"Trials and Tribulations," S3E14
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 3 Finale Recap
My Title: "Everything's Coming Up [Wild] Roses"
My rating: 4 out of 5 Barbie scissor kicks
Support for Lisa Barlow: Strong
The season finale helpfully opens with a full inventory of ongoing plot-lines. They are: Heather's Bad Mormon book and misfit choir, the @shahexposed Instagram account, Jen being insane in San Diego, Heather's Black Eye, Jen's fraud trial.
We've had a very Heather-Jen season, unfortunately for us.
In the opening, Jen's tagline has reverted from "The only thing I'm guilty of is being Shah-mazing!" to "I'm fighting for my life, not your approval," presumably after United States government quoted the former to demonstrate Jen's flippancy about her case. It appears she's finally taking things seriously, only she's a minute late and 16 million dollars short: Last week, she was Jentenced to six and a half years in prizzy.
I sincerely hope that is the last we see of her for some time. Of course, it isn't, because we still gotta watch the finale together (and then the reunion which I am excited about.) Onward!
It's not Heather's book launch party, but Heather's book cover reveal party — OK? The title of the book, Bad Mormon, will be frosted on the windows, and the Salt Lake City skyline will glitter above steam rising off the heated pool. I think the title is. great.
The other ladies and their husbands prepare for the event, which is apparently later that day.
Wait... maybe it's starting immediately? The next scene is Heather, the Bottega Cuntessa, strutting back into the space after a costume change. I was physically unable to suppress the "YAS" that escaped from my throat!
Heather is hoping for no drama. But she says if there is drama, she hopes it will occur in front of her Bad Mormon cover mockup, because she is a PR maven!
Not sure if it's 6 PM or 11 AM, but everybody is now rolling up to the function. Lisa greets Heather warmly and notes that her eye is almost completely healed. "Just like the memory of it, I hope," Heather jokes.
"The memory is never going away, Heather," Lisa not-jokes.
"I wanted it to not be an issue, and now it's the only issue," Heather straight up lies.
Enter Whitney, also wearing a skin-tight black dress. Her and Heather embrace, and all seems briefly well. We also see Bad Angie arrive. And Good Angie, whose entire personality is Greek-American, tells Whitney and Lisa that, in honor of Greek Easter, she is going to confront Jen about some off-camera comments later on.
(If Good Angie isn't lying to seem more Greek, the date must be April 24th, 2022; a week after non-Greek Easter and three months prior to Jen's guilty plea.)
Allegedly, Jen told a man (gay?) (I guess it doesn't matter) that Good Angie was the one who punched Heather. "That's ludicrous," Whitney says. Up until this moment, Jen has conducted herself with the integrity of a house of cards, and the odds are high that this was either a reckless act of comedy — similar to her hilarious bit where she pours champagne on her friends' freshly-pressed hair — or an outright lie. Still, viewers of the show are forced to consider the possibility that Good Angie did whoop Heather in the night, and the idea is shocking. But not quite so shocking as the idea of Jen telling the truth for once in her life! This particular case is not yet closed.
It gets better. Angie ups the ante by suggesting Jen punched Heather after they had sex.
Crucially, Angie does not say they had sex. She says they were doing "Barbie scissor kicks."
Actually she does then immediately say she thinks they "had a sexual relationship, romping and bumping, and giving each other a black eye because somebody wasn't very good in bed in the end, who knows."
Whitney's reactions are truly perfect.
[BK's Take: This is an official and notarized declaration of stanhood for Whitney Wild Rose. 1/12/23. For many reasons that I will have to elucidate in a future post—I simply haven't the time right now.]
Lisa makes a vaguely homophobic comment about not understanding how scissoring works. Lisa... I'm not mad, but I'm not happy!
Good Angie does a little demonstration with her hands, and it's unfortunately audible:
Immediately Jen and Coach Shah approach Bad Angie and her fat fucking elf on the shelf husband. Aside, Coach Shah asks for an honorable apology from the man who created the @shahexposed finsta. Angie's husband says a couple words — no more than five — before descending into a very soft sob. What an utterly bizarre reaction! Bad Angie takes the wheel.
"It wasn't personal!" Whatever. It all becomes water under the heated pool.
It's time for the choir to perform — all of the ladies participate with the notable exceptions of Whitney and Meredith, who cling to their husbands in the crowd. The song is "Amazing Grace," and it soon becomes clear that the rehearsal we saw but a few episodes ago was in fact the only rehearsal conducted. (Certainly you remember: Heather in the green vest? The Tom of Finlandesque choir director? Lisa asked Heather "Am I your friend?" and Heather said "Is that important to you?")
Clap clap clap clap. Heather takes the mic for her solo and takes her place beside the cover mockup, pre-reveal. She gives a speech about being a good friend — a ride-or-die, even. Interesting, seeing as her book isn't about friendship? Not even the choir is not about friendship, as more than half of it is comprised by musical theatre majors she imported from local universities?
Then she reveals the cover for Bad Mormon. In their confessionals, Good Angie and Lisa issue snarky remarks on the "book cover reveal party" conceit, calling it hollow, where's the actual book?, etc. They don't understand: It's all about the pre-sales, baby. (The book comes out Feb 7 — it's perfect promo!)
When the party continues, Whitney wants to speak with Jen. Not to smooth things over, exactly, but to get an explanation for her recent behavior. This is a popular social miscalculation: The idea that "talking things out" equals communicating effectively, or usually results in some form of understanding. Whitney wants a coherent, nuanced admission of wrongdoing from Jen, something Jen has shown both on-camera and in a court of law that she is unable to produce.
Bad weather. Heather is off-camera somewhere else, but the rest of the housewives seem to gather around Whitney and Jen like a storm. The conflict begins to escalate as Angie begins to thunder with her own anti-Jen talking points, overtaking Whitney completely.
Angie accuses her of spreading the "Angie-punched-Heather" rumor, which Jen categorically denies.
She desperately calls out for her husband to come to her side. Good Angie goes in a very bad direction and begins questioning whether or not Jen survived a suicide attempt. Jen goes ballistic and walks off. Coach Shah assures Angie it was very real.
Jen is all "get the cameras out of my face!" and needs to cool down. Heather takes Greek Angie aside and asks her what her aim is with Jen, which Angie cannot communicate; it seems like she just wanted to lash out at her?
Jen decides to leave. Good idea! Meredith guides her out with the trademark sisterly warmth that has become her custom:
It's clean-up time; we see empty champagne glasses and Heather bidding farewell to guests. And then... what's this?... the episode seems to end, with each housewife getting their little postscript placard. (None of them are good but I'm obsessed with the first half of Meredith's.)
Of course, one housewife is missing from this montage. The screen goes black, and three words sear into view.
It's a clear, July day in Salt Lake City. Jen and her mother are enjoying the weather on Jen's front porch. Soon she'll go to New York for her trial, which is in a few days. "When I come back, I'll be guilty or innocent," she says wistfully. Her mom says, "You'll be innocent. Right?"
A spooky montage plays. We see that day at Beauty Lab and Laser, in the hours before Jen's arrest; we see her asserting her innocence at a restaurant; we see Andy Cohen at the reunion mentioning the New York District Attorney's 95% conviction rate, and Jen's response, "Because people take plea deals,"; we see her "I'M INNOCENT!!!!!!!!!!!" outside the choir auditions.
For those who are wondering how the cinematographers at Bravo decided to frame the final shots of this sequence, when Jen arrives in New York to enter a guilty plea, wonder no more:
After a commercial break, we're back. My heart is racing. There are 20 minutes left in the episode, and all of them appear to be devoted to the events immediately pre- and post-guilty plea.
Heather and Meredith are revealed to be with Jen for her trial. After privately expressing their worry, they go to Jen's suite, which is the size of Versailles. All of the women are wearing Brooks Marks tracksuits.
In the blonde living room, the Shahs and friends have a solemn but supportive conversation.
The next day (?) Meredith and her husband dine with Heather. (The camera works very hard to make it seem as though they are at a chic riverside bistro, but they are eating at the Brookfield Place mall downtown, by the marina, in case you care.)
They discuss the gravity of the case, before discussing the case itself. Meredith was a lawyer, remember? (I don't know what her husband does but I think it's commerce related??) She points out the case isn't about the scheme itself, which we know happened, but about Jen's knowledge and involvement in it.
Meredith's husband asks: What if guilty?
Meredith says it would be a "huge problem" if she was proclaiming her innocence but turned out to be guilty.
Heather doesn't really answer. She makes a comment about how nice the weather is, and contrasts it with the grave circumstances of their being there to enjoy it. More like Bad Metaphor... am I right, ladies?
Pajama party in Jen's room! Heather brought Sour Patch Kids. Jen continues to maintain her innocence. Talk about ride or die! She brings up her former assistant Stuart, who was also implicated in the scheme but plead guilty early on. Jen seems to suggest that he played her, the unwitting boss. In her confessional, Heather seems to suggest that this was a bridge too far. Blaming Stuart? Something's not right...
The two people I want to discuss this matter most meet to discuss this matter.
Heather has returned from New York mere seconds ago. She is reeling. So is Lisa. Both are horrified, astonished, grieving, angry, heartbroken. The most galling thing, according to Heather? She claimed innocence because she thought she could get away with it.
She goes a few steps further by invoking Coach Shah. "If my husband knew about it and was involved..." she says. "'I'll take care of the boys, see you in 15 years,'? That to me is a whole other tragedy."
That's all, folks. I'm looking forward to the upcoming reunion episodes, and am trying to think of different formats for covering them in a way that'll be fresh and funny. As always, if you made it this far, thank you for reading. –BK
Discussion question: When Whitney said that "they say every woman is three shots away from being a lesbian," did you think it was a little homophobic? The more I think about it, the more I don't think so — more of a comment on how inebriation can often lead to sexual experimentation. Then again, maybe it was homophobic of me to assume that Jen was speaking to a gay man earlier, even though I know in my heart she probably was. Also, who is the most homophobic SLC housewife? I believe I know the answer but I fear to utter it aloud.
(Why did Angie look at Jen on the word wretch [sobbing emoji!!!!] She turned to her ON THE WORD. Was anybody else unsettled?)
