MISERY LOVES COMPANY

‘The Real Housewives of Orange County’ Reunion Goes to the Gutter

“The Real Housewives of Orange County” have set forth intentions to leave the Season 18 reunion in a place of love and light. Thankfully, that’s not going to happen.

The Real Housewives of Orange County are the best in the reunion business. No matter how mundane a season, these women go to the gutter each year to dig up the most salacious dirt in order to feed our depraved minds.

With the OC renaissance in full-swing, the Season 18 reunion proves the show is only going up from here. Don’t be fooled by the intentions set by the Housewives—things are as toxic as ever. Coalitions have shifted as the season has been airing and the most surprising emergence is the full-force vitriol coming Katie’s way.

Gina, Emily, and Heather are aligned for the first time in years, shifting their ire on Katie and her alleged lies. Maybe she lied about owning a home in San Diego. Maybe she lied about planning to move to San Diego. Maybe she used Sutton Stracke and left her with thousands of dollars in bills. Maybe she imprisoned an innocent man over a road rage incident in Georgia. Huh!?

Whether it’s true or not, Katie gets a real shellacking, held to account for each and every inconsistency in her life. Little do these ladies know that exposing Katie as a pathological liar is simply giving her a ticket to a second season.

“Nothing about you adds up. I think there’s a story for everything and I think you have absolutely no credibility,” Heather tells her. This feels very Bronwyn Windham-Burke in the sense that Katie’s debut season was rather mild, yet the cast-member her peers seem to see is entirely different from her on-screen display.

Is Katie going to emerge as a hellacious villain with a passion for obscene mistruths? One can only hope.

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The argument almost immediately devolves into a deeply uncomfortable place as Katie’s alleged road-rage incident is rehashed. Discussing whether police have an implicit bias and capacity to lie is simply not territory most Housewives have the nuance to discuss, especially by a group of white ladies whose dismissal of Katie veers in a highly unsavory direction.

Heather telling Katie that “falsely accusing people is kind of your thing” will simply hang like an albatross around her neck, recoloring all her actions both past and present.

That said, evil villain Heather is always her most intriguing characterization. Cutting off Katie’s every word, digging up damaging dirt, and rail-roading her foe rather than offering a mundane apology is part of the Heather Dubrow appeal. It takes a pro to go through a season-long hate-train by the fans who formerly loved you and come into the reunion holding your ground. Heather’s actions may be malicious and outright uncomfortable, but I will always advocate for a woman’s right to choose to be hateful.

As for Katie, there does seem to be more than meets the eye. Between her custody battles, the horde of damaging articles, and her sniffing for ammo on Heather a year before joining the show, she simply isn’t a one-note character free of nuance, either. The Katie vs. Heather arc wasn’t anywhere near the highlight of the main season, but here, it has emerged with potential to define the next season.

Meanwhile, the central feud of the season, Shannon vs. Tamra, has lost a good bit of luster. Tamra doesn’t have the fight in her she once did, absorbing the hate Heather let slide off her and entering the reunion with her tail between her legs. This isn’t the same Tamra who followed her Season 9 takedown with a reunion where she coined “THAT’S MY OPINION!!” and made Lizzie Rovsek cry from vicious bullying.

Instead, Tamra doesn’t want things to be toxic anymore. She regrets lambasting Shannon at every turn and accusing her of alcoholism. Is this the hilled Tamra, or is this the Tamra who’s a bit too online and aware of the podcast industrial complex that has doomed Gen Z boys to incel behavior and reality stars to constant damage control? Time will tell.

Shannon has entered the reunion fully aware of her star status, and it’s a remarkable place to be in when contrasted with her DUI happening just 10 days before filming began. Perhaps it’s even more staggering given we watched Shannon drink at almost every filmed event and she ended the season a drunken mess fighting with an innocent house-husband.

A calmed Tamra is one Shannon doesn’t really want to go up against, as the facts laid out bare simply don’t favor Shannon. The reunion supercut that shows Shannon’s drinking has emerged as a talking point in six of the last nine reunions simply can’t be placed on Tamra. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that we’ll be discussing her drinking at the Season 19 reunion, too.

Tamra vs. Shannon has just reached a point where they’re both so wrong that there’s not even a path to being right anymore. Sure, Tamra was the only one slinging hate all season, but the two have reached a point of neutrality. Shannon doesn’t need to fight back when the fans and her fellow castmates vindicated her all year while touting Tamra as an irredeemable villain. The reunion is an epilogue to a foregone conclusion, and Tamra has resigned herself to that defeat.

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While those two are down for the count, Jenn still has resolve in her—and thank God for that, given her life has gone up in flames. Ignorance truly must be bliss. Jenn skips through life so unaffected by the material conditions around her, something that leads her castmates to get more upset about her life than even she does.

Blaming herself for Ryan’s alleged involvement in the Shotei Ohtani scandal being uncovered is so indicative of Jenn’s mindset that absolves men of all culpability. Thanks to Emily, though, we get a pretty good rundown of Ryan’s actions, and he certainly isn’t what I’d describe as innocent, nor was he unknowing. All alleged, of course.

Presented with such clear evidence that her fiancé is morally corrupt at best and a total grifter at worst, Jenn simply refuses to reflect. She can’t stop for a second to accept it, instead opting to deflect by telling Emily she’s heard that her in-laws fund her whole life. That aligns Jenn with the rest of her castmates in spending their reunion segment slinging accusations in the other direction while negating their own involvement in the mess around them.

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It’s simply a funny turn of events when the only Housewife offering an apology is Tamra Judge, and it’s safe to say that’s about as genuine as Ryan’s “innocence.” It’s a nice sign that The OC ladies aren’t trying to pander or make nice, instead enjoying life in the gutter. The place for resolve is not the soundstage where magic happens—at least not yet. Save it for Part 3.

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