Gina Kirschenheiter is famously fearful of untamed bodies of water, or, more specifically, things that live therein.
When “The Real Housewives of Orange County” sent the housewives rafting in Jamaica in 2018 she was nervous but survived.
The next year on the housewives’ Florida trip, though, Gina got so wound up by the thought of sharks and whales lurking in the shallows that when a l’il sharky actually showed up she was reduced to a shaking, crying mess.
So with the housewives still in New Orleans this week, when they decide to gator watching in the bayou, you know that despite her claims to want to overcome her fear of the water monsters of the deep, Gina is gonna lose it.
“We’re gonna go mess around with some crocodiles,” Gina announces are right away there are two problems with what she said. There are no crocs in Louisiana, only alligators, and no matter which of those you’re around, you definitely do not want to mess with them.
Shannon Storms Beador is 20 minutes late, which only makes Gina more anxious about what awaits her in the swamp.
“I can’t think of anything scarier than a bayou of water filled with reptiles,” she practically cries as she sits in the airboat that’s idling while Shannon tries to glue her false eyelashes on in the car that finally delivers her.
On the water, they eventually spot an alligator, causing Gina to almost jump out of her seat, which might not be the best move for someone terrified of what lies beneath the floor of the boat.
“I don’t like it at all!” she hollers. Then looking again: “Oh, there’s another one swimming there!”
When someone asks the swamp guide about the parenting habits of alligators, he tells them the dads are deadbeats, going from lady gator to lady gator during mating season, while the mommy gators will guard their nests with their lives.
For some reason, this seems to make Gina feel better.
“I get that,” she says, nodding her head with great solemnity. “That resonates with us.”
Back on land, Gina plays the hero’s role. “I faced my fear and I survived,” she declares. “I’m a survivor.”
The previous week of this two-part episode in New Orleans ended with Tamra Judge storming out of a restaurant, announcing on social media that she quit, and flying home early.
Surprise! Tamra did not, in fact, quit; she just took off because she was upset partly by her BFF Teddi Mellencamp’s cancer diagnosis and partly because she thought the other housewives were being unfair to her at dinner and asking her if she was drunk or on something, which Tamra denied.
Surprise! Tamra admits to her therapist, and later to Heather Dubrow, that because she was stressed before dinner, she took a half Xanax and then had a couple of drinks at dinner. Which will do it, won’t it?
At dinner this week sans Tamra, the housewives start dinner at the restaurant oyster bar, where Gina starts to gag and retch after eating – does the terror of the sea also work with seafood? – as Heather and Emily Simpson bicker, oblivious to her plight.
“Can you imagine if I (bleeping) died listening to Heather Dubrow and Emily Simpson fight?” Gina says in a camera confessional. “That’s the last thing I ever hear? That cannot be how I go.”
No, it can’t be. At this point, anything less than an anaconda pulling you under on a future housewives trip to the Amazon is going to feel like a letdown.
Most of the dinner conversation revolves around the long, complicated storyline of what beans Katie Ginella did or didn’t spill about what Gretchen Rossi did or did not say about the infamous Night of Naked Wasted back when Obama was in his first term.
We’re not going to rehash all that here, because frankly, it’s too much information for too little reward, but the preview of next week’s episode suggests we might finally be close to the end of this part of the narrative.
That’s right, folks, next week the housewives get hooked up to lie detector machines, and frankly, we cannot wait.