Real Housewives of Orange County Recap – 7/20/15

And then it’s time for all of the women to be shoved into the same location at the same time and so they all go bowling. Half of them won’t take off their heels and there is a blue bowling ball on the rack and Tamra makes a blue-balls joke because that’s what Tamra does. She also asks if maybe she can talk to Vicki’s daughter about how they used to be founding members of the I Hate Brooks club but now Tamra is formally turning in her pin that has Brooks’ face on it with a big red slash through it and she has taken the pins out of her Brooks plush voodoo doll so she can stick them into her Eddie voodoo doll and maybe Brianna can give up her hatred for the man too. But then things get really awkward when it’s mentioned that Brianna needs someone to watch the baby and Vicki blurts out that her mom can do it before remembering that her mother is no longer alive. Watching this moment was maybe supposed to feel profound – and the loss itself certainly is – but seeing it actually just felt gross to me, as does hearing that she’s still leaving her mother voicemails like she’s listening to them. Listen, grief is different for everyone (it’s one cliché that’s actually true), but I find myself now worrying about the mental health of a woman I’ve never really cared for.

But wait! There’s some comedy to toss into this episode! This show is not all about death and affairs! No, it’s also about a grandmother in ripped denim and stilettos waxing poetic about how awesome Shannon’s last name is in her very own little rap that made me want to pull my eardrums through my nostrils:

Shannon Beador, shut the door.
Shannon Beador, you little whore.

And that reminds me that Straight Outta Compton is coming out soon and the trailer looks pretty good and that allowing anyone related to Tamra to breed was probably a very poor idea on the part of Mother Nature.

Back to the actual storyline of the episode, the women head over to dinner where they will meet Lizzie who didn’t bowl because she has a broken rib (and because only official Housewives are permitted to throw a ball down an alley) and Shannon talks to Vicki about Brooks and about what he should be doing to try to get better. She doesn’t agree with his nutritionist and thinks the guy needs more protein to battle his illness and she’s basing her steadfast beliefs on research she has done. I’m sure there’s a ton of research out there that supports her views. I’m also relatively sure that she never looked up opposing viewpoints. Still, she’s clearly trying to help here and it’s a kind gesture but Vicki decides to stick with the advice of Brooks’ medical professionals. And just when Shannon cannot hear any more views that contrast with her own, Meghan tells Shannon and Heather that she put Hayley on birth control pills so that, if she is having sex, she will be safe (hope she mentioned condoms too – hashtag gonorrhea!) and Heather kind of nods and Shannon looks like her head might blow off right there in the back of the limo, which means the restaurant won’t need to go buy another case of vodka before the women arrive. Shannon is astounded by the news of a seventeen year old going on birth control; she thinks that’s a “free pass” for the kid to have sex and I think we should all just go ahead and call the time of death on the friendship between Meghan and Shannon because it’s never going to happen until they one day have to band together to collectively hate someone new.

At the restaurant, drink number eight enters Shannon’s bloodstream and she begins to scream across the table that she needs to lose weight and that she has wrinkles and then she says that she’s okay and she’s so clearly not okay and it’s uncomfortable to even watch because you know she’s only one sambuca shot away from weeping in a corner about how her husband might have come to this restaurant with his affair and eaten the very same shitake mushrooms she’s eating right at this very second and this sort of real devastation is so clearly one thin layer below her cheerful façade and I feel guilty for even watching this woman’s decline.

On the bright side, Heather realized Shannon’s last name rhymes with couture.

Towards the end of dinner, Meghan announces that she’s having a game night and she’d love them all to come and bring their husbands! There’s an immediate cut to Shannon at the mention of the word “husband” because the editors on this show know exactly what they’re doing and they’ve got a mental breakdown to lay the foundation for and they’ll do it in reaction shots if they must. And then it’s the time in a Housewives season where a group trip is announced like it’s a total surprise and Vicki tells them that they should all go to Tahiti and the women shriek in happiness about a trip that’s really being planned by producers. Everyone is really excited about Tahiti except for Shannon who doesn’t want to be in a bathing suit on camera. Know one way to avoid that, Shannon?

On the way home from dinner, Vicki tells Tamra that she’s exhausted and that she thinks about her mother all the time and then we learn that Tamra wants to be stuffed when she dies and posed in the window of a department store somewhere and I’d like to formally request that it’s not either Nordstrom or Barneys so that I can continue to shop there without suffering a mental breakdown of my very own.

When Meghan arrives home, she sees that Hayley didn’t finish her homework and the work she did do was done incorrectly. Meghan’s feeling guilty that maybe she’s not parenting well. It’s all made more difficult by the fact that her husband isn’t there to help her and she feels like a failure and I legitimately feel badly for her that she’s maybe the only one who really cares.

Speaking of misery, back at CUT Tamra has decided there must be a booty class because the ass is all that matters so she and Eddie set up some moves and then she tells Eddie that she might need a break from working there so much. Eddie, also feeling the obvious tension between them, agrees that it’ll be better when she’s not around so often so that maybe they can get back to actually liking each other and it’s agreed that Tamra will jump back into real estate so she can one day find herself a home to move into when this marriage fails.

The coming attractions show us that game night will happen next week at Meghan’s house and Shannon and her husband f*ck up their turn at The Newlywed Game – but that’s not a bad sign at all and everything is great and David’s affair never once sat on that couch and juices can’t cure cancer and Shannon is fine – fine! – and there is no emotional collapse coming across the horizon and it’s not just that she has her head buried deep within the sand that makes Shannon unable to see her own bleak future.

Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon. Check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.