RHOSLC: Fair Weather Friends

 

Watching this shit show, all I kept thinking about was where is the footage of Jen Shahshank’s lawyer telling her that filming right now is a VERY bad idea, and PLEADING with her to tear up her Bravo contract. But of course that’s never going to happen (at least not until the reunion), because that would be breaking the fourth wall. So for the time being, we will all have to just play along and pretend that there are no cameras.

 

Heather and Lisa both received phone calls from an unknown number, and to no one’s surprise, it’s Jen Shah, but Heather is the only one who picks up the phone. Depending on how she’s feeling at the moment, Heather has questions, but these aren’t the kind of conversations you want to have on a cell phone with someone who has recently been pinched by the Feds. So Heather agrees to meet Jen at some off-the-beaten-path dumpy looking steak joint.

 

Jen gives a detailed breakdown of the arrest as they replay the raw Google Nest door cam video of her thuggish son in handcuffs being escorted out of their rental by a S.W.A.T. team. Heather is outraged and questions whether they would have treated a White family the same way (apparently, she never saw the Feds in action when they apprehended a 70 year old Roger Stone in his home at 5:00 am).  The mic drop moment of the episode occurs when Jen tells Heather that first of all, Stuart Smith is NOT her business partner (as production runs archive footage of Jen joking about him making HER all kinds of money).  Jen is completely oblivious to the fact that she just tipped off the prosecution as to what her defense strategy will be.

 

Anyway, she tells Shrek that when the White van and black SUV pulled her over (to arrest her), her first thought was that she was being kidnapped and forced into the Ukrainian sex trafficking business. Do Russian businessmen with over-the-hill Kim K knockoff fantasies really exist? Jen then goes on about how none of her friends are supporting her and will be expectinig to hear “a big fucking I’m sorry, I’m a piece of shit’” from Lisa and Meredith (when she is proven innocent.). Sure Jen.

 

Over some Chipotle carryout, Whitney is telling her former boss turned husband, Justin, that she has already invested a few hundred thousand into her Iris + Beau company, and informs him that he’s going to have to cosign a million dollar line of credit.  It makes no sense, and we are supposed to believe that he’s hearing about all this for the first time.  There is also no mention of her Wild Rose company.  Whitney confesses that she’s really bad with money and Justin reminds her that “he’s gonna be gone” and doesn’t want her and the kids (presumably from either  of his marriages) to be suffer any financial hardship. I’m wondering if he means gone-gone or prison-gone, because in case you haven’t heard, Justin is being sued for running a pyramid scheme.

 

Bat shit crazy Mary decides to prove her innocence (about the cult-leader thing) by admitting out loud that she’s a hoarder, which sheds a little more light on all those extravagant gifts to the girls on last week’s episode. Her excuse is that because she has had no family to bond with for the last 20 years, so she has bonded with all the “pretty things” in her closet. A completely horrified home organizer arrives and as annoying as Mary has become, I’m looking forward to watching this play out.

 

Meredith and Lisa try to convince us that they are seasoned equestrians by meeting up at some public indoor horse corral. With an outfit for every occasion, Meredith doesn't disappoint, and arrives looking like Lucille Ball in Mame.  Lisa tells us that she’s been riding since the age of four, but then asks the instructor “is this where I kick him to make him go?”.  After a few laps around the piles of manure, they sit on a couple of folding chairs and enjoy some hot tea in white styrofoam cups sitting on a bale of hay serving as a table.  Meredith goes on a tangent about how there’s bad energy in their group dynamic and everyone is to blame, including herself.  She’s not entirely wrong, but would anyone even be watching this train wreck if these women weren’t so certifiably bonkers? Probably not. Anyway, Lisa then tells Meredith that all the women are obsessed with her, which leaves her speechless.

 

Elsewhere, Jennie (remember her?) is planning a Vietnamese food tasting “event” for the ladies. Like Crystal Cunt Foo from the RHOBH, Jennie wants all the women to learn about the heritage that she has spent her entire life forgetting about. She takes her hilarious 9 (going on 45) year old daughter, Karlyn, to sample some gross looking Vietnamese food that she’s planning on serving to the group. She tells us that her ultimate goal is to squash the conflict among the ladies.

 

Jen and her partner in crime husband, Coach Sheriff, sit down with some Popeye’s Fried Chicken (do any of these bitches ever cook?) and continues to play the victim. You can almost see the look of “Oh shit, here she goes again” look on Sheriff’s face as Jen begins to get upset. She complains that her “friends” (that is the white bitches whom she called racists at last season's reunion) are not showing up for her. Trying to look pained, Coach manages to refrain from rolling eyes and then tries to convince Jen that his faith in her is unfaltering, and he will never leave.  A now nearly hysterical Jen then says she doesn’t understand why this is happening TO her ... “this” obviously meaning getting caught.

 

Finally, we’re at Whitney’s at home product photo shoot. Jennie immediiately speaks for we the viewers, and does some quick math ... a bouquet of flowers + a white sheet + some local Instagram followers = $20,000? Letting the obvious be damned; Whitney goes on to sell the chaos of setting up this little shindig like like she's Kyle Richards planning one of her White parties. BTW, are those still allowed?  Whitney tells Heather, who is guzzling wine straight from the bottle, that she got Cameron’s phone number and talked to him for three hours.   In case you have forgotten,  Cameron is the (now deceased) dude who told Lisa that the Blessed Mary hypnotized him into mortgaging his home for her.  But Whitney isn’t going to reveal what they specifically talked about ... she's going to leave that for Lisa.  So all we’re left with here is what is Whitney’s real end game?  I guess we will have to either wait for next week, or the reunion.

 

In the meantime, we’ve learned that a judge just ruled against Jen Shah’s request to have the charges thrown out (because of the cheesy Hulu special).  Again, Jen is doing this all wrong.  She really should have taken a page from Kunty, who to her credit, never even responded to the Hulu documentary on her.  BTW, I finally saw that one, and it was indeed as cheesy as everyone (meaning Andy Cohen) said.

 

Speaking of our favorite pimp daddy, as much as Andy he would love to exploit Shah’s predicament (ala Teresa Guidice and Erika Jayne), my gut tells me that that this time, they are going to cut their losses and cut her free.  Not only is it a bad look for the series, but I’m imagining that Andy is getting all kinds of pressure from several of the other ladies in his stable.