When I was the creative lead for Bravo’s social channels, there was one rule. Well, there were many rules –don’t give Kate Chastain notes on a promo line read (she had me kicked off set, and I was the director), don’t remind Karlie Kloss that she’s married to a Kushner, etc.– but there was one that’s relevant now: don’t ever pit the wives against each other.
My team and I were responsible for 400 (yes, 400) creative concepts a month, and for every “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Bingo Card,” or the dreaded “Scorpio Bravolebrity Compilation Clips” (this took about 8 million hours of combing through footage and deep dives into when everyone who’s ever been on Bravo was born), all we really wanted to do was pit the wives against each other. Well, I don’t work there anymore, so here’s last night’s episode of the Real Housewives of Orange County, broken down wife v. wife style.
Gina vs. The New One
I won’t lie, Gina has always seemed like a strange fit for a show about rich housewives in the town that gave us Laguna Beach. But this season, she’s California Sober, has lost the abusive, cheating ex and 10-20 lbs, and apparently hired a stylist. Not 100% sold on the confessional look with all the denim and chokers, but she’s getting her real estate license and some standards. She’s even been leaving Heather Dubrow on read, which the old puppy-dog Gina never would have had the self-esteem to do. She’s thriving!
The New One, we hear her name is Jen. How many Jen’s are there in this town? Wasn’t that the last New One’s name too? The fake doctor with the fake “Riann”? To complicate thing’s further, Tamra’s oldest son is also named “Ryan” and also now into ranching. Sigh. Well, this new Jen’s implants are too 90’s, and more importantly, she cheated on her husband with Ryan, the over-tanned, under-height member of (trainer at?) Cut Fitness, may it rest in peace. Gina is very much not into hearing Jen justify her infidelity and the rest of the group is soon to follow. Case in point: the ladies are already a-flutter about Ryan’s reputation as a cheater. I’m cutting this relationship “close(d)”.
The unspoken fear of every Real Housewife is their husband running off with some skank at the gym with 90’s implants (which I’m 1,000,000% sure the producers considered and loved) so I don’t see this ending well for New One.
Winner: Gina
Emily vs. Montana
Emily is no fool. She worked hard as a lawyer while Shane couldn’t pass the bar, and now she’s ready to R-E-L-A-X and maybe take her daughter to a modeling agency for 9 year olds. If she calls Shane when he’s in court to ask him to adjust the A/C with his phone, there’s no way she’s trekking to a Dude Ranch to see Tamra pretend the entire trip wasn’t an excuse for her to show Heather she’s gotten better at riding a mechanical bull. Emily “has Covid,” and tells all the ladies via a video in which she in no way looks like she has Covid, while they are already at the airport.
Side note: You know she would be there if they were flying private.
Winner: Emily
Tamra vs. Shannon
This feud is boring me. But “that’s my opinion!!!!,” so I’ll cover it anyway. Shannon accused Tamra of trashing her on twitter and all such places in order to become relevant again and get un-paused a.k.a. back on the show. Who are we kidding? She definitely did.
Tamra accused Shannon of calling her late at night to complain about John leaving her places, which she definitely did, especially since we know John recently broke up with her. Last episode in the “We Cut It Close(d)” Cut Fitness closing party, Tamra was all tears about how much she wanted their friendship back and was so, so sorry for getting drunk and telling Shannon to “f*ck a duck” on Gina’s Barbiecore –I mean Flamingo– boat party. However, Tamra continues to make passive aggressive digs at Shannon in every single confessional. Shannon, on the other hand, pulls off a fun prank by pretending to be worried her 18 year old kids didn’t have a babysitter (aren’t most babysitters like 15?), when really she wanted to pull a classic Shannon and surprise them all with an on-theme saloon-wench costume.
Winner: Shannon
Heather vs. Taylor
It’s hard to come down on Taylor at all considering everything the poor woman has been through (back when she was a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, her abusive husband broke her jaw, lost all their money, and killed himself). Now she’s remarried to a guy she considers to be “pretty hot,” is comfortable advocating for her need to sleep in the bunk house rather than the glass room in the villa because “mamma has hormones,” and is for some reason doing a movie in Oklahoma.
Last episode, she asked Heather to come over when she had a weird acting coach who said to focus on blowjobs (that might help her get parts, but if she wanted this kind of advice, she should have hired a pre-#MeToo Ari Gold from Entourage). Taylor also offered Heather a role in this definitely not real movie when they were both drunk on the boat. Heather said yes right before she threw a glass shot glass against the bow.
Cut to Montana. Heather is extremely offended to learn she is expected to send a casting tape in for this fake movie part she doesn’t want, and even more offended that Taylor and Tamra looked up her pre-Terry IMDB and deemed it “not that impressive.” She even drops an f-bomb their way which from someone who thinks Chanel boots are appropriate “sh*t-kickers” and has a button for “Champs” in her closet, is extremely out of character. And if she can’t stay true to her character, maybe she isn’t ready to be offered parts?
Winner: Terry Dubrow
— because with 1/2 the kids out of the house, and “incidents” like this driving Heather to even more aggressively pursue her former life as a knock-off Fran Drescher, he’s all teed up for their move back to L.A. where the restaurants are “so much better.”