Bitch Sesh wrings every last drop of drama from the Real Housewives franchise

Bitch Sesh

And WHAT Do I Want For Christmas? Just You!!!! (W/ Matt Rogers)

The sun never seems to set on Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, which by now has had a spin-off crop up in just about every U.S. city with a Nobu. From the beginning, Andy Cohen’s reality juggernaut has been a strange slurry of aspiration and schadenfreude, from ham-fisted plotlines (jealousies, perceived slights) to very real plot twists (divorces, deaths, prison sentences, home essentials brands). To its credit, for all of its many exploitative and trashy elements, the Real Housewives universe is one of the few destinations on television where women of a certain age are celebrated for flirting and fighting and fucking and living and dressing fabulously according to their own rules, which are often well outside the connotations of “housewife.” And because it’s a series that’s as much fun to talk about as it is to watch, Danielle Schneider and Casey Wilson’s long-running Housewives recap podcast, Bitch Sesh, has been a revolving door for fun and hilarious guests, including Ira Madison III, Ziwe, Brian Moylan, Vanessa Bayer, June Diane Raphael, and (shit you not) Marianne Williamson. This week, Las Culturistas co-host Matt Rogers visits the nook to discuss the four-word question he asked Countess Luann de Lesseps at her live cabaret; his “horrifying revelation” that Real Housewives Of Potomac’s Candiace Dillard is his all-franchise favorite cast member; and the magic that is watching housewives talk to their dogs while they pack. [Dan Jakes]

Iowa Chapman and The Last Dog

Gen-Z Media have made a name for themselves by crafting intelligent, exciting, and quirky audio programming for family audiences, and their latest offering is keeping that tradition alive. Iowa Chapman And The Last Dog is a feature-length adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mass animal extinction has turned cats and dogs into creatures of legend. When 12-year-old Iowa Chapman stumbles upon what may be the only dog left on Earth, it is up to her to rescue him from the clutches of a fascist government and lead him to safety. The setup is classic middle-grade pulp material, and the cast and crew attack it with a good old-fashioned Amblin spirit that really makes this kids-versus-the-world tale sing. Actress Sway Bhatia imbues Iowa with a vulnerable innocence and determination that makes her the perfect foil for the sadistic dog-hunter Whistler, played by Simon Feil, who absolutely radiates menace. But the standout performance comes from Michael Winslow (Police Academy) as the titular Last Dog. The vocal chameleon brings so much personality to his performance using only yips, whimpers, and growls that he becomes the beating heart of this saga of friendship and danger. [Anthony D Herrera]

Noble Blood
The Prince’s Marriage Test

In this episode of Noble Blood, a series that dives deep into the lives of royal figures throughout history, host Dana Schwartz takes us through the life of Vincenzo Gonzaga, ruler of Mantua from 1587 to 1612. With a biography peppered with names any Shakespeare fan may recognize, Gonzaga’s story is full of intrigue, failed relationships, and tests of manhood complete with a juried consummation of marriage. The brilliance of Schwartz’s presentation is the context she lends to a story like Gonzaga’s, a tale we might think we already know: while history highlights the broad strokes, such as Gonzaga’s struggles with impotence, Schwartz remembers the young girls to whom Gonzaga was betrothed and eventually married, respectively. These girls were put through violations and, in the case of Gonzaga’s first betrothed, discarded with little consideration for their personhood. Schwartz provides historical insight and contemporary understanding, humanizing these historical figures without coming off exceedingly academic along the way. [Jose Nateras]

Rabbits
The Call Of The Void

Timelines are shifting, or at least it feels that way as Rabbits returns to the airwaves after a four-year-hiatus. Season one followed journalist Carly Parker and the mysterious disappearance of her best friend, Yumiko Takata, who had been playing a decades-long alternate reality game when she went missing. As one of the first podcasts to embrace a modern Orson Welles vibe, Terry Miles created his own public radio/Portland Universe, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Podcasting has evolved so much since the story’s initial experiments in truthiness, but this episode proves there is a lot of mileage left in doing what Rabbits does best: weaving an added stripe of strangeness into the strange-but-true. In this episode, our new host Riley Bennet finds herself pulled into a fresh mystery, discovering new elements of “The Game” when she learns that the old host of Rabbits has gone missing. It takes us on a ride that isn’t exactly linear, but relies on the accumulation of all that has come before. [Morgan McNaught]