When Jenn invites new girl Katie over for a session of yoga, Katie says that she and her husband Matt have sex twice a day. Earlier this season, Alexis Bellino said that she and John Janssen have sex four times a day. On their trip to Big Bear, Katie joked she was glad Alexis joined them because her coochie must need a rest. On the last season of The Real Housewives of Miami, Larsa Pippen said that she and her now ex-boyfriend Marcus Jordan were having sex five times a night. Why is this the newest brag for Housewives?
I really hate this, especially because it is, as the kids say, a weird flex. Why? Because they are totally making this up. Horny on main has been my brand for more than a decade and I have gotten off with a partner twice in one day less than five times in my life and all of them were in my 20s or early 30s. I used to take money at the door of a commercial sex party, and I haven’t shot my load five times in a day. Katie and Matt have been married for some time. I’ve been married to my husband for six years, and he gets it once a week. When we’re on vacation he gets it twice a week or once for every new hotel we stay at. I don’t know who made up these rules, but I follow them to a T, or more accurately, a D. (Based on a 2019 study, 47 percent of married couples have sex less than once a week, so I’m batting better than average even though I’m usually pitching or catching.)
If I — a horny homosexual in his mid-40s — can’t get it up for four sessions in one night with or without some little blue helpers, there is no way that John Janssen, who is 20 years older than me, is sticking it in Alexis’s Bellino more in one day than I fuck my husband in a month. I’m sorry, that’s not happening biologically, physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, epistemologically, dermatologically, scatologically, or demographically.
Why are they bragging about this? Heaps of sex does not a good relationship make. Even if Larsa and Marcus were fucking that much, they’re still broken up. Teresa Giudice bragged that she and her new husband, Luis Relais, have sex three times a day. That doesn’t mean he’s not a red-faced huckster who is probably going to steal her money and leave her penniless and irrelevant. I hope all those orgasms, UTIs, and leg cramps for shoving them behind her ears are worth it.
Anyway, good on Katie (for lying), but it was nice to learn more about her family and how she didn’t want to marry her first husband but went through with it anyway because she was young and afraid. We also got some nice symmetry between Katie’s oldest daughter changing her last name to match her stepfather’s and Tamra talking to her daughter about how she doesn’t speak to her father anymore. Katie seems nice, real, and centered, which I enjoy. Jenn is also the best person for this scene because she is perhaps one of the kindest Housewives we have. Jenn is a little bit dim and has been taken care of her whole life either by her parents or a partners. She’s mostly useless, but she’s nice. I think a little bit more nice and a little bit less fucking would do many of these Housewives a lot of good.
The rest of the episode is taken up by this insane version of The Traitors that Tamra throws for the rest of the women. The best part of the whole game is when Teddi Mellencamp, serving as the host, comes to greet everyone and says, “Welcome Housewives … and Vicki.” This was also the best thing that Teddi Mellencamp has ever done on camera and that includes somehow taking down Lisa Vanderpump during the Lucy Lucy Apple Juice Saga. I love two Housewives wraiths going at it like, well, apparently, JJ Squared on a rainy Saturday.
The production aspect of this bootleg Traitors is pretty high, with all the women’s faces in picture frames, a gorgeous mansion to film in, and even bartenders in the Traitor’s signature cloaks. However, it was too ornate, too confusing, too much. Not only was the fourth wall broken, but the fourteenth and the fortieth as well. Here is a reality show playing a game show based on a game show starring practitioners of the reality television arts and sciences. This would be the snake eating its own tail, except the snake, like all of the Housewives, is on the Vitamin O and isn’t really that hungry.
I thought this might be Peacock trying to cross market, but is there is a Housewives fan that doesn’t know what The Traitors is by now? I can’t believe Peacock would let the rules be so loose. There was one Traitor, and then they all played a game for immunity, and then the Traitor killed someone. Still, Teddi got it wrong, so there was another murder, and then they had to pull a paper out of a box of crickets. Then there was a boat race, but it didn’t happen because Teddi had to do too much like always, and push Tamra in the pool, and (gasp for breath during this run-on sentence) it was all stupid. However, Heather is the Traitor and that is absolutely perfect casting. No notes. Would visit again but without the crickets.
While the event was stupid, we got to see some good conversations. First, Heather pulls Katie to talk and invites her to a charity event she’s doing in Sonoma to benefit gay kids. It’s called Straightless Not Dateless. Sharon Stone is on the board. Anyway, Heather says in confessional that she isn’t trying to be friends with Katie but she doesn’t want to leave her out. Katie apologizes for everything but Heather cuts her off and says she doesn’t want to relitigate it. In confessional, Katie says, “It’s impossible to move forward with Heather because she won’t let me finish a sentence.” I have a feeling these two are going to be duking it out at the reunion from the ends of their respective couches.
Next up is Emily and Jenn. Emily rushes right to an apology for yelling at Jenn about not paying her bills or selling her Rolex at a recent dinner party. Emily wasn’t wrong, but, as I said before, she went harder than JD Vance in a Jennifer Convertibles, which is ironic because they’re both from Middletown, Ohio. Emily tells Jenn that she was totally wrong, she never should have done it, and then profusely apologized. We get this a lot from Housewives, but what made this a little bit superior is that Emily then explained why it happened. She says Jenn has been taken care of her entire life and now that she has to take care of herself, she can’t figure it out. Emily says she had the opposite experience, that her mother would never take responsibility for anything and that Emily had to get herself to school, make her own lunch, and take care of the whole household. She tells Jenn that this made her hard, aggressive, and somewhat mean, so when she was yelling at Jenn, she wasn’t really yelling at Jenn. She was working through her own trauma. Now, I don’t think I want to be part of someone working out their trauma on me, but at least Emily is taking accountability, and it seems like she and Jenn can now progress to a place of some understanding.
The final meeting is between the Tres Amigas. I want to start this by saying that this is just the right level of Victoria Denise Gunvalson Jr. that I want on my television. I want her to show up for a party or two, be her crazy workaholic self, and then go back behind the gates of Coto de Caza, where she belongs. Vicki’s like truffle; a little bit makes everything better, but too much is like an umami explosion in your mouth, and no one wants that four times a night unless your name is Alexis “Jesus Juggs” Bellino-Janssen.
Vicki, Tamra, and Shannon get together to talk about the fate of their Three Amigas live show, which seems deader than Henry Kissinger (finally!). Tamra says the falling out was because of Shannon’s drinking but also because Tamra liked one of Alexis’s Insta posts which had #FindingFriendships or some shit at the end of it. Really? We’re getting mad about likes on a post because of hashtags? Tamra is right, no one reads the damn hashtags. If I did, I would spend a quarter of every day reading “#gay #gayboy #lgbtq #queer #gayhistory #selfies #gymselfies #gymbunnies #instagay #gaytattoo #mustache #hornysluts #lanadelraystan” at the end of every single photo in my feed. (I told you I’m horny on main, my algorithm is literally Housewives memes, shirtless dudes with facial hair, and Brock Shay building a new home gym.)
Then they start talking about John Janssen and Shannon says that she doesn’t want to pay the man a dime and that she won’t lie to clear his name. This is all fair. What I don’t like is how Tamra, of all people, hasn’t told Shannon about the existence of these videos. While those three are meeting in one room, Gina, Heather, and Katie are in another, asking if Shannon knows they exist. They agree she doesn’t. Gina says she’s split between telling Shannon and not telling her because she thinks telling her will make it worse. Knowing what we know about our Shan Shan, the one thing that will be even worse is if she finds out that everyone in the group knew about the videos before she did. That would spin her right round, baby, right round, like a record, baby, right round, round, round.
But there’s no time for that because the game must continue. They all have to put their hands in the cricket box or whatever while across town Alexis Bellino smokes her fourth cigarette of the night and pulls down her Christmas green camisole as John Janssen takes his fourth shower and maybe some heart medication because that is a lot of exercise for a man his age. Alexis pads through her phone casually, rewatching the videos of Shannon on the worst night of her life. She plays them over and over, the chaos bringing her comfort, the promise of destruction getting her a little giddy, maybe even a little, I don’t know, moist under the covers. She hears the water stop rushing out of the shower and the glass door open. “Johnny! Get in here!” Alexis yells, putting down the phone and picking up herself. “I watched the videos again, and momma has needs!”