‹ Back

Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Rundown: Highway to Vail

 

This episode begins exactly where the previous one ended. Meredith has organized a girl’s trip to Vail, CO, and everyone is meeting up on the parking lot of Shrek’s Heather’s “beauty” and laser facility (don’t laugh … ogres can be beautiful too!).  Meredith has gone ahead earlier to Vail, to endure a personal timeshare sales presentation for a free weekend stay at an ugly 1980's style seven bedroom rental.  Pastor Mary will ride separately as well.  Just as they are ready to leave, Jen receives a call from some unknown person who has tipped her off that the Feds have or are raiding her Shah-ugly rental, and are now on their way to bust HER. So she concocts a cockamamie story about her husband having internal bleeding, de-mics, and bolts. Within moments, Homeland Security and NYPD surrounds the party van and informs production that they are looking for Jen Shah.  Heather jumps out of the van and asks what's going on, and later on in the van, she infers that they told her that they were actually there to protect her.

 

After debating whether they should wait for Jen, the ladies decide to begin their six hour trek to Vail.  On the way, they begin to piece together that Jen is in some kind of serious trouble, and that the phone call was actually someone tipping her off.  Gee, ya think?  As a viewer, my first thought was, would the Feds really allow ANYONE, let alone the partner in crime husband access to their phones, and secondly, wouldn't the Feds have instructed production and friends NOT to contact the their suspect?  In my mind, doing so would certainly constitute "aiding and abetting" (a wanted fugitive).

 

Channeling Sutton Stracke, Lisa Barlow immediately begins making calls to lawyers as JenNIE (the Vietnamese chick) maintains the situation has nothing to do with them, and then starts rummaging through Jen’s abandoned snack stash.  Heather objects, proclaiming that "Jen's body isn't even cold yet", but upon discovering mint Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos says, what the hell.

 

Heather starts texting Jen, but Lisa tells her that she's wasting her time, because as Whitney said earlier, Jen may be on the run, adding that the Feds are probably pinging her phone.  Jennie chimes in and agrees, saying the cops most likely had been "watching" (and building their case against Shah) for months, and probably tracked Jen to Heather's parking lot via pinging her phone.  Whitney suddenly puts two and two together and reminds everyone that Jen’s alleged shady business is headquartered in New York, hence the NYPD's involvement.

 

Heather continues to give Jen the benefit of the doubt, and naively hopes that Jen is going to show up after just filling out a little paperwork, but just then, Whitney suddenly gets a text alert ... “Real Housewives star charged with massive fraud money laundering scheme.”.  Heather and Lisa become hysterical, proclaiming how bad they feel for Jen's family (without mentioning even a word about the victims).  As Whitney gleefully continues reading the news updates from her phone, she announces that Jen and her accomplice assistant, Stuart, are now being charged with "laundering money and stealing money from and defrauding vulnerable, often working-class elderly people", a crime that could land them both in jail for 30 years! 

 

Nonchalently guzzling on a long neck, Jennie asks Whitney why Jen would steal from old people, prompting Whitney to explain exactly how proficiently scam the elderly, that is buying demographic data. Jennie (along with myself) is suspicious of how much admitted sugar daddy benefactor Whitney knows about this.  Sho' nuff, the cops raid Jen’s Shawshank's house and take everything, sans Coach Shah (in handcoughs).

 

The ladies face time Meredith, who is hearing about the siuation for the first time.  Reveling in vindication, Meredith says she’s not the least bit surprised and suspected for quite some time that something like this was going to happen.  In fact, she actually has even more dirt on Jen, but that can wait, because right now she just can't wait for the girls to get there.  Next we see the now infamous scene the press swarming corn row Jen as she leaves the courthouse.  She has "no comment" (on being arrested for defrauding the elderly). 

 

As hour five approaches in the van,, Heather is comparing Jen's charges to the money-laundering schemes that she learned from watching Ozark, trying to puzzle together if Jen ran a construction company or a cash business (like a strip joint or laundromat). Whitney is like, “Holy shit, that’s why Jen starts all these companies — because you can dump cash into a start-up and expense it as a loss on your taxes!”.

 

Meanwhile, Mary arrives at the timeshare, but with no fanfare, or even a personal greeting at the door, and she is not pleased.  Apparently, Meredith learned nothing from the wrath that Mary bestowed on Whitney for simply rejecting a face time call.  Mary says, “For me, proper etiquette to greet people and you need to be dressed with some food on the table.”.  Mary is left wondering around the tacky "chalet" for any sign of life and eventually finds Meredith soaking in the bathtub. Clearly in no hurry to wrap her bath, Meredith leaves Mary standing in the doorway as she begins the conversation about Jen's arrest.  Mary tries to convince Meredith what compassion she feels for Jen, and doesn’t understand how Meredith seemingly has none, but then does a 180 by saying that the FBI doesn’t get involved “unless there’s facts .... or if someone talks".

 

The other women arrive to join Mary still standing in the doorway, as Meredith continues serving up Jayne Mansfield cheesecake in a bubble bath.  The Blessed Mary actually acknowledges Jennie's (the Vietnamise chick's) existence by telling her that she looks pretty, however, Jennie just politely thanks her and turns away. Mary then tells us that she forgot Jennie was even going to be there and adds that she doesn't even want to be bothered with Whitney. Giving Meredith the opportunity to  finally remove her shriveled body from the tub, the women begin the arduous task of choosing their rooms. 

 

The ladies sit down to enjoy a sumptious buffet prepared by Chef Jay, and immediately, a still gleeful Whitney spreads a rumor that Jen was arrested on the side of the road because the Feds traced her phone. Jennie then relays a little tidbit that her wannabe palygamist husband shared with her; that the Feds had actually been planning the sting since 2012.  If this is true, Jen is truly Shahfucked.  As Mary continues going on about "reaping and sowing", Meredith then drops two bombshells.

 

In the first bombshell, she accuses of Jen’s black assistants of shoplifting a  “little green snake clutch” at her Meredith Marks NYC boutique (which BTW, no longer exists), and she's got texts and security surveillance video to prove it.  Her second bombshell alleges that Louis Vuitton has red-flagged Jen Shah, becasue she pays for the ridiculously priced crap in cash. 

 

Heather gets in on the action as well by revealing that she ordered Jen an Uber the other night, and as she "was tracking her trip", she saw Jen get out of the Uber a half a mile down the road, prompting Jennie to ask if Jen was meeting up with another guy.

 

Although I'm not sure I agree with Andy Cohen's asseessment that this was one of the  top 5 all time best Real Housewives episodes, it was pretty good. It remains to be seen how much of Jen Shah we will be seeing for the remainder of the season, but it doesn't appear that Jen met up with the ladies in Vail.  However, in the preview for next week, we do see Jen losing her shit while conferring with her lawyer, and of course proclaiming her innocence.