Let me tell you something that I’m reminded of every time a paying member of X—formerly Twitter, when society had one last shred of dignity—comes into my mentions to yell at me about something totally innocuous: Folks love to hate on pretty, witty, successful people. You might think I’m tooting my own horn (toot, toot baby!), but this was only further proven on this week’s episode of Real Housewives of New York. Sai and Erin have turned on Jessel, saying that she talks in circles and lies relentlessly, making it impossible to connect with her. And now that one-third of the cast is against her, they’re doubling down by questioning the strength of her marriage to her husband, Pavit.I’m well aware that this is all par for the course, as far as Real Housewives is concerned. But in this case, it feels particularly unfounded and mean-spirited. Erin and Sai’s reasoning is murky at best (though I have some thoughts of my own to share with you momentarily), and the only dirt that they’ve managed to dredge up is some smeared eyeliner on Jessel’s face when she cries retelling the story of their interrogation at one of RHONY’s most infuriating dinners in a minute. Episode 13 left a sour taste in my mouth, one so acrid that not even Jenna shopping for $700 sunglasses could erase it completely.Our weekly opening montage gives us a peek at Brynn’s well-decorated apartment, which looks like a cozy-yet-spacious walk-up somewhere in the West Village, to this New Yorker’s eye. We also check in with Ubah, striking a few poses at a photo shoot while musing about her lack of Valentine’s Day dates. Love should be in the air, but the only thing that’s afoot in these streets is animosity. We’re treated to a heaping helping of hostility, as Erin and Sai hop on FaceTime to talk about Sai’s botched lunch with Jessel in last week’s episode.“Lunch was at 11, [Jessel] showed up at 11:40—doesn’t even call me,” Sai says to Erin. “And then she brings up my frickin’ mother! She’s like, ‘You brought up the situation with your mom, and you know I related because my uncle is an alcoholic.’” First of all: wrong verb tense, Sai; Jessel’s uncle was an alcoholic, who unfortunately passed away from the disease, a fact that she was trying to use to bond with Sai on a more intimate level. Second of all: I understand Sai’s frustration; it’s tough for someone to invoke your late mother’s personal issues like that. But she’s reducing the gravity of what Jessel was trying to say to keep Erin on her side.Jessel, meanwhile, is echoing that exactly to Jenna at Jenna’s apartment, some 30 blocks away. “I thought if anyone would understand, it would be her,” Jessel says. Jenna tries to find a peaceful center, telling Jessel that it seems like she’s just trying to feel understood. “Oftentimes, people want from people who won’t give,” Jenna adds in her confessional. “That happens a lot: The person who won’t give you what you want is the person you go after the most.” I love seeing this vulnerable, maternal side of Jenna, who understands what Jessel is trying to receive after enduring an extremely withholding childhood. And it’s because of that experience that she also knows that Jessel’s way of trying to connect was just a little off. “I know her intentions were good, she was just trying to connect and relate [to Sai’s story about her mother’s alcoholism], but your mom is your mom, and it’s really different than anyone else on the planet.”Just as quickly as Jenna arrived in this episode, she was off on a trip to Scotland, leaving Sai, Jessel, Erin, and Ubah alone for an extremely awkward couples date night. It takes no time at all for the group to drop their pleasantries, with Sai and Jessel rehashing their tension from last week’s lunch. The two women make no progress, so Sai and Erin decide to pick a different fight with Jessel, this time regarding Pavit’s upcoming trip to Vietnam.No one in the group, including the husbands, seems convinced that Pavit is flying to Vietnam, staying 24 hours, and then flying back home just for a brief bit of solo relaxation and some airline miles. And, to be fair, that’s not the most common thing for a person to do. But Pavit is a quirky, fun guy. He doesn’t seem like the type to hop on a flight just to cheat on his wife—like Erin and Sai are hinting at—and Jessel isn’t the type to be overprotective or suspicious. And it’s Jessel’s trust in her husband that Sai and Erin can’t stand.My theory is that there’s an element of jealousy to Sai and Erin’s constant attacks on Jessel. They held onto the fact that she hadn’t had sex with Pavit for a year and a half with a death grip, and now that the one kernel of “dysfunction” (if you can even call it that) in Jessel’s marriage slipped through their fingers last week, Erin and Sai are faced with their own lives. Maybe they have trust issues in their own marriages that they’re turning outward, or maybe they just can’t stand to see two clearly happy people exist with the kind of loving lackadaisicalness that a couple should have when they’re comfortable in their marital dynamic.Jessel attempts to defend herself, and when she does, Sai falls back on the same, tired schtick that she has been doing all season long when someone pushes back. “At the end of the day, Jessel, I don’t care,” Sai says. It has the exact same energy as a kid who wants to play a game of tag, then quits the second they have to be “it.” Sai wanted to play, but now that she’s got some competition, she’s throwing her hands up. Obviously, she cares deeply enough to keep inserting herself into Jessel’s life all season long.In the episode’s close, Jessel, Brynn, and Jenna get together at Jessel’s place to take the temperature of the group. Jenna and Brynn heard multiple different stories about what happened at the couples night, and now they want the story from the queen’s mouth. Jessel explains everything that happened that night, and Brynn tells the group that Erin specifically mentioned that Pavit wasn’t wearing his wedding ring.“Am I stirring the pot?” Brynn asks in her confessional. “Yes. But this is a serious topic. Friends are the people you should go to when you’re having marital problems to help [you] through it. We shouldn’t be trying to poke holes in people’s marriages—the only time you should poke holes is in condoms with really rich men.” The camera lingers on Brynn’s knowing smile, reminding us that even when she’s not in much of an episode, she’s a RHONY MVP.But thank God Brynn did stir that pot, because now Jessel has no doubt about what Erin and Sai have been trying to imply about her marriage. Jessel starts to tear up, and Pavit looks on from their kitchen, biting his cheeks in irritation as he listens to the things that people have been insinuating about his wife and their relationship. I think this is the best possible thing for Jessel; she needs to be fired up about this, and she needs to defend herself. Like she said in her confessional earlier in the episode: “[They haven’t] seen this bitch yet, I’ve been very P.C.” Given that next week is the season finale, it seems like a perfect time for Jessel’s fighting spirit to rear its head and to throw that political correctness out the window once and for all.

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