Welcome to Season 4 of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City! But wait … this is not Salt Lake City. The opening shot is titled “Bermuda, May 10, 2023.” Uh oh. I sense a girls’ trip gone wrong. Apparently, it’s some drama involving Heather Gay. As producers open the door to Heather’s room, she’s shown talking to someone on the phone, as she pushes them away. “No, seriously. Seriously, you guys,” she says, pushing the cameras away. “For real.”
Heather sobs as someone voiceovers, “How did we all fall for it?”
Well, that’s dramatic. And … we’re back in Salt Lake City, as someone else says, “I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
Lisa’s son drops a bomb
It’s snowing heavily as we zoom through the Wasatch Mountains and around the sites of SLC. Brrrr! That looks crazy cold. Lisa Barlow is preparing for a Sundance Festival event. Covid is finally over, and it’s business as usual in Park City.
When her husband John picks her up, she complains about how busy she is and how much she misses her family. She tells John how important it is for them to squeeze in family time, as she continues checking text messages.
It’s their son Jack’s senior year, and Lisa wants to be really present for him since he’ll be leaving the nest soon. She gets teary talking about how important this time with him is. But rather than leaving for college, he’s going on a two-year Mormon mission. Uh oh, wait till Heather and Whitney Rose hear about this.
“A mission is devoting two years of your life to serving others,” Lisa says. “And teaching people about Jesus Christ.” No, it’s not. It’s about converting people to Mormonism. And I’ll just stop there.
The thing Lisa is mostly upset about is that Jack has been preparing for this for a year and didn’t tell them. “What else don’t I know about Jack?” she asks. “Am I so disconnected from my son that he doesn’t want to tell me this? Am I, like, a bad mom?” Don’t even start, Lisa.
“How do you feel about everything?” she asks John. But before he can answer, she gets another text.
“Hold on. The team’s messaging me,” she interrupts. Good talk.
Heather has a new house and a new life
Over at Heather’s giant new house, she’s out front pretending to shovel snow in her six-inch designer boots. Honey, can’t you afford people to do that for you?
Since her book Bad Mormon was so successful, she decided to sell the house she’d lived in for the past 20 years and buy a new place. She’s starting a new life in a new home … three blocks west of her old one. 7900 square feet, seven bedrooms and six bathrooms. They couldn’t squeeze one more bathroom into that huge house? Somebody didn’t think that through.
Meredith Marks pulls up in a big, black SUV, steps out and says what I just said: “Are you seriously doing the shoveling?”
When Heather suggests her friend is just in time to help her shovel the path, the jewelry designer says, “I don’t shovel snow. Most of us hire snow removal services.”
Not only has Heather gotten a lot of backlash for her book from people still in the Mormon church, but she also says she’s been “under scrutiny because I’ve been friends with someone who went to prison.” (We miss you, Jen Shah!) “I had an unexplainable black eye,” she continues. “But right now I’m just trying to block out the haters and … live my life authentically for me.”
Heather also wants to repair things with her cousin Whitney and met with her to discuss mending fences the previous day. But Whit’s not so sure about that. “It’s gonna be hard for me to trust that you really want to be my friend,” she says.
Heather tells Meredith that she and Whitney want to host an event, something positive that will help them build trust. “I want to feel safe around her again,” she says.
A former housewife returns
Back in Park City, Meredith is going over some new inventory in her shop. While outside on the snowy sidewalk, here comes a pair of stylish ombre boots strutting down the street. Even though we can’t see a face, the voiceover replays a memory, “Jen smelled like hospital.” Oh, dear Lord, Mary Cosby is back.
“You better buckle up,” she tells us, “’cause here I am.” She looks different. Face fillers maybe?
“I pretty much cut everyone off,” Mary tells us. “Except Meredith … The distance was good.” For us, too. I know a lot of people love her, but I’m not in that category.
So Mary and Meredith catch up over lunch. Meredith asks how Mary’s husband and son are doing. “Robert Sr.’s doing good,” she says. “Robert Jr. has a girlfriend, but everyone’s telling me it’s his wife. So, we’re gonna have to figure that one out.” Robert Jr. is only 20 years old, so she’s rightfully concerned.
Before digging into her lunch, Mary asks, “How are you feeling about Jen?”
“She said she’s guilty and she’s going to serve her time,” Meredith answers matter of factly. “Everyone can start healing and moving forward now. That’s the only positive.”
Never a fan of Jen, Mary responds, “I believe in karma. [You] kinda get what you deserve.” That’s not a very Christian sentiment, Reverand Mary.
She adds, “I’m interested to see what it will be like now that Jen’s gone. She was the big elephant in the room.” Really? Is that a fat joke?
Meet the new girl
Back in SLC, Angie Katsanevas pulls up in her snazzy, black sportscar. She’s also wearing huge, ridiculous pink shades to match her pink faux fur coat. Who’s she meeting for lunch?
It’s the new girl Monica Garcia. When Monica compliments her pink glasses, Angie admits, “These things need windshield wipers, they’re so big.” Thank you.
“We met a few years ago through Jen,” Angie says about Monica. “Since we’re both picking up the pieces of a destroyed friendship, we figured, hey, let’s do it together.”
And here comes Lisa to join them. Why isn’t she home spending quality time with her family? Lisa says she met Monica a few years ago when she was working for Jen. But she looks a lot different than she did back then.
“The Monica I met had super blonde hair [and] fair skin,” Lisa interviews. “Honestly, if she were in the Witness Protection Program or in a police lineup, I would not be able to pick her out.”
But Monica has her own story. “So Jen had fired her assistant,” she says, “and I stepped in to help her. One night Jen asked me, ‘Do you want to be rich? Do you wanna make $600,000 a year? All you have to do is put this, this and this in your name.'”
“I remember being so weirded out,” she continues. “It was very bizarre. And I have a friend in the Secret Service and I called him, and he said, ‘Get the f*ck away from Jen Shah. She’s going to prison.’ She was arrested two months later.” And that’s how Monica became a witness for the Federal Government in her trial. So now we know.
It’s complicated
After ordering lunch, it’s Get to Know Monica Time. Monica is 38 and is going through a divorce. “About four years into my marriage,” she tells us, “I found myself in … an entanglement.” Subsequently, Monica got divorced, remarried her husband and “now we’re getting divorced again. It’s fine. Totally normal situation.”
Monica also has four girls, ages five, six, 12 and 17. “Me time” is hard for Monica to find.
Referencing her put-together interview look, Monica says, “Like, you see? This is so nice … No, bitch. I’m usually in my Christmas jammies down aisle 8 buying milk at 10:00 o’clock at night ’cause we’re out [and] I forgot.” Monica’s funny and kind of down-to-earth. I think I like Monica.
Lisa says she’s known Monica for 15 years and would “talk to [her] occasionally on the phone.”
“I would talk to Lisa constantly,” Monica interviews, “because Jen would get sick and tired of talking to her, and she would hand me the phone. And then I’d have to be, like, ‘Yeah, girl, I know.’ … All the time.”
Cue the montage of Lisa yammering on and on about nothing. “You can literally be on the phone with her and set it down,” Monica says, “and two hours later come back … and she’s still going … I’ve never talked to anyone like that in my life.”
“It is so crazy hearing them portray these perfect lives,” Monica interviews, when Lisa brags about the European trip she and John are planning for their 20th anniversary. “We’ve all heard things about each other, thanks to Jen. So I’m trying to walk this fine line of being open-minded and non-judgmental, even though all their dark secrets are very heavy on my mind.”
Heather’s “Fresh Start” party
Heather’s having a party. “I’m hoping we can really mend and start fresh,” she says. They’ll be making s’mores on the deck and she has a “fun little activity planned for the girls in the snow later,” she adds. “I want everyone to get out their aggression.” Is it a snowball fight, Heather?
“Nothing says ‘fresh start’ like an activity filled with aggression,” jokes her business partner Dre.
I’m right!!! It’s a snowball fight. Heather has 1,500 snowballs ready to go, in tubs labeled with each housewife’s name. Perfect!
Whitney’s reaction to seeing Mary is the best. “Oh, my God. Mary Cosby in the flesh?” she says. “Is this really Mary Cosby? … Did Heather roofie me?”
Heather is just as thrilled to see Angie K. “Classic Lisa,” she interviews. “I tell her she can invite a friend, and she brings the one friend that spread the worst rumors about me the last time we were together.” Cue footage of Angie suggesting Heather got her infamous black eye by doing “Barbie scissor kicks” with Jen.
Even though Heather greets Monica warmly, Jen’s former assistant interviews, “Jen never said anything nice about Heather. But she also never said anything nice about anybody ever … Everything that came out of her mouth was bullsh*t, so I’m gonna make my own assumptions about Heather.” That’s really surprising since Heather claimed to be Jen’s Ride-or-Die. Apparently, Jen didn’t feel the same way.
“Holy sh*t, Mary Cosby!” interviews Lisa. “The last text message I got from Mary wasn’t exactly nice: ‘Lisa, you’re the biggest idiot … You’re a black widow … You are the biggest liar in Utah.’ Wow.” It went on and on.
Fresh starts or confrontations?
“Whitney and I got together,” Heather announces, “and we decided to make a fresh start … We all had a really hard year … Our relationships are fractured, [but] we all went through it together. Let’s leave it all at the brunch today.”
When Mary asks Heather how she feels now that Jen is gone, the Beauty Lab owner admits, “I feel like a weight is lifted.”
Meredith pulls Lisa aside to settle past grievances. “I feel like we’ve tried to find resolution within the group, and that has not gone well for us,” she says. “I just would like to set us up for success rather than failure, and I’m hoping maybe we could sit down one-on-one … and have a little conversation … Maybe next week we can get together and go for a hike or a walk or something.”
Lisa agrees and they clink champagne glasses. Lisa “didn’t see it coming,” she says in an interview. “I know she missed me … I would miss me, too.” Major eye-roll on my part.
Everything’s great until Heather asks the group, “Who here has read my book?” Crickets.
“I’m not surprised that none of them have read the book,” Heather shrugs. “They’re not readers.”
Lisa and Meredith had an endless argument about bathtubs and bathing alone vs. with a friend, which went on forever. It’s too stupid and boring to recap here. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor.
Throwing snowballs rather than shade
Heather announces the next activity. When she hears it involves snow and is outside, Mary responds, “No, I’m not doing that.” She’s just so fun!
“This is your last chance,” Heather tells them, “to take out any hurt feelings, any resentment, any anger. Leave it all on the field.”
“When I blow the whistle,” the Snowball Provider instructs the women, “you will run to your snowball bucket. You can throw from wherever to whomever until we all run out of snowballs.” Have at it, ladies. All except Mary, who already opted out.
“The only snowballs I like,” says Lisa, “are the ones that are in the gas station. They come in a two-pack, and they’re pink [actually, one is pink and one is white. I know my Snoballs]. They’re cream-filled, they’ve got coconut on top.” Omg! I love those! When I was a kid, I used to get those because my brother hated coconut, and I wouldn’t have to share. I was kind of a selfish little brat.
The ladies run to their buckets and gently lob snowballs at each other. Until someone smacks Lisa in the head with a snowball, and it’s on like Donkey Kong. Then they get serious and start actually throwing snowballs like they mean it.
“Meredith,” shrieks Whitney, “leave the past in the past!”
“We’ll just wipe that grudge right away,” she laughs in a production interview. “I feel better already.”
“Yippee ky-yi-yay, bitch!” yells Monica. I love her already.
“It’s like Lord of the Flies,” laughs Heather, “which is probably a book that they haven’t read either.”
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City continues Tuesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK WHITNEY AND MEREDITH WILL EVER BE FRIENDS? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MONICA? ARE YOU HAPPY TO SEE MARY COSBY BACK?
