Real Housewives of Orange County: Working Housewives Bias and Vicki Gets a Lesson From Karma

“Hmmm…. Vicki’s recipe for Success: one cup condescension, two cups hypocrisy, 3 Tablespoons of bitters, and 1/2 Teaspoon of Low-Self Esteem.”

In this week’s episode of season four of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County where it’s working housewives versus stay-at-home moms, Vicki gets a lesson from Karma, Gretchen gets a lecture on how to lasso in her fiance’s assets, and Lynn finally gets fed up with Vicki’s “attitude”.

This episode was rather “mild” compared to last week’s where Gretchen got loaded at Tamra’s “eloquent” dinner party. Evidently Gretchen “escaped” with little damage as she attended a swim party for neighbor Coto kids at Tamra’s house soon after.

The talk of the swim party: boobs. Who recently got “new” ones, how long it had been since Tamra had her boobs done, how Gretchen “didn’t” have any. Fake boobs were discussed, shown off, assessed, and contemplated. Which made me wonder: are artificially inflated boobs the “must have” in certain circles?

Tamra, Vicki, and Jeanna, and the marvels of airbrushing technology

Used to be, fake boobs were an asset to strippers, exotic dancers, porn actresses, and B, C, and D movie starlets. It seems fake boobs are now the must have “accessory” for garden variety housewives, at least in Coto, the area that the wives reside in.

The subject does fulfill one of the criteria for rather shallow conversation of the less than intellectual crowd that inhabits the Real Housewives’ world. Another being money.

The girls, after arriving in a stretch limo, spent a day at Fred Segal’s having their own individual “scent” made and lunch.

The limo ride, while luxurious, featured the same undercurrent of snobbery and snideness against Lynn, courtesy of Vicki. Tamra couldn’t make the Fred Segal scene. When Vicki tiptapped on her laptop and complained she didn’t have enough “time” to work, Lynn offered, as a jest, to be her secretary. Vicki, who seems to lack the common gene of joke recognition, immediately reminded Lynn that she was “unqualified” as Lynn was a mere “stay at home” mom who, cue the melodramatic music, “didn’t work”.

By now viewers are more than familiar with Vicki’s “work”. She eats, sleeps, and breathes her “work”. While she enjoys the fruits of her labor, this season she purchased a million dollar yacht, she also uses her “work” as an excuse to browbeat others, such as Lynn and Gretchen, into submission.

You see, according to Vicki and to Jeanna, (which, frankly surprised me), Gretchen and Lynn are “empty-headed” and incapable of understanding the intricate world of making, gathering, and spending money.

Part of the episode had Lynn working at home on her line of cuff bracelets. Bracelets she’s created which sell for upwards of $300. A passion which she’s beginning to get recognition and which she’s yet to reveal to the other “wives”. While at Fred Segal’s, Lynn talked with the jewelry salespeople and then dropped off her card. Later Lynn was contacted by Fred Segal representatives who asked her if she could show off her wares in her home. Lynn’s trunk show was a success.

Money was the main topic at the “wives” lunch after Fred Segal’s.

Vicki, the “high powered” business woman in insurance, believes that Lynn is merely a stay at home mom and therefore doesn’t deserve Vicki’s “respect”. It’s also apparent that Vicki doesn’t like Lynn, which in my book, gives Lynn well deserved brownie points. Lynn’s sin’s: she didn’t kowtow to Vicki when she first met the “mama dogs”, Jeanna and Vicki. Lynn is quite lovely as well as “laid back”. A concept that the perpetually flustered Vicki will never muster.

I was a bit rough on Tamra, her son Ryan, and Vicki last week after the three were involved in a scheme to get Gretchen “naked wasted” drunk. I even felt slightly guilty after I had roundly condemned the three for their behavior. It’s just that I happen to hate to see someone extend a hand in friendship then use that friendship to “set others up” for the evening’s entertainment.

In this episode, Tamra was, well, Tamra. She and Vicki have one thing in common: the two “vixens” are notorious narcissists with Vicki weighing in with less self-esteem. Tamra needs affirmation that she’s “hot” which could be because she’s hit the dreaded 40, or middle age while Gretchen is ten years younger.

It has to be exhausting always living in “comparison” mode with one’s self-esteem based on the amount of money you have, how you look, who you’re with, the car you’re driving, or the clothes or watch you’re wearing. If your self-esteem is based upon these “values” then the moment someone more attractive, has more money, drives a better car, wears a more expensive watch, or has a cuter mate, arrives on the scene, your “self worth” will invariably take a dive to the deep end of the shallow pool.

When Gretchen asked Vicki for advice about money matters, Vicki hammered home the point that Gretchen should immediately get her terminally ill boyfriend, Jeff, to assign Gretchen as a beneficiary or have a wedding in the hospital. According to Vicki, Gretchen, as a fiance, should take immediate steps to make sure she is “fully compensated” when Jeff dies. Jeff had recently told Gretchen that he had made the decision to forgo further cancer treatments and was ready to die.

Lynn was shocked as both Vicki and Jeanna continued to assert that Gretchen needed to take action. As “working women”, the term the two like to ram down Gretchen and Lynn’s throats, they warned Gretchen that she risked being thrown out on the street once her fiance kicked the bucket. When Lynn tried to talk about whether this type of conversation was, well, appropriate, both Vicki and Jeanna, flexed their menopausal muscles and forcibly reminded Lynn that she didn’t know what she was talking about because she didn’t “work”. Vicki also became very angry that Lynn had put her two cents in, calling Lynn, “rude”.

This is the dynamics of the relationship between Vicki and Lynn, and at times, Gretchen. It begins with rather innocuous comments made by Lynn immediately followed by condescension by Vicki, the self-annointed “know-it-all” housewife.

Like the puffer fish, this season Vicki has shown her prickly and poisonous side.

You gotta love it, the working women trashing stay at moms as being ill-informed “twits”. This bias has been around since the early seventies yet it’s safe to say, based on Jeanna and Vicki, that this “should no longer exist” bias still exists. In Vicki’s case, her work is all she has in regards to her fragile esteem. It’s obvious that she’s always “on guard” for potential “threats”, threats which are people who, in Lynn’s case, feel they have the right to speak their own minds.

In Vicki’s case, she believes that every time Lynn has an opinion, Lynn is being “too assertive” or “rude”. Yet it was Vicki who was rude, once again riding roughshod over Lynn. Could Vicki’s reason for being condescendingly rude to Lynn have something to do with control issues?

Jeanna is not on the same lower level as Vicki. She did flex some muscle but by and large, Jeanna is fairly laid back and tends to see other “sides” than her own. Jeanna has recently separated from her husband Matt. Matt has been battling severe alcoholism and until now, Jeanna has stuck by his side.
Matt now has his own apartment and Jeanna is considering testing the “dating” waters. Men are naturally attracted to women like Jeanna, women who have a keen wit and are comfortable in their own skin.

There’s nothing wrong with having money, or making lots of money. Yet money will not hide the fact that someone has a rotten personality and few people skills. In fact, money will often acerbate one’s feelings of grandiosity. On tonight’s episode, Vicki was taught a lesson from Karma.

Vicki is quite proud of the fact that she implemented a “networking” club in Coto. Jeanna held the weekly get together at her hacienda while Vicki was given an award for starting the networking club in Coto. Vicki “glowed” as she accepted her award then promptly fell on her butt in front of her networking club members after missing a step on Jeanna’s patio. Several people laughed at Vicki when she took her unintended pratfall. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Donn said his wife is a klutz. He pointed out how Vicki got hit in the head by a water soaked nerf football at Lake Havasu.

The previews for next week’s episode look promising: Vicki is seen drinking and seriously hitting on a man in a bar. No way!

Way.

Our memories are short, but not that short, as we seem to recall Vicki “rolling” her eyes at Gretchen’s drunk antics at Tamra’s party. This season, Vicki has shown “another side”, a haughty, hostile, and snide side, a side which would make any self-respecting man run as fast as he can the other way. Vicki should think twice about dumping Donn.

Previous reviews of Real Housewives:

Real Housewives of Orange County: Tamra’s Dinner Party and the Scheme to Humiliate Gretchen

Real Housewives of Orange County: Gretchen’s Tragedy and Glass Houses

Real Housewives of Orange County: Lauri Bids Goodbye and the Mystery of Quinn

Real Housewives of Orange County Spinoff: Date My Ex: Jo and Slade

Real Housewives: Jeanna’s Husband, 6 Months in Jailhouse

Real Housewives of Orange County: The Mysterious Lou
By LBG
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Tags: Bravo, Gretchen, Jeanna, KARMA, Real Housewives of Orange County, Season Four, Tamra, Vicki