After New Jersey’s table-flipping, New York’s power-promoting and Atlanta’s “unbeweaveable” wig-yanking, are we really ready to head back west for season 5 of The Real Housewives of Orange County? Yes!
With the return of Vicki Gunvalson, Tamra Barney, Jeana Keough, Gretchen Rossi and Lynne Curtin — plus the addition of someone to take on Vicki, new Housewife Alexis Bellino — Bravo is banking on its first ladies to keep it real and deliver the drama. And based on Thursday’s season premiere, it looks promising.
But first, here’s where we left off:
Tamra may not have flipped a table but she did get Gretchen “naked wasted” and sent her own son to seduce her during a dinner at her house. And she followed up at the reunion with the accusation that Gretchen was cheating while caring for her then-ailing, now-late fiancé Jeff.
An accident-prone Vicki (Recall the fall from the podium? The football to the head?) had an empty “love tank,” so she chose to ridicule her husband Donn (a.k.a. Mr. Vicki Gunvalson) and get cozy with a stranger in Vegas.
Lynne took it hard when her mean girl costars used her as a punching bag. But she wasn’t upset when she had to deal with her underage daughter’s taste for cocktail dresses — and cocktails!
Jeana didn’t feel much love from her baseball player son Shane, who wanted to throw a bat at her when she came to cheer him on, but she did go on a date with temporary-beau Alan, who treated her to a lovely birthday dinner.
Gretchen continued to live her life and get gifts until, we learned in the season 4 finale, Jeff passed away. The persistent accusations of gold-digging worsened at the reunion when Tamra revealed a dirty little secret. But was it true?
Welcome to season 5! Thursday’s season premiere had enough blonde hair, money and marital problems to hook us in for a ride on the sunnyside.
Thanks to her insurance business, Vicki seemed immune to the nation’s economic downturn (and her neighbor Jeana’s plea for a loan) and is back in love with Donn.
Jeana, sadly, is going through a tough time financially since the real estate market in Orange County has gone bust, but she seems satisfied to sit at a table of drama, be the nice one and eat macaroni.
“Lynne is going global with her cuffs!” After being ridiculed for not working hard, this Housewife is making ends meet with her unique accessories and a bikini line (modeled by her daughter) while her husband’s construction business is floundering. Let’s hope her plans for plastic surgery don’t eat up all the profits.
After being the envy of Vicki’s love tank, Tamra and Simon are now at each other’s throats. And while she’s working out some aggression with her new pal Lynne, she has plenty left for her nemesis Gretchen. At Lynne’s trunk show/dinner party, she attacked, calling Gretchen a “hooker” and delighting in racy photos of her costar that popped up on the Internet.
A grieving Gretchen admitted that after Jeff’s death, she went through a dark time — her “Britney Spears shave my head moment” that resulted in said Internet photos — but found comfort in the arms of perennial Housewives dater Slade.
So why does Orange County still matter? Whether it’s volatility of the economy, their relationships or their dinner parties, Vicki, Tamra, Jeana, Gretchen and Lynne always keep it real despite their affinity for fake hair and boobs. –Aaron Parsley
Tell us: Do the women of Orange County still matter to you? What did you think of the new season’s first episode?
NBC
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