If you had asked me to guess, I would have guessed that an episode of real Housewives of Orange county centered entirely around Shannon would be terrible, or, at the very least, it would be an episode I would not personally Viel Spaß. That’s what the series gave us last night, and to my moderate surprise, it was actually pretty decent. who could have predicted?
Shannon’s life is not without conflict, which made for a couple interesting story lines. First, she needs to move. Shannon, her husband and their three children have been trying to unload their monstrously too-big McMansion for quite some time, and once they finally found a buyer whose ability to purchase the house was much more than a huge game of pretend, they all of a sudden had only two weeks to clean everything out of the house’s numerous closets. Yes, including the closet of extra lampshades into which we briefly caught a glimpse! The only reason we don’t call rich people hoarders is because they have much more doors in their houses, behind which they conceal all the crap they don’t need and will never use but still cannot part with. klingt bekannt?
Shannon spent the first week of her two-week moving timeframe fretting about packing instead of actually packing, which I’d make fun of if it weren’t exactly what I would also do in that situation. Her service was to invite the cast (sans Vicki) over to help clean out the place, which mostly resulted in the ladies’ making fun of Shannon’s fancy closet full of capri pants and cheap shoes. I will say one thing about living in a new York apartment: storage space here doesn’t really give you the luxury of hoarding unflatteringly cut khakis or cheap, sparkly platforms. (“They’re vegan!” is just a politically appropriate way to say, “They were cheap!” unless you’re an actual vegan, Shannon.)
Some fences were also at least temporarily mended while at Shannon’s, including her long-running feud with Kelly. Shannon fidgeted like a teen on a first date until Kelly provided a spontaneous, explicit apology along with the bottle of Veuve she brought, but honestly, I’d have been satisfied with just the champagne. Later, when Meghan arrived, she also demanded an explicit apology from Tamra for being told to go to hell, which seemed like not the type of thing that’s really bad enough to warrant one. having a couple mild swears lobbed your way is the cost of doing company on reality TV, especially when you found yourself on the receiving end of them for trying to blame someone for a major accident. Tamra, continuing on her new walk with Jesus, apologized. (For the swears. not for hanging up the phone. Tamra is still Tamra, and I respect that.)
With those beefs squashed for now, the whole gang (again, sans Vicki, who was elsewhere asking her grown children about Tinder) went to see Shannon’s daughters’ band play a gig at a bar. There’s a lot going on in that sentence, so let’s break it down: Shannon’s daughters have a band. It appears as though Shannon and her husband put them up to it, and pressuring your daughters into fancy rock-and-roll lessons instead of violin or piano is just about the most southern California nouveau riche thing I can imagine. Their rehearsal at the top of the episode included pro studio time and a man inexplicably wearing a velvet suit with a lizard brooch, which, if I remember correctly, is exactly how The Ramones got their start.
The girls are doing their best with the parents the universe gave them, of course, and, as we found out in the episode’s final third, so are Shannon and her husband. nightmare mothers-in-law are a somewhat exhausted cultural trope, but that doesn’t imply they don’t actually exist, and it seems as though Shannon has one. David’s mother showed up to the gig mostly uninvited and did not waste a second before locating the other cast members to complain about exactly the kind of hell Shannon has put her through for the previous 16 years.
We all know Shannon’s not my favorite, but she simply does not have the personality type to do any (let alone all) of the vindictive things David’s mother accused her of. On top of that, going around to a bunch of strangers to try and manipulate them into taking up your cause against their friend and your own daughter-in-law is a pretty telling thing to do on camera. even if Kelly and Tamra hadn’t told Shannon immediately, she would have seen the footage later, at which point it would still have very real-life consequences for all involved. They’re family, after all, and not just reality TV cast mates.
As we all knew from the previews, the real fireworks were over David’s mother-in-law whispering to people that Shannon’s shortcomings were the reason he had an affair. Not only is that not true–it’s dumb at best to find other people to blame for a grown man, possessed of all his faculties, who chooses to cheat–but saying it to a woman’s friends is a blatant attempt to provoke her intO böser, öffentlicher Konflikt vor ihrer ganzen Familie, ihren Freunden und Reality -TV -Kameras. Das alles, was wir bekamen, war ein bisschen Schreien und einige schluchzende Geräusche von der anderen Seite einer Toilettenentür waren ein Beweis für die Zurückhaltung, die Shannon wahrscheinlich für den größten Teil von zwei Jahrzehnten um diese Frau einsetzen musste.
Auf der Limousine nach Hause versuchte David zu den Kindern zu diskutieren, was passiert war, ohne seine Mutter negativ zu machen, und obwohl ich den Impuls verstehe, verstehe ich auch, warum Shannon sich von ihm beleidigt fühlte. Wenn Sie noch gerade von der Untreue von jemandem geheilt sind, kann ich mir vorstellen, dass alles, was Sie in der Welt wollen, Ihre Seite nachdrücklich einnehmen, wenn sich die Gelegenheit bietet. Auch wenn es schwierig sein mag, wenn die beleidigende Party Ihre eigene Mutter ist, war sie letzte Nacht eindeutig im Unrecht und David hätte ein bisschen mehr verstärken müssen.
Zumindest für mich ist unklar, wie all dies in die Erzählung des Restes der Saison passt. Vielleicht wurde diese Episode entwickelt, um einige von Shannons individuellen Handlungssträngen zu lösen, damit sie besser wieder in die Besetzungserzählung integriert werden kann? Jetzt brauchen wir nur den unvermeidlichen Showdown zwischen ihr und Vicki.