Holy Mother of Zion

 

Meredith is planning a birthday party for her obnoxious husband, Seth, and meeting with event planners on the rooftop of SLC’s fabulous Goldener Hirsch resort where the party will take place. Meredith's equally obnoxious twink son, Brooks, is on hand, but his micro managing goes unappreciated by mom, so he snaps “Well it’s not my party, so I don’t really care”.

 

Meanwhile, Mary is still pretending to be renovating her ugly SLC home.  She has hired her Step&Fetchit cousin, “Fat Joe”, to push around and call her “Ma’am”, but I can guarantee that the space is still just as much as a shit show as it was when we first saw it.  Too bad we're never going to see it, if and when she ever does give it a makeover.

 

The husbands go golfing. I think I've mentioned it before, but I hate these scenes with the husbands, and that goes for all the franchises. I don’t buy the camaraderie, let alone the "bromances", and that even goes for the men of NJ (whom they have been trying to make happen for years now). Anyway, in a ridiculously canned scene, Seth proposes to the guys that the losers (of the golf game) pay for their wive’s next girl’s trip (to Zion).

 

Heather treats Jen to a spa day, because it’s better than baking her a casserole or cleaning her house, which is what her mom used to do for her friends when they got arrested for ripping off the elderly in telemarketing schemes. They have a conversation about Meredith’s weird loyalty to Mary, and conclude that at least one of them must have been behind the Feds finding Jen Shah on that fateful day, because “How else did they know we were at Beauty Lab?”. Heather tells Jen that she is not invited to Seth’s birthday party by asking her if she’s invited to Seth’s birthday party.

 

 

Skipping ahead to said birthday party, Jen didn’t miss much, other watching the Marks’ family dog, Teddy, scrounging around for handouts and Brooks swallowing raw oysters on the half shell, which made him (and us) “very uncomfortable”.  Raw oysters/Jen's cooch ... we get it.  Speaking of discomfort, we were also sethjected to the birthday boy devouring a cake made in the likeness, not of his wife’s ample rack, but of Whitney’s humongous boobs.  I guess it was supposed to be funny, but all I am thinking is how this dork really fits the name "Seth".

 

 

Meredith spots Mary awkwardly standing alone like the outsider that she is to this group, and takes her aside to discuss the events at Whitney’s launch party the week before. Meredith basically tells Mary that her racist comments (about Jennie) were really just a misunderstanding. Anyone care to bet that Meredith will be changing her tune, when she is left holding the bag at the reunion? Mary then convinces Meredith that Lisa is just jealous of she and Mere’s friendship, and that’x why she told Jennie that the Louboutin ankle boots that Mary gave her were re-gifted. Of course we watched Mary rudely telling Jennie that the boots were an insincere gift that was meant for someone else, but apparently Mary is too dumb to know that she can’t get away with rewriting history on reality TV ... little girl!

 

 

The Shah’s continue their “We’re Jen is innocent” campaign in a dumb scene involving a couple’s therapy painting session. Sheriff continues to tell Jen that he believes in their marriage and comforts her because she’s still upset that they are being forced to downsize. Then we get an unintentionally funny flashback scene of Jen being shown a Shah-shitty two bedroom apartment like a week before, with a closet so small that it couldn’t accommodate even half of her ill-gotten collection of tacky designer goods.  Just wait until she tries living in a 6 x 9.

 

This got me thinking. Bravo (and Andy) are able to justify keeping these grifters employed by chronicling the depressing consequences for their alleged illegal activities. We saw it with Teresa Giudice, when she was torn from her fambly and sent away to camp, and then with Erika Jayne as she lost, well ... everything, and now we’re seeing it with Jen Shah.  It’s a win/win for everyone, because by keeping them on the show, they get to enjoy huge ratings while giving the viewers the that they want; that is seeing these people get their comeuppance. Of course it could be argued that Bravo and we the viewers are rewarding bad behavior, but I guess you can’t have everything. Anyway, Sheriff assures Jen that she is in fact invited on the girl’s trip to Zion, which sets the scene for the finale of this rather uneventful episode.

 

I’ll make this short. All the ladies (except for Meredith and Mary again), all pile in the same party van that we saw during Jen’s infamous arrest, and with the same poor driver. In the short 4 ½ hour drive from Salt Lake City to Zion, we somehow go from the ladies enjoying Lisa’s complimentary McDonald egg McMuffins, to an all out brawl between Lisa and Jen. The details of what started the fight are kind of sketchy, but we know the drill. Jen starts to become more animated. She becomes very whiny and overly defensive. Frustration over not being understood makes her become very combative. The frustration then turns to tears, which then turns to hopeless victimhood, which then becomes full on rage. She flips on the bitch switch, and there’s no turning back. Jen Shah is definitely having one of her episodes. But this time, they’re all stuck in a van, and there’s nowhere to hide. So the other women just nonShahlantly look down at their phones (like it’s just another day at the office) as Jen continues to berate Lisa.

 

 

Eventually Lisa begins to actually participate in the fight, but she seems like she’s just going through the motions. Now mind you, I did play this back to try to understand what the fluke got Jen so upset, but by then it was 2:00 AM, and sleep cocktail of melatonin and ZzzQuil was kicking in, so I just chalked it up to Jen Shah having one of her neurotic moments, and making up for lost time.