Last night was the season 2 premiere of The Real Housewives of Melbourne. Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to the doctor’s wife, Andrea Moss. Two new wives are added to the crew this season: Gamble Breaux and Pettifleur Berenger! Good to know the insanity of names like the Apples and Pilot Inspektors of the U.S. have made their mark on the Aussies. I have never heard of Gamble or Pettifleur as I’m having a baby in a few weeks and have scoured the web for names and haven’t seen these at all. Not.Even. Once. Okie!
Chyka Keebaugh, Lydia Schiavello and Jackie Gillies meet for lunch and oy vey, they are already starting with the references about Lydia’s sex life and her newly dropped weight. Chyka asks how much coffee she is drinking and gross, here we go! Lydia responds that she drinks 8 cups (that’s a crap load of coffee per day IMO) and her heart is pounding and she quickly quips that she likes to get pounded all day. The waiter stops by the table to take her drink order and she shares that she likes wet p****es…but only as the drink and.. just STOP already! Day one and I can’t handle the superfluous sexual remarks coming out of Lydia’s mouth. Barf.
Janet Roach phones the ladies to inquire if they are attending her upcoming birthday party. All say yes, well, actually Jackie says “Shine! Shine! Shine!” (I love Jackie) and then Lydia chirps in “Wow! Wow! Wow!” and it falls kinda flat to me. Lydia, don’t steal Jackie’s saying and try to make it your own. It’s not working. It’s not fetch. Post phone call – Janet meets with her friend, Carlos who is offering his venue to host her birthday party. Bad news: the construction won’t be completed in time to host her big day and this doesn’t go over so well with Janet. She’s hoping he figures out a new plan of action and a new location for her party ASAP. This is why she pays people the big bucks. Janet cannot deal with this $hit. Carlos quickly recovers and basically verbalizes an entire e-harmony profile endorsing Janet and how she can get any guy she wants. You can actually see Janet’s eyes light up as she forgets any concern about construction nonsense. Kudos Carlos!
Janet scoots her butt across town to get her hair done by her fabulous hairdresser/stylist/confidant extraordinaire, Patrick. He greets her with a pretty polished ‘do. Um, a mullet? Is it a wig? As Janet shares her concern about inviting Gina Liano, Patrick convinces Janet to invite her and Janet leaves Gina a voicemail. As she’s showing of her dress options to Patrick – Gina returns her call and confirms her RSVP to the party. Who-hoo! Can’t wait to see this!
Gina meets her sister, Bettina for lunch to catch-up. Gina just came back from LA while visiting her boyfriend – the same guy from last season that she was “on a break” from and now she is most likely going to move to LA to be with him. She makes a hilarious joke about Janet’s 85th birthday party coming up (I really did laugh at this) and mentions that she hates Lydia now and it will take quite a bit of effort to repair their friendship.
Carlos came through and found Janet a spot for her party! We find Janet stopping by her baker to make a cake for her party – which happens to be tonight (Huge Oversight! Who orders a cake the day of an event?) and he is amazing. Amazingly strange. He says he can make a cake for her and they start brainstorming cake ideas. His mind and mouth operate a million miles a minute and what I have concluded to be the final cake is Janet on skis on top of the world (with a Chanel bag? I couldn’t quite understand the baker that well) with blue and pink glitter and saying she is fabulous. And no candles. I think. Alrighty, can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Party time! The limos are moving around town picking up all the ladies for the big night and one limo has club music blaring with champagne (Chyka and Jackie’s limo, of course!) and then crickets in Gina/Lydia limo. Lydia senses the awkwardness and apologizes to Gina for basically being a bitch last year. Good for Lydia – she rarely scores points with me and this made me like her a little bit more than yesterday. Gina welcomes the apology with open arms and hopefully this is last of their tiffs! Who are we kidding? This is a housewives franchise – tiffs never end in the first episode. I predict this lasts until episode 3.
Gamble, the new housewife makes her debut at Janet’s party! Gamble lives in a mansion by the sea, hangs with her Pomeranian pup, Cash and paints by numbers on canvas in her spare time (she is now an art consultant). She is telling this as we watch her twirl rainbow ribbons on poles by her pool (what????). She briefly notes she modeled back in the day (cut to the shots of her really bad lingerie days circa 1987) while she was married to her ex in Singapore. She is now in a committed relationship with Rick, an ophthalmologist whom she met on – where else? – e-Harmony! The rest of her bio is unclear due to her accent, so bear with me as I try to breakdown Gamble’s life for you. Her eyelashes are the most important part of her life (yes, I heard that correctly) and life motto is calorie-counting (I swear to God she said this). She loves her stepson that she now has to take care of him because his father passed away. So that is Gamble for you in a nutshell!
She shows up to Janet’s party, which is at a club, with a potted plant. Albeit, an orchid – she hauled a potted plant as a birthday gift to a club. What the hell kind of gift is that to bring to a night club???!!?
Side – emotional note, Janet’s son, who was in a tragic fire and where over 70% of his body burned, showed up to wish her a happy birthday. This was lovely! I love seeing genuine, non-catty sides to the Housewives once in a while and this warmed my heart.
Back to petty BS , the ladies prepare Gamble to meet Gina for the first time. Gina strolls in and Gamble thinks she is a goddess. Janet caught herself getting ready to talk some serious smack about Gina to Gamble and then backed off. Another point for Janet on taking the high road! Not surprisingly, Gamble gets a cold reception from Lydia. She just rubs Gamble the wrong way with her eye rolling, etc. How can Gamble be annoyed with anyone yet? She has been at this party for an entire 8 minutes?
Next , we meet newbie #2 Pettifleur! She reigns from Sri Lanka originally and has made her riches in Melbourne as a property developer. She means business too! She lives in a penthouse downtown in an exclusive building has three sons and a boyfriend, Frank and loves going commando (yes, she said this). Apparently, none of the ladies have met Pettifleur. This surprises me that Janet hasn’t given that she is also in the real estate development field.
The cakes comes out and it is actually what I thought it was going to be (I’m getting so much better at understanding these Aussies). I still think the baker should have his own half-hour reality show (cooking shows have just become way too long at an hour, same for home-remodeling shows…). The day after the party, Gina meets with Gamble to get more acquainted. Gamble wastes no time spilling the beans to Gina about how the ladies were making fun of her prior to her arrival to Janet’s party. Gina is now kind of wary about trusting Gamble as it’s not the best sign of friendship when the waitress hasn’t even taken your drink order and you’re already gossiping!
Next week – Janet is peeved that Gamble is talking smack so early on.
Recap Author: Bonnie K.
TELL US – DID YOU WATCH SEASON 1? ARE YOU SAD TO SEE ANDREA GO? THOUGHTS ON THE NEW HOUSEWIVES?
Photo Credit: Bravo TV
