Real Housewives of Orange County: Tears, tumult and toots

Emily Simpson and Katie Ginella are side-by-side in separate hot tubs at a Sonoma County spa when Emily turns to Katie and sums up the situation.

“This is dirty, it’s salacious, it’s gross,” she says, and for the record, she’s not talking about Gina Kirschenheiter’s audible toot earlier in the episode. “It’s like the worst, longest, most-traumatic breakup –”

“– ever,” Katie interjects

“– ever,” Emily agrees.

You can take “The Real Housewives of Orange County” out of Orange County, but the drama lingers in the air like Gina’s – well, you get the picture.

All the housewives but Jenn Pedrano fly to Sonoma County in Heather Dubrow’s private jet on this week’s episode to taste wine, relax at the spa, and attend a charity event for Family Equality, an LGBTQ+ non-profit that Heather has supported for years.

Shannon Storms Beador and Alexis Bellino have fought almost every episode this season. When Shannon’s ex-boyfriend John Janssen dumped her he took up almost immediately with Alexis. Now there’s more bad blood between them than poured out of elevators of the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.”

Heather thinks she’s got the situation under control. She’s made a seating chart for the short flight north that will keep Shannon and Alexis apart, and she’s kept them apart in the activities she’s planned too.

“If I can keep Shannon and Alexis separate on this trip I think we’ll be OK,” Heather tells the cameras early on. Yet while she does manage to keep them mostly separate, things fall apart spectacularly for Shannon, though she ends up the more sympathetic character by the end of episode.

The day of the trip is Shannon’s deadline to reply to John’s demand to pay him $75,000 that he says was a loan and Shannon says was a gift.

At lunch at the Dawn Ranch resort, Shannon tells Emily, Gina and Katie that she’s instructed her attorney to offer John about half what he’d demanded to resolve the situation without going to court.

A few episodes back, Alexis revealed that John had Ring doorbell videos of Shannon moments after she left his house and crashed her car in a 2023 accident that resulted in her pleading no contest to a charge of driving under the influence.

To be specific, she revealed this to all the housewives except for Shannon, but Shannon’s blissful ignorance is about to end.

Emily, Gina, Shannon and Katie arrive at the resort spa for a bit of pampering that starts with healing teas. Gina opts for a “clarifying” tea, which Emily helpfully informs us is because Gina is “backed up.”

Cut to a scene 30 minutes earlier where our close forensic analysis of the video – rewinding and replaying over and over – reveal what may be the first audible flatulence ever heard on “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”

“Oh, God, too many problems in the old torso today,” Gina says. Remarkably, none of the other housewives react, which goes to show you that sometimes the housewives are more mature than we give them credit for.

At the spa, Gina gives the others an update on her relationship with boyfriend Travis, who has moved out of her house after several years, while trying to keep their romance alive and their blended family of six kids together. Gina is stressed out, she says.

“This is why I have gas,” she adds.

Shannon, who had stepped out of the spa to consult with her attorney for a minute, returns just in time to hear this.

As it turns out, John rejected her offer to pay a portion of the money he demanded, and Shannon told her attorney to proceed to court once the lawsuit was served. (In the world outside of the show, the lawsuit did get filed and is still pending in civil court.)

“It just feels so vindictive,” Gina says to the camera. “Why do you want to hurt someone so bad when you’re so happy in your new relationship? Take the (bleepin’) check and go live your life.”

The others urge Shannon to just pay the full amount to end the stress this is causing her. Especially, Gina adds for inexplicable reasons, because of “the video thing.”

“What video thing?” Shannon asks with a look of alarm on her face. Then she asks four more times until Katie tells her what Alexis had told the others: There’s apparently Ring camera footage of Shannon either during or right after the crash that led to her DUI arrest.

She starts to sob, and ultimately leaves the spa to return to her cabin and sob some more.

“This is not as relaxing as I thought it would be,” Gina says in the understatement of the week.

Heather, Alexis, Tamra Barney, and Jenn, who flew up separately after a hearing in her divorce case, all are tasting wine in downtown Guerneville, and frankly, not much of interest happens there. But after Heather returns to the resort, Shannon shows up at her door looking like she’s been crying all afternoon, which, of course, she has been.

Elsewhere on this week’s episode:

— As Heather packs for the trip, we learn that she wraps clothes she’s already bought and worn in white tissue paper so that they don’t get wrinkled and seem as fresh as when they came home from stores wrapped in white tissue paper for the first time. “I’ve been packing like this for years,” she tells an assistant of some sort. “My friends make fun of me.” As they should, Heather, as they should.

— Jenn, meanwhile, is her usual dizzy self, talking with Katie on FaceTime while trying to get ready herself. “God only knows what I’m throwing in this damn suitcase and I don’t care,” she says. “I’ll drink wine in sweats if I have to.” Relatable.

— Katie is invited on the trip despite Heather’s anger at her in past episodes over a paparazzi kerfuffle. “I’m actually shocked that I’m not below where they put the dogs,” she says as she finds her place on Heather’s seating chart for the private jet.

— The spa provides consultations with a perfumer, who asks the housewives to describe their favorite scents and why. “Like tacos?” asks Emily, God bless her taco-loving heart.

“You can do tacos but you have to tell me why?” Jess the perfumer replies after a barely imperceptible pause to make sure she really heard what she heard.

“Oh, because they’re very meaty and juicy, like carnitas,” Emily replies. “It’s like a perfect scent.”