Real Housewives of OC: White Elephant Intervention

Last week in Orange County, Vicki followed the producers’ instructions to invite the girls on a trip to Costa Rica and Slade told Gretchen that she’s too much of a distraction for him to make any kind of financial headway.  Also, I went on vacay, so THANK YOU Jane and Blanche, for being hilarious so I could be lazy in a different city! 

This week we start by joining Tamra and Eddie having dinner with Heather and Terry.  First item of business is that Tamra has to confess that she told Alexis that Terry called her phony.  She said it to prove that she’s not the only one who thinks Alexis is a big fake.  She adds that she threw in the fact that Terry’s a plastic surgeon, so if anyone knows fake, it’s him.  Terry’s just glad Tamra is funny, but Heather is mortified.

"Did you also remind her that I'm an actress so I can tell who's fake too?"

She decides it will be okay, though, if she and Tamra band together and stage a “phoniness intervention” for Alexis while they’re all in Costa Rica.  Oh this should be good.  I can just see Alexis clasping her chest and thanking everyone for bringing this overlooked character flaw to her attention. 

And right now Alexis is phonily packing for the trip, which of course requires an assistant.  Alexis tells us that she can only go on the trip for two of the planned five days because she doesn’t have a full time nanny to watch her kids for that long.  Nanny?  She has a full time HUSBAND who “works” from home!  Not to mention all the people who are paid to straighten her hair and paint her face.  She can’t pay someone to watch TV with her kids for a couple of afternoons?  It would probably be a nice break from coddling Alexis.

"I wonder who watches Katie Cure-ick's kids."

Alexis tells us she’s a bit worried because she just had this huge blow up with Tamra and she doesn’t like to be around people who don’t like her.  Then in the next breath she says she doesn’t care if people don’t like her because she likes herself and she’ll have fun anyway.  Whatever, Alexis.  Finish piecing together your outfits for the jungle. 

Heather also has someone over helping her put together a special outfit for every 15 minutes of the trip.  Terry comes in with the baby and we learn that he will miraculously be holding the family together while Heather is gone for five whole days.  Imagine!

"Now which one is this again?"

Gretchen is having some trouble with her packing adventure.  She doesn’t have an assistant, but she does have her manager Slade there to help her pick out outfits.  She wants to know if there’s a book on what you wear to Costa Rica.  Is this really that big of a mystery?  I’m guessing it will be humid there and they’ll want comfortable clothes to wear for their outdoor activities.  Done!  Instead this is a project for the ages requiring all kinds of research and hired help.  Slade is reading a list found on a Google search and advising quick-dry pants and worn out clothes.  Gretchen melts down because she doesn’t have quick-dry pants or worn out clothes.  She also doesn’t have anything light and made of cotton!  Slade keeps reading off the list.

"So far I only have these hiking shoes!"

SHUT UP, Slade!  You are stressing Gretchen out by continuing to mention items she doesn’t have!  When Gretchen screams this at him, Slade snatches up his dollies and his dishes and storms home.  Wait.  Gretchen’s house IS his home, so he storms to the next room.  Now Gretchen will have to see what packing is like without a manager.

"You're still making lunch though, right?"

The next scene we have is Alexis arriving at LAX at a dark 4:30 AM in a limo.  She’s wearing a dress and is the first to arrive.  The next person is Heather, which is super awkward because these two don’t really know or like each other so they both kind of look around going, “So... Tamra’s coming, right?”  The girls will be flying first to Miami where Vicki is joining them from some pressing Florida insurance business, then on to Costa Rica.  Gretchen arrives at the airport in a flaming yellow floor length gown with a cape.  What?  Who flies like this?  Were sweatpants not mentioned in Slade’s infuriating list?  Or were they, but that was another something Gretchen does not own?  Good thing she brought her fedora, though.

"I couldn't find a book on what to wear on airplanes."

11 hours later, the whole gang piles out of Costa Rican cars at their Costa Rican resort.  The last leg of their trip was a three hour car ride to the resort from the airport, which Vicki quickly learns was unnecessary because there is an airport 15 minutes away.  Vicki is furious and apparently she is the one responsible for making these arrangements.  Everyone takes their bags to their rooms then reconvenes at the pool for cocktails and appetizers.  Everyone, that is, except for Vicki, who Tamra concludes is probably on the phone with Brooks, which is ironic because she used to make fun of everyone else for talking on the phone to their husbands (or Slade).  When Gretchen and Alexis get up in arms about it, Heather suggests that perhaps Vicki was envious of what they had.  When Vicki emerges, she gulps down a cocktail and instructs everyone on what to wear ziplining the next day, including no diamonds.  Alexis announces that she’ll be fine because she’s just wearing her huge cubic zirconia, so no one will want to rob her.  Heather tells her robbers won’t realize it’s fake before they rob her, so she’s not any safer.  I guess Alexis thinks that if her REAL ring is safe, that’s all that matters.  She can always call back her private nurse to put frozen peas on her battered face after being mugged.  Then Alexis announces that she’ll be going home after only two days because she has three babies at home.  Vicki points at Heather and says she has four babies. 

Alexis:  Well I don’t have a nanny.
Heather:  I don’t have one either.
Alexis:  Well my husband needs to work.  He can’t be at home like I am.
Heather (to us):  I have four kids and one is a baby.  If Terry can handle this, Jim can certainly handle it. 

It’s true.  After all, Terry is a plastic surgeon and Jim is just a hustler.  Vicki starts woo-hooing and screaming that her love tank is full.  Then she remembers about Briana’s elopement and fake cries.  Heather tells her to let it go already.  THANK YOU.  It looks like Drunk Vicki is out to play.

"PENIS!"

At breakfast the next morning, Alexis keeps telling the chefs very slowly that she would like egg whites.  When they ask if she wants them scrambled, she says, “Egg WHITES.  No YELL-OW.”  They speak English, Alexis.  Do you?  Everyone is dressed really funny.  Vicki, Gretchen and Tamra are all in camouflage like they’re about to join some Central American guerrilla army, and Alexis is dressed, as Tamra points out, like a zookeeper.  Heather is the only one who looks normal in workout clothes.  Presentation is everything.  A monkey appears on a nearby rooftop, but before Heather can snap a picture on her iPhone, it leaps into some trees. Vicki screeches, “Did he die?!” While Alexis frantically says, “He just fell!  He just fell!”  This is going to be a long trip. 

In the car ride on the way to ziplining, the girls pass around a canteen of booze and scream bloody murder when they see an ox wandering around the side of the road.

"Pack animals are silly."

Heather is about to come undone.  She tells us these women are nothing like her other friends, who I’m sure would be calmly riding in a helicopter on their way to a diamond mine or something, instead of this nonsense.  To nail the point home, Vicki wants to play the alphabet game, so she starts with, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring my anus.”  Then wants Tamra to repeat it with something dirty that starts with B.  Tamra says she’s bringing her vagina.  Oh my gosh, I’m siding more and more with Heather and I never used to think that would happen. 

Preparing to zipline, Alexis shrieks and giggles while one of the guides (either Diego, Jorge or Jose) helps her into her harness then offers to braid her hair for her.  This is why Jim is resistant to letting her out of the house.  Men can’t resist touching her extensions.  While the guys explain how the ziplining adventure will work, Gretchen and Heather are kind of nervous, but Alexis acts like an old pro because apparently she’s done this before.  Vicki woo-hoos through her turn, but when veteran Alexis is up, she starts worrying that branches are going to hit her new nose, ruining her surgery and blocking up her airways again and she’s not so sure she wants to do this.  She then proceeds to scream and hesitate from the jump-off for about a half hour while everyone stands around begging her to go.

"My mucus plugs hurt!"

She finally goes, but her histrionics would indicate that she’s jumping out of an airplane instead of ziplining a few yards.  Everyone is annoyed.  Heather has zero trouble after watching Alexis make a total fool of herself.  Alexis continues to wail in distress and Drunk Vicki continues to think she’s cute and endearing while being completely irritating and obnoxious.  Tamra asks Vicki what she was like in high school.  Like was she this annoying?  Vicki says she was totally popular and she was going to marry Bob Tomato.  BOB TOMATO was Vicki’s high school boyfriend!?  HA HA HA!  Vicki Tomato?  But she kicked Mr. Tomato to the curb and married Mike because he had a nice car and a nice butt.  I can’t imagine why that marriage fell apart.  The girls point out that Vicki was four years younger when she got married than Briana, but Vicki says that’s not the point.  Her parents knew Mike and they were engaged for a year and a half and had a real wedding.  Through all this she is shrieking and laughing and singing and everyone is baffled by her odd behavior.  It’s called alcohol, ladies.  Maybe she can’t hold as much as y’all.  She WORKS.  When Vicki gets mad at Gretchen for saying “penis,” Tamra reminds her that she said “anus” and calls her a hypocrite.  Drunk Vicki’s pendulum swings and she’s PISSED.  How DARE Tamra call her the same word Gretchen called her when they had their big fight?  Tamra argues back while Heather claps her hands chanting, “Let it go!  Let it go!”  Poor mommy Heather.

Vicki:  "I would NEVER say P-E-N-I-S, Tamra!"

Later that night, everyone changes into their very carefully selected dinner outfits.  Gretchen stops by to pick up Alexis and Heather stops by to pick up Tamra.  No one wants to get Vicki, ha ha ha.  Tamra begins by telling Heather that she’s using cutlets to stuff her dress because this is the first time she’s worn it since she got her fake boobs removed.  She jokes that the cutlets are Alexis’s lips, but I’m stuck on the fact that all Tamra has done is moved her implants from beneath her skin to beneath her dress.  What was the point of taking them out if she’s just going to stuff her bra?  Anyway, they talk about how Alexis kept acting hysterical ziplining and Tamra says she has to try to get attention because she’s not getting it “somewhere else.”  Heather says in all sincerity, “Oh is that why she dresses like that?”  I almost die laughing.  I guess Heather won’t be ordering any Alexis Couture off the internet.

"Maybe next we'll do a wardrobe intervention.  She needs a clothier."

Heather says she will absolutely speak for Terry if Alexis brings him up, which Tamra thinks is funny because Alexis always says SHE doesn’t speak for HER husband and his bad behavior.

The girls have dinner at a restaurant called Claro Que Seafood, which Heather thinks is really cute and she explains why.  Now pay close attention here, people, because NONE of the housewives could put this together - even after Heather explained it several times.  In Spanish “claro que si” means “of course.”  The restaurant is called Claro Que Seafood, so it’s a play on the Spanish term of “of course,” incorporating the fare they specialize in, which is seafood.  Super complicated, right?  You could write a dissertation on how confusing that is and still no one would ever understand it or come to eat at the restaurant.  That’s what Tamra and Gretchen think.  Alexis’s brain explodes. 

Vicki finally arrives and her hair is once again in an ill-advised arrangement, with the very front part in a bubble above her forehead.  And the bubble is all lopsided.  I guess this is Vicki cutting loose and getting crazy.  Vicki wants to sing some more and Tamra asks about this new Vicki.  Vicki says she’s happy.  She’s always been happy, she just had a down period.  Tamra didn’t know her before when she was happy.  I think we can safely replace the word “happy” with “drunk.”  Heather brings up that all the guys are going to go out to dinner back in Orange County and she asks Alexis if Jim is going.  Alexis says she doesn’t want to be in the middle of that, but the only way Jim would go is if Terry called him, knowing what Terry said about Alexis.  And while we’re on the subject, let’s just bring the “white elephant” in the room out into the open.  Oh Alexis.  I was wondering how long you could keep your mouth shut with that white elephant hovering.

 "I know your husband called me a pony."

So it’s on.  Heather suggests calmly that they discuss Terry’s “phony” comment now that it’s been brought up.  She apologizes that Alexis heard about it, then nudges Tamra to apologize as well, and says that Terry is harmless and didn’t mean to be cruel.  When Alexis snaps back that Terry doesn’t even know her, Tamra reminds Alexis that she told Terry off at the Bunco party, which is true.  We even get a flashback of Alexis yelling at Terry to worry about his own patients and leave her alone.  And Terry had not even addressed her.  Alexis says maybe she flew off the handle, but she’s only human.  But for Terry to say that she’s phony?  That’s unacceptable.  But he’s only human, Alexis.  Heather says that she’s taking Terry off the table because he was just parroting what he’s heard everyone else say, and the point is that Alexis comes off to people as phony.  Alexis is confused because she didn’t see Terry on the table.  Tamra chimes in and says that Alexis is very materialistic.  Heather says that just because Alexis has things, she doesn’t need to talk about it and she’s just telling her this as a friend.  I can’t help but recall meeting Heather and hearing all about her kids’ expensive private schools and living on Billionaire’s Row, and Terry’s fifty thousand dollar suit shopping spree, but I guess she was telling US, not the other housewives, so it’s different.  I kind of see her point, but please.  ALL of these women are materialistic and they’re all phony!  But Alexis is definitely the worst, so let’s carry on, shall we?  Heather tells Alexis that before they met, she saw Alexis and Jim with their kids at Nordstrom and Jim was very loudly explaining to his son that he needed to get the most expensive pair of sneakers.  That HAS to be true.  When Jim was on the show more, all he did was talk about how much everything cost.  That was the first thing I noticed (and hated) about him.  That’s a sure sign of someone who doesn’t have money, but wants people to think he does.  Aka, PHONY.  Alexis claims she never heard that and has no idea where she was during the Nordstrom incident.  But still, Heather can’t judge her just from that.  Gretchen cuts in and says that Alexis does come off as very pretentious.  Gretchen says they’ve all seen it and she nods at each housewife individually.  When she gets to Vicki, Vicki says she’s saying NOTHING because she wasn’t part of this conversation.  She’s not getting involved, but all she knows is that many times she’s felt beneath Alexis and she probably has more money than Alexis.  HA!  Way to say NOTHING, Vick!  Continuing to stay out of it, Vicki says she’d never buy a Phantom or a Bentley, she’d put that money toward retirement.  LOL!  Now we’re on a tangent because Alexis says that instead of leaving the money in the bank, they get to enjoy it via a car, and Jim will sell the car and make all of the money he spent on it back.  He was in the car business, so he knows how to do that.  Tamra can’t resist jumping in and calling BS.  “It’s a depreciating asset - a car!”

"And Craigslist isn't the car business!"

Tamra reminds her that Simon was also in the car business for a long time.  True!  They start talking over each other and Alexis - as always - totally misses the point.  She babbles that it’s no one’s business how they spend their money and besides, Tamra’s here with a Louis Vuitton handbag.  Alexis shouldn’t have to be punished for buying nice things.  Wow, who would have ever guessed that this phoniness intervention could have gone so terribly awry?  Alexis is usually so rational and level-headed!  And who doesn’t want to be told they suck?  Here they are trying to explain to her that she’s coming off as phony and pretentious and she’s screaming that she shouldn’t have to defend how she spends her money.  It’s like she’s in a totally different conversation on another trip in some other country on a different planet.  Claro que si!

Next week!  Alexis is mad that Gretchen didn’t stand up for her.  It was an INTERVENTION, Alexis!  It’s bad form to stand up for the person being intervened upon.  Also, the ladies go rafting and digging in some mud, then Vicki drunkenly admits that if Donn would take her back she would go.  Snap!

So this intervention may have been a bad idea, but seriously.  How stupid is Alexis?  She thinks they’re intervening on her spending habits instead of her attitude.  Is it even worth it?

Remember!  There’s no “us” without “u.”

Thanks for reading!
-Honey Gangsta