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Watching Shannon Beador spiral on Real Housewives of Orange County, like many self-destructive but immensely entertaining reality stars, has always presented a moral quandary for viewers. How sympathetic should we be towards a privileged white lady who’s had numerous emotional breakdowns on camera but is also ridiculous and extremely out-of-touch? Should we have taken her past marriage to David Beador (and the accusations that came out of it) more seriously instead of treating it like a soap opera? Should we believe her castmates’ accusations that she has issues with alcohol or write them off as hypocritical shade? Is it even primarily our jobs as viewers—and not, ahem, producers—to be concerned with all of these things??
These questions rushed to my mind this week after the not-so-shocking yet explosive news that Beador received a DUI after striking the side of a house in Newport Beach over the weekend. The TMZ footage of Beador whipping around a street corner like Lightning McQueen and crashing into the property is truly wild. And the news that the most iconic golden retriever after Buddy—our beloved Archie—was apparently in the car is even wilder.
Unfortunately, even the most aghast onlookers on social media wouldn’t necessarily categorize this incident as surprising. In the first episode of Season 17, Tamra’s husband, Eddie, straight-up called Shannon an alcoholic. (These accusations go back seasons, BTW.) We also learned that Shannon has a habit of venting to her fellow Housewives while she’s wasted and apparently blacking out during these conversations. The allegations are so bad for her that her tagline this season is that she pokes fun at her tequila consumption. But now, it seems like she may have to go down a Luann De Lesseps rehabilitation route, as former Bravoleb Jeff Lewis blabbed on his radio show that she’s “seeking counseling.”
Luckily, the most concerning behavior we get from Shannon in tonight’s episode is that she hasn’t brushed her teeth during their entire trip to Mexico—which is still extremely concerning. Between Emily sharing water with her dog, Heather Gay drinking dirty hot tub water on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City last week, and this teeth-brushing revelation, I’m not sure rich people deserve health insurance!
Anyhow, let’s get into the girls’ last day in Playa del Carmen, which, unfortunately, features my least favorite Real Housewives activity outside vaginal rejuvenations: a phony spiritual experience with a local shaman. (The phoniness is obviously on the part of the Housewives. No disrespect to shamans!) Before Tamra pretends like she has any intentions of being “positive” after this trip, Jenn cries to Ryan over FaceTime after Tamra aired out this messy Alex situation. Apparently, Jenn is just as confused as I am, in terms of when and how long he slept with this girl. But apparently, Ryan calling Tamra a liar for the 500th time is all the assurance she needs. Or maybe she just has a humiliation kink. Probably both.
Luckily, for Jenn, however, Tamra and the rest of the women are mostly concerned with tormenting Heather this episode. (Although, Vicki finds some time to project her disaster of a marriage to Donn Gunvulson onto Jenn during a dinner.) After weeks of vilifying Heather over nonsense, the cast finally breaks her down, after Emily and Gina neg her for unfollowing them on Instagram after she left the friend group. It’s maybe the second dumbest “offense” they’ve attacked Heather for this season after the Snuffleupagus remark, which Emily is still whining about in this episode. Are they going to blame her for 9/11 next??
At this point, I’m not sure what’s going on in Emily’s personal life that’s made her become so cruel. Maybe she’s just high on power because she’s one of the few people on this cast who hasn’t been targeted by Tamra this season. Either way, it’s not a cute look. She’s also not iconic enough as a Housewife to pull her bitchiness off, like a Ramona Singer and a Lisa Rinna. That said, after she and Gina are done tag-teaming Heather about the Instagram “issue” on a bus ride to Tulum, Heather apologizes—only for Emily to retort that she actually blocked Heather.
Everyone laughs, and Heather remains silent until they arrive at their destination. After she gets off the bus, we hear her disembodied, weeping voice telling the producers that she wants to go home. Of course, everyone—including Jenn, for some reason, even though she’s been equally victimized—acts like they don’t know why she’s upset.
Once they arrive in Tulum, Tamra, Vicki, Shannon, and Jenn go to a shaman for some love-and-light bullshit that lasts a good 15 minutes before chaos erupts at their next dinner. Jenn still has hope in her relationship with Tamra, and I honestly can’t tell if the editors cut out some one-on-one conversations with these two because the math just isn’t mathing. At last night’s dinner, Jenn says she puts up with people’s criticisms about her relationship with Ryan because she feels like she deserves it for cheating. So maybe that explains her Stockholm Syndrome.
Meanwhile, the B-group gets sent to a luxurious store because I guess their spiritual health doesn’t matter. Heather is so done with this trip that she sits by herself on a pillow. Taylor eventually sits down next to her to offer her useless perspective on Heather’s rift with the girls. She simply says what Heather already knows and can’t necessarily fix, which is that her castmates naturally assume that she has a superiority complex because she’s wealthier than them—including Taylor herself, earlier this season. Heather politely receives Taylor’s insight, but you can tell she’s already mentally back at home in her L.A. penthouse talking to Terry about how rich they are.
So the women reunite for their last gathering of the trip in a stunning restaurant that looks like a treehouse. Shannon spends about 10 minutes freaking out over a net she has to walk over to get to the table before they move to a table on the ground. And of course, they start going at Heather before their food has even arrived.
Vicki starts talking about how she’s taking things slow with her new boyfriend, and Heather says that she appreciates that Vicki hasn’t dived “100 percent” into her relationship this time around. Tamra then brings up Heather questioning whether Shannon was “100 percent in” her relationship with John a million episodes ago. Heather accurately responds that there’s no way she’s going to say the right thing all the time—just like the rest of these women. Still, her castmates take this opportunity to throw in some extra punches.
Emily brings up what she thinks Heather said at BravoCon about Shannon trash-talking her and Gina. And Heather says she was talking about Tamra, who said she was “sitting next to the losers.” Tamra snaps into defense mode and claims she was just mocking Heather, who originally called them losers. But Heather says she was referring to Jen and Noella from last season.
So now, Gina’s pissed that she was allegedly called a loser by Heather. And Heather brings up a great point in her confessional: Why is Gina choosing to believe Tamra when she’s spent this entire season warning her about her? Ultimately, Heather walks off, declaring that she’s quitting the show. Vicki, who’s clearly drunk out of her mind, hilariously walks off, too, claiming that she can’t watch the women attack Heather anymore.
This very frustrating (but still funny) episode ends with the Tres Amigas drunkenly embracing at a bar. In the wake of Shannon’s DUI, what should be a cute, nostalgic scene is unfortunately pretty dark. We’ll have to wait until next week, during the season finale, to see whether Bravo sent a camera crew to Shannon’s home following her arrest. I can’t say I’m not totally curious what that following morning was like.
