“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” has never lacked childish behavior, but a blowup between Monica Garcia and her mother in the Oct. 17 episode achieves a level of childishness not seen before. And Mary is surprised at the answer when she asks her son if he’s married.
In a bit of terrible timing, Angie Katsanevas pulls Monica aside at her Greek Easter party to ask her why she’s been spreading the rumor that Angie’s husband, Shawn, has been having sex with men. Angie says she wishes Monica had just pulled her aside to tell her about that. “I literally did,” Monica says, ignoring the fact that that wasn’t all she did — she also told others about the rumors.
Angie remains pretty calm, but Monica is getting louder and more heated. Her mother, Linda, comes over to tell her daughter to calm down — that she’s causing a scene at a party in front of families and her own four daughters, who range in age from 3 to 17.
“Let’s just leave it because it’s getting heated and we have kids here,” Angie says. “I just don’t see us getting anywhere.” She steps away, and Monica unloads on her mother. “Don’t [expletive] pull this [expletive] when you don’t have my back,” she tells her mother. Linda continually urges Monica to go into the bathroom to cool off; Monica refuses and tells Linda, “get out of my face.”
And then Monica really gets childish. When Linda says, “this is a family gathering,” Monica shoots back, “she started it!” When Linda tells Monica to “stop it,” Monica shoots back, “tell her to stop it!”
Lots of the adults and some of the children look uncomfortable. Angie says, “I wouldn’t talk to my dad like that.” Lisa Barlow says, “It’s not nice to talk to your mother like that.” Shawn intervenes, telling Linda and Monica, “Hey, guys, … we don’t do this in our house.”
Monica storms off, sits down in another corner of the room and pouts. Linda apologizes to Shawn and Angie for her daughter’s behavior. This doesn’t sit well with Monica. In a confessional, she says, “I don’t really know why she feels the need to apologize for me to complete strangers. … I feel completely betrayed.”
As the Greek dancing begins, Linda approaches Monica. “Are you OK?” she asks, adding, “you’re my daughter. You’re my concern.” Monica petulantly replies, “I genuinely don’t believe that. … Your behavior is what shows me I’m not important to you.” Linda says, “you were shouting at a family gathering,” Linda says. Monica replies, “does it [expletive] matter?”
For not the first time, Monica vows she “will never do to my kid. I’m not going to let her feel alone. I am not going to let her sit there and be massacred.” When Linda smiles, Monica says, “you really are a heartless person.”
(Monica is, apparently, unconcerned that her daughters will see how she talks to her mother and model that behavior.)
The party isn’t over, but Monica collects her daughters and exits, leaving her mother to find her own ride home. In a confessional, she does not acknowledge that she did indeed spread the rumor about Shawn, and she portrays herself as the victim: “I’m always left feeling like little Monica. ... I feel so bad for her. ... I hate feeling like I wish I had a different mom, but I wish like I had a different mom.”
(Presley Ann | Bravo) Meredith Marks and Mary Cosby in an episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Mary and her son
Earlier in the episode, Mary finally asks her 20-year-old son, Robert Jr., if he is married. He hems, haws and says “I don’t know” before finally saying, “kind of. Yeah.” He reveals that he got married at the courthouse almost a year ago.
He and his wife live with Mary in Mary’s house. She did not know they were married. In a confessional, Mary says, “they both live in my house, but I don’t see them much. We kind of have our own wings.”
Mary lays on the guilt, crying as she says, “you’re my only son. I don’t have nobody else.” And then tells him, “don’t ever be afraid to tell me anything,” unaware she’s demonstrating why he didn’t tell her this.
In a confessional, Mary says Robert Jr. is “not ready for marriage. He has no idea that he has to man up. Like, he’s going to be the sole provider. I mean, I’m not going to be providing for him and her.”
Meredith denies she spread the gossip
Meredith visits Mary in her large, tackily decorated home. Mary tells her about Robert Jr.’s marriage news. And then she complains about all the other Housewives: “It just gets monotonous trying to give people chances, and you think you’re going to go back into a crowd of people that’s going to grow. And they still haven’t grown.”
(Mary, who spent the first two seasons on the show, apparently expected that in Season 4 all the fighting would have stopped. And there’s been no discernible growth for Mary, either — she remains rude, unpleasant, judgmental and self-centered. At least she hasn’t been racist, yet, this season.)
(Charles Sykes | Bravo) Meredith Marks on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen."
Meredith agrees with what Mary is saying. And then she denies that she spread rumors about Angie’s husband, Shawn. “I’m being accused of spreading rumors about Shawn being gay. But do you understand how insane that is? I’m not the one that’s spreading these rumors,” she says. “The irony here is my son is gay. I’m a huge supporter of the community. I’m on the host committee for the GLAAD awards.”
None of that prevented her from behaving homophobically in Season 2. But, she insists, “I would never comment on somebody’s sexuality. I don’t do that. And now she’s trying to blame me for these rumors about her family that I heard, but I wasn’t, like, spreading them.”
(To be fair, Meredith has not been seen on camera spreading the rumor. We have only Monica’s word that she did.)
Mary asks Meredith if she was invited to Angie’s for Greek Orthodox Easter; Meredith, of course, knows nothing about it. And, besides, she’ll be in L.A. for the GLAAD Awards.
Mary says that she’s not going to go to Angie’s brunch. Later in the episode, she calls Angie the day of the event, says she’s not coming, and lies about why: She says she “has to go” to her “home in Vegas, because we had a flood about a year ago and everything just got done.” (And the dog ate her homework.)
(Brett Colvin | Bravo) Heather Gay on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Heather and her daughter
Heather and her daughter, Ashley (a college freshman), video chat, and Ashley is surprised to learn that Jack Barlow is going on a Latter-day Saints mission. “I did not see that in the cards,” she says, speculating that he made the decision “because all of his friends are doing it.”
In a confessional, Heather says that “all of Ashley’s friends” are “either on missions or married. And she’s … in a string bikini in Santa Barbara. And I just think, ‘Thank heavens!’” Heather says she’s read her journals from when she was Ashley’s age, and they are “humiliatingly embarrassing” because she was “100% just repeating the [Latter-day Saint] adages that I’ve been drilled with my whole life. In many ways, I feel like Ashley is ... the version of me if I hadn’t been raised in the church.”
Ashley suggests that Jack has an “ulterior motive” for going on a mission. Heather says, “it’s not just, like, out of devotion to God. … The culture overwhelms all of us. Because I’ve never thought of Jack Barlow as, like, a particularly devout person.” She vows she’ll never “say a negative word to him” about his mission, but she has plenty of negative words to say on camera — including that she feels “sick inside” about it.
And she’s put out that “the one person [Lisa] didn’t want to talk to about the mission was me” — even though Heather went on a mission herself.
Hop, hop, hopping along
As the episode begins, Angie is planning a big party for Greek Orthodox Easter, and she hires a guy in an Easter Bunny suit to deliver the invitations. It’s cute, and it’s hilarious when Heather gets in her car, screams and jumps about a mile when she sees the bunny in the back seat.
Angie invites “all the ladies” — well, all the ladies but Meredith.
Lighting the way?
Lisa and Angie meet at The Wick Lab in Draper to make candles. Lisa is approached by a young woman employee who says she is “really close friends” with Jack Barlow. And, the young woman says, she knew Jack was going on a mission before Lisa did. Lisa looks super annoyed when she says, in a confessional, “you know you’re out of the loop when the girl at the candle shop knows your son’s going on a mission before you do. Let’s face it. I’m not winning any mother of the year awards here.”
As they’re mixing scents into hot wax, Angie tells Lisa that she did not invite Meredith to her Easter celebration. Lisa says, “I’m trying to move forward with Meredith, but I hate what she did. I think it’s wrong.”
And Lisa strongly suggests that Angie shouldn’t have invited Monica, either. Monica took it “to the next level” by sharing the rumor with others. (We know Monica told Whitney, Heather and Lisa.) And Lisa calls Monica a liar: “We have so many mutual friends. Nobody has ever once said that. So I’m, like, why are you lying? You’re flat out lying about your friend’s husband.”
Lisa says she was “shocked a little bit” that Angie invited Monica to her gathering, “because that would not be someone I would be, like, ‘Come learn about the Savior’s resurrection with me.’”
Angie says she and Monica bonded over being “duped” by the now-imprisoned Jen Shah. “I considered Monica a friend,” Angie said, “but I feel like I’m really starting to see that if she was really my friend she would have handled things a lot differently.”
To emphasize her point, Lisa says, “what she did to you was mean. She’s not your friend.”
(Photo by: (Charles Sykes | Bravo) Angie Katsanevas and her husband, Shawn Trujillo.
The party begins
Meredith and Mary aren’t there, but there are plenty of other guests at Angie’s tastefully decorated, modern home, including Angie’s Greek Orthodox priest; her father, Louie; her aunt; Lisa and her family; Heather; Whitney and her family; and Monica and her family. Monica’s mother, Linda, is delighted to learn that Louie is single; Monica is not delighted that her mother asked. “Absolutely not. No,’ she says in a confessional.
Angie tells viewers that her father emigrated from the Greek island of Crete. And when her mother died, her father, then 44, was left to raise seven children. “He already had a hard life coming to America,” she says, “and not knowing the language and having to work hard to … build a life for his family here.”
Heather greets Shawn and asks, “where do you get your clothes custom-made?” Shawn replies, “my gay boyfriend.” (Ha!)
Angie tells her guests that she is “always inspired by the story of Christ’s resurrection. It’s a story of hope, because Christ was mocked and ridiculed and crucified. And he managed to rise up three days later, and I think if Christ can rise above it, then we, too, shall rise again.”
In a confessional, Heather says, “I feel like Angie is kind of making herself Jesus in this whole story, which I guess would make Meredith ... Judas.” (Actually, she first said “Brutus” before correcting herself, having confused Jesus Christ with Julius Caesar. “Look, I’ve lost my religion!” she says.)
The party itself looks fabulous — great food, great decorations, great party gifts, fun dancing.
Lisa presses Angie about Monica, and Angie says she intends to talk to her. That day. At her own Easter party. (What could go wrong?)
(Fred Hayes/Bravo) Heather Gay and Lisa Barlow on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
Heather talks to Lisa
Heather asks Lisa why she was so unhappy to learn that she had invited Angie over and apologized for not backing her up when she was fighting with Meredith. “I was super triggered listening to Angie, because no one was there for me,” Lisa says, when she was battling Meredith over the past couple of years. Heather replies, “I didn’t know that this was a little black rain cloud hanging over your head.”
Lisa says not to worry about it: “We’re fine, because we’re always surface.” Heather, however, feels like they have “a much deeper relationship than that,” and she would “love” if Lisa “could talk to me about that in a way that’s constructive.” She adds that she wants to talk to Lisa about Jack’s mission “because if you’re sending your kid out to the wilderness for two years, you should know the good and the bad of it.” Lisa doesn’t want that, she says, adding, “I just want to be focused on supporting Jack.” And Heather asks Lisa why she hasn’t read her book.
They go back and forth about the religion, but they’re clearly not going to reach an agreement. Heather has never accepted that Lisa’s version of Mormonism is orthodox (it clearly is not), and she scoffs when Lisa says she’d wear the strapless dress she has on to church services. “To be fair,” Heather says in a confessional, “I’d gladly join her church. It seems great. All the perks and none of the payments. Maybe if that’s what Jack says on his mission, he’ll have a lot of success.”
Lisa tells Heather, “you wrote a book about being a bad Mormon. I’m focused on my kid being a good Mormon.” They agree to disagree, sort of, but the discussion of religion is “off the table,” Lisa says.
Angie talks to Monica
Angie tells Monica that she was “hurt because you had put out the rumors that you thought Meredith was speaking about.” Monica immediately becomes defensive, insisting, “But I said that to you because I had your back and I was there for you 100%. I told you about it right away. I don’t like the [expletive] that was being said, I don’t believe that.”
“When you don’t believe it, then why would you say it?” Angie asks. Monica replies, “Because Whitney asked.”
(Brett Colvin | Bravo) Monica Garcia and Meredith Marks on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City."
And, it turns out, Meredith was telling the truth. She told multiple people that she had dirt on Shawn and Angie, but she did not tell Monica (or anyone else, that we know of) what that dirt was. “I didn’t hear it from Meredith,” Monica says. “I heard it from the Salt Lake City streets.” When Monica told her she knew stuff about Shawn, Monica assumed it was the gay rumors.
Monica insists she only repeated the rumor to Angie, but we know she also repeated it to Whitney, Lisa, Heather (and who knows who else). In a confessional, Monica says, “I first heard the rumor, honestly, years ago. Way before I ever met Meredith. This is something that has been circulating all over for years.”
(Wow. A rumor that a hairdresser is gay. How unusual!)
Whitney’s marital woes
Whitney and her husband, Justin, go out to lunch at Urban Hill in Salt Lake City, and things quickly turn confrontational.
Justin says it “feels good” to be at his new job after a year off, but that it’s “quite overwhelming” to be working full time and balancing that with home life. Whitney immediately gives him an unhappy glare and says, “I feel like I’m sinking.”
(Charles Sykes | Bravo) Whitney and Justin Rose on the "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" Season 3 reunion.
She says that when Justin comes downstairs in the morning, turns on the TV and starts looking at his phone, it “drives me [expletive] nuts.” Then she tells an extended story about cooking breakfast while her two children are fighting with each other, she’s making school lunches, her dog pees on the couch, the bacon is burning and the smoke alarm is going off. Justin “ignored” her when she needed “validation,” Whitney says.
This leads to Justin saying, “I don’t always want to be the one initiating sex.” (Really.) Whitney rolls her eyes and replies, “It’s not about sex.” Justine says, “not for you. But it is, obviously, for me.”
Whitney says that since Justin returned to work, she has a “shorter fuse … more anger … lack of focus” and she “can’t function.”
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