate the Nespresso machine for them. Quelle horreur! Quel domage! Daisy Toye then has to help herself to a vast selection of fruits, yogurt, cereals, granolas from around the globe, continental pastries, and the one tiny box of Frosted Flakes that Hailey didn’t squirrel away in her room for later when the edible hits. The rest of the day is just a series of misfortunes. Erin “Mew Mew” Lichy cuts her foot on some glass in the hot tub. Sai de Silva’s knee commits seppuku during Tipsy Tennis (patent pending). Carole Radziwill talks about the Epstein Files.
We all suspected this moment was coming as soon as we knew Carole Radziwill was coming back, and then the trailer confirmed it with a shot teasing someone shouting on the street at her about the Epstein Files. We knew it was coming, and I dreaded the day that something as silly, superficial, and superfluous as Real Housewives was going to have to grapple with something as real and serious as a notorious criminal abuse and sex trafficking ring run by some of the world’s most powerful people. I’d rather sit here and make fun of Erika’s dedication to starfish jewelry, Jessel’s reliance on ridiculously oversized bags, and Erin’s absolute everything. And while I’m sure Carole didn’t want to talk about it either, I think the grilling she gets from Sai is the best manner in which to have this conversation. Naturally, fans, just like Sai, have questions, and I’m glad that Sai posed as our surrogate. To be fair, though, Carole is the one who brings it up. When the conversation turns to Erin accusing Jessel of Googling her to dig up dirt (honey, if it’s on Google, that dirt has already been dug), Carole says that her Google results are a mess right now because of the Epstein files. She opens the window, and Sai dives right through it. Her first question: “You’ve never been to that island?” Carole says no.
Carole’s account of how she ties into the story: She met Ghislaine Maxwell in New York through some mutual friends, and it sounds like they mostly hung out at parties and events in groups. Maxwell was a social climber who made it her business to know people with famous last names like Carole’s. When Carole was in London, Ghislaine called her out of the blue and offered to arrange a meeting between her and some friends — it turns out the friend was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who lost his titles because of his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, Carole. Way to make yourself look guilty!
She tells Sai and the group that her relationship with Ghislaine fizzled out, probably because Ghislaine figured out that Carole wasn’t nearly as glamorous or connected after her husband passed away. Sai brings up an email that Carole wrote about a “girl,” but if you read the email, which the editors flashed on the screen for us (I had to pause it because I didn’t have my readers on), Carole was joking about how she had a bunch of new friends, including a “girl” to replace Ghislaine as a hang-out buddy. She clearly means a “girl” like a woman, not like she was finding “new girls” for Ghislaine and Epstein, who Carole says she never met and that Ghislaine didn’t really talk about.
In a situation where none of Carole’s answers are likely to be good enough for either Sai or the viewers who have made up their minds that she is guilty by association, her best defense is to go on the offense, which she does when she asks if Sai thinks that she was part of an “international sex trafficking ring.” I think that Carole is asking the wrong question. She should be asking, “Do you think I’m guilty, and what does guilt look like to you?” There are many ways that someone in her situation could be guilty, everything from hearing rumors about Maxwell and/or Epstein and continuing to socialize with them regardless, to being an active party to their abuse, and many shades of grey in between. Carole positions her question to Sai at the most extreme end of that spectrum of guilt, which is much easier for her to dismiss outright without acknowledging those shades of grey. Carole says that she knew nothing, never suspected anything, and wasn’t that close with Ghislaine, and while it seems like she may be downplaying their association (she did take Carole’s author photo after all), her argument that this was not a subject either of them were leading with is well-played.
As a means of defense, Carole brings up that she was sexually assaulted in college by a professor and that people were celebrating him who had no idea he was raping students. That’s the problem here: everyone knows a victim, and no one knows a perpetrator. That’s the equation that we need to be reversing and dismantling. As Daisy later points out, the way that Sai is approaching this questioning, the tone she’s taking, seems harsh. Carole herself says, “There is a fine line between curiosity and accusation,” and it feels like Sai is crossing that line.
After Carole lays out her case, talks about how terrible she thinks what they did was, and says that it will always follow her, Sai, in her confessional, says, “I don’t buy it.” She doesn’t buy what? What exactly is she accusing Carole of? For the record: when Carole says she didn’t know, I believe that she didn’t know. Also, for the record: our president was literally best friends with Epstein for years and has faced no repercussions at all.
Hailey, who was sitting and listening, likens their situations. Hailey says that, just as Carole’s Wikipedia will always mention the Epstein Files, hers will always mention her affair with John Gosselin. Daisy says that no one even remembers that, though, that people only know about it because Hailey brings it up. Isn’t that somehow kind of worse? Hailey was still eviscerated by the tabloids; her life (as she sees it) was still ruined, and for what? For some story that no one remembers? (Though the Gosselins are back in the news!) What’s better? To be Monica Lewinsky, who is part of a story that everyone remembers, or to be Tiger Woods’ forgotten mistress, Rachel Uchitel? How about neither? How about instead of grilling these women and crushing them under the boot of notoriety, we try to hold the terrible men who put them in these situations accountable?
There’s plenty of other awful things happening in the episode, almost all of them revolving around Sai. She tells Jessel that she got a text from our old friend Jenna Lyons about her divorce, and Sai says that she must have heard about it in the press. Jenna says that she already knew it before, that Erin told someone and that someone told Jenna. Sai confronts Erin about this as they all hang in the hot tub and Sai says, “Abe must be fucking the shit out of your mouth, Erin, because your lips are so goddamn loose that you’re queefing everyone’s fucking business.” It’s a great line, especially because “queef” is one of my favorite words in the English language. It sounds just like what it is. Perfect.
Erin claims she never talked to Jenna about Sai’s divorce, and that’s just the point. She talked to someone else who then told Jenna. Sai is right; Erin talks shit about absolutely everyone. We saw it on Ultimate Girl’s Trip with Jessel, and we’re seeing it again now. Erin, as always, plays the victim and retreats into her tears as Erika takes off the starfish earrings, stretching her lobes so that she can hug Erin more closely. Sai also tells Jessel that Erin said some “despicable shit” about Jessel’s husband, Pavit, but she doesn’t want to mention it there. Jessel, for her part, apologizes for the mean thing she said about Erin’s flood possibly being an insurance scam. (P.S.: She didn’t have personal property coverage in her homeowner’s insurance? And she rents that place out to strangers? Sister!) She then says she’ll take up her comments about Pavit another time. Are these the accusations that she mentioned to Daisy last episode when she said she knew things that would ruin Jessel’s family?
Well, it’s about to happen, because as soon as Erin scampers away on her sliced-open foot, Sai gets Chris, her makeup artist, on the phone to verify Sai’s claim about what Erin said. He says that at BravoCon, Erin told them that Pavit is gay and that he messes around with dudes in the steam room at Equinox. First of all: hot. Second of all, Jessel has the perfect defense: that Pavit doesn’t go to the gym and has a dad bod. Not the Bahn Mi King catching strays over here! (Though it did remind me of Jo-Ellen’s instant classic line on RHORI, “Does Brian look like he goes to the gym?”) Do I believe someone maybe told Erin this? Yes. Do I believe it’s true? No. Pavit doesn’t go to the gym. Do I even care? Not really. In fact, I’m really sick of Househusbands and the gay rumors. How many times has it even been true? (Okay, once about Alexia Nepola’s ex-husband, Herman Echevarria.) Why do we have to trot this horrible trope out once again? If Pavit wanted to be gay, he would go be gay. (He is also the least gay person I have ever seen on television.) Maybe he’s bi, and Jessel knows. We’re not in their marriage. Also, while it is “despicable” to claim a man is cheating on his wife, is it so “despicable” that he’s gay? Know what is more “despicable?” Alleging that someone was part of or complicit in an international sex trafficking ring with no proof and only vibes.
It’s with all of this happening, on a rancid day, that they all decide to go play tipsy tennis, which seems like a blast to me, and I hate racquets because of something Missy Bellefleur did to me in gym class junior year. (I’m still not over it.) They get out the comically large giant racquets, and they’re running around with the tennis pro (dude, this tiny island has a tennis pro?) and that is when Sai hears it: a massive pop. Something is wrong with her knee. She writhes there in pain on the tennis court, a Wilson as large as her body lying on the asphalt beside her, both of them heating up. She doesn’t know what to think; she doesn’t know who to yell at; she just knows the pain is so concentrated on her knee that it’s expanding her mind, her whole consciousness, and reaching out past their villa, past the houses, past the lemurs and the golf carts and the lady who brings them floating sushi trays in the pool. The pain is as big as the whole island and everything on it, looking behind every door, looking under every tree. It’s just them; it’s just them on this private island, and Sai better hope that no one there is a criminal because, by her own logic, she’ll be culpable and in pain for a lot more than a tipsy tennis injury.
