So far, I have been a little harsh on this season of Real Sky Tops Wearers of a Shockingly Republican District. I think coming out of the heady days of #Scandoval, the explosive end of the decade-long Gorga-Giudice feud, and the Hulu documentary shenanigans of Jen Shah and Tom Girardi, I wanted the show to be something it was not. Also, the quality in the OC has been in free fall, like (don’t make a joke about that sub, don’t make a joke about that sub, don’t …) that sub looking for the ruins of the Titanic. Before it even started, I was like, “Ugh, another season of RHOC to suffer through.â€
Well, nonpaying members of the Real Housewives Institute, I am here to tell you that I am going to suffer no more. I don’t think this show needs to change, just my expectations of it. Why can’t this be another franchise of low-stakes drama, petty fights, and the women just having a blast with each other like Real Housewives of Miami, currently the crown jewel in Andy Cohen’s ever-expanding tiara (or diamond cock ring, depending on how you feel about kink at Pride)?
With those fresh eyes, I will say that I enjoyed this episode much more. Maybe that’s because I love when Bravo rewards us for a lifetime of viewership. As soon as we saw Eddie pry the CUT Fitness logo off his gym’s wall last episode, I’ve been thinking about the preopening party where Tamra threw out Alexis “Jesus Jugs†Bellino and she had to take a Xanax in the back of a limo just to get home to her husband, a Guy Fieri look-alike with some blond highlights and an even bigger watch. Every death, even that of a personal-training gym, is a little bit about our own mortality, and to hear Heather and Tamra recount the details of a decade-old fight that I remember in plasma-TV quality made me die a little bit inside, and then be reborn as a person who still watches OC, who still enjoys it, who cares about what happens at this gym.
Before we get to that, let’s focus on some of the other wonderfully dumb things that happened this episode. First, we get Heather Dubrow and her hot-ass personal chef serving up dinner for her little brood, including Max and Nicky, who are about to head off to college. We see pictures that look like very produced Instagram grid posts of the two of them announcing which college they’re going to. In each photo, the name of their school is spelled out in giant Mylar balloons (which never decompose) and their bed is covered in matching swag from the schools, from hats and T-shirts to bedsheets and teddy bears. Is this all you have to do to be rich? Color-coordinate everything and be wasteful? Because I can arrange that.
Then we hear Heather talking about how her kids are “douches†and Max saying that the water pressure in her dorm at Tufts is unacceptable and she’ll be charging nights at a hotel so that she can take a shower and sleep in a queen bed. Um, so how exactly did these kids turn into douches? Was it by Heather performing momness with displays of wealth that totally spoiled her children? I don’t know if the answer is for sure yes, but I am leaning in that direction.
Heather is getting ready for a fight with the Widow Armstrong, who invites her along to visit her acting coach. I know this is a reality show and all, but this didn’t make sense to me. It’s not like you’d ask Michael Phelps to come sit poolside at your swimming lesson. (Not that Heather is the Michael Phelps of acting, so it’s more like asking someone who swam D3 in college for three semesters to come sit poolside for your lesson, but whatevs.) Now, it’s unclear what sort of movie Taylor is prepping for here; could it possibly be (don’t make a joke about Rust, don’t make a joke about Rust, don’t …) Rust? Whatever it is, it seems like the cinematic equivalent of those magazines like Bella that feature Housewives on the cover but seem to only exist in the back of Ubers and dermatologist offices. Heather offered her a part in the project when she was wasted and she was all like, “Sure!†but now she doesn’t want to. She says there are lots of things that have to happen, her people need to call my people, etc. I get that, but I bet it’s really that Heather knows that this production is jankier than the electrical wiring in Gina’s casita and that both will flame out in a spectacularly tacky fashion. From the previews, it looks like we’re going to be dealing a lot more next week with Malibu Country 2: The Way of Water.
We have to do a little check-in with Tamra and Shannon after Tamra got wasted, shouted “fuck a duck†at Shannon a bajillion times, and then fell off a small yacht into the freezing waters of the Pacific where she somehow turned into Ariel from The Little Mermaid CGI remake. Tamra says she is very sorry for what she said, she was drunk, she didn’t mean it. Blah, blah, blah. It’s the usual Tamra b.s. where she just says whatever she wants, apologizes for it later, and gets mad at you again if you don’t accept it. That said, Shannon is like, “She apologized for what happened on the boat, but not the past two and a half years.†Shannon is still holding onto her pain and, until it is discussed, Tamra will never be forgiven. Too bad Shannon’s mutant power is that she can remember every slight, every snub, every inconsequential social interaction where she has felt wronged, and from that she draws the power of a million billion nuclear missiles and she will one day unleash it all.
Next we move on to Gina, a woman who cannot say “peripherally†and who is playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire With Her Own HGTV Show, where she and her boyfriend Travis are trying to take the exam to get their real-estate licenses together. This is what Kyle Richards and her husband did and look at them now, totally stoned and living in luxury. The American (deep toke) dream.
Thanks to Gina, we get the big fight of the night at the CUT Fitness party, where Eddie is inexplicably wearing a shirt and tie and jorts and Tamra’s MAGA son Ryan shows up in “Woody from Toy Story†cosplay. Apparently, Gina is really going for the Kyle Richards lifestyle, because she also manages to produce a story line out of thin air when she realizes new Wifey Jenn-with-two-Ns posted something on TikTok about how she’s grateful her business (a yoga studio) is still open the day before attending the closing party for Tamra’s business. Yes, a little tone-deaf, but I don’t think Jenn even clocked it because she’s such a Yogi Rebl-with-no-E.
Gina brings it up at dinner, and of course Tamra didn’t notice, and of course Jenn didn’t realize what she was doing, but, hey, here is some instant drama to add to our instant karma. She apologizes to Tamra and it all seems swept under the rug even though there isn’t a rug anymore because it was repossessed. (It wasn’t, but wouldn’t that have been hilarious?) But I do want to give Heather Dubrow props in this context for telling Tamra that running a successful business for ten years is quite a feat. I think everyone — including Eddie and Tamra — will focus on the business ending, but keeping it afloat for that long is a major accomplishment. No business is meant to last forever, and this one lasted like, ten years longer than Wines by Wives, so that’s a victory.
This is just a preamble to the fight that is really blossoming, and I think it’s the real reason Gina brought up the Jenn video in the first place. Gina doesn’t like that Jenn ended her first marriage so that she could get with her current boyfriend, Ryan. She says that infidelity hits her hard because of what Matt did to her when they first moved to the OC. Because of this, I think Gina has it out for Jenn.
I mean, this is some straight-people bullshit. If Jenn wanted to cheat on her husband with a hotter guy she met at the gym, she’s allowed to. What business is it of Gina’s? Also, she doesn’t know all of the circumstances, so ostracizing this woman just because she might have cheated on the last guy seems foolish at best. I mean, is Gina going to avoid the entire United Kingdom now that a known adulterer and his side piece are sitting on the throne? (Please don’t take away my visa, King Charles and Queen Camilla. I like it here. Well, at least in the summer.)
But Jenn is really shooting herself in the foot with this one. Tamra says that Ryan started at their gym in February or March and by October, Jenn’s ex-husband Will caught them boning in the car like horny teenagers. Jenn, on the other hand, says that she and Ryan never slept together until she was divorced from Will. Come. On. Lady. Do you expect any of us to believe that? This is like the distinction that Tom Sandoval made that he only slept with Raquel once before starting the affair. There was an affair either way; when it started, what you did, or how often it occurred is totally moot.
We got all of this information thanks to Emily Simpson, DA, the older sister of Meghan King Edmonds, PI, who passed the bar exam. (On her first try, unlike Shane.) Emily is absolutely grilling her about when they met, if she got Will a job in Oklahoma just to get him out of her hair, and whether or not they were boning before the divorce. I know a lot of people think that Gina and Emily are boring, but this is where Emily earns her paycheck, asking the tough questions we all want the answers to and not settling for any flimflam. As she says, “The situation is probably a lot more salacious than she is letting on and I’m trying to get in there and get it out because that’s what I fucking do.â€
As this conversation is going on, Tamra leans in and tells Jenn to just be truthful, which I think was actually show advice. This was Tamra, the vet, saying to Jenn, the newbie, that everyone is going to find out the truth anyway and if she’s caught lying about it, then it’s going to make her look bad. Well, she’s been caught lying about it and, yes, it makes her look bad.
But before we can sink into that like it’s the bottom of the ocean, Tamra and Eddie cut the CUT Fitness cake and Tamra tries to smear it all over her husband’s face. Emily starts shouting, “You’re wasting the cake,†and yes, I am right there with you, but then Tamra running around terrorizing everyone with desserts and Emily asking if someone wants a bite of the hunk of cake she’s rescued from the mêlée just made me giggle. I love when these women have fun, I love when things are light and silly, I love when the best fight we have is an adultery timeline. So maybe there’s a season in here after all.