Real Housewives of Potomac: Katie Rost and breaking the fourth wall

On The Real Housewives of Potomac this week, Katie Rost went MIA in the Cayman Islands and didn’t let anyone know where she was.

The Real Housewives of Potomac cast is still in the Cayman Islands swimming with Pancake the stingray and doing yoga in the sand (no thank you).  At the start of the most recent episode, the cast was alarmed that Katie had left her room, apparently gathered all of her stuff and simply left the hotel without contacting anyone.

The next morning

Robyn Dixon and Gizelle Bryant were obviously concerned about their friend.  Robyn happened to have Katie’s boyfriend’s phone number so they gave him a call.  Katie’s boyfriend, Jacob, did not know where Katie was either and hadn’t heard from her since midnight the night before.  Jacob confirmed that Katie was not feeling well but he hadn’t heard from her after that.

At that point, Gizelle took things into her own hands.  She marched up to the front desk and told the employee that they had a missing person on their hands and needed to alert authorities.  Cue production coming into view and the fourth wall coming crumbling down.  Gizelle can be heard saying,

“Can you be on camera?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. The camera pans to the producer and he says they’ve found Katie. Production/security says they located her at the airport.  Lynette, another producer, came on screen and confirmed Katie was not feeling well and went to the airport to head home.  So for almost twelve hours, no one knew were Katie was.

It is obvious that Katie is hurting

But it is also completely irresponsible of her to just ghost an entire production team and fellow-cast mates while on a trip outside of the United States.  Katie changed her flight which alerted the travel agent, who alerted production that Katie was at the airport.

Breaking the fourth wall is generally a big no-no for reality TV.  It breaks the notion that there is a “wall” separating the actors from the audience.  According to Wikipedia, The first instance of this was from a silent film in 1918 called Men Who Have Made Love to Me, in which the main actress interrupts the action onscreen to personally address the audience.

Breaking the fourth wall on RHOP  isn’t the end of the world, but it certainly adds to the drama.  In this case, it let the audience know that Katie was okay – something we might not have known if it weren’t for the interruption from production.  In instances like these, I appreciate the interruption.

How do you guys feel when a show breaks the fourth wall? Does it ruin the magic for you?

The Real Housewives of Potomac is on Sundays at 8 PM ET on Bravo.