In our quest to find the villain of this season on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” the other shoe dropped on the final reunion episode of the show and it was an $800 Ferragamo loafer paid for by Shannon Storms Beador with her ex-boyfriend Johnny J’s foot still in it.
The main arc of the 18th season of the “Housewives” show that launched the franchise involved a love triangle, or more accurately a love-hate triangle, between Shann, her ex John Janssen, and his new girlfriend Alexis Bellino, a former housewife brought back this season in the supporting role of friend of the housewives.
Shannon and John had been a couple on the show for four years or so but broke up in September 2023 when Shannon, leaving a fight at John’s house, crashed her car and was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Two months later, John hooked up with Alexis at the Quiet Woman restaurant in Corona del Mar one night, they began dating, and by the end of the season were engaged.
Shannon really didn’t want to get back together with Johnny J, as Alexis decided to call him, but could not escape him, or Alexis, after John filed a lawsuit seeking $75,000 for what he said were loans to Shannon and she said were gifts. (Earlier this week, after taping the reunion show was finished, Shannon and John settled the lawsuit.)
And that brings us to the last of three reunion shows where Bravo host Andy Cohen finally brought Alexis out to chat with the other housewives, though in reality we got a shouting match between Alexis and Shannon with various other housewives acting as a Greek chorus of insults and snark.
You might be wondering how Johnny J, who after costarring on the show for years was barely seen this year, became the villain. Well, you have Andy and the Bravo team to thank for that. First, by taping interview segments with Johnny J and Alexis beforehand, and second, by reassembling the production crew 36 hours after the reunion shoot ended when a brand-new bombshell of information exploded.
First, the show, a lot of which can be summarized like this:
Alexis starts to talk, Shannon cuts her off. Shannon starts to talk, Alexis cuts her off. Alexis refers to Emily Simpson and Gina Kirschenheiter, who are Team Shannon, as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
If this sounds like babysitting a roomful of toddlers hopped up on juice boxes and Red Vines, well, you’re not entirely wrong. But then, Andy shows the first Johnny J and Alexis clip.
In it, John says he had been single for a year before he met Alexis, which elicits a GIF-worthy shot of Shannon’s reaction. She and Alexis begin arguing over how long John’s break was between his two housewife honeys.
Shannon has receipts — texts from John two months before he met Alexis in which he tells her he loves her. Alexis argues that Shannon had been downgraded from girlfriend to friend with benefits.
“Did he ever ask you to be his girlfriend again?” Alexis says to Shannon with an I-got-you smirk.
“What, are we in kindergarten?” Tamra mutters.
In a second Johnny J and Alexis clip, he says she asked him for money to help pay her bills and it was clear that she understood it was a loan.
“Wow,” Shannon says in shots cut into the clip of John. “(Bleep). This is insane.”
And then, the topic of John’s videotapes of Shannon on the night of her DUI, which Alexis had ominously said might become public at some point, is raised. John says in a third clip that he never intends for anyone to see them, that the night of the accident was traumatic for him and his two adult children in the house, and that the only person he would ever show them to would be Shannon if she wanted to see how she behaved that night.
“She has called me a monster on the show,” he says. “If she wants to see what a monster looks like, she can view the videos.”
A new round of shouting breaks out, beneath which Shannon softly says, “I have videos, too. Four years of them.”
Alexis leaves, and after a bit more discussion of all that came before, the housewives all seem to be on Shannon’s side, with Katie Ginella and Jenn Pedranti, who were the friendliest with Alexis this season, acknowledging that Alexis had not handled the situation well this season.
Shannon and Tamra, who had feuded most of the season, hug it out and tell each other they love each other. Tamra apparently had been making sympathetic eyes at Shannon during Alexis’s pillorying of her earlier in the show, and Shannon appreciated the gesture.
It feels over but then the words “36 hours later” appear on a black screen, and we surface at Emily’s house where she is talking with Gina.
“Seven months she’s had that piece of information and she drops it after we film the reunion and they turn all the cameras off?” an exasperated Emily asks Gina.
“I’m happy that this coming out,” Gina replies.
Dedicated viewers, and if you’ve made this far in the season and the recaps, you are definitely dedicated, will remember that when the gang went to Aspen, Shannon shared with Heather a photograph of her post-accident bloodied face, and told her how John had not come to check on her after the crash outside his house.
Heather, Shannon and Tamra join the other two, and the other Ferragamo drops.
Five months earlier — Emily was off a little — Heather and Terry Dubrow, Tamra and Eddie Judge, and Alexis and Johnny J had all gone to dinner after wrapping the shoot for the pre-reunion finale.
At that dinner, John acknowledged for the first time to any of the housewives that he had heard Shannon’s crash, and was going to go check on her until one of his adult daughters told him not to.
“He said there was an altercation between you and him,” Tamra says, and then leans over to whisper into Shannon’s ear — and her clip-on mic — “He said you hit him.”
Shannon says she has no memory of that. The others reassure her that just as she’s taken responsibility for the accident by pleading guilty to the DUI, so she will accept responsibility for having punched John as she continues to work to improve herself.
“It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person,” Gina tells Shannon.
“At the end of the day, Shannon, you’re a human being,” Tamra adds.
Shannon tearfully expresses her love and gratitude for Tamra, Heather, Gina and Emily, and with a big group hug the 18th season of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” comes to a close.
“This tragedy is bonding us together,” Shannon tells them as the credits roll over the pig pile of hugging housewives.
“But you have got to get better taste in men,” Gina says, to which the Greek chorus says amen.