Christine Quinn's Mean Girls villainy in Selling Sunset Season 4 falls apart

TIME

"The problem is Christine has neither the gravitas nor strength to be a believable villain or a victim. And this is where the season falls flat," says Morgan Jerkins. "There is no one to root for, no one to hate, but everyone is undoubtedly exhausting." Jerkins adds: "If you are going to be a villain, you have to be committed. Kristin Cavallari. Nene Leakes. Tiffany 'New York' Pollard. We may not have liked them at certain points of their reality TV show careers but they were memorable because they committed to an archetype. Even when they were wrong, they stood in that wrongness, no matter what. Christine flounders: one minute, she facetiously aspires to dictate to her colleagues what they should wear on certain days (a nod to Mean Girls); the next, she runs away from even the slightest bit of confrontation, sniffling with not a single tear to show for it. She’s too wishy-washy to be a villain and too polished to be a victim. What we are left with is a replication of high school politics without an ounce of grit, or, dare I say, true meanness with a purpose. What made season three of 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. This season has none of that and in turn, everyone is cheapened. 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. But no. All we get is a bunch of finger-pointing with no one really being able to see it through with words, which makes one ask: are they afraid of each other? And if they were, wouldn’t it be enlightening, or at the very least entertaining, to see where that fear might lead?"

ALSO:

• Selling Sunset doesn't quite deliver the drama in Season 4, but it's still fun to watch
• Season 4 proves that sometimes taking the high road is overrated
• Is Jason Oppenheim ready to put his relationship with Chrishell Stause in the reality TV spotlight?: "Well, first of all, yes, (the relationship) came as a surprise in as much as she came here as married and as an agent, right. That's the last thing I would look at and romantically," he says. "So we did establish a friendship at first and then when it changed, like, we didn't really know what to think of it. We didn't take it that seriously. Then we did start taking it more seriously as we kind of realized how well it worked. Then I think we just kind of wanted to get it through a certain level of comfort before going public."
• Casting has been key to Selling Sunset’s success. “It’s really important that the viewers see themselves in the characters,” says creator Adam DiVello. “Especially when you have an ensemble, it’s great because not every viewer is gonna see themselves in Chrishell, necessarily. But they might see themselves in Christine or Mary or Maya.”