REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY – 2/15/12

Enough of that sideshow. “Come on b*tches, siddown!” shouts Vicki, and that’s a direct quote. The first Southern dish is gumbo garnished with Fritos, and Heather and Tamra start freaking out. Dude, it’s FRITOS! What’s not good with Fritos? And this is why my ham looks like this, and theirs are shaped like bananas or whatever Dr. Butt said was the optimal fruit last week. Tamra distracts her new friend and pretend business prospect Heather from the presence of deep-fried carbohydrates by shouting “Look over there! Gretchen got her lips done!” Gretch most certainly did not! She’s wearing lip plumper from Gretchen Christine Beaute! And that pounding noise is the first nail being driven into the coffin of their love.

Following the gumbo that was purely a vehicle for Frito consumption (Fritos being a delectable but nontraditional accompaniment to gumbo), they are served big plastic garbage bags full of non-disembowled crustaceans. Alexis is totally freaking out and looking for a brown paper bag to puff into. Heather points a slender, graceful finger and intones, “What is this….situation?” It’s Cajun shrimp and crawfish, but of course! None for Gretch – she only stuffs hot, juicy heads into her mouth at home, thanks. “Oh my,” breathes Heather. Vicki finds both of them totally disrespectful. If you can’t say anything nice to your hostess, you should say nothing at all. Unless you are Vicki, of course, in which case have at it.

After no one approaches the spicy little bags o’ creatures, Vicki announces that they are going to go mingle, then have dessert, so “mingle mingle”! Alexis, who is starving, can’t wait for dessert. “Are you going to pour ketchup on it?” asks Peggy. “Please don’t pout ketchup on mine.” Alexis, who is always right, thinks Peggy should have thanked her for pouring ketchup all over her food last season in San Antonio. Peggy thinks Alexis is not the sharpest tool in the shed, as evidenced by her challenges in forming complete sentences. Oh, why can’t they just make up and love Jumbo together, as he dreams they would?

Vicki kicks everyone out, and to wrap it all up with a bow Peggy decides she needs to go after Alexis and confront her about the ridiculous allegations she stalked Jumbo, because she’s not going to do the show anymore and therefore will miss her last chance to clear her name. Because, you know, we all really have doubts about that stuff. But Alexis, ensconced in the limo, curtly dismisses her. In her final ITM, Peggy shares that one of the main contributors to her post-partum depression (which Alexis had too, and WORSE!) was anxiety, and this whole sh*tshow is nothing but a toxic anxiety creator, so goodbye. And good luck to Peggy. Hope your husband’s financial issues work out okay.

Let’s start afresh with Heather! Tamra has previously sized Heather up perfectly as everything Alexis wants to be and isn’t: elegant, classy, smart, and the possessor of real money. That’s about right. Heather was raised in Chappaqua, NY (current home to the former President and Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton), but was dragged kicking and screaming to her limestone oceanside casa grande by Dr. Terry Dubrow, accomplished plastic surgeon who may have restricted at least one man’s access to marital relations by stapling his wife’s butt cheeks together or some such, but that’s all alleged stuff and we really don’t know what the wife wanted in the first place. But for the most part, many happy customers, so many that the casa grande has an elevator!

Heather, who often feels like “the only Jew brunette in a sea of shiksa blondes”, is the mother of 8-year-old twins (Max is the girl and Nicky the boy, which makes tons of sense and couldn’t possibly result in any future anxieties or social issues, nosiree), a 5-year-old named Katarina, and an accidental 10-month-old named Collette, who is the reason they need to vacate this fabulous abode and rebuild elsewhere, because they just have no place to put her. Too bad, because the movie theater looked like it would be a nice place to hang out once they buy furniture.