The Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: Mi Casita, Su Casita

The Real Housewives of Orange County
Mad Money
Season 20 Episode 16
Editor’s Rating ★
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This season doesn’t seem to have story lines so much as little things that pop up here and there and then disappear quickly. It doesn’t have story lines so much as it has warts. Oh, look, there’s one! Everyone scurries off to check it out and diagnose it, and then, with a few applications of Compound W, it’s gone again and we’re just standing around waiting for the next dermatological event to take place. The most concerning of all the warts is the call Shannon gets from her dog Archie, who I believe is fully capable of initiating his own FaceTime because he is a very good dog — yes, he is. Shannon gets a call from her assistant saying Archie is a little low energy. Later, back in the OC, she tells the ladies she took Archie to the pet-cancer doctor, who said if Archie didn’t get radiation, he’d only live another four to six months. Sadly, he died this May, and I don’t think I want to relive any of it on reality television. It’s just too sad.

But, as wart inspectors, here we are, diagnosing a different disease. This week, all the warts are on Gina. The gang goes to Harajuku, which is a high-end neighborhood in Tokyo that Gwen Stefani made famous with some cultural appropriation. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. To be clear, I think what Gwen did — stripping the culture of the place for her own gain, both financially and creatively — is much different than what the women are doing, which is just a little bit of Japanese cosplay. As the woman in the shop explained to them, and the editors dutifully left in the episode to exonerate them, part of the aesthetic is bridging international ideas of cuteness (or kawaii in Japanese). Harajuku is not just full of these types of girls but all sorts of global luxury brands and, as Gina demonstrates, vintage stores selling those designers.

Heather Dubrow goes into a vintage store and says she doesn’t like clothes that have other people’s energies in them. What is she worried about, being haunted by a parka? She bought Lana Turner’s house in Beverly Hills, but she’s afraid someone else carried her pocketbook? Come on. Gina is going a little buck wild in the store, and the women bring up that she seems to be spending a lot more money lately. Heather says it reminds her of actresses who would get a show, buy a fancy car, then the show would get canceled. They also bring up that Gina and Emily got a stylist and each paid $12,000 for four borrowed outfits. Heather points out that she could own four $3,000 outfits for that price. Sure, but how often do these women get to rewear their clothes? A strange part of their job is that if they’re filmed in it once, either for the show or their social media, fans will make a stink if they see it again. What’s the point in owning that outfit if they can’t rewear it? I’m not defending the expense; I’m just saying I don’t entirely buy Heather’s logic. 

Gina, however, buys a lot. But as they’re worried about her putting herself in the poorhouse, she’s buying a leather jacket that is only $800. That’s, like, half of what Heather pays for house slippers — that is a single designer slipper. Yes, a vintage store is more expensive than Goodwill, but it’s not like she’s dropping 20 bands at Gucci on two coats. And Gina has what seems to be a thriving career. Shannon doesn’t have a job (other than the show), is worried about her finances, and has an assistant. Why is no one worried about Shannon’s money? This whole thing seems wild and arbitrary to me. 

Tamra tells Emily what Heather and the others were saying, and Emily brings it back to her bestie, Gina, who doesn’t take kindly to them counting her paychecks. She says Heather’s actress analogy is inept because it means she’s not going to keep having the same success she’s currently having. I get Gina’s point: No one wants to be told they’re bad at their job. However, Heather is a little bit right. While real estate isn’t as volatile as acting, the market shifts, mortgage rates rise, and there are all sorts of factors that might keep her from doing as well tomorrow as she is doing today. Just as even the best actresses go through their fallow periods (remember when two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest couldn’t pay her rent?), the same is true of Realtors. I do think Heather had good intentions with what she is saying, but the delivery wasn’t great.

They all get dressed up as Harajuku girls, covered in bows and plush toys and bright colors and lace and so many platforms — more platforms than we’ve ever seen on this “platform,” as they always call it. They walk through the world’s largest crossing (which really is overwhelming), all holding hands with a bunch of cameras. They then get mad when the commuting locals, dressed all in black, are pissed off being confronted by this impenetrable line of crazy white women, two dressed like the twins from The Shining after they got really into Hello Kitty.

At dinner, Gina brings up the group’s previous comments and says she didn’t like them. Jenn tries to compliment her, saying she’s gone from living in the casita to being a badass, but Gina cuts her off mid-sentence. Gina wants us to know she never lived in the casita. Guys, I know we’ve been calling her “casita” since her first season on the show and it is in the “universal chatter” about her, but Gina wants us all to know she only spent weekends there and her kids were never living with her in the casita. Okay, sure. Got it, Gina. 

The problem is she is never going to escape “casita.” This is now part of her brand, just like the shitty clothes and the terrible hair during her debut seasons. (Yes, that is plural because it lasted longer than it should have.) In the great Housewives tradition, she might as well just own it. Yes, she was in a casita. Yes, she used to look like shit. Yes, she worked very hard at forming a real-estate career. Yes, she is doing a lot better now and she can afford designer (secondhand) bags, ski jackets that don’t zip in the front, and getting a real professional to take care of her hair. That is her journey and part of what makes us love Gina. (Well, most fans don’t love Gina, but they love her more than they love Emily!) Trying to erase the casita is telling us she wasn’t a mess when she joined the show even though she totally was. We know. We saw it! 

With that, the Gina wart seems to clear up. What other warts are there? Oh, Jenn wants to be just as successful as the rest of the ladies and is trying to figure out how to make more money. She decides it’s going to be fitness classes online, so she comes up with SexyFit, a fitness class to help you look more sexy but also more fit. I want to make so much fun of this very silly and quite obvious title, but I’m sure someone made fun of Billy Blanks for Tae Bo and that made him shit tons of money. She films the class, and Gretchen and Slade show up because nothing in the world makes Slade harder than a camera. Ugh, talk about warts. 

Shannon is trying not to get warts from Steve Guttenberg. Apparently, she saw a reel of his on Insta and told Jeff Lewis she thought he was cute, and he hammered on and on about it on his radio show, and now Steve Guttenberg is liking Shannon’s social-media content. Shannon, marry this man! What is she waiting for? Has she seen Steven Guttenberg? He is fit as hell and still strangely famous. Plus he’d make a great addition to this cast. We need to band together to make this happen.

Carmella thinks her boyfriend, Danny, is a wart and knows she needs to lance him but can’t figure out how to do it yet. Carmella is overwhelmed that she didn’t go on the trip, that she’s behind at work, that her kids are growing up and demanding nose jobs. It’s all too much for her. Maybe she can have a corn instead. Maybe a bunion. 

There are a bunch of lesser warts that keep coming up — the ladies think Tamra’s friendship with Jenn is fake and she’s using it to annoy Heather, who is no longer looking for a buddy in the group and just wants to be on her own. I don’t know. These all make little sense and even less impact. Maybe they’re not warts, just pimples. 

The wart that refuses to go away is whatever is up with Vicki and Tamra. They gather for dinner with a day-drunk Heather Dubrow, and Tamra apologizes for saying Vicki and her daughter, Briana, aren’t talking right now. I get that this is preemptive: Vicki will eventually see the season and not like her comments, but Vicki didn’t even know she’d said it yet. Tamra could have gotten away with this one. Vicki again apologizes for her comments about Tamra and her daughter, but it doesn’t sound like she means it. It seems like Vicki (who almost brained herself passing out in a Tokyo shop) doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t like a single one of these women, even Shannon. It’s like she is at dinner with Tamra and Heather, picks up her margarita (They’re so much better at Andale’s, she thinks), and looks down at her hand. She doesn’t know where she is; she doesn’t know how she got there. All she knows is that she is not at work — her happy place — and her hand is covered in mysterious bumps. Are they hives? Are they lesions? Psoriasis? Dermatitis? Herpes? A rash? No, none of the above. They’re just warts, and they’ll be gone in no time.