Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: Reunion, Part 2

Shannon is on the hot seat for playing the victim, and guess what? She feels victimized for being called a victim.

We pick up with the OC ladies after the break during which Kelly called Michael. She tells everyone that she confronted him with Vicki’s accusations (she uses cocaine, she’s never with her daughter), and Michael denied everything. Vicki tries to gaslight Kelly by telling her of course Michael is going to lie to her, but Kelly doesn’t believe it. Between Michael and Vicki, I’m pretty sure we all know the snake is.

Vicki once again tries to exonerate herself regarding the cocaine statement by saying all she was doing was repeating a rumor. Tamra pipes in to ask Vicki what we’re all wondering—will this woman ever learn? The answer is no; she will always say whatever she wants to say when she feels threatened then try to backtrack by minimizing her culpability.  Remember–Vicki doesn’t lie, she just repeats rumors.

Andy wants to move on, and basically shuts down the conversation to turn to Shannon’s portion of the reunion. Her divorce isn’t final yet and she’s facing some potential custody issues. Basically her daughters are living part-time with David and his new girlfriend, and Shannon has been advised to give the girls their space.

Tamra agrees this is a good idea, because when her daughter Sidney moved out, Tamra bombarded her with texts and phone calls which ultimately just pushed Sidney away. I think whatever issues Shannon may have with her daughters are quite different than Sidney’s issue with Tamra. There’s no doubt Shannon is an overbearing mother, but Sidney felt betrayed by her mother’s fame-seeking ways. Still, Tamra’s been there and Shannon should heed her advice.

Andy tells us it wasn’t all discord among the ladies this season, and we’re subjected to a package of their obnoxious behavior as they rampage through rope courses, golf clubs, and foreign countries. You really can’t take the OC Housewives anywhere.

Getting back to the ho-hum drama of the season, Andy brings up the game of telephone that led Emily to think someone said she was in an abusive marriage. At one point Shannon said Shane’s behavior reminded her of David, but it turns out Emily was the one who first attached the word “abuse” to the situation.

Shannon felt Emily attacked her at the golf party by confronting her about comparing Emily’s husband to David. Emily doesn’t feel she was attacking Shannon; they were just having a conversation. This leads to whether Shannon is still as reactionary as ever. Shannon says she’s been in therapy for this issue, and she doesn’t storm off yelling “I’m done” anymore.

Maybe not, but she still storms off on a regular basis and rips off her microphone on occasion. There is a debate attempting to quantify Shannon’s reactive-ness. Is she just as reactive as she always was, or is she less reactive now? Does it really matter? As Gina points out, the bottom line is that Shannon is still reactive.

Emily is crying—again—as she discusses her mother. She didn’t speak to her for a year, but they’re in a good place now. She’s very thankful for her mother-in-law, who has been a great support to her. Good thing, because next it’s time to talk about her curiously standoffish husband.

The ladies are concerned that Shane doesn’t show much affection to or compassion for Emily. Emily says he is generally averse to displays of PDA and doesn’t like to kiss on camera. But off-camera, he can’t keep his hands off her and is always grabbing her butt.

Speaking of Emily’s butt, Andy brings up that she’s gotten a lot of body-shaming from internet trolls. How vile. Emily says reading some of the comments about herself was very hard. No kidding, when people were calling her a “fat a**,” saying she was disgusting and wondering how she could go out in public looking the way she does.

I feel like it’s okay to critique someone over their behavior—I do it all the time with these women—but there’s a line you don’t cross, and it’s sad that Emily had to experience such unwarranted cruelty. Fortunately she didn’t buy into it. Instead of letting it negatively affect her self-image, she’s going to use her Housewives platform to show viewers that women don’t have to be one size to be and feel beautiful and sexy. Good for you, Emily!

We get an update on Tamra. She and Sidney remain estranged, Eddie’s heart condition might have been fixed (fingers crossed!) and she’s moving to Vicki’s neighborhood. However, the real point of this segment is not to get updated on Tamra’s life; it’s to get to the root of why she and Shannon no longer speak.

A viewer points out it’s pretty rude of Shannon not to use the trainers at Tamra’s gym when Tamra flew to Philadelphia to support Shannon’s QVC appearance. Shannon says Tamra’s gym is too far away. I guess she thinks Philadelphia is right around the corner. This is an apt starting point to launch a discussion about Shannon’s self-absorption.

Shannon wasn’t invited to Tamra’s post-filming birthday party because they weren’t speaking. This is because Shannon became upset when she saw the episode where Tamra was mocking her for freaking out about paying the water bill. How was Shannon supposed to know water wasn’t included as part of her rent? Umm, ask? Maybe read the lease?

Kelly brings up a trip to New York, where Tamra says Shannon treated all the ladies like “s***”.  First of all, she forced them to stay at the Plaza (the horror!), and then she had the nerve to bogart Tamra’s make-up artist and make them late to dinner. This behavior isn’t an example of treating people badly; it’s just another illustration of how self-centered Shannon can be.

There is a general rehashing of Tamra’s disappointment that Shannon didn’t check in with her after Eddie’s first heart surgery. Yawn. Apparently Shannon’s been dating ever since she separated from David and Gina is miffed she wasted time setting her up with a matchmaker when Shannon was seeing someone at the time. Tamra goes in about how annoying it is that Shannon is a perpetual victim, and let me break this down for Tamra:

Yes, Shannon is self-centered, high-maintenance and prone to viewing herself as a victim. It’s tiresome and we get it. But the ladies have been complaining about this all season, and nothing has changed. Shannon is still self-centered, high-maintenance and a victim; now she feels like being called a victim is victimizing her further. She’s not going to change so either accept it and deal with her, or cut her loose.

The storylines on this show have been so exhausted that the entire season revolved around Shannon’s Debbie Downer-ness, and it’s just not enough to keep people engaged. Shannon is a drag, but watching her being a drag and hearing the other women talk about how much of a drag she is does not make for compelling TV. Move on, people.