Bowling in heels? Things got competitive on the July 20 episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, as all the ladies got together to go bowling in their finest stilettos. The real drama wasn't what happened in the bowling alley, though, as the women also dealt with their marriages, families, and businesses. Which Housewives were bowling metaphorical strikes this week and whose shots were going straight to the gutter? Read the recap to find out!
Tamra Judge
The honeymoon phase is over! Gone are the days when Judge and her husband, Eddie, could spend all their time traveling to exotic locations and enjoying casual time with each other. Instead they have to focus on their baby, aka their joint business venture of CUT Fitness. Recent numbers for the business were not good, so the Judges had to find a way to make the venture profitable again. Their plan? A series of “Quickie” online workout videos that would advertise the business.
Those videos were easier said than done, though, as the couple spent the entire video shoot bickering with one another over every single thing. Nothing improved when they moved on from the video shoot and started creating a new booty sculpting class, either, as the fighting continued. Judge was so disheartened by the tension that she decided she did not want to spend every day there anymore. The new grandmother announced to her husband that she was going to let him focus on the gym while she focused on her first love: selling real estate. Hopefully, by spending less time together, they will be available to have more fun when they are together and won’t snipe at one other anymore.
Best Moment: Judge was causing trouble during the Gunvalsons' séance. When the medium started vaguely describing one of the Gunvalsons’ tattoos, Judge asked for further details — causing the medium to shush her, then chide her for disrupting his process. Later on, when the medium bizarrely started commenting on the bowel movements of Vicki’s brother, Billy, Judge cracked that the medium was “full of s—.” Someone's not a true believer!
Shannon Beador
In happier marriage news, the Beadors seemed to be making ground on their healing, as they went out for a nice pre-Valentine's Day dinner together. While last year David forgot Valentine's Day entirely and didn't even write his wife a card, this year he gave Shannon a thoughtful dragon bracelet. She was touched by the gesture and noted that it was a sign they were moving forward from their troubles. Even better? She's spending less time obsessing over her husband's past infidelities. “I used to think about the affair all the time! Now I only think about it 40 or 50 times a day. I see that as an improvement,” Beador boasted.
When Shannon wasn't working on her marriage, she was working on convincing Vicki's boyfriend, Brooks Ayers, that he need to rethink his plan to beat cancer. She urged him to go see her acclaimed holistic doctor, then told Gunvalson that the juices her ailing love was drinking were too full of sugar to be healthy. Shannon was adamant that their plans to starve the cancer out would only lead to Brooks’ body shutting down. Gunvalson was able to take most of these comments in stride, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll stay that way for long.
Best Moment: Beador was disgruntled about the 15 pounds she had gained since finding out about her husband's affair. In true Beador fashion, she went to a holistic healer to start getting herself toned again at 50. It was easier said than done, though, when the trainer started leading the housewife through some exercises. “People tell you that exercising gives you energy through endorphins, but I just feel as if I've been knocked on my ass,” she complained. “Working out! Friggin' nightmare!”
Heather Dubrow
Dubrow continued to be incredibly busy, trying to fit in time for her husband, her skin care line, her children, and the family’s never-ending mansion construction project. Thankfully, she still had time to plan a bowling trip for all the Housewives where she struggled to bowl anything other than gutter balls in her high heels.
When she wasn't planning bowling trips, she was planning out exactly what the other Housewives were going to eat, drink, and breathe down to the minute. Judge noted that Dubrow was a bit of a control freak, but maybe those tendencies allowed her to deftly manage all the stuff she had to fit into her self-proclaimed nearly perfect life.
Best Moment: In a weird scene, all the Housewives were coming up with rhymes for Beador. Judge's contribution was, “Shannon Beador, you little whore!” Vicki chimed in with a “Shannon Beador, you're gonna score!” Dubrow, however, went off in a different direction and just listed off some random words: “Velour. Couture. Connoisseur. Offshore.”
Meghan Edmonds
Edmonds continued to struggle with being a stepmother to a surly teenager. This week, she learned that her stepdaughter, Haley, was not meeting the attendance requirements for school, even though she was given tons of leeway to study independently. Edmonds tried to fix the trouble by bribing Haley with a weekly allowance of $100, but it only seemed to cause more strife as she came home from the bowling night to discover that Haley had barely tried on her homework assignments. She proceeded to cry about how lonely she felt as a parent since her husband, Jim Edmonds, spends all of his time away in St. Louis. “I feel like a failure,” she bawled.
Her fellow Housewives did not help to make her feel better about this situation. During their bowling night, Edmonds decided to try to gain some insight into parenting by outlining her sex education plan to the other ladies. Her idea to provide birth control for Haley did not go over well, as Beador and Gunvalson dismissed the idea as being way too lenient. Better look for that parenting self-esteem boost elsewhere!
Best Moment: While all of the other Housewives were concerned about being fashionable while they bowled, Edmonds was in to win it. So while the other women wore their stilettos, the newbie put on the proper footwear. “In order to win, you have to wear what the sport requires,” she noted before slipping on a pair of ugly bowling shoes.
Vicki Gunvalson
In an attempt to heal after the sudden death of her beloved mother, Gunvalson and her brother, Billy, hired a medium to communicate with the dearly departed. It seemed to do the trick as both Gunvalsons were comforted by the medium's assurances that their mom died peacefully and was now spending the afterlife rocking a perfect set of teeth. The medium even offered that Gunvalson's mother approved of Ayers, and felt that he was right for Gunvalson after all.
However, even the best of assurances couldn't heal the hole Gunvalson felt in her heart. At one point during a bowling night with the other Housewives, Gunvalson talked about her mother as if she were still alive. When she realized that that was not the case, Gunvalson became heartbroken all over again about the loss.
In the end, Gunvalson decided that maybe she needed a more foolproof way to take her mind off of all the stress in her life. What better way is there to de-stress than a vacation? Vicki announced her plans for a Girls’ Trip to Tahiti, and even took smug satisfaction at being able to teach Dubrow a thing or two about their destination. Every cloud has a silver lining!
Best Moment: Vicki and Tamra shared a cab home from bowling night, where Judge started ranting about her mother's reaction to Caitlyn Jenner's transition. Before Tamra gained too much steam, an exhausted Vicki looked over and simply asked, “Why do you have to talk so much?”
Tell Us: Do you believe Gunvalson's medium was for real?
