Hello! Merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate, and Happy Winter Day (?) to those who don’t! I’m about ready to slip into some holiday cheer in the form of heavily spiked eggnog, so this recap is going to be slightly shorter than usual, ya dig? On last week’s episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Heather Gay got her freak on with a random dude at a party, Lisa Barlow prepared for a Sundance event by pointing at chairs, and Whitney Rose and Meredith Marks’ son Brooks were getting ready for their catwalk debuts at Park City Fashion Week. I’m excited to see the actual fashion show, so let’s get to it!
Up in Park City, the models are putting on their fashions backstage, and we get to see some of Meredith’s jewelry. I gotta say, some of those pieces look really nice! Jen Shah and Heather arrive in ENORMOUS fur coats, and good god, ladies, how many animals have to die for your glam? Mary Cosby shows up in her trusty sequined beret and finds out she is assigned the seat right next to Jen. Womp womp. Mary sculks over to her and remarks, “You look pretty,” and Jen completely stonewalls her. LOL.
The fashion show begins, and Whitney struts out in a fringy, netted boob trap that would be the perfect lewk for a figure skater-turned-stripper. I literally gasped as she descended down the stairs because girl looked like she was about to fall. Next comes Meredith donning a sexy witch costume with a clashing beige underdress, and hoo boy, Park City Fashion Week is off to a great start, guys. Look out Paris and Milan, the mountain folk are nipping at your heels!
After the Housewives hobble off the stage, Brooks marches out all harnessed up like he’s Dieter from Sprockets, with an army of men all wearing the exact same tracksuit. (PLEASE tell me they were playing Trans-Europa Express on the overhead.) Brooks looks strangely puffy in his talking head as he talks about the show, and I’m sadly wondering if he’s already succumbed to the fillers. Jen asks the question that’s on everybody’s mind, “Does one tracksuit make a collection?”
The fashion show wraps up and everyone hits the bar. Brooks and Meredith FaceTime Seth, and the first thing out of his mouth is, “You guys look interesting.” Okay, I called it in the comments section last week, and I’ll say it here now. Every time Seth appears on screen, he looks drunk-as-a-skunk and comes across as a total doofus! There’s just something about his glossy eyes and over-emotionality that registers as I’M DRINKING MY FEELINGS AWAY, but maybe I’m wrong? I don’t know. He’s obviously hurting, so I’ll cut him some slack.
Anyway, Brooks and Seth go back and forth about Seth not being there, and Meredith doesn’t know what the hell to do. Brooks tells his dad, “I am your child asking you to come be a father in my life, and you won’t, so I’m a little bit hurt.” Seth looks like he has serious indigestion in addition to having no idea how to deal with an angry Brooks. Meanwhile, in her talking head, Meredith tells us she feels like a failure. =(
Over at Beauty Lab + Laser, Heather welcomes Whitney in for a facial. Whitney broke out from all the fashion show makeup and needs a freshening up. As a technician pokes and prods at her skin, Whitney hazily listens to Heather explain how her beauty business got started. Heather asks Whitney how her dad is doing, and Mrs. Fresh Face has a shadow of a doubt in her eyes, but she is still hopeful Steve will pull through.
Heather then grumbles about the double standard women have when getting a divorce within the Mormon church. Her ex-husband has it easy and can get remarried without much judgment or consequence, but Heather feels like she’s walking around with a scarlet letter attached to her chest. At this point, I just want to shake this woman and tell her that life after Mormonism is GREAT and to quit wasting time trying to live by other people’s expectations. Fly away, Heather. Be free!
Over at the Shah Chalet, Jen solemnly stares at herself in the mirror. She tells us that with her dad passing away a year ago and Sharrieff being gone all the time, Jen became very depressed and had to go on medication for anxiety and depression. At first, Sharrieff was against the idea of prescriptions, but after several episodes of Jen lashing out, he did a complete 180 and nearly LEFT her because things were getting so bad. The whole family intervened, and everyone ultimately decided that prescription drugs are nothing to be ashamed of. Which is true!
Now we’re at Lisa’s house, and the family gets together to play the most fun game of all: writing their goals on poster boards with markers! Who needs Monopoly when you’ve got a mom like Lisa Barlow, who is literally planning world domination? One thing that’s really striking about this scene is how sparsely Lisa’s house is decorated. Where are the rugs and picture frames, and why does this place look so…institutional? The eldest son wants to get “shredded” so he can get hot chicks, and the youngest one wants triplets…and that is one weird goal for a seven-year-old to have.
It’s Lisa’s turn to share her goals, and she tells the family she wants to expand her empire to the far reaches of the EARTH and to be a better listener to her family. John confesses that about 90% of his interactions with Lisa are work-related, and he would love it if she’d slowwwww down eventually. He tries to talk to Lisa about how business isn’t all there is to life, and she shushes him so she can finish drafting a work text. Lisa wants to build a “billion-dollar brand” within the next five years, and she will NOT feel guilty about it, no siree.
Meredith meets Heather and Jen at Toscano out in Draper. I love that these women actually eat real food, and I’m suddenly hungry for Italian meatballs. Heather and Jen grill Meredith about THE SEPARATION, and they want to know where she and Seth are standing. Meredith says there are a lot of issues to resolve, both within themselves and as a couple. Jen asks, “If Seth was with someone else, would you be pissed?” Meredith keeps things vague and talks out the side of her mouth that she’d just disconnect even more if Seth was seeing someone else.
Jen is annoyed by Meredith’s diplomacy, and she prods some more. “Are you afraid that after you figure out who yourself is, that it’s not with Seth?” Meredith looks more uncomfortable by the second, but she keeps her cool and gives another canned answer about moving forward in a positive direction. Perhaps it’s because Jen is feeling insecure about HER marriage, but she pulls a really sh*tty move and tells the viewers she’s personally heard more about Meredith’s situation with Seth. More on that in a minute.
Now, Whitney is taking Steve — who looks like he woke up on the floor of a bus — and her kids to a trampoline gym. Whitney tells her dad she’s proud of his progress, and she is happy he’s a present grandfather to her kids. Steve has a weird look on his face and mentions his therapist says he’s ready for his next step, which is leaving the program early and finding his own apartment. Whitney looks terrified by this news, and holy cow, why are things so serious in this episode?
At Heather’s house, her daughter Ashley is strategizing on how to ask her boyfriend to a dance, and this took me way back. Elaborate school dance invites were all the rage in Utah when I was in high school, and it cracks me up to see the tradition still alive in 2020. In my freshman year, a guy asked me to a dance by spraying whipped cream all over my parents’ lawn, and boy, were they thrilled! I responded by hanging hotdogs with paper wings all over his porch (“I’ll go to the dance with you when pigs fly, har har.”)
I have no idea why Heather is so worried about her “moral failings” as a mother, because as far as I can tell, she may be one of the best moms in Housewives history. She has a chat with all three girls about her struggles as a single Mormon parent and how she hasn’t been honest with herself for years. She tells us this is her coming out that she wants to leave the church. The girls totally support her, and Heather is grateful she finally opened up. =)
Jen heads over to Whitney’s house for a little pole-dancing lesson. Now, remember Blurbers: Whitney was NOT a stripper. (And to be honest, I believe her. Plenty of people I know have poles in their homes.) Jen half-assedly tries whirling around, but she is concerned about her hair extensions and gives up immediately. Whitney is all, “Nah, it’s easy. Here, watch.” She spins around on the pole so fast smoke shoots off of it, and Jen just gawks in awe.
Whitney asks about Sharrieff, and Jen once again talks about how lonely she’s been, but at least she has a Hitachi Magic Wand to keep her company. Those wands ARE great, btw. Whitney says she has sex four to five times a week, and I must be getting old because that sounds exhausting. Jen asks Whitney what she thinks about Meredith and Seth, and Whitney muses that one or the other might be pushing to end things, but they’re both trying to save face for the kids. (Good guess.)
All of a sudden, Jen blurts out, “If you’re not getting it at home, you’re going to go somewhere else.” Whitney’s eyebrows are sky-high in her talking head, and it’s not just from the Botox. “What is Jen saying to me right now? Is she alluding to the fact that Meredith has a man on the side? That’s a loaded statement to make. You don’t just go around saying that.” Three cheers for Whitney’s common sense!
A producer asks Jen to spill the beans, and she explains that she was at a trunk show in NYC with Meredith, and she overheard some guy talking about how she is the love of his life and that he was going to marry her. “Clearly something was going on.” HMMMMMMMM. Now that is a loaded statement to make. Maybe there’s another guy in Meredith’s life, but it seems really bizarre to me that he’d just tell any random friend that kind of stuff at a trunk show. I need some eggnog to process this news!
On next week’s episode of RHOSLC, John and Lisa argue about work some more, and the girls go snowmobiling. Whitney tells Heather about the bomb Jen dropped about Meredith, and Seth professes his undying love to Meredith at her store in Park City. Stay tuned, and I hope you all have a safe and lovely holiday weekend, Blurbers!
TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE EPISODE? APART FROM MEREDITH, WHOSE MARRIAGE IS IN THE MOST TROUBLE?
