Real Housewives of Orange County Recap – 7/27/15

Then Shannon enters, and just in case anyone thinks I’ve been unfair to the drunkest and most bitter woman on this show, she bellows, “Oh, you have a bar!” the instant she walks in the door. And in case anybody thinks I’m also wrong for saying outright that Shannon is a miserable assh*le at least once per recap, then you need to hold tight because I’m going to say it more than once during this recap and I’ll start right now in response to how she sarcastically claps her hands and mocks how happy she is to finally get an invitation to Meghan’s party. Shannon and her borderline-catatonic husband and her diamond-encrusted teeth and her holistic solutions to problems that actually require something besides an ointment blessed by a shaman can seriously suck it.

Then Shannon makes me hate her even more – a feat I thought impossible unless she decided to steal my dog and teach her to speak and made her say “Shannon, you’re the most normal person I know!” in front of a crowd that included me bound and gagged in a corner. What’s on Shannon’s mind? Well, it’s what is always on Shannon’s mind. No, she’s not thinking of the affair; she’s already thought of that sixty-eight times today and the personalities crowding her tragic head have pleaded for a little break, so it’s time for her to start projecting her misery unto others which is something she misinterpreted while reading scripture once.

“I just think it’s weird her husband isn’t here,” Shannon stage whispers to Lizzie near the bar. Now listen: it is weird that Meghan’s husband never seems to want to be with his wife, but that Shannon is the one to point that out seems odd, especially since I’ve long believed that the reason her own husband is always seen in long pants on even the hottest of days is so nobody sees the scars from where he tried to once gnaw himself free from his batsh*t crazy wife. In fact, I’m pretty sure that David showed up to Game Night in the first place in the hopes that one of the prizes would be that he could go live for a while with someone else. Hell, even bunking over at Vicki’s house while Brooks gets a coffee enema in the kitchen sounds better than what he’s got going on right now – and at least he knows there will be some caffeine in the place.

Vicki shows up then with Brooks and she’s already planning her exit before her official entrance and just when I thought I could still drum up some empathy because of her recent loss, she launches into that adorable fake snoring thing she does when someone in her midst has started to bore her. The woman has been in Meghan’s home for twelve seconds. It’s beyond impolite to snore unless you’ve been stuck someplace for at least forty-five minutes, and I know such a thing is true with absolute certainty because I heard Countess Luann say it once before she gave a married guy a lap-dance. Meghan is not all that impressed with Vicki’s tired behavior – which means that I love Meghan – but she’s got other things on her mind, like how well she and Heather will do at The Newlywed Game. I’m guessing it will be far better than she would end up doing with her own husband, unless every question posed to him was, “What are all the things you can’t stand about your third wife?”

The game kicks off and I’m already looking at all of the white walls in that house and trying to figure out if bleach will get the bloodstains out after one of the people living in Shannon’s head whispers that there’s a chance that “David’s affair” knows one of the guys asking the questions, but things actually start off pretty well. Even Tamra and Eddie have decided they don’t hate each other anymore, and that’s a good thing because when Tamra is unhappy, the rule is that everybody in her airspace must be unhappy as well in solidarity to a monster. But Eddie and Tamra are proving that they are clearly soul-mates because who else can you talk about wanting to bone? (Oh, that random guy in a bar? Stop trying to ruin Tamra’s happiness with logic.) As for Shannon and her terrified soul-mate, David has already f*cked up question number two by saying Shannon wants to talk when he wants to sleep instead of giving the correct answer, which according to Shannon is “to make whoopee.” And when David says the wrong thing, a steady stream of fire creeps into Shannon’s eyes and seriously, I really hope Meghan has some bleach.

When the question is posed about whether or not the husbands are more or less romantic now than in the past, Shannon writes the word “MORE” on her paper and flips it over with a look that’s as close as she gets to gleeful about something that’s not vodka, but David has screwed up again. It might be time for him to scrawl some more names of restaurants and to prepare another fake eulogy in the hopes of saving this sham of a marriage between two people who truly look like they can’t stand one another and they continue to bicker as it’s revealed that Eddie’s devotion to his betrothed hasn’t changed in the least, which is the second saddest thing I’ve heard so far tonight and I’m not even counting the mention of Jim and Alexis that happened earlier.

After the first round of games, Vicki is all ready to go home and Shannon has stuck her snout down to smell the pizza instead of eating it. Heather tries to convince Vicki to stay because Meghan – the only one eating any of the food – has gone all out and to just leave is even ruder than to fake-snore upon arrival. Vicki is out though, and in her absence, Meghan brings up that she’s about to get Botox for the first time because a wrinkle has popped up and Shannon can’t believe she would do such a thing. I’ll never criticize Shannon for wanting to age gracefully, so instead I’ll criticize her for having what Meghan correctly pegs as “judgy eyes” and not being willing to own it. It reminds me of the time a friend complained about how I reacted to something she said and I laughed and told her that I sometimes can’t control that my eyebrows like to speak for me, rising in humor when the rest of me is trying to play it safe and serious. My friend was absolutely right to call me out – and so is Meghan. Now, I’m not sure I would say such a thing to someone I’d already brawled with as she reclined on my sofa during Game Night, but then again, I don’t have a contract to try to snare to appear on the next season for this show like Meghan does and I for one hope she does become a recurring Housewife, if only so I can watch her move three more times and hopefully one day watch as she tells her husband that he blows.

The next night, Shannon and David arrive at therapy and are promptly told by the counselor that they are not at all in the right headspace to ever discuss the affair by themselves. I’m sure there is some clinical logic behind such a statement, but unless Tina the Marriage Counselor moves in with them, that seems a remarkably ridiculous rule to impose on a couple since I think it’s pretty clear that boiling resentment doesn’t serve these two all that well. All Shannon wants is for the hurt to stop and all David wants is to be somewhere else and all I want is to shake these people and tell them to figure this sh*t out off camera while I help myself to seven of the desserts that are leftover from Game Night.

Then it’s time to get ready for the big trip and watching Heather pack her luggage is a study in excellence. I know full well that people across this great land laughed at Heather and rolled their eyes as she packed her shoes separately and lined her clothing in white tissue paper and everyone has a right to react any way he or she sees fit, but as for me, I want to get a PhD in Being Heather and I will write my dissertation on the various ways to keep from wrinkling silk and chiffon and how to talk yourself down from a ledge when traveling with Whoo-hoo Vicki, Bone-Loving Tamra, and Shannon, who I could say a great many awful things about but I find it’s best to pace myself.

Okay, I can’t help myself. I did try, but watching Shannon assemble her thousands of vitamins – none of which help to make her in any way tolerable or normal – has made it impossible, though there might be some revulsion to go around, a thought that occurred to me when Vicki mentioned her G-string bathing suits.