“The Real Housewives of Orange County” this week picks up the day after the previous episode as most of the housewives are assessing the damage done the night before. Katie Ginella is hungover, and she’s not the only one. Shannon Storms Beador is wobbling on her axis somewhere between shaken and angry after a harsh exchange with Tamra Judge.
And Emily Simpson’s wondering if she went too hard at Jenn Pedranti for living large while being broke. “If you owe a bunch of people money, why are rolling around with a Rolex on?” she asks Heather Dubrow as the show flashes back to Emily calling Jenn stupid to her face for not selling the fancy watch to pay her bills. “Either hide it or sell it.
It tells me you’re stupid.” “OK, but don’t yell at someone because they’re dumb,” Heather replies. “I had too many espresso martinis and I probably shouldn’t be screaming across the table, ‘Pay your bills!’” Emily says.
Heather nods in agreement. “Also, the Rolex did not work,” Emily continues as she and Heather shop for Easter baskets for their kids. “I asked her what time it was and she’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know; it doesn’t work.
’ What the (heck)?” Most of the episode takes place on the road this week, though not in the typical way the housewives roll on their girls’ trips. Stress lines and broken alliances have divided our espresso martini-swilling tribe this season, and it’s hard for everyone to be in the same room right now. As all you fellow gluttons for punishment will recall, Shannon’s got beef with Tamra and Alexis Bellino , so this week we see the wives divide into two factions and head off to different destinations.
Gina Kirschenheiter invites Emily, Heather and Shannon to spend the night in the desert at the La Quinta home of former housewife Elizabeth Vargas, who has hired the freshly minted real estate agent Gina to sell her home for $8.9 million. This is Gina, you’ll recall, whom a year ago we watched struggle with basic questions on her real-estate license practice exams.
Gina, who said last season that she could “definitely nail like a really cute ensemble to go into bougie homes and sell them to people.” Emily is driving the gang in husband Shane’s pickup truck, and they are absolutely not supposed to eat anything inside the truck. Emily makes it down the driveway before she busts out a jumbo bag of Twizzlers.
When she picks up the others, Shannon has a crockpot full of chili to drive to the desert. Heather has a mini Weber grill. On the way out of town, they hit Jack In The Box for those greasy, messy, delicious tacos.
This will not end well for Shane or his truck, but Emily is not concerned. “Shane has high hopes none of us eat in his truck,” she says. “I’m going to say, ‘OK, I’ll listen to you,’ and then I’m not going to listen to him.
That’s how a marriage works.” Elizabeth shows the quartet around the mansion, including a koi pond so big it’s a koi lake. Elizabeth says there are supposed to be 500 koi in it which is .
.. koi-razy! Elizabeth leaves and Heather and Emily get right to work trashing her house.
Apparently, Heather does not know that when you shake a cocktail shaker you must hold onto both top and bottom or it comes apart and splashes booze all over a white kitchen. “Emily’s gonna shake, not me,” Heather announces after scrubbing up the rug on which her cocktails had fallen. Emily starts to shake and immediately proves that, as the philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
” Sploosh! Another cocktail shaker explodes on the white marble floor as Gina grinds her teeth and visualizes her commission shrinking by the minute. Out on the patio, Shannon decides it’s imperative to tell Emily how her BFF Gina was trash-talking her a few days earlier. Emily, who’s usually the sunniest, funniest housewife, goes into a funk that Gina notices right away.
Dinner is tense. Not only is Emily mad at Gina, Heather’s got a grudge of her own against our girl, and as Heather is louder and more vigorous in her complaint, Emily quickly gets over hers. “I thought I was mad,” she says, laughing once again.
If I had to pick one group to ride with, it would be Emily’s. At least they had snacks in Shane’s truck. All Tamra has in her truck is Alexis talking non-stop about how much she and John, Shannon’s ex, are in love.
“I feel like I’m getting to know John more than I’m getting to know Alexis,” Katie dryly tells the camera as Alexis praises his greatness nonstop. “Do you get a headache from talking so much?” Tamra finally asks her. There’s still lots of snow in Big Bear so the gang goes to ride innertubes down a slope.
Alexis talks all the way down. Before they head out to dinner, Alexis calls Johnny J, and for the first time this season, we see and hear him on her FaceTime call. “I just wanna have a good time,” Tamra tells the camera as Alexis’s cutesy talk gets cringier.
“I don’t wanna hear about John or Alexis and their sex lives.” “If I’m going to have a conversation with my boyfriend, I will,” Alexis says in her own confessional. Then, defending the innocence of the call: “We have enough sex without needing phone sex, OK?” At the end of dinner, Tamra makes a cryptic remark about heading back to the house to put Jenn on OnlyFans.
This turns out not to be a joke but Tamra’s big idea to help Jenn make some money to pay her bills. “I heard from some of my friends who are on OnlyFans that people pay big money for foot fetishes,” Tamra explains as she orders Katie to film Jenn’s foot as she smooshes it into a wholesome apple pie. Tamra licks Jenn’s foot clean and Katie has had enough.
“I kind of want to vomit a little bit,” she tells the camera. Related links.
