After that nutty scene, who really cares about the fact that Terry might freeze on camera as he’s selling some skincare most of us will never buy? I will happily say that Heather looks amazing in her red sheath and it’s an outfit that should be seen, so it’s nice that Meghan is having a viewing party over at her house where they can all gather to watch their friends either bomb harder than anyone ever has or succeed wildly. I’m not sure that watching a loop of any kind of home shopping qualifies as a scintillating viewing experience, but I’d totally show up at Meghan’s house for the event because she has lettuce wraps over there and I go where the good snacks are.
(During the commercial interlude, we get to watch as Brooks takes forty pills that I’m sure Lenka The Grass Lady prescribed for him while Vicki gags adorably in the background and I pondered if the time will ever come when mandatory sterilization could be put into effect for people convicted of murder, rape, or willingly appeared on a reality show for more than a decade.)
Back in the television studio, Heather and Terry are getting started on live TV while Tamra, Shannon, Lizzie and Meghan are on Meghan’s couch watching the festivities. Terry calms down the moment he starts talking and he does a great job in spite of the fact that he’s as orange as an Oompa Loompa living in a pumpkin patch, but at least he doesn’t faint on that white set. And just as everything is going swimmingly and everybody at Meghan’s is having a grand old time, Terry mentions over the airwaves that one of the ingredients in the skincare line is the very same thing that Brooks is blasting into his allegedly ravaged immune system. At the mention of the word, Shannon points at the screen and Meghan and Tamra look stunned as Terry says its an agent to help delay aging. Lizzie – she who was relegated to a SOMETIMES YOU GET TO HANG WITH THE ACTUAL HOUSEWIVES! status – wants to know why what Terry said is getting such a huge reaction and Meghan tells her that it’s what Brooks is taking to cure his cancer and in the best line of the night (and maybe the season), Lizzie smiles at the camera and says, “Soooo, Heather and Terry’s product cures cancer!”
They’ll bring it all back to Brooks later, but for now the women on Meghan’s sofa are feeling a little silly so they call in to the home shopping network and immediately are put through to Heather and Terry. I’m sure not a moment of that was planned. After all, don’t we all have the number for home shopping networks plugged into our phones? Despite speaking with what I think was supposed to be a southern accent and calling herself “Cinnamon,” the Dubrows instantly know it’s Tamra calling. The entire interaction is kind of sweet but Heather wants to hang up on her friend so she can actually sell some of this sh*t so she and her family don’t wind up homeless.
Event television over, Lizzie’s time to hang with the actual Real Housewives ends like someone set an egg timer. In her absence, Tamra, Shannon, and Meghan discuss the latest text they received from Vicki, one that states Brooks still has cancer and she would like her friends to send some hope their way. That’s when Tamra tells the others that she went over to see Brooks and Vicki and that she was shown a PET scan that proves he’s got masses in his abdomen. Masses? Vicki never mentioned the masses before and Meghan thinks it’s bizarre that Vicki left that part out but here I have to say that Meghan sounds a little crazy. Vicki is not her friend so perhaps she wouldn’t reveal everything to her and maybe she didn’t even know he had a mass – or maybe there is no mass – but to act stunned because a woman who hates you left out some information you deem worthy seems weird.
Know what else is weird? That Meghan researched Newport Imaging, the place where Brooks said he got his scans done – and the place doesn’t do PET scans and hasn’t done them since 2008. The research Meghan’s done is blowing Shannon’s mind and Tamra might actually fully explode right there on Meghan’s couch and Shannon is also hurt that she wasn’t the one Vicki asked to fight her battles for her, though I think that was just some mild insecurity talking and she should thank them for keeping her out of it at this stage by sending them a basket of Edible Arrangements, but not with any of the fruit that’s been dipped in chocolate because that’s the good stuff and Vicki and Brooks kind of blow.
When it’s really considered why Vicki and Brooks didn’t show the report to Shannon, Tamra says something kind of interesting. “Maybe they showed me because I don’t know how to read medical reports,” she says – and it might be the most astute thing the woman has uttered in a decade. I might not like her, but I think that Tamra is trying really hard to give those two the benefit of the doubt and I think that Brooks (and maybe Vicki) are taking advantage of her and doing so while heralding true friendship and loyalty and it’s awful and sad and so sick that I’m shocked there wasn’t once a Bret Easton Ellis book that told this sordid little tale.
“Do you think he’s lying?” asks Tamra. “Do you think he made this report up?”
“Yes,” replies Meghan without even a single second of hesitation.
Tamra’s not sure what to believe. Brooks seemed so sincere, she tells the others, and Meghan insists that all she wants is truth and justice and I’d think that she was trying out for the newest incarnation of Super Friends with that line, but that’s making light of something that’s just not all that amusing anymore and really hasn’t been for a very long time.
“What do we do now?” asks Tamra.
I don’t have an answer for her and neither does anybody else but I’d definitely recommend that they all lock their doors tightly, light some candles to ward off evil spirits, keep a butcher knife on the bedside table, and pray for daylight and a world in which these women’s lives aren’t actually a horror movie come true.
Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon. Check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.