The Real Housewives of Melbourne. Episode 1 recap. You know you want to...

It’s here, you guys. It’s finally here. Real Housewives of Melbourne started tonight on Arena at 8:30pm.

Was there ever any doubt I would be writing about it? None. None at all. There’s just too much good stuff to behold.

Let’s dive right in.

We open with exciting music and lots of shots of the rich parts of Melbourne. Jewellery stores! Fancy cars! Money! These ladies are rich! Money!

The opening credits give us each the housewives’ catchphrases, which is a clever ploy by the producers to make sure you know who’s a bitch and who isn’t, even though the show hasn’t even begun.

Gina: “I’ll give you my opinion, but you better be ready to hear it.”

Lydia: “I may look like a jetsetter, but my feet are firmly on the ground.”

Janet: “When life throws rocks, I melt them down into diamonds.”

Jackie: “My husband may be a rock star, but now it’s my turn to shine, shine, shine.”

Andrea: “Never come between a woman and her plastic surgeon.”

Chyka: “My fabulous life comes down to love and laughter; not luck.”

Because this is the first episode, we are going to get short introduction packages for each woman, to help us decide who we like and who we hate. This is also when the producers explain which of the women are already ‘friends’. And the first introduction package we get to see is… Lydia’s!

Lydia is putting her mini dog into her Porsche. Oh man this is going to be good. In her talking head (the cutaways where the ladies sit by themselves and tell you their bitchy insights about everything), she mentions that her Grandma once told her to find a man or something. Now she’s married to a big shot architect, so – nailed it. Spends his money. Goes skiing. Drives with a mini dog on her lap. Jimmy Choo Handbags Gucci etc etc money money etc. Money.

Lydia drives her Porsche right up to the door of her private jet. Then talks a lot about her Porsche and her private jet. I’m not sure if you noticed but Lydia has a Porsche and a private jet. Money.

She also has three kids, three step-kids and is studying interior design to kill time between driving her mini dog around in her Porsche. Lydia says she’s always loved design, now she’s just ‘formalising’ what she loves doing. I’m pretty sure that’s what Kate Middleton said when she had that job at Jigsaw for two seconds while she was waiting for Prince William to propose.

We cut to a shot of Lydia’s family at dinner. Lydia’s mother has come over to cook the meal because Lydia is too busy ‘formalising’ her life. While eating Lydia asks her husband to buy her a new Porsche.

Did she mention he has money? MONEY.

New day. Lydia goes to meet her ‘friends’ Andrea and Gina for lunch at a small table in an empty restaurant. Very realistic, you guys. Well played.

It’s time for our second introduction package: Gina.

Gina takes a lot of pride in her appearance. Doesn’t own a tracksuit. And she looks… She’s… Well… “I have often described myself as the ultimate drag queen,” she says.

Well, I’m glad someone said it.

We watch her meeting her stylist, who “understands glitter and glamour.” Gina also has a mini dog, because everybody on this show has a mini dog. She has two sons. She backcombs the crap out of her hair every day and her older sister is famous designer Bettina Liano.

OMG. Just when I was wondering if Gina’s life was purely about matching her eyeliner to her outfit, we find out she’s a criminal barrister. And we know it’s true because the producers have filmed her walking down the street looking very important in her gown and wig, carrying a briefcase. I think I love her.

Gina says she can’t understand why people are always shocked to find out she’s a barrister. “Wow – how am I presenting myself that people are always surprised by that?” she asks. Um – you’re the one who just mentioned the drag queen thing.

Next introduction package: Andrea.

Andrea lives in Toorak. Works in Toorak. Shops in Toorak. It’s very important to her that you know that Toorak is “the Beverly Hills of Australia”. Although I’m pretty sure a place called Beverly Hills is the Beverly Hills of Australia – I looked it up:

Geographical confusion aside, Andrea lives with her husband, who is one of ‘the best plastic surgeons in the world’. He runs his surgery, and she runs a skin care clinic next door called Liberty Belle, which for a lady from the ‘Beverly Hills’ of Australia sounds a lot like the name of a child beauty queen contestant.

We need to see that Andrea works, so we sit in on a staff meeting, where she awkwardly mentions ‘the patient from Paris’ (WINK WINK we want you to think it’s someone famous WINK). There’s lots of product placement and awkward laughter.

We also need to see that Andrea’s a hands-on mum, so we cut to her house where she has three children and five nannies. Her husband comes in and obviously hasn’t been fed any lines from a producer because he mentions something about pumpkins giving more injuries than any other vegetable before being quickly ushered out.

The sky turns from day to night and Andrea, Lydia and Gina are still sitting in the empty restaurant. Now they’re fighting about who’s going to pay so they can all mention how much money they have again. LOTS OF MONEY, OKAY?

Andrea mentions that she’s having A Big Party. (In every episode of Housewives, there is some kind of event that brings all the ladies together in fabulous dresses, where they can have some kind of big fight. I’m assuming this is it.)

The dinner is over. There are still three more introduction packages to go.

Who’s next? Janet!

But first some fancy ‘we need to remind you these ladies all have money’ editing: Expensive handbag, Louis Vuitton, shops diamonds money money shops. That should do it.

Janet goes to see her hairdresser, Patty. Janet never washes or styles her own hair, because she’s rich and fabulous. Oh my gosh, I think she’s my favourite. Talks about all the work she’s had done. “Botox me baby!” she yells to nobody in particular.

LOVE. HER.

Janet has two grown up sons, has been married twice, with the last one ending in divorce only recently. She works for herself as a property developer. Janet’s ‘friends’ with Andrea, so she goes to meet her for lunch, presumably to get invited to The Big Party.

She does. Also happens to mention that she’s going to see a psychic, because she needs some direction after her last divorce. Which brings us to our next intro package…

Jackie. Professional psychic, who talks to the angels and can see ‘your past, present and future’. Married to International Rock Star Ben Gillies, and really, really likes to tell you often that she’s married to International Rock Star Ben Gillies. (Oh, he was in the band Silverchair. Yeah – I wasn’t sure either.)

International Rock Star Ben Gillies just seems to follow Jackie awkwardly around the house, marvelling at her psychic skills. They’ve just moved to Melbourne from ‘NSW’ (I think she’s embarrassed to say Newcastle). Jackie tells International Rock Star Ben Gillies that when she was unpacking the rug she saw a feather, which by the excitement in her voice must mean something important to do with magic angels. International Rock Star Ben Gillies just smiles and nods; clearly doesn’t understand magical rug feathers.

Jackie really wants you to know that she’s not a regular housewife, you guys. She’s a cool housewife. She hates cooking and cleaning and drinks champagne for breakfast cos she be CRAZY! (Somebody is clearly gunning for her own show).

In a talking head, Jackie tells us: “Yes I have house cleaners, yes I have chefs, yes I go on luxury holidays, yes I’ve got houses overseas, yes I have gorgeous jewellery. But that’s not what defines me.”

I think by the way you keep talking about it, you actually really want that to be what defines you, love.

A cleaner comes for an interview because Jackie and her husband (that’s International Rock Star Ben Gillies) need help cleaning their really, really expensive house. Jackie just doesn’t have time to do cooking and cleaning, because there are too many magical rug feathers for her to concentrate on and she’s not your regular housewife, okay?

A minute’s gone by and even though her husband International Rock Star Ben Gillies is sitting right next to her, Jackie hasn’t yet mentioned to the cleaning lady that he is, in fact, International Rock Star Ben Gillies, so she tells the cleaning lady that her husband is International Rock Star Ben Gillies.

“You probably recognise this gorgeous face of his,” Jackie says.

She doesn’t.

Jackie doesn’t know any of the women, so the producers need an ‘organic’ way for her to infiltrate the group. This is where recently divorced Janet comes in. To prove that Jackie’s magic rug feather abilities are legit, Janet somehow manages to book an appointment with Psychic Jackie, even though she is apparently booked solid for months.

O. M. G. This is fucking amazing.

They sit in a room with a couple of candles and Jackie says a bunch of crap about angels and crystals. Then she starts writing on a notepad without looking, while whispering to herself like scary homeless people do at the bus stop:

I’m officially obsessed with Jackie.

Jackie tells Janet lots of really specific things, like she drives too fast, and is holding on to too much negativity thanks to her ex-husband. Then Jackie mentions a couple of family names that she definitely could not have used that ‘Google’ thing to figure out.

Jackie ends by telling Janet that when she gets married again, “he’s going to be everything you ever wanted and more.” And I don’t know about you guys, but I have a feeling when Janet gets married again, it will be because she’s really, really into the guy. So, well done Jackie. Very observant.

After the reading is over, Jackie obviously needs her invite to The Big Party, so they have some champagne in kitchen (where there’s an MTV award casually sitting on the bench – probably belongs to International Rock Star Ben Gillies) and Janet invites her to The Big Party.

Okay, one final introduction package to go. This one is…

Chyka. The producers must be struggling to make Chyka interesting, because all we get is a shot of her shopping (for a $45,000 bracelet because MONEY. LOTS OF MONEY!), before she answers the phone and Andrea invites her to The Big Party.

Chyka is married and she and her hubby run an events business together. It’s important that we know what big-shot society people they are, so we watch as they sit at a table and go through all their party invites together. Then hubby helps Chyka pick shoes and a necklace to go with her cocktail dress, before she heads out to The Big Party.

Wow, that was a quick intro. I get the feeling Chyka is normal and lovely and therefore uninteresting to the producers.

Time for…. The Big Party!

So, it’s basically just a room with filled with weird plastic surgery machines with about 10 people standing around drinking champagne.

For some reason, there’s a single charity poster against the wall that everybody keeps standing in front of:

I think it’s there to show that even though they’re all really rich and at a cocktail party for fat-sucking machines, they still really care about things, okay? Maybe they’re sending the leftover fat to Uganda to put in protein drinks for kids? Who cares – THEY CARE.

The producers try to build some tension by having Jackie say she’s nervous about meeting all the Melbourne society women. Cut to Lydia saying it matters ‘where in NSW she’s from,” which is probably why Jackie has so far avoided using the word ‘Newcastle’.

Andrea mentions that her husband is donating $30,000 to the whoever the kids are on the charity poster. But considering we’ve just spent the last 40 minutes hearing about how much money all these women have, $30,000 now seems kind of stingy. That’s not even how much Chyka’s bracelet cost.

The Big Party celebrating plastic surgery equipment (oh yeah, and charity) gets kind of boring, so the producers have Lydia say that she has organised a dinner for the women to get to know each other better. It’s at a table in another empty restaurant.

They all pretty much just grill Jackie about her magic rug feather abilities. Gina asks her how long she’s been a psychic.

“Seven ye – actually, I’ve always been a psychic,” Jackie replies.

Nice save, Jackie.

Jackie says that she knows someone’s partner is having an affair, then for added effect, mentions that she can see Gina’s Grandmother standing behind her.

Gina wants to know if her partner, who lives in Miami, is the one who’s cheating. Jackie says “What do you think?” Gina says “yes.” Jackie says “Well, there you go.”

DRAMA.

Wow. Jackie just got away with dropping a massive psychic bombshell without actually having to do anything psychic. This girl is good.

We immediately cut to a talking head of Lydia, who tells us the whole story of what just happened in case we missed what just happened.

Gina says she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Jackie brushes it off by saying “Shine Shine Blessings,” because that’s the kind of shit that psychics who are married to International Rock Star Ben Gillies say.

And that was The Big Party drama. A little disappointing, until we see the highlights for next week, where Gina has become convinced that Jackie didn’t see her Grandmother, she saw a DEMON.

It looks like the tension between Jackie and Gina is going to be a major storyline totally organic, definitely not planned bit of drama this season.

Oh my god. I’m in love with this show.

This is going to be so much fun.