Sweeping shots of mountain majesties. The sweet sounds of a knockoff Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Designer shoes in the snow. It can mean only one thing: The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is back — and it’s off to an ominous start. The third season of the best show on television opens with a haunting montage of behind-the-scenes confessional footage from 2019 showing us how far we’ve come since that first season and just how far off the rails we’ve gone.
Jen Shah is talking about how much money she makes, Meredith and Lisa sing each other’s praises, and Heather and Whitney are gushing about their perfect relationship. To quote Kyle Richards, “We were all so happy that day … it’s actually hard to even imagine how terrible things would soon become.” And by terrible, I mean Shah-mazing.
We’re jolted back into the present day when Lisa Barlow saunters into the frame, back where she belongs, holding a fountain soda the size of her head. She’s off to lunch — but not with whom you might expect. Like a twisted episode of Wife Swap, things kick off with separate lunches between two sets of nemeses, one with Lisa and Heather, and the other with Jen and Meredith. Well, technically, Jen and Meredith aren’t meeting for lunch; they’re going to have a conversation while standing in some pool — a classic Salt Lake City pastime.
Unlike all the shooting locations for this show, hell has not frozen over, but rather, Lisa’s hot-mic tirade has created a disturbance in the SLC force, giving the women no choice but to shift alliances. And after Lisa called her a “garbage trash whore,” Jen calling Brooks a twink (derogatory) probably doesn’t seem so bad to Meredith anymore.
Over a pair of Vida Palomas, Lisa asks for Heather’s advice on how to dig herself out of this mess with Meredith. Ultimately, Heather tells her that she has to grovel and eat a lot of humble pie to get out of this one. But until they add humble pie to the Taco Bell drive-thru, I think we’ve got a long way to go.
Over in that weird outdoor pool, this seems to be the beginning for Meredith, who’s preparing for war, not a cease-fire. “I’m hearing rumors left, right, and center about Lisa. And am I spreading them? No.” See, that’s the kind of steel trap Meredith is; she would never go so low as to repeat horrible rumors about her friend like that. Until seconds later, when Jen asks what the rumors are and Meredith tells her they’re about Lisa cheating on her husband. But that restraint was impressive while it lasted!
Jen’s advice isn’t quite as sage as Heather’s, and she suggests that Meredith monetize the hot-mic rant by making “Garbage Trash Whore” T-shirts, which, to be fair to Jen, I would purchase and wear.
At Whitney’s house, her daughter, Bobbi, is making a pros-and-cons list about boys, the very mention of which seems to summon Heather, a.k.a. Salt Lake’s Samantha Jones. Whitney takes Heather into her speakeasy, which is tucked behind bookshelves filled with books that were surely bought to build a speakeasy with. And as a former Mormon, she says the fact that she has a bar in her house is a “big dill,” which is how Whitney pronounces deal.
Speaking of being a former Mormon, Whitney tells Heather that after a session with her energy healer, Megan (of course), she plans on officially leaving the Church by requesting her name be removed from its records. While Heather isn’t ready to pull this trigger just yet, out of respect for her still-Mormon family, Whitney goes to QuitMormon.com, prints out the letter, and says so long to Joseph Smith. As someone who has had to unsubscribe from Old Navy promotional emails, I can relate. Like the Church, they also told me I would burn for eternity in hell for removing my name from their ledger.
Over in Jen’s latest, newly downsized Shah Chalet rental, she’s struggling to turn on the fireplace — because along with the house, she says she had to downsize the Shah Squad. But were they downsized, or did they all just take plea deals? Either way, they surely won’t be attending Sharrieff’s birthday party at the home of Jen’s friend (and new friend of the show) Angie K., who sounds like Stephanie J. Block doing Cher. The theme, despite the demographics of Utah (as Sharrieff notes), is Harlem Nights.
In a rental of their own, Meredith and Seth are unpacking groceries and chatting about The Tirade™. It seems like Meredith’s strategy is to go through the soliloquy point by point and turn the tables, applying it to Lisa instead of herself — thus dismissing the entire thing as projection. We’re seeing lawyer and litigator Meredith Marks in action. She questions what John Barlow does just as Lisa questioned Seth, brings up SEC filings about their businesses not making money, and even says, “I have never exchanged sex for money; that’s what a whore is. Maybe someone else has.” When the producer asks if she’s talking about Lisa, she takes a sip out of her “I Love NY” mug and shrugs. It seems like she’s leaning hard into the “I Love NY” merch this year based on the previews, which may be a nod to Lisa accusing her of fucking “half of New York.”
The big event of the episode is Sharrieff’s party, but don’t be fooled, this is yet another Real Housewives Roaring ’20s theme party — an epidemic the CDC has yet to step in to mitigate. Yes, technically they say it’s Harlem Nights themed, and that movie takes place in the ’30s, but a mere ten years won’t stop these women from digging into their flapper storage.
Lisa arrives, naturally on edge since it’s her first group event post-tirade. But she hopes that eventually Meredith will be open to moving past this, saying that if the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t throw away a ten-year friendship. Well, I guess that claim will be put to the test when Lisa sees the footage of Meredith calling her a whore. But Lisa doesn’t let her party jitters keep her from plugging that Vida is working on a hard seltzer. Talk about burying the lede! Why is this product not in my hands right this second? This is where we need to direct all federal funding until I’m sipping on a Baja Blast–flavored Vida hard seltzer.
All in all, the party appears to be the great time that Sharrieff deserves for having to go through all of Jen’s legal woes. There’s dancing and gambling; Heather cozies up to Glen Davis from the Celtics; and in classic Househusband fashion, Seth and John even awkwardly put their wives’ feud aside. There’s nothing Househusbands love to do as much as staying pals while their wives try to destroy one another’s lives.
Lisa sits down at a blackjack table with her new best friends, the artists formerly known as Bad Weather, and says it’s not the right time to talk to Meredith because she just wants to be there for Jen. And on the subject of Jen, Whitney chimes in with a brilliant idea for a getaway. It’s always fun to see what arbitrary excuse for a cast trip production comes up with, whether it be Meghan King Edmonds finding Irish relatives in Dublin or Melissa Gorga shopping for her boutique in Milan. But we really break new ground here when Whitney suggests they all go to Scottsdale, Arizona, for a girls’ trip before Jen’s trial starts. It’s as good a reason as any!
Even though she doesn’t want to get into it, Lisa still does an awkward drive-by with Meredith to say she wants to talk at some point. Meredith is not receptive to this, saying in a confessional that she’s had two months to reach out. Yes, Meredith, but cameras were not up in those two months, so a reconciliation then wouldn’t have been good for any of us.
Lisa has better luck getting Seth to engage — and she hits him with a rapid-fire apology on all cylinders. “I don’t feel that way,” “I haven’t been able to sleep,” “It was a blind rant,” “I don’t even remember saying those things,” “I’m not making excuses.” Seth, surely well trained by Meredith, doesn’t give Lisa an inch of forgiveness. But out of all the teary apologies, nothing tops “I’ve never talked badly about Meredith to anybody.” Except America, but that’s it!
Usually, I’m wary of five-person casts, but there’s such a richness in character and story here that I’m confident these five women can pull it off. If we’re dealing with drama so deeply rooted in these women’s lives, going back ten years in some cases, I don’t need to see a new Housewife trying to shoehorn herself into things with superficial fluff. If we’re dealing with prison sentences, I want the vets and only the vets! And so far, they’re delivering. Even Lisa’s one-episode attempt to smooth things over with Meredith seems short-lived, as she says at the end of the episode that there’s only so much apologizing she can do.
