In the penultimate episode of Season 3 of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” Jen Shah is afraid she’s going to prison and Whitney Rose says she’ll make a “conjugal” visit once she gets there. Really.
And Heather Gay still won’t say how she was injured on the “girls trip” to San Diego.
(Jen, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.)
More black eye double talk
The episode begins with Whitney asking, “How did you get a black eye?” Heather replies, “I have a black eye?” It’s the first of many annoying, contradictory remarks from Heather. Including that she thought she’d covered the black eye with makeup. What, her mirror was malfunctioning?
“Listen, I woke up with a horrible black eye. … Scratches and bruises all over my body. But we’re still unsure about what happened to my eye,” she says, looking at Jen. “There’s theories.”
In a confessional, Whitney says the fact that Heather “keeps looking to Jen to ask Jen what happened to her eye. Which makes me feel like Jen, in fact, had something to do with the black eye.”
Later in the episode, Heather suggests that, to divert attention from her legal troubles, Jen should say, “Why don’t we talk about how Heather really got her black eye? … And we’re not going to tell them, You know why? Because they don’t deserve to know. Because they already do and they just want us to say it out loud. … You know me. I’m loyal to the core. Snitches get what? Stitches.”
Meredith Marks is taken aback. In a confessional, she says, “Wait. What? I’m so confused at this point. But I wish Heather would just say who hit her. It’s unsettling, not knowing.”
Jen vs. Danna
In an attempt to “be as real as I can,” Danna Bui-Negrete tells Jen that “someone that I really trust” who “worked for you” said that “the work that you’re doing was very sketchy.” And this person, who she refuses to identify, has “pled-ed” guilty and is now an informant spilling Jen’s secrets. (Danna actually pronounces “pleaded” as “pled-ed.”)
Jen presses her, but Danna refuses to identify her source. And, although (at this point) Jen is facing a trial that could send her to prison, Danna makes it about herself. “I want to tell you how I feel coming into this damn new [expletive] group.”
Jen yells at Danna: “The Constitution says you’re innocent until proven guilty. Period. End of story.” Danna says, “I know.” (Actually, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t say that, but … whatever.)
Given Jen’s guilty plea, it would seem Danna’s source was correct. But Danna bringing this up at the dinner table seemed very much like the behavior of someone who wants to be a regular on Season 4 of “RHOSLC.” (Assuming there is one.)
Jen gets up and storms off, and Danna once again criticizes all the other women. “You guys all know this [expletive] going on with Jen, but nobody [expletive] says anything,” she says.
Angie Katsanevas replies, “I’ve said it, Danna, and you’ve seen where it’s gotten me.”
And in a confessional, Whitney says, “This is the dance that we do. And it’s hard. You’re always running the risk of [Jen] coming at you and freaking out.”
Meredith doesn’t necessarily disagree with what Danna is saying, but, in a confessional, she questions her timing: “If I’m a guest on somebody’s trip, the last thing I’m going to do is talk about things that threaten their freedom.’”
Jen rants about Danna to Heather and Meredith. “I don’t even know the bitch, other than she has gray hair,” Jen says — and there’s a flashback to two hours earlier, when Jen tried to give Danna hair dye and Danna refused to take it.
Back at the table, Danna argues that “no mother-[expletive] FBI is going to come down hard like that (unless Jen is guilty). And your [expletive] partner is not going to testify against you. There’s multiple people pled-ed guilty. I’m not saying that she’s guilty, but there has to be something.” Despite that odd denial, Danna is clearly saying that she believes Jen is guilty. Lisa Barlow and Angie K. both say they’re choosing to believe that Jen is innocent, for now.
Then, in the episode’s most bizarre moment, Whitney worries that she’s going to “have to sit across” from Jen and have “an awkward conversation” with her after she goes to prison. “But I’m willing to go have a conjugal visit.”
Lisa and Danna try to explain to Whitney what “conjugal” means. “It’s not a conjugal visit unless you’re going to hook up with her,” Lisa tells her — and Whitney gives Lisa a look like SHE is the one who’s confused.
Jen returns to the table, and Lisa tells her they believe she’s innocent until proven guilty. Danna lies and says she’s not questioning Jen’s innocence, she’s “just being honest” with her. In a confessional, she contradicts herself: “No matter what these ladies say about Jen ... she is a very untrustworthy person.”
Danna is, of course, completely right about Jen. But she comes across so badly telling the truth.
Getting ready to raise funds
At the Marks house, Meredith and two of her children — Brooks, 22, and Chloe, 20 — are preparing for a fundraiser that night for a “mental health and addiction foundation” founded by Meredith’s sister, Myra. It was “inspired by” Myra’s 18-year-old son, Alex, who tried to take his own life several months earlier.
Brooks is concerned about showing his latest fashion tracksuit collection. “I’m honestly really stressed,” he says. “People prepare for stuff like this years in advance and I’m doing it in 48 hours.”
YEARS?
“I don’t think people are preparing years in advance,” Meredith says, “but maybe months in advance.”
Meredith tells Brooks and Chloe that Lisa bought a ticket to the event, and she offers to “rescue” them from Lisa if she starts talking to them.
Heather and Angie H.
Heather, still sporting a black eye, visits Angie Harrington, who has been filled in on what happened on the trip to San Diego. “What happened? Do you have any recollection?” Angie H. asks. Heather, contradicting herself, says she does not.
“There’s a part of me,” Angie H. says, “that feels like you’re protecting somebody. … If someone did this to you, do not protect them.” Angie is suspicious of Jen — and of Lisa, despite the fact that Heather tells her that the three people who were with her just before she was injured were Meredith, Angie K. and Jen. Lisa wasn’t there and no one else has cast doubt upon her.
“I don’t want to point fingers but Lisa and Heather have had issues,” she says. (Not coincidentally, so have Lisa and Angie H., who had a huge falling out in Season 2.) “I don’t think Whitney is capable of that. I don’t think Meredith would do that. I’ve seen Jen’s temper. I really don’t know.”
Heather tells Angie H. she’ll never tell her what happened. In a confessional, Heather tells a producer, “I just hope it goes away.”
Jen and her therapist
Jen gets on a video chat with her therapist, Ernest, and she feels like she’s “not in control” because she is “inching closer and closer every day to trial.”
Ernest sympathizes. “You’ve been through a lot,” he says, telling her she must lean on her family and friends.
Jen says she’s worried about her sons. “Like, basically, did I [expletive] my kids up?” And her husband, Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah, “has taken the brunt of this.” She says he told her he sits in his car and cries because he is so worried. “I don’t want it to break him. And I don’t want him to stay just because he thinks, ‘Oh, Jen needs me.’ I want him to be here because he wants to be here.”
Ernest tells her that the “only negative impact” is that her sons and husband are worried about her because they love her.
“I don’t want to put my family through this. They don’t deserve this,” Jen says, adding, “I have a lot of guilt from this.” It’s rather ironic, given her guilty plea.
The fundraiser
The Marks family arrives at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City, the venue for their fundraiser. Danna and Angie K. greet Meredith, who harangues them about their behavior in San Diego. The editors helpfully insert a “Meredith I’m Not Mad Counter” graphic tallying the number of times Meredith says some variation of that. It reaches five.
“You actually still seem kind of mad, Meredith,” Angie K. accurately observes in a confessional.
Despite her ongoing battle with Meredith, Lisa shows up for the fundraiser. In a confessional, she says, “Let’s just be honest, Meredith doesn’t like me. But I definitely wanted to show support for Meredith, her sister, her nephew. And let them know that this is important because it’s about mental health awareness. And that starts with kindness.” The obvious insinuation is that Meredith isn’t kind.
That cattiness pales in comparison to Meredith’s confessional comments: “I’m not surprised that Lisa came tonight. She’s very concerned with appearances. And I don’t think it would be a good look for her to miss a charity event. You know, it gives her an opportunity to pose for social media.” And then she mocks the faces Lisa makes on social media.
Writing a check
Jen and Sharrieff arrive at the fundraiser with a check to reimburse Angie H. for the costs of Sharrieff’s birthday party, which she hosted. Jen says that after they fought about it in San Diego, she asked Angie K. for an invoice — the total came to $13,647.96. (Non-Utahns are going to be confused by the $2,662.80 for Diamond Rental, no doubt wondering why diamonds were rented.)
“I’m just hoping,” Jen says in a confessional, “I don’t get another invoice six weeks from now. We walked on her grass and, like, now I’ve got to pay the gardener.”
After the fashion show, Sharrieff pulls Angie K. and her husband, Shawn, aside. “It bothered my heart,” he says. “I had no idea that the situation had unfolded the way it did. So I wanted to make certain that nothing is outstanding.” And he gives them the check.
Angie K. says it’s “less about the paper” and “I have a lot of respect for both of you. I love both you guys and I love your family. And I was hurt by some things.”
“We were, too,” Sharrieff says. “Badly. Badly. And it hurt me that I felt like we had a debt. And I didn’t understand that to be the case, but I wanted to make sure that we made it right.”
In a confessional, Jen says, “I got off cheap, OK?” She says she hopes Sharrieff doesn’t find out she spent $80,000 on a birthday party for Meredith (back in Season 1) and just $13,000 on a party for him.
In a confessional of her own, Angie K. says, “All I know is that I’m going to run to the bank after this event and cash that check before the government freezes her account.”
Angie H. drops a bomb
At the fundraiser, Angie K. tells Lisa that, two days earlier, Angie H. told her Jen contacted her about mending fences between them. Remember, Angie H.’s husband created a fake Instagram account, bullying Jen (and Lisa) and — according to Jen — causing her to attempt to take her own life. But, according to Angie H., Jen now wants the two of them and their husbands to “talk it out.”
“This is a woman who actually has pushed her to the brink of wanting to take her life,” Angie K. says. “I lost sleep over that. And now she’s FaceTiming her?”
Danna jumps in with an I-told-you-so. “I’m sorry to say this, but I called her [expletive] on day one,” she says. “She is not a good friend and she is not a good person.” She is “dangerous.” (That’s not true. Danna is clearly not the least bit sorry to say that.)
Upon learning this, Lisa rethinks her stand on Jen’s innocence because “you constantly lie to me in a friendship, so why would I believe that you’re not doing that in other aspects of your life, like in your work life?”
A complete turnaround
Meredith is understandably happy to see her nephew at the fashion show fundraiser.
“I am beyond elated to see Alex in this environment, thriving, doing well,” Meredith says. “To see him just do this 360 and be here as a role model for other people who are struggling this way is just — it’s incredible.”
No doubt she meant it was great to see her nephew do a 180.
Is this friendship over?
Heather drives out to Daybreak to visit Whitney, and things are super-awkward between the two former BFFs. “It sucks not knowing what’s going on in your friend’s life,” Whitney says. She’s certain that, “a couple months ago, I would have known what happened to Heather’s eye. … It just makes me sad that she doesn’t feel like she can tell me.”
She says she’s “never stopped caring” about Heather. But Heather is clearly angry that Whitney told the other women that the two of them “were on a friendship break. … It was like a stab to my heart.”
Whitney says, “The friendship break isn’t supposed to be a dig. It’s me being able to process like, there’s just weirdness between” the two of them.
And then it’s back to the subject of Heather’s black eye. “Do you really not remember?” Whitney asks, pointing out Heather’s multiple, contradictory statements about it. Heather laughs “because it’s all … just funny to me and true. And part of the mystery of the eye.” In a confessional, Whitney says, “It has been insane watching Heather create a world of confusion.”
Whitney recalls that the night Heather got the black eye, “You and Jen were having the best time ever — extremely intoxicated, with your tops off, running around putting your boobs on people.”
Heather replies, “Jen’s boob did it. It’s this force of nature.”
Heather goes on to say, “I remember how I got it. … And other people know how I got it, too.” But she won’t tell Whitney because “the trust has been broken” between them because “this whole friendship break has been a really horrible, [expletive] experience for me, and I don’t think you really care. Because it feels like you think you can just break it, and then when you’re ready, pick it up. … When you break something it’s broken and it’s never as strong as it was.”
If that doesn’t make it clear how angry Heather is with Whitney, her comments in confessional do: “I think Whitney was looking for drama where there wasn’t any, and she wanted to curry favor with other friends in the group. And so she put me on the altar and sacrificed me and sacrificed our friendship. And she put me on a friendship break.”
Heather tells Whitney to her face, “Be free, young Whitney! I will not hold you back any longer.”
Whitney says, “I think that we’re stronger together.”
And Heather replies, “I think that’s taking me for granted to assume that it would come back like it was. So let’s just love each other and give each other space.”
The Season 3 finale of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” airs Wednesday, Jan. 11, on Bravo — 6 p.m. on Dish and DirecTV; 9 p.m. on Comcast. Previous episodes can be streamed via Peacock or on demand.
Editor’s note • If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24-hour support by calling 988.
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