There’s nothing quite like a Real Housewives of Orange County finale party. You can always expect a fur coat or two, a horribly tacky theme, and a truly ethereal music mix. Whether Vicki’s getting nailed to the cross at Tamra’s baptism or a friend-of is eating the bow off of Heather’s cake, RHOC finales are the creme de la creme of the franchise.
While tonight’s engagement party was no two-episode event, a la the Season 7 finale, it’s a strong end to an even stronger season, one that’s proof that lost ships can always find their way back to the shore.
This time, it’s not the party itself that proves explosive, but the aftermath. After a season on the sidelines, Jenn’s boyfriend Ryan is in hot water with the FBI, caught in the middle of a $16 million theft and gambling scandal. Poor Jenn is living in a Lifetime movie, having to grapple with the fact the man she left her ex-husband for just might be a grifter. Can she find happiness in sunny Orange County, or will his secrets take her down with him? Find out Thursdays at 9/8 CT!
With London in the rearview, the episode opens on the successful leaders of the coup celebrating their Tamra takedown at an axe throwing range.
Here, Jenn excitedly lets the girls know she’s engaged, as Ryan just proposed in the Bahamas. Shannon immediately fills with excitement that Jenn and Ryan have been vindicated against evil Tamra, as even Emily concedes victory. You know your relationship is fool-proof when Shannon likes the guy. She has great taste in men! Surely, no one will eat these words.
Unfortunately for Jenn, her moment of engaged bliss is a short-lived one, as the FBI inquiry looms large over every moment in the episode. It’s too bad we didn’t get to watch more of the Bahamas trip, a la the old days of Housewives, when cameras followed the ladies on solo trips, too. It would’ve provided more of a narrative high to set up the disastrous fall that’s sure to come.
Thankfully, though, Jenn gets to host the finale event, an engagement party that brings the entire cast together (even Alexis!) for the first time in weeks. But first, Tamra and Alexis meet up to scheme a little. After all, Jenn may be engaged to a slimy grifter, but Alexis is going steady with one, too.
For some reason, Alexis co-hosts the engagement party with Katie, even though Alexis and Jenn have barely spent five minutes together on screen (and their last interaction ended in Alexis kicking her out of her house). Maybe it’s because she’s a kind-hearted sweetie who has been unfairly slandered by evil Shannon Beador, or maybe it was the only way production could feasibly include Alexis in the finale after she self-sabotaged at every turn. Who’s to say?
Before we can celebrate the season’s end, we have to sit through some end-of-season solo footage, like a kid force-fed fruits and veggies before dessert. Jenn’s son is thinking about enrolling in the Navy! Heather’s nepo baby sold a home—and it was super expensive! Katie’s daughter has finally legally changed her name! Gina… is still doing whatever it is she and Travis are doing! Yeah.
I did notice that Emily is the only one without a final update, which isn’t entirely unsurprising given her storyline this year was “I’m worried my husband will die if he doesn’t get snatched.” It could spell trouble if production makes some cast changes, though.
Finally, we reach the party, which is just as tacky as the “tacky bridesmaids” theme would imply. The venue is lame, the fact it starts while it’s light out is just classless, and everyone’s dresses are absolutely harrowing. Good job, ladies! Gina dresses like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is “not the worst outfit she’s worn, not the best,” according to Heather and Emily. With friends like that…
It doesn’t seem particularly cold out, but Vicki Gunvalson shows up to the party in a fur coat, simply to give the fans the nostalgic slop we all yearn for. Former OC Housewife Jo de la Rosa shows up too, dropping the tidbit she once worked for Ryan. Maybe she can testify when things hit the fan.
Somewhat surprisingly, the big finale feud doesn’t come from Tamra vs. Jenn or Tamra vs. Shannon, but Katie vs. Heather. Did Katie’s daughter, Kaili, lie, or did Emily’s sons? If we’re believing women, we’ll have to err on the side of Kaili. Those 9-year olds are vicious little liars who want to take Heather Dubrow down.
At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter. Heather getting rattled by children is just so ridiculous that it’s funny, and her attempt to shut Katie down only proves she’s lost. But it also proves that Katie should return next season so she and Heather can continue duking it out. Anyone who can get a soapy “how dare you” out of Other Mother Dubrow is a winner in my eyes.
Meanwhile, Tamra and Jenn attempt to squash things, sort of, but it’s clear their dynamic will never be the same. Jenn isn’t Shannon; she has no time for the rollercoaster relationship. Speaking of Shannon, the recently anointed Duchess of Corona del Mar, it’s a floppy little finale for her.
Rather than engage with Tamra or Alexis, Shannon gets in a fight with herself and then storms out of the party, before kicking off a squabble with Katie’s husband, Matt. First, Shannon tells him that she used to say “I’m done” and not mean it, but now, when she says “I’m done,” she does mean it. And Matt co-signs that, telling her “maybe it’s time to walk away,” which is the natural reaction to someone telling you they’re going to walk away.
Somehow, though, Shannon takes this as an attack, telling him she’s the strongest member of the group and that he doesn’t know her at all. I love that Shannon ends the season a drunken mess, proving all her haters right. Shannon can only be atop a pedestal for a few moments at a time, as she’s always going to tip the scales and fall right off. For every Shannon Beador slay, there must be an equal and opposite flop waiting on the sidelines.
Luckily, the thing that kept her in the fan’s favor all season is John Jannsen, who shows up for the first time all season right after this. Since he’s lame, he doesn’t even enter the party, but he does remind the ladies to focus on the important things, like calling him a loser and feeling sorry for Shannon.
The finale music kicks in with eight minutes to go—always an ominous sign of an epilogue to come—as the finale updates are displayed in the form of poorly edited Instagram posts. Love you Bravo editors, truly you’re the best in the bizz, but don’t ever do that again. They looked God-awful.
Thankfully, we don’t end on those weird posts, as Ryan’s FBI scandal blows up the entire finale, leading Bravo to pick up cameras to catch the aftermath. It’s unfortunate this all gets condensed into a five-minute segment, as we deserve to see the entirety of the conversation where Ryan says this is all “the Lord’s plan.” Pastor Ryan would be a great grift. Look into it, king.
Over lunch, Tamra says she feels bad to gloat while gleefully smiling wide and hard, and tossing on an FBI hat in joyous celebration. And finally, Katie and Gina host Jenn for some tough love, lightly urging Jenn to see the light.
“But what part of him is not good for me?” Jenn asks, following a two-season run that exposed how Ryan sent other women d--- pics while they were together, has a proclivity for pursuing married women (for example, Jenn, who was married when he pursued her), has a job Jenn once described as him just sitting around and playing in the sunshine, and is now at the center of a major FBI inquiry that could send numerous people to jail. Truly, what could it be?
Jenn is a real damsel in distress, struggling to accept what’s abundantly clear. She has emerged as the rare heroine on a network full of morally gray women, and hers is an arc that will almost certainly end in tragedy. What could be a better line to sum it all than the final of the season: “I literally fucked it all up.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County is Bravo’s suburban soap opera, where lovestruck women fall under the spell of men with ample red flags, and drama runs rampant behind the closed gates of elite neighborhoods. Whether it’s Lauri Peterson, Lynne Curtin, Gretchen Rossi, Alexis Bellino, or now, Jenn, the consistent motif has always been doe-eyed women in peril, fighting for some level of autonomy they never knew could exist.
Tamra doesn’t deserve vindication after a season of the utmost terror, but she’s right about Ryan, just as she was about Brooks, Slade, and Jim Bellino before. The hierarchy of RHOC has shifted drastically, Tamra ousted to outcast status while Jenn takes the reins, but she won’t stay down for long. That’s just not the Orange County way.
It’s been an amazing season, and what a pleasure it is to say that after many years of uncertainty. The entire cast deserves to take a bow knowing they’ve resurrected a shaky property, proving that the sunny suburbs of California are ripe as ever with mystery. Maybe Jenn will lose it all or maybe she’ll prove love can overcome even the highest hurdles. All I really know is I can’t wait to watch and see.
