I have a little ‘secret’ that I must get off my chest – I’m not much of a Real Housewives of Orange County fanatic.
Now before you get your pitchforks and demand I stop writing this instant let me explain something. I watched the entire first season of the show when it premiered back in 2005… and had to call it quits. The show was pretty boring and the only Housewife I liked was being caged up inside her house by her highly intolerable fianceé who we know today as Slade Smiley. After the first season, I didn’t think the show would get picked up again and tuned out and didn’t look back. However, I still noticed casting changes here and there and other shows that spawned from that particular show, namely that God-awful Date My Ex show, which puzzled me to no end.
Then the new Real Housewives shows started cropping up and my interest was rekindled to some extent. It took The Real Housewives of Atlanta and New Jersey to grab me in reruns and word of mouth, while I had dabbled in some RHONY time to time. However, Countess LuAnn worked my nerves like a hooker on Franklin Boulevard and I didn’t start watching full-time until the show’s third season premiere and I was officially sucked into the world of the Real Housewives and thought I should give RHOOC another try.
To make a long story short, I rewatched the first season of RHOOC and still felt it was dull. It wasn’t until later seasons that I started to like the show for what it was: a tamer, simpler version of what came afterwards. These women lunched, shopped, and had occasional spats and called it a day afterwards. You didn’t find wigs being pulled or tables being tossed with these women. You did, however, encounter some good one liners, toned-down egos, and no tabloid fodder reports about personal finances that lined the checkout lanes of supermarkets across America. Or at least the OC Housewives business wasn’t that prevalent in my eyes. Even with all of that newfound respect for the series, I just wasn’t as thrilled about tonight’s premiere as I was RHOA or RHONY.
Then came tonight’s premiere, which might change my feelings about the original Real Housewives once and for all. Might.
Like I said, while I didn’t make sure RHOOC was on my TV radar, I still noticed casting changes; most notably, the inclusion of the self-proclaimed “hottest Housewife of Orange County” Tamra Barney. Even though I didn’t watch the series, Tamra always stood out and I love woman for her straight-no-chaser way of telling the other ladies how she feels. Then I also noticed the inclusion of Gretchen Rossi and felt for her when her now deceased husband Jeff was sick and after his eventual passing. I knew Tamra and Gretchen didn’t like each other and I knew that Slade Smiley had worked his way back onto the show through Gretchen, which was just pathetic in my eyes.
So this brings us to last night’s premiere episode, which shows Tamra recovering after her marriage with Simon was over and done. She blamed her snarky behavior on Simon’s influences and wanted to reconnect with the people she might’ve harmed. I don’t care what she did or who she pissed off, but for someone to take step outside themselves and not only admit that they were wrong in their transgressions, but also try to mend fences with the people they harmed is pretty damn noble in my eyes. Alas, when Tamra invited Gretchen to her party, she was met with some pretty rank hostility from her former/current nemesis during said shindig. You would think that with Alexis and Gretchen being so close now that Alexis would’ve bestowed the wisdom of Forgivness to her friend, but after how Alexis’s chilly welcome to Vicki, I guess Alexis missed that Bible school lesson as well.
The point of the matter is that whether or not Tamra was mean in the past, she did not deserve Gretchen’s “payback’s!” stance (even though that line was funny as hell) and was right in feeling slighted in some way. Even Alexis and Gretchen’s assistant Shawna thought Ms. Independent was out of line, but that didn’t stop the terror from further pissing Tamra off and possibly setting the stage for further confrontations down the line between the two women. This is fine and dandy with me, because at least the conflict with these women is genuine and not bland as the ladies in Real Housewives of Miami, which is leaving me thirsty for a good catfight at the moment.
The only thing missing was the new Housewife Peggy, who I’m wondering how she’ll be factored into the show next week. In the scenes I’ve seen, I’m already lined up to see what she has to offer. I mean a woman who can wield any type of weapon is a winner in my book.
So that’s my intial thoughts on this new season of the Real Housewives of Orange County, now tell me about yours? Speak to us in the Forums and vote in the poll for your favorite Housewives show!
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Gretchen was not married to Jeff, just a live-in. She inherited a million dollars from him, money that his children should have gotten.
You're a guy. Whadda you know? Figures you'd like Slade's old shack up, too. Young girl without a brain in her head.
Gretchen's a horror, a liar, a s l u t. However, Tamra came across tonight, on the "after" show with Andy Cohen, as a real b i tch, too. She's riding for a fall, looks like to me. Why so much pride? Makes her unlikable.
Listen, if you are going to write about these shows, you should watch every episode. Your article misses a whole lot.
What did I miss? I said I knew enough to know where everyone stood. I know about each of the women, watched the show on and off each season. Me being a guy doesn't have anything to do with it. I noticed what I saw tonight and that was enough for me.