I can't remember a more PATHETIC lie being called out on camera than bringing supermarket-bought grapes to a a vineyeard for a grape-crushing and pretending they are your vineyeard's own. Utterly mortifying!
A lot of the later half of the season is understandably devoted to the White House crashing, but it's all done via making Michaela and Tareq look as awful as possible, so no complaints really.
One bit that sticks out the most, is Michaela bragging to the stylist doing her hair for the party, about exactly which party it is that she's going to later that day. Only for the stylist to be so excited that she asks to see the invite, just to see what one looks like. With Michaela then spending the next 15 minutes looking in her purse and her car for an invite that she knows isn't there - with the cameras following her every move of course
Woah the second half of DC is SUCH a ride. As I said before, SUCH an interesting time capsule too as it flirts with social/political issues more heavily than other franchises from the same time. Interesting it gets written off as boring, as it really ISN'T. Maybe people just watched episode 1 and didn't bother to dive in deeper.
Tareq and Michaela are just NEXT LEVEL weird

I sort of love Michaela? She seems quite damaged, and Stacie & husband did seem to genuinely sort of like her despite the HIGH DRAMA! They were just such classic cokehead grifters

They totally seem the type to cause as much mayhem as they can get away with for as long as possible, then re-emerge with a completely different identity in another city once the walls start to close in
Tareq looked absolutely AWFUL at the reunion, white as a sheet and sweating. There seemed to be some horrible darkness lurking beneath their relationship too, and Lynda alluded to it several times.
The reunion is one of the best I've ever seen. The PILE ON in the second half, including Andy getting involved. BORING ASS EYES-GLAZED Mary thinking she's really doing something by trying to end the show with "You HIJACKED OUR SHOW! Think about that"

/

The women were quite lucky to have such a rail-roading from Tareq and Michaela TBH, otherwise Cat's gross behaviour would have been much more under the microscope.
I don't know HOW they would have done a season 2, as clearly nobody would have filmed with Michaela aside from maybe Stacie.
Stacie and Lynda were both CHYKA-style intelligent grounding Housewives, but neither had the personality to anchor or build a franchise around.