If ‘The Real Housewives Of Orange County’ Were Scripted: “The Salvation Of Alexis Bellino”
Lines have been drawn. The friends who the ladies choose to pre-game with will become the blood-sisters they will draw swords to protect. One clan is led by the New God called “Jesus.”
By Dara Katz
Boobs bouncing and booty shaking, VICKI answers the door for ALEXIS so that the former can invite the latter to TAMRA’s bizarre pre-pre-pre-gym opening. VICKI’s plan is to use ALEXIS at the dinner party as a human shield deflecting all bitterness on to the poor lamb brought unknowingly to slaughter with a bottle of wine in hand.
ALEXIS accepts VICKI’s invite to TAMRA’s party because she has a mental lapse and forgets VICKI’s not JIM. “Oh, sweetie, baby, you need your mommy. Don’t you?” she tells ‘JIM’. When she comes to and realizes she’s talking to VICKI, it’s too late, she’s agreed to go to the party and she’s bringing BENJAMIN BUTTON (LYDIA).
At a radio station somewhere on the west coast, THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS HEATHER PAIGE KENT sits on her little soap box and tells everyone how to live and that bullying isn’t real unless it happens to her. HEATHER, you are playing a game of semantics—
“Did someone say Semitic?”
No, Jewish Mary Poppins, go back to organizing things by color and then ridiculing them for not being perfect. This point is that HEATHER is kind of a bully and TERRY is wearing his scrubs and clothes that look like scrubs way too much. He may have even worn them to their dinner with LYDIA and her hair which is my seventh grade bat mitzvah hairstyle dream. At dinner, HEATHER finally nips the magazine issue in the bud because of an ego issue. She just can’t understand why LYDIA’s magazine wouldn’t want her house on the cover but would do it for someone named HelenHunt KristinChenoweth.
And now, to the beef of the episode.
Lines have been drawn. The friends who the ladies choose to pre-game with will become the blood-sisters they will draw swords to protect. One clan is led by the New God called “Jesus.” The clan consists of ALEXIS, LYDIA, and VICKI. The other clan of TAMRA, GRETCHEN and HEATHER is led by the Old God, the Jewish one, mostly because HEATHER is making them and they don’t really care and hahahaha look there’s bird! Lines are drawn. Winter is coming.
But first, a dance with the devil herself at an empty warehouse soon to be CUT Fitness, which stands for something none of us can remember. To celebrate its opening and bless is with “positivity”, TAMRA drops some velvet upholstered chaise lounges in the big cold industrial space, boards up the windows, and calls it a dinner party. Who can resist a little sawdust on your salmon?
When VICKI, ALEXIS, and LYDIA show up with open arms and cheery outlooks, the opposing clan does not budge from their seats to greet them. They cannot understand why ALEXIS would ever come to a dinner party someone invited, begged, and made her promise she would come to. The ladies of the Old God condemned every move those of the New God makes: Vicki says Troy was her baby, GRETCHEN has a hissy fit. ALEXIS congratulated TAMRA, so TAMRA just stared at her. LYDIA was like ‘WTF is happening?’, so HEATHER promised to find out who HelenHunt KristinChenoweth is and murder her first born.
As the night progresses, TAMRA will not allow for the tiniest crumb of graciousness at her party and in a transformation the likes of which most have ne’er seen on reality television, her eyes glaze over in a black film (think True Blood Season 2). Like a little girl who doesn’t understand not to approach a rabid dog, ALEXIS thinks she stands a chance to enjoy her sawdust encrusted salmon.
While most probably loathed ALEXIS in previous seasons, she is the only ounce of kindness in the whole empty warehouse and you know what? She is being bullied at this dinner. ALEXIS had instigated no words or actions that deserved the public flogging TAMRA and followers relentlessly pour on her. In fact, ALEXIS repeatedly offers to talk about their issues one-on-one later and to just enjoy the evening in the meantime.
It’s also surprising to see someone who sits on such a high horse of manners be so terrible. See, HEATHER thought the caste system she’d created in her head could keep ALEXIS at least one hundred yards away at all times. After all, she did place ALEXIS in the lowest rung because how could a person who might have a hard time expressing her thoughts into words be of any value to society? You know what HEATHER, I’m going to say to you what Tywin Lannister says to Cersei, “I don’t distrust you because you’re a woman. I distrust you because you’re not as smart as you think you are.”
And then the explosion. No one tells TAMRA to “butt out” in her own abandoned warehouse. Especially not ALEXIS. Like that crazed mom on the subway who’s just absolutely hit her limit with her annoying kid, TAMRA wildly pushes ALEXIS out of her chair, makes her leave and slams her fists on the table in fiery rage demanding VICKI choose a side. All the while, LYDIA’s like, “Um, where’s the bathroom? I’m gonna flush myself down the toilet and get the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks outta here!”
Who would have thought we’d live in a world where ALEXIS was in the right, but by God, ALEXIS BELLINO has found salvation. It’s TAMRA and her little minions who will have to answer to a higher power:
THE MOTHER OF TROY, QUEEN OF COTO AND HEIR TO THE ORANGE COUNTY THRONE, GRANDMA VICKI. 
