I didn’t expect I’d ever say this, but last night’s episode of real Housewives of Orange county was completely terrifying. and not in a “quiet terror of upper-middle class suburban disaffection” way, but in a real, life-or-death, “visceral remind of our own eventual mortality” way. If you’re from an area where outdoor sports are popular, then you probably know, or at least know of, someone who was killed or seriously injured in exactly the kind of accident the cast got into last night.

Making the normal jokey-jokes about everything that lead up to the accident last night feels like it would be in poor taste, but we know that both Tamra and Vicki survived and have fully recovered from their injuries, so let’s tread lightly in that direction, or, at the very least, poke a little fun at Meghan, who would turn out to be the episode’s unlikely villain.

I say “unlikely” because even though I don’t think Meghan’s anyone’s favorite, she didn’t seem like the ice-in-her-veins type, and even if she were, mostly all she talks about is becoming America’s First-Ever pregnant Woman, so there hasn’t been much opportunity yet for to be a monster. That came at the very end of the episode, but first, we had to ensure she’s pregnant. Sie ist! Meghan’s pregnant and any average RHOC audience member was probably more excited about it than the man that consented to have his frozen sperm used to knock her up.

Beyond that, most of the episode was spent in preparation to go to Glamis. much ado was made about Heather’s fancy camper that she needed because she’s a princess who just can’t spend a night in a regular RV like Tamra and her plebe family, as well as the foil packets her private chef prepared for her so she could just toss them on the grill without having to operate a salt shaker or cut a vegetable.

The results of Heather’s expenses and efforts were an RV that did not look especially more spacious or comfortable than the others on the inside, but was far shinier on the outside, as well as a meal that tasted probably about the same as everybody else’s because Heather doesn’t know how to use a grill. Heather also seemed to recognize that her special, expensive RV wasn’t stunting quite as hard on the others as she wold have preferred, though, but she didn’t explain why she didn’t have her assistant find her an even better RV instead of just taking Tamra’s recommendation. good help is so hard to find! even in costars.

The episode felt a little difficult to watch at times, and not only because there was a lot more barf than the average hour of real Housewives. we all knew where the whole thing was going, which put me on edge, especially when Heather’s middle school-age son was sent out on an ATV all by himself. He came back fine, of course, and he didn’t seem to go far, but some sort of maternal instinct welled up inside me that was very unpleasant and anxious. That doesn’t happen all that typically when watching a Bravo reality show.

That’s sort of the paradox of reality TV in general, though. shows like real Housewives have one foot in the real and one in the not-real; the characters we see are play-acting staged scenarios that helpfully illustrate real interpersonal conflicts, which have in turn been stoked by the not-real forces of production crews and network programmers and Andy Cohen. The hokey theme parties and obviously contrived sit-down meetings between enemies make it easy to take sides and root for cast members like people root for pro wrestlers, but what happens on the show directly affects the personal lives of reality performers more than it would most other kinds of entertainers. A lot of real Housewives end up divorced after a couple seasons.

Far fewer end up with serious physical injuries like the ones Tamra and Vicki suffered last night, and among other things, it was a stark reminder that the women on the show are all a lot of things other than the characters we see once a week. Seeing anyone strapped to a board and helicoptered to a hospital is jarring, and even more so when you realize that might be the first time in a while that you stopped to consider someone as a human instead of a character.

The accident also made me wonder about the particular circumstances surrounding how this part of the reality TV sausage gets made. If they had been filming a movie or traditional TV show, they’d have received training and guidance from professionals and stunt drivers before zipping around on the dunes. (And, it’s worth noting, they’d all be getting paid much more handsomely for taking on the risk–Bravo is notoriously stingy with its Housewives.) reality contracts are different, so did Bravo just send ’em out to do something obviously dangerous for our collective amusement? Does that maybe describe a lot reality TV?

I can’t answer any of those questions right now, but they’re the ones I’m still thinking about after watching theShow. Ich denke natürlich auch immer noch an Meghans Reaktion, Vicki zu hören, das ein Krankenhaus in der Nähe ihres Golfwochenendes in Laquinta leben, drei Stunden von Glamis entfernt und Stunden von allen betroffenen Familie von Vickis entfernt: Sie weigerte sich einfach dazu Geh und überprüfe sie. und nicht aus einem bestimmten Grund; Sie mag Vicki einfach nicht sehr, es wäre ein bisschen unpraktisch für ihr gemächliches Wochenende gewesen und sie hatte nicht das Gefühl.

Meghan ist immer noch eine relativ neue Hausfrau, so dass sie zu der Zeit vielleicht nicht erkannt hat Das Krankenhaus konnte nicht mit Verletzungen umgehen, die potenziell schwerwiegend wie ihre. Selbst wenn Meghan gerade ihre Golfstollen gegen Tennisschuhe getauscht hatte und 20 Minuten lang zu Vicki vorbeigekommen war, hätte sie sensibel und großmütig ausgesehen, um ihre persönliche Abneigung beiseite zu legen, um jemanden in offensichtlichen Bedürfnissen zu trösten.

Stattdessen zuckte sie mit den Schultern und entschied, dass sie die ewige Gesellschaft ihres eigenen uninteressierten Ehemanns neben Shannon und David, dem am wenigsten lustigen Paar der Show, bevorzugte. (Shannon, so sollte angemerkt werden, bettelte aus der Glamis-Reise über Sorge, der Sand würde ihre Lungen stören, aber erst nachdem sie herausgefunden hat, wer auf der Gästeliste stand.) Nicht nur so objektiv kaltherzig, sondern es ist ein eklatant Taktischer Fehler in Meghans Bemühungen, ihre Handlung über eine Schwangerschaft hinaus zu erweitern, scheint sie den Vater des Babys nicht einmal davon zu überzeugen, sich darum zu kümmern. Kleinlichkeit ist eine Qualität, die ich normalerweise auf seltsame Weise auf andere schätze, aber man muss sich selbst bewusst genug sein, um zu erkennen, wann alle Beteiligten mehr von Ihnen profitieren würden, um einen höheren moralischen Boden zu suchen. Nächste Woche bin ich mir sicher, dass Kelly froh sein wird, etwas Zeit zu haben, da er der Bösewicht ist.