Last night was the season finale of Real Housewives Of Orange County and with all the chaos, the only thing I could think about was that Gina Kirschenheiter is actually MOVING her word art collection. Like it’s priceless art. Frankly I’m surprised she wasn’t selling it to Sothebys. But seriously you guys, just like her marriage and her ex-man, that stuff is garbage!
Gina decided to reconcile with Matt, and she is glowing like a teenager with a crush as she tells Emily Simpson that he’s truly changed. Gina believes this is a second chance at their marriage. They’ve sold their Coto home and are moving some place new and fresh, and Gina doesn’t even worry about what Matt’s doing in LA.
Well, just like Gina cut the dead ends off her hair, she needs to cut off Matt! Emily knows this, but she tries to be supportive. We can see in others what we can’t see in ourselves, right!
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Someone who hasn’t changed is Shane Simpson. Emily goes to the doctor about her hip and learns she needs a replacement. When she calls Shane he’s all Joe Giuidce ‘whaddya want me ta do abouuuutit. I told youse it was bad.” except with even less emotion. I don’t know if Emily is more upset that she needs to get her hip sockets replaced with plastic, or that her husband is made of plastic and has all the empathy, but none of the sexiness, of a Ken doll. Emily’s daughter Annabelle is the one she brought to the appointment for moral support, and if Emily doesn’t recognize that Annabelle is going to wind up like her – trying to fix all the dysfunction in her parents life – I’m sincerely worried. Oh, also we learned that Shane didn’t pass the BAR. Again. But Shane already knew that before Emily even tried to read his results. I doubt Shane even took the BAR.
The big to do is that Vicki Gunvalson is engaged to Steve Lodge which requires a party. Emily isn’t planning it, because if she did the theme of this might actually make sense, instead that honor goes to Tamra Judge and Shannon Beador. First Shannon is now dating “Duff,” which is a more mid-90’s LA ‘shedding my suburban midwestern roots with a self-crafted re-naming’ than even Slade. Duff also has the dubious distinction of making child with another former Real Housewife of Orange County. That would Tammy Knickerbocker. I don’t remember her because I was too busy watching The Real World, but per the flashback Duff was an ass then and he’s an ass now!
Duff basically sexually harasses and fat shames Shannon on their date, except she’s too clueless and desperate to realize that the rules of flirting have changed since 1947 so she should get up and leave. Even more sad, though, is that Shannon is accustomed to this after years of being married to David, who found his solace in tortilla chips and another woman’s pink taco, but not in Shannon’s highly sterilized, free-range, wifi-free, fragrance free, fat-free, full fatuous, world of yippie health administered by a guru who calls herself Dr. Deb and wears a breastplate that says LOGO MY EGO.
Just like Shannon is forever chasing love, so is Braunwyn Windham-Burke. Except Brauwnyn is chasing her mother’s love and is gonna wind up perishing from dehydration at Burning Man if she doesn’t give up. Braunwyn throws some ridiculous cult-y yoga chant party in her backyard to bond with her mother. Really, Kelly Dodd needed to show up to whack Braunwyn over the head to knock some sense into her. After meditating on peace and love Dr. Deb self-congratulates herself by mommy shaming so-called helicopter mothers who don’t send their children to boarding school so they can party, aka have ‘me time.’ That was really a passive aggressive dig at Brauwnyn, who sits on the board at her kids school and keeps pushing children out so that someone will always love her the way her mother never had time to.
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So back to Vicki’s party. The theme is country western cowgirl cozy farmhouse shabby chic totally batshit crazy that you’re making such a big deal about a THIRD MARRIAGE. There is a broken down truck in the front entrance that I assume symbolizes Vicki’s leaky love tank. The unofficial theme is “Tamra Throws A Tantrum In A Barn.” Also if we want to make this Christmas-y, Kelly was giving birth to a new personality, a virginal attitude and conscience, and the three unwise amigas gave her nonsense, mirth, and looking good being the best revenge.
Anyway! After surviving anger management Kelly has decided she will attend the party to confront her demons. Because Satan is confusing and satan is marrying Steve Lodge in what she swears is her third and final wedding. Kelly went over to Gina’s to look at some word art, and now has a mantra about peace love and happiness, that she practices in the car with Dr. Brian. He’s a better guru than Dr. Deb, by the way. And Dr. Deb is at this party because Vicki is so desperate for friends she will invite the wacky mother of a woman she doesn’t like and doesn’t actually know or like. Steve is confused about why they hired Parliament Funkadelic to play at a hoe down.
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And HOE down is accurate! Hoe being Tamra, drunk and dry humping the dance floor. Tamra hit the sauce with a vendetta, and this is self-producing at it’s worst! Fearing that the inevitable Kelly and Vicki confrontation wouldn’t resume, Tamra decided to put a little Plan B in place by getting stupid wasted and fabricating a reason to be super angry at Kelly to start a fight and hopefully provoke a reaction out of Kelly. Except Kelly has been reciting “As soon as I’m with you I forget…” (Gina’s favorite!) and is all love happiness and light people on fire.
Kelly even manages to say hello to Vicki in what was the most awkward 3 minutes I’ve ever witnessed on this show and that includes the time David pretended to cry over Shannon’s fake death.
As Tamra drinks, she fumes about how Kelly is costing her $300k in a lawsuit against Jim Bellino for slander. Apparently Kelly tweeting Jim had drastic consequences in Tamra’s legal fight so now everything is Kelly’s fault. I’m sorry – was it Kelly who defamed Jim for years on TV, and then, years after he left the show went after him on a podcast!? Sure, Kelly shouldn’t have tweeted Jim in a fit of rage, but like Emily said Kelly isn’t being deposed. She hasn’t been called as a witness. The lawsuit between Jim and Tamra (and whatever is going on with Shannon) is going forth regardless, and Kelly hasn’t even been legally approached. Twitter, is not a court of law, regardless of what Tamra may think. Also Tamra take accountability for your actions!
As Tamra gets angrier and angrier, Shannon gets more and more desperate to prove that she’s a supportive friend until she gets angry and calls Kelly – gasp – “an asshole!” Now Shannon is going to need like 6 detox sessions with Dr. Moon with full colonic.
Since karma definitely exists somewhere in the Bravo Universe while Shannon and Tamra are complaining that Kelly is costing them money, Shannon accidentally lights her own hair on fire by leaning into a votive candle and Vicki tries to put it out by dousing it in tequila. Tamra doesn’t bother to try and help save Shannon because she is too focused on Kelly.
Tamra notices Kelly, Gina, Brauwnyn and Emily laughing and freaks out. She wants to go after Kelly, but Kelly doesn’t care, so Tamra goes for the low-hanging fruit: Gina. Tamra just starts eviscerating her. She literally lunges herself at Gina like Mothra, then runs off screaming into the trees. Tamra is so drunk though that even Gina kinda starts to laugh, and winds up chasing Tamra outside where she’s fake crying in a bush about how she can’t afford to send her kids to college because Kelly tweeted Jim Bellino.
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Look, if I’m gonna see a drunk Housewife in a bush it better be Luann de Lesseps. Tamra’s shenanigans are boring and contrived. Shannon and Vicki don’t even realize she’s gone until it’s been minutes of Gina yanking that rodent out of the foliage. Upon seeing Tamra with Gina, Shanicki both fly into rescue mode to prove that they’re the better friends to Tamra. Shannon lets Tamra cry in her lap, sitting on a curb, while Vicki, with her boobs flopping out of that hideous prom does bridal dress, yells that Gina doesn’t understand. To her credit Gina doesn’t want to understand and basically laughs at them. Gina – this is your wakeup call. Get it together or you will be Tamra in 20 years!
Back inside Kelly calls Braunwyn stupid for even pretending that Tamra and Shannon have a legit reason to be angry with her. Brauwnyn is shocked to see the side of Kelly everyone warned her about, but in this instance Kelly is correct. As Kelly said if you open your mouth with lies, you get sued, and that’s not her fault.
We end with Tamra going home with Eddie, who I just do not understand. Maybe she’s going to offer him anal again. Shannon sitting alone at the bar bellowing for a cocktail and Duff, in that order, but getting neither. Vicki tells Steve she loves him for the 300th time and he pretends he doesn’t hear her. This was after Vicki’s brother, Billy, confessed to Tamra that he doubts this marriage will work. Vicki swears that third time is a charm though. Tamra looked just overjoyed to get this piece of bad news about her friend, cause ammunition! But honestly Eddie never looks too thrilled to be around Tamra either, and they have a vacant gym all to themselves and country club membership!
Gina is all excited to introduce Braunwyn to Matt, and then we get the sad update that Matt is headed to trial on suspicion of domestic violence. You can go to trial for that? Emily – help me! Emily got a new hip, but sadly not a new husband. YET! Hopefully these new hips will be made for walking right out on Shane!. For now Emily admits last year sucked, but she wants to try and work it out. She can borrow some of Gina’s framed word art for inspo!
Brauwnyn still has mommy issues, but since she’s the cool mom she’s BFF with her daughters. And nothing like Dr. Deb.
Kelly broke up with Dr. Brian and is now engaged. She is not speaking to Tamra, Shannon, Vicki or Jim Bellino‘s lawyers. Well, that’s a wrap!
TELL US – DID TAMRA HAVE A GOOD REASON TO BE MAD AT KELLY? WILL VICKI AND STEVE MAKE IT DOWN THE AISLE?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]