Now, five episodes into the season, we’re also five episodes into a new feud between Katie and Heather — well, at least Katie is. Heather only just found out about this feud last week, and while it took her by surprise, now that she’s aware, she’s ready to engage. When she tells Terry about the unexpected return of paparazzi-gate, he says, “I like when paparazzi take pictures of me, so if there’s a number that Katie knows of to call to get paparazzi who will take pictures of me, I want this number.” It’s a great point … if the Dubrows could wave a magic wand (like one you might find at Disneyland for example) to summon paparazzi, we’d get new pictures of them daily.
She digs into this new feud further with Gina and Jenn over Galentine’s Day face masks that make them look like C-3PO. It turns out that Katie had first told Gina this gossip months ago before the two even ran into one another at Sutton’s Christmas party — which was supposed to have been the inciting incident of this whole feud. But what bothers Heather most is that Gina kept this from her the whole time. It was a tough balancing act for Gina to manage, but I understand some of her logic. Back in December, before cameras were up, it seemed like it could be best just to ignore it, hoping the gossip would die. But as soon as Katie said it on camera, it was too far gone, and it quickly exploded in Gina’s face — so she wastes no time apologizing to Heather.
Nonetheless, Gina’s still caught between a rock and a hard place (Katie and Heather), both of whom have issues with her straddling the fence. Whereas Heather felt like she didn’t give her a heads up, Katie feels like Gina sent her into the lion’s den and then abandoned her. She wishes she had been more neutral when it all came to ahead, but Gina very quickly admits that if it comes down to teams, she’s on Team Heather. Gina’s not dumb, and she’s not going to throw away her friendship with an anchor of the show — especially one who flies her around on private jets.
Meanwhile, Shannon gets lunch with her father, Gene the Machine, where we find out she has to get a car with a breathalyzer in it. At this point, that technology should be mandated for all Real Housewives’s vehicles … and some of their phones. She also breaks the news to her dad about the lawsuit from John Janssen, but says that the money was a gift, not a loan. Gene’s advice is to fight back no matter the cost, but that’s easier said than done, especially considering how much the Jim Bellino lawsuit cost her.
Speaking of Bellinos, Alexis has Tamra over to her house, which is a sentence I couldn’t have imagined writing ten years ago. But she insists that this is a whole new Alexis. Is it? Or is this Alexis just useful in Tamra’s crusade against Shannon? It seems like the latter when Tamra says Shannon should pay John back for her facelift. But a facelift is very clearly a gift, not a loan. Even Jax Taylor is more chivalrous than that. He didn’t ask for Brittany to pay him back for the boob job he bought her (yet). Have some class!
And as if things couldn’t get worse for Shannon, she has to break the news to Vicki that she apparently can’t go to Mexico for ten years because of her DUI. Vicki is, as we all know, the queen of Puerto Vallarta, so this is a devastating development. She has to go through the stages of grief, the first of which is denial, and her immediate reaction is to suggest that Shannon just goes to San Diego and sneaks into Mexico by crossing the border there. I think Vicki just figured out how to get Mexico to pay for a wall.
Speaking of walls — the fourth one breaks when Tamra walks into dinner wearing the exact same outfit Gina is wearing in her confessionals, which she calls out right there at the table. Normally confessionals are an unspoken mysterious dimension, but now we said it!
After some quick musical chairs in an attempt to avoid an awkward seating chart, Vicki walks in and we finally get to see her reunite with Alexis in a goosebumps-inducing moment. “Look who’s in my world now,” Alexis tells her, an artful callback to Vicki telling her something similar back when she first joined the show — and a line that I’d bet was fed to her by her producer, Tamra. “I’m in her world? Sit down, bitch,” Vicki fires back, quickly setting the tone for the dinner. She then encourages Shannon, who’s not driving, to go ahead and order a drink — to which Tamra yells across the table, “Oh yeah, an alcoholic should drink.” The room goes so quiet that you’d be able to hear a Lynne Curtin cuff drop.
The artists formerly known as the Tres Amigas then litigate whether or not Shannon is an alcoholic from across the table. We had seen this conversation start to emerge, mostly behind Shannon’s back, but it’s shocking to see it come to the surface like this, at an all-cast dinner as if she’s not even sitting there. When she chimes in to say that she thinks about what happened every single morning when she wakes up, Tamra hits her with, “Is that after you have a drink?” It’s so cruel, even for Tamra, that Gina and Emily have to hop in to defend Shannon.
Tamra has decided to be an absolute super villain this season. Over the years, we’ve seen her villainous nature, which is almost always a conscious choice, ebb and flow depending on what kind of season she’s trying to create. But this year, she’s embraced being as evil as humanly possible. It’s almost admirable that she’s willing to make herself look horrible for the good of the show because the result, as I’m sure she knows, is great television. Then she’ll hit the reset button at the reunion with a tearful apology for how horrible she was, in part after seeing that the audience was largely on Shannon’s side, and then she can run back the play next year.
Until then, this hard stance is also resulting in strife between her and Vicki — ah, even more nostalgia! Vicki’s upset with Tamra for the way she’s treating Shannon, but as we found out last week, Tamra dropping out of their live show is also getting between Vicki and her bag (an unforgivable offense). Vicki calls her a traitor, in reference to the show Tamra went off to film immediately after Shannon’s DUI, and in return, Tamra says, “I’m not a Traitor; I’m a Faithful. I just decided to vote you two out.” The synergy gods are smiling down upon Tamra Judge.
As the accusations continue to fly across the dinner table, Shannon has finally had enough and tries to storm out. You know how in the olden days, people’s last names were indicative of their professions? Like Carpenter and Butler, for example. Well, Shannon’s maiden name is also an occupational surname because she Storms out of every room she’s ever been in. But before she can live up to that name, Alexis chimes in about the money John is accusing her of owing. But while pulling up the wire transfer receipts, Alexis makes a fatal mistake, saying, “He was generous enough to give her the money.” Did you hear that? Give … not lend! Your honor, the defense rests.
As Shannon leaves, Vicki and Tamra are squabbling like two parents with conflicting ideas of what their kid needs. Vicki thinks Shannon needs love, but Tamra thinks that’s just enabling her. Meanwhile Heather, who I almost forgot was at this dinner, is encouraging Alexis to take it down a notch. She thinks Alexis should let everybody get to know her for her instead of as this John Janssen surrogate. And while Heather is talking about the cast, I think that also applies to the audience. Despite not liking Alexis at all during her first stint on the show, I was looking forward to seeing her back. I thought we’d get to see a new, interesting side to her now that she’s free from Jim Bellino and the mother of a transgender son. But thus far we’ve only gotten to see this vendetta, and the schtick is getting old.
