I am so sick of both Tamra Judge and Gretchen Rossi, two nipples on the same blowup doll. This whole season has just been the two of them dragging us back 12 years so that they can rehash the same never-ending fight that neither of them really wants resolved. The only way to stop it, at this point, is for one or both of them to be off the show or for them just to admit they hate each other and not talk about any old shit. Seriously, it’s getting to Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga levels of going on way too long.
What’s even more annoying is that they both do the same thing, or at least the exact thing that they are accusing each other of doing. Tamra has a sit-down with the long-absent Katie (remember her?), and it is totally anticlimactic. We learn nothing new and hear Katie rehashing her talking points in a different setting. But this is Tamra sitting down with one of Gretchen’s enemies, trying to dig up dirt, which is just what she says Gretchen is always doing. When Emily tells Gretchen that she said something defamatory about Tamra, Gretchen goes to her phone to find a dusty blog post or an old podcast where Tamra says something defamatory about her. Emily says that Tamra always does the same thing. Yes, because they are the two bumpers on the same Kia Sportage. They both think that because the other said something terrible about them, they can say terrible things about each other. It’s exasperating, and it’s never going to end.
When Emily brings up how Tamra got upset at everyone at her cake decorating party for saying they don’t trust her, Gretchen says, “Tamra is a textbook narcissist. They throw the bomb and then gaslight their victims into somehow thinking they’re in the wrong.” (Oh, to go back in time and smother the words “narcissist” and “gaslight” in their cribs.) Then she tries to convince Emily that it’s her fault that Slade said out loud in front of a bunch of cameras that Tamra fucked that guy from 98 Degrees because Emily kept egging her on to call Slade. Wait, isn’t it kinda the same thing? Isn’t that trying to escape blame by shifting it onto those who have a problem with the behavior itself?
Tamra and Gretchen are using the same exact tactics against each other and will only be satisfied when one of them is gone or destroyed, which is why we are in this eternal stalemate, dredging up the same muck from the bottom of the same fetid pond that we’ve been stewing in since before Brooks Ayers even crawled out of it. There is one big difference between them, however, and that is a scourge known as Slade Smiley. Ugh. This fucking guy. This thing with Emily is exactly what I hate about the two of them: always trying to spin a story so hard that they create a whirlpool that sucks all goodness, truth, and fun down into it. Gretchen is trying to make out that she only mentioned Tamra was singing, and that it was Emily who insisted they call Slade, and that Slade is the one who brought up Tamra’s alleged affair. Wrong! We saw the tape, Gretchers. We know that you told them about it, we know that Emily and Heather only wanted to hear the song, we know that Slade didn’t share the recording; he just launched into a tirade about how Tamra was cheating. This is entirely on them.
There is so much I hate about Slade, a pair of unwashed pajama bottoms you can’t get the skid marks out of. There’s a little snippet where he and Gretchen are getting ready for Emily’s hoedown fundraiser, and Slade, a leather sectional with a broken recliner, says that none of the guys respect Eddie because he lets Tamra say whatever she wants and doesn’t try to stop her. What is this guy even talking about? First of all, he doesn’t know what “the guys” think because he’s been around for like half a season, and he only talks to Ryan and Katie’s husband, Matt, whom he won’t talk to anymore. Travis and Shane don’t give a shit because they stay out of it and try to stay off camera. Terry is too busy with seven of his own reality shows to bother with this one.
Also, what Slade says is objectively untrue. Remember last season when Tamra got wasted at Katie’s house and brought up Ryan’s run-in with the FBI, which seems to have hard-launched Tamra’s feud with Ryan and Jenn? Eddie was trying to get Matt to cut Tamra off so she wouldn’t be so drunk. Then, when she was ranting, he was telling her to shut up and physically trying to force her to look at him so that he could tell her she was acting horribly. How are you going to tell us that guy doesn’t do anything to stop his wife from mouthing off?
Also, when has Slade, a ketchup stain in the shape of a limp dick, tried to stop Gretchen from saying anything terrible about anyone, including Tamra? What he does is even worse because he says those things himself. He is bringing the accusations, the drama, the dirt in a way that Eddie never does. Eddie is happy to sit in the corner with Shane, sucking on his new veneers, and let the women tear each other to shreds, never getting involved. Even when Vicki and others were out there calling Eddie gay, he never addressed it, he never confronted them, he just let his wife handle it as he sat at home and worked on his motorcycle.
Before I get to Slade and Gretchen’s worst transgressions, let us take a moment to focus on some of the good things that happened this episode. The best thing in the entire hour, of course, is Archie Beador, the goodest boy to ever shed all over Orange County. Shannon takes him to Jenn’s house so that they can meet a pet psychic named Keao, a collection of letters that should not exist in nature. We have had great success with psychics on this program in the past, like the one who took down the aforementioned Brooks Ayers, but this woman is not to be believed. You can see her thinking really hard about the things that these dogs would say to their owners. The strain of pulling this off in front of them is right there on her forehead.
I get it, Shannon meets her with a litany of silly questions about what Archie may or may not like or may or may not be thinking, and Keao is just trying to keep up. Then Shannon asks if Archie wanted her to get another dog. Of course, Keao says yes, just not a puppy. Now Shannon is going to do this, and it’s all going to be due to a pet psychic who isn’t very good at her job.
As much fun as we make of these shows, they do bring attention to many good causes. Heather gathers most of the ladies in front of Junior Cookies in West Hollywood to raise money for The Trevor Project, a hotline for LGBTQIA+ kids in crisis. (Considering Trump shut down the government’s suicide hotline for gay youth in July, we need them more than ever.) Another good cause that Heather is bringing awareness to is Junior Cookies, which, I can tell you from personal experience, are the bomb dot com. They come in a variety of flavors, always baked fresh. They are open late, located right by the gay bars in WeHo (and just a stone’s throw from TomTom), and the guy behind the counter is always attractive. Stoned on the couch in Los Angeles while binging Housewives and don’t want to drive down there? Honey, I have been there and I can tell you that they deliver. Tell them Dame Brian sent you and that you want two Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake cookies. You can thank me later.
We also get to see more of Emily’s work with the Innocence Center, which helps exonerated prisoners readjust to life after being wrongly accused of a crime. She throws a fundraiser to raise more than $40,000 ($41,595 to be exact) for one of the exonerated gentlemen to attend mechanic school. Wait, you’re telling me that the state of California locked this dude up for like a decade for something he didn’t do, and they can’t even pay for him to learn how to fix cars? I’m sorry, but Gavin Newsom does not get any Junior Cookies until he can right this miscarriage of justice. You know your state is fucked up when you need Housewives to step in and do the right thing. Housewives!
It’s at this fundraiser where Tamra tells Emily that she met with Katie, though she fails to mention that the meeting was a total flop. Emily then tells everyone, and Jenn asks Tamra what happened, and Tamra tells her that Katie told her something about Slade, a slouchy beanie knitted entirely out of ear hair. It’s not even anything juicy, just the same old stuff about Slade calling Matt and telling them to stick to the story. But when Gretchen hears about all this, she decides to confront Tamra about it, with Slade, an armpit stain that has made itself into an entire shirt.
This is a terrible idea; luckily, Tamra walks away as soon as they approach. Gretchen says that she was running from the truth, but I think Tamra was trying to spare herself and all of us. What did Gretchen hope to gain from this confrontation if it happened? That they would approach Tamra, ask her what she said, tell her she’s full of shit, then Tamra would have said they were full of shit, and it would have gone back and forth, revisiting the same tired hit parade while they yelled in circles. It’s sort of like trying to talk to your conservative uncle about abortion at Thanksgiving. No one is going to change their minds, things will undoubtedly get heated, and it will end with someone with a huge glob of cranberry relish in their hair.
What is the most confounding and terrible, however, is Gretchen’s assertion that Slade, the anti-Viagra, doesn’t get involved with the women on his own accord, but only engages because the women always talk about him. That is putting the cart before this particular horse, and I hate to compare him to a horse because at least a horse is hung. The reason they talk about him is because he talks about them. He did that stand-up comedy routine about Vicki and Tamra, he brought up Tamra’s affair on camera, he sat by Gretchen’s side while she lied about Tamra drugging her, egging the story on, and then followed up with the husbands to make sure they spread the story the way he wanted. He’s going to do all that and pretend like he did nothing and that Tamra is coming for him out of the blue? No, Slade is involved because Slade wants to be involved. He wants to be the star of the show; he wants to be in the center of all the action because, look at him, he has nothing else. His reputation is in tatters; he hasn’t had a job in a decade, his credit is likely worse than Bernie Madoff’s, the fans despise him, he’s been fired from a show he erroneously thinks he created, and he looks terrible in a cowboy hat. Life has been mean to Slade, but after his and Gretchen’s performance this season, I would argue that life has been too kind.