RHOC Recap: CultVid-19
Elizabeth Vargas revealing she was raised in a cult is literally the serve of the century. Liz is so weird and I can't get enough of her confusing, mysterious life that doesn't make any sense. The fact that she waited until three-quarters of the way through the season to tell the world she was physically, sexually, and mentally abused in a cult shows how serious this trauma is for her because most rookie Housewives would've spilled that tea in their opening confessional.
Does Liz's story about not having sex with her boyfriend make sense? No. Am I wildly entertained by the queen every time she's on the screen? Fuck yes. I could watch Liz drink vodka and laugh at her own jokes for hours and if she doesn't get a second season I'm going to join a cult myself. Bravo has never had a cult survivor on any of their shows before and I'll be damned if they let this one float away into the abyss.
Orange County and Salt Lake City airing on the same night is wild to me because on one hand we have Elizabeth who is still dealing with her childhood trauma of being raised in a cult and on the other, we have Mary Cosby who (allegedly) is a cult leader in her own right. Both women are so fucking weird because of the trauma they've experienced, yet they're on polar ends of the cult spectrum.
Aside from her cult backstory, Liz won me over with her deep pockets, bubbly personality, and raspy voice. Seriously, if you're a middle-aged woman with a voice that sounds like you've been smoking since you were 14, you're definitely a queen in my eyes. Liz is the balancing comic relief this dark show needs and even though she watched her aunt die at the hands of her grandmother's abusive cult, she's still much lighter than most of the women on this show.
Speaking of dark energy, Braunwyn fucking sucks. Not only is Brown Wind a liar, a hypocrite, and a fraud, but she's also a raging narcissist. This woman ticks all the boxes for narcissistic personality disorder. She was neglected as a child, she constantly victimizes herself, she's had issues with substance abuse, she loves the spotlight and does whatever the fuck she wants without consideration for others. You're also much more likely to become a narcissist if your parent is one and if Dr. Deb isn't a narcissist then Shannon Beador is mentally stable.
Braunwyn used her husband for his tender loving care for the first 20 years of their relationship before she stopped drinking, took a look inward, became a lesbian, and pushed his ass to the curb. Once she no longer needed his care and realized that all she wants to do is eat pussy, Braunwyn slowly but surely started resenting her simp husband during the pandemic. Obviously, she wants to break up with him but she's too codependent to let him go and she's never worked a day in her life, so she also needs to keep him around so he can bankroll her newfound lesbian life.
This mother of seven is growing and changing and doesn't really have any consideration for the people she's leaving behind aka her husband and seven kids. Yes, I get it, she wants to celebrate her newfound sobriety and lesbianism with a bevy of hot beautiful women but she's doing it at the expense of the man who was there for her during her darkest hours. This is a woman who admitted to hitting her husband on numerous occasions and he still stayed around to clean up her drunken messes. As annoying and narcissistic as Braunwyn is, Sean the Simp also needs to take look inward and ask himself, why have I allowed myself to let a monster walk all over me for 20 years?
My main problem with Braunwyn isn't that she's more narcissistic than Jax Taylor during a coke binge, it's that everything she does is contrived to help her own image. Braunwyn thought that becoming "the woke queen of Orange County" would help make her look like a relatable ally but all it did was expose her for the fraud she is. Everything Braunwyn has done for the Black Lives Matter movement is so performative and fake and only designed to give her good PR. While we're on the topic of her acting for the cameras, her helping Liz Vargas through a panic attack in Lake Arrowhead was as authentic as her lips, boobs, and hair.
Braunwyn wants to pretend like she's some woke queen who's an ally to black people and the LGBT community while also being in tune with mental health. Braunwyn helping Liz wasn't to make Elizabeth feel better, it was to boost her own fragile ego and come across the "amazing person" she wants the world to believe she is. Nothing about this woman is genuine and if she thinks opening up about abusing her husband makes her "authentic and real" she's more delusional than Kelly Killoren Bensimon on Scary Island. All that did was reveal that she's an absolute cunt and if it had been the other way around Sean would've been off the show in 5.3 seconds.
At this point in the season, nobody believes a word this woman says. She dramatically storms out of rooms to make a point of not talking shit about Shannon but then proceeds to, you guessed it, talk about Shannon. She says she only wants to be around "authentic" women but will then lie about everything in her life. She comforts Liz on camera but then doesn't give a fuck about her behind the scenes. Brauwyn Windham-Burke is faker than a lambskin dildo and although her problematic personality has given this show 90% of it's content this season, she's also annoying as fuck.
Are Braunwyn and Shari lesbians or just best friends who live together? I don't need specifics on if the two have scissored or not but it would be nice to know what the fuck is going on between these two. If Shari was a straight woman, I don't think she'd be ditching her kid multiple times a week to have sleepovers with a woman who wants to fuck her. Just saying. Braunwyn strikes me as someone who has a "new best friend" every few months and goes in way too deep, way too fast. Pun definitely intended. There's no real depth to this woman and her "friends" who popped up this week are definitely just trying to get themselves an orange.
Aside from Braunwyn's narcissistic personality and Liz's cult storyline, the only other thing happening this season is Shannon going through relationship issues. What's new? I am so fucking over Shannon Storms Beador. Everything she does is so obviously produced for the cameras from her screetchy voice to her ordering "organic headboards" for her daughter's dorm room. Shannon claims she doesn't want any toxicity in her life when she is literally the walking embodiment of a toxic person, and not in the good Britney Spears way.
All this feng shui bullshit is definitely her way of "keeping up with her brand" on the show because she's known as the cooky mom who hides crystals in her basement for good luck. Shannon is definitely passed her used by date as a Housewife and if Tamra doesn't return next season to ruffle her feathers then Shannon has no purpose on this show. One thing I never want in life is a drunk call from Shannon Beador at 11pm on a school night and the fact that she's calling all the women behind the scenes to vent about her clusterfuck of a relationship is just embarrassing. Tamra deserves a medal or at least another RHOC contract for putting up with those drunk midnight calls for years.
Shannon definitely has a drinking problem and although she's blaming the pandemic for her excessive alcohol intake we all know she's been doing this shit for years. She drinks, reacts, yells at the people around her and looks like a fucking idiot. To me, the only reason she apologised for her aggressive behavior to her boyfriend was because she knew the other women had spoken about it on the show and she wanted to do some damage control.
Although Shannon has become more annoying than a hyperactive fly, I'm still on her side with anything regarding her beady eyed ex-husband because David Beador created this monster and I'll be damned if he gets her money when she's dead. However, let's be real, this is a woman who flaunts her $1.4 million divorce settlement and rents a house in Newport Beach to keep up with the Joneses, so does she really have that much money to give him anyway?
If anyone's home is sad and depressing on this show, it's definitely John Janssen's. The layout confuses me and from the outside it literally looks like a harbor front shed with a modern interior. I'm sure it's the best house in John's price range and all the power to him for that, but if Shannon spent most of quarantine at this house she definitely can't be throwing stones at Gina's home. John told Shannon he never tires of her which is bizarre because he must be the only person walking this earth who feels that way. Shannon is fucking exhausting and being in a relationship with her would be like running a marathon through hell every single day.
By the end of the episode, it got back to Shannon that Gina had been telling the group about her troubled relationship with John. Of course, Shannon got defensive but isn't the point of this show for the women to talk about each other? Shannon's just pissed because she didn't want her relationship issues coming up on camera but that's what happens when you call every cast member shitfaced at midnight to vent about your shitty relationship. Put down the tequila and pick up your phone to make an appointment with a therapist because if anyone needs therapy, it's Shannon Storms Beador.
