Hello and welcome to Hot Masterpiece Theater, the show for high-brow conversations about low-brow entertainment, mainly reality TV.

I'm your host, Jolenta Greenberg.

I'm a comedian and culture critic who believes that reality TV is artful storytelling,

so I act as a reality TV dramaturg.

I do deep dives on iconic reality TV moments and character archetypes, so we can better understand why we are so drawn to this art form

and why it's not much different

from other forms of storytelling like Greek tragedies or Shakespeare and like why it's not

garbage. Today we are joined by a true scholar to talk about one of her favorite iconic reality

TV moments from Vanderpump Rules. So let's get into it.

My guest today is a shade thought leader. She is Mary Payne Gilbert. She's a longtime pod. She's a

longtime podcaster.

She used to host the great show, Pain in the Pod,

where she interviewed other podters about all sorts of stuff.

And now she hosts the prolific pink shade podcast.

It is a must listen if you're not already listening.

On her show, she recaps all sorts of reality TV, all the best

kinds, you know, Bravo franchises, TLC franchises, and documentaries that are streaming on like

all the major streaming sites. So we have a true expert in our midst. Mary Payne, thank you so much for joining me today.

Oh my God. Can I clip this and put this on my bio? I've never had such a nice introduction

in my life. Oh, of course, you can. I'm good. This is going to be, you know, it'll be my hype

music for when I, you know, walk into the kitchen to make the dogs food. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

First, I would just like to ask you about your relationship with reality TV. What drew you to it?

...