B-Side Blog

Amidst all the hoopla surrounding the inauguration and all of Washington’s big balls, it’s hard to believe that there were other housewives on TV besides Michelle Obama. But yes, there were. The First Ladies of Orange County continued their epic quest to be the craziest shrews on TV, and so far, they’re doing a heck of a job. To be fair, last night’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County wasn’t nearly as explosive as the past few weeks, but really, how can you top the one-two punch of the racetrack fiasco coupled with Gretchen’s tequila-fueled odyssey.
This latest installment seemed to focus more on Jeana and her utterly depressing state of transition in life. Granted, jaded and Jeana are two concepts that pretty much go hand in hand, but last night, she seemed a bit more sad than usual. And that made me sad. Kind of. Luckily there were still plenty of silly moments to make the show fun. There was Tamra’s HOT pool party, Vicki’s tumble down the stairs (AWESOME), and of course Lynne’s dynamic wristband company, Cuff Love (get it?), which received a bit too much airtime, if you ask me. I mean, really. How much time do we need to spend watching this woman paw at leather? And I’m not talking about her face.
BOOYAH!
Aw, I feel bad now. I like Lynne a lot. She’s rapidly becoming one of my favorites, which I’m still shocked at. Like I said last week, she’s totally crazy, and her views on body image and health seem a bit, uh, skewed. But aside from that, she’s not necessarily the idiot that we may have written her off as upon first viewing her heaving — and rather stiff and spherical — bosom. I loved the way she bristled at Vicki’s passive-aggressive comments, and in the climactic scene, as the women weighed in with their unsolicited opinions on Gretchen’s beneficiary situation regarding Jeff’s life insurance, Lynne seemed to be the only one horrified that everyone would be so nosy. I didn’t necessarily disagree with Vicki’s points, but I felt she was badgering Gretchen a bit, and she took entirely too much offense to Lynne merely stating her opinion (especially after Vicki had been fairly rude to Lynne the whole day). On the plus side, it was nice to see that Gretchen seemed just fine not receiving a dime. Hey, she’s not a gold digger after all!

Continue reading “HOUSEWIVES PHOTOCAP: Money Isn't Everything, Except It Is”

For its first two seasons, I never watched Real Housewives of Orange County because it always felt a little dull to me. Not so anymore. This season has featured one trainwreck episode after another, and I think we can agree that the producers finally got the casting mix just right. Gretchen has brought out evil claws from resident shallow idiot bitch Tamra, not to mention the aging queen bee Vicki. Lynne, on the other hand, is somewhat horrifying as a parent (her lecture about underage drinking seemed to emphasize the fattiness of white Russians over anything else) but increasingly likable as the “laid-back” (as the girls like to call her) presence of the group. Her wry sense of humor — a.k.a. debating whether or not Tamra even knew she was there when she called all the girls “family” — has been growing on me each week, which either says a lot about Lynne or a lot about how awful the other women can be. Probably the latter.
And speaking of awful, let’s talk about Tamra. She was the tacky beacon of nouveau riche idiocy last season, but now she’s ascended to glorious new heights as this year’s sun-damaged hyena who will do anything to maintain her self-proclaimed HOT throne (which, whether she realizes it or not, she’s already lost to a new generation of women, namely Gretchen). Her actions have become downright deplorable, but then again, without them we wouldn’t have as entertaining a show. I don’t think the irony was lost on anyone that a dinner party meant to showcase Gretchen’s new etiquette skills turned into a cacophonous mess as she and Vicki schemed to load Gretchen up with enough tequila to make her “Naked wasted.” I’m not sure Ms. Manners would have approved. In fact, the only “etiquette” Tamra was able to display was some banal anecdote about European women and forks from the mid-nineteenth century. Something tells me she’s still happily clucking away about it at social gatherings.
But as for that tequila… first, props to Gretchen for being able to down so much booze without booting up all over Brian Malarkey’s eight course SEAFOOD meal (he just can’t do anything else, can he?). Of course, Gretch had an assist from Mama Jeana, who when she wasn’t flaring her eyes in shock was secretly removing the shot glasses from under Gretchen’s nose. Still, Tamra’s plan to get Gretchen wasted worked like a charm. In fact, it worked too well. Over the course of the evening, Gretchen attracted the attention of Tamra’s spawn Ryan, the car-mechanic-cum-aspiring-police-officer-cum-bartender-cum-sexual-predator. As he blatantly put the moves on the clearly soused Gretchen, Tamra seemed to laugh it off rather than standing up like a mother (or an adult) and telling her son to scram. Vicki, meanwhile, sat in the corner all fussy and disapproving of Gretchen’s behavior, perhaps forgetting that she was complicit in this plan to turn the blonde into a drunken fool. In interviews, she complained that Gretchen always had to be the center of attention (says the woman who belts “Whooohooo!!!” every time she sees a dandelion seed float by), but of course, what Vicki seemed incapable of realizing was that the drunker Gretchen became, the more of a spectacle she turned into. Seems counterintuitive. Then again, I guess the point was to teach the young one a lesson: if you try too hard to be the center of attention, you get burned. Or at least stuck in a bathroom with Ryan, who when the words “To Be Continued…” flashed on the screen was only a few nanoseconds away from some good old fashioned date rape. Maybe Tamra didn’t think about that when she started the party.

Continue reading “HOUSEWIVES PHOTOCAP: She's Still Hotter Than You, Tamra”