There isn’t much really happening in this episode, but Gina Kirchenvowelvowelsomething lays down some killer facts for us at the top of the episode. She tells her husbear Travis that she hates flies, and he asks if they don’t have flies in New York. “We have flies, but they are appropriate,” she tells him. “They’re on like shit and garbage but not the food in your house.” Thank you, Gina! In the Northeast, flies are for picnics and dumpsters; in California, flies are everywhere. They’re in your house, they’re in your car, they’re in your yoga studio trying to scatter up your Lululemons. Does socialism make these creatures more aggressive? Is it the legal weed? Are these flies just stoned and don’t know that their rightful place is not among the civilized?
I don’t know, but I think I would much rather talk about the flies than anything else that happens in this episode, which is a bit of a snooze. The first big story is Noella, who continues to reel from her husband’s disappearance and being served divorce papers. Emily, always a pragmatic lawyer, says that if he filed for divorce in California — land of the flies and home of the brave — that he couldn’t hide the money or shut off the credit cards, which might be why he filed for divorce in Puerto Rico and then had to have the nanny translate the papers.
But wait, hadn’t she gotten the papers when she was talking to everyone last week? Or do the events of this episode happen the day after she meets with Shannon and Gina at lunch? The timeline is fuzzy. However, what is not fuzzy is that Noella is a mess. She shows up at lunch with grifter Nicole, and she is already sob heaving before she even gets to the table. She looks like a half-drunk ice coffee with all the cubes partially melted and the decomposing Starbucks label still stuck on the side with the afternoon moisture. She is a mess. For Nicole’s part, she is a mess too, wearing Garanimals X Hi-Liter and a face of makeup that looks like the weird lady on the back of the Korean face-mask box who shows you how to apply them.
As they talk about what is happening to Noella, Nicole gives her nothing but hand pats and “Oh, it will get better” platitudes. Meanwhile, Noella blubbers, “I need a hug. Will you come hug me,” and begs her for some human contact. Nicole does it, but she also just wants it to end. She wants the check. She wants to get back into her pink Porsche Cayenne and go home and do three Cody Rigsby rides in a row to cleanse herself of this scene. She just can-mother-tucking-not.
“Come on. Get up,” she instructs Noella, who is salting the soil with the deluge of her tears. “Walk out quietly. There are a lot of people around.” This might surprise you, but I am actually on Nicole’s side here. Noella says she needs a friend right now, and I don’t think she and Nicole know each other that well. She needs an actual friend, not a co-worker who wants to talk about some other broads over afternoon tequilas. Nicole wants no part of this and knows that Noella is embarrassing both of them. Nicole is right to get her out of there. This is a breakdown that needs to happen in private. She could have invited Noella over. She could have followed Noella home and comforted her there, but the last thing anyone in Orange County needs is to be confronted with this sadness.
We have a few minor side visits in this episode. Heather goes for “champs” at Dr. Jen’s house. Shannon packages some of her “supplements,” and we find out that Sophie, the only one of her children I can tolerate, works for her. Sophie is the best because she goes to Dr. Moon and is like, “I don’t even believe this. I only do it for my mom,” and I want her to sit at my lunch table forever.
The other event in this episode is that Emily is having a party for Shane because he finally passed the bar in 2021, and we need to repeat it is only because the state lowered the requirements because of COVID. He’s been trying since he graduated from law school in 2003. He has been trying to pass the bar since three years before this here television program debuted. Can you believe? That was like AOL chatroom years. That is the year “Crazy in Love” came out. Friends was still on! Britney hadn’t even been captured by her father yet. That is how long Shane Simpson has been trying to pass the bar.
The party is cute, even though Shannon is trying to ruin it by talking to Heather Dubrow, whose ponytail is so high that it must be one of those California Weed Flies that doesn’t know where it belongs. Emily doesn’t want a big scene between the two of them, but she goes over to Shannon and is like, “Why did you say that we can’t be trusted and are manipulative to Heather?” Shannon says, “I didn’t say that?” Emily says, “Let me get Heather.” Heather says, “Oh, she totally said that.” Shannon says, “Gosh, why are there flies everywhere?”
Here is the thing. Shannon is totally called out. She says she’s not a gossip. She says she’s not a bad person. She says she never says any of the things that everyone says she says, but then she only looks like even more of an asshole because she can’t just say she said them. I find her exasperating, but I love that the women have formed a labor union and that Shannon is management, and she is not allowed in on their collective bargaining. When they all band together, she can’t play them against each other, and she will lose every time.
But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with Heather Dubrow. What is that scene out on Emily’s lanai? First of all, that she has to go ask Emily where she can yell at Shannon without making a scene, thereby creating even more of a scene, is the essence of Heather. She has to play by this phony moral code all the time that she makes everything more difficult. Then, after Shannon apologizes, she tells Shannon she thinks she had a huge lapse in judgment by not telling her sooner about the whole Nicole Sued Terry situation.
This is the part in this recap where I need to remind everyone that Nicole was friends with two people for six years who she sued and never told anyone. That is a massive lapse in judgment. Meanwhile, Heather is sharing an Uber to the party with her, and Shannon is getting slammed on wrought iron garden furniture. Someone, anyone, needs to yell at Nicole and tell her she’s insane. Thank you.
Heather, however, is not done with Shannon. “If you ever come after me or my family ever again, you will lose a lot more than my friendship,” she says. “This will cost a lot. And I am not saying this as a threat. I am saying it as a promise.” Who wrote this speech for her? Erika Jayne? And what promise is she making exactly? Is she going to get her fired from the show? Is she going to kidnap Archie? Is she going to tell everyone that Lemon-Aid is not made with real Lemon or real … No. Do not do it. Brian James Moylan, you will not make an AIDS joke. That is bad and not funny. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare. If you do, Heather will come for you and destroy everything. She will probably somehow do it with flies.
