The Real Housewives of Orange County Recap: Life of a Showgirl

The Real Housewives of Orange County
Suite & Sour
Season 20 Episode 6
Editor’s Rating ★★
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Over the years, we’ve seen many ways the ladies can figure out how to share rooms on a trip. There was the Ramonja method, in which they’d scurry into the house, tear through it like a pair of show ponies with diarrhea, and immediately choose the nicest room. There was Adriana de Moura’s method in the Hamptons, which entailed getting naked in a bathtub to mark her territory. There was whatever the hell Taylor Armstrong was doing when she zipped herself up in a suitcase in Camille Grammer’s Aspen home. But mostly that has been replaced with different games or drawings or pissing contests so that everyone doesn’t just ransack the house for the best room. 

The room selection when the O.C. ladies finally get to Las Vegas is one of the strangest I’ve ever experienced. First, there is Gina and Emily — the only pair of Bravo besties who don’t have a couple’s name like “the Green-Eyed Bandits,” “the Bros,” “Frick and Frack,” or, as noted above, “Ramonja” — who always room together, and Heather Dubrow does not like it one bit. Why? She says it’s because they sit up all night debriefing and talking about each other. Um, yeah. Isn’t that, I don’t know, the entire show? Aren’t they in their suite doing their job? Heather says she’s not the only one who has an issue with this, and both Tamra and Jenn whisper about it behind their backs, but Fancy Pants is the only one woman enough to actually bring it up.

Then there is what is going on with Shannon Storms Beador, who has crystals in her teeth and cobwebs in her skull. (Luckily, they were burned out when she got some kind of lymphatic drainage wearing a bikini made out of McDonald’s napkins.) She gets the worst room in her three-room suite with Jenn, the host, who got the biggest room, and Heather, who got the second-best room by taking her shoes off in it and refusing to move. (This is how I get the best seat on the subway.) 

Shannon, however, will not be put in a corner. She complains that she can hear the elevator through the wall so that every time it stops on their floor, the ding of the arriving car is right behind her headboard. Thankfully, the editors give us copious evidence of this not happening whatsoever. Then she says there is radiation coming out of her room and she’s not sure why. I think it’s because the Hulk jizzed on the mattress when the whole cast of The Avengers stayed there on their last press tour. No one wants to sleep in that. Shannon basically complains so much that Jenn, a sweet baby angel straight from a Hallmark Christmas movie, offers to change rooms with her. Lo and behold, Shannon has stormed her way into a Beador — I mean boudoir.

Before the ladies even get to Las Vegas, there is some drama back in the O.C. Emily is changing her children’s rooms, which apparently requires an interior decorator. Vicki and Shannon go to lunch with Heather and her mother, Carole, who tells the crew that she was far too attractive to be a doctor when she was younger and didn’t want to take a spot away from a man. She also insists that she is always right, is a little bit haughty, and loves to make herself look better than everyone else. It’s so nice to see the apple literally sitting next to the tree. 

The craziest scene in the O.C., however, is between Carmella and her boyfriend, Danny. He cheated on her four years ago, and she says he still lies to her about all sorts of things, large and small, so she’s never at ease. I would like some examples. Is he like, “Yes, I got milk,” when he didn’t, or is he like, “Yes, I paid the rent,” when he didn’t? She says, “I’m never getting over it. I might get through it, but I’m never getting over it.” Then you need to leave. Sorry. That’s just it. If it’s been four years and you’re not going to forgive him and the relationship is still in tatters, then it’s time for her to pack up and find someone else who is not going to break her trust in matters small (milk) and large (rent). 

The ladies fly off to Vegas and immediately meet a pink stretch Hummer limo and a woman named Bri from Girls Night Out Getaways. I don’t know if Bri is an actual person or the sleep-paralysis demon you see after watching too many #BamaRush TikToks before bed. She takes them right to a Vegas Showgirls Boot Camp experience, where the ladies put on too much makeup, too few clothes, and just the right number of feathers. This is a little hard to watch, mostly because Vicki’s makeup looks like she is Marie Antoinette from an alternate timeline in which she lived to a ripe old age and sold insurance. Also, Emily injured herself in an e-bike accident, so between her and Vicki, we now have two members of the squad hobbling around like peg-legged pirates. 

After some awkward choreo, we see the room-selection madness with everyone a little ticked at Gina and Emily for once again rooming together. (What should their couple name be? Whoever has the best suggestion in the comments wins a prize.) Heather mentioned she didn’t like them sharing during lunch back in the O.C., but that doesn’t stop them from still shacking up like a pair of love-sick college kids. The ladies are right: The greater issue is that Heather doesn’t have a buddy. Gina has Emily, Tamra has Vicki, Shannon has Jenn by process of elimination, and Carmella has the eight dildos that her cleaning lady threw away because she thought they were possessed by evil spirits. Shannon purports to be Heather’s buddy, but it’s a pity buddy, which is the worst kind of buddy. She is both literally and figuratively apart from all the ladies. She lives 90 minutes (if you’re lucky) north in Los Angeles; she has more money, more kids, and more haughty airs than everyone else. While the rest of the crew seem like real friends, Heather seems like she’s clocking in. Sure, she may have a different attachment style than the other gals, but if that’s the case, it’s hard for her to always be put out when everyone else is paired up. 

That doesn’t mean the buddies are always getting along. Gina is mad at Emily for telling Carmella that Gina had an issue with her getting Emily a Dior bag for her birthday. I’m sorry, but Gina is right to be mad about this. Emily was on the phone the next day telling Heather how weird it was that Carmella got her a bag. Then the next time she sees Carmella, she’s all, “Gina has an issue with the bag. Not me. I love it. But Gina. Ugh. You know how she gets.” Yeah, that’s totally sacrificing Gina for something that she felt too. However, when Gina confronts Emily about it in their shared room (and they think it’s all eating popcorn, watching Murder, She Wrote reruns, and trashing the rest of the cast) and Emily sees how it was bad, they get over it quickly and they’re back to besties once again.

At dinner, Gina tells her she doesn’t like that she got mad at them for sharing. She says Heather tries to micromanage everything — Shannon makes a similar claim when it comes to room selection — and she doesn’t like that Heather is trying to control how she acts on a trip. Heather acknowledges Gina’s boundary; she says she’ll stick to it, and the conversation is over. Well, isn’t this nice and mature? Sorry, ladies, but that’s not what we’re here for. Can we squabble over this for the next 14 episodes like the ladies of Beverly Hills would? Thank you! 

But there are a couple of other fights at dinner. Gina is pissed at Shannon because she tries to talk to Carmella about the bag stuff, and Shannon keeps speaking up for Carmella. It happens again at dinner when they ask where the extra vibrators went, and Shannon answers for Carmella. This is a rare case where I think both of them are right. Shannon was trying to have Carmella’s back in the fight since she’s new and doesn’t have an ally. She’s making sure that her voice gets heard, and I think that’s admirable of Shannon (even if she is using Karen Huger’s oldest trick, which is cozying up to the newbies). Gina is also right that if Carmella wants to have relationships with the ladies and a place in the group, she needs to speak up as well. Carmella says, in confessional, that she sees both sides and is grateful for both of them for bringing it up. She also says, “I have respect for Janet,” which is just how she says “Shannon,” and for a second I thought she was friends with Janet Caperna from The Valley and that would make her possibly the only person on earth.

To end dinner, Jenn, who is hosting the trip so she can show the ladies all the places that Ryan got busted by the FBI while gambling, gives Shannon her room so that she doesn’t have to hear the invisible elevator all night. Right there at the Caramella restaurant, only one letter away from our newest cast member, Shannon takes her Ketel One and soda and raises it to the sky. She takes a sip, thinks of her aura, the electromagnetic pulses, the ley lines beneath this hardly ancient city. She thinks of the vibrations; she thinks of the sound bowls; she thinks of the native bones, buried so far under these colossal structures that they will never see day or light or oxygen or the Blue Man Group. As they all swirl around her, a spiritual symphony, she doesn’t thank a single one. This is the room that was always meant to be hers.