The Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: How the Sushi Rolls

The Real Housewives of Orange County
For Goodness Sake
Season 20 Episode 15
Editor’s Rating ★
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What a perfect time for me to return to RHOC recapping duty (and thanks to the Housewives Institute’s Twink Outreach officer Tom Smyth, but not my archnemesis Louis Peitzman, for filling in for me while I was gone). I was actually on a sojourn around Japan (not really, but I went last year), so I have plenty to talk about in relation to our favorite orange holders rampaging across the land of the rising sun. I even did many of the same things. I went to a capybara café, just like Tamra, Emily, and Jenn. The thing that they can’t capture on-camera is how much the animals, and the cafés they are housed in, smell. They are the world’s largest rodent, but they smell more like livestock. They smell like flesh, nut sacks, and idleness. Emily gets close to it when she talks about how rancid their farts are, but sitting there sipping a mocha latte in what is essentially a high-end barn is not it. The otter café was way cuter and less stinky and full of lithe, hairy men.

I did not go to a muscle-lady café, but I did go to a muscle-man café, and they offer all the same stuff except, obviously, they’re shirtless dudes. The crazy thing about Tokyo is that it is a vast and wonderful city, but all of the establishments are tiny and cater to one very specific niche. You often go to restaurants, and they serve only one thing. In this instance, they’re serving up fit Japanese young ladies who stand on either side of Shannon and trap her in what looks like a one-woman game of Red Rover. You can’t eat it, but it’s still delicious. I mostly just paid for the muscle guys to flex and pour me nonalcoholic beverages, and that is the most wholesome time I’ve ever had in a tiny basement room with half-naked men. That and the fight that Heather, Shannon, and Tamra had in the back of their van, slapping each other in the forehead, were the two best moments of the episode.

While I did take a sushi-making class, it wasn’t in an upscale hotel room like the ladies; it was in a sushi master’s house on the outskirts of Tokyo where her Canadian husband did most of the translation and made us eat these gross pockets of tofu soaked in soy sauce and filled with rice. He said they were his favorite and, well, maybe he should go back to Canada. My sushi was just as terrible as Heather Dubrow’s, falling apart as I held it in my hand, and I just ended up shoveling raw tuna and rice in my mouth in various clumps and hoping for the best. (It wasn’t the best, but it was pretty good.) 

I certainly did not ride in those crazy Mario Karts around the city because, as Heather points out, they are dangerous and way too close to the ground. Also, I would be afraid the whole time that the car in front of me was going to poop out a red tortoiseshell and it would follow me around for the rest of my life, like Emily’s capybara bite, which now turns her into an enormous stinking rodent every time there is a full moon. There are much better ways to get around Tokyo than the one Yoshi is most familiar with. I couldn’t believe the women couldn’t figure out the subway, which is one of the nicest and cleanest I’ve ever experienced in my life. Tamra is right; you’re not supposed to talk on the phone, or really talk at all, on the subway. (You don’t see Japanese people talking on the phone in public anywhere.) There are even PSA signs on the subway about turning your music down so that the person next to you doesn’t hear it through your headphones. The subway is so amazing that you can figure out which car to be in so that you’re near the right exit of the station at your destination. Also, each station has its own jingle, so that if you’re not paying too much attention and you hear the song associated with your home stop, you know how to get off. (The one closest to my hotel was actually “588-2300 Empire!,” which was very easy to recognize.) These people thought of everything, including tons of vending machines with delicious treats all over the subway system, but you’re not allowed to eat in public. So what are you supposed to do with your strawberry-flavored candy bar you got on the subway platform? (They love strawberry flavoring like Carmella loves penciling in her eyebrows.) 

Gina asks one of the best questions when they go to the tea ceremony and all dress up in kimonos. She wonders if it’s all right for them to be wearing traditional Japanese garb, especially in front of the cameras. When I was in Kyoto, which has the largest population of working geishas in the country, there were scads of tourists, mostly Chinese and American, who would rent kimonos (for the gals) and samurai outfits (for the dudes) and take pictures for social media in front of temples and other traditional buildings. I asked our tour guide, who specializes in the history of geisha, if they find this offensive or what we would consider “cultural appropriation.” I got the same answer Gina did from their mistress of tea ceremony: that the Japanese love sharing their culture with people from all over the world and don’t mind at all. As my guide put it, the only people upset about it are the Karens from America who are more offended on behalf of the Japanese than the Japanese are themselves. 

If you haven’t noticed, I’m avoiding talking about the episode itself because, seriously, what are we even doing here anymore? The episode didn’t even make much sense, like all of the women are fishing for things about each other to fight about and then jumping on whatever petty grievance their co-workers have so that they have something to talk about. It’s like when you’ve been on a trip with just your partner for two weeks and the last dinner you’re looking at your phones together because you are talked to death, you’ve experienced everything together, and there is no new ground to cover. That’s how RHOC has felt all season.

Where are we now? We’re relitigating everything that’s gone on between Tamra and Vicki over their 20-ish years on this here program together. Vicki is still mad that Tamra said that Vicki and Brooks perpetrated a cancer scam. Really? This? Again? Meghan King Edmonds PI has gotten divorced, married a man in front of Joe Biden, got that marriage annulled, and made out with Kyle Cooke on a sidewalk since that shit was over, and that’s all we have left to dredge up? 

At least Tamra has a legitimate gripe. She’s pissed that Vicki went on her podcast and said that Tamra chose fame over having a relationship with her daughter, Sidney, whom she’s been estranged from for years. That is a really bullshitty thing to say. Vicki says that she already apologized for it, but it seems like it falls under a blanket apology they both offered each other to forget about the old stuff and move forward. I’m sorry, but there’s not enough apologizing for this. Even if Vicki thinks she did, she can apologize again because it really was horrible. 

As they all sit on the floor after the tea ceremony, Tamra starts to tear up about it and sobs in her kimono, getting the silk all wet as Shannon tries to comfort her. I really feel bad for Tamra about this whole situation, and her loss of a relationship with her daughter is regrettable, so I feel terrible for what I’m about to say. It felt … staged. I know Tamra’s upset, but this upset? At this specific moment? Now? Maybe it was the jet lag, maybe it was the sake, maybe it was the stink particles from the capybara still lodged in her nostrils. I don’t know. But it seemed like something else. 

I have to say it felt the same way when, after sushi-making class, Tamra decided to bring up the sperm whale in the room (that is what the Japanese say instead of “the elephant” because they don’t have those) about how she and Vicki aren’t getting along. Tamra was right to force a conversation, but couldn’t she just have a nice night? Vicki says that Tamra is only happy when there is discord and that she stirs things up on purpose. I don’t think that’s for her happiness, though; I think it’s overproducing her own show. She’s trying to make something happen because she knows this is blander than boiled tofu. Vicki’s reaction, however, seems real. She’s not wrong that Tamra has had issues with everyone on the cast and she’s not always pleasant to be around, but can’t they just make up or be done with it for good? 

Everything in this episode seemed less like drama and more like wisps. Shannon is mad about who did or did not talk to Alexis at Tamra’s party. Gina is mad at Shannon for not holding Vicki to account like she does the rest of the women. Jenn is mad that Vicki and Tamra won’t make up. Heather is mad that she picked a lobster costume and that the claws didn’t accurately show off her manicure. It’s all just little bits blowing in the wind. There is no epic poem; there is no story of love and loss. It’s all just a series of haikus, half-remembered, that are rising and falling as the morning mist blows across them. Like those haikus, maybe it’s time to write them down on parchment, burn the paper, and release those things to the gods. Spread the ashes on the ground, eat a lump of sushi over them, and allow fresh life to grow out of them. There’s a reason the old texts have been lost, and maybe they should stay that way.