The Real Housewives of Orange County Review: The Bitches are Back

I’m fully prepared to defend my claim that Orange County is the best of the Real Housewives franchises, by far. Case in point: this week’s premiere episode where every moment of the show was filled with frustrating, ridiculous, and delectable drama. There were awkward phone conversations, marital issues, fights at parties, gossip in limos, alcoholic rages, and THE BEST upcoming season preview ever. They didn’t even need to include the new housewife or Lynn’s spacey and incomprehensible comments to have me glued to the TV with a smile on my face.

At their most interesting, Beverly Hill’s Kyle and Camille can only dream of being as amusing as Tamra and Vicki are at their most mundane. Knock-down drag-out fights in Miami and Beverly Hills simply cannot compete with the backseat bickering of the Orange County ladies as they discuss their daily wake-up time.

This season, Tamra’s a self-proclaimed “free bitch” now that she’s rid herself of the over controlling and large-necked Simon. To celebrate, she’s throwing a shopping party at her new boyfriend’s house and is inviting most of the other housewives. She seems intent on burying the hatchet with both Vicki and Gretchen, who she struggled to get along with last season. Her invitation phone call to Gretchen goes gloriously awkward when she claims she misses her, and Gretchen responds with, “no you don’t.” It’s no matter though, because Gretchen hesitantly agrees to attend.

In the meantime, Gretchen’s busy venting to her “go-to gay” for all her hair and life dilemmas, and practicing for possible upcoming gigs selling her bu-tay products on camera. That’s right, Gretchen’s ready to expand Gretchen Christine Beaute beyond make up. She’s designing handbags now! And bragging about how hard she’s working doing it. Vicki’s not buying it though. “Of course she should be working. She’s not married and she doesn’t have kids, what else is she supposed to be doing?” Zing! Vicki strikes again!

The hardest working of the whole bunch (but don’t tell Alexis), Vicki is using her spare time to move rugs around in her house. Wonderfully edited together with her claims that she and Don are better than ever since their vow renewal, we see Vicki boss Don around until they’re both frustrated and unhappy.

Alexis is frustrated and unhappy too, but it has less to do rug placement and more to do with a lack of nannies in her house. Alexis has cut down the number of nannies she employs and the number of days they work. She says it’s because her children are older, but I suspect it has something to do with the recession. In any case, she now has to spend actual time with her children. It’s what God would want apparently and she’s understandably stressed as her kids fight with and bite each other. God may expect women to stay home with the children, but He sure doesn’t make it easy.

Luckily, God allows time off for drinking and parties. Alexis, Gretchen, and Gretchen’s assistant (why?) all take a limo to Tamra’s party. Alexis tries to convince Gretchen to let things go, but Gretchen has already decided to be a bitch about it. When she arrives at the party, she immediately calls Tamra an evil bitch. Kind of. This fight was a weird one, involving hats with eyes on them and a lot of alcohol. The details aren’t really important, but the fact that Tamra and Gretchen managed to have a fight about hats is a one of the many reasons I’m in love with everyone on this show. Vicki’s there too, not taking guff from anyone and generally being annoyed by everyone.

When Gretchen’s had enough alcohol, fighting, and bartender flirting, she and the rest of the group head back to the limo to have another fight about whether or not Gretchen’s a princess because she wakes up at 8 every morning. Non-stop drama!

The episode ends with a preview of the upcoming season that almost made me wet myself with giddy anticipation. There’s a new housewife, issues between Don and Vicki, possible marriage proposals from Slade to Gretchen, and a big-time fight between Tamra and ex-housewife Jeana that gets physical. Could this season be the best one yet? As Vicki would say, “Wooohoooooooo!”

Season 6, Episode 1: Amped Blondes & Evil Eyes (original air date March 6, 2011)

For more drama tune in on Sundays at 10/9 Central on Bravo.

Images courtesy of Nicole Wilder/Bravo.