In its three seasons on the air, Winter House has never quite captured the magic of its predecessor, Summer House. In the first two seasons, it still managed to bring viewers the messy, hard-partying fun that Bravo is known for. This season, however, is entirely off-kilter and has been from the start.
The makings of a successful Bravo show are a cast with actual relationships and connections with each other outside the show itself. Vanderpump Rules is a perfect example, where the entire cast works and plays together even when the cameras aren’t there. The best seasons of the Housewives franchise occur when the dynamics are authentic. Even Below Deck capitalizes on this, even though the cast generally has just met, they have a connection through the work they are doing.
Winter House is just a bunch of people from different shows thrown together in a house in hopes that fireworks go off. The authentic dynamics simply are not there, especially this season. The show has yachties mixing with East Coast Summer House people, Tom Schwartz, and that one poor odd man out from Family Karma, Brian Benni.
These people have no reason to spend time together outside of a mutual love of alcohol and the spotlight, and it shows in the way they interact. Everything, including the conflict, feels laughably forced.
Not only are the dynamics a disaster in terms of how the cast was thrown together, but the specific personalities aren’t meshing either. Half the cast is far too nice and normal, and the other half is too awkward and cringey.
There are the participants who are just enjoying a nice vacation, skiing and playing around, which is nice but doesn’t make for particularly groundbreaking television. And then there’s Danielle Olivera.
The main storyline this season is also the show’s most significant problem. Danielle starts the season actively pursuing a rebound from her recently failed relationship, and more power to her. But she set her sights on Below Deck: Sailing Yacht deckhand Alex Propson and the two began a casual hookup.
Alex was clear from the get-go that he was not looking for anything serious. He was unapologetically just looking for sex, and while Danielle claims she is also looking for a “fun vacation” when it came to their situationship, it’s clear she can’t particularly handle a casual hookup.
She gets possessive and jealous very quickly, which is fine. Her feelings are valid. Then she just starts to embarrass herself. She sat down with who she seems to perceive as her main competition, Jordan Emanuel of Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard, over cocktails and passive-aggressively accused her of being “low-energy” because she doesn’t have a man to crush on.
This eventually escalates a couple of episodes later to a whole screaming match over the dude, where an unhinged (and to be fair, totally hammered) Danielle screams that she will “eat [Jordan] alive” for shaking her ass in front of Alex, and tells the rest of the house that they are “on the wrong side of history”.
This might just be a personal pet peeve, but I truly can’t stand this storyline. It’s super hard to watch a gorgeous, intelligent girl throwing herself at a guy who is clearly just not that into her. And then belligerently attacking another woman over it. In the final moments of the season, Danielle apologized, but the damage was done.
In another (mercifully short) storyline, Malia and Sam end up fighting over Kory. This fight only lasts one episode with a return to it at the reunion and ends as happily as these things ever do, but boils down to the same basic problem this entire season has. Every single major point of drama is two girls fighting over a guy.
These girls sniping at each other in competition over these guys is the focal point of this season, and it is simply not working. It’s more second-hand embarrassment than entertainment, and it’s boring. They have nothing else to talk about because they have nothing else in common.
Look, I still watched the whole season but there are so many better Bravo shows out there right now. The next season of Winter House needs to step up to keep up.
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