There are just some people whose absence in your life feels nothing short of palpable. It’s not even the lack of their physical presence that creates the smoldering void, but all of those damn associations you stumble upon – daily, hourly. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself tripping dangerously over song lyrics. You bang headfirst into television commercials that advertise products you once would have purchased just to see that person smile. You fall with a painful thud down a whirring rabbit hole that’s been lined with a tarnishing silvered memory and land, totally disoriented, into a pit of what you are certain must be simmering regret. When you wake up in the morning, another name pops into your fatigued brain, even before you wipe the cloudiness of sleep from your eyes, even before you remember your own name.
You finally understand why just the syllables that make up the word “longing” sound so incredibly hopeless.
I have not experienced any of the above emotions during the many months that have gloriously stretched by since The Real Housewives of Orange County has graced my television screen. I have not missed a single one of those ladies or the bedazzled tank tops they wear without even a hint of irony. And while I suffer from the terrible affliction of always wanting to give a person a second (or a nineteenth) chance to prove he or she is not a total assh*le, my opinions are already rather solidified when it comes to some of these women who have suffered continuously due to the exposure and stress being a part of this show brings into their lives – and yet they still always come back for more, more, more.
That’s not to say that I harbor hatred for all of them. There’s a few I sort of like. Let’s start with Meghan. During her inaugural season, Meghan made quite the seismic impact – and I’m not just talking about the ways in which she singlehandedly destroyed the headband industry by constantly wearing unnecessary accessories on the crown of her head that had golden sh*t dangling down her forehead. Married to a callous d*ck (and nobody likes a d*ck that’s calloused), Meghan fought with Shannon, eventually made tepid amends with Shannon, and almost singlehandedly brought Brooks’ duplicity about his cancer claims to light. She even made the bold move to call a cancer treatment center to find out if the place even offered some of the tests Brooks alleged he had gotten there and found out that they do not. I’ll go ahead and applaud Meghan’s gigantic balls and I’m so impressed, I’ll even use some vernacular that Meghan will understand to express my appreciation: #ImpressiveSleuthingNancyDrew
#NowDivorceYourHusbandBecauseHeSucks
A Housewife who did not have a great first season ended up having a rather fantastic second season. When she first appeared on this show, Shannon might as well have worn a banner that declared her the PERSON LEAST LIKELY TO BE ABLE TO HOLD HER SH*T TOGETHER WHILE CAMERAS WERE AROUND. Her marriage was a ragged mess and she seemed to constantly be hanging by one very gnarled nerve. She tried to combat her crises with herbal supplements and acupuncture and became fast friends with Vicki Gunvalson, a pairing that only caused me to judge her harshly. But Shannon grew on me last season and I found myself really rooting for her much of the time. She and David sought to rebuild their marriage and even though watching them attempt to feel just a bit of real happiness stripped little pieces of hope off my soul, she rounded out the season as one of my favorites. She began to call bullsh*t on what was, in fact, total and complete smelly bullsh*t and she distanced herself from Vicki, a choice that is just good solid sense. My hopes are high for Shannon this year. I want her to stay strong, keep wearing her cute glasses, and call Vicki four times a week somewhere around midnight just to tell her that Jesus would have hated her before giggling and hanging up the phone.
As for Heather, I confess that I’ve always had a soft spot for her. Yes, her garish mansion is nothing short of ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to vacation there. I know some people – like her fellow castmates – find Heather to be uptight and snooty, but I think what they’re reacting to is her class, intelligence and mental stability, qualities some of them have never been in such close proximity to before. I do question sometimes why she’s even on this show, but then I remember that her husband snagged himself a show on E! and that despite the fact that she was an actress before she became a Real Housewife, I had never heard of her before she held out an orange in the opening credits of this series.
Then there’s Tamara, who last year found God but has yet to manage to locate a new place to buy clothing. I felt sad for Tamara last season, what with her estranged daughter and piece of shit ex-husband and having a grown son who will surely be studied in a Criminology class at some point in the very near future. There’s a chance some of Tamara’s struggles finally managed to soften this once ultra-coarse woman and you could actually see her newfound desire to be kinder and more tolerant covering her skin like a foundation loaded with shimmer. She sat on couches beside Brooks and didn’t haul off and vomit onto his crotch. She showed restraint and I commend her for that. Unfortunately, she still seems to have this odd desire to be close to Vicki – and I will never support such a thing because the only thing that sucks more than Vicki is, well, nothing. I’ll say it again: nothing sucks more than Vicki sucks, and I say that during an election year where a totally unqualified man who looks exactly like a cheese doodle with a pompadour could possibly win.
And now I suppose I have to talk about Vicki, a woman who could spontaneously cause a fleet of people to choose atheism. Just in case you harbor the faulty belief that I’m being too hard on this dipsh*t, allow me to offer you a brief reminder of her televised actions:
1. She compared herself to Jesus and even mimicked the action of being nailed to the cross. Why did she do such an insane thing? Oh – it’s because she’s f*cking insane.
2. She lied and claimed that Heather’s husband sent a doctor to her home in the dead of night to treat poor Brooks since his body was being ravaged by cancer. This event never actually happened.
3. She continually chose her deceptive boyfriend over her own daughter and actually had the nerve to feign shock that Briana would dare to discuss any of Brooks’ glaring faults while on camera, even though Vicki knows full well that she would shrivel up and die and even her fake t*ts would wither away to nothingness should a camera ever stop following her to brunch.
4. She believes “whoop it up” is the kind of expression that does not cause waves of nausea in others.
5. She has proven herself to be the single weakest woman I’ve ever seen on television and she belongs in intensive therapy, not on camera. She will sadly never make that choice, though; she is far too addicted to D-level fame and the staggeringly incorrect belief that she is both smart and strong.
6. She treats others like garbage that’s been soaked in the piss of a possum, unless she decides she needs an ally.
I have about seventy other reasons why I hate Vicki Gunvalson locked and ready to go, but we’ve got all season looming in front of us and I need to shore up my strength. Besides, just thinking about that idiot’s tops with the cutouts that show off her cleavage has made my blood pressure skyrocket and the only thing that might calm me down right now is being given my very own three-story closet at Chateau Dubrow. I will bring my own hangers, but I will insist on being served a formal tea daily in the porte-cochere.
Oh, and as for the new cast member? As long as she refrains from reenacting the crucifixion, I’ll go easy on her for now.
We begin with some snappy split screens that allow us to see just what some of our Housewives have been up to these days. Shannon appears to wile away her time on the basketball court in the lower level of her home with her husband and her children. Heather teaches one of her young daughters the importance of a hostess gift by allowing her to use crayons to color the wrapping paper. Meghan stands on a stool to reach the top portion of her closet. Tamara works out like a superhero whose superpower is warding off menopause. And Vicki? She is not in this stylish opening montage and any thoughts you harbor that maybe she’s gone for good are just a terrible tease and we all know it. She has not been dragged out into the sea so she can go live on some island whose natives will go fleeing towards modern civilization after a mere fifteen minutes spent with that shrieking harpy. Sadly, she will show up soon enough.