Real Housewives of Orange County preview: Vicki Guvnalson’s family drama

When The Real Housewives of Orange County premieres on Monday night, Vicki Gunvalson’s family will be in part at the center. Her daughter Briana’s husband is out of state, and with that, she’s taking on the role of temporary “OC spouse” and caretaker to the children. She seems happy to have the role; as a matter of fact, she embraces it since she enjoys feeling included and having a big role in everything that is going on.

For Vicki, we’ve seen over the years that she just wants the ability to feel as though she is a part of something, and being around her family gives her that opportunity. She seems to be more at peace in this preview than we’ve seen her in a while … but one of the other reasons for that may be the presence of new boyfriend Steve in her life.

While we don’t get a chance to see Steve in this preview, we do get more of a sense as to what Vicki likes about him — and, in turn, what Briana also does. For the first time in a while, she doesn’t have any issues with who her mom is dating — no Brooks situation here, thankfully! Steve’s got a job and his own world, and that makes their family a little bit more stable and normal.

So how will Vicki function over the season? Well, there are still some major rifts with her and some of the other housewives. While she may be great now with some of her family, that doesn’t mean that her entire life is put together in a way that she’s going to avoid drama on this show. If there’s one thing that we’ve come to know over time about the franchise, it’s that nothing gets easier over the course of a season. Instead, it just spirals more and more out of control from start to finish. The same thing will probably happen here, with the big mystery being just how we see her recovering from all of it at the reunion. Based on the track record to date, we can’t say that we’re altogether optimistic that anything Is going to be ending well … but this is season 12, so who knows? Maybe some of these women have come to realize at this point that there isn’t all that much that comes out of unnecessary drama.

Just in case you want more…

Remember that you can check out more of our preview coverage for the new season of the Orange County show, including a synopsis for the first episode and more news of Lydia McLaughlin’s arrival, by heading over to the link here. We’ll have more news from episode 2 a little bit later in the week, so stay tuned. (Photo: Bravo.)