The Real Housewives of Orange County Premiere Recap: 20 and Funny

The Real Housewives of Orange County
Old Friends, New Era
Season 20 Episode 1
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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For those of us who have been watching these women since they were in Sky Tops in Vicki’s backyard with a full-blown water feature, the very opening of the episode is like a treat. It starts with a flashback to the original series, the footage grainier, the houses tinier, the action tamer. We get all the hits: Victoria Denise Gunvalson Jr. doing keg stands, having her vowel renewal (as Teresa would call it), getting divorced, Brianna bringing home her first baby, and the little family van that changed it all. Then the scope moves past Vicki to the other women: Tamra screeching that it is her opinion, Heather Dubrow saying, “She broke the bow off my cake and ate it,” a moment she recently described to me as “so stupid, but so important.” The final part of the intro tries to conflate the past and the present, Gina telling Emily about her marriage back then and Emily telling Gina about her marriage now, Vicki screeching at her friends then and Vicki screeching at her friends now, people comforting Tamra as she bawls then and people comforting Tamra as she bawls now. 

The subtext is that the show hasn’t changed, and it really hasn’t. It’s still about a group of women who are loosely friends sharing their lives and petty squabbles as they avoid skin cancer and get boob jobs in one of the most expensive counties in the country. But if you watch the first episode of RHOC, it is like a veteran Housewife’s face, both recognizable but considerably altered. One of the biggest evolutions is that the fourth wall, like someone who hates performing oral sex, has gone down very, very slowly. Now it’s lower than some of Tamra’s insults. In this episode, Tamra is talking about how she and Shannon Beador are fighting because of something that happened while they were filming Ultimate Girls’ Trip. Emily hasn’t talked to Tamra since BravoCon and is upset by something Tamra said on Jeff Lewis’s radio show. Heather is pissed off that Vicki said on her podcast that Heather and Terry inherited all their money.

It’s like this show has turned into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, a show where the fourth wall has been obliterated and is essentially now a show about a group of women trying to make reality television. Is that the fate that is in store for Orange County? Well, we’d never get Vicki to try a dirty soda, and they don’t all have the same haircut and home décor, at least not yet. They’re one call from a missionary away.

The substance of the episode is basically checking in on the women and seeing what is going on in their lives. Vicki is back, and it’s like she never left. We see her in her happy place, Puerto Vallarta, where she’s stuck because she’s waiting for her residence visa. Shannon comes down to join her, and the two have to hobble back to her condo, and as Vicki, who has a bum knee (just like she once had a bum boyfriend named Brooks), leans on Shannon as they walk through the sand. Shannon tumbles to the ground, their beach gear scattering like gay dudes when a ciswoman hits the dance floor. It’s absolutely hilarious. Can this be the show? Just Vicki and Shannon falling and not really hurting themselves in various and sundry locations? It’s like menopausal Jackass.

Vicki, of course, takes Shannon to Andale’s, where she is a big deal, and I can confirm that because I have been to Andale’s with Vicki and personally saw the owner thank her for making the place famous. Well, at least Bravo famous. I even rode that donkey they parade through the bar and paid for the honor. 10/10. Would recommend. Still have flea bites. We also learn in PV that Vicki has a new man she calls Mike, but the screen calls him Michael, but let’s call him Mike to differentiate between her son Michael, her first husband Michael, her favorite jewel Michael’s, and her favorite film release of the last year, Michael. She’s also hanging with her bachelor brother Billy, who real fans recognize from Brianna’s graduation party in the very first episode. I swear, watching this show is like aging itself: You think of yourself in your youth, the you that lives behind your eyes is unaged, unchanged, forever gorgeous and frozen in time … until you look in the mirror and see that it’s all different, the idea of it hardly fitting the reality. Also, both make me think I need Botox.

What’s up with the rest of the gals? Shannon’s daughter Stella is still in Paris and wants to stay there. She has an empty house and a new dog named Troy that eats everything. He’s so poorly behaved you’d think his trainer was Kyle Richards. Archie is still with us as of filming, and it breaks my heart seeing that perfect angel. Jenn’s son got a speeding ticket, and she and Ryan still aren’t married. Gina is engaged and thankfully not going to hyphenate her last name because whenever I try to type out her current name, my fingers get exhausted in the middle and fall asleep. Kirschenheizzzzzzzzz. See! Emily has lost a ton of weight and looks amazing, even though she’s always looked amazing (especially in a one-piece), and the way she stays in shape is by eating a bowl of chicken no matter where she’s dining. The chef at Javier’s is thrilled. Tamra’s daughter, Sophia, is living with her and moving out at the same time. I don’t know. They just started a podcast, so I don’t think she’s going farther than a mic cord can reach. 

The biggest personal update, however, is that Heather Dubrow’s mother, Carole, has moved to the West Coast to be closer to her daughters now that her husband has died. (Heather has a sister who lives in L.A. — who I think is this artist — and she’s never been on the show?!) Carole is absolutely amazing. She’s giving major Miss Pat vibes with her Chinoiserie dining room and her veneer of perfection. Meeting her, as we have on a few scant occasions in the past, makes Heather make so much sense. They’re essentially clones. It’s like Heather has all of the genetics and mannerisms and values that were somehow passed down to her through prolonged exposure. Oh, yeah. That’s how biology works.

They have the most Heather Dubrow conversation of all time, where Heather says that her mother should have moved out there when the kids were younger so that she could spend time with them, and Carole tells Heather that she could have come out to see them in the Hamptons more often. After all, Adam Sandler, who is a much bigger star and more successful actor than Heather, came to see his parents in the Hamptons. He even stayed in a trailer. Then Carole says they weren’t in the Hamptons, they were in Quogue. Oh, not Quogue. Sonja Morgan of the Hamptons Chutney Company Morgans, won’t go to Quogue, so there’s no way Heather Paige Kent Dubrow would go. 

While it is fun touring around and seeing all the ladies — including newbie Carmella, who we only peep briefly — the group dynamic isn’t really playing out yet. Tamra is, once again, the main problem. She and Vicki are as close as ever, and Vicki says that after they didn’t speak for a year, they made a pact not to hurt each other anymore. Let’s see how long these friends, soulmates, sisters can keep that pact going. The big issue is between Shannon and Tamra, and Shannon is actively avoiding her the entire episode. Shannon just thinks that Tamra is a big old phony and doesn’t want to deal with her anymore. Everyone else seems cool with Tamra, though they’re not really acting like it. 

Strangely, the bigger issue is with Heather, but it’s because of Tamra. Apparently, after the last reunion, everyone went out to dinner except Tamra, who claims she wasn’t invited. The ladies all say that Heather led a discussion where they all talked smack about Tamra for the entire dinner, but then the next day Heather called Tamra to check in on her. At Heather’s Valentine’s party, Jenn and Gina tell Heather that Shannon and some of the others are upset that she won’t call Tamra out to her face. Heather doesn’t really seem to care, but I have a feeling that she is now in the hot seat and is really going to care in about five episodes when this is all anyone will talk about. 

Before the party, Jenn talks to Heather about this, and Heather says that she can compartmentalize her friendship with Tamra and not get upset about all the things she does. She says she puts Tamra in a box. Jenn tells Tamra about this comment at the party, and it upsets Tamra. I don’t get why. Sure, you don’t want to think that your friends need to compartmentalize your bad behavior, and I haven’t wanted to be in a box since I had a panic attack in FedEx/Kinko’s, thinking about what would happen if I tried to ship myself somewhere. But isn’t that what friendship is? Is that what the show is? Isn’t it about forgiving and looking past someone’s worst qualities because the good qualities outweigh those deficiencies? It seems like Tamra is mad because she knows that Jenn wants to be mad, but she hasn’t even processed what Heather’s comments might have meant. It’s like trying to swallow an unchewed Saltine.

Heather is more concerned with Vicki’s podcast comment about inheriting her money and goes over to yell at Vicki in her convalescence chair. Heather says they couldn’t have possibly inherited all of their money because their mothers are still alive. Just like Heather and whether or not she “called” the paparazzi, this seems like a game of semantics to me. For instance, if you’re one of those West Village Girlies whose parents are paying for her rent, Pilates classes, and strawberry matcha lattes, she didn’t inherit that money, but someone else is footing the bill. Just because they didn’t “inherit” any money doesn’t mean they haven’t benefited from family money. Vicki says what we’ve all been thinking for the past 13 years, “Doctors don’t live in $40 million houses.” 

That’s like Vicki, to always be counting someone else’s money, and Vicki herself is the thing that’s changed the most in these two decades. She was working out of her own with only Lauri Peterson (neé Waring) as her assistant. Now she has a giant insurance business, her original house in Coto de Caza, her vacation home in Puerto Vallarta, and a desert home in La Quinta. (Do you think she and Kyle Richards met up at the Applebee’s for dinner?) She has a fiancé and grown children, she is getting close to retirement, but will Vicki ever retire? Probably not. “I have a nice life,” she says as she reintroduces herself to the audience. “I worked hard for it.” Yes, she sure did, and that’s why we will always love her. And it wasn’t just selling insurance. Every argument, every screaming fit, every cast trip, every terrible boyfriend, every friend break-up, every whoo-hoo, every “Tell everyone I died sad,” is a glimmering coin until they all pile up in her money bin and she’s swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck. But we’re all richer for it and, after all this time, we’re all cashing in.