Noella Bergener started off this season of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” by telling the world, about the sex dungeon in her basement.
She’s proudly declared herself bisexual, and good for her for knowing who she is.
But this week, whoo boy, this week Noella may have broken your humble recapper’s ability to, well, recap. So fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy flight.
Noella arrives late to dinner with Emily Simpson and Shannon Storms Beador at the Quiet Woman, or “the Q-dub,” as Shannon insists on calling it.
And Emily, having heard a hot slice of gossip about Noella from housewife Jen Armstrong, asks Noella to explain the risque birthday gift she gave her soon-to-be-ex-husband Sweet James.
Because we value our employment, we’re only going to use part of the name of this gift, and simply refer to it as a “stack.” It won’t really matter because the name isn’t really anything you, or probably anyone without a sex dungeon, has ever heard before. (Even Google only produced 1,470 results for the phrase, which tells you plenty.)
“What does a stack mean?” Emily asks, prompting Noella to laugh, and for once seem unsure of what to say.
“Well, we just literally … ,” she begins. “It’s like … . I’ll show you pictures later.”
Shannon interjects: “Can you breathe? Can you walk up a ladder?”
Noella finally finds the photo on her phone, because of course she keeps the photo on her phone. She shows it to Emily.
“It’s a stack,” Emily concludes.
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And would that this were the end of the stack talk on Wednesday, but no, at Game Night at Emily’s house, Gina Kirschenheiter shows up, and of course, she has to be brought up to speed.
“It’s not a thing!” Gina says in the confessional that follows. “We’re all adults. We’ve all seen a porno here or there. That doesn’t happen in there. Or does it?”
Game Night, of course, isn’t board games like it is for anyone else.
“Game Night is just an excuse to drink and be ridiculous,” Emily explains. “Just silly, ridiculous games that you’d have at a 6-year-old’s birthday party. But instead of 6 we’re 46.”
And you know housewives are gonna housewife, and ruin perfectly good kiddie games with inappropriate names that your recapper isn’t going to repeat.
Eventually, before we’re freed from Game Night, Noella gets Emily and Shannon to help her demonstrate a stack, just to make sure we can’t unsee it ever.
“My mind is blown,” Gina says. And really, whose isn’t?
Elsewhere on Wednesday’s episode:
— The show opens in Cabo, where the girls’ trip of the previous two episodes is thankfully almost over. Noella and Heather Dubrow are never going to get along, but Noella is so focused on herself that she’s burning bridges with allies like Gina and Emily too.
Jen, who often delivers judgments by first announcing that she’s a doctor, so she knows things, tells us it’s important not to pile on when talking to Noella.
“You have to be extremely focused to get through to her,” she says. “It’s almost like talking to a child.”
— Back home, Jen, who is always worried that her medical practice is keeping her from spending enough time with her three kids, goes for a mani-pedi with her 9-year-old daughter Cece.
Jen makes the mistake of asking Cece what she thinks of Nanny Kaitlyn, and Cece sticks a figurative nail file into her mother’s heart.
“I think she’s like a mother,” Cece says.
“Oh, stop,” Jen replies.
“She’s a great mother for the boys,” Cece continues. “She actually keeps them calm.
“And then there’s this mother,” she says, nodding at the suddenly stricken Jen.
— Shannon hosts a party at boyfriend John’s waterfront bachelor pad, inviting Heather and husband Terry, and Emily and husband Shane, for a sunset cruise followed by dinner prepared by a teppanyaki chef.
“So we’re going on a three-hour tour?” Shane says as they cast off, and no one makes a peep. Is it possible he’s the only one who’s ever watched “Gilligan’s Island”?
— Jen invites Heather over to her house, and Heather shows up and proceeds to host the evening in Jen’s home.
She pulls out a pineapple corer, which she tells Jen is now hers to keep, turns two pineapples into cocktail mugs, fills them with one of the many varieties of ice she makes at home, announcing, “It’s kind of my thing,” fills the fruit cups with champagne, and decorates them with paper umbrellas.
I mean, c’mon over to my house any time you want, Heather!
— Jen and husband Ryne close out the episode with a heart-to-heart talk that implodes spectacularly.
Jen feels like she and Ryne haven’t been communicating well for a long time — spoiler alert: they haven’t.
But Ryne either doesn’t know how to talk with Jen, or doesn’t want to talk with Jen, as the final moments of the show make clear.
She literally tells him what she’d like him to say, and he dutifully parrots them back to her, while making more eye contact and delivering more kisses to Mr. Puppers the chihuahua than to his wife.
“Can we not talk about this?” he says, cutting the conversation short. “We’ll do this another time.”
She presses for more.
“That’s enough,” Ryne tells Jen. “It’s a hard no.”
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