The Hotwives Of Orlando taught us that it’s okay to enjoy the Real Housewives franchise; all you have to do is carefully observe the original, and create a scripted “reality” series with the thinnest veneer of parody. Not only is Hotwives funny—and faithful to the genre format—it’s liberating for viewers. Much like the recently-wrapped Kroll Show, the premise openly acknowledges that viewers tune in to watch people they think are horrible, while said people are either oblivious to their own terrible nature, or they just can’t help themselves. The fictionalized Hotwives delivers all of the schadenfreude of the “real” Housewives, without the ensuing shame hangover.
For the new season, the series has updated its name to Hotwives Of Las Vegas, a nod to Real Housewives’ proclivity for swapping one gold-plated, McMansioned hellscape for another. Tymberlee Hill’s Phe Phe “The Entrepreneur” is the throughline character that the series follows from Florida to Nevada. Angela Kinsey, Casey Wilson, and Andrea Savage are also returning, but have been recast into new roles, which should work fine seeing as these characters look just as awesomely awful as their previous incarnations.
The trailer for Hotwives Of Las Vegas follows the Real Housewives format, introducing characters with cringingly awful self-assessments: “I developed a food line call ‘Anorexi-Yeah!’…I just wanted to take that word back.” Actual series (and in-show series) executive producer Paul Scheer appears for an instant, reassuring us that his Hotwives Cooldown wrap-up show isn’t going anywhere. And when Leona (series co-creator Dannah Phirman) opines “I hope we can all get along this year,” it’s the perfect cue to cut into a montage of day-drunk face slapping.
So grab your BFF and a box of Franzia chardonnay and exchange blurry slaps on August 18, when Hotwives Of Las Vegas returns to Hulu.