Are “The Real Housewives of Orange County” still fun for you?
On the surface, sure. On some level, let those of us be pure enough not to laugh at the special people acting like spoiled little kids throwing their first skinny margarita at someone’s face.
Shannon Storms Bedor decided to spoil her housewarming party because of some little lightheartedness and laughter. Kelly Dodd says the naughty thing this week as we turn our eyes.
Brownwyn-Burke spits a drink on the floor as it leaves, and here we are again.
Except that last example – wasting grapefruit and non-alcoholic soda – illustrates an uneasy problem with the show Three episodes in its fifteenth season.
Brownwyn said she was an alcoholic for the season premiere – a gritty and impressive choice to make on national television, you can tell – but the show seems to milky that point for all the drama it can generate.
And this feels kind of annoying, as if we, the viewers, are complicit in exploiting her situation for entertainment.
Let’s run what happened on Wednesday, and you can decide for yourself.
Things start out slowly. It’s really starting to feel like producers pull down pre-coronavirus shutdown shots as long as they can before All Housewives are iPhones.
Kelly and Gina go out to dinner with new housewife Elizabeth Lyn Vargas, and Jenna is frustrated that Elizabeth will not feed on her soon-to-be ex-husband.
“I am in a state of strict restriction,” says Elizabeth at the restaurant where they met. “So I’m not allowed to talk about it much.”
Kelly is confused by that.
“It’s kind of a contradiction,” she told the camera. “I mean, someone says they can’t talk about divorce, damn it, she definitely talks a lot about it.” (Kelly notes “a paradox” as Alanis Morissette said “ironic”).
They finish dinner with the toast of 2020, with Gina, who doesn’t know what’s on the horizon, declaring, “2020 is definitely better than 2019 for me.”
Back at the Braunwyn house, we learned that it’s 28 days sober and it wasn’t easy. Not only does she struggle not to jump out of her own skin, but she also regrets how she has taken care of her seven children in the past.
“The one truth I’ve always been able to hold onto is that I’m a good mom,” she says. “I am not a good mother. They have sat in the front row until my death many times now.”
We see Kelly moving into her new rental, which is not completely on board with the flavor of the suburbs surrounding her.
“It’s a Beaver Cleaver neighborhood,” she says of the Port Straits division where she and Brownwyn now live. Shannon Stepford’s wife. I’m so scared to turn into that. ” (Then she did a rude joke about Ward Cleaver and the Beaver that she knew she’d never go to Stepford.)
Everyone gathers in Shannon for a housewarming party, which quickly gets off the rails because Shannon can’t let go of the fact that Brownwyn said Shannon described Jenna’s new apartment as “sad and depressing” and that Shannon insists she hasn’t.
Already worried about going to shindig housewives, Braunwyn arrives and is met with tequila shows. Then she heads straight to the bathroom where the show lets us eavesdrop as she says to herself, “You’re fine.”
There’s no escaping Shannon, though, who takes a direct line to confront Brownwin and insists she never destroyed Jenna’s new pillow. When they start talking, Emily discovers a white head on Gina’s face and squeezes it for her, and if that doesn’t foreshadow just how overall this entire episode is about to come to terms, I don’t know what it is.
Brownwyn insists that she was sober and Shannon was not when the “sad and frustrated” comment was made. She says her husband Sean heard her too. Shannon becomes more deadly and deadlier.
“Don’t you dare accuse me of something I did!” Cry out sometime – and you can make that slip what you want.
“This is my party, how dare you!” She continues.
Brownwyn replies, “I haven’t talked about it, Shannon,” and she got a point.
Until now, their loud noises have attracted the attention of other housewives as flies over things like flies. Brownwyn decides to go to Jenna to purify the air – a very bad idea her husband endorses – and they’re almost all in each other’s faces.
“Oh my God, Shannon (arrested),” Elizabeth says with a kind of anticipation that accompanies it on social media a GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn.
Her boyfriend Jimmy adds, “I think someone would end up in the pool.”
Gina – who doesn’t know Brownwyn does so sobriety – accuses Brownwyn of contempt for her because Gina is not so wealthy. It’s not about the money, Brownwyn says. It is about personality.
You know those movies where a guy has to cut the red wire or the blue wire, and if you pick the wrong wire, everything goes kablooey? Brownwyn had just cut the wrong wire limiting Gina’s mood and tongue.
“Are you going to talk to me about the character?” She screams. “Wake up! You’re a filthy Chihuahua, it’s all wasted! So go get lost again, Brownwin!”
“I’m 30 Days Sober, (Witch)!” Brownwin replies.
“You? You’re acting like that!” Gina digs in.
The drink is dumped, Brownwyn is gone, and this questionable storyline will continue next week.
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