“Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member Whitney Rose does not think it’s “natural to be married and monogamous,” and she seems to come to a realization about her husband in the Nov. 21 episode of the Bravo series.
Elsewhere, Heather Gay plans a pioneer-themed party; Lisa Barlow and Monica Garcia are still at each other’s throats; Angie Katsanevas is determined to work on her troubled marriage; and Meredith Marks’ husband makes still more crude comments.
Nothing in common?
Angie and her husband, Shawn, go out to eat — their first date in two years. “It’s like a first date,” Angie says. “Like, what do we say to each other?” They’re busy with their daughter and running their business, so “it’s like we’re together. But it’s like we’re not really together. When I’m alone with you sometimes I felt like [a] loss for words.” So they insult each other’s taste in music. (Really.)
(Charles Sykes | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas and her husband, Shawn Trujillo.
“It’s been two years since you and I have been alone,” Shawn says. “You know, we kind of lose the relationship stuff. … We’re not connecting on a relationship kind of level.”
They agree they need to spend more time alone with each other.
Angie and Whitney talk husbands
Angie and Whitney meet at White Horse Spirits and Kitchen in Salt Lake City, and the conversation quickly turns to the “date” Angie just had with her husband. Angie say it was “awkward” because their daughter wasn’t with them, and Whitney says, “I experience that, too.”
Whitney says that when she and Justin were first married, he “came home to a home-cooked meal, wife in lingerie under the clothes.” She was “like the 1950s” housewife, and she “loved it. But then I wanted more.” Now they have kids and both have careers, and there’s a “void” in their marriage.
Whitney says that on their anniversary the previous November, she and Justin “asked each other … do you still want to do this?” Her response was, “I don’t know.” In a confessional, she says, “We are not the same people that we were when we got married 14 years ago.” She’s “no longer a stay-at-home mom” and she’s “more outspoken.”
In what might not be a good sign for her marriage, Whitney tells Angie, “Justin hates when I say this, but I don’t think it’s natural to be married and monogamous.”
In an apparent attempt to back her up, Angie says, “Animals don’t stay with the same mate their whole life unless you’re a duck. Did you know that?”
“I thought ducks would be sluts,” Whitney says. And she’s closer to correct than Angie is. There are animals that mate for life, but ducks are not monogamous.
(Charles Sykes | Bravo) Seth and Meredith Marks on the "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" Season 3 reunion.
Meredith and Seth and Whitney and Justin
The Markses invite the Roses to be guests on their all-about-marriage podcast, “Hanging by a Thread,” and Whitney quickly takes the opportunity to “apologize for commenting on your bathtub” in an interview she gave to Page Six. Seth quickly takes the opportunity to be tacky: “Would you like to take a bath with us?” (Ick.)
Meredith assures Whitney and Justin that asking them to join the podcast “doesn’t mean that your relationship is currently hanging by a thread.” Whitney says, “People are delusional if they don’t think marriage is hanging by thread every second.” And Justin agrees.
And then Seth gets tacky again. He wants to know the “craziest place” the Roses “ever had whoopee.” Whitney’s answer is tackier still: “The one time I hid under [Justin’s) desk and got caught” by the head of HR at the company where they worked. (You will, no doubt, recall that Whitney and Justin had an affair when he was her boss and they were both married to other people.) Seth laughs and applauds, saying, “You guys are authentic AF.”
Seth asks what the hardest thing the Roses ever went through was, and Whitney says it was the death of Justin’s father. Because Justin couldn’t be there (for reasons that are not shared), Whitney was holding” her father-in-law’s hand “when he passed. ... We put his mom and dad’s hands together. It was like the real-life ‘Notebook.’ Because that’s what you do for your partner.”
Whitney says that it was “easy” for her to “step up in that moment, because he steps up for me every day.” In a confessional, she says Justin supported her through the difficulties with her drug-addicted father, her siblings and her mother.
And maybe she has a bit of a revelation: “The [expletive] that I put that man through, just me working my own stuff out, most people would’ve left. Like, technically, I should be on husband seven.”
Doesn’t know what her father looks like
Monica’s 17-year-old daughter, Bri — who’s wearing a Davis High School football T-shirt — is texting her prom date when Monica hauls out old photo albums. Including one that has pictures of her being crowned prom queen. Bri is not enthused: “Oh, lord,” she says in a pained, teenager tone.
(Meredith Andrews | Bravo) Monica Garcia in an episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Monica has a “special” album she gives to Bri — it’s full of photos of Monica pregnant with Bri, along with photos of Bri’s biological father. According to Monica, after her father walked out on the family when she was 4 — never to be seen again — her mother, Linda, destroyed all the photos of him. “I don’t even know what my dad looks like,” she says. And because of that, she wanted to make sure Bri has photos of her biological father.
In a confessional, Monica says she “got pregnant very young” and married Bri’s dad. But after he left for work one day, she “could hear [Bri] playing with something. And it was a clear plastic bag full of OxyContin. In that moment, I grabbed my daughter, and I never looked back.”
Monica goes on to say that she started dating Mike — the man she’s getting divorced from for a second time — when Bri was 1 year old. And Mike adopted Bri. “I don’t want you to ever feel like how I felt,” Monica says, “which was like a whole part of me is missing.”
Planning a pioneer party
Video chatting with her oldest daughter, college freshman Ashley, Heather says the book signing (seen in last week’s episode) was “really, really cool” and that she and Lisa had a “big reset” in their relationship — they’re getting along better than ever.
Heather says she wants to organize a luncheon, “but I want it to be, like, a spin-off of the Mormon thing. … Like a homemaking night but not homemaking.” (Until the name was changed in 1999, Latter-day Saint ward Relief Societies organized monthly “homemaking meetings.”)
Heather wants to do “pioneer crafts” and eat “pioneer comfort foods.” In a confessional, she says she wants the gathering to celebrate the “fun, kitschy aspects of our culture. What Lisa would call embarrassing aspects of growing up Mormon. Nothing gives me more pleasure than forcing Lisa to face traditional Mormonism and participate in Mormon handicrafts.”
(Good thing they’re getting along, right?)
(Fred Hayes | Bravo) Heather Gay and Lisa Barlow in an episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Lisa hits a rock
Lisa drives to Heather’s new house in Sandy, and scrapes the lower side of her Porsche along a landscaping boulder on the edge of the driveway. She is not pleased: “Is it bad? Did I ruin my car?” And she sort of screams when she sees the car is going to need to be repaired.
Lisa goes to the front door and, after she hugs Heather, the first thing she says is “I just hit your rock.” Heather says, “I want to have that removed.” Lisa replies, “You need to.” (Or … Heather could invite only people who know how to drive with out hitting big boulders to her home.)
“This is not how I wanted to start this new chapter in my relationship with Lisa,” Heather says, “having her slam into the boulder. I don’t even know if my homeowners’ insurance is activated yet. I’m going to have to, like, start a GoFundMe for taking out her Porsche.”
Lisa feels better when she learns that Heather has ordered Wendy’s hamburgers, chicken nuggets and fries for lunch. “Me and Heather are in a new phase in our relationship,” Lisa says. “Like, she’s doing everything right. She’s got all my favorite treats here.”
They talk about Lisa’s son, Jack, and his upcoming Latter-day Saint mission in Colombia. And then Heather says she went out with Monica — whom Lisa can’t stand — and learned that Monica has family in Bermuda. Heather wants to plan a girls’ trip there.
According to Heather, she told Monica, “You have to apologize” to Lisa for the trip to be possible. According to the video, Heather actually told Monica, “You have to make up with Lisa.” But Monica agreed to do that. And they plan to announce the trip at the pioneer luncheon.
Heather assures Lisa that this is not “a bitch move” and that she’s not trying to cause problems between Lisa and Monica. “I don’t care if she’s there,” Lisa says, looking very much like she does care. “But she’s not my problem. I don’t even need an apology from her. Like, I’m just not interested.”
Heather’s pioneer lunch
She’s excited about her event at Quiet Meadow Farm in Mapleton, but the other Housewives express no enthusiasm for wearing bonnets and aprons, making butter by shaking cream in Mason jars or making dolls out of handkerchiefs. “I want these prima donnas to feel a little bit of the grit that created the state of Utah,” Heather says in a confessional.
Monica arrives and calls out, “Hi, Lisa!” in a friendly fashion. Lisa does not respond or even acknowledge her presence. In a confessional, Monica says, “I woke up today and decided to choose peace. So … yay. Happy to be here.”
The episode was filmed in April, and Heather says that “reminded” her that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded April 6, 1830. “And so I wanted to have some fun today and focus on the fun aspects of that heritage.”
In a confessional, Heather says that “these types of crafts are deeply embedded in our culture.” The butter churning isn’t going well, so they move on to the doll making. That’s a bit more successful — at least they finish them, crude as they might be. Speaking of crude, Monica names her doll Molly Mormon, “which at one point I was. And now she bears a scarlet letter” (a red A) “to remind all the good other pioneers on the trail … that this is really what the church is about, which is forgiveness and welcoming the black sheep into the fold.” She’s looking at Lisa as she says this.
As Monica has mentioned multiple times, she was excommunicated by the LDS Church after she had an affair with her brother-in-law.
(Fred Hayes | Bravo) Monica Garcia, Heather Gay and Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
An unfortunate game
Heather tells the other Housewives that the menu is “created around pioneer comfort foods” — ribs, cornbread, macaroni and cheese and funeral potatoes. Which aren’t exactly pioneer food.
“I’m only a quarter of the way through the Book of Mormon, but I’m pretty sure in the sacred texts there’s no talking about cornbread, mac and cheese and ribs,” Lisa says. (The Book of Mormon narrative ends about 420 A.D., long before 19th-century pioneer times. But it’s unlikely that Mormon pioneers ate mac and cheese and funeral potatoes as they crossed the plains.)
Lisa says she’s never had funeral potatoes before; Monica says she loves them. Angie goes even further: “I love Mormon food. I thought Greek food was good. This is actually really good, though. It’s really flavorful, right?”
Again, with the exception of the funeral potatoes, this is not exactly traditional Mormon food. Whitney agrees: “I think this is the modern take. They probably just killed a deer and ate it.”
Heather proposes they play a “pioneer favorite” game “called Who’s On Your Wagon.” She tells the other women to “imagine you’re on a wagon train. You’re crossing the plains. The oxen are worn. You’re at Winters [sic] Quarters. The snow and early winter storm has come in. And our wagon has too much weight. So one person has to go. Who do you throw off your wagon?” (There is, of course, no evidence this was a “pioneer favorite.”)
Heather asks Lisa to answer, and it goes just as badly as you might expect. “Well, I’m a big supporter of women,” Lisa says. “So I would keep everyone but the one that’s the nastiest to women. So Monica, you would have to go just ‘cause you’re mouthy and mean to women.”
“Oh my God,” Monica says, “That is so nasty,” They argue back and forth, with Monica once again childishly mocking the way Lisa speaks.
Heather is unhappy. “One of the main goals of this brunch is for Monica and Lisa to make amends so that we can go on this trip without all of this tension,” she says in a confessional. “And Lisa opens up with ‘nasty to women.’ Could she have said something a little softer? Like — we’re scared you’ll sleep with our brother-in-laws [sic] or something that we could have come back from?”
Monica goes after Lisa for saying, in a previous episode, that “no one wants to be her mother. Clearly.” That came after Monica childishly told Lisa she didn’t have to listen to her because, “You’re not my mother.”
Lisa points out that Monica said her mother is like serial killer Ted Bundy. “And anyone that could talk about their mother like that will never be your friend,” Lisa says. Bundy “used to kill people, have sex with them, decapitate them and eat them. That’s nasty.”
Bundy kidnapped, raped and murdered a lot of women — he collected some of their heads and had sex with their corpses — but he wasn’t known to be a cannibal. “I’m not up to date on all my serial killer facts,” Whitney says in a confessional, “but I’m pretty sure it was Jeffrey Dahmer that ate people, not Ted Bundy.”
As the arguing gets louder and meaner, and Monica gets more and more out of control, Heather, Angie and Whitney all try to calm her down. “You’re being crazy,” Heather says. Angie gets up and throws her butter-making Mason jar on the ground, smashing it, and yells at Monica, “Be quiet for a minute!” Monica replies, “Their hypocrisy is, like, next level.”
(Presley Ann | Bravo) Monica Garcia, Angie Katsanevas and Heather Gay in the Sept. 19 episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Can there be peace?
Heather pulls Monica aside, asks her why she got so out of control and reminds her they were going to announce a girls’ trip to Bermuda. “I’m not going,” Monica says through tears.
Heather is surprised. “Why, what’d she say that hurt you?” she asks. Monica is stunned. “What?” she asks. “Were you not at that table?” But Heather says she thought Monica and Lisa were going “tit for tat. It was both of you guys. Equal.” Monica strongly disagrees: “It was all of you against me!”
It’s the biggest surprise of the episode when Lisa comes over to Monica and apologizes. Sort of. “If you need for me to acknowledge that your mom’s not nice to you, I’m sorry,” Lisa says. But she makes it clear in a confessional it wasn’t really about Monica: “The bottom line is Heather put a lot of effort into this lunch and this trip she planned for all of us. And if it means, like, talking to Monica and, like, working this out, I’m willing to do it.”
Monica is noncommittal about accepting Lisa’s apology. “I’m just going to apologize for saying you were ugly. I didn’t mean that.”
Lisa suggests they “just take a deep breath [and] move forward.” They return to the table, and Heather announces the trip to Bermuda. Monica appears not at all interested, even saying, “We’re all going home to hell. To [the] Devil’s Triangle, where we all belong.” And then she cries some more. “I’m done. I’m spent. … I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go.”
Heather wonders why Monica is showing “totally different energy … and now you’re crying and acting like we all came at you.” Monica keeps quiet, but lets loose in a confessional: “I always really wondered why Jen [Shah] never had anything nice to say about Heather and Lisa. And now I know exactly why.”
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