In the previous episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Kelly Dodd finally made contact with her old enemies Shannon and Tamra. While Tamra managed to keep it together, Shannon promptly freaked out. There are sure to be repercussions from this fallout, so let’s see how these two proceed and how the rest of the women navigate around them in this episode, titled “We Have a New Puppet Master.”
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Healing Fairy Dust
In this episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, Tamra gives Shannon a mood promoter to brighten her mood when she’s around Kelly Dodd. She says that after the other night, she needs to keep them on her at all times. Shannon is ashamed of the way she behaved, which is probably the biggest difference between her and Kelly, who feels no shame ever.
Kelly tells her husband, Michael, that Shannon freaked out at her at the restaurant for no reason, no antagonizing by her whatsoever! Michael says that he thinks somewhere inside of Shannon is a fun-loving person, and the two of them could probably be friends if something weren’t standing in the way. Kelly says that someone is Tamra. She thinks Tamra is the new puppet master now that Heather’s gone. Anyway, she says she wants to try to make things right with Shannon. Both of these women need to apologize to each other, quite honestly. The way they both behaved was rude and unacceptable.
Judy is throwing Lydia’s son, Stirling, a birthday party at her home. It’s a big, over-the-top emoji-themed party. Lydia says Brianna might be on the guest list, which is okay with Judy; their scuffle at Vicki’s party took place a long time ago and it’s all ancient history now.
Judy, bless her heart, wants to sprinkle fairy dust on Kelly and Shannon to try and make them get along. Lydia assures her that there’s not enough fairy dust in the world to fix those problems.
At the party, Kelly and Lydia fill Vicki in about the incident at the Quiet Woman. Lydia says she was embarrassed to be there. Peggy agrees, but she’s not looking for an apology from Kelly or Shannon. She just wants to stay out of it.
Before the party’s over, Vicki tells Peggy she wants to take her under her wing. She warns her that some of these women may act like friends, but they can’t be trusted. This must make Peggy feel confident enough in Vicki because she shares her medical issues with her. To her face, Vicki tells her that she’s there for her anytime she needs a friend. But in her confessional, she says she’s learned from Brooks’ “situation” that medical issues are best kept private. Yeah, maybe fake ones!
Vicki goes with Kelly for moral support to her vaginal rejuvenation. Vicki is completely grossed-out. She says she likes to be there for her friends, but this is too much. The two of them are gross and immature and can’t even hear the poor technician say “vagina” without bursting into giggles. Thank goodness the procedure is over relatively quickly.
Meanwhile, Shannon’s teaching her oldest daughter, Sophie, how to drive. She assures us in the confessional that she’s going to be calm and zen, but her panic slowly rises. Her anxious energy rubs off on poor Sophie, who is close to tears yet still realizes how funny this situation is. That’s pretty much all I can say about this scene without being personally triggered by my own driving situation with my parent.
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Erasing Family
Tamra tells her son, Ryan, that she’s nervous about giving a speech at a convention coming up. She’ll be addressing a group of people about the perils of broken families and ways to find yourself back to healing. She says that she and her ex are getting along a lot better now that they’ve decided to put their differences aside for the good of their kids.
Tamra also ran into her estranged daughter, Sydney, the other day by accident. She says she hugged her and she was happy to see her, even though it feels like she doesn’t know her anymore. She says that just being alone in a room together for 20 minutes without anyone running out screaming is an improvement in their relationship.
Ryan talks about how he and Sarah are still going through their ups and downs. Being a step-father to Sarah’s girls has been harder on him than he expected, and now he finds that he’s relating to his former step-father, Tamra’s ex-husband. He says now he realizes that he was just being hard on him because he wanted him to do well. And now Ryan’s biggest fear is that if he leaves because he and Sarah are unhappy, what strange man is going to come in and take his place and share a part in raising his daughter? Tamra feels guilty because there’s a cycle of divorce in her family, and she never wanted Ryan to go through that too. But he’s made his choices.
Meghan hired her cousin, Bridget, to nanny her baby, Aspen, despite the fact that she had no qualifications. She has Kelly over for the afternoon, even though there’s been some bad blood. In the off-season, Meghan heard a rumor that Kelly had a boyfriend, so she texted her, asking about it. In response, Kelly texted Meghan that Jim was cheating on her while she was seven months pregnant. So, you know, basic girlfriend chat.
There are no incidents, at least during Kelly’s visit. Meghan says she’s willing to sweep things under the rug because it’s easier being Kelly’s friend than her enemy. And Kelly admits that she may have overreacted because she has a hard time controlling herself. You think?
Peggy and Vicki continue on their friendship trajectory when Vicki goes to visit Peggy’s home. Of course, she’s impressed by the cars and the house and Peggy’s polite husband and children. But even more important, they bond over having lost both of their parents. It’s nice that Peggy feels like she can confide in Vicki, even if it’s showing questionable judgment.
It’s the evening of Tamra’s Erasing Family event. Her father and his wife are there, which is a big deal for Tamra. She says that when her parents got divorced, she picked her mom’s side and shunned her father. Now she feels like it’s the same exact thing happening with her and Sydney.
Even though it means a lot that her dad and her brother and her son are there, she’s disappointed that her mom isn’t there. She would have liked them to be all together, but she says her mom is an avoider and she’s avoiding her ex and her pain at Tamra’s expense.
Tamra gives a touching speech, with her dad, son and brother by her side. She says that divorce does horrible things to people, and she wants to be there to help other people with their pain. She says she’ll keep believing that her daughter will be back or she’ll fall apart. She tells everyone to love their children more than they hate their exes, and kids deserve to have both parents in their lives. She says in her confessional that she hopes Ryan and Sarah learn from what she has to say and that they work hard to keep things healthy for their kids.
What do you think? Is Peggy choosing the right friends? Did Judy’s fairy dust bring them together? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 12 airs Mondays at 9/8c on Bravo. Want more news? Like our Facebook page.
(Image courtesy of Bravo)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
