‘Real Housewives of SLC’ recap: Meredith can’t enjoy Bermuda because she doesn’t have a bathtub

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City head for their much-anticipated trip to the Caribbean, and Day 1 there is not super surprising: There’s lots of fighting, and Meredith Marks is utterly obsessed with her lack of a bathtub.

Oh, and there are accusations that one of the women might be in the mafia.

As the episode begins, the Housewives are preparing for their trip to Bermuda. Monica’s mother was born there, and Monica herself spent time on the island when she was growing up.

They’re not just packing. Monica is bleaching her mustache. Meredith asks her son, Brooks, to check the weather for her; he ignores his mother. Whitney packs Heather’s book, “Bad Mormon.” She tells her husband she’s “excited to finally go to the country with my friends.” But it’s “hard” because she’s “irritated” with Lisa, who did not comfort her the way she wanted to be comforted in the previous episode after her best friend died.

The women arrive at Salt Lake City International Airport, each with a ridiculous amount of luggage, and fly off to Bermuda. They each take a sleeping pill; Meredith takes two by mistake ... maybe.

They land in Bermuda, and it’s gorgeous. They get on a shuttle van, and Meredith asks the driver to turn up the heat because she’s cold. Heather countermands her, telling the driver, “Do not listen to Meredith. She’s not in charge of this trip. Monica and I are.” Monica gives Meredith a blanket to cover her up, and Heather jokes, “This is what happens when I give you a Xanax before a flight.”

In a confessional, Whitney says, “I don’t know if it’s the sleep aid she took on the first flight or all of the cocktails she drank on the first flight. We all took the same sleeping pills, but then Meredith took it twice on accident.” She’s using air quotes, so maybe she’s implying Meredith took two on purpose?

Meredith says she thinks “maybe I’m getting sick. I’m so cold.”

A room with no tub

The Housewives arrive at the house, which is large, gorgeous and on the beach. There’s a private bedroom for each of them. Five of them rush to stake their claims.

“Racing to pick rooms? Seriously?” Meredith says in a confessional. “Just give me a room with a bathtub and then they can go play their little games.” She ends up in the only room that doesn’t have a tub, just a shower, in the bathroom.

Meredith is “not feeling great” so she’s going to “take a little rest.” Whitney asks which room she’s in, and Meredith replies, “I don’t know, whichever one was left without a bathtub.”

In a confessional, Heather says, “The trip is ruined. Meredith Marks does not have a bathtub. So we might as well go home now. Pack your bags, kids.”

Is Whitney helping Lisa be her best self?

Whitney tells Angie that she texted Lisa after their fight at Meredith’s event in the previous episode, and that Lisa never responded. “It took me years to break through to Lisa,” Whitney says in a confessional. “I feel like me being that positive person in her life was the pivotal moment, and she became this better version of herself.” But now she feels that “all of that is out the door.”

Heather and Lisa sit down to eat lunch together, and Heather asks about Whitney’s efforts to help Lisa be a better person. Lisa is shocked by this.

“She said she is proud of you,” Heather says. Lisa asks, “For what?” Heather replies, “She’s, like, helping you be intuitive and healing and coaching you and how to not react to things. … You’re becoming a better person.” Lisa keeps saying, “No, no,” and she is clearly unhappy.

In a confessional, Lisa says, “Give a girl a crystal and next thing you know, she thinks she’s the Dalai Lama. And now she’s thinking that, like, hanging out with her makes me a better person? You’re not the messiah, Whitney. Maybe you should go back to church and find out who Jesus actually, really is.”

Meredith really wants a bathtub

Monica turns the thermostat up to 80 in Meredith’s room, and she’s warm enough to continue complaining that her “feelings were hurt” because she didn’t get a room with a bathtub.

In a confessional, Meredith gets more dramatic than usual: “If one of the other women were sick and needed to get into bed and also loved their bathtub, I would have made sure that they had somewhere comfortable to go. But you can’t give me a decent room with a bathtub when you know I feel like I’m dying right now.”

In a confessional, Monica says she’s “concerned” about Meredith, “but not enough to give up my room.” Heather says, “I don’t take baths, so I feel a little guilty, but that’s what I consider my dirty clothes hamper.” And Lisa isn’t giving up her room either. “I understand that Meredith has an obsession with bathtubs, but I have an obsession with views. And I have one and I’m not giving it up.”

The producers send a medic to check on Meredith. He decides she’s dehydrated, and hooks her up to an IV.

Rum tasting

Heather hires a bartender who provides a rum-tasting on the beach. She’s joined by Lisa, Monica and Angie; Whitney is late (more on that below); Meredith isn’t coming because she’s still not feeling well.

Monica says in a confessional that she “just recently started drinking in my 30s. I never had a sip of alcohol or anything until I was excommunicated” from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because she had an affair with her brother-in-law.

Heather says that Meredith is “trying to rally” from her illness. In a confessional, Lisa snarks, “Now we know why Meredith was so good at churning butter [at the pioneer-themed lunch]. She really knows how to milk things.”

Up in her room, Meredith is still prostrate in bed, while she’s having her makeup done. “I don’t even really know what’s going on,” she says weakly, “other than, somehow, I’m the only one who cares about a bathtub, and I have a room with no bathtub.”

Another bathtub confrontation

While riding in the shuttle van to go to dinner, Meredith confronts the other four women. “You all saw that I was white as a ghost,” she says. “Covered in blankets in the middle of an island. Very ill. I said I’d like to warm up. I’d like to take a bath. And somehow I got shoved in the one [room] without a bathtub. And I just feel that it might have been nice knowing, as sick as I was, that you might have thought. ‘Oh, let’s give her room in the bathtub.’”

Lisa asks who Meredith expected to give up their room. Meredith won’t say. But, she contends, this “exemplified” how she gets no respect from them.

In a confessional, Heather says, “I don’t know if Meredith checked the itinerary for this trip, but there’s absolutely no time for a leisurely soak in the bathtub.” Cut to a clip from two hours earlier of Whitney leisurely soaking in her bathtub, which is why she was late to the rum tasting. “If any one of you were sick … if the thing you needed was a bath. I would make sure that you had that room,” Meredith says, haranguing them.

In a confessional, Heather says, “Less than an hour ago, Meredith was on death’s door. And now she’s pouncing on us like she drank from the fountain of youth. I want to know what was in her IV and how I can get some.”

Back on the shuttle, Angie correctly points out that Meredith was making “snarky comments” about Heather “laying on her back and spreading her legs” while they were exploring the house. Meredith deflects that; a clip shows that’s exactly what she said. And Meredith correctly points out that that is what Angie said to her when they were fighting a couple of months earlier. This sets off another fight between Angie and Meredith, who go at each other.

Angie, once again, says that Meredith threatened her family. Meredith, playing a semantics game, once again denies that. (Even though it’s true.) The fight grown louder and more intense, while the other women, and the shuttle driver, look increasingly uncomfortable. “If these two women don’t stop talking about this,” Monica says in a confessional, “I’m about to threaten both of their families, and then we’ll really have something to talk about.”

Angie says Meredith is “low and dirty.” Meredith says, “Don’t talk to me about low and dirty. You are the lowest and dirtiest.” And in a confessional, Meredith adds, “It gets to a point when you’re accused of something over and over and over again, you may as well do it.” (That’s definitely a threat.)

Angie says she’s “tried to be cordial” with Meredith and “move forward.” Meredith says that “maybe you should sit down with me one-on-one,” and Angie agrees.

Two fights in one

The women arrive at a restaurant and order food and drinks. Angie asks if everything is OK, and Meredith complains about the bathtub situation again. “I was trying to express my feelings and saying I was hurt. And if I don’t tell you guys, you can’t be cognizant of it.”

Whitney takes that as a cue to go at Lisa again for hurting her feelings. “I needed you as my friend to just love me and support me for losing someone who I love deeply,” she says. But Lisa isn’t in any mood to listen to Whitney complain — she says she “was on eggshells” with her. Whitney complains more about how Lisa hurt her feelings. Lisa says she’s sorry about that, but in a confessional, she adds, “To me. it feels like she’s looking for somebody to, like, take her grief out on instead of, like, grieve with her.”

Lisa tells Whitney she treated her terribly at Meredith’s event, and the two argue with increasing volume and venom. And Lisa is clearly ticked off at Whitney: “I guess you had a conversation with Heather where I’m self-absorbed and you’re helping me be a better person.” Whitney at first acts like she doesn’t know what Lisa is talking about, and then she turns on Heather, with whom she has never really made peace after their friendship turned to acrimony in the previous season. “Why are you meddling in my friendship” with Lisa, Whitney asks.

This sets off another loud argument — Whitney vs. Heather and Lisa. “You’re trying to make it so that she’ll be mad at me right now,” Whitney says. Heather retorts, “I can’t make her be mad. You think I have any control over her at all, in any way, shape or form?”

Lisa vents her frustrations at Whitney for her recent behavior, and repeats, “I felt like I was on eggshells with you.” Lisa says she is an “[expletive] bulldog. I, like, [expletive] can take everybody out and I temper myself. I quiet myself. I change the way I am around certain people because not everybody can handle it.” And, in answer to a question from Whitney, she says she tempers herself around her because she loves Whitney.

Whitney insists that she’s been put in the middle of Lisa and Heather’s fight over religion; they dispute that. (And viewers have not seen that happen.) In the midst of this big fight, Meredith says to Angie, “At least it’s not us.” They clink glasses.

Whitney says Heather was “triggered” every time she mentioned her friendship with Lisa. Heather disputes that, adding, “You don’t know [expletive] about me.” With utter contempt, Whitney says, “Heather, shut the [expletive] up.” Heather is definitely triggered by this — she’s furious.

Is Whitney delusional?

Whitney tells Lisa she was “hurt” because she is “used to you being the one that comforts me.” Heather laughs derisively at that, and says in a confessional, “Whitney’s version of their friendship is called delusion.”

Lisa tells Whitney, “I did try to console you.” Whitney replies, “At that point. I was not receptive.” (So … Whitney is mad at Lisa because Whitney was not receptive to Lisa’s attempts to comfort her. Huh?)

In her confessional, Heather says that “Lisa Barlow is a lot of amazing things, but mother comforter and nurturer she is not.” To Whitney’s face, Heather makes it clear she’s unhappy “because you sat here like some sort of weird devotee to the Lisa cult. When did you guys become dearest, closest friend[s] that the first person you wanted to hug you after your best friend died was Lisa?”

Whitney says none of the women knows about her friendship with Lisa, and that if they did they’d be “triggered and try to ruin it.” Lisa laughs and says, “Oh, no.” Monica and Meredith both say that’s not so. In a confessional, Whitney says, “This is none of Heather’s business in this conversation. It feels like she’s doing it to activate Lisa to make things worse.”

In a confessional, Heather says, “Sweet, dear cousin — I am not trying to ruin your friendship with Lisa. You will do that very well on your own, with little or no help from me. Possibly at this dinner.”

Whitney, who might be a little drunk (again), tells the other women they are “so jealous of the fact that Lisa and I are friends.” Lisa and Heather both deny that. “This is crazy,” Heather says. Whitney shoots back, “Don’t call me crazy.” (She didn’t, but Whitney appears to be in no condition to understand that.)

There’s a lot of arguing and crosstalk … well, cross-yelling. Heather is still furious that Whitney told her to STFU. There’s thunder, and the women all suddenly notice that it’s raining. “We’ve literally brought the bad weather,” Monica says.

They get in the shuttle and head back to the house, agreeing that the dinner “did not go well,” as Angie says.

Is Angie in the Greek mafia?

Heather and Lisa head off to bed, and Monica tells Whitney, “Heather is going to beat your ass.” Whitney says, “She could act like she could beat my ass, but she couldn’t.” Monica thinks she can. Angie agrees. Meredith dithers. “You guys clearly don’t know me,” Whitney says. “I’m trained in jiu-jitsu and muay thai. I’d kick her ass. … I could break her elbow in two seconds.”

Angie heads off to bed. Monica tells Meredith she’s proud of her for expressing her feelings, setting Meredith up to complain about the bathtub situation even more. Which she does.

In a confessional, Meredith says that she’s gotten to know Monica over the past few months. “She’s been very supportive of me. She’s been very kind to me. Quite frankly, since we got here, Monica has really been the only one here for me. I mean, at this point, if it weren’t for Monica, I would already be on a plane home.”

Back in the present, Meredith says, “It all feels very fifth grade.” And then she complains about Angie some more, accusing her of “gaslighting” and “manipulation” and taking no responsibility for her own actions.

Monica says she thinks there’s “shady [expletive] going on” with Angie. In a confessional, she recalls going to lunch with Meredith three weeks earlier. “After that, we were hanging out in Park City on Main Street — which Meredith told me used to be run by the Greek mafia. Which then led to a discussion about Angie, and how she could possibly be in the Greek mafia.”

Shortly after that, Monica says, she got a phone call from Meredith telling her she was DM’d from “this random Instagram account about Angie.” When Monica checked her own DMs, “there were messages telling me all about Angie and [her husband] and how shady they are with their business and everything.” Including “documents” about her finances and bankruptcy.

When Monica asks Meredith if she got the same messages, she says, “I don’t think so. But I don’t know. I’m really really far behind on my DMs. … I don’t know anything about it.”

And Angie thinks that answer is odd. “I don’t know if Meredith is severely jet-lagged and exhausted and dehydrated. But I’m very confused why she’s acting like she could not care less about the DMs when Meredith was the one that called me to tell me about the DMs in the first place.”

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