Rich Text

Another week, another feast of televisual content about the high crimes and misdemeanors of Amanda Batula and Westling Wilson! Tuesday night brought not only the premiere of "Love Island USA" (see our coverage over on Love to See It), but part two of the "Summer House" season 10 reunion and episode three of "In the City." Both Bravo shows now revolve primarily around investigating how long this couple have been sneaking around, and the more episodes come out, the worse it looks!
The second installment of the three-part "Summer House" reunion didn't ease off the gas. Amanda is pressed to consider whether West would take their relationship as lightly as he's taken his past romances, which actually seems to strike a nerve – and leads her to flee the stage in tears. Ciara and Kyle reveal, in side chats, that they've been in touch with West's recent ex Meija, and have learned just how serious and longstanding their relationship was. Dara offers a devastating read on West, who, meanwhile, sits in vacant silence for most of the episode. Kyle is asked about his tantrums this season and his self-admitted history of being inappropriate with other women, which he attributes quite liberally to Amanda's coldness and their dead bedroom. ("Hurt people hurt people," he explains.) We discuss Amanda's fragility and lack of remorse, the void onstage where West should be, Kyle choice to lean into a victim narrative, and the coming reckoning over West's secret off-camera girlfriend.
"In the City" kicks off with its own perspective on the Amanda-West-Ciara-Kyle saga. Amanda welcomes the other two tripod legs of her "perfect little trio," West and Ciara, outside the building where she's signing a one-year lease on her new apartment. (So much for that one-month trial separation.) West calls her "Manders!"; Ciara gives her sound advice about staying involved in Loverboy so that she's aware of her and Kyle's joint financial situation.
As Amanda sits for a confessional, beaming and gushing about her best friends, the camera glitches out and jumps forward to May 2026; producers ask a more sullen version of Amanda whether she had a crush on West at the time of this scene, and she dutifully denies it. Chilling stuff! Meanwhile, Lindsay goes on a bad date with a hunk ripped straight from "And Just Like That...", beefcake-themed nostalgic food delivery business and all. Whitney's boxes arrive from L.A. and Kenny, spiraling at the prospect that his new live-in girlfriend will actually have decor and possessions that take up meaningful space in his apartment, teases her until she cries – laying the groundwork perfectly for Lexi and Yvonne to tell their new pal that Kenny has been telling the guys that he questions their "spark" and sees their future as "murky." The Kenny-Lindsay clash continues over a group brunch. We discuss all of this, plus our overall take on "In the City" so far.

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Between Ciara Miller absolutely eating Amanda Batula up at the "Summer House" reunion, "Off Campus" becoming a full-blown obsession (check on your millennial friends, people!), and right-wing pink pill influencers melting down about Alex Cooper's pregnancy... we had a lot on our minds this week.
So what is the Rich Text podcast for other than brain dumping to each other and all of you?
We started this episode by getting into part 1 of the "Summer House" reunion. The entire Bravo-verse has been eagerly awaiting this moment of catharsis for Ciara Miller. And it was, indeed, satisfying to see Ciara eat Amanda Batula and West Wilson up, with strong assists from Mia, Carl, Kyle and Lindsay. We discussed Amanda and West's detached affect, whether they were actually there to apologize and take accountability (spoiler: no), the messiness of the timeline, and what it means for Ciara to be allowed to have her anger on full display. We also detoured briefly into some non-Scamanda standout moments, including Bailey going hard after Ben, and KJ opening up about his mental health struggles.
After a lengthy discussion about "Summer House," we took some time to dive into our latest all-consuming television obsession: "Off Campus." The Prime Video hockey romance series is firing on all cylinders. The fervor that it has inspired among so many viewers reminds us of the heyday of the WB (complimentary). We got into Claire's massive crush on Belmont Camelli, why the show is hitting so hard, the show's construction of healthy masculinity, and what the cast's press tour can tell us about this particular cultural moment.
Finally, we talked about the deranged meltdown some women on the right are having in the wake of Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper's pregnancy announcement. Turns out that you can have casual sex, date around, get married and have a baby in your 30s! Who knew?
Hope you enjoy! xo
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After 10 seasons of anchoring "Summer House," it's time for the show's preeminent Peter Pan party boy, Kyle Cooke, to say goodbye. Kyle, along with his erstwhile wife Amanda Batula and longtime friend Lindsay Hubbard, are being shipped out from the Hamptons share house to the new Bravo series "In the City."
On Tuesday night, Bravo aired a finale-premiere combo that saw Kyle, Amanda, and Lindsay closing one chapter and opening the next. But this transition didn't hit the way production clearly anticipated while filming last summer; there's no clean break, no bittersweet transition to a new era. Instead, there are dangling threads galore. We already know we're gearing up for a season of watching Kyle and Amanda's marriage fall apart, and their current storyline has far more to do with their "Summer House" ex-colleagues West Wilson and Ciara Miller than with their new "In the City" cohort.
Despite the spanner thrown in the works, the "Summer House" finale packed a punch. Carl and Lindsay finally sit down and talk for the first time since their on-camera breakup two seasons ago (so that Carl can profusely apologize, of course). West explains to Ben that he knows Ciara couldn't handle casually dating and he doesn't want to lead her on, just hours before kissing her and trying to get her in bed. Ciara tries to give Amanda the kick in the ass she needs to do something about her crumbling marriage, and they share an emotional goodbye. And then Amanda sits Kyle down on the stoop of the empty house and tells him she was going to stay at a hotel – alone.
"In the City" opens with the news of their breakup this winter, and a scene the couple filmed after the news broke that Amanda was dating their friend West, before the episode rewinds to last September when filming commenced. We see some brutal post-couples-therapy conversations between a frazzled and angry Amanda and a clueless Kyle; we meet Lindsay's baby daughter, who already has the same death glare perfected; we meet Bachelor Nation's own Whitney Fransway and her extremely unlikeable boyfriend Kenny, who keeps calling her a "doll." Plus, Amanda questions the murky origins of Danielle Olivera's relationship with her married boyfriend, and Lindsay's bestie Yvonne cheerily admits that her husband once didn't notice when she went to San Diego unannounced for multiple days. Weird vibes!
We dig into all of it in this episode. Hope you enjoy! xo
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In 2006, “The Devil Wears Prada” was already on the brink of being a paean to the bygone glory days of magazines. The hollowing out of print media was already well underway. The brief boom of digital media was in the offing, but that would quickly collapse as well. The prosperous era of Vogue that the original movie was satirizing has ended. Twenty years later, we are all – magazine editors, digital journalists, freelancers and self-employed newsletter purveyors – fighting over the meager scraps that remain. 
This is the world that “The Devil Wears Prada 2” places us in. A world where plucky journalist Andy Sachs has found professional success and acclaim, neither of which protect her from her insolvent publication laying off its staff. A world where Miranda Priestley’s Runway still has prestige and cultural impact, but must chase web traffic and produce fashion spreads on shoestring budgets. And a world where, just as in this one, tech billionaires treat vital industries like playthings. 
It is the sad state of the media that brings Andy, who has just been laid off via text while receiving an industry award, back to Runway. The magazine has been savaged online for spotlighting a brand that a later exposé revealed to be using sweatshop labor, and their prodigal daughter, now a respected and unemployed investigative reporter, is hired to restore the publication’s journalistic gravitas. Meanwhile, Miranda is fighting to save her promotion to global head of content for Elias-Clarke, which owner Irv Ravitz has been dangling over her head. But before their happy ending, Andy and Miranda also must navigate McKinsey consultants, tech bros, and billionaires who see no distinction between the art of fashion and A.I. slop. To save their careers, ultimately, they have little recourse but to find a billionaire they trust more than the other billionaires.
In this episode, we discuss the film’s depiction of a media industry that has been ravaged by late-stage capitalism, of goofy tech billionaires, and of billionaire divorcées. We get into the idea of the “good billionaire,” who uses her wealth benevolently, and why it always seems to be a woman. We also talk the changing face of fashion, as unevenly depicted as it was in this movie. And we discuss “TDWP 2” as a girlboss movie (complimentary?!), and the space it makes for female ambition.  Hope you enjoy! xo
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"Summer House" and "The Valley" are two Bravo shows about young(ish) people on opposite coasts working through a plethora of banal relationship horrors. In this episode, we dive into the last few episodes of both shows.
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