Real Housewives of Orange County recap: 'Un-Noble Women'

The continued fractiousness of Vicki and Tamra, the OGs of the OC, is starting to take a real toll on the other Housewives of Orange County. Shannon’s firmly Team Tamra in this bout, Peggy is just tired of hearing them bicker, and Lydia really wants to broker some peace between them so she can join them in some classic Vicki-and-Tamra brouhaha, like old times.

Lydia seems to make the most progress on getting the two to prepare to reach a place of peace — or at least tolerance. At the Nobleman launch party, she manages to corner each of the ladies individually and refuses to take no for an answer until they cave from exhaustion and agree to meet up at an arranged time and place.

But the war is far from over, and Peggy seems to accidentally undermine everything Lydia accomplishes by taking a different approach to the subject.

See, Peggy stumbles into Tamra’s conversation about the forthcoming meet-up, and instead of nodding along politely and pretending Tamra’s the queen of everything the way Shannon does, Peggy lightly insists that it’s time for Tamra to just get over her feud with Vicki. It’s tired, Peggy says; they’re too old for all this (as her hot flashes seem to indicate), and they’re making it awkward for everyone else at shindigs like this one.

She’s right and all, but…keeping the peace doesn’t secure casting for next season. Tamra wants to drag out this drama as far as she possibly can. So what does she do with all this sound, albeit unseasoned, reason Peggy’s serving up right now alongside those sea bass treats Shannon’s so fond of? Why, start a spin-off feud with Peggy, of course!

If Peggy was sick of all the fighting around her before, she’s probably not going to like being in the eye of the storm. Getting whiplash from watching all the back-and-forth is nothing compared to the headache brought on by her own spanking-new spat with Tamra.

Rumors are already starting to swirl through the group about Peggy and why she had a double mastectomy. The obvious assumption is that she either had breast cancer or the BRCA gene. But from the look ahead at this season, her decision to undergo such a difficult procedure might not have been due to either of those factors — meaning that if Tamra is looking for a reason to make Peggy the group’s new persona non grata, well, it looks like she’s not going to have to dig too far beyond Peggy’s bosoms to find one.

As for the merits of Tamra’s sudden disgust with Peggy, let’s think of it from her point of view. Because really, how dare Peggy suggest she move on with her life instead of stabbing her former friend of 10 years with eye daggers every time she enter a room? How could she just go and assume that Tamra’s got bigger fish to fry — like, say, her fractured relationship with her mother and her estrangement from daughter Sidney? Who does she think she is to treat such a grave miscarriage of justice like the two-bit feud that it is?!

Congratulations, Peggy. You’ve just earned yourself scapegoat status. (Recap continues on page 2)

It’s worth noting that Lydia’s getting a pass from all parties involved in this dispute, despite the fact that she’s the one who is actively scheming and pressing for reconciliation between the two. Peggy might’ve offered a passing comment or two over cocktails disguised as true interest in this mess, but Lydia is all in on making this get-together happen. The difference, it seems, is that Lydia is coming from a place of adoration of the Vicki-Tamra origin story, whereas Peggy doesn’t know or really care about any of it, which makes her comments seem even bolder and more uninformed. Either that or they all just want a ride in Lydia’s new Aston Martin.

Speaking of which…guys, there’s some marital disparity on display between the ladies tonight as well.

The good: Lydia and Doug are spoiling each other with affection and prizes — apparently, his magazine’s definition of gentlemanliness includes giving your wife two cars, a helicopter ride to Catalina for champagne, and Chanel jewelry for her birthday, right when you’re trying to start a new business. Sure, there could be discomfort brewing between them over his impending vasectomy appointment, but they’re solid and sparkly right now for sure. And Peggy and Diko are picture perfect enough to earn a sleek spread in Doug’s magazine, so nothing to see there, either.

The bad: Meghan’s husband has yet to convince anyone she knows that he’s actually a nice guy because he can’t spare five minutes to have a legitimate phone conversation with her. The most we hear from him is when he compliments the thickness of Doug’s, erm, magazine issue. That’s awkward. The most she can even say for him is that “the times when he’s not being a huge a–hole, he’s so sweet.” Meanwhile, Shannon’s husband doesn’t respect her dietary decisions or her ambitions to start up a low-profit health food restaurant, so theirs isn’t the happiest of homes right now either.

The ugly: Tamra all but verbally blames Eddie for her daughter’s absence from her life and, by extension, her mother’s attitude about all of it…all while he’s trying to surprise her with a romantic trip to Spain and gushing about how great things are between them, despite the fact that they never get a break from each other. And Kelly’s getting downright sick of Michael’s face because he’s approaching 60 and doesn’t want to party like it’s 1999 anymore. Plus, he leers over her excessive ordering habits at dinner.

Tamra’s biggest point of contention with Vicki is that she had some disparaging words to say about her marriage, as well as Meghan’s and Shannon’s, which…fine. Vicki bludgeoned any soapbox she might have years ago with the whole Brooks-Ayers-faking-cancer B.S. But she might not have been altogether wrong about her assessments of these struggling couples. And it probably (read: definitely) wasn’t her place to criticize anyone’s love lives, but as her tagline for the season tells us, she’s going big this year.

If and when Vicki and Tamra do come together for a Lydia-arranged meeting of the minds, Vicki’s probably not gonna put away the knives. But maybe that won’t matter anymore, because Tamra seems even more riled up about the fact that Peggy “has a bitch-ass, I-just-smelled-s— attitude” now. Look out.