Business
The Mean-Girl Dynamics of Selling Sunset Don’t Quite Work in Season 4

There’s a reason some reality TV feuds are still fresh in our minds, despite the fact that pop culture has changed. Lauren Conrad, Kristin Cavallari. Laguna BeachLauren Conrad (again) Heidi Montag The HillsIt was a simple but complex formula that is also strangely nuanced. Two white, young and beautiful women are pitted against one another because of a man. As the players play he-said/she-said at various spots in town, the loyalties of the female friends will be tested.
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You can either take the 20-year old masterpiece of social dominance to prove that mess is what we love as a society.For the mean girls. It’s a cinematic landmark that Christine Quinn, the proposed villain of Sell Sunset references throughout the fourth and latest season, which premieres on Netflix on Nov. 24, because she yearns for a way to control the other women of The Oppenheim Group as Rachel McAdams’ Regina George did in her high school. Christine lacks the power and strength to either be a convincing villain or victim. This is the reason why season 2 falls flat. It is impossible to find someone to cheer for or to dislike, but it is exhausting to be around everyone.
We pick up the season where a nine-months-pregnant Christine is a notable outcast from the other real estate ladies—Mary, Heather and Chrishell—even as a new woman, Vanessa Villela, a former Mexican telenovela actor, Joins the ranks. While Christine is sauntering around L.A. County looking for a new home for a growing family—“10,000 square feet at least,” as she says—Mary, Heather, and Chrishell feel peeved because they only learned of Christine’s pregnancy through social media. But that’s not the biggest issue, by a long shot.
Jason Oppenheim isn’t done building the Oppenheim Group. He enlists Emma, a woman. to take Christine’s place in her absence while she tends to her baby. But the problem, according to Christine, is that her ex from five years ago cheated on her with Emma, and Mary, who is Christine’s oldest friend from the company, took Emma’s side in the fallout. Emma and Mary present different stories, claiming that Christine is a liar and that Emma’s relationship did not overlap with this ex. If you’re feeling tired reading the previous sentences, then imagine how tired I am rehashing this played-out nonsense. The show has to go on. In fact, for several episodes, that is the only drama that each episode hinges on, and it isn’t until the 10th and final one that we see an actual confrontation—if we can even call it that.
It is important to ask the question: Of all the seasons for bringing up an ex that was five years old, why not now? Christine is married and has a child. Emma seems to be single. The ex doesn’t matter. It’s a lengthy, tedious play with women making blatant accusations at each other. There is no real reason for this subject to be considered. Because reader, it doesn’t. It’d be one thing if Emma were still dating this man or Christine never got over him. But there’s none of that. These women are clearly moving on with their lives, with new husbands, homes, and ventures. There is no stake. The drama seems to have been sold alongside the houses. Unfortunately, however, the first has no substance. A two-dimensional image breaks down the dream of escapism. Although we all know that cameras and crews can manipulate storieslines, at the very least we can trust a performance with proper editing and positioning.
And that’s where Christine falls apart as the producers’ central narrative device to propel this season forward. You must be committed if you want to play the role of a villain. Kristin Cavallari. Nene Leakes. Tiffany “New York” Pollard. Although we may have not liked their television careers, they are memorable for being an archetype. They stood firm in their wrongness even when it was hard. Christine is confused: Christine jokes that she wants to tell her coworkers what to wear on specific days. The Mean GirlsShe runs away when she feels threatened, and the next time, she doesn’t even show any emotion. She’s too wishy-washy to be a villain and too polished to be a victim. The result is high school politics that lacks grit and, dare I suggest, genuine meanness without a purpose.
The three seasons of season three Selling Sunset so memorable was that alongside the drama, there were other subplots that kept viewers on their toes: Mary and Romain’s relationship, Chrishell’s divorce, Heather’s desire to get married. All of these subplots are absent this season, which in turn makes everyone feel cheap. It would’ve been nice to see how Christine is managing new motherhood after experiencing a traumatic birth, how Romain is forging his independence from his older, much more established wife or how even Davina is learning more about dynamics and boundaries since her mouth got her in trouble last time.
However, it is not so. We get nothing but finger-pointing and no one can really see the whole thing through with words. This makes us wonder if they are afraid of one another. And if they were, wouldn’t it be enlightening, or at the very least entertaining, to see where that fear might lead?