AFTER 11 episodes of fights, facelifts and f-words, this week our Housewives descend on a TV studio for one final, glorious, two-part televised argument, adjudicated by Specsavers style icon Alex Perry.
Surely the best part of these reunion episodes is that, for the first time this season, we get a brief glimpse of each Housewife before they’re camera-ready. All, that is, except Gina, who we have to assume threatens legal action to any crew attempting to film her without her face on.
There’s Something About Janet. Source: Foxtel
CATCHING UP
Taking their positions on set, the girls warm up with a few previously unheard factoids about what’s been going on behind the scenes of season two. Lydia reveals that, such was the public backlash after her behaviour last season, she made a conscious decision to “totally turn herself around”, behaving politely and staying on the sidelines of most arguments. BOO. Not what we look for in a Real Housewife, Lydia.
Gina cheerfully explains that she invited, then disinvited, the other Housewives to her recent book launch, something that left them understandably perturbed. So why did she do it?
“They tend to put a negative spin on things and bastardise them … and if they did that [at my launch] I’d have to stab them.” Such is Gina’s unshakable self-belief, she now thinks the only appropriate way to deal with a hater is with a good old-fashioned stabbing.
Gamble goes into more detail about her frankly adorable speech impediment, which was the result of a childhood ear problem that led to temporary deafness as her speech was developing. As she shares her story, Jackie pulls her Trademark Concerned Face.
That looks painful, Jackie. Source: Foxtel
HATIN’ ON THE HELP
The other girls all admit that, throughout this season, there was one aspect of Pettifleur’s personality that never sat well with them: her continued disrespect of anyone in the service industry.
Pettifleur assures them all that, while she may treat shop assistants, party planners and her own house keeper like they’re dirt, “It doesn’t come from the heart. I have to talk tough to get some respect.”
Cut to the most amazing shot of Gamble staring wide-eyed directly down the barrel of the lens, as if telepathically asking the viewer, ‘You’re not really buying this, are you?’
No, Gamble, we’re not. Source: Supplied
THE NEW GIRLS
Despite being the two newest cast members, Pettifleur and Gamble didn’t bond at all this season. At every turn, Pettifleur has slagged off Gamble, both to her face and behind her back: She’s “dumb, dumb, dumb,” needs to “lay off the plastic surgery,” her taste is a “trainwreck”.
“Maybe I had a little bit of a go at her clothes and earrings, but it was all in fun,” is Pettifleur’s hella-weak justification for all this, as she insists that Gamble dubbing her ‘Nouveau Riche Barbie’ was a far worse crime. Gamble’s not having any of it:
“I thought it was a pretty light paddle back at you to call you nouveau riche. I didn’t insult your taste, I didn’t insult what you were wearing, I never took a slant at your intelligence. So excuse me, I think you covered a lot more in your insults. I gave you one in retaliation — a jab, compared to MOUNTAINS [of insults], every time I sit down with you, on and off camera, MISSY. You’re gonna get called nouveau riche, so just suck it up.”
BEST FRENEMIES
Pettifleur and Gamble’s arguments this season were child’s play compared to the blow-ups between Gina and Jackie. Usually erupting seemingly out of nowhere, they made for terrifying viewing. Jackie trying to smash open a glass door while screaming “F*CK YOU BITCH!” at Gina during last week’s finale surely ranks alongside The Babadook as one of the scariest sights committed to film in this country in recent years.
You’ll remember that, during that fight, Gina dismissed Jackie as a “bogan”. Jackie’s not happy about this:
“The bogan comment, I really find that insulting. I actually Googled it up [Yes, she said ‘Googled it up’, like your baby boomer Aunty trying to use the iPad she got for Christmas] to get the right terminology for what that means, and you’re actually putting down working class Australians: 80% of Australians and our viewers. I wonder how your lovely loyal followers would feel about you calling people bogans?”
Jackie, doll, this is Australia. You’re a bogan. Gina’s a bogan. I’m a bogan. We’re all bloody bogans. OWN IT.
PETTIFLEUR’S PAMPHLET
Pettifleur’s slimline novella Switch the Bitch again gets some airtime this week. As we’re shown ‘inspirational’ clips of Pettifleur talking about how miserable her life was BEFORE she’d discovered the benefits of switching the bitch, Gina turns to Lydia and mutters: “Did you get moved watching that? I wanna smack her.”
Gina has so far this episode threatened to stab and smack her fellow housewives. Source: Foxtel
Next up: a bit of light flamethrower action.
Asked to talk about why the book means so much to her, Pettifleur immediately breaks down. “I have put so much time, so much money, into this book, to get it out there SELFLESSLY for other women,” she says, through sobs. She’s clearly emotional — and yet her eye area remains conspicuously dry.
“It’s bullsh*t, there’s not a f*cking tear there! It’s all bullsh*t, she’s not crying,” Janet mutters.
Next we’re in for a dramatic reading of the book, which Pettifleur proudly reveals was edited by her 15-year-old son. Here’s a snippet — brace yourself:
“This book is written for women, by a woman who has gracefully discovered the formula for personal fulfilment and also for romance filled with fresh steps to the intoxicating dance of love.”
Gamble’s face suggests she won’t be buying a copy.
Either she’s mid-eye roll or she’s intently working out how to say ‘feminist’. Source: Foxtel
“Shall I keep going?” Pettifleur asks, and everyone pretends they didn’t hear. Gamble delivers her verdict:
“I had a look at it, and it doesn’t look finished. It doesn’t look entertaining. You’ve got your son editing it!”
“You know why, it’s RAW darling, it’s RAW,” is Pettifleur’s response.
WALKING OUT
Pettifleur reveals that some sort of heated incident happened behind the scenes between she and Gina recently while they were on the publicity trail for the show. As she tells it, the pair were having a fiery argument when Gina grabbed her, twisting her arm, and called her the c-word “four times in a row”. This is actually the Real Housewives version of saying ‘Beetlejuice’ into a mirror three times, so don’t try it at home. If you do, Andrea will appear and she won’t leave the house until she GETS HER APOLOGY.
For once, it seems everyone is actually on Gina’s side. Jackie interjects to point out that she witnessed the incident and it was hardly the brutal one-sided attack Pettifleur describes. Besides, she says, Pettifleur was “pretty drunk” when it all kicked off.
That’s all it takes for Pettifleur to deliver the first Dramatic Walkout of the reunion.
Pettifleur, seen here mid-bitch-switch. Source: Foxtel
She clearly intends it to be a dramatic moment, but its impact is rather dulled by the fact that all the other women just can’t stop laughing in Pettifleur’s face. It’s all a bit like when you were a kid and you’d scream “I’m leaving home forever!” at your parents mid-tantrum but, instead of tearfully dropping to their knees to beg you to stay, they’d just breathe a gentle sigh of relief and continue watching The Bill.
“Byeeeeeeee” Source: Foxtel
“I don’t drink! I’m 50 and I’m skinny because I don’t drink!” Pettifleur yells as she storms off set (what a bizarre and expensive post-production choice, then, for the producers to have digitally inserted a drink into her hand in so many scenes from the past eleven episodes).
“Oh, OK — well, I’m nearly 50 and I’m fat and I don’t drink,” Gina chuckles.
Jackie sums up the mood of the other housewives over this little tantrum:
“What. The. Hell?”
Jackie, when this show’s over for the year, if we could still screen shot your every waking expression that’d be great.Source: Foxtel
Next week, the reunion wraps up: Pettifleur is coaxed back on set, Manuela’s on the couch just long enough for Gamble to tell her she’s a “piece of sh*t”, and at one stage the Capuchin monkeys operating Janet from the inside apparently go on a smoko.
People, please, hang your Janet Roach Halloween costume on a hanger to reduce wear and tear. Source: Foxtel
The Real Housewives of Melbourne screens 8:30pm Sundays on Foxtel’s Arena channel — and next week is the last one for 2015!
Spoilers Recap for Real Housewives of Melbourne Reunion Part 1
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