The show follows a handful Charleston residents, all with varying levels of wealth but comfortably in a higher tax bracket than most. A few of them don't actually have jobs, but rather live off "investments" which allows them to exist in this perfect balance of having a lot of money — but not a distracting amount of money. They live in houses that would be the fancy house, in the nice part of town — but not the penthouse made entirely of gold and shards of real angel bones.
What I love about Charleston Charm is that if you grew up in the South, it taps into a tiny part of you that believes you could have been a Southern Socialite 50 years ago. They are rarely throwing tables – but constantly throwing shade in a "bless-her-heart" kind of way. One of my favorite lines was when the matriarch of the show, a woman named Patricia Altschul who is by far the most wealthy, was asked how she felt about another female character. She said, "I don't really have anything else to say about the matter," and sipped her martini while looking dead into the camera. Anyone can throw a tantrum – it takes a certain level of class and sass to pull a move like that.
If you're out of the Southern Charm loop — we're two episodes into season four — like most reality television it's easy to fall into the story line. The villain is made out to be Kathryn, a young redhead who has had two children with Thomas, an older and wealthier character on the show. Both come from well-established Charleston families and have had multiple run-ins with the law. However, whether or not she is a true villain is up to you — I'm still on the fence with that one.
In last night's episode my nemesis, Landon, made another massive production over the launch of her website. Her site, Roam, caters to the travel interest of the extremely wealthy and has no real value in a Google-Pinterest-Travel Agent-Era. Landon has been attempting to launch this website for over a season but has fallen short because she has no actual experience or know-how (which she admits). Couple that with her richer-than-thou attitude — while meeting with a tech team from another company to explore working together, Landon said, "I only hang out with billionaires," which didn't exactly land well with her audience. She denies ever saying that, but watch the scene and see if you think she's lying when preaching her innocence.
Southern Charm is worth the investment. The beautiful backdrop of wrap-around porches and gaslight lamp posts will have you pouring yourself a sweet tea and curling up to add your own commentary in a southern drawl.
This article appears in Apr 6-13, 2017.