Emily Simpson’s decision to organize a flag football game for “The Real Housewives of Orange County” wasn’t just for fun. Oh, no, Emily had a plan, y’all.
“Flag football is a great way to get all this tension out,” she told the camera of the stress lines – Shannon Storms Beador versus Alexis Bellino, Gina Kirshenheiter versus Jenn Pedranti – that have surfaced in just the first few episodes of Season 18.
“Like, clearly how women do it is not working,” she continued. “So let’s just beat each other up and then walk away.”
This. Is. Brilliant. Let’s start a letter-writing campaign to make this the whole point of “Real Housewives” shows everywhere. The housewives do judo. The housewives learn fencing. The housewives all shout one-two-three-four, we declare a thumb war!
Anything to take the bickering and recriminations away from the restaurant or party and settle it all on a field of battle.
The gang all meet at one of Orange County’s beaches that has a bar, of course, and quickly get game-ready with a few drinks.
“Apparently there is no designer referee shirt,” sniffs Heather Dubrow, whose disappointment at her black-and-white shirt – “Polyester. Sad” – is alleviated by the fact that she’s given not one but two whistles with which to boss the rest of the housewives around.
Emily and Tamra Judge are team captains and chose their team the old-fashioned schoolyard way, so that one housewife will be picked last and forever live with that humiliation.
Emily ends up with Gina, Shannon and a few friends for filler. Tamra comes out of the draft with Jenn, Alexis, a few friends, and finally Katie Ginella, whomp-whomp, as the last pick. (She probably won’t care. Last week she admitted she’s so anti-exercise she wishes she could drive to her mailbox for the mail.)
They sit down to decorate their jerseys and pick team names. Tamra’s group decides to be the Love Team, partly because Alexis can’t stop talking about how much she and Shannon’s ex-boyfriend, John, are in love. Emily’s team decides to be the Destroyers, partly because Shannon can’t stop hearing Alexis talk about how much she and John are in love.
The game isn’t really the point for any of them.
“I know nothing about football except Taylor Swift’s boyfriend plays it,” Heather declares.
“I do not watch,” Tamra says. “I think it’s boring.”
“All that matters is that you look good doing it,” Alexis adds, sharing her opinion on football, and probably life in general.
Emily, who’d earlier griped that Gina’s athleticism isn’t fair “because all she does is sit on the couch and eat gummy bears,” is proven to have made the smart move by picking her best friend first. Gina leads the Destroyers to an easy win over Team Love.
The better action takes place off the field after the game when Gina and Jenn pick up their conversation from the previous episode about Jenn not paying her rent on the house that Gina, a newbie real estate agent, found for her.
Jenn says her eviction was caused by money troubles due to her ongoing divorce. Gina says you made me look bad to my peers. Then Gina uses the S-word to describe why Jenn gets her calls returned by the real estate agent who represents the homeowner but Gina does not.
“She’s gonna return your calls because she represents the woman (who owns) the house that you’re squatting in!” Gina shouts.
“I’m squatting?” Jenn replies.
“Oh, we don’t need to use that word,” Heather tut-tuts.
You feel sorry for Jenn’s plight – because her divorce settlement is stalled, she’s had to move in with a boyfriend all the other housewives roundly dislike. But her obtuse naivete is really something to work on.
“It’s scary to be 46 and try to figure out things people learn in their 20s,” Jenn tells the camera. A producer off-screen asks something about her credit history. “I’ve never had a credit card in my name,” she replies.
Gina and Jenn eventually call a truce on this squabble. Gina then spills the beans to the rest of the housewives about her new relationship status. She’s asked her boyfriend Travis and his three kids to move out so that she and her three kids can live on their own. But they’re all going to still be a family, just separate!
Tamra ain’t buying it: “I know nobody that has lived together four years and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you need to move out but we’re still going to be together.’ No. It doesn’t work that way.”
Later, Gina comes home while Travis is sadly packing up his closet to move into his new home.
“What if this was a mistake?” Gina says, asking a question that maybe should have occurred to her long before Travis was stuffing his unfolded shirts into a suitcase. “You’re not going to be here tonight and that feels bad,” she continues, now fully in tears.
“Seems like all you’re talking about is how to undo the decision that you made,” replies Travis, whose weary patience with his girlfriend is actually kind of sad. “It’s really confusing to me.”
Same, Travis, same!
Elsewhere on the show this week:
— Emily continues to deliver the best lines of the season. Like when, while talking with Gina about how Jenn is living beyond her means, she referred to Jenn as “Malibu Broke Barbie.”
— Or, when Alexis tells the housewives that she and John have sex four times a day, Emily rolls her eyes and replies, “I would die if I had sex four times a day. I would hide in the closet.”
— The Shannon-Alexis beef got even weirder this week. First, Alexis shows up at the football game telling everyone about “her gym” when in fact, it was Shannon’s gym that she introduced John to when they were together. Then, when Alexis shows up to walk dogs with Tamra and Jenn, she’s got a golden retriever that’s a doppelganger – a dog-elganger? – for Shannon’s golden Archie.
“What the heck? Did you steal Archie from Shannon too?” Tamra asks.
“You couldn’t leave Shannon something?” Jenn says. “Archie is all she’s got.”
