It's Time for the O.G. of the O.C. to G.O.
Latest“I go big or go home, and I am not going home,” Vicki Gunvalson—the longest running cast member of any Real Housewives city—says emphatically in the opening credits for Season 12 of Real Housewives of Orange County. But as her role in the show becomes more and more forced, it might be time for her—and Bravo—to rethink that.
There are no graceful exits on Real Housewives, but some have managed to bow out more skillfully than others. O.C.’s Jeana Keough knew it was her time when she quit on good terms in Season 5, while Bethenny Frankel of New York left in Season 4 to venture out on her own lucrative spinoffs (of course, she had to crawl back in Season 7, but that’s a-whole-nother story). Others—like Atlanta’s Claudia Jordan or New York’s Cindy Barshop—were so boring that they went out with a whimper and not a bang, mostly because they couldn’t muster up enough noise for viewers to really notice that they were no longer around.
Vicki’s television death, conversely, has been slow and painful. Gone is Brooks Ayers, the oily, real-life Flannery O’Conner character who (allegedly) roped Vicki into a cancer scam that led to one of the most riveting seasons in the history of reality TV. Her friendships are now superficial. (Say what you will about the gruesome twosome that was Vicki and Tamra and you’ll probably be right, but at least their friendship seemed somewhat—in the context of reality TV, anyway—genuine.) Now Vicki is forced to hang on with the duds, the cast members (or “friends” of the Housewives) so insecure in their contracts for future seasons that they’d rather form a tenuous friendship with an utter ghoul than risk being fired.
On Monday night’s episode of Orange County, Vicki requested that her upcoming birthday party include a roast, something her daughter Brianna immediately kiboshed, knowing that her mother has no sense of humor about herself. And therein lies one of the many problems of Vicki staying on the show—there’s no joy, no silliness, and no intrigue, so what is there? A new Republican cop boyfriend who, along with Vicki’s son-in-law, gave her a freakin’ gun for her birthday; her friendship with Lydia, a devout Christian (and maybe robot) who is terrified of drag queens and obsessed with taking sides; Kelly, who seems ready to jump ship as soon as she stops shooting herself in the foot; and a bunch of O.C. has-beens who are slithering their way into Vicki’s party for their lifeblood, a few more seconds of screen time.