Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were reality star pioneers starring in The Simple Life, and twenty years later, they’re revisiting the era that made them household names. In Peacock‘s Paris and Nicole: The Encore, the two friends reunite for a three-episode series that’s one part reunion, as they reconnect with the old creators and producers of The Simple Life to reflect on the show’s legacy, and one part opera. In this pseudo-reality show that’s semi-scripted, the two friends attempt to corral a group of musicians and creatives together to put on an opera inspired by their catchphrase-slash-hit single, “Sanasa.” Much like the premise of their original series, they’re obviously out of their depth and have no idea what they’re doing, but as always, they’re also in on the joke.
Opening Shot: Paris Hilton sits in the passenger seat of a car next to Nicole Richie. “I missed you, Bill,” Paris tells her friend.“Missed you, Sill,” Nicole responds, referring to the nicknames they gave each other when they starred together on The Simple Life. “Love you, you little bitch,” Richie adds.
The Gist: If you’re old enough to really remember the early 2000s, you’ll recall it was an era when America was on high alert. No, not because in those years immediately following 9/11 we were in the midst of a war but because all of young Hollywood was constantly behaving badly, getting arrested, and being used as fodder for these new things called gossip blogs. It was impossible to avoid reading about young Hollywood’s most mischievous members, and Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were two of the most prominent personalities in the scene. Both nepo babies (before that term ever existed), they were born and raised in privileged families and to hear the media tell it, they only seemed to want to use their famous surnames to get on VIP lists at 10ak and Hyde Lounge. Which is what made the premise of the reality show The Simple Life so genius. Take these two privileged, blonde-extensioned 20 year olds and throw them to the wolves, a.k.a. a rural American household in Arkansas, and see how they would fare. The show was a phenomenon, having built-in cache because the stars were already pretty well-known, but what most of us didn’t expect was to realize what gifted comedians Paris and Nicole really were. The two seemed to understand and be in on the joke about their images, and milk it for laughs.
Twenty years later, Richie has made a career for herself as a fashion icon and performer, having acted, starred in her own meta reality show, Candidly Nicole, and becoming a social media icon. (Oh, also, she’s a rapper.) Hilton has also rebranded as a much more low-key version of herself, using her fame to launch a cooking show and maintain (?) her singing (?) career. They say hindsight is 20/20 so now that the women have had two decades to process what they went through on The Simple Life, they’ve reunited for this sequel, of sorts, which is a retrospective of some of their funniest moments on that show, as well as a reboot where they revisit some of their old haunts in an effort to make an actual opera about their experience, based on the word they coined which became their catchphrase, “Sanasa.”
The pair reunites, appearing as close as ever, having reconnected to watch their old show, which Richie says she hasn’t seen in 20 years, but which Hilton says she watches all the time. They have a mini reunion with their former producers, and head back to Altus, Arkansas, to visit the people they met during their time their (generally a positive experience, awkward at times), and they use all of this to inspire an opera that they’ve set out to make based on their famous catchphrase, “Sanasa.”
For the first two episodes, you get the sense that this opera is doomed to fail because they have no idea what they’re doing. (Richie and Hilton visit their old middle school music teacher and ask if they think they could get L.A. Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel to help them with the endeavor.) Beneath their deadpan humor, they also are dead serious about pulling this off, and won’t let up until they make some progress on the project. They visit Hilton’s mother Kathy (a delight!), meet composer Thomas Ades (he’s a huge fan!), and receive vocal training and advice from opera producers (it doesn’t go great!), all in an effort to pull this thing off. It isn’t until halfway through the final episode that they get serious, literally, they genuinely start to worry that the production will fail, so they whip the whole thing into shape, the end result a production that’s as sentimental as it is totally insane.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? On the one hand, Paris & Nicole: The Encore feels like that season of Curb Your Enthusiasm that starred whole Seinfeld gang who got together for a reunion of that show. Though they’re constructed a bit differently, both shows reunite their original casts for something that’s both a reunion and a retrospective of their time together, but under the guise of a fictional new creative endeavor. It also feels like Friends: The Reunion and other retrospectives that reunite their casts, show clips, and use fan-generated social media to punctuate the kind of impact it had on the culture since it aired.
Our Take: The whole hook of The Simple Life was watching two privileged but also, thankfully, inherently funny, people attempt to live out a life and a series of jobs that were foreign to them. The hook of The Encore is no different because these two clearly don’t know how to create an opera, and that’s the point. They attempt to round up a bunch of experts to help them, but they’re even bad at assembling an opera A-team; by the end of the second episode, you assume they’ve basically abandoned any real goals of making this thing good. (The most perfect detail of the actual opera is the fact that one of the most memorable performers is a singing parrot.) But the thing is, they do want it to be good, and once they get their act together, they create the most Paris and Nicole avant garde performance you can imagine.
You can certainly make the argument that, at three episodes long, this reunion is a little self-indulgent and excessive at times. The women spend at least half of the last episode meandering around L.A. and doing stuff that has nothing to do with any of the “plot,” it all just serves as more air time for fans to watch Paris and Nicole do their shtick. If you don’t love the shtick, you definitely won’t love the show. But if you stick with all three episodes, you’ll absorb the entire spectrum of the Paris and Nicole experience: the humor, the friendship, the ineptitude that masks actual professional experience and an understanding of The Biz. The end result actually does feel like a celebration of their friendship which has endured despite some bumps, and this reunion is a testament to the idea that, lurking behind their very L.A. facades and upbringings is a genuine connection that managed to make it past the paparazzi and the gossip blogs and come out on the other side.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “There’s no one like you, you’re one of a kind and I love you,” Hilton says to Richie in their closing interview. “So are you, bitch,” Richie replies.
Performance Worth Watching: While Paris and Nicole are the stars here, keep an ear out for Alan Cumming as the narrator. His Scottish purr is a welcome reminder that season three of The Traitors on Peacock is but a few weeks away.
Memorable Dialogue: “Now, what do you mean an opera? You mean like Madame Butterfly or La Traviata?” a producer asks Paris and Nicole, when they explain they want to turn their catchphrase into an opera. “Yeah, like those,” Paris replies, somewhat confused, adding, “What are those?” It’s classic Paris Hilton, to deliver a line that makes you wonder if she is that oblivious, or if she’s just that good at playing her part.
Our Call: Paris and Nicole: The Encore is the perfect career evolution for two women who have rarely lived life outside the public eye. Having gotten their start on a reality show, they’re using that as a springboard for a meta-reality show that brings their whole existence and friendship full circle. STREAM IT.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.