‘Real Housewives of SLC’ recap: Who is behind a ‘huge boondoggle of deceit’ targeting one of the women?

In the Dec. 12 episode of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” — which is extra long at 75 minutes — it’s the morning after all the drama the night before (in the previous episode), and it’s Monica Garcia’s birthday. On an outdoor deck at the house in Bermuda, Heather Gay is setting up a birthday breakfast. “We’re going to make her, like, queen for the day,” she tells Angie Katsanevas.

(An onscreen graphic tells us it’s Monica’s 39th birthday. However, there are multiple reports that she was born June 1, 1983, which would make this her 40th birthday. And Heather does tell Monica, “You are now entering, officially, middle age.” Which seems more like something you’d say to someone turning 40.)

Heather is still steaming because, the previous night, Whitney Rose told her to “shut the [expletive] up.” Angie agrees that Whitney was “totally disrespectful.” Meredith Marks also agrees: “I don’t think anyone should speak that way, period.” No one on the show has to call Meredith a hypocrite; the editors do that for them. They insert a clip of Meredith angrily dropping f-bombs before returning to the present as she says, “I don’t believe in speaking that way.”

Heather is calling Whitney “petty” when Whitney walks out on the deck and hears her. Rather than blow up, Whitney apologizes “for speaking to you that way.” Heather says, “Don’t ever do it again,” and hugs Whitney. In a confessional, Whitney says, “I am genuinely sorry that I lost control of my emotions. And I just hope that Heather’s over it, because I don’t want to feel like I wasted an apology.”

Lisa Barlow questions if Heather brought a helium tank to inflate the balloons; Heather says, no, she used a manual pump. “But you’ll know how to use it. It’ll come naturally to you.” And Lisa, proving she does have a sense of humor about herself, replies, “Yes, that’s how I get my Jazz tickets.” (You’ll recall that there were false allegations that Lisa used sexual favors to acquire NBA tickets.)

Monica arrives at the surprise birthday breakfast, and appears genuinely touched. “This is so cool, you guys,” she says. “I love it.” Heather gives her a crown, scepter and robe. In a confessional, Monica jokes that she “never thought about what I would do with such power. Honestly, I’m just happy to be here right now — and not having to, like, pick up poop off the floor.”

Back at the breakfast, she gets emotional: “I really have never had a birthday like this in my life.”

Plans for the day

Monica says they’re all going to ride Jet Skis, then lunch on the beach, and then she’s going to go visit family members she hasn’t seen in 30 years. “I’m going to tell them a lot about their cousin, Linda,” she jokes. (Linda is her mother, with whom she is feuding.)

Flashback to two weeks earlier: After Monica agrees to go to therapy with her mother, Linda doesn’t show up. According to Monica, Linda has been contacting family members in Bermuda about surprising her there — which Monica thinks is just about a trip to Bermuda.

Although the two have been feuding (if not openly battling) for most of the season, Monica invites Lisa to go with her when she meets her family. In a confessional, Lisa says that although things between her and Monica have been “really rough … the fact that she wants me to see another side of her and to meet her family and to get a glimpse into who she is — I’m willing to go with her. Like, I’m always willing to give somebody a chance.”

Back in the present, Monica tells Lisa about Meredith’s allegations (revealed in the previous episode) that Angie is in the Greek mafia, and that there is something shady about her businesses. (There is some very funny editing, cutting this scene back and forth with Angie — in a Greek flag bikini — awkwardly trying to get on a pink flamingo float in the pool.)

Lisa’s reaction is immediate and loud: “Oh my god, are you crazy? That is nuts!” Monica says she got DMs from an anonymous Instagram account with alleged documents that showed Angie and her husband, Shawn, had declared bankruptcy and owe $170,000 in back taxes.

In a confessional, Lisa says, “These rumors are ridiculous, dumb, unfounded and lies. But the problem is it’s Meredith’s intention to damage Angie’s friendships, relationships, reputations.” Lisa accurately points out that this is what happened to her the previous season — Meredith made false allegations about her business, based on “random” DMs she said she received. “I honestly feel, like, Meredith is setting you up to do her dirty work,” Lisa tells Monica. “She hates Angie.”

Monica makes it clear in a confessional that she’s not happy: “If I’m being used as a pawn to get information out, that’s really [expletived] up,” Lisa says Meredith is “losing it” and “crazy.”

Heather’s daughter sex life? Really?

In the van on the way to ride Jet Skis, Heather says her oldest daughter, Ashley — who attends Cal State-Santa Barbara — is “living her best life. She’s blonde, on the beach, with a Mercedes and a sorority [and] a mom that just puts money in her account.”

“Has she had sex?” Monica asks, bringing the chatter to a sudden halt. Heather replies, “I’m not talking about my daughter’s sex life.”

Monica accuses Heather of being a prude who won’t talk about sex. In a confessional, Heather says, “There are certain things that I find disrespectful and there are certain things I consider sacred. And my daughter’s sex life is one of them.”

Back in the van, Monica says, “I don’t think it’s, like, that big of a deal.” She thinks Heather should ask her daughter how her sex is because “Kris Jenner does it all the time. It works.” (Yes, folks, Monica is holding Kris Kardashian Jenner up as an example of how to parent.)

In a confessional, Angie agrees with Monica that Heather is still repressed from her Latter-day Saint upbringing. “I’ve known her since she was 15. Heather was a very strong LDS young girl, and here we are and the topic of sex is making her very uncomfortable. It’s hard to deprogram ourselves after we’re taught a certain thing our whole life.” Monica says of Heather, “Are you a bad Mormon or not? I feel like a bad Mormon would talk about sex.”

(Monica and Angie are missing that Heather is being asked to talk about her daughter’s sex life. What normal parent of any religious stripe would want to do that?)

Getting out on the ocean

The six Housewives ride their Jet Skis in pairs — Heather with Meredith behind her; Whitney with Angie behind her; and Monica with Lisa behind her. It looks like they’re having loads of fun. “This is the most wet and wild time I’ve ever had with another woman,” says Angie — who, at one point, is holding onto Whitney’s breasts as they speed across the water.

And the Housewives have even more fun when they stop and feed bread to fish. Lisa calls it a “frenzy,” and she’s not wrong.

In a confessional, Monica says she’s loving it because she has “some little companions here that love to eat just as much as I do. I’ve seen these fish eat more in these five minutes than I’ve see these women eat as long as I’ve known them.”

More Monica drama

The Housewives get back in the van, and when Monica checks her texts, she rushes off the van and bursts into tears. Lisa follows, trying to find out what happened.

In the midst of her tears, Monica says, “My mom just made my family not meet me.” Lisa comforts her as she cries uncontrollably. In a confessional, Monica says that “all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I get a text that they don’t want to see me. And I can’t help but think that my mom was somehow involved.”

It seems a logical assumption, but — to be clear — Monica does not know for sure that her mother is behind this. That does not, however, keep her from telling the other women that this is Linda’s doing. “I feel like if my mom can hurt me, she will,” Monica says, “And I feel so alone.”

In a confessional of her own, Lisa says, “I can’t believe Monica’s mom would meddle in something this important to Monica on her birthday. … I don’t know much about the dynamic between Monica and her mom, but, clearly, it’s way different than I thought it was.”

Monica is still crying when she gets back in the van, and Lisa tells the other women what’s just happened. They comfort her.

Lunch on the beach

The Housewives arrive at a gorgeous, seemingly private beach where they eat lunch. Afterward, Lisa asks Angie to walk down the beach with her — and tells her what Monica said about Meredith’s allegations that she’s in the Greek mafia and that there are improprieties in her business.

Lisa also shares her belief that the DMs Monica got came from Meredith. “This is what she did last year with my SEC filing,” Lisa says. “It’s wrong. I mean, I don’t have proof, but … I felt like she spread the SEC documents about me last year.”

“This is what she does,” Angie agrees. “She is constantly threatening or trying to threaten my family, my reputation.” In a confessional, Angie adds, “I’m sick of her coming at my business. I’m sick of her coming at my family, It’s like, enough is enough. If she wants to see gangster, I’m going to show her gangster.”

Whitney reads

Whitney thinks that people might be shocked that she reads books. She sits out on the beach and starts reading Heather’s book, “Bad Mormon.”

“I love true-crime books, books about spirituality, books about business, but my favorite are always the thrillers,” Whitney says in a confessional. “And it seems like Heather’s life is a combination of all of that.”

Angie interrogates Monica

Angie wants to know exactly what Meredith said about the whole Greek mafia thing. In a confessional. Monica elaborates on what she told Lisa — that she didn’t even notice the disparaging DMs until Meredith told her to look for them. Angie tells Monica that Meredith “is trying to get you to do her dirty work. ... And then she’s going to sit back and sip her little cocktail and watch it all go down. And in the end, you look like the big mouth and you look like the troublemaker.”

“Well, I mean, I do have a big mouth,” Monica says.

Dressing like pirates

For her birthday dinner, Monica wants everyone to dress up like a pirate. And Heather says, in a confessional, that’s appropriate: “We’re one step above plunderers as it is. There’ll be drunkenness. There’ll be debauchery. There’ll be everything that a pirate dinner should have.”

Monica really embraces the whole dress-like-a-pirate thing. Heather and Angie make strong efforts. Meredith sort of tries — she is, at least, wearing a pirate-y blouse. Lisa make very little effort to fit the theme. Heather tells her, “I mean, you look like a wench, but not necessarily of the seven seas.”

The five of them are left waiting in the van for Whitney, who had some difficulty with her pirate costume. “My outfit came with a G string and I thought it was an eyepatch and I put it on.” (That’s soooo Whitney.)

Another dinner, two more fights

It’s back in a van and off to dinner — in a restaurant inside caverns. Fortunately, there are no bats.

As they’re waiting for the food, Monica says she “felt sex-shamed earlier on the bus.” (This is ridiculous. She felt sex-shamed because Heather didn’t want to talk about her daughter’s sex life?) So Monica suggests they each say the last time they had sex. The other women are reluctant, which prompts this from Monica in a confessional: “I don’t know if it’s, like, the culture, it’s Utah, or what, but talking about sex is like, ‘How dare you!’”

Whitney says she had sex just before coming on this trip, “and then I almost did last night, but my vibrator is dead.” She thinks this is funny. Nobody else does.

Two of the three married women — Lisa and Angie — say they had sex shortly before the trip. Meredith says she did shortly before her husband left town on a business trip. Heather refuses to answer. “All of you guys are married,” says Heather, who’s divorced, “so it’s an unfair question. And it’s an unfair game.”

In a confessional, Heather says, “I don’t want to discuss sex with Monica. Because I’ve seen the way she discusses sex.” Flashback to Monica crudely saying that she “[expletived] my brother-in-law for 18 months.”

Heather has a point, but she angers Monica when she says, “I’m the only single person here.” Although her divorce is not final (it has since been finalized), Monica says it would be if her estranged husband “would sign the papers. … Just because he won’t sign the papers doesn’t mean that I’m married.” (Well, actually, it does.)

“Do you think you’re as single as me?” Heather says. Monica replies that she is, adding, “If I want to go [expletive] someone right now I can go [expletive] someone right now. That’s as single as it gets.”

Monica’s anger again quickly gets out of control. She’s yelling at Heather, who made her queen for the day and catered to her whims. Heather is also heated. She tells Monica to “shut the [expletive] up, like Whitney said to me last night.”

Whitney says the smartest thing at the table: “We should not play games anymore.”

Round 2: Angie (and others) vs. Meredith

Angie takes a pause in Round 1 to reignite her ongoing battle with Meredith. She brings up the whole Greek mafia thing.

“So far, appetizers were a kerfuffle with me and Monica,” Heather says in a confessional. “For the main course — Meredith and Angie. What’s for dessert? A rum punch from Whitney right in the face?”

Angie repeats back to Meredith what she heard earlier about the Greek mafia allegations and other “fraudulent things.” Heather is visibly startled by the mafia allegation. In a confessional, she says, “Wait, what? Angie in the Greek mafia? I grew up with Angie and, trust me, she is no Tony Soprano.”

Meredith says she has no idea what Angie is talking about. This angers Monica, who says, “We did have that conversation. We did talk about her being in the Greek mafia.” Meredith continues to deny everything.

Angie says she does not owe $170,000 to the IRS. Meredith says she never said she did. But Angie finds it suspicious that, after Meredith told Monica to check her DMs, she found the anonymous messages making that allegation and others.

“I don’t know who this person is, but I know who everyone thinks it is,” Monica says. Meredith rather airily tosses it off, saying, “Well, it’s not me.”

Whitney thinks it’s Meredith. She points out that, a year earlier, Meredith brought up the same sort of allegation against Lisa. Lisa says it’s “almost exactly” the same and terms it “suspicious.” Whitney says to Meredith, “It’s pretty obvious that you’re doing this behind the scenes.”

Meredith continues to maintain her innocence. In a confessional, she says, “At this point with … this group of women, the accusations aren’t even surprising. I don’t know what the issue is here,” suggesting it might be “jealousy” or “hatred.” But, she adds, “they have been incessantly coming after me for nothing.”

(It’s worth pointing out that, earlier this season, Monica said Meredith was spreading rumors that Angie’s husband was having affairs with men. It turned out that that was what Monica assumed Meredith was talking about when she said she had dirt on Angie’s marriage.)

Lisa tells Meredith she’s “lying about this” and she believes she’s “behind the [expletive] DMs. ... I’m so done with you doing this mean [expletive] to all of us. Stop it!” LIsa says she is “[expletive] livid.” Meredith says, “I’m not doing anything.”

Angie isn’t buying it. “You know you’ve done this,” she tells Meredith. “If you would come forward and admit it, we can move on.” In a confessional, Lisa says, “I don’t get how Meredith doesn’t realize, like, we’re on to you. Like, it doesn’t take Inspector Gadget to figure out what you’re doing.”

She says to Meredith’s face that “if one more [expletive] DM shows up, I will have my cybersecurity team go the distance on it.”

This startles the other women. In a confessional, Whitney says, “Why in the hell does Lisa have a cybersecurity guy? Like, do I need to get one?” In another confessional, Heather says, “I can only assume this is, like, Geek Squad in Armani.” In a confessional of her own, Lisa says she and her husband “cross our t’s and dot our i’s. Did you not expect us to have someone that would work in cybersecurity? Bitch, you’ve been warned.”

Whitney and Lisa express a desire to end this. Meredith is still denying everything. In a confessional, Heather says, “Listen, Meredith has a very sophisticated game of pot stirring. I mean, she’s very into documents. But to think one of our friends has gone to the trouble to create a fake account to then send dirt DMs that they dug up on another one of our friends to themselves is a huge boondoggle of deceit.”

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