Shannon

**Shannon** is a character in the television series *Hoops* voiced by Natasha Leggero. She is Ben Hopkins' estranged ex-wife who is now seeing Ben's friend Ron.

## Character

Shannon is Ben’s estranged ex-wife. She’s got a history of impulsive behavior and rash decisions but has straightened up her life since leaving Ben and is focused on making her horse farm a success."

## History

As a young girl, Shannon was just as rude and foul-mouthed as Ben became an adult. When Shannon first encountered Ben, he was a polite, mild-mannered boy. Hearing Ben's story of how he had been rejected for the basketball team by Coach Singleton, she encouraged him to lay into him and he found it liberating. Becoming peas in a pod, the two grew up and married each other. However, one day when supposedly going on a "milk run," Shannon visited a local saloon and put on a performance riding a mechanical bull. Then, stone drunk, she wrecked her car on the way back home and the family farm along with it. She had to work off the damage she'd done to the farm, then she realized she needed to turn her life around and couldn't do that with Hopkins in her life.

## Plot summary

### The Pilot

Hopkins goes to Shannon, begging her for money to pay for a hooker to get Matty laid, and telling her that she's still his wife until he signs the divorce papers. She doesn't give him the money and tells him they're not getting back together. She later bails him out of jail after he gets caught outside Matty's house with the prostitute, Connie.

### My Two Dads

Hopkins his shocked to discover that Shannon is hanging out with his father, Barry, having adopted him as a sort of surrogate father. In retaliation, he adopts as his own surrogate father an old guy in a wheelchair that he believes to be her father and brings him to a wedding that she and his father are attending. However, the man turns out to actually be Willy Rothbart, the man who bought her parents' old home. Rothbart dies on the spot at the wedding.

### Ethics

Shannon gives a eulogy to her deceased horse, Zipper, but it keeps getting interrupted by the incompetent drivers she has hired to take away Zipper's corpse. Shannon later helps Principal Opal to get a deal to sing at Barry Hopkins Steakhouse, but it does not go well.

### The Sponsor

Shannon, Kirk and Ron are upset about Hopkins and how he always seems to get away with the lies that he tells. They decide to set out to catch him in one - about having sex with a woman named Tina Fitzsimmons. They pay a visit to Tina and discover that she has a son, Gunnar, who looks, talks and acts a lot like Hopkins. They bring the boy to Hopkins claiming that he's his son, at which point Hopkins tells them that he was indeed lying and he never actually had sex with Tina.

### Matty Gets a Girlfriend

Principal Opal calls Shannon to sob over a boyfriend who has just broken up with her. The two get together for sympathy and a movie, and Shannon also has a one-sided phone conversation with Hopkins about how to get a high school girl to break up with her boyfriend. Later, after making a big mistake in splitting up Matty and his girlfriend Wendy, Hopkins brings Matty over to Shannon's place. There, he gets her to show Matty a videotape he made of himself singing a song to her in order to win her affections. Things, however, get weird when they get to the second part of the tape.

### Zen

Shannon is holding a birthday party for Ron, and is shocked to see Hopkins outside, as her present to Ron was to *not* invite Hopkins. To everyone's surprise, when Hopkins enters, he doesn't get angry about not having been invited, then tells everybody that he forgives them. He wishes Ron a happy birthday and exits, leaving Shannon to wonder just who it was, not knowing that Hopkins recently attended a life-changing therapy session. Later, however, after Hopkins goes back to being his old self, she admits that the party was kind of boring without him.

### The Strike

When the teachers of Lenwood High School strike, Shannon gets annoyed with Ron for not mentioning it to her. He, however, tells her that he did mention it about a half-dozen times and she just wasn't listening. Later, Ron wonders if Shannon's relationship with him is simply a rebound for her.

### Death

At a wake for the recently deceased Coach Singleton at Lenwood High School, Shannon complains to Hopkins that her lawyer called and told her that he yet again wouldn't sign the divorce papers. He says that they shouldn't have to get lawyers involved, that he doesn't want to pay for it, and she shoots back that she's the one paying for all of it. She says that his not signing them is his warped way of thinking that they're going to get back together, but it's not happening. Trying to brush her off, he tells her to have respect for the dead. Later, upon learning that a therapist named Dr. Brooks supposedly told Hopkins that the two of them should get back together, she goes to the therapist. She tells the therapist a lengthy personal story about her past and is satisfied when the therapist agrees that Shannon is way wealthier without Hopkins. Outside, Shannon finds Hopkins painting her truck red, something he calls a "grand gesture." Angered, she demands that he signs the papers, but he says that if he does, it's officially over and he's still in love with her. She ends up threatening to run him over with the truck, but when they both see Dr. Brooks exiting the school, they end up going to her. She then relates a personal story of her own to them, only for them to call it "boring" and then she gets run over by a man trying to deliver food to Hopkins.

### The Road Game

After missing the bus he himself hired to take the Lenwood Colts to a regional conference in Cincinnati, Hopkins comes to Shannon begging her to give him a ride, as she's also heading there to celebrate her birthday with Ron. She reluctantly gives in. It is soon like old times, with Hopkins being a jerk and the two of them getting lost. They end up getting lost in traffic and a disastrous shortcut forces them to pull over to the side of the road to ask for directions. However, Shannon goes inside to use the restroom and Hopkins gets distracted taking photos with someone and the car gets stolen. The two walk for miles in the rain, angry at each other, and end up at a restaurant and saloon named Tinhorn's. There, Shannon puts her past to good use, setting a record on a mechanical bull in order to win them a prize big enough to get them out of there. Unfortunately, the prize turns out to be two hats, two mugs of beer, and gift certificates for $200 that are only redeemable at that restaurant.

Afterwards, Hopkins laments to Shannon that the conference was his chance to finally be taken seriously. They apologize to each other, agreeing that the night together was actually kind of fun. Hopkins then pulls out an envelope, which he says is his birthday gift to her - the signed divorce papers. Shannon is so touched by this gesture that they have sex standing up in one of the hotel's closets. The two finally arrive in Cincinnati, having hitched a ride from one of the people at Tinhorns, only to learn that the conference was canceled due to all of the players being covered in severe chemical burns because of mischief by the Colts.

### The Scout

Ron is brokenhearted, Shannon having left him. However, when Hopkins makes his big move to try to get back with her, she tells him that she doesn't want to get back with him either. Later, Shannon hangs out with Principal Opal, admitting that she feels really good to be free, but at the same time, she feels kind of guilty as well. Opal puts together a big bonfire, into which she suggests that Shannon put anything of Hopkins's or Ron's in order to help get over them. Later, the two get into an argument when Opal tries to push her back out into the dating scene. They finally make up, Opal admitting that she was coming on too strong and Shannon forgiving her because she knows she was just trying to help. Later, Hopkins leaves town with his star player Matty to become an assistant coach at Henderson Prep and Shannon is on cloud nine that Hopkins is finally gone and out of her life.

## Quotes

"*I don't give a fuck what you're cool with, that's why I left you, loser.*" - Shannon to Ben Hopkins, "The Pilot"

## Appearances

Shannon appears in the following episodes:

## References

1. ↑ *Deadline*: ‘Hoops’: Premiere Date & Teaser For Netflix’s Adult Toon Series; Rob Riggle & Others Join Cast by Erik Pederson. July 20, 2020.