The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Recap: By the Book
After their blow-up at the pirate dinner the previous night, Heather and Monica start off their third day in Bermuda with a walk on the beach to clear the air. Heather apologizes for the outburst but explains that she felt like Monica was coming for her all day for not wanting to discuss her daughter’s sex life. Monica volleys an apology right back, saying that now she knows that that subject is off limits for Heather (and any other reasonable person). Did the women of Salt Lake City take some kind of conflict resolution seminar before filming started? They’ve been pros at bouncing back all season.
Since they are able to put that tiff behind them, their conversation turns to the mysterious DMs, and they both wonder who would ever do such a thing. “I would do that shit,” Monica says before clarifying that she wouldn’t send herself the DMs. Interesting. I’m reminded of the Maya Angelou quote, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Could Maya Angelou have been talking about Monica?
Over on the tennis courts, Whitney and Angie can’t get over how calm Meredith is while everybody is accusing her of this scheme. Not only that, but we see that when they get back to the house that night, she joins them for cake! Even lighting Monica’s candles and singing “Happy Birthday” with the group. This is like an episode of Nancy Grace where she dissects a widower’s every move to see if he killed his wife. Is he too calm? Too distraught? Too smiley? Not smiley enough?
In any case, the whole group is off to the yacht that Lisa arranged, and without Jen Shah in the mix, there’s no risk (or at least less of a risk) of their shoes getting thrown overboard. If anything’s at risk of being thrown overboard, it’s Meredith, who feels on the outs with everybody, lamenting that she’s on an island completely alone (echoing the iconic words of Kelly Bensimon on Scary Island). The boat’s named “Zara,” and this is probably the closest Lisa Barlow would ever get to one. After a brief bout of bird-watching, Heather pulls Meredith aside, and she once again denies being involved. “I do not understand this mess that you’ve gotten yourself in, and I also do not understand your lack of a reaction,” Heather tells her, and Meredith explains that she’s still trying to process it all because there’s a lot that isn’t adding up.
This is where we get to hear Meredith’s point of view. She says that on their flight back from Palm Springs, Monica detailed all the dirt she knew about Angie. Then, three weeks ago, they got lunch and afterward walked around town (this we knew from Monica), and Meredith mentioned that a nearby venue was rumored to be run by the Greek mafia. “And Monica asked me, ‘Do you think Angie’s a part of it?’ and I said I have no idea.” A few weeks later, the DMs come in, repeating the things Monica told her on the plane, which is why she brought it up to her in the first place.
In the screenshot of one of these DMs, we can see that this mystery account is marked as “New to Instagram,” but we can also see that it has 16 followers and 22 posts. It’s reasonable to think that one of these women could have made a burner account to send some dirt, but would they go to the trouble of posting 22 times on it? That’s not something I can imagine Meredith doing; she’s a very busy woman and she has baths to take.
Meredith decides she has to sort all of this out with Monica herself, so she pulls her aside to confront her about her story. Monica tries to remind Meredith about how they were googling the Greek mafia, but she says that had nothing to do with Angie. “It does, ’cause we were talking about Angie and how she’s Greek and probably in the mafia, maybe, it’s possible, who knows,” Monica says, and just like that, her credibility comes crumbling down. “Probably … maybe … it’s possible … who knows” does not make for a convincing story. Meredith is meticulously precise, approaching conflicts with a delicate scalpel — whereas Monica is abstract, fluid, and works with a machete. It’s not a fair fight.
Monica feels like Meredith is leaving her out to dry, but luckily for her, she’s got Lisa in her corner. Lisa starts shouting at Meredith from across the boat, calling her a liar who needs to come clean. Eventually this becomes a group conversation with Lisa raging and Angie defending her good Greek name, while Meredith continues to stay calm — until she doesn’t. Sick of the other women saying this is part of her pattern, Meredith finally snaps. “I’m tired of hearing that because that is incorrect … don’t narrate me,” she yells, echoing Lisa’s own catchphrase.
Despite the fight boiling over, they’re all adamant that they’ll have fun on the catamaran, and what’s more fun than Angie wearing Whitney’s hair extensions as a hula skirt and dancing around? Somehow, against all odds, Angie has found her place. She’s at her best when she’s not trying to be a Real Housewife, so as she’s settled and gotten more comfortable in the environment, we’ve finally gotten to see a more authentic character.
After taking off Whitney’s hair, Meredith pulls her aside to make sure she hears her side of the story, too. Meredith explains that while she hasn’t had a particularly good experience with her, she has never had any intention or desire to take her down, adding that she’s simply not out to get her. That’s apparently good enough for Angie, and the two agree to move forward. Remember what I said earlier about conflict resolution? This is unprecedented.
With that, Meredith goes up to Heather and Lisa and says, “Angie and I spoke, and the final conclusion is … she’s taking out a hit on me,” before breaking out in laughter. Her ability to joke about this with Lisa, a woman who was just screaming at her, is shocking, especially given how severely she was exiled for her hot-mic rant. On top of that, she sits next to her on the van ride home to share the good news that Brooks has just signed with Ford Models. Lisa’s thrilled, and Meredith goes on to say that after telling him about the drama, Brooks told her, “Lean into Lisa; she knows who you really are at the end of the day.” Monica, seeing this play out from across the van, is just as confused as we are. But unlike Monica, I’m thrilled to see it because I love it when Meredith and Lisa get along.
The women all take selfies as dinner gets started, and one genius producer conducts an incredible study, asking them in their confessionals how many selfies they’ve taken, according to their Photos app. Whitney has taken 7,297, Heather has 11,205, and Lisa Barlow comes in on top with a whopping 28,802. And speaking of genius producing, when Heather recounts having to take her Costco ID photo during a Bell’s palsy spell, someone on production wisely requested said ID photo to show us, a grateful audience.
In an attempt to redo Monica’s birthday celebration after it went “sideways” last night, Whitney suggests they go to the oldest bar in Bermuda. Surely it won’t go sideways again tonight, right? Not long after arriving, the subject of who read Heather’s book comes up and the lights in the bar begin to flash — an omen. Whitney, having finally read it, has a grievance that she brings up to Heather and says that despite not wanting to talk about her own sex life, she had no problem writing about Whitney’s in the book. “I don’t talk about Whitney’s sex life in my book,” Heather says in her confessional. “I describe when I first met her, I was a boudoir photographer and she was a sexy model.” Whitney thinks it’s hypocritical and claims that she never gave Heather permission to write about it, but Heather instantly fires back, saying that Whitney did in fact know about it beforehand and had even made a request to change something, which Heather did. Heather got her there.
“You sound like an idiot,” an exasperated Heather says, but Whitney keeps asserting that her book exploited her sexuality. In an attempt to storm out of the bar and away from this conversation, Heather clunkily shoves through the chairs, getting knocked down by Whitney in the process, but nonetheless makes an escape.
Whitney, adamant about this being the moment she hoped it would be, runs after her through the parking lot, yelling about being sex-shamed. “I don’t want to have a conversation with you because you’re drunk and crazy,” Heather shouts back. “You exploited my vagina in your book,” Whitney screams, but Heather is already miles away. Production practically needs a long lens to keep filming this storm out. Somehow a track star of a producer catches up with her, but she needs a minute to cool down. Don’t we all?