When you look back on the summers of your adolescence, you might think about lemonade stands and mowing lawns for a Buffalo nickel. I, on the other hand, fondly remember spoiled heiresses wreaking havoc in small-town America. I guess we’re just different like that!
Some of my favorite summer memories as a preteen involve watching Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie “that’s hot”-ing their way through culture shock, as they traveled the country in their seminal reality show, The Simple Life. By the time the show moved to the E! network for its fourth season in the summer of 2006, my parents blessedly considered me mature enough to watch. My sister and I would take in the marathon of reruns that would air throughout the day, frying our lobes to dangerous levels. When people say that television melts a kid’s brain, they’re not exactly wrong, but boy, does it feel oh so right.
If you too were of the Simple Life generation—or if raucous reality television where rich women invade small towns to try to “help” their residents is your idea of fun—you will be delighted by Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake.
Bravo’s latest spinoff (which airs its first two episodes July 9) is, for all intents and purposes, the second coming of Paris and Nicole. The conceit is largely the same as The Simple Life: Real Housewives of New York City alums Sonja Morgan and Luann de Lesseps are shipped off to the town of Benton, Illinois, bringing their big city joie de vivre to a town hit hard by the pandemic, to see if they can attract some tourism and bring life back to Benton. During their stay, the two women have to hack it with the locals, which includes getting down and dirty while taking part in all of their favorite outdoor activities. Sure, Crappie Lake might basically be a ripoff of another show, but it’s Bravo’s most flawlessly executed “new” series in ages.
If you think that Sonja and Luann, who are both women in their fifties, can’t keep up with the likes of then-twentysomethings Paris and Nicole, guess again. Sonja and Luann have never been more vibrant and off-the-wall. Though it was a tough blow for RHONY fans when Bravo decided to retool the franchise and fire its longtime cast members, that, at the very least, led to the wonder that is Welcome to Crappie Lake. Seeing this dynamic duo back together is invigorating; we needed some time apart from them, and they needed time away from the stifling pressures of a franchise that was closing in on itself.
If that time off made viewers hungry, it made the show’s stars ravenous. Lu and Sonja clearly want their spinoff to be a major success, which means doing whatever it takes to make sure it lands as such. (In Bethenny Frankel speak, we call that, “coming from a place of ‘yes.’”) They also manage to achieve that without compromising the things that made audiences fall in love with them on RHONY. For Sonja, that’s her bawdy, carefree spirit and love of a good party. She is, after all, the straw that stirs the drink; rumor has it Big Freedia had Sonja Morgan in mind when she wrote the lyric, “Release your wiggle.” Luann, on the other hand, is the ideal complement: a tamer, more level-headed former Countess, who can still rope men just as well as her best friend.
Men aren’t the only thing that these women are grabbing, either. Benton, aka Crappie Lake (pronounced “craw-pee,” a type of bass fish) is a big game-and-fish town. That means that Sonja and Luann’s assimilation to local life involves becoming one with nature—and the slimy fins of bottom-feeding swimmers. The show wastes no time whisking its stars to Benton, packing plenty of laughs into just the first five minutes, before their plane even touches the ground. Maybe it was Luann’s big-city naivete, or maybe it was just pure comic genius, but her gravelly voice guessing that the crowd holding poster board signs to welcome them to the tiny airport was actually “some sort of demonstration” made me holler like I haven’t since 2006.
Once they arrive, Lu and Sonja are quickly assigned a list of tasks to complete by the mayor of Benton. Over five weeks, they must build a new park, make the annual Christmas in July celebration bigger and better than ever, increase tourism, upgrade the local animal shelter, and put together an end-of-summer performance for the whole town. Seems easy enough for two well-connected socialites such as the ones featured on this lovely cable program, right? It might be, if Sonja and Luann weren’t highly distractible and prone to trouble.
Unlike in The Simple Life, the women have access to their cellphones and credit cards. They can call in favors at a whim, such as to a friend who owns a recreation company, who can procure a new playground for Benton at a cheaper cost. But even the most basic tasks on their list come with unforeseen challenges—to their dismay, and our delight—forcing the pair to be quick on their feet and scramble to make good on their promises. All the while, Sonja is desperately trying not to pop any of the stitches from her recent liposuction procedure, a concern that’s being constantly hindered by physical labor. And I do mean physical labor.
Part of why the duo agreed to lend their talents to the town of Benton, it seems, is to meet men. New York might be a city of millions, but anyone who has seen RHONY knows that these two have likely exhausted just about every option of bachelor across the eastern seaboard. But for a small town, the pickings in Benton are surprisingly not slim. It’s a total joy and an absolute wonder to watch how Sonja, and particularly Luann, pick up men. In fact, watching them flirt with every man in their vicinity is half the fun of the show. If you’re touch-starved and out of practice, you needn’t do anything more than pick up a pad and a pen and take copious notes as Luann does one of the single greatest pickup acts in history at the Benton Firehouse.
Unlike most new reality shows, Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake doesn’t need a run of several episodes to find its sea legs—or, I guess, lake legs. The show knows what it is, what it can be, and what it should be from the jump. Even from a network as successful as Bravo, new offerings this good at their inception are few and far between, lest we forget Real Girlfriends in Paris and the shakier first season of sister-streamer Peacock’s Ultimate Girls Trip. Crappie Lake is blissfully assured good-time television. It’s not just a nostalgic callback to those summers spent living the Simple Life, it’s a modernized revival, done just differently enough to make it feel new.
In Sonja and Luann, Bravo has found a crack team of hilarious innovators. Whether we’re watching Sonja sift through her hoarder-lite motel room spread, or Luann board a 50-foot truck to save Sonja and a new beau from being stuck in a vat of mud, it’s a downright blast. If Bravo plays its cards right, shipping these two off around the country to different places for each new season could be the network’s biggest sensation since Real Housewives proper.
While only time will tell whether anything past this season’s first three episodes can live up to the formative text that is The Simple Life’s Sonic drive-in episode, it won’t matter. Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake is good enough to rot the brains of anyone this summer, whether they’re teenagers or just young at heart.
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