It turns out that a “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” clip of Jennie Nguyen’s husband suggesting they add a sister wife to their family is not a joke. He’s deadly serious about it.
And Mary Cosby, who was really put out when the fact that she married her step-grandfather became an issue in Season 1, has bigger problems. She’s not happy in her marriage, and she fears a “disaster” is headed her way.
Jennie and Duy
Jennie and her husband, Duy, go to Solitude to go cross-country skiing. They’re having a great time, until Duy once again raises the issue of having more children. Asked why he wants more, Duy replies, “So we can help replenish this Earth right now. This world is in bad shape. It needs more good people.”
Jennie does not look like she’s buying that. Would you?
Jennie argues that they’re both older — she’s 45, he’s “fiftysomething” — and don’t have the energy to deal with infants and toddlers. And she points to her history: “One miscarriage is hard enough for a mom. I went through 10.”
(Nine miscarriages and a daughter who died shortly after she was born.)
“I don’t want to continue to feel like something’s wrong with me,” she says amid tears. Duy says he understands “but deep down inside, yes, I still want more children.”
Jennie believes that has a lot to do with their daughter who died. Earlier in the episode, she told Meredith Marks and Lisa Barlow the baby was “fine” the first hour after an emergency cesarean section. Then her heart rate “dropped and she passed away, and no one knows why. They tried to resuscitate her.” And Duy “was there the whole time.”
Duy eventually told doctors it was time to acknowledge the baby couldn’t be revived. Jennie was sedated, and didn’t know what had happened until the following day. “I think there’s something inside of him that feels like he lost something,” Jennie says, and he was “traumatized.”
Duy confirms that. That was “the worst day of my life. ... Yes, there is an emptiness. … When her birthday comes around, it hurts. I can’t replace her, but I just think that we should have more kids.”
Duy suggests a surrogate, Jennie says no. Same with adoption. “Our life is wonderful right now. Why would you want to change it?” Jennie asks.
“I just want more kids,” Duy replies. Then he drops a bombshell.
“Why don’t we get a sister wife?” Duy asks. He’s not kidding, and Jennie is not happy. “Are you serious right now?” she asks.
”I’m dead serious,” Duy says, adding that such a thing “is not uncommon in our culture. You know, my grandfather had four wives. They all got along. He was able to have a big family and the stories I’ve heard are amazing.”
How this would fit with their Catholic religion is not discussed.
“I know that within our culture, this happens,” Jennie says. “In Vietnam, my dad [had] multiple girlfriends. But is it something I want in my marriage? Hell no! … I am so speechless. I mean, if murder was not a felony, he would have been dead on the snow.”
And when Duy asserts that adding a sister wife is “for our family,” Jennie is enraged.
“This is not about our family. This is about what you want,” she says. “You’re not thinking about me.” She tells him she’s “pissed” and walks away. Duy asks her to come back, but she keeps on walking.
(Bravo) Robert Cosby Sr. and Mary Cosby on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Is Mary’s marriage in trouble?
Mary’s husband, Robert Sr., was in Florida when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country, and “got stuck” there.
“We didn’t think that it would last for an entire year,” Mary says. But it worked no hardship on her. “I loved it. It was awesome. I enjoyed myself. … It has become normal for Robert and I to be apart.”
Watching her scold him about the way he cooks chicken and complain about the kind of rice he makes makes you wonder if the separation worked no hardship on Robert Sr., either.
Mary says she was “super excited” when Robert Sr. first returned home, but she soon started “thinking of places he can go.” And, she adds, “I don’t think we know each other.”
Later in the episode, Mary tells Meredith, whose husband spends a lot of time out of town, “I like the way you guys live.” And that she and Robert Sr. do not share a bedroom, which was his idea. But now, “I don’t know what I’d do without my own room.”
She wants to change Robert Sr. to be a completely different person so he becomes “what I want in him that I don’t get.” And, she says, with big sighs and eye rolling, that it’s “exhausting” waiting for him to hold her, say he’s sorry, be passionate and “just be alive.”
Mary worries that 18-year-old Robert Jr. could be leaving the house soon, leaving her alone with Robert Sr. “You have three pieces of a puzzle and you take the middle piece — the other two are not going to mesh. … Our whole marriage was based on this kid. So it’s almost like I have to relearn this man. And from knowing what I know now, I don’t want to get to know him. And I just see, like, a disaster.”
(Andrew Peterson/Bravo) Whitney Rose on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Whitney is a conspiracy theorist
After Lisa meets Whitney Rose at Onyx Pole and Aerial Fitness Studio in Sandy to swing from the “silks,” the two seem to have reached a truce in their combative relationship. Lisa and her husband, John, invite Whitney and her husband, Justin, to dinner at Nino Viejo in Farmington.
Everything seems to be going great until Whitney realizes that the restaurant’s owners, Aubrey and Marco Niccoli, are the same people who canceled on catering Angie Harrington’s fundraiser back in Episode 4 of this season because “Lisa called Aubrey and made her cancel on Angie,” Whitney says.
If that’s true — and Aubrey, Marco and Lisa all deny it — we didn’t see it happen. Neither did Whitney. She’s speculating, and quickly goes into full conspiracy theory mode. Lisa invited her to this restaurant because she is “just manipulating me and playing the long game to get me here tonight to prove your innocence,” Whitney says in a confessional.
In the restaurant, Whitney loudly and profanely confronts both Lisa and Aubrey: “Are you kidding me? This is so [expletive] staged. … I walked into a trap tonight. Here I was thinking that Lisa wanted to be my friend, and she’s trying to prove a point that she was not wrong. … You brought me here to cover your tracks.”
“I think Whitney thinks she’s on ‘CSI:Salt Lake City,’” Lisa says. And she’s not wrong.
Whitney curses Lisa out for being unable to see events from her conspiracy-theory perspective. And then she waves her arms around weirdly, “fixing my aura, because I really don’t want to yell at you right now.”
It’s totally bizarre.
Whitney then switches gears and wants to make up with Lisa, who she just called a liar. Lisa looks understandably ticked off, but she agrees.
“My ancestors pushed handcarts over mountains, so I think Lisa and I can get over this,” she says. “But I don’t think I can ever fully trust her.”
Whitney is clearly unaware how untrustworthy she is acting.
(Bravo) Jen Shah in "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Jen goes shopping for the ‘girls’
Jen Shah and her assistant, Stuart, go to Baranof Jewelers in Park City to search for gifts for the other Housewives. “I want to show them that I want to just, like, leave everything behind and move forward,” Jen says. “And I feel like I need to do something symbolic. … I like to buy people things. That’s how I show love.”
She considers buying snake rings to symbolize that each woman can shed her skin and “be a better person.” Stuart tells her that giving the Housewives snake rings would be sending the wrong message, and, eventually, Jen agrees. “I feel like a snake ring is not appropriate for me to give the girls because there are some snakes in the group, OK?”
She eventually settles on snowflake necklaces, intrigued by the thought that no two snowflakes are the same. “I mean, take a look at us as a group. We are so different. We’ve got Jews. We’ve got Mormons, Pentecostal Muslims, Catholics. Even with all of our different personalities, we come together as one and we make something beautiful out of that.”
There are a lot of things you can say about “RHOSLC,” but them coming together to make something beautiful is not one of them.
The snowflake necklaces will cost $2,700-$3,200 each, for a total of $16,200-$19,200. “It’s better than I thought,” Stewart says.
(Photo courtesy of Bravo) Heather Gay on "Watch What Happens Live."
Heather talks sex with her oldest daughter
Heather Gay’s oldest daughter, Ashley, has narrowed her college choices to UC-Santa Barbara and San Diego State — which both have reputations as party schools.
“I feel like I’m living vicariously through you,’ Heather says, “because when I was in college, I just wanted to get an education and get married and have kids.” (She went to Brigham Young University.)
And, Heather adds, her parents never talked with her about sex. Heather tries to have that conversation with Ashley.
“I want you to know that when a man and a woman love each other very, very much,” Heather says — and then bursts into giggles and covers her face. She does eventually warn Ashley that the world can be “pretty debaucherous” and to use condoms. “Don’t get pregnant. Don’t get a disease. Love you.”
Jen tries to connect with her younger son
University of Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah and his 16-year-old son, Omar, are working out when Jen walks up and announces she’s going to volunteer at Omar’s school. Omar is clearly not happy when his mother suggests she’ll be able to meet his friends and “repair the connection between the two of us.”
“I want you to tell me, ‘Mommy, yes, I want you to come to the school,’” Jen says.
“But that’s not me telling the truth,” Omar replies.
Sharrieff tries to moderate, but it’s clear Omar doesn’t want his mother taking him to and picking him up from school, hanging around him, and — gasp! — decorating his locker.
“See, that’s too much,” Sharrieff says. “Nobody wants that.”
(Photo courtesy of Heidi Gutman/Bravo) Lisa Barlow at the "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" reunion.
Short takes
NO WORKOUTS • You might think Lisa works out all the time. But — no. “You guys realize I haven’t worked out in nine years, right?” Lisa tells Whitney and the trainer at Onyx Pole and Aerial Fitness Studio. “The last workout I had was labor.”
GOOD GENES • When Jennie says that her husband, Duy, is “fiftysomething,” Lisa says, “He looks so young.” Jennie replies: “It’s the Asian.”
BLACK PEOPLE DON’T SKI? • Mary invites Meredith to play tennis with her at the Rise Athletic Club in North Salt Lake, even though she doesn’t actually play the game. Mary thinks the baseline is the “safeline.” But she does have a cute tennis outfit.
“Honestly, I think that Mary may have come up with tennis because she had the cute Tom Brown look for it and she wanted to wear it,” Meredith says. It’s not really an insult, because it’s true. “I did it for the outfit,” Mary admits.
Mary also says she is not a skier. “You know, Black people don’t ski. … It is true,” she says, comparing Black people skiing to “looking at a mountain trying to find chocolate chips. You won’t find them.”
