Tamra Judge is through with Jenn Pedranti, and the feeling is mutual.
Shannon Storms Beador is done with Katie Ginella, who’s none too happy with Tamra these days.
And Tamra and Shannon? Well, that friendship has been circling the drain since the early in the previous season of “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”
Not a lot actually happens on the episode that aired Thursday, July 31, but the battle lines got more entrenched and no one who’s likely to get off the naughty step anytime soon.
We pick up the action where the previous episode broke off – at Heather Dubrow’s ridiculously pricey birthday bash, where Katie has decided to depart early after she tried to apologize to Shannon, who not only did not accept her apology but told Katie she’s the most evil person she’s ever met.
Katie and her husband Matt are in the parking lot when a late-arriving Tamra tries to act like she cares about Katie’s dilemma, even though it was Tamra’s gossiping about Katie that prompted Shannon’s blow up.
“Oh, come on, you started it,” Matt says to Tamra, who immediately drops the empathy to argue it’s really Katie’s fault for doing the thing that Tamra spread around town a year later.
“I’ve been nothing but nice, I supported you,” Tamra tells Katie.
“You called me a (very bad word), Katie says, as the show helpfully replays the clip. “I’ve never called you a (bleep), a (very bad word).
“No, you just called bloggers and tried to get stories out there!” Tamra replies, which is kind of like comparing rotten apples with moldy oranges, but fine, logic is not required here.
Back inside the party, we skip through a montage of random moments. Heather asks her husband, Terry, if he’s stoned.
“There’s a weed bar, what do you think?” he tells her, nodding toward the weed-tenders Heather hired for her party.
Heather chomps on pigs-in-blankets enthusiastically which, fine, we love a pig-in-a-blanket as much as the next housewife, but Heather is the fancy one.
Actually, maybe she’s having to budget more now that her Los Angeles mansion project has gone sideways and she and Terry have decided to dump it and cut their losses after renovation costs skyrocketed far beyond what they’d originally planned.
Heather meets her real estate agents at the mansion, and what are the odds that not only are they both named Josh, but they’re also on a Bravo show like Heather? In the case of Josh Altman and Josh Flagg, “Million Dollar Listing.”
Altman, who apparently had sold Heather and Terry the place, says it could have been an $85 million dump if their original plans for it had worked out. Heather doesn’t care. She just wants to get out of what she and Terry put into it.
“So can we list it for $25 million and hope for $20 million?” she asks.
The Joshes are optimistic. “This is what we call the billionaires’ horseshoe here,” Altman tells her, taking in the hillside and canyon views from her pool deck. “You’re sandwiched between LeBron and Drake.”
Let’s take a moment of silence for LeBron and Drake and the sorrow they must have felt when they heard Heather was hoofing it out of the horseshoe.
The episode jumps to a scene of Tamra, which suggests that hidden behind her trash talk and gossip there’s a sweet person in there. She’s home with her 19-year-old daughter Sophia, sorting through clothes for Sophia to sell online, and it’s clear there’s a loving, kind, soft relationship there, unlike anything Tamra has displayed on-camera with her fellow housewives.
Katie meets Heather and Gina Kirschenheiter for lunch and finds out that Tamra has spread a new piece of gossip about her, telling the others that Katie met with blogger Kiki Monique – true, Katie admits – to plant stories about the others.
“Prove it,” Katie says in what would be matter-of-fact for anyone else but is as close to rage as we’ve seen her. “Never did I do that. That absolutely did not happen.”
We wrap this largely uneventful episode with Jenn and Tamra meeting for a drink, though neither of them order anything boozy, and a bite to eat, though it all blows up before any food is ordered.
Jenn requested the meeting to clear the air, by which she seems to mean to get Tamra to admit she did a lot of no-good things to her and her fiancé Ryan over the last season and a half.
“I don’t know what she wants me to say, but I’m hopeful we can move forward,” Tamra says in a confessional before Jenn arrives.
Jenn starts softly, acknowledging that Tamra is going through a lot with her best friend and podcast partner, Teddi Mellancamp, formerly of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” who’s in treatment for brain cancer. Then she asks the impossible.
“I want to ask you so many questions, and I want to know that you’re going to answer me honestly,” she says.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Tamra replies, instantly defensive.
“You just don’t sometimes,” Jenn says.
“Yes, I do, Jenn. I always do,” Tamra answers, and it’s clear this isn’t going to end at all how either would want it to.
Jenn makes some valid points about the gossip Tamra spread about her and Ryan – and Tamra goes right ahead and drops another titillating claim about Jenn with no evidence to back it up. But Jenn goes where she really probably shouldn’t in their next exchange.
“You are so sick,” she tells Tamra.
“No, I’m honest,” Tamra replies.
“How’s your therapy?” Jenn replies, delivering the question not an expression of empathy.
Tamra, for once, is silent.
“You know, I’m not putting up with this,” she finally says, and with that, they’re done.