The OG 'Real Housewives' Are Back For The Summer

By now, Bravo has so many different shows in the Real Housewives franchise that when one stops, another season of one of the others invariably starts back up again. For diehard fans of the franchise, that’s a godsend and the new season of The Real Housewives of Orange County will be back just in time to start the summer off right. OK, so the summer has technically already begun, but Season 13 of RHOC premieres on July 16 at 9 p.m. ET. So it’s still at the height of summer and will last throughout to give you something to do when it's too hot to be outside and you would rather lose yourself in the problems of the rich and fabulous.

In fact, since past seasons of the show have spanned the summer and into the fall, you can probably expect the new season of RHOC to do the same before the next installment of one of Bravo’s many other hit reality shows starts up again. It’s like a never ending cycle that fans have come to know, love, and trust, and it’s kind of amazing. The official premiere date is July 16, so you still have a little bit of time to figure out who will be back and try to guess what their tag lines might be this time around since that’s half the fun at the beginning of each season.

When we last saw the stars (and friends) of RHOC, Kelly Dodd and Meghan King Edmonds were still dealing with their text messaging feud like a couple of high schoolers who would rather argue digitally than face their issues firsthand and in person. To balance that out, though, Shannon Beador, Vicki Gunvalson, and Tamra Judge made up and they seemed like they were on the right path. So going into Season 13, hopefully we can expect to see more of that between the women.

There will also be the introduction of a couple of new housewives on the original Real Housewives show. Emily Simpson, an Ohio attorney who finds herself now living in California will be a regular cast member set to work on her friendship with Tamra. Gina Kirschenheiter is another new face for the show this season. She’s relatively new to Orange County and hails from Long Island, New York, so here’s hoping that she can legitimately shake things up a bit.

With new faces and some old faces gone for Season 13, Bravo revealed that viewers can also expect to see the women take a vacation to Jamaica. If there’s one thing I know about vacations taken by reality stars during filming, it's that plenty of fights, revelations, and drunken rages can and will happen. According to Bravo, the cast took a trip to the The Jewel Grande Resort Montego Bay Resort & Spa which is as fancy as you’d expect, and spent the trip enjoying the resort and beaches. But viewers will have to wait until the season premieres to really get all the juicy details of the ladies’ trip away.

RHOC was the first show in a franchise that now has more than a dozen different versions, so I don't see it coming to an end anytime soon. Even for those fans who might sometimes prefer the other shows that came after it, RHOC is a tried and true series that is always back in the summer without fail. Since there are a couple of new housewives that were added to the mix for Season 13, I’m sure we can expect new drama to unfold and hopefully some amazing talking head interviews.