One new battle heats up, one old battle cools down, and Jen Shah is getting nervous about her impending trial on Episode 4 of the third season of “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.” (For the full accounting of this week’s episode, click here.)
1. Jen Shah’s attorney told her to stop getting Botox injected in her face. According to Jen, her attorney told her, “I’m going to need you to not get Botox. ... Earlier, you were talking about something very emotional and you’re crying, but your face isn’t moving. I need your face to move.’”
(Jen later pleaded guilty to the federal fraud charges against her, and apparently resumed getting Botox.)
2. Jen is getting really worried about her upcoming trial. She says she just “had a full-on anxiety attack this morning.” And Heather says, “I think Jen is scared and I don’t think she’s ever really felt fear before, so she doesn’t know how to talk about it and she doesn’t know how to express it.”
(Which may explain why Jen later pleaded guilty.)
(Chris Haston | Bravo) Whitney Rose, Lisa Barlow, Jen Shah, Meredith Marks and Heather Gay are "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
3. The Housewives think that Jen must have a really good defense. “Watching her strength and how confident she is and everything, it makes me feel like she’s going to have a good outcome,” Lisa Barlow says.
Meredith Marks, who has a law degree, says she “cannot fathom that [Jen] is taking this whole thing to trial and doesn’t have a good defense.” But she points out that the conviction rate in the Southern District of New York — where Jen was going to be tried — is 98%. “So her statistics aren’t good here.”
(Which may also explain why Jen later pleaded guilty.)
4. Whitney Rose accuses Heather Gay of pushing her into a wall. Which is not exactly true. As the cousins argued about who lied about tawdry rumors involving Lisa Barlow, Whitney got in Heather’s face and waved her arm at her. Heather pushed past Whitney, pushing her arm out of the way, and Whitney was so unsteady on her feet that she stumbled toward the wall.
(Whitney had been drinking. A lot.)
5. Whitney visits her half-siblings to talk about childhood abuse. She want to talk to them about how they were “manipulated and used and abused.” To date, no details about what she’s alleging happened have been forthcoming. There’s only one person Whitney and her half-siblings share — their mutual father — but nothing is made clear about who allegedly did what to whom.
(Maybe it’s a legal issue for Bravo, but Whitney’s story remains totally vague.)
(Fred Hayes/Bravo) Meredith Marks and Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
6. There might be hope that Lisa and Meredith’s friendship can be saved. After Jen leaves for New York, the other four Housewives are very emotional. Surprisingly, Lisa and Meredith — who have been at each other’s throats — give each other a big hug. In a confessional, Meredith says, “With everything Jen has going on and her trial looming over her head, it gives perspective on letting things go. I mean, nothing is bigger than what she has going on right now within this group.”
(Whether that was just a momentary truce in their war remains to be seen.)
The next episode of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” airs Wednesday, Oct. 26, on Bravo — 7 p.m. on Dish and DirecTV; 9 p.m. on Comcast. Previous episodes can be streamed via Peacock or on demand.
