The first two episodes of Bravo’s Next Gen NYC are now available to stream on Peacock, and instead of a typical Bravo Dyke review, I decided to tap in Drew Burnett Gregory, who does not really watch reality television, to write a dual conversational review with me! Here’s what we thought about the show, which according to Bravo “follows a tangled web of friends raised in the spotlight — or at least close enough for good lighting — as they stumble into adulthood one brunch, breakup and spontaneous decision at a time.”
Drew: My first question: Do Bravo camera crews have to just spend their evenings hanging out at the club with these people?
Kayla: YES they do. But something that is not super typical is how many times we saw crew in shots here, especially for this early on in the series. But also this show wouldn’t really work without breaking the fourth wall, so I am glad they’re doing so and often.
Drew: I really liked the moment when Brooks predicted how they were going to edit his interview. I’m sure other adult Housewives are seasoned by this point, but there’s a different quality to a group of people who grew up being filmed.
Kayla: Yeah it is both alarming and fascinating to consider these four young adults — Riley, Brooks, Ariana, and Gia — have been filmed for soooooo much of their lives. The girls especially. Brooks came into it in his late teens. But the girls have been filmed their ENTIRE LIVES.
Drew: I do think if you were on reality TV as a child you’ve earned the right to live in a 12k a month Alphabet City apartment. This is where my radical politic finds its limit.
Kayla: Right, it’s like, how much can I really FEEL for these extreme versions of nepo babies/inheritors of extreme generational wealth? And yet, something about them growing up on reality TV does make me feel for them!!!! That’s fucked UP and they didn’t CHOOSE IT!
And…boy do I feel for Ariana about her MOTHER STEALING MONEY FROM HER. I went into this show with relatively low expectations, but I sat the fuck UP when she started talking about that. I was like ohhhhhhhh this is REAL LIFE SHIT. And I don’t think you even really need any of the backstory about her family to pick up what’s going on there.
Drew: Yeah, okay, should we give some context? You’re a Bravo expert, meanwhile I’ve only watched two episodes with my sister a decade ago and like four episodes with you in the past year. I’m only here today because of my identities: trans and went to NYU.
Kayla: Yeah so this show was definitely marketed originally as being about the offspring of Real Housewives, and I thought there couldn’t possibly be enough juice to that premise alone. Then I learned more about the series, that in fact it’s more about a whole friend group of rich kids in New York, most of whom went to NYU, and only four of them are Real Housewives babies. The rest have rich/famous parents in some way (except maybe Georgia, Emira, and OnlyFans boy lol is his name Dylan?). So it’s more about like…Gen Z and generational wealth. Which also shouldn’t really have juice to it, but I think it has some juice! Lol
And then also, yeah, for the first time ever, there’s a trans main cast member on a Bravo show. Emira! She doesn’t really have much of a storyline yet, but her relationship seems very cute.
Drew: I was surprised by how casual they let her transness be. Maybe it’ll come up more later, but they’re not forcing it in a way I appreciate.
Kayla: I agree! But also not like ERASING it entirely — like at one point one of her videos that they had on screen had a reference to misgendering in the overlaid text. It really does feel so against the grain from how trans people have historically been treated by reality television. She gets to just be trans, without transness being “her storyline.”
Drew: Yes exactly! I kept forgetting that the impetus for me watching was the first trans Bravo main cast member and was just like “NYU alum clocking in for duty.”
Kayla: No to be fair your cis coworker (me) asked you to watch the show with me thinking it would be interesting to have a non-Bravo point of view about the first trans Bravo main cast member and then EGG ON MY FACE because it turns out your way more relevant expertise is “went to NYU.”
Drew: Trans people contain multitudes! And one of my worst tudes is having lived in Alphabet City from 2013-2015.
Kayla: LOL
Drew: I paid $800 a month to share a two bedroom with three people but…
Kayla: How accurate is the “went to NYU” of it all? Did you interact with people like this at NYU? Was the going out culture like this? Please tell me you knew a Georgia, because there’s something about Georgia where I’m like oh that’s a real type.
Drew: Look, I WISH I had been better at hanging with these kinds of people at NYU. I would probably be much more successful. I think coming from an upper middle class suburb where the wealth worship was what I was trying to escape, the idea of even wealthier people with the same aesthetics really turned me off. So I feel like these people hovered around me, but I didn’t spend a lot of time with them. Like I met my first girlfriend in our scholarship seminar, my best friend in the film department was someone from Minnesota who by year two was more interested in poetry. I’ve never been good at social climbing despite being so close to the mountains so to speak.
But imagine hanging out with a group of people where the only one who has seen When Harry Met Sally doesn’t wash her hands! I didn’t want that. Though I will say, yes, Georgia is a very familiar type, probably the type I was around most of this cast, and I’m sorry but I’m Team Riley in hand wash gate.
Kayla: I am ALSO Team Riley, especially since I sense Georgia getting into racist microaggression territory. Like she tries to say Riley was “scary” about it, and then the footage re-rolls and it’s literally just Riley being kind of sarcastic and funny about it?!
I think it is very bold in a society ravaged by superviruses to take that hard of a stance on not washing your hands. I am not even all that grossed out by germs at all. So the fact that EYE was appalled by how much she was doubling down on it? It made sense when she was clearly wasted the first time it came up…but after that? I think Georgia is in for a rude awakening when she watches herself back. And I know she’s trying to be funny, but “my body my choice” was not landing lol
Drew: I was already against her because people should wash their hands, but then yeah calling Riley scary really removed any goodwill I had toward her as the group underdog.
And also yeah weren’t these people like formed amid Covid? I keep wanting to call them kids but I get they’re like 22-25. But that means peak adolescence in Covid!!!
Kayla: IN NEW YORK! Georgia is a native New Yorker! She should be traumatized by germs/viruses lol
I am interested in the dichotomies in the cast of like: native/transplant and then especially generational wealth/self made.
Drew: Yes for sure. I wanted to root for Georgia for growing up “between poor and middle class” before she lost me. Now I’m just rooting for Dylan and his OnlyFans career. And his… “it’s just skin” in response to how dicks taste
Kayla: He really cracked me up a few times. Charlie meanwhile is trying so HARD to be the villain that it isn’t working. It’s too obvious!
Drew: He doesn’t have his heart in it. You know Werner Herzog’s ecstatic truth? Like in documentary when something is staged but it reaches a deeper truth. I felt like Charlie’s performance was an ecstatic lie.
Kayla: Someone who WANTS to be a fuckboy that badly is not a fuckboy.
He thinks he’s making good TV by fucking with Brooks and it’s really just pathetic. I will say I’m obsessed with the throwback nature of Brooks being a little helpless gay boy surrounded by an army of powerful femmes who would KILL for him. That’s some mid-aughts middle school social dynamics right there!
Drew: I also love the idea of having a Bravo show about a generation where half the people are openly conflict avoidant.
Kayla: Which is rooted in their TRAUMA from their parents being Housewives!!
Drew: I thought it was just a Gen Z thing, but wow you’re right.
Kayla: Were you familiar with Gia’s childhood song prior to this via TikTok — which btw was about her parents’ marriage being broken…the fact that it became a meme and she was so young in it really tells you everything you need to know about how she has been impacted psychologically by reality TV.
Drew: I knew the meme but had NO IDEA it was from Housewives. I gasped lol
Like revealing that back in the day Brooks bit Charlie’s finger.
Kayla: You really do have to read Brooks’ Strategist “what I can’t live without” guide, it’s iconic. One of the things on it is water.
Drew: Wow so true
Kayla: He really was more or less outed on Real Housewives.
Drew: Did I hear right that Brooks called himself an activist?
Kayla: Oh lord, did he lol I missed that. But delusion/exaggeration does run in the Marks family.
Drew: I did find it so funny how so few of them have jobs so they all need to exaggerate their titles.
Charlie being a crypto trader…
Kayla: Ariana saying she has an “online job.”
Drew: Me too Ariana me too
Kayla: Kind of obsessed with her boyfriend’s money being in CHICKEN
Drew: Lol YES
He was like my dad started this chicken restaurant. A new take on the nepo baby.
Kayla: Also she is smart to not let that man pay her rent for her! It’s clear she has seen the dangers of like over-relying on a man financially, via her mother.
Drew: As a Housewives fan, how did you feel about the ways the moms were incorporated?
Kayla: STRAP IN, LONG ANSWER INCOMING:
Ariana/Kim: Obsessed with Ariana immediately calling out her mom for stealing her money. That was juicy and real. I have friends who were former child actors who had the same thing happen to them. And then the fact that her mom is STILL contacting her for money! But then Ariana had this real empathy for her? Idk, it all felt messy and real in a way I appreciated. That’s a reality star in the making right there. You gotta air your dirty laundry!
Brooks/Meredith: This feels super insular/Housewivesy, but I’ve been so exhausted by Meredith lately on her show that I didn’t really need/want her here. She’s a weird one because she was my favorite when Real Housewives of Salt Lake City started, and she lost that title QUICKLY. If so much of Brooks’ arc on this show is supposed to be climbing out from her shadow, let’s see that! Less time with mom and more time with your girl friends…who are clearly standins for your mom LMAO I think he NEEDS a powerful femme force telling him what to do/solving his problems for him.
Gia/Teresa: Real Housewives of New Jersey is one of my RH blindspots, but I’ve seen/heard enough to know the basics, especially about Teresa since she has been around since the beginning. I love Gia’s commitment to living in Jersey and traveling in for the show/to socialize. Also I’ve heard from a lot of RHONJ viewers that there’s a real reverse-parenting situation happening with these two where Gia is way more of the parent and has been since a young age. Interested to see how that might play out here.
Riley/Kandi: I really appreciated how supportive Kandi was of Riley meeting up with Ariana. Kim ALSO stole money from Kandi via the song they made together, but it was forever ago, and I thought it was just nice and refreshing to hear Kandi be like yeah none of that is your business and actually just go forth and form your own relationship. I’ve been in situations where my relationships were impacted by drama between our mothers, so this actually really affected me in an unexpected way! And then Kandi sending Riley the photo of her and Ariana as kids was soooo sweet. I love Kandi, always have. And Riley is such a mini me for her. Her delivery of “I don’t even know what that show is” re:When Harry Met Sally was Kandi’s exact cadence lol.
Drew: Love this context. And interesting to hear that about Brooks and Meredith because the thing that blew me away was Brooks being like “oh yeah me and my mom are friends with her and her mom” and I was like wow the concept of having friends with your mom.
Kayla: Yeah I mean I do think he considers his mom one of his best friends, and that is always an alarming quality for me personally lol. But he also clearly wants a life outside her! She was REALLY in his corner when he was outed on Real Housewives.
Drew: Well that’s nice
Kayla: And viewers were REALLY mean about him in the first season of her show. I think they thought he was fair game since he was like 19?
Drew: I felt bad judging these people because they’re so young and they’re at least in their 20s!
As someone of queer boy with horrible male friends making comments about my sister experience, I just cannot imagine being like hey mom this is what my buddy said about my sister/your daughter.
Kayla: I do hate the extremely Reality TV thing of like “we’re going to retell the same story over and over and over and over again” and that’s honestly my main complaint about these first two episodes. We talked about/recapped the Charlie text TOO much. It’s part of the formula for sure, and at least it did eventually lead to that incredible line from Ariana’s boyfriend about Charlie’s corduroy pants:
Immediately entering the lexicon.
But yeah I would have liked to spend more time getting to know Emira a bit more. Or Ava. I was interested in some of Ava’s stuff with her father! I’m so appalled by parents who put their kid between them in their marriage/divorce — seems like she has been dealing with THAT her whole life!
Drew: Ava and Emira are the only two actually doing something (plus Dylan)!
Kayla: I feel for Ava because I hate when people treat modeling like it’s not real work, when it’s super hard work! She doesn’t have health insurance! lol
Drew: I really liked the scene with them camping aka having a picnic in Central Park. When Emira was talking about how Charlie and Ava are friends who would be good together I was like oh man does Georgia have a movie rec for you!
Kayla: Georgia was really trying to make When Harry Met Sally happen for her fellow Gen Z-ers
“Who’s Ben Affleck?” also really got me.
Drew: The producer chiming in after that killed me.
Kayla: Do you think you’ll watch more? I know reality TV isn’t your thing.
Drew: I do not think I’ll watch more, but if we were hanging out and you put it on, I’d be like omg my old friends!
Kayla: In many ways, a perfect way to watch reality television
Drew: This is how I feel whenever people from the new NY cast pop up after watching two episodes with you. Oh yeah we go way back.
Kayla: At least that has TWO lesbians in it (three if you count Mel, and we should all count Mel).
Drew: Zero people from The Valley left an impression though sad to say
If they’ve been popping up, I have not noticed.
Kayla: That’s very fair. I think that show was also hard for you in terms of being a little too familiar with those types of people in that area
Drew: Lol yes.
And speaking of familiar I’m also IN NEW YORK so theoretically I could see the Next Gen people around. Just last week I was in the West Village and on my walk from Stonewall to Cubby I was like……. when did the West Village become all straight people in their twenties
Kayla: I did genuinely love watching them walk 20 minutes from a bar to a club in Brooklyn
Drew: The most relatable moment of the show so far.
Kayla: Putting the real in reality TV.
Bravo’s Next Gen NYC is now streaming on Peacock.
