‘Real Housewives of Orange County’: Shannon and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad episode
Often as not, Shannon Storms Beador creates her own trouble, but that was most definitely not the case on “The Real Housewives of Orange County” this week.
It’s been a rough season for Shannon so far. Her DUI arrest during the show’s hiatus put the spotlight on her in a not so flattering way. Her three daughters all are off at college now, emptying her nest of all but Archie the dog.
Alexis Bellino rejoined the show this season a few months after she hooked up with Shannon’s ex, John Janssen. And on last week’s episode John announced he was suing Shannon for $75,000.
Naturally all the other housewives have been supportive and kind and — oh, wait, this is “The Real Housewives,” of course they haven’t been supportive and kind. That’s not what they do, doh!
So Shannon found herself in the crosshairs this week as Tamra Judge hammered her for the drinking and Alexis took her knees out for the $75,000 that he says was a loan and Shannon says was a gift.
Things got ugly, or ugliest, at a dinner party thrown by Gina Kirschenheiter at a restaurant despite Shannon bringing former housewife Vicki Gunvalson along as her emotional support human.
It starts off well. As other housewives order martinis of varying degrees of dirtiness Shannon orders something nonalcoholic.
“Oh, yeah, an alcoholic shouldn’t drink,” Tamra says, halting all conversation in the room as the rest of the wives wait for what’s next.
“She can have alcohol, she just can’t get behind the wheel!” Vicki replies, perhaps unhelpfully.
“Who made you the frickin’ judge and jury?” Shannon asks Tamra. “Because let me tell you something: Every frickin’ day that I wake up I think about what happened.”
“Is that after you have a drink?” Tamra snippily replies as jaws drop around the table at the meanness of the moment.
We’ve written before that “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” and really, the entire franchise, has an uncomfortable problem with alcohol. In Season 15, when then-housewife Braunwyn Windham-Burke announced she was an alcoholic, the others continued to urge her to join them for shots and cocktails and all the other booze that lubricates all the fighting and drama the show trades in.
Shannon, however, has not said she is an alcoholic, only that she’s limiting herself to two drinks at any occasion, and never, ever when she’s driving. Tamra, who as far as we’re aware is not a medical doctor or addiction specialist, thinks she knows better.
“She needed to go to rehab and she did,” Vicki says.
“She went to therapy to figure out why she dates bad guys,” Tamra shouts back at her. Alexis titters at that, which is kind of weird given that she’s now dating the guy that was bad enough for Shannon that she needed therapy.
Shannon yells at Tamra to stop, which only provokes her to go further and reveal to the rest of the housewives that John Janssen has sued Shannon for $75,000.
Now Alexis takes her turn at making Shannon miserable, announcing to the others that she has “the receipts,” and then shows the others screenshots of John’s wire transfers to Shannon which Alexis just happened to have on her phone.
“Un-(bleeping) believable,” Shannon says and storms out of the private dining room. Well, tries to storm out. The room has a bookcase as its secret door and it takes her a few moments to figure out how to escape.
Gina’s dinner party is pretty much kaput at this point, though Vicki decides to give a little speech to the others on how they’re all good Christian ladies and should be nicer to each other really.
“This is icky,” she concludes. “This is not how we act.”
Several of the other housewives are self-aware enough to know that this in fact is exactly how they act.
“I mean, Vicki giving a speech about all of us being disgusting? That’s rich,” Heather Dubrow tells the camera.
“Please show flashbacks of Vicki being disgusting now,” Emily Simpson asks the producers conducting her debrief, and they do just that with a montage of Vicki screaming and cussing at this person and that in seasons past.