Viewers find out why one of the “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” was removed from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: She had an affair with her brother-in-law. And she and another Housewife allege that the church is sexist, in the latest episode of the Bravo series, which debuted Tuesday night.
While shopping with Heather Gay at Name Droppers Designer Consignment Clothing, Monica Garcia says she was “pretty much raised in the church” from the age of 5, when her mother converted. “I was married in the temple,” Monica says. “Then I was excommunicated.”
“For?” Heather asks. And Monica replies, “For [expletive] my brother-in-law for 18 months.” She clarifies that she had an affair with the husband of her husband’s sister.
“OK,” Heather says, looking somewhat stunned. Monica adds, “And you thought you were a bad Mormon.” (Heather, of course, authored the best-selling autobiography “Bad Mormon.”)
Monica goes on to say that she “felt guilty,” so she confessed to her bishop. She was excommunicated, but her brother-in-law was not. “They never excommunicate the men,” Heather says with a wry look on her face.
Monica says that, “genuinely and truly,” it was “one of the worst experiences of my life, because I really did feel so bad. … I just was shunned from everything and everyone and literally unwelcome everywhere. … And just to see him not go through that …”
“Yeah, and get the complete different treatment,” Heather says. “I feel that for sure.”
(Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that Whitney and her husband, Justin, had an affair with each other while they were married to other people. Justin was excommunicated; Whitney was not. She later resigned her church membership.)
Monica is in the midst of getting divorced from her husband for a second time. She doesn’t specify when she was excommunicated — during the first divorce or the second.
(Brett Colvin | Bravo) Monica Garcia and Meredith Marks on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
More about Monica
This is what else we learned about Monica, the newest Housewife, in this week’s episode:
• Monica, in a confessional, tells viewers she is 50% Colombian and 50% Portuguese, “and it really shaped who I am now — feisty, feisty, feisty.”
She was born in Boston and moved to Utah 10 years ago, followed by her mother, Linda, and grandmother. They live three minutes away from her “and it’s actually turned out to be the best blessing, because my four girls are able to know their Portuguese great-grandmother. … We’re all just one big, crazy, dysfunctional [Portuguese] family.”
• Monica and her mother fold baby swaddles, which she sells through her company, Brea Baby. (The company also sells baby blankets and crib sheets.)
During her marriage, Monica “never really had to worry about anything, because I had a spouse completely support me.” Although her company “started as kind of a hobby,” it has “completely turned into a lifeline for me and my daughters.”
• Monica hasn’t seen her father since she was 4 years old, when he walked out after a “huge fight” with her mother. “I don’t know if he’s dead. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if I have siblings,” she says. “All I know is that he was gay and he had a boyfriend and he moved to Florida, and that’s the last time we saw him.”
• Monica tells her mother, “I have to tell you something,” and Linda immediately thinks her daughter is expecting. “I’m not pregnant!” Monica exclaims. “You have to have sex before you get pregnant, the last time I checked. It’s been a minute.”
The real news is that Meredith Marks has invited her on a girls’ trip to Palm Springs, and she needs her mom to look after her children while she’s away. “I’m good for two hours,” Linda says, “and then my head starts to swell.”
• Monica is “nervous” about the trip and thinks she’s “a little out of my league” because she doesn’t have a lot of money or expensive things. She did buy a handbag at the Louis Vuitton store in the City Creek Center, she says tearily, “because I just feel like I want to have something, like, nice around them.”
She says her style is “more of, like, spit up on my shirt. And probably goldfish in my hair.” (Presumably, she means the crackers, not actual fish.)
(Fred Hayes/Bravo) Meredith Marks and Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Meredith and Lisa make nice
The former BFFs-turned-mortal enemies take a walk on the Jordan River Trail in Taylorsville and try to mend their differences. Although neither is ready to trust the other.
“Yeah, I’m definitely going to be cautious moving forward,” Lisa says in a confessional. And in a confessional of her own, Meredith says she’s “a little bit ambivalent about seeing” Lisa, although she wants to make “an attempt at a fresh start.”
For new viewers, or old viewers with short memories, the editors insert clips of Lisa and Meredith screaming at each other. Including a clip of Lisa’s notorious hot mic rant, when she called Meredith a “garbage whore” and suggested she’s had sex with “half of New York.”
Meredith acknowledges that “we both made mistakes” and “both have regrets.”
In a confessional, Lisa says there are only a few people she trusts — starting with “anyone that signed an NDA,” who she ranks above her husband — but she thinks she’ll “make an exception” with Meredith because “we have a lot of years behind us.” Lisa apologizes — again — for the hot mic rant: “I know my words hurt you and it made me feel horrible.”
Meredith says she’s sorry she “made a reference to rumors being out there about you” — rumors that Lisa was trading sex for business deals. Meredith goes on to say, “I miss having, like, our families together and doing fun things.”
Lisa says, “A lot has changed and I don’t expect it to ever be the same,” Lisa says. Meredith agrees: “I don’t think it can be the same. I think we can just hope for the best moving forward.”
Whitney vs. Heather
Heather invites Whitney to join her at Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville, about 67 miles north of Salt Lake City. It’s the first time the two former BFFs have gotten together in months, and it’s awkward. “It’s kind of like relearning how to ride a bike, maybe,” Whitney says. “Like, it’s a little wobbly.”
Their conversation soon turns to a Housewife who isn’t there: Angie Katsanevas.
Heather says that, although she’s known Angie since 10th grade, they’ve “never been close” and she has “trust issues” with her. “I do remember that [Angie] won best sense of humor,” Heather says. “You know, I always feel bad for the girls that peak in high school.”
Whitney, on the other hand, says she really likes Angie and has “a lot of fun with her. She’s a fun friend for me.” Heather shoots back, “I think that she is fun until she’s not.”
(Brett Colvin | Bravo) Whitney Rose and Heather Gay on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Flashback to the brunch Heather hosted in the previous episode: Heather overhears Lisa talking about her son, Jack, who’s about to go on a Latter-day Saint mission. “It’s weird to me,” Heather says. “I’d just be curious to know what his motivation was.”
She recounts her own decision to go on a mission — how she and a friend didn’t have boyfriends so they decided to go “and then the next thing we know we were in the temple making death oaths.” Promising to die, that is, before revealing what goes on in the temple, complete with a throat-slashing motion. (The gesture and the vow are no longer part of the temple ceremony.)
In a confessional, Heather — who has resigned from the church — says, “Lisa loves to tell people she’s Mormon, but I don’t see any Mormon coming from Lisa Barlow. All the Mormons I know wear their garments, go to the temple, pay their tithing, abstain from coffee, tea, alcohol and cigarettes. She owns a tequila company! She drinks Lisa-tinis and has signature cocktails!”
Heather is 100% right when she says, in a confessional, that Jack will teach standard, strict church doctrine on his mission. And she might be right when she says Lisa may not be “prepared for … who he might be when he comes home. And I think she’s in for a rude awakening.”
Whitney, who has repeatedly expressed her displeasure with the church — from which she also resigned — seems put out at Heather’s comments. In a confessional, she says, “it’s a terrible idea for Heather to insert herself into Lisa’s son’s life choices, especially regarding religion. Like, just because she wrote a book doesn’t give her the right to tell other people how to do it.”
She’s not wrong, but Heather hasn’t done that. At this point, she’s just expressed an opinion to Whitney.
Meredith and Seth are in love
Although a major plotline in Season 1 concerned the marital difficulties of Meredith and her husband, Seth, that’s now a thing of the past.
“Everything with Seth is fantastic,” Meredith says in a confessional. “Obviously, nothing is perfect. I mean, there are times where I say, ‘Can you please just be quiet for five minutes?’” (A thought many viewers share, no doubt.)
Although the couple has gone “through the wringer,” she said, they are “now we’re happier than ever.” So they’re starting a podcast about relationships — titled “Hanging by a Thread” — to “help other people.” Because who doesn’t want marriage advice from these two?
What we see of the podcast is Meredith trying to dislodge something that’s hanging out of Seth’s nose. He encourages her to “pick it.” When he finally gets it out, he says, “I think it was an onion. The onions from the caviar got everywhere.”
Who doesn’t want advice from these two?
(Discovery+) "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" are traveling to Palm Springs, California, and staying at the Trixie Motel.
A trip to Palm Springs
Meredith is planning a girls trip to drag queen Trixie Mattel’s motel in Palm Springs, California. She plans to invite Heather, Mary Cosby, Lisa, Whitney and Monica.
“Hopefully we have fun. Hopefully. I don’t have to lock everyone in their room for bad behavior,” Meredith says.
She’s not inviting Angie. Intentionally.
At Angie’s house
Angie is making food for her husband, Shawn Trujillo, and their 12-year-old daughter, Elecktra — who is playing with their standard poodle, a white dog whose ears, tail and feet have been dyed pink.
In a confessional, Angie says she started assisting in a hair salon when she was 19, and Shawn caught her eye: “Good looking, muscles, and he could do my hair? It was love at first sight.” And 30 years later, they own 10 hair salons and a cosmetology school.
(Fred Hayes | Bravo) Shawn Trujillo, Elektra Katsanevas and Angie Katsanevas on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
She ranks the most important things in her life as (1) her daughter; (2) her business; and (3) her husband. “Let’s hope he’s smart enough to know that. … If he sits around long enough, he’ll be back in the front seat again,” Angie says.
Angie seems unaware that Heather doesn’t like her. She tells Shawn that things have been “odd” between them. She recounts meeting Heather when they were 15-year-old high-school students. “She was, like, a really good student … and I was, like, not. I was more wild.” They “connected” because they were both “funny, witty, sarcastic. … We had a lot of fun together. And we’ve gotten far away from that.” She’d like to rebuild a friendship with Heather.
Heather does not like Angie
Heather tells Monica she’s known Angie since high school, but quickly makes it clear she doesn’t like her: “No, we’re not close at all. I don’t want to have anything to do with her. I hope she’s not coming to Palm Springs. Meredith said she wasn’t inviting her. … Yeah, I don’t like her. … I think she seems just catty and jealous and not anyone that I want to invest any time with.”
In a confessional, Heather says, “My feelings have been really hurt. She said horrible things that she knows aren’t true.” Specifically, that (during Season 3) Jen Shah gave Heather a black eye during a sexual encounter between the two women.
(Randy Shropshire | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas and Heather Gay on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Whitney and Justin and Angie and Shawn
The two couples go to dinner at Emigration Brewing Co. and bond. Whitney says that she and her husband have “realized that we’re not very good communicators.” Justin acts surprised that Whitney admitted that.
Angie does not look happy when Shawn says that, what with the busy lives they lead, “you wake up one day and you’re, like, ‘Where’s my spouse?’” According to Angie, that’s because their 12-year-old daughter is sleeping between them in their bed.
In a confessional, Whitney says, “I’m stopping myself from wondering when or where they have sex.” Clearly, she’s wondering about it. But she is, at least, stopping herself from asking about it.
Whitney asks Angie if she’s going on the trip to Palm Springs. Angie knows nothing about the trip. And she has no idea why Meredith didn’t invite her. “I have been nice to Meredith when I’ve seen her,” she says, adding that her employees did the hair for Meredith’s charity fashion show (seen in Season 3). “Yeah, we lost a third of [our] revenue in one location” because of that, Shawn says. (He doesn’t specify, but presumably he’s talking about a single day’s revenue.)
Angie thinks Meredith and Heather “are trying to ice me out.” So Whitney invites Angie to accompany her on the Palm Springs trip, and Angie accepts. Longtime viewers will recall that Whitney has often been accused of stirring up trouble, which she has always denied.
(Brett Colvin | Bravo) Brooks Marks and Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Geography challenged
As Meredith is packing for Palm Springs, her son and daughter — Brooks, 23, and Chloe, 21 — are helping her decide what to take. “It’d be kind of sick if, like, you swam in a surf suit,” says Brooks, an aspiring fashion designer. “It could be a vibe.”
Meredith tells him she doesn’t own a surf suit, and Brooks says, “Well, I’m sure you can find one in Palm Springs. Don’t people surf there?”
No, Brooks, they don’t. It’s about a two-hour drive from Palm Springs to the nearest beach.
Mary is clueless
She calls the Trixie Motel and asks, “Do you guys have 2003 Dom Perry-on?” (That’s how she repeatedly mispronounces Dom Perignon.) She pulls a face when the answer is no. And she acts disgusted when she learns that the motel doesn’t have a big menu — a full bar, with pizzas and a cheeseboard.
“Pizza?!?” Mary exclaims to her son. “And they don’t have Dom Perry-on. OK. Who doesn’t have Dom Perry-on?” She’s under the impression that all motels have the champagne, which tends to sell for $250 or more per bottle.
(Bravo) Mary Cosby offers surprising insight into Whitney Rose's motives.
Heading for Palm Springs
Meredith is put out when Whitney texts her that she’s taking a different flight. “This is supposed to be a reconnecting, trust-building trip,” Meredith says, “and it’s definitely odd and kind of annoying that Whitney chose to go at a different time on her own.”
Whitney does not reveal that she has invited Angie. The two of them arrive at the motel and are greeted by Trixie. “I think it’s a funny, cheeky way of marking my territory,” Whitney says.
The missing ring
Lisa loses a ring in a restroom in the Palm Springs airport. It has great sentimental value because her husband gave it to her. And it’s worth $60,000. She and the other Housewives look for it for 45 minutes without success. “What a [expletive] to start this trip,” Lisa says.
Not surprisingly, Mary is totally snotty about what happened. In a confessional, she says — with a sour look on her face — “I don’t think that ring was worth that. First off, I don’t think it’s worth $60,000.” Apparently, she’s now a jewelry appraiser.
In a confessional of her own, Monica opines that “somebody stole that” ring after Lisa dropped it. “It’s at the pawn shop. … It’s gone.”
(Nicole Weinagart | Bravo) Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" Season 2 reunion.
Heather offers her own explanation: “I think it was Colonel Mustard with the plunger in the third stall from the back.”
Monica gets more and more annoyed because she can’t afford a $60,000 ring, and she’s tired of hearing about it. “That’s why they say, ‘More money, more problems,’ girl,” Monica says.
Lisa repeats that the ring has sentimental value. Heather jokes, “I feel very sentimental about anything over $10,000.” In a confessional, a producer asks Heather what’s the most expensive thing she ever lost. After a bit of a pause, Heather replies, with a laugh, “My dignity.”
At the motel
Whitney is “fully aware” that, by bringing Angie, she is “poking the bear,” she says.
“I’m lighting the match. Throwing it in the fire,” Whitney says. “But if we’re going to build trust, then we’ve got to burn down this house and start over.”
(Meredith Andrews | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas and Whitney Rose in an upcoming episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Before the other women arrive, Whitney and Angie tour the motel. Whitney chooses the biggest room for herself. Angie is happily contemplating how mad Meredith is going to be: “Imagine Meredith’s face when she sees me. The one person you didn’t want here is here!”
“Is Heather going to be mad?” Whitney asks. And when Angie nods her head yes, Whitney smiles.
The episode ends with Meredith, Lisa, Heather, Monica and Mary entering the motel, while Whitney and Angie wait inside. The scenes-from-next-week preview make it clear huge arguments are coming.
The next episode of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” airs Tuesday, Sept. 19 on Bravo — 7 p.m. on Dish and DirecTV; 10 p.m. on Comcast. Episodes start streaming on Peacock the day after they air on Bravo.
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