Real Housewives of Orange County Recap – 7/13/15

I was gravely concerned that after the outpouring of genuine sentiment and human devastation that occurred on last week’s show that it would be impossible for me to dive right in and judge these women in the way that they are apparently fine with being judged as long as they continue to hold onto a semblance of fame and the hope that they’ll one day snag an endorsement deal for a line of alcohol that nobody off one of these shows ever drinks. I mean, things started to feel different. An actual death transpired. There is now a body count in the OC.

Luckily for me – and really anybody who has a television and tunes in to this Botox-and-silicone-freak-show – Tamra still exists and the episode begins with some of her typical ridiculousness that allows me know immediately that everything will be just fine. Like a warm embrace from a t*t-enhanced angel, the first scene floated down and bathed me in the security and knowledge that life happens in cycles, that seasons pass seamlessly into the next, and that Tamra Barney will always be the kind of woman who will appear onscreen in close-up wearing a “Muscles & Mascara” long sleeved tee – where do they actually sell that sh*t? – while she packs up pink baby clothing covered in rhinestones and tulle and prepares for the joyous occasion of when she will officially be anointed The Hottest Grandmother in all of Orange County proper. But just in case she’s off shopping for bedazzled granny/baby matching tank tops when the ceremony commences, she has decided to just go ahead and crown herself.

Standing beside her as she packs is Tamra’s own mother and she tells her mom that only one person is permitted to be in the delivery room during the C-section and Tamra would like to be the one in there since everything, including someone else’s placenta, is all about Tamra. And because a Housewives-style narrative requires either real or pretend continuity and framed storylines, we are quickly shuttled to the next scene that involves another parental dynamic: Meghan and her stepdaughter on the beach. They are there to do paddleboard yoga, a thing I never knew was actually a thing and now I absolutely need to try it and I realize and accept that I will either discover that I am a downward dogging paddleboarding queen or that I will drown in fifteen minutes flat.

Meghan and Hayley? They have a nice relationship. Meghan attributes their bond to the fact that, as a young stepmom, she’s able to be so insanely cool that she’s gifted with the ability to discuss obscure things that nobody over thirty has ever heard of – stuff like Twitter and Instagram – with her stepdaughter, and I’d ignore a moronic statement like that and instead applaud how well Meghan almost does the crow whilst balancing on a paddleboard, but then she goes ahead and actually says “hashtag stepmomhood” and I think there needs to be an immediate intervention – right there in the ocean – where someone besides me treads water next to her paddleboard and begs her to stop f*cking talking in hashtags before swimming proudly to the shore. Maybe the intervention could also cover the fact that Shannon is drinking far too much these days, though that intervention should definitely take place on land, and if everyone is too afraid to broach such a subject with a crazy woman, maybe we could all just start buying her shorter glasses so she consumes less vodka at a time.

It just seems easier to blame Crate and Barrel.

While Meghan and Hayley are attempting to tone up and stay afloat, Heather meets Lizzie at a restaurant across town and they order food that we never see them so much as smell and Heather tells Lizzie all about what happened at Game Night and how Vicki’s loss impacted everyone. Heather literally chokes up while talking about her friend’s pain and then we cut back to Meghan and Hayley and Meghan is choking up too because she shares that she was watching the entire thing transpire and couldn’t stop thinking about Hayley and about how she’s going to lose her own mother soon. It’s an honest, lovely conversation that’s not an easy one to have and I commend Meghan for building a true relationship with her stepdaughter.

#You’vealmostredeemedyourselfbutpleasestopf*ckingpushingit.

In an odd and almost perverse twist of fate that couldn’t have possibly made the producers of this franchise any more thrilled, Tamra’s granddaughter is being born on the same day as Vicki’s mother’s funeral. Tamra is feeling a wave of guilt for experiencing such joy about the upcoming baby and for when her Hottest Grandmother sash and matching thong arrive in the mail while Vicki is feeling such sorrow and she begs her own mother to never die, which is, of course, our greatest collective human fear. Proving that she is also attempting to be a good friend, Tamra arrives at Vicki’s house later that night with her husband to console an inconsolable Vicki who is packing blindly for her mother’s funeral. Brooks is trying to help, though he is not invited to the funeral because Vicki’s family does not accept Brooks. Now, that’s a sh*tty situation any way you carve into it. If Vicki needs this guy during what will certainly rank in the top three of the very worst moments of her entire life, she should be able to bring him. But then there’s that flaming scarlet flag that screams that if nobody approves of this guy, there must be some pretty strong and well thought-out reasons for feeling that way. We have all seen some of Brooks’ vile past behavior because the same camera crew that Vicki is openly weeping in front of also spent copious time over the last two seasons capturing Brooks as he behaved similarly to whatever species a slug belongs to and maybe there is also some Brooks stuff we haven’t been privy to, and all I know is that I cannot be the only one wondering what it is that we haven’t yet seen. In any case, watching a sick man who is banned from an entire family unit during a burial lead a prayer on a couch with Vicki, Tamra and Eddie feels uncomfortable for me for all kinds of reasons, but since I wasn’t on that couch, I guess I hope it brought them some comfort and I’m just thankful that nobody has mentioned an enema so far tonight.