Reality Roundup

Time for another installment of delicious reality TV!

This week's Real Housewives was just fabulous. Truly. Where to begin...

Gina moved her daughter Cara back to Berkeley this week and on the drive up from the O.C. learned that cows smell bad. See people? Life lessons are taught in travel. While up in the great smelly north, the girls went on a mom-daughter tour of the "zoo" as Gina referred to it. To you and me, the park filled with bums. Heartwarming stuff here. Put aside all the elitist crap, and Gina is actually a decent mother. Her son Colton was as nice and helpful to her with her first foray into dating as her other son Shane is an ass. 

Vicky went on a cruise for her life coaching service, Life with Vicky. I'm pretty sure its a cult. Later, she climbs the rock wall on the ship "for success!" You can't write this stuff. 

This week Gretchen is a gold-digging whore. Perhaps I should set up a Twitter to update when she vacillates between devoted wife and GDW. Anyway, she shipped Jeff back off to the hospital for a bit of reanimation and set off for Dallas for a girls weekend with her college pals. Inane conversation abounds and the jaw-dropping moment of the show: Gretchen thinks that Jeff can and will get her pregnant.

Tamra goes to Cedar Rapids for the long-awaited reunion with her dad. Don't feel bad here folks, I didn't know where Cedar Rapids was either. Turns out its Iowa. In the process she has her first experience with an American automobile as well as with a crack house. The show said it was flood damaged, but I've been around the block once or twice. Nice try Bravo. Creepy son flirts with old and distant relative at faux-Benihana. Yum. Later, Tamra hashes out long-standing family issues with her father on a cement island in what appeared to be a river. Classy.

Anybody else noticed the continually precarious state of Lynne's boobs? The wind must not blow much in her corner of the O.C. She can be forgiven for this though, as she has been too busy getting her head nice and deep in the sand. Best quote of the show (referring to her lush daughter): "I'm sure the cigarettes weren't hers. She was probably just carrying them for someone else". Flash to daughter saying oh ya they're totally mine. Wasn't there a Brady Bunch episode about this??

Otherwise, not much to report. Amazing Race is back and good as ever. This season there is a nice white trash couple named Linda and Steve who genuinely seem to love each other. But still...When they got to the end of this leg, our lovely host Phil Keoghan could not hide his distaste for them. Awkward Kathy Griffin fodder here folks. "Linda and Steve (turns head for breath), you are the nth team. Congratulations." What they didn't show was poor Phil high-tailing his cable-knit sweater out of dodge when he got that line out. 

Until next time, 

Mo

The Real(ly Bad) Housewives of Orange County

Has anyone else noticed that this season of The Real Housewives of Orange Country has been less housewives and more Girls Gone Horribly Horribly Wrong? As of the last episode we find ourselves in the following posish:

--Jeana is divorced/separated/generally not together with her d-bag husband (who else thought this had already happened and the show had had the taste to gloss over it?) and not making any particular effort to get back on the horse. 

--Vicky is her crazy old bitch self. Part of me wonders if this isn't selective editing on Bravo's end. Regardless, I wonder how her long-suffering husband Don has found the will to not throw himself in front of a speeding Escalade. 

--Lynne wondered last week if her house had a/c and how she would look into the matter. I have no words for this, nor her stupid cuff bracelets in which she evidently puts much time and effort. Perhaps less time spent in that endeavor would yield favorable results in preventing her 18 year old daughter drinking and driving?

--Tamra remains one of the major reasons I still watch this show. Her dinner party was truly hilarious and I'm sure will go down as one of the highlights of this season. I like her and her take on things, but not her creep-ass son. 

--Gretchen: To be or not to be a gold-digging whore, that is the question on my mind at the moment. As soon as I choose a side, something changes that. More selective editing from Bravo? Possibly. But the scene with her, Jeff, and the kids eating breakfast was pitiful. He looked like they had exhumed him and brought him home as-is. Or as-was? 

This show, and I am consciously avoiding using a certain phrase here, is a mess. Right now, it's a mess in an ohmigoditssobadiloveitsomuch sorta way, but the producers are toeing a very fine line. This could go into Being Bobby Brown-town quicker than any of us realize.