The good news this week on “The Real Housewives of Orange County” is that one of our housewives got an engagement ring with a big ol’ rock to wear on her finger.
The bad news? It wasn’t Vicki Gunvalson, whose love tank may never be full until her boyfriend Michael opens the safe, takes out the ring he’s said to have already bought her, and slips it onto Vicki’s ring finger.
We start this week where we left off the week before. Vicki had just told the production crew to “get the [bleep] out of my house,” though apparently they’re not good at following orders because somebody stuck around to film what happened next.
The three housewives who’d gone with Vicki for an overnight to her vacation home in La Quinta are rattled.
Shannon Storms Beador, who has known Vicki the longest, decides to stay after Vicki tells the group that she wanted the crew to 23 skidoo, not her castmates.
“[Michael] saw me upset,” Vicki says of the reason Michael seemed upset when he got back to the house and discovered Vicki hunkered down in her bedroom while the others whispered about what they should do. “You’re not going anywhere. Let’s go eat.”
But Emily Simpson and Jenn Pedranti, who’d already started packing to make an early exit when Vicki first got upset over questions about her relationship with Michael, decide to stick with their plan to get an Uber from the desert back to Orange County.
“The Uber costs $450, and it’s probably going to take two hours to get home, but I don’t care,” Emily says in a confessional.
“I can hitchhike,” Jenn tells the camera in hers. “Thumbs up, let’s go! I’m getting home.”
Around the same time, the other four housewives are having a much better time in Los Olivos, where Tamra Judge, Heather Dubrow, Gina Kirschenheiter and Carmella Garcia, are staying after spending the day in Solvang.
But Vicki is also the main topic of conversation as they sit around a fire pit, wearing their jammies as they sip red wine and dish about why, if Michael likes it, he hasn’t put a ring on it.
“Is the ring at the safe in the bank? Or at the house?” Heather wonders about the engagement ring Vicki told them Michael has bought for her but not yet delivered.
“I’m gonna bank on there is no ring,” Carmella says. “The story doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s a hot take, Carmella,” Gina replies with a hint of admiration in her voice.
“Carmella got a little drinky-poo in her, and she’s pop-pop-pop-pop-popping off,” Gina tells the camera, firing off imaginary bullets from her index finger for emphasis.
“You buy a ring for somebody because you’re asking them to marry you,” Carmella says. “Unless you break up, you’re asking them to marry you.”
Tamra, who’s been quiet until now, chimes in.
“I would tell you one thing,” she says. “If somebody told me they had bought me a ring, and had put it in a safe and didn’t propose to me, I would [bleepin’] lose my [bleep].”
Back in Orange County a day or two later, Gina goes for a walk at the beach with her fiancé Travis. They’re talking about how big to go on their wedding, the second for both, or whether to spend modestly for a housewife on the wedding and save some moolah for a bigger home for the Brady Bunch-style blended family they’ll have when the three kids they have individually become six together.
“The size of the home that we would need to live comfortably would be about $3 million,” Gina says. “And it’s kind of one of those things that we could do, but we would feel it.”
A few minutes later, Travis announces he has “something exciting,” which brings their walk-and-talk by the beach to a sudden stop.
“I’m not proposing again, but guess what I got?” he says. “I got the actual ring.”
“Oh my God, baby, it’s so pretty!” Gina says. “Bling-bling!”
Carmella and her boyfriend Danny haven’t exchanged any rings yet; Carmella, who is not over Danny’s past infidelity, isn’t sure there are any rings in their future.
“Are my boobs straight?” she asks him as they sit at their table at Hacienda on the Lake in Mission Viejo.
Danny assures her they are shipshape and says that he can’t recall how long it’s been since they went on a date.
“Well, that’s because I don’t like you,” Carmella says, displaying the dry humor that’s becoming a trademark of her debut season on the show.
He tells her he’d love to marry her.
“Why do we need to get married?” Carmella asks.
“I like being married,” Danny replies.
“Well, you’ve been married a couple of times, so I think you’ve been cut off,” she says, and laughs before getting back to the business at hand.
“You cheated on me,” the former Playboy Playmate of the Year says. “It is imperative that you are completely transparent. You can’t lie about the color of underwear that you have on.”
She asks him what he hopes the next six months will bring. “Lots of sex,” he replies with a grin that fades in the face of the withering look he receives.
“I’ll go to couples therapy because I love you,” Carmella says. “And because I know I hold so much resentment and anger that I’m sure it’s tough to talk to me.
“We need to see if we can get there, and if we can’t, we have to stop this.”
After a visit to Los Angeles, where Heather and her husband Terry Dubrow have just purchased a second penthouse for $11 million that’s just below a penthouse they already own – bling-bling ka-ching! – the episode closes with one of the calmest, most sincere conversations between Vicki and Tamra in years.
“When they were picking at me in the kitchen, I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” Vicki says of the night in La Quinta when Emily, Jenn and Shannon peppered her with questions about her work and personal lives.
“I live a calm life, I do,” she continues. “But when I’m defensive or feel insecure, or feel less than –
” – you feel less than?” Tamra interjects.
“Sometimes I do,” Vicki answers.
“Why? You’re Vicki [Bleepin’] Gunvalson, what can you feel less than about?” Tamra says.
“I’ve had three different relationships that obviously didn’t work,” Vicki replies. “On paper, everything looks perfect. In my heart, in my bones, it’s not.
“Michael is so good to me,” she continues. “He’s the only one I’d share my fears, my sadness. And he’s like everything will be fine.
“But my fear is that maybe this is too much for him. He’ll X-out like everyone else.”
It’s the most vulnerable she’s seemed in years, and you have to hope that when Tamra tells the camera that “[Michael’s] not going anywhere,” she’s right.