The Real Housewives of Orange County recap: Braunwyn and Shannon’s friendship goes out ‘sad’
As they say, third time's the charm, and with two episodes of the new season of Real Housewives of Orange County down, tonight’s episode finally provides an event that brings all the women together.
We start at Shannon’s house where she runs through the details of her upcoming housewarming party with her boyfriend John. It is very hard to focus on him talking about Shannon's issue with Emily when there’s inexplicably a bullet hole-ridden shooting range target enveloping the fridge behind them.
Next comes a scene of Kelly and Gina in the car on the way to drink with Elizabeth. Kelly laments that she’s not involved enough in her daughter Jolie’s school life, joking about how she doesn’t attend “PTO” meetings (a slip that kind of proves her daughter’s point). As Gina gets to know Elizabeth, we learn that she actually has a gag order to not talk about the divorce she’s spent the past two episodes talking about, a point that Kelly rightfully, though brutally, points out in her confessional. The best part of their dinner though is actually the cutscene flashing back to Elizabeth and Shannon meeting for the first time on camera, and Shannon revealing that the first time they’d met, Elizabeth introduced herself as “the richest bitch you’re going to meet in Newport.”
After a truly bleak cheers to 2020 being better than 2019, the show shifts over to Braunwyn in her family having a nice dinner. In her second season as a housewife, the mother of seven has become a whole new level of vulnerable, talking about how sobriety made her realize that she was in denial about being a good mother. The show almost tries to balance out her seriousness with the frivolity of Kelly moving into her new house and complaining about how she doesn’t want to turn into a Stepford Wife.
Following that up is Shannon and Braunwyn in the car headed toward Dr. Moon’s office, the acupuncturist who is among Housewives fans’ favorite side character on Orange County. It’s easy to see why as he seamlessly roasts Shannon and sticks a needle into Braunwyn’s ear simultaneously. A conversation that was started in the car, about Braunwyn throwing Shannon under the bus at Emily’s party, saying she called Gina’s new home “sad and depressing” continues to build. While it feels like if Shannon said it, it would’ve been on camera during the scene in the premiere at Braunwyn’s house, but it looks like the core RHOC drama is once again annoyingly centered around something the cameras didn’t capture.
Now on the day of Shannon’s party, the show treats us to a chaotic trio of cutscenes, with the host desperately trying to clean up her house, Emily preparing to go behind enemy lines, and Gina bringing the franchise full circle by comparing neighbors Shannon, Kelly, and Braunwyn to Desperate Housewives (the ABC soap that inspired the Real Housewives).
As Braunwyn worries about being at a party where she can’t drink for the first time, Kelly and Emily do a hilarious impression of Shannon in the car on the way to her party. Meanwhile, at the event itself, it seems Shannon got her and John’s Brady Bunch matching outfits only for them to end up looking like event staff.
Walking into Shannon’s new home, Gina now understands why Shannon may have found her condo a little “depressing,” and is a great sport about how the whole thing would only take up one corner of Shannon’s residence. With Gina being the first housewife to arrive, Shannon gets a headstart on calling Braunwyn a liar about the “sad” comment, something Gina accepts. It’s particularly heartening to see how Shannon makes a point of how she, Kelly, and Braunwyn all rent their homes, so Gina could actually hold the fact that she owns her tiny house over them.
Things get dramatic when Braunwyn arrives, with the 30 days sober Braunwyn making a beeline for the bathroom to take a moment away from all the tempting tequila put in front of her. Emily has something to say about it, but it was hard to pay attention if you, like me, were busy zeroing in on how much she sounds like Jennifer Coolidge.
It wouldn’t be a party if Kelly didn’t commit a faux pas, this time referring to Shannon’s father as a “big dick daddy,” words that sound even crazier coming out of Shannon’s mouth in her confessional. Still arguably not as gross as the following scene of Emily popping Gina’s zit in the middle of the party.
The party finally heats up as Braunwyn and Shannon reconnect, with neither backing down from their assertion of what Shannon said about Gina’s house. Braunwyn begins to lose a little bit of the good faith she garnered by telling the wives about her alcoholism when she uses her sobriety as a sticking point for why she is right about Shannon calling Gina’s house “sad.”
Shannon and Braunwyn then each go to their corners before round two, wherein Shannon faces off against Braunwyn’s husband Sean as Gina and Braunwyn try to hash it out. As the arguments happen, new housewife Elizabeth reacts to them in a hilarious way that feels true to how the audience will likely respond to them.
Five steps behind everything going on in Braunwyn’s life, Gina tries to get under her skin by calling her a sloppy drunk, pushing Braunwyn to admit she has actually been sober for 30 days. The revelation does absolutely nothing to quell Gina’s anger, and the show ends with Braunwyn storming out of the party.
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