Real Housewives of Melbourne (RHOMelbourne) Episode 106

This episode of The Real Housewives of Melbourne is centralized on the tennis game at Andrea’s beach house. During the entire episode, I just kept hearing Lorde singing “Let’s go down to the tennis court…” over and over again… It was a bit annoying.

The episode began with a few scenes of the housewives on their own worrying about renovations and interior design. First we see Lydia at school where she’s working on a degree in interior design. (I wonder if this is the school where she learned that the Louvre was in London…) We see her interact with her professor who seems not very interested in what Lydia is doing. He already knows that she’s going to do what she wants and not what he tells her, so why should he waste his energy. Sure enough, Lydia says to a fellow student, who is marveling at how different Lydia’s work is from everyone else’s, “I’m not doing what everyone else is doing…” We also see Janet talking to her interior designer about a renovation in her home. Janet’s original budget was $125K. Now she’s up to $1.7 million. What’s the point of having a budget? At this point, why even use the word “budget”? Must be nice… Finally we see Andrea dealing with issues in the Liberty Bell renovation and expansion. She doesn’t seem to comprehend the when you make a construction deadline, everything will go wrong. It’s a little known law of nature.  

On the way to Andrea’s beach house for a fun afternoon of tennis, Jackie fills in Lydia on some of the drama she missed at Janet’s birthday party. Andrea also tells Chyka about an email from Gina stating that her partner is threatening to sue due to the defamatory statements about his character. This will be an important story for the rest of the season. And of course the details are a bit fuzzy, and stories will conflict. Just wait. You’re likely to be as confused as one of Andrea’s nannies with the damn checklists.

Andrea gives Chyka a tour of her beach house while they wait for the other ladies to arrive. We see the expensive tennis court with a special custom top, a suspended pool, and a mortified hostess as she watches her posh puppy gnawing on a dead bird. That dog knows how to be a Real Housewife. Act proper one moment and chew on your enemy’s head the next.

The other women arrive, save Gina, and as they wait for her, they start drinking champagne. Chyka says they’re on “Gina Time”; “When Gina’s ready, she’ll come…” As the ladies wait, they start complaining about how late Gina is, and that they’re “on the second bottle of champagne…” Let’s be real here for a minute. With these ladies, or any Real Housewives for that matter, two bottles of champagne can be consumed in about 15 minutes. There are 5 of them after all…

Gina finally arrives explaining she had important court-related work to attend to before coming down to Andrea’s house. She arrives one hour late with chocolate for the Andrea, but Andrea is not gracious; she wants an apology. Now that everyone has arrived they can start playing tennis… Oh wait… No they can’t. Chyka and Gina both have to change clothes. Chyka changes very quickly, and the ladies start playing without Gina. A tennis instructor, who looks like he’s 15, arrives. Wait a second… They were complaining about waiting for Gina, but the tennis instructor had not arrived yet… So they were still waiting for him… So why complain so much about Gina being late? Is anyone else a little confused?

Gina takes “an hour” to change, and everyone is getting pissed. Janet even says with rage in her eyes, “WHAT…IS…SHE…DOING…IN…THERE?!” Gina finally emerges from the bathroom looking fabulous and wearing hot pink stilettos. We heard Andrea talk about how proud she is of the tennis court, and you can tell she is afraid Gina’s shoes will ruin it. However, being very passive-aggressive, Andrea says that she doesn’t want Gina to sue her if she kills herself running in her stilettos. First of all, Andrea should have just come out and said that she doesn’t want Gina to ruin her tennis court instead of feigning concern for Gina’s safety. Also, her true lack of caring is very apparent. The way Andrea put it, she is concerned of being sued, not concerned for Gina’s safety. And lastly, her statement was passive-aggressive in another way. She’s making reference to the email about Gina’s partner and his threat to sue. Maybe Andrea should be writing a book about how to be passive-aggressive instead of about motherhood. She seems much more qualified for the former rather than the latter.

Gina says that she wants to provide some comedy on the tennis court by running around in her stilettos. She says she doesn’t find watching five bloated women running around on a tennis court to be entertaining. However, there are six Real Housewives of Melbourne… I wonder who the non-bloated one is… Hmmm…

After tennis, the ladies sit down to lunch. The conversation quickly goes to what Lydia missed—the drama between Gina and Andrea from Janet’s birthday party. Things start to escalate, but here comes Jackie to the rescue. She diverts the conversation to a more fun topic—salsa dancing. She invites the ladies to come to a salsa dancing class.

The ladies go to leave, and Andrea complains again in her interview about Gina. Apparently, Gina left a lot of makeup or fake tanner all over the bathroom. I was on Andrea’s side for this small thing for just a moment, and then she had to ruin it… Her main complaint was that she has to clean it up because she has no housekeeper at the beach house… Seriously? If you think that you can write a relatable book for the general public about motherhood, yet you won’t clean a briefly-used bathroom, you are truly delusional.

The next scene is Gina and Jackie at a restaurant where Gina apologizes to Jackie for any grief she may have caused. They decide to move on, and put it behind them. I truly think these two could be great friends, but I wonder how long that will last…

The final scene shows the women at the salsa dancing class. We see Janet’s inner cougar coming out as she sinks her claws into the dance instructor. However, something tells me Janet is not really his type… Gina awkwardly dances with her assigned partner who seems to be a foot shorter than she is, and it is quite possible that he’s scared of Gina. But who wouldn’t be? Gina is domineering in stature and personality. She’s a strong and fierce woman. She’ll give you her opinion, but you’d better be ready to hear it.

After the class, Lydia, Jackie, and Janet have a drink together as they talk about the tennis game and Gina’s behavior. Janet says, “There’s a big storm brewing and Gina’s going to feel the brunt of it.” On the next episode the women take a trip together, and like on any Real Housewives trip, the storm that Janet predicted will hit. And where will it hit? At a dinner table. Come back next Tuesday for an in depth discussion and recap of that disaster. I can’t wait! There will be lots to discuss.