Last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County had a subplot that seemed both weirdly literal and colorfully metaphorical at the same time. A storm was brewing in Oklahoma, one that might be strong enough to sweep Vicki clear to the east coast with just one fierce tornado gust, but (luckily for those of us who reside on the east coast) that was just a hint of the real storm to come. The real bluster comes about at a party thrown by one of our illustrious Housewives – and at this point, I think I might only have disdain for those who continue showing up at events where they are verbally assaulted before being handed a gift bag.
But this is The Real Housewives and what that means is that a party cannot just kick off the hour! First we are invited on kind of a journey where we get to see how all of the relationships are currently lined up so that we know who the teams at the party will be. At this point, Meghan is the captain of one team and she is lobbying to name her team “BROOKS IS A F*CKING LIAR AND I HAVE PROOF” but she’s concerned that the team name won’t fit on their shirts. Brooks, who is either a liar or a man falsely accused of doing something so despicable that it almost defies comprehension, will lead up the other team. Obviously, Vicki will be the star of “TEAM WHOO-HOO,” but the real question is where the other Housewives fall. Prior to this episode, it appeared that Shannon and Tamra would join Vicki and Brooks’ team. They would shut their mouths and gaze at the floor and Shannon would grip some crystals tightly in her palm and chant for Vicki not to yell at her about anything and Tamra would pray directly to God for the same thing because she’s religious now. There was a chance that Heather might have joined Meghan’s team, but I think Heather would be far more likely to quickly jet off to some tropical land so she could avoid the conflict altogether. Still, the lines seem to have changed recently and the teams are no longer so clearly separated and it all becomes clear when Heather meets up with Meghan at a dinner where Shannon will join them a bit later.
How is Meghan doing? She is great! She just returned from a vacation with her husband and it was just the two of them, a dynamic that actually makes me feel cold inside when I think of it because there’s really only two options at this point when it comes to this woman’s husband: he’s either so incredibly shy and inhibited that he is incapable of acting human on camera or he was simply born with no positive human qualities whatsoever. Both choices make me feel serious willies. At any rate, the women immediately order drinks from a waiter that Heather knows so well that she might invite him to serve her flutes of champagne in the south wing of her castle and Meghan tells her that Hayley threw a rager at her mother’s house while all of the adults were out of town and trashed the place. (Anyone want to take a quick moment to stop reading this recap so you can go call your parents real quick and thank them for not broadcasting your teenage missteps to a televised audience of millions? I’ll wait.) Two hundred people came to the party. So did the police. And the kid was grounded for about an hour. Meghan is appalled by the lack of consequence enforced by Hayley’s parents and so is Heather, who claims that if her kid did that, she would ground her, rip her cell phone from her shaking hand, kick her perfectly pedicured foot down the kid’s throat, and then bald the kid for good measure. I officially endorse Heather for Mother of the Year!
Speaking of parents, Tamra’s mother lives with her now (was this a thing I was supposed to know before?) and that’s nice and convenient because it’s so much easier for Tamra to be her pimp when she’s under Tamra’s roof. She’s gotten a makeup artist to gussy her mother up for her first date in a long time and Tamra is there to vet her outfit and second-guess every single choice her mother makes. She’s obviously also there to call her mother “a hooch” and to tell her that she might as well plaster a sign to her forehead that says “Come f*ck me” because Tamra’s classiness is at its pinnacle when she is in her own home. It’s right about then when Ryan and his knit beanie walk into the room and all I can think for a second is that he creeps me out something serious and that’s even when he’s not talking about his nana dating. His very presence reads as ominous to me, but there’s no time to look for gun residue on his hands or hair fibers of a victim stuck in his beard because it’s time for his grandmother’s date. She looks pretty and relatively calm in her zebra top and Tamra and Ryan go on the date too so they can chaperone from a nearby table because nobody knows more about true love and morality than Tamra and her bearded offspring.
Across town, Shannon runs into the restaurant to meet up with Heather and Meghan. Shannon hugs them both. Perhaps I missed it, but it appears that she doesn’t even scan the table for a utensil she can maybe stab Meghan with before dessert and that has to mean that a truce between these ridiculous women has been brokered for now. Shannon decides to celebrate this truce with her standard vodka order and I have never seen people drink this regularly in my life. They all actually order food – it must be a Wednesday – and Shannon sticks on her glasses so she can read the menu and there’s something almost endearing about it and the way that her voice sounds like a comedic quacking when she’s not heaving in tears or stirring simmering emotional cauldrons filled with rage. She’s got a fun side, Shannon. Unfortunately, it’s often buried under what I’m gonna go ahead and diagnose as a martyr syndrome coupled with raging insecurity and a very shitty marriage.
Meghan is really pleased that Shannon has been kind to her for the last few weeks and they are in such a good place that Shannon is inviting her to her Aires Party! Could anything (short of having a pap smear while watching a loop of footage of large men getting colonoscopies) be more fun? But will Brooks attend the party? See, that’s the big question, just as it is whenever I throw a party and I worry if I’ll have enough alcohol and whether or not Brooks will show up. The issue seems to be that Vicki has made it very clear that Brooks will not ever show up anywhere Meghan is because Meghan is the devil in a bejeweled headband and Brooks is far too delicate to deal with such a monster. That said, it’s not only Meghan now who is talking about Brooks and his cancer and just how accurate his accounts of having the disease might be. Brooks knows that the population at large is now bandying about how much of what he says about anything is true and he obviously doesn’t want to have to defend himself or be around people who, at best, don’t trust him and, at worst, believe he is faking a deadly disease.
But see, harboring suspicions is one thing. Calling his doctor and saying you also have cancer so you can find out if Brooks is faking his disease is something else entirely – it’s a whole other stratosphere of crazy – and Meghan has piloted her own spaceship to that land and set up camp. Worse than that psychotic move is that she’s telling Shannon all of this, an act that – given their tumultuous history – makes just about no sense and leads me to question just how foolish Meghan is to share this information with a woman who has just barely started to tolerate her and was also the one to tell Vicki that Meghan was the one saying things about Brooks in the first place. But back to Meghan and her investigation. She maintains that the doctor Brooks is claiming to use doesn’t even deal with cancer patients and then it comes out that a while ago Shannon got him an appointment with some amazing oncologist and he never made it to there because of two flat tires. I think his dog might have also eaten his referral slip. As all of this is coming out, Heather doesn’t say too much, but what she does say kind of hits it all on the bleeding head: none of this is their business, but Vicki and Brooks decided to make it their business by confiding in all of them. She’s right, and perhaps nobody said it but what’s also implied here is that it’s our business now too. You’re going to make Brooks’ cancer a story point and allow cameras to follow him as enemas are discussed? Then we get to weigh in and judge now too, but I have to say that doing so feels like no fun at all because it’s all just unbelievably sick or tremendously sad and I should start watching Intervention or commercials for The Humane Society so I can see something more upbeat.
There will be more of a focus on Brooks later, but first it’s time for Tamra’s mother’s date! She might be nervous and all, but I think the camera crew she’s toted with her to the bar must offer her some comfort, as does shaking her breasts from side to side at the table and having her grandson tell her not to f*ck on the first date through a little game of charades. Just then Marty, a cute older man, walks in and the two of them sit down together. In under a minute flat, Marty says that he doesn’t have children because “I’m the kid,” which means that Tamra’s mother should strap on a giraffe-printed sports bra and immediately run zebra-like straight for the hills because infantile is only an adorable quality until around the age of four – and that’s only sometimes, like when the infant is sleeping.
At another table, Tamra tells Ryan that Eddie wants the financial assistance she gave to him to be a loan and not a gift. She’s been in this awkward place before, this rock (her kid and his financial issues) and a hard place (whichever husband she’s married to at the time who views her kid as a clear f*ck-up). She doesn’t want her relationship with Eddie to be compromised. But first it’s time to compromise her relationship with her son by having a fun little discussion about marriage. Does Ryan want to get married? He’s not sure and it’s because he’s seen her get married a bunch of times and that’s all it takes. All Tamra needs to hear is this tiny bit of truth that maybe she (like everybody else who has ever raised a kid) made some mistakes along the way for tears to shoot into her eyes and make Ryan’s commitment issues all about her even though her kid is making it abundantly clear that he all but committed to a stranger who already had three kids and now they have a child together and the issues are piling up because this is real life and real life presents some issues. Tamra suggests church to solve his issues because it’s church that has made her so kind and happy and easy to deal with and there’s a small chance that a meeting was just spontaneously called by the Pope to figure out how to deal with this issue before it becomes a public relations nightmare from which all organized religions might never recover.