Whoa, those perfectly manicured claws have come out and then some in the first episode of season three of “The Real Housewives of Durban”.
My jaw dropped for several reasons, the most talked-about one being Sorisha Naidoo no longer playing the “peacemaker” in the group. The second, is a new cast member who is ruffling feathers.
Back to Sorisha, she’s calling a spade a spade. And if anyone doesn’t like it, too bad.
Of course, there was much hullabaloo over the fact that Nonkanyiso Conco, aka LaConco, Londie London and reality star Thobile MaKhumalo Mseleku were not returning.
But their presence isn’t missed. I mean LaConco, who coined that famous catchphrase “Google Me”, drove us insane with her clandestine romance with Petal.
Talk about flogging a dead horse. The conversation got pretty tiresome, pretty quickly.
Londie was a conduit for the drama. You know how there is a s***-stirrer in every group, she was kind of that but not on the same masterful level as Annie Mthembu, of course.
And Thobile. Well, if boredom were a person, it would be her. She simply piggybacked on everyone else’s drama in season two and grew a backbone only towards the end.
Moving on, it is out with the old and in with the new.
This season, we have Maria Valaskatzis, Mbali Ngiba and Slindile “Slee” Wendy Ndlovu joining the cast, with Jojo Robinson and Nonku Williams also back.
Episode one opened with Nonku inviting Jojo and Sorisha to meet Slee.
What was supposed to be a casual kumbaya moment quickly snowballed into an awkward, tense situation.
Jojo and Nonku, who are now as thick as thieves, were snuggled up on the couch. Meanwhile, Slee, who is supposedly Nonku’s bestie, got a rude awakening when her comments on Jojo didn’t go down well.
Truth be told, though. Slee was spot on the money when she called Jojo, Nonku’s new toy, and also added that she comes across as a “mean girl”, more so, after her nasty confrontation with MaBusi out about her wealth and “fake bags”.
Yoh, that was a brutal moment in season two.
The conversation then deflected to Annie, which clearly didn’t sit well with Sorisha. Jojo and Nonku flagged an incident that happened at the launch of Vivian Reddy’s mall in uMhlanga.
This time, Sorisha was not having any of it. She basically told Nonku to have that conversation with Annie.
As the episode wore on, everything centred on the build-up to Jojo’s “Princess Soiree”, which, true to her style of flashy and OTT, included a horse and carriage.
History repeated itself when Mbali, who was meant to sing, didn’t arrive on time. Jojo’s brief déjà vu to Londie dissipated when Mbali eventually arrived and belted a chorus at the dinner table.
Maria, who nonchalantly credited her fountain of youth to regularly going under the knife, was underwhelmed by Mbali
Every shindig has to include an awkward game and then a confrontation, it seems. And this one was no different.
Aside from Sorisha being a good sport with her pretend pole dance, Maria was livid when she was asked to sing with a mouth full of water, until someone got the song. Why?
Mbali’s banana-eating skills saw jaws drop, mine included.
This season has a “Survivor”-esque tone as new alliances are being formed. And with Sorisha being more woke to the cattiness of certain ladies and Slee taking no prisoners, the drama is clearly only warming up.
But, the person who everyone is going to love to hate is Maria, an ice queen who spews out nasty comments like it was going out of fashion.
On that note, dig those heels in because it’s going to be a bumpy season, with plenty of heated spats.
“The Real Housewives of Durban” season 3 is available on Showmax, with new episodes dropping on Wednesday.