The ladies discuss Heather’s appearance on television where she hocked her skincare line and Tamra jumps in to sarcastically say that she loves how the products not only bring life to your skin, but apparently they also cure cancer! Yes, it’s time to go back to the Brooks story, though to be fair, have we ever really moved on from it? Shannon explains that when Terry listed the ingredients of the line onscreen and the women heard that the moisturizer included the very thing that Brooks was pumping into his body in the most alternative cancer treatment process of all time, there was a moment of surprise that took place. But it seems that Brooks’ story is once again shifting like the muck you sink into in a lake because Heather says that Vicki told her that Brooks is doing a bit of the alternative treatment before heading right back into chemotherapy. Upon hearing that news, Tamra insists that what Vicki told Heather is not true and that she recently met with Vicki who told her that Brooks’ cancer has spread. She also tells Heather that Brooks and Vicki showed her his newest scans and that what she saw was a piece of paper filled with rows of medical jargon that contained no spaces or punctuation. Heather’s reaction is classic. She stays calm and shakes her head in muted disbelief and comes right out and asks Tamra why they chose her to show the documentation to when Terry is a doctor. After all, if they really wanted to prove everyone wrong, wouldn’t they ask a doctor to read the charts so he could go to bat for the wrongly accused? It comes down – once again – to the fact that nobody really believes Brooks anymore and they now also feel deeply conflicted about their friendship with a woman who is either blatantly deceiving them or allowing herself to be deceived terribly and refuses to hear her friends’ concerns about a matter she made public in the first place. On the positive side, with Vicki on the outs, Shannon feels a real bond now with Tamra and Heather and she is so secure in these friendships that she tells them that David had an affair. I hadn’t realized that the affair had been a deep dark secret – you know, since it’s been brandished all over a reality show – but it turns out that both Tamra and Heather already knew about it. It seems they also kept their mouths shut and didn’t spread gossip about another woman’s misery so it’s quite likely that in the near future Shannon will apply a homemade facial to the skin of these two women because that’s what you do in Orange County when you are best friends. Shannon also trots out the statistic of the 72% divorce rate that burns through the area of the coast she calls home and the women nod and ask her how she is doing and Tamra suggests that perhaps David wants to get baptized alongside her and the whole thing is pretty funny in as funny as a lunch can be when the main topics of conversation are fake cancer scams and marital infidelity.
While her friends who now hate her are bonding over her boyfriend’s lies, Vicki and her family head out for a day at the petting zoo. (I am telling you honestly here that nothing would bring me more joy than feeding llamas and donkeys, even if I had to do so next to Vicki Gunvalson. I love me a petting zoo.) The place is great. There are guinea pigs that can be pet and ponies to ride and it seems like a lovely way to spend a day with a mother who has the single worst taste in men in the whole wide world. Brianna knows that her mother is fighting to make something disgusting and wrong work because of her grave fears of ever having to wake up alone, and I will just say that when a daughter can smell a mother’s desperation, it’s nothing but sad. Such a thing could even ruin a day at a petting zoo, but luckily there are carousels to ride and spinning round and round is a great way to practice avoidance for an afternoon. Besides, that petting zoo apparently smells better than Vicki’s house does.
A day with the animals was great, but now it’s time for Tamra to meet up with Brianna for lunch. The meeting was initially Vicki’s idea. She implored Tamra to be a good friend and to go to bat for Brooks with Brianna because there’s nothing more effective than asking your sometimes bestie to do everything possible to make your daughter not hate the man who advocated physical abuse against her. Tamra’s known Brianna for a long time now and they seem to have a rather honest relationship but first they talk about the weather before they slide into the Brooks bullsh*t at hand. Tamra explains that Vicki asked her to speak with Brianna about maybe giving Brooks a break and that she tried to let her own animosity over the guy go, but Brianna maintains that she has zero desire to ever be around the man. And Brianna’s not the only one who feels that way. Vicki’s mother also allegedly despised Brooks before he died, a claim that is the exact opposite of what Vicki told her friends. With all of these newfound inconsistencies about not only Brooks’ behavior but now Vicki’s too, Tamra is confused and she’s conflicted and so she decides to dive on in and tell Brianna about what’s been going on with the cancer stories that keep shifting like Brooks’ life is one of those books where you get to choose your own adventure and change anything you please on a whim just to make the story more interesting.
“The girls think that Brooks is duping your mom,” Tamra ventures – and I think it’s hilarious that she doesn’t then scream, “and I think so too!” Brianna’s reaction is to sigh and then explain that some of the treatments that Brooks claims to have received for his illness made little to no sense to her – and she’s a nurse who might know about such things. She also reveals that the kind of cancer Brooks alleges to have had years ago is not the kind one typically survives and his “recovery” from such a disease was in fact so spectacular that she says he should’ve ended up in a medical textbook if any of it were true. In fact, Brianna explains that she asked Brooks a ton of questions about the timeline of his illness and it finally came out that what he really suffered from was not pancreatic cancer, but an inflammation of the pancreas that can be caused by alcohol abuse. Tamra is trying to process the whole wretched mess she’s been made privy to and Brianna claims that she will kill the guy herself if he’s been lying to her mother this entire time, but it doesn’t seem likely that anything will ever be proven definitively, especially because Brianna believes what Meghan has already predicted will occur: that one day Brooks will claim to be magically cured of a cancer he never actually had in the first place and nobody will be able to prove him a total f*cking liar.
Leaving a serious meeting between two emotionally-ravaged women, we enter a make-up place where Shannon brings her daughters so they can learn all about proper skincare. I’m not sure why they don’t just call Terry Dubrow and ask if they can borrow his medical scrubs while lathering themselves with his new line of exfoliants, but it’s nice that Shannon is spending the day with her kids and advocating the use of organic eyeliner. Shannon’s proud of her kids and how they have come through the repercussions of David’s affair and since her children haven’t toilet papered any mansions recently, she is pleased as a vodka-infused punch to purchase them some mascara.
On a different shopping expedition – this one sponsored by God – Tamra is ready to pick out her baptism ensemble. She wants everyone to wear all white to her big holy day and she doesn’t care for even a millisecond that some people think they look fat in white. It is her day, dammit, and if she can’t part the seas or make the sky rain locusts or vibrators, she will at least enforce a dress code! Vicki arrives to help Tamra pick out something that might make her appear angelic to someone who is blind and her first response to seeing Tamra in one of the dresses is to say what any wonderful friend would: “That dress looks like crap on her. It looks better on me.” Yes, there’s nothing but purity and goodwill abounding in the OC tonight.
As Tamra slips her (oh dear lord) hot pink jacket back on, Vicki tells her that Brooks is going for some bone marrow test and she is hoping he’s in remission. After all, he looks great these days and he’s feeling great too and it must be from his diet and not at all because he was never sick in the first place. Tamra tells Vicki – to her face, which is kind of impressive for Tamra, a woman used to sniping behind the backs of her friends – that she feels like she’s been put in the middle of the Brooks thing. She now feels like she was used and that Vicki should have presented the “proof” of Brooks’ illness to the group instead of asking her to do it. Vicki obviously counters with the undisputed fact that Satan has taken over and he and not her charlatan boyfriend is the sole reason for the mess they are all wading through. That’s right; Beelzebub is right there in Orange County and he is wrecking havoc on her friends by implanting doubts in both sides of their brains. Honestly? I’d sooner believe that the devil hangs out all day at a juice bar in California with the intention of shoving bad thoughts into the minds of Housewives than believe that Brooks is legitimately sick anymore. I was really on the fence about whether or not the guy was faking anything for a long time and maybe it’s just the cohesive editing strategies that have finally gotten to me, but I no longer buy that Brooks is or has ever been sick. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong – but at least I’m standing in some good company now and the devil’s flames are keeping me tan.
Tamra also tells Vicki that she met with Brianna and there appears to be nothing she can do to get Brianna to not want to vomit all over Brooks’ face any time she comes into contact with him and Vicki nods and says that she knows it’s hopeless for now. The problem here is that Brianna, for whatever her faults, loves her mother and Vicki should maybe open her eyes already and realize that her own child thinks her boyfriend is the single worst homosapien ever discovered in any era. Perhaps Vicki might want to listen to the dire warnings being communicated by everyone around her because if every person who knows Brooks shares one negative opinion about the guy and she’s the only one who doesn’t, perhaps she’s the one who is mistaken. Vicki then ends her harmonious afternoon with Tamra by announcing that Brooks will not be coming to her baptism and if anyone tries to talk to Vicki about any of it, she will refuse to engage. And why will she refuse to discuss the matter? Because “you can’t fix stupid,” and if irony had a face right now it would unfortunately look just like Vicki and that would really suck for irony.
On the morning of her baptism, Tamra gets her makeup done like all the Catholics did before her and talks about anal sex on the phone with Shannon. Shannon is having a rough day. She did a colonic earlier and it appears that there’s a piece of plastic from the thing that’s now stuck in her ass. Don’t you hate when that happens? Now she must do an enema to lodge the thing free and she blessedly closes the bathroom door while she shoves something else up her rectum. Proving that their marriage is better than ever, David helps her out by sticking his finger clear up his wife’s ass and it appears that he didn’t wash his hands before walking out the door to a baptism and all of that is still far more appetizing than watching Vicki profess Brooks’ innate goodness to her brother, the only person on the planet who is willing to listen to her anymore.
The blonde shrew doth protest way too much.
“Satan loves confusion,” Vicki muses with the conviction of a moron as her limo barrels its way towards a baptism. And then, just to appear even more idiotic and totally lacking in both awareness of herself and the way a show she has been a participant on for a decade works, she follows up that perfect Satanic nugget with the words, “How can there be any conflict at a Jesus party?”
This woman and her lying and leaking mess of a man are hitchhiking to hell in a f*cking handbasket. Friends, heed my words! Whatever you do, do not offer them a ride because it’s hot and simmering where they’re going – and maybe also avoid whatever home colonic Shannon still feels poking through her anus as well.
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.