TVSquad

Generally speaking, there's little on Million Dollar Listing that strikes me as edifying or illuminating television. Mostly, I've watched this Bravo reality/unscripted show about three Los Angeles real estate brokers – Josh Flagg, Chad Rogers and Madison Hildebrand -- who are young, ambitious and seemingly very spoiled, with a weird fascination.

Would Chad's hair stylist convince him to try a buzz cut? No. Could Madison succumb to the come-on of a sexy female client? No. Was Josh seriously concerned about his health? Yes.

However, I caught up with the show this week and saw a sequence that got to me on a very emotional level. Josh Flagg, in an effort to learn more about his grandmother Edith's life -- in particular, how she survived the Holocaust -- went to Amsterdam with her to visit the places she remembers.

When they visited the place where Jews were kept before being sent to concentration camps. Edith could only go so far; she told Josh to go on without her, to pay respects to the dead. Josh knelt at a gravesite and said the Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead. It got to me, and I welled up with tears.

I did a little research and found out that Josh has actually written a book about his grandmother, and she had some story to tell. She not only survived the Holocaust and came to America, but she was a self-made woman who built an incredible career in the fashion business. Here's a video from Million Dollar Listing in which she tells Josh about her work ethic:



There's no question that Million Dollar Listing is very contrived and scripted. There's also no question that Josh has had problems in the past, but this sequence was something real, and you can't fake that.