On last night’s Real Housewives Of Orange County, enemy factions were forced to come face-to-face for the second coming, actually THIRD coming, of Jim Edmond‘s reproductive prowess. By that I mean that Meghan Edmonds hosted a Sip and See, and decided the theme would be World War III by Bravo: Bitter-er, Blonder, Boozier.
First, though, there had to be a re-connection between Shannon “Poncho” Beador and Kelly “Rejuvenated” Dodd. Yeah, that turned into an everlasting friendship!
Vicki Gunvalson lives in a world in which no one but her equally delusional imaginary friend exists. Vicki’s slip was showing and it certainly was not virginal white as she menacingly promised to make Tamra Judge and Shannon suffer for turning their backs on her, like this is that 90’s Tori Spelling Lifetime movie A Friend To Die For where the unpopular girl takes revenge on the bully cheerleaders. Ugh – if Shannon and Tamra are your aspirational friends, oh dear than you, Vicki, are more screwed up than Brooks led us to believe you were!
Likewise, Tamra was seriously sinister in her catty comments and name calling towards Vicki. This season is DARK, and I don’t think I’d want my baby having anything to do with all these evil eyes.
Vicki seems to believe if she flaunts Steve Lodge playing Kindergarten Cop in a community theater production, we’ll all forget about heinous Brooks and his binders full of lies. Yes, Steve is a wonderful guy who answered all Vicki’s prayers for normalcy, stability, and love tank half-fullness (aka Donn Jr), but we still remember her tank being full and driving into the future with Brooks, riding shotgun as a scrub! We’re not the only ones who will #NeverForget, either! Shannon, who puts all her grudges in a bowl and calls them Feng Shui lemons, will never get over it; neither will Tamra, who puts all her grudges in an elliptical machine at Pasture Mike’s church and calls it a blessed booty.
Anyway, all this will coalesce at a Sip and See for poor innocent Aspen. Peggy Sulahian thinks Aspen will act as a magic talking stick, and whomever is holding her has to be nice. I personally wouldn’t let any of those Housewives hold my baby – including Meghan! Peggy certainly lives in a land of mixed metaphors.
I never understand Meghan. She saaaays she wants peace, love, and happiness. She saaaaays she’ll never forgive Vicktim, yet she invites her to her “baby shower with… the baby!” A baby Meghan almost forgot she had which she sometimes wants to look at in cute baby outfits, but not when there’s wine to drink or candles to sniff or Jimmy Dad Jeans to complain at! Anyway, Vicki promises to behave, and shockingly does, but immediately after she leaves Meghan trash talks her.
Making even less sense, than Peggy herself, is Meghan inviting her. Further proving that their friendship is doomed from the start, Peggy’s phone actually falls off the table and shatters when it’s vibrating from Meghan’s call. Peggy decides Meghan must earn her forgiveness by going to the Apple Store to repair the phone on Peggy’s behalf.
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Even though it was Peggy who grabbed her mouth and told her to shut up, Meghan doesn’t want the new person left out. Meghan looks like she’s chewing glass as she forces the invitation through her pursed lips – lips Peggy recently had between her pincher-like fingers. Although Peggy doesn’t understand what’s the big deal is – she was saving the dead horse from being beaten so the beaters could save their energy, then resurrecting the horse, adding wings and a unicorn horn so it can sprinkle beautiful rainbows of peace from its tail. Why beat a dead horse, then wake it back up, only to kill it again? “When something is dead, it’s dead,” Peggy decrees. Thank you for that clarification, I was confused. Anyway, don’t play Dr. Frankenstein around Peggy, kids!
Lydia McLaughlin and Doug are planning the launch party for NOBLEMAN Magazine, aka the reason Lydia is back this season to stir up trouble. YAY (arms waving like an inflatable waving wacky tube man outside a car dealership)! The theme is a shave and a sushi. Which does not sound delightful, and Lydia agrees.
Lydia doesn’t want to invite the Housewives because they may wreck her very real business launch. I mean, what if Shannon and Kelly clash with shaving razors, or chopsticks!? What if NOBLEMAN turns into IGNOBLE WOMEN (… with weapons of mass obstruction)?!
So many quandaries – including how to neutralize the problem of Vicki! To circumvent the 7th circle of hell that is Meghan’s nonsense event, and the second coming of Saton, which is Vicki – Tamra and Shannon meet at a baby store to strategize and shop.
Across town Vicki and Kelly are also shopping, but they both keep dry-heaving over the stench of poop in the baby store. Apparently they don’t realize that’s the smell of the bullshit coming from their own mouths! The owner eventually sprays Febreeze, but she shouldn’t have bothered since Vicki and Kelly were shopping on the sale rack!
Vicki warns Kelly not to believe Tamra’s apology was sincere, because this is Tamra’s MO: throw the grenade, promise she never meant to blow you up with said grenade and swear she’s sorry, then hide another grenade behind her back. The master plan apparently to blow up Kelly and Vicki’s friendship! General Tamra continues to divide and conquer. Isn’t Vicki doing the same thing by domineering Kelly, and taking quick action to scoop Peggy into her fold? Not in her onion!
The Two Unwisewomen, Shannon and Tamra, cometh with gifts of nonsense and mirth, and practice how to say hello to Vicki without letting her believe they want to be friends again, or without causing a scene, or without looking like Hannibal Lechter. Would Shannon really eat another human, Tamra?! They practice how to handle the awkward interaction. Hellllllooooo trills Shannon in a high falsetto, HELLLLLLLOOOOO she rumbles in a low roar, HELLo she chirps in a tinkling voice, tossing her hair – as if Vicki won’t recognize her if she uses a disguise. As if HELL isn’t in hello and HELL is what Vicki makes Shannon and Tamra feel like. Actually Vicki seems to make Shannon feel like eating, but that’s neither here nor there. In the end Shannon decides it’s not Vicki who will send her on a dance with the devil, but David Kelly.
Tamra hoped Shannon and Kelly could meet before the Sip & See, to prevent Shannon from playing frisbee with another plate, or shoving a baby bottle places it has no business going, but Tamra dropped the proverbial plate herself and didn’t arrange the meeting in time, so she quick calls Kelly to arrange a last-minute damage control date. In truly stellar fashion Kelly acknowledges “It’s hard for me to be nice,” but she wants to “move fworwwwwrd” anyway.
This epic meeting of the minds opened with a sex in the back seat joke, there was some awkward non-pologies in the middle, and it ended with Kelly asking if Shannon and Tamra can ever forgive Vicki. They cannot forgive because THE ALLEGATIONS made Shannon eat and drink all the things and that is Vicki’s fault. Yet no smoothies were harmed in the process! We also learned that Lydia admitted to Shannon and Tamra how she invited Kelly to The Quiet Woman. Kelly claims she believed dinner was only Lydia and Peggy, and she had no idea Shannon and Tamra would be there.
Despite Kelly’s claims of innocence, Shannon is certain Kocktail Kelly decided to be straw that stirs the hormonal drink in “the Q Dubb” and went there on purpose… But that drink has been slurped, and it’s all the past. So Yay progress. I guess…
Tamra comes to pick Shannon up for THE Sip and See, and is forced to precariously walk down Shannon’s looooong hallway of the shadow of death and follow the little brown squares to Shannon’s den of delusion. There Shannon perches, smoking a hookah, prophesizing about dangers, doing her nails, and bellowing at Archie. Then it is back down the hallway, but this time balancing on each other, and straight into belly of the beast at Meghan’s.
RELATED – Shannon At Peace With Decision To Cut Vicki Out Of He Life
Meanwhile Kelly “diplomat” Dodd tells Vick how Shannon is threatening legal action because Vicki made her get fat (I KID!). Of course Vicktim takes no responsibility for THE ALLEGATIONS and swears she has “text messages and photographs” to prove she didn’t lie. Oh Kelly… I thought you wanted to move fworwwwwrd? Fworwwwwrd up Vicki’s ass, perhaps, where there is apparently a large stash of $100 bills retained for people requiring presents for her presence? Anyhoodle peace went to dust in less than 24 hours.
The one thing Vicki and Tamra can agree on is that millennials require too many presents. They already gave Meghan shower and baby gifts, now Sip and See presents too! Vicki just wants to give and receive casseroles. Can Vicki ever get over casseroles? Also, is it worse to have a baby for gifts, or to fake cancer for casseroles? I just don’t know, guys! Gotta agree though – the “me generation” (of which I am sadly part): people can just come and see our proverbial babies and drop off a tuna casserole!
The Sip and See, while completely lovely, had barely any BABY. I don’t blame Meghan for keeping Aspen out of that cesspool of negativity, but seriously a baby party with no baby?! There was tons of booze, a life-size photo of Meghan holding the invisible baby with a cut-out circle to put their heads where Aspen’s face should go, a lot of Meghan showing off her dog(?!), and everyone covertly trying to avoid gawking at the tension between Tamra, Shannon, and Vicki. “Let’s be honest,” explained Lydia, “this is a Sip and See for Vicki and Tamra.” Or a Sip and NOT See since they all downed cocktails while completely avoiding each other! You would’ve thought Vicki was as invisible as Aspen’s baby head in the giant Meghan cut-out!
Before Tamra and Shannon showed up, Kelly told Lydia about their meeting. Lydia is wambling through another version of how why she invited Kelly when in walk The Troubled Twosome of Tamra and Shannon. All that practicing of hello gave Tamra a deep spiritual revelation of what she will say to Vicki: “Fancy seeing you here, Vicki. What’s up, bitch – lied much lately?”
Vicktim sits in her white one-shouldered top; angel on one shoulder, the other shoulder exposed to Satan, and holds Peggy hostage with her refrain of she is owed an apology. Apparently Vicktim was hurt the worstest because Tamra and Shannon abandoned her while she was going through Love Tank Confusion hell.
Obviously Shannon, Vicki, and Tamra spent the whole party skipping from room to room avoiding each other, until Meghan opened presents for the mythical baby no one met, and they were forced to sit on adjoining sofas avoiding eye contact. And no hellos were had by any! All that practice for naught…
After Vicki left, Shannon headed straight for the bar for a survival reward refreshment. Meghanny Drew decides she must get to the bottom of what Vicki believes Shannon and Tamra owe her an apology for, because Meghan, truth, justice, and social change warrior, cannot be a fake acquaintance! No, she must know what Vicki believes was done to her. Tamra knows that Vicki is just a “fake insecure bitch,” but the Girl Detective knows there’s something more. I’ll tell you what Shannon and Tamra did – they exposed Vicki, and they didn’t continue playing by her rules! And they got away with it… as Vicki sneers with a smirk, “I want to punish them for not being my friend.”
Matched in mean-girl psychosis, Tamra mocks Vicki as “haggard” and Meghan laughs that she looks “so old” and doesn’t know how she can sleep at night.
In the car, Vicki whispers to Kelly something about Shannon’s weight. “The mumu” scoffs Kelly in confirmation, as the shady Bravo editors cut to Shannon waving her arms while chanting “All I want to do is EAT!” At least the carbs kept Shannon composed in the face of Vicktim! Because of this Lydia decides to invite everyone to the NOBLEMAN launch. WOO HOO!
Who knows – maybe Peggy will be a good influence since she’s not about pettiness (in her opinion). Seriously though – Vicki and Tamra will never get over each other. They truly are soul-hates, and that is everlasting, and they know each other way. too. well!
TELL US – WILL VICKI, SHANNON, AND TAMRA EVER MOVE ON? WILL KELLY AND SHANNON GET ALONG?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
