Katie Ginella is in for a long season if the premiere of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” on Thursday, July 10, is any indication.
What, you forgot that our favorite undomesticated goddesses are back for their 19th season of cocktails, crying, conversation and caterwauling? For shame!
Fear not, though, for we are here to recap your favorite franchise’s flagship show. This is where it all started, people, Orange County, baby, and don’t let those other housewives of New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills, Miami, the Potomac, Salt Lake City – take a deep breath – and soon, Rhode Island, fool you.
Katie survived her first season a year ago, though barely. She outraged Heather DuBrow by sharing rumors that Heather had called the paparazzi on herself to generate positive publicity for herself and her husband, Terry DuBrow.
She ticked off Emily Simpson by telling other housewives that her daughter, while babysitting for Emily’s kids, heard mommy expressing negative opinions about Heather, thereby landing on Heather’s naughty list, and trust us, you do not want to be there.
She also had a busy break between seasons, allegedly connecting Emily’s former nanny to a blogger to spill the beans about what Emily’s kids said about Emily’s comments on Heather. Subsequently, when Tamra Judge was accused by a different online site of being behind several online troll accounts, prompting Tamra to threaten a lawsuit, Katie supposedly called this second blogger to console her.
Katie starts the season in the belief that Shannon Storms Beador is in her corner because she stood up for her when Katie was attacked during last year’s reunion shows. [In an interview, Shannon says that’s not how she sees things.]
After the traditional premiere episode montage of Real Housewives Doing Things – They’re at Dog Beach! They’re roller skating! They’re doing face masks with their boyfriends! – Katie and Shannon go out for car shopping and chit-chat about Katie’s recent trip to a big golf tournament in Arizona.
“A lot of single men?” Shannon asks her.
“Oh my God, it was a sea of (bleep),” Katie replies.
Meanwhile, Gina Kirschenheiter has let boyfriend Travis out of the doghouse and back into the house. A season ago, they separated their living arrangements while lingering issues with Travis’s divorce got settled. It’s unclear if that actually happened, but that’s OK because apparently the wind in Bali told Gina it was.
“I so connected with the wind there, and there were so many signs,” she says in a confessional, and just like that, Travis and Gina and their six combined kids are moving into a new 2,800-square-foot house together.
Gina, who is Emily’s ride-or-die, spends much of the episode dragging Katie’s name through the mud on Emily’s behalf, reporting back what she’d heard from housewife Jenn Pedranti at Dog Beach.
“So this (nanny) is basically like, ‘Hi, Katie, I want to ruin Emily’s life and I want to (bleep)-talk her her kids,’ and ‘Katie’s like, ‘Oh, here’s the phone number (for a Housewives blogger) to go do it,’” Gina says with absolute conviction that that’s exactly how the deal went down.
Emily, of course, takes it all as the gospel truth and gets even madder.
“Saying those things about me being a terrible mother was (bleeping) not OK,” Katie noted in her confessional. “And I still haven’t got an apology from her.”
Elsewhere on this week’s episode:
— Tamra is in therapy, just as she promised she was going to be on the reunion shows. How do we know? Because she brought a camera crew to therapy so “Real Housewives” wouldn’t miss out on her tearful session!
Tamra talks about what she wants to achieve in therapy, listing things such as not being so explosive, impulsive, responsive and harsh with her words. This gives the showrunners the opportunity to assemble a montage of Tamra failing at each of those things in the past. Is that classy? Of course not, but hey, any excuse to reuse that iconic clip of Tamra screaming “That’s my opinion!” at the top of her lungs.
To Tamra’s credit, she seems sincere about getting to the root of her issues. She’s also wondering if she’s on the autism spectrum, which her therapist agrees is possible, though announcing that on a podcast a few months ago was definitely jumping the gun, which Tamra realized after she was immediately “annihilated” online for saying so without having received a proper diagnosis.
— Heather didn’t get much screen time. Turns out that $16 million Beverly Hills mansion was already millions over budget for its renovation when asbestos was found throughout it. Husband Terry suggests they just sell it as is and cut their losses. Heather insists they should at least reinstall flooring so it looks nice, arguing that even if the new buyers tear out the new flooring, it’s only $45,000 to make the place look nicer until it sells.
You spend that much on a party at Nobu, Terry jokes, and the sad thing is he’s not wrong.
— Emily doesn’t want Katie or any of the housewives talking about her kids, but she’s spilling those beans all over the place as she talks about one of her kids.
— Jenn and boyfriend Ryan are still engaged despite all the criticism that Tamra and others fired at Ryan in the previous season. We meet them in a high-end swimwear shop where Ryan is trying to convince Jenn that they should get married on the beach in swim shorts and a bikini.
She comes out of the dressing room to model what that might look like, complete with a veil and bouquet, and if this were a cartoon, Ryan’s eyes would have bulged out of his head as his tongue unspooled across the floor.
“Babe, you are (bleepin’) hot!” he says as he picks her up and carries her back into the dressing room.
“We’re not having sex in the dressing room because that would be gross,” Jenn warns him.
— Gina and Katie plan to meet at a coffee shop to talk over the Emily situation. Gina brings Emily, which Katie rightly considers an ambush. Shouting ensues and the coffee date ends abruptly.