This week, “The Real Housewives of Orange County” delivered the imaginary crossover with “Yellowstone” you didn’t know you needed.
Imaginary because our housewives don’t actually meet John Dutton, the patriarch of the Montana ranch played by Kevin Costner on the hit series “Yellowstone.” But the women do head to Big Sky Country for a girls’ trip to a dude ranch and, of course, they act exactly like all those wealthy coastal folk who John Dutton works so hard to keep out.
Exhibit A: Heather Dubrow, packing for the trip with both her personal stylist and her personal assistant to help, trots out a pair of black Chanel rainboots to use as flyfishing waders.
John Dutton grimaces and takes a drink of whiskey.
Exhibit B: Shannon Storms Beador, dons a black Lone Ranger mask she’s considering for the trip, which leads her 18-year-old twins to guess she’s dressing up as a Ninja instead of the legendary masked lawman.
John Dutton tells Rip to take the whole lot of these housewives to the “train station,” which is neither a train station nor a place from which anyone ever returns.
The episode opens with the women all shopping for western wear for their trip. Heather, Tamra Judge and Jenn Pedranti all gather at a Boot Barn. Gina Kirschenheiter, Emily Simpson and Shannon meet at the vintage western store Landers Supply House in Costa Mesa, where Shannon, who never misses an opportunity to dress up, tries on a pair of overalls with one strap undone to model her best Farm Girl come-hither look.
At the Boot Barn, shopping soon falls away in favor of grilling Jenn about her boyfriend Ryan’s self-acknowledged playboy ways.
“You should be scared a little bit,” Tamra tells Jenn.
“Why, did he kill someone?” Heather asks.
“I think he killed a couple of marriages,” Tamra jokes.
Finally, Jenn is allowed to speak.
“He will tell you, ‘I have never been faithful to anybody,’” she explains. But so far so good!
Back at Ryan’s house, he and Jenn are all laughs and innuendo as Ryan goes over her back with a massage gun. But soon she gets serious, telling him how her excitement about the Montana trip faded during the conversation about his dating history.
“Tamra was talking about the stigma of you, like, you dated everybody in Orange County, and then you land with me,” Jenn tells him. “And I don’t really feel like you and I have a lot of cracks, but I will tell you, I worry about that.
“Everybody loves the newness of somebody and the excitement of somebody and the butterflies, and I’m the opposite of that,” the separated-but-not-yet-divorced Jenn continues. “I don’t want to be the product of another failed relationship.”
Ryan takes it all in, and reassures her that he feels like their relationship grows stronger by the day. It feels like one of the more mature relationship conversations you’ll hear on “Real Housewives,” but then Jenn is only four episodes into her housewives career so don’t be surprised if something goes sideways by the season finale.
The big day arrives and the housewives, plus friend Taylor Armstrong, arrive at John Wayne Airport for their flight to Missoula, Montana. Tamra, who is legitimately the most outdoorsy and adventurous of any of them, can’t hardly wait.
“We’re going to do all the things you do on a ranch,” she tells the camera. “Including shoveling (manure).”
They board a private jet – John Dutton grinds his teeth and sends daughter Beth to do something illegal to stop a new airport – the housewives are off.
“No one would describe me as ‘country,’” Heather tells the camera. “But growing up one of my favorite shows was ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ so I feel like, the right hairstyle and maybe some cute boots, I could do it.”
We also learn that Emily is now the second housewife in four episodes this season to miss an activity due to contracting COVID. She’s not on the plane and her BFF is bereft.
“I have never traveled without Emily,” says Gina, who missed the yacht party she’d planned earlier this season due to her own COVID. “She’s my vacation wife. Who am I going to cuddle with?”
At the Alpine Falls Ranch, the housewives divvy up room assignments first. Heather, Tamra and Shannon take the villa – $4,725 a night with room for 16, according to the ranch website. Gina, Jenn and Taylor pick the bunkhouse – a bargain at $577.50 a night and room for 10.
Next up, riding the mechanical bull down yonder in the pasture. Shannon is running late, she doesn’t have her makeup on yet, something any rodeo cowboy can tell you is critical to your bull-riding success, so she stays behind while the others head out.
Gina, who grew up on Long Island, is struck by the pristine beauty of Montana.
“This is like a (pee) by a tree kind of place,” she declares.
“It’s a WHAT?” Heather hollers as the words reach her delicate ears.
Tamra kicks off the bull-riding session, jumping into the saddle like she’s done this before. (She has, as we see in a clip from an earlier season.)
When she inevitably tumbles off, she announces she may have torn a part of anatomy that a bull literally does not have.
Jenn is next, and she’s chosen to ride the bull in a skirt that would make an ordinary miniskirt blush. It’s … awkward, though the dudes of the dude ranch seem tickled by the whole thing.
The others all do fine, though Shannon, even with her makeup properly applied, refuses to climb aboard the bull out of concern for breaking a bone one wouldn’t think you could break on a well-padded mechanical bull.
At dinner, it’s meat, meat, baked beans, meat and slaw. Tamra asks the newbies, Taylor and Jenn, to share something the others don’t know about them. Taylor offers that she’s bisexual, and before her husband, had been in a relationship with a woman for five years. Jenn says that she was a flight attendant, and while flying the friendly skies had met her soon-to-be-ex husband.
Gina slips away with an excuse about needing to call her twins but secretly is off to change into one of her costumes. A few minutes later, as the others reach the ranch saloon, we find Shannon dressed up in Old West gear, though she’s much more Miss Kitty from “Gunsmoke” than Trixie from “Deadwood.”
Tequila shots interspersed with old-fashioned glasses filled with champagne can lead to nothing good, and the episode ends with our first big fight of the trip, a spat between Jenn and Heather that really isn’t all that interesting. So for now, we’ll leave it as the episode did – to be continued.
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