The finale of the 16th season of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” on Wednesday opened with Gina Kirschenheiter fretting over the existential value of her soul.
More specifically, whether the mischievous tommyknockers of Aspen need a bribe of some Veuve Clicquot champagne to leave their gnome-y little paws off her person.
Gina, you’ll recall, had already been possessed by a demon once this season. So when she sensed a ghost in the abandoned mine the housewives toured in Aspen, and later was told that the mines were literally infested with tommyknockers, she was worried.
And when she woke up on the final day of the trip full of remorse over how badly she’d treated Shannon Storms Beador during the previous night, she knew in a flash that it was because she’d been under the influence. Of tommyknockers, not the tequila and wine she’d tossed back.
“It wasn’t me last night, it was the demons,” she tells the camera before heading to the kitchen with Emily Simpson to fetch a gift basket for the spirits of the mine.
Emily decided one bottle of Veuve would be fine, but just to be safe, Gina asked the staff at the Aspen mansion to include a variety of other treats in a gift basket that left them mystified.
“We’re from Aspen and we’ve never heard of these offerings,” the butler mumbled as the Demon Duo departed.
Inside the mine, things got serious fast.
“I do not give you permission to take up residency inside of me or my soul,” Gina intoned. “I wish you well and I’m sorry. And there’s a Hersey bar in there too. And a Diet Coke.”
Emily, in a confessional, gave this joining of the mortal and immortal her legal blessings.
“I like contracts, I’m an attorney,” she said. “If she wants to make a contract with the tommyknockers so that they don’t inhabit her body, I’m all for it. Let’s make this legal!”
Aspen wraps up quickly after that. Everyone but Noella Bergener goes shopping, the lowlight of which involves Gina and Shannon arguing in the boutique over how many friends Shannon has in her core friend group.
“How dare you!” Shannon shouts over the ringing up of one of the other housewives’ purchase of $1,336.74 of new clothes. “I said it went from a core five to a core four. Yes, I did.”
Gina, or the tommyknocker controlling her, shakes her head.
“Your core whatever, how many number they are, that pivots as well,” she tells Shannon in a sentence my eighth-grade grammar teacher would not be able to diagram. “It was a core two, then a core four, then core five, then core four.”
Midway through all that Shannon starts to shout, “I’ve never had a core two! Never had a core two!”
Gina cries, Shannon hugs her, it’s all over as soon as the snow flurries outside in Aspen.
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Noella Bergener had skipped the shopping to instead stay back at Housewives Manor for a private session with a coach who waved sage smoke all over her and gave her “root chakras” a once-over.
That night, at the final dinner of the trip, everyone tries to make nice. They fail, of course, mostly when Noella discusses her relationship heartache as a conversation point with the sommelier.
“When I’m really angry with him, I order Taco Bell and have a $1,500 bottle,” she tells the poor man who really just wants to sell Heather an expensive bottle of Montrachet.
Back home in Orange County, there’s a nice moment when Emily and her husband Shane get dressed up for the photos they never had a chance to take when they got married 13 years earlier at 10 p.m. in a Vegas wedding chapel.
She looks great in a white gown and Shane surprises her with a first-ever engagement ring, a new wedding band to replace the one she lost, and a bonus band for sticking with him for 13 years.
The season wraps with one of those ridiculous parties the housewives love to throw. Shannon is the host of this one, and she’s decided to throw a rock and roll costume party. Of course, that’s not enough for her. She wants the housewives to perform a song for the guests, because of course she does.
Heather is enlisted to help pull this off and she calls upon her friend singer-songwriter Richard Marx, who helpfully sends a track he and his wife Daisy Fuentes had written a few years earlier.
Everyone shows up in rock outfits – Gina as Gwen Stefani, Jen Armstrong as Pamela Anderson, Heather as Posh Spice, and Emily as Carmen Electra.
We see Noella getting dressed as Jimi Hendrix at home, during which she picks up her toy guitar prop and has a brainstorm: “Hey, Siri, can you Google how to set a guitar on fire?”
Shannon’s character is harder to pin down. The title on screen as she makes the other wives lineup on a stage in her backyard is Thunder Storms, though her boyfriend John refers to her as something else entirely thanks to the tight corset vest and revealing pirate blouse she’s wearing.
The whole thing ends in a corny music video-like montage of the wives performing the song titled “Whatever I Want,” which seems kind of like the perfect motto for how a housewife lives her life.
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