well done
As promised by the teaser last week, The Real Housewives of Orange County the coronavirus edition is here, and it doesn’t look too pretty. Tonight’s episode covers the two to four month period between shutting down production and the start of Orange County opening, and you can already tell how the dynamics have changed dramatically.
The episode begins to explain how most of the footage from March is self-recorded. We have quick scenes of Shannon Beador crying over how illness could affect her already damaged lungs, Elizabeth Lyn Vargas putting together a puzzle as she explains her plan to save the animals, and Braunwyn Windham-Burke – who was already going through a astronomical life. change – disentangle himself further while stuck in the house with Sean and their seven children.
While we’ve long been aware of Kelly Dodd’s strict denial of COVID, Elizabeth is pushing her past by posting conspiracy theories about it on Instagram and comparing her to AIDS. It’s always weird to see Emily Simpson, Braunwyn, and Kelly meet at heart without wearing a mask.
Shannon reveals that she and John had their first major battle when her son Joe broke his COVID protocol and chose to stay with his son in his place. For her, positioning him as “me or him” is a big ultimatum to give to someone she may have dated for two years or less. Otherwise it’s nice to see someone Orange County take the pandemic protocol seriously. Shannon’s hypochondria is refreshing in this case.
Meanwhile, Kelly shows total clowning behavior while flying to New York as she became the epicenter of the virus, showing how Times Square has faded, but it’s still ‘safe’ for her to catch a dog dirty water. The montage of her and her boyfriend Rick in quarantine in Manhattan only becomes more traumatic when we have a photo of him fixing his feet. It gave me a scene where Shane and Emily were always talking about strength, almost delicious in comparison.
During a video chat with Shannon, Gina reveals her haircut and presents one of the funniest lines of the night on how salons should be considered an essential service when it comes to her. When Shannon mentions shopping with John, Gina stops her right there, then informs the audience that after John left the house, it was Gina that Shannon leaned on while she was drunk and upset, so it’s now shocking to hear that she brought him back and threw the precautions she was taking out the window.
I love to see the women now wearing masks in the insert where they hold the oranges, but I really hate to see in the following montage how Elizabeth again alludes to the fact that COVID is like AIDS again. Gina sneaking onto Emily’s porch to score a packet of toilet paper she got through a connection Smart & Final is the unique brand of suburban humor I come from Orange County for.
As Braunwyn gets rid of who she once was, she shares difficult information, saying there have been cases where she has punched her husband Sean. Knowing what we now know about her, it seems that for the best, they are taking the time they need.
Kelly and Elizabeth once again contribute to my misery with a quick scene of them partying and a throwaway line on them getting tested. At least when Kelly meets Shannon, Braunwyn, and Emily the next day, they all walk in with masks.
Shannon really twists the way Elizabeth spoke of her.
Shannon really twists the way Elizabeth spoke of her. While it is true that Elizabeth says her boyfriend Jimmy left after blowing up on him, Elizabeth was also quite open on the show about having to work the next day. Both can be true, and it never happened as Elizabeth blamed her absence the next morning solely on Shannon. Emily and Kelly rightly call him in confessionals for acting a little too much like the Regina George of Orange County.
Gina was noticeably absent from the reunion and it turns out that Tamra Judge’s ghost strikes again, with Shannon suspecting that her sour relationship with the former housewife prompted Gina to call it off.
While at first I thought it was brutal and low-key for Kelly to compare Elizabeth to Blowfish, the next scene showed that Braunwyn was really pulling the knives out of the new housewife. She tells Emily on Zoom that not only did she have DM Elizabeth on Instagram to tell her that she’s lying about loneliness when she saw her friends all posting that they were at Elizabeth’s house, but also she entered the public archives and saw that Elizabeth House is in default and may have real estate and financial issues. While Emily would hate Braunwyn to do this to her, she dunks stunned into the tea Braunwyn just spilled.
The next scenes we get are side-by-side conversations between Braunwyn and Shannon in person, and Elizabeth and Gina on video chat. First, funny now that Braunwyn and Shannon clearly buried the hatchet on the stupid “sad house” fight and found common ground in thinking Elizabeth is full of shit. The thing is, Elizabeth knows it and tells Gina it. She’s actually planning to take the women to Lake Arrowhead to talk about her divorce and love life now that she’s supposed to sort things out with her billionaire ex-husband.
Now in June, the show shows another clip of how women reacted to George Floyd’s murder and how they are now contributing to the Black Lives Matter movement. We get a Real housewives franchise crossover in the form of Gina and Gizelle from Potomac on Instagram Live Together, and a heartwarming moment where Braunwyn takes his children to a protest in hopes of making Orange County a more equitable and inclusive environment for people who are not rich and white.
After a final package showing California is now opening up a bit more, the episode ends with Shannon frantically calling Kelly to let her know that one of her daughters has tested positive for the coronavirus. It’s a blow to see the family of the most at-risk housewife not taking their concerns seriously, but also why did she call Kelly out of all people? This couldn’t be the first person she sought to share in her terror.
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