Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchises are filled with examples of loud shouting matches — one of the most famous perhaps being New Jersey Housewife Teresa Guidice flipping a dinner table in 2009.
This week’s reunion episode of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” also includes a fair amount of shouting. But when the topic turns to Mary Cosby — and how she’s coping with her son, Robert Jr., and his substance misuse — the most dramatic moments come from quiet tears and genuine hugs.
Settling the ‘tone’ dispute
Before the episode gets to Mary, host Andy Cohen aims to clear up — or rehash — old disputes.
It starts where the first of three reunion episodes left off last week, with tension among the husbands after John Barlow, Lisa Barlow’s husband, told Todd Bradley, Bronwyn Newport’s husband, to “watch your tone” — and Todd snapped back with, “You watch your tone.”
The tones were raised because of a conversation recounting what Lisa said in a “Housewives” aftershow, involving Bronwyn and the pregnancy that resulted in her daughter, Gwen, now 18.
Lisa knows Gwen’s paternal grandparents, whom Gwen has never met — and Lisa offered to help arrange a meeting. Bronwyn and Todd were wary of this, because of the lack of previous contact from the grandparents. (Gwen’s biological father died when she was 2 years old. Todd has been her stepfather for the last 10 years.)
Lisa alleged in the aftershow that Gwen’s grandparents didn’t know she existed — because they had been told that Bronwyn had suffered a miscarriage. Bronwyn says she was hurt by the implication that she faked a miscarriage and upset at Lisa for even suggesting the possibility out loud on television.
Lisa repeats her previous apology to Bronwyn, and Andy steps in to tell Todd that his protectiveness of Gwen was “admirable.” With that, the argument that was last week’s cliffhanger is suddenly over.
Meredith nearly walks off
(Vivien Killilea | Getty Images for Acura) Meredith Marks, one of the cast members of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City," attended the Acura House of Energy at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah.
Meredith Marks says she has come to this reunion to resolve a two-year-old beef with Angie Katsanevas — and insists she’ll leave if it’s not settled.
“You have spent two years accusing me of something I didn’t do, relentlessly insisting that I did it, and in turn, have actually done all of those things to me in retaliation,” Meredith tells Angie from the opposite sofa.
Part of this involves Angie’s husband, Shawn Trujillo, appearing on a podcast in October 2023, where the host made comments about Meredith’s son, Brooks. This seems to have been interpreted as Shawn making the comments, or at least agreeing with them — which upset Meredith. Andy plays the audio from that podcast in an attempt to clear up confusion.
“That’s what this fight was about?” Andy asks. “This seems like a huge waste of time.”
Meredith’s other issue centers on an unfounded rumor that Shawn was unfaithful to Angie. Fans now know how suspect the rumor was, because it was aired by Monica Garcia, the drama-stirring former Housewife from season 4.
What Meredith wants cleared up is how Angie came to believe that Meredith had spread that rumor — and Meredith demands that Andy play the videotape or she walks off the set.
The videotape shows the culprit isn’t Angie but Monica, who told the story twice — once saying she heard it from Meredith, and once saying she heard it from “the Salt Lake City street.”
More disputes settled
Two more disputes involving the husbands are brought up, with both chalked up to the emotions of the moment.
One was between John Barlow and Justin Rose, when Justin defended his wife, Whitney Rose, from Lisa’s accusation that Whitney was a liar. The other involved Justin not defending Whitney sufficiently when Meredith’s husband, Seth Marks, called Whitney a “beyotch.”
Then there’s a longer conversation about Bronwyn and Todd’s marriage — and the bombshell Bronwyn dropped in Mexico that she once caught Todd texting another woman. In one of the post-show interviews, Bronwyn described this as an “emotional” affair, rather than a physical one. (Todd says he has not watched the episode where Bronwyn said this, but Bronwyn has described it to him.)
Heather Gay, who showed support for Bronwyn when this revelation was made, speaks up. “C’mon babe,” Heather says. “I rallied for you. … So, he didn’t do it? Or he did do it?”
Bronwyn’s answer is that “the conversation with this woman went too far.”
Andy shifts to asking Meredith and Seth about the state of their marriage, in which there is a lot of physical separation because of Meredith’s travels and Seth’s business in Ohio.
“Seth and I are monogamous,” Meredith says. “We do not cheat on each other. We have a beautiful marriage that sometimes has bumps in the road, just like any marriage.”
Meredith and Seth get some empathy from Todd, who says he and Bronwyn have dealt with similar accusations because they also are apart because of business. “I totally understand that situation,” Todd said.
Passing around the tissues
(Bravo) Mary Cosby, left, and Angie Katsanevas enjoy champagne at Angie's house, before a serious conversation about Mary's son, in an episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
The husbands leave the stage, and during the transition, Heather admits something to Lisa and Meredith: “I look back at these episodes, and I just cringe at how much I f---ing talk.” Fans may disagree, as some feel Heather became the unofficial narrator of season 5.
The last half of this episode focuses on Mary, and how she’s handled her son, Robert Jr., and his admission that he was misusing drugs. There is no shouting in this section, but lots of emotion.
Andy starts by telling Mary of the “immeasurable” number of social media posts Bravo fielded in support of her and her son. Mary says she felt the outpouring of love from the fans.
“It means my mission was accomplished,” Mary says. “We didn’t plan on what we’re going to say, but we came together and said, ‘If we can just help one person, then we’ll just tell our truth.’”
When the cameras started rolling, Mary says, “He told me what he did, and I just immediately wanted to help him. The mission was to help someone, and I feel like the love that I’ve been receiving [means that] someone resonated, someone connected, someone understood me.”
Everything in Robert’s admission surprised Mary, she says. “I didn’t expect him to say all that. I didn’t know that he was doing all that. And the fact that I was unaware scared me, because he lives in my house.”
Mary updates the cast members on Robert’s journey. He was in rehab for 30 days, she says, is living at home again and is making new sober friends. Mary starts crying when Andy recalls how Robert referred to himself as “a stain.” She’s not the only one — the cameras catch Lisa and Heather wiping away tears, and even Andy has to dab his eyes once or twice.
Angie — who says she “felt honored” that she was the one castmate who Mary trusted with this secret during filming — compliments Mary for her openness and vulnerability. “I feel like the world’s waited a long time to see this side of Mary,” Angie says.
Heather agrees, and adds that “the world’s waited a long time to hear anyone be that transparent about drugs.” Heather says she watched those episodes with her daughters, “and we wept, and I felt like it opened a conversation for me with them, something that I could never have broached before.”
Andy asks Angie to compare Robert’s situation with that of Angie’s mother. Angie has talked publicly about her mother, who was an alcoholic and died when Angie was a little girl.
“It’s so different,” Angie says, adding that Robert “wanted to get help.” With her mother, Angie says, “I was too little, and I know that I’m a really persistent person, like Mary. And I used to think that if I was old enough, maybe I could have been part of helping my mom. [Mary] said something that I’ve waited 43 years to hear. She said, ‘I know that if your mom could do it all over again, she would do it different.’”
During this, Andy sees Whitney getting emotional, and passes a tissue down to the end of the couch. “I was hoping that if I didn’t make eye contact with you—” she says to Mary, and starts crying before finishing the sentence.
Watching Mary and Robert set Whitney’s mind to her father, who was seen in season 1 attempting to recover from substance misuse. Since then, Whitney says she has had no contact with him.
Whitney adds that she watched the episodes with Mary and Robert with her children. “It’s hard to explain to the kids, and for them to be able to listen to Robert, they now understand why they don’t have a grandpa,” she says. “I’m truly so grateful that Robert Jr. was brave enough to share that, because it helped my family.”
Note to readers • The third and final part of the Season 5 reunion of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” is scheduled to air on Bravo on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 8 p.m. Eastern time — 6 p.m. Mountain time on DirecTV and Dish, and 9 p.m. Mountain time on Xfinity. (The show streams the next day on Peacock.)
