Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of Orange County was so boring that I may or may not have had a quarter-life crisis during it. (Or a third-life crisis, because let’s face it, my liver isn’t making it to 100-plus.) Which of my life decisions had lead me to that place, where I was willfully sitting through an hour of manufactured drama, except that the producers didn’t even have the common courtesy to make it actually dramatic.

Last night’s Real Housewives of Orange County episode was an odd one. The Housewives all got out of town, presumably because everyone, including Bravo producers, knows that sending a cast on a trip is one of the best ways to force them all to spend time together and manufacture the kind of drama that viewers love. This trip was nominally about picking wine for Wines by Wives, Tamra and Vicky’s mail-order wine club, but as with all Housewives trips, it was actually about drinking too much and arguing.

Despite the fact that I continue to be suspicious of this season of Real Housewives of Orange County, last night’s episode was…okay. I’ll grant it that. Mostly I enjoyed it because Brooks made his debut for the season and I find him so compellingly, watch-ably skeevy, and his presence brings out a whole new layer to Vicky’s mid-life crisis. You know who I bet is really happy to see Brooks, though?

Considering how many of the pre-season preview fight clips came from the fight that we witnes last week and last night on Real Housewives of Orange County, my hopes are not high for this season’s entertainment value. Even after a full week of contemplation and the additional scenes from last night, I still don’t understand exactly why the fight happened or why I should care.

Normally, I love a good Real Housewives dinner party fight, but on last night’s episode of Real Housewives of Orange County, the drama and strife just all seemed so…manufactured. The show is almost completely manufactured, of course, and generally I don’t mind it if that fact seems obvious here and there; that’s how our reality TV sausage is made. Last night, though, Tamra forgot to give Alexis the opportunity to be a bad guest before reading her the riot act for being one.

Well, first of all, it seems only human to acknowledge that watching Real Housewives of Orange County last night, in light of the day’s tragic events in Boston, seemed even sillier than it usually does. Still, one of the great beauties of entertainment of all types, even trashy reality television, is its ability to provide a small bit of mental or emotional relief (maybe relief isn’t the word – maybe it’s more like distraction) when we need it this most.

I’m on vacation until Wednesday, so unfortunately, that means no Real Housewives of Orange County recap this week. We still like it when you guys drop by and chat amongst yourselves, though, so feel free to share your feelings about the episode in the comments. Things will be back to normal next week!

We had another Real Housewives double-header last night, with Real Housewives of Orange County making its eight season debut before the second part of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion. I was worried that the reunion must be super boring if they were hiding it behind the OC premiere instead of giving the episode its own week, which most reunions have for at least one of their segments.

Last night we got a double dose of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, with the season three finale and the first part of the reunion airing back-to-back. Going into the evening, I suspected that they were double loading the two episodes because neither was really all that exciting and Bravo knew that people would complain if they strung it out for an extra week without delivering much.

Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was the kind of episode we all expect from the series. It included silly parties, ill-conceived product launches, yelling about Chanel bags and accusations that someone had been flirting inappropriately with someone else’s (or everyone else’s) husband. It was also the precursor to the season finale, though, which meant that we only got to see Act One of the full dramatic scene.