Real Housewives of Potomac: Candiace officially stole the show this season

Although all of the Real Housewives of Potomac tend to shine in their own lights, there is one in particular who’s star shone brighter than others this season.

Reality television is a very delicate, fickle, yet simple arena of entertainment. While everything seems random in the most epic of moments, there really is a formula that can be followed to success when thinking about this platform. This is no different when it comes to the Real Housewives of Potomac.

There are different formulas

Depending on the type of reality show, the archetypes tend to stay the same depending on that particular type. In the dating variety, there is either one or multiple featured individuals seeking love (or more appropriately clout and celebrity), while there is another large group or set of individuals seeking the same thing (clout and celebrity, not love). The entire collective completes challenges, events, or engages in challenging social interaction along the way until the featured individual(s) chooses his or her partner.

In the competition variety, from American Idol to Fear Factor, there are contestants who complete challenges associated with the show(i.e. singing on singing competitions and doing idiotic things on face your fear types), while contestants are eliminated in steps until a champion is crowned. This is no different for the Real Housewives of Potomac, the most basic reality show trope. This is the follow people around while documenting their lives and interactions with the rest of the cast type.

For this type, the formula is simple, drama sells, the more drama the better, and drama drama drama! This drama is operationalized by a measure we like to call shade, or negative notions, comments, or thoughts about something, someone, and more specifically another cast member. The shade and drama were real this season for one particular housewife, one Mrs. Candiace Dillard Bassett, the star of this season of Real Housewives of Potomac.

The season started off featuring Candiace

We saw the intricacies and very detailed execution of her wedding, where she married husband, cast member, restauranteur, and cookbook author Chris Bassett.  A grand occasion and celebration, it featured a moment or scenario that segues right into the next way in which she stole the show.

When previously mentioning to her mother that her brother from an outside situation with her father would be attending the wedding, her mother was not having it. Candiace’s brother did indeed attend the ceremony and this was the catalyst for yet another disagreement between Dillard and her mother.

This is another reason why she stole the show, there was this constant boiling over of tension between Dillard and her mother. Where we have seen bits and pieces of that dynamic in the past, this season gave us a real deep look into the specifics and DNA of their relationship. We even got the chance to see them go to counseling, where her mother the shrink, tried to shrink the actual shrink they were there to see.

Where we saw the happiest times of Candiace and Chris’s life as the season opened up at their wedding, we then saw one of the bad times of their relationship as they got into a kerfuffle outside of their restaurant. Ironically enough, she was guilty of doing the same thing that she seems to stay upset with her mother about. Instances such as these are another way in which Dillard stole the show this season.

When you look even closer at the drama of the season, one of the most epic moments had to be the dinner party gone wrong at Dillard’s home, or “her mother’s house” according to Ashley Darby. This is where the infamous butter knife incident occurred, a night that saw Dillard repeatedly ask Darby to leave her home, to which Darby hilariously repeated to renter the Dillard domicile.

The drama was delicious

The tension was tantalizing and so thick that you could cut it with a… butter knife. The Shade, muah…primo…, like the kiss of perfection from the hand to the mouth of a veteran seasoned world-renown chef.

It wasn’t all bad (meaning really good for us viewers) though. It saw Dillard break up to make up with quite a few of her castmates. It even culminated sort of with a peace treaty between Ashley and Candiace as they lounged and did yoga on the beach of the Cayman Islands.

All in all, it was a great season. It was full of ups and downs, twist and turns, butt grabs and man to man fellatio references, but an awesome watch never the less. Regardless of how you choose to assess it though, Dillard was the star who stole the show this season and these were the reasons why.

Regardless of how you choose to asses it though, Dillard was the star who stole the show this season and these were the reasons why.

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