We are living through history. One day, we will be telling our children and our children’s children about the sheer magic and unprecedented spectacle that was The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. As Bravo fans, it’s easy to live in the past, feeling nostalgic for the golden ages of these shows that once were and which often feel forever out of reach. Scary Island. Stassi Schroeder slapping Kristen Doute. Nene telling Kim to close her legs to married men. They just don’t make television like that anymore. But wait … they do. It’s often hard to recognize just how iconic something is while you’re still in it, but we simply have to acknowledge that Salt Lake City is operating on a plane occupied only by the greats. It’s pulled off the impossible feat of delivering pure gold for five seasons straight, never once even slowing down to catch its breath.
Just look at how this season ended. Whereas other shows in the franchise sometimes feel like they’re struggling to get enough footage to hit their episode quota, RHOSLC went cameras down essentially mid-fight between Whitney and Lisa. Had they waited for a lull to wrap up the season, they’d never stop filming. That’s why, on Salt Lake, more than any other show, the reunions feel like continuations of unfinished business rather than just a rehashing.
But as we watch them arrive and take their seats, I do have one note. A request to the Bravo gods, if you will. Over time we’ve gotten to see more of the behind-the-scenes happenings at reunions, like watching them get ready and even take their lunch breaks, but what I desperately want to see is the moment each of them are told where on the couch they’re sitting. We catch a brief moment of glee as Angie takes her spot next to Andy, saying, “From benchwarming bitch to first chair,” but I want all of their reactions, good and bad. Something else I would have liked to have seen? The moment Angie and Britani realized they brought the same dress and how that negotiation played out. Sadly, we don’t get any Britani at all this episode, but fingers crossed she’s backstage warming up her singing voice and preparing her announcements for next week.
Our first conversation topic is whether or not Lisa started the rumor that Whitney sourced her jewelry line from Alibaba — a word that we thankfully get to hear Meredith say once again in flashback. Whitney tries to offer an explanation and even cites her tattoo of one of her designs as evidence, pointing out that nobody in their right mind would have gotten an Alibaba tattoo. Well, you never know — put Kyle Richards in front of Morgan Wade’s tattoo gun and anything can happen.
Quite frankly, I don’t care much about where Whitney’s jewelry line comes from. What I care about is Lisa Barlow trying to open an investigation after she was accused of starting the rumor, so the question on my mind is what came of that frantic phone call to Shawn. Unfortunately, it seems like that call might have been the extent of it, and Lisa instead puts the burden of proof on Whitney, pointing out that she never provided any real evidence against her for her to investigate. I’m obsessed with Lisa repeatedly demanding that they “go the distance” and then proceed to do nothing — nobody has ever been more relatable. I just hope they do another drag night next season so we can hear, “Please welcome to the stage … Ally Baba!”
When we start to delve into Angie’s shady remark about Lisa’s parenting, they immediately start talking over each other so quickly that Andy instantly has to use their agreed upon safe words to shut them up. But what Andy doesn’t realize is that I could listen to the beautiful cacophony of these two women speaking concurrently for hours on end. It brings me peace. It’s music to my ears. Not a single word breaks through, just passion. White noise machines should offer it as a setting.
But didn’t we see these two put this beef to bed already? “We did, at the aquarium,” Angie says. I can’t quite explain why, but that sentence made me laugh so incredibly hard. It was so matter of fact, and we did, in fact, see them make up in front of a massive fish tank, but if we take just a couple steps back, it perfectly sums up the gorgeous absurdity of these shows. But that, like most truces forged at aquariums, did not last — largely on account of the extensive back and forths they found themselves in on Twitter.
The genesis of those angry tweets, apparently, was Meredith calling Angie Jen Shah’s backup dancer — a reference to a video they made dancing to “WAP” with Monica Garcia years ago. Hilariously, this appears to be the most offensive thing anybody could have ever said to Angie, short of coming for the Greeks. “I’ve been solo since I was six years old, and I’m nobody’s backup dancer,” she says, adding that she doesn’t even know how to dance. Alright, let’s unpack this. If Angie went solo at the age of 6, what girl group or band was she in from the ages of 1 to 5? On top of that, I love that she was so determined to undermine Meredith’s claim that she rebukes dancing altogether.
Somehow, this all led to Angie tweeting that Lisa’s car was repossessed, which Heather (who, on account of losing her voice, sounds like Harvey Fierstein) points out was information that came from Bronwyn. The thing that annoys me about Bronwyn is her insistence on stirring the pot from the high ground — it’s a very Lisa Vanderpump–like quality. She’ll talk shit and spread rumors but immediately washes her hands of it the second she’s confronted. In this situation, she says that yes, technically, that information came from her — but she was simply telling Angie that she wished people stopped sending her rumors like that. Bullshit, Bronwyn, please just own it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Being messy and being morally superior do not go hand in hand, no matter how hard you try — pick one!
That being said, like Lisa Vanderpump, she is good at straddling that fence. She’s painfully deliberate and calculated in everything she says — but as LVP learned, there’s only so long that can go on before you’re found out. When the conversation turns to the $4 million necklace that many doubted she really bought, cracks begin to appear in her story. She says she almost wore it to the reunion to prove the naysayers wrong but then goes on to admit that she actually didn’t buy it after all, saying she bought a smaller version instead. Huh? Best of all, Lisa chimes in to say that she knows the jeweler (Emma), and according to her, Bronwyn didn’t buy anything at all. We can only wish that something in life will one day make us as happy as Lisa was dropping this bomb.
Bronwyn is so visibly destabilized by this. First, she says it’s very weird for a jeweler to tell someone else what she “did or didn’t buy,” suggesting that Emma might be telling the truth. But my favorite line came after Lisa pulled out the receipts, when Bronwyn simply says, “This is really dastardly of her.” Get Emma in front of a camera immediately. Ultimately Bronwyn doubles down, saying she’ll have to post the jewelry she bought to dispel Emma’s claim, so keep an eye out for that. Maybe she’ll even wear them on WWHL. In any case, the seriousness with which the entire cast takes this accusation isn’t just funny — it tells us so much about the DNA of this show.
What makes this cast work is that no matter how much they may hate each other, they’re united by their distrust of outsiders, and this is the perfect example of that. Everybody immediately is horrified at the thought of this Emma woman coming after one of them in a way that they’re only supposed to do to each other.
Since this entire reunion seems to be The Bronwyn Show, the conversation then turns to the revelation that Lisa happened to know Brownyn’s daughter’s estranged paternal grandparents. But to my surprise, Bronwyn is upset at Lisa about this, despite the fact that Bronwyn was the one who brought it up on camera and Lisa’s handling of the delicate situation all seemed above board. But as it turns out, what bothered Bronwyn was Lisa mentioning on the after-show that the grandparents had told her that they thought Bronwyn had had a miscarriage and thus weren’t aware of having a grandchild at all. Lisa and Bronwyn had talked about that together when they filmed, but Lisa wasn’t aware that Bronwyn had asked production not to include that detail in the show.
This is understandably an incredibly fragile conversation, but blaming Lisa feels absurd. If anything, she was left caught in the middle of this horrible situation of which she wanted no part. When the husbands are brought out at the end of the episode, and Todd gets to say his piece on the matter (in addition to half-heartedly explaining his generally shitty behavior all season), John Barlow rightfully points out that Lisa didn’t bring this story up on camera at all — Bronwyn did. Andy’s attempt to put a pin in this seems to have failed, given that the husbands are picking up right where their wives left off as the episode ends.