'Members Only: Palm Beach' Recap & Review: Netflix’s Latest Housewife Drama Is Way Too On The Nose 

I’ve always been vocal about my dislike for reality TV, and Members Only: Palm Beach is a reminder of why. The Netflix reality show tells the story of socialites in Palm Beach. All of them wives, and all of them absolutely intolerable. Members Only: Palm Beach is your average reality show, but it almost feels like the drama has been amped up. The 8-part series essentially is a series of parties, in which some or the other person ends up picking a fight with one other person only for it all to blow out of proportion. I honestly don’t know how to describe this show because it’s like the same thing repeating itself over and over and over again. But I suppose that’s what people are looking to see? Millionaires can be mundane too, despite all the lavish parties and glamorous outfits. I might be making that up, but on that note, let’s jump straight into the show. 

Members Only: Palm Beach is titled such but is going to be aired globally, which is quite funny in my opinion. Anyway, the show includes a philanthropist named Rosalyn, property developer named Hilary,  wellness guru named Taja, a youngling named Ro-Mina, and a DJ named Maria. Essentially, we watch each of these ladies throw a party and then have a massive fight at the end of the episode. It all begins with Hilary and Rosalyn, because Hilary decides not to invite Rosalyn over for a party of hers, because the latter pissed off some friends of Hilary’s, and she couldn’t ruin her reputation for Rosalyn’s sake. But this is when we’re introduced to the rest of the ladies, one of them being young and boisterous Ro-Mina. Ro-Mina is like an outsider, and immediately the way she dresses, the way she sounds, and everything about her triggers the other ladies. Now, Maria and Rosalyn both think they’re Ro-Mina’s mentors, but obviously there’s room only for one. This is basically the main conflict of the show and gets dragged on right until the end. 

With the way the show begins, it seems like Hilary’s the queen bee of Palm Beach, until Rosalyn shows up. While Hilary thinks of herself as self-made and an independent Palm Beach socialite, Rosalyn thinks she’s the next queen because she has Gale, the existing queen, by her side. Ro-Mina is the talk of the town initially, because everyone seems to hate the way she dresses and talks. The big debate is, should you follow the rule: you can only show your chest when your knees aren’t visible? I really think a lot of Ro-Mina’s discourse is about this exact debate. But jokes aside, as outsiders, Ro-Mina and Maria have common ground, which is why Maria wants to take her under her wing, but Maria has the same issue as Ro-Mina. So the other members can’t stand her either. In the meanwhile, Taja essentially picks a side to mess with. 

Hilary’s onto her fifth wedding this season, and the guy she’s marrying (well, she’s already married to) used to be the doorman of a hotel until she found him. All of these women are clearly bigots, and this comes across in the way they talk to their staff and how they describe each other as “classless.” After the whole Rosalyn fiasco, Hilary invites her to solve the misunderstanding, but it takes all eight episodes for them to reconcile, and that is also in the most fake way possible. Also, what I don’t understand is, if all of these people are supposed to be friends, and they’re talking behind each others’ backs on the show, how will they remain friends?

Ro-Mina’s issues get bigger and bigger each episode because she keeps switching sides between Rosalyn and Hilary, or rather, Maria. Hillary seems to be the beginning of all of these problems, but honestly, she kind of goes away for a long time until she is needed for Rosalyn to have a meltdown. But in the meantime, she has a huge fight with Maria, who has a crazy party to release her song, where she held a man with a leash on, which triggered everybody, but Hilary the most. Already, the duo had their trouble because Maria cried at Hilary’s party, and it seemed like attention-seeking behavior. The unexpected conflict arrives when Rosalyn introduces Gale to the rest of the girls and talks about her having a Rolodex, all while also dropping names like Donald and Elon. This doesn’t sit well with the rest of the gang, but ironically, Gale also presents Rosalyn with a fake crown that makes her the next queen of Palm Beach (I still don’t know if this is an actual thing, but I guess we can go with it).

It doesn’t take long for the friends to dig their claws into Gale as well. To be fair, she does show off a little bit, but she’s also much older than the rest of the women. The whole Rolodex thing clearly made Hilary jealous. To fix Ro-Mina’s issues, Rosalyn invites her to tea with Gale. That’s when she teaches her how to handle etiquette. They also dress her up in appropriate outfits, even though they’re entirely unlike her, and while at first she seems to be taking it in, she’s also rebellious enough to tell them she won’t do something she doesn’t like. But the most annoying thing about Gale is the fact that she can’t differentiate between Uzbekistan and Pakistan. This also gets to Ro-Mina, who is Uzbek and very proud of her culture. This turns into a big issue when she’s called by Rosalyn and Gale for an actual etiquette class, ultimately leaving her very bruised and running to Hilary for advice. But eventually, Rosalyn finds out that Ro-Mina tattled, which makes the rest of the women mad at her. 

Essentially, this is how this show works: someone says something, they misunderstand it, and then it becomes a group activity. There are a lot of birthday parties, including Ro-Mina’s, where she wanted to specify that people should bring cash because it’s part of her culture, but apparently, it’s not very “classy” of her. Ro-Mina and Rosalyn become Hilary’s bridesmaids, which makes zero sense to me after everything that they’ve said about each other. The wedding goes okay, but Maria doesn’t show, because Hilary’s really mad that Rosalyn called her names and didn’t stop despite Maria apologizing.

At the end of season 1 of Members Only: Palm Beach, it’s Taja’s birthday celebration, and all hell breaks loose because Rosalyn can’t tolerate the disrespect towards Gale. She makes a huge deal out of it all, and then Gale doesn’t even really step into the conversation. But still, they somehow manage to hug each other as if nothing happened. The thing that I find absolutely hilarious is that everybody thinks that they’re crying on the inside, and whoever they’re talking about is kind of evil. Hilary seems to want to get rid of Rosalyn, but the rest of the girls want to keep her around: nobody’s safe in Palm Beach. Somehow, at the end of all of this, Hilary and Rosalyn make up in five seconds, having ruined the rest of the group. There’s still a lot for these people to learn about how to be friends and grow up, but I guess the whole point of this show was to watch them bond when there isn’t really a fire.