Unfashionable Behavior

 

It's night three of the San Diego girl's trip, and women are wrapping up their "Greek Goddess" dinner.  Clearly done with Heather's cagey game, Cousin Witless blurts out, “How did you get a black eye damnit!” (speaking for myself and roughly 550K people watching, I added the damnit! part). It is the question that has been haunting us all thoughout the holiday season.  As a die-hard Bravo fan herself, Shrek knows damn well how infuriating this is for us, but apparently she doesn’t realize how quickly we will turn against her.  See?  I'm already back to calling her Shrek. 

 

Looking directly at Jen, Heather says, “We’re still unsure about what happened to my eye.”  Whitney takes note, and is now only more determined to  get to the bottom of what the hell happened in Heather's casita that left her all scratched up and bruised.  Jen Shah is now her primary suspect.

 

       

 

After Heather abruptly shuts down the conversation, Danna continues her audition (to hold a snowflake) by bringing up her still unresolved conflict with Jen.  She begins, "I want to be as real as I can with you Jen ... 'someone' who I know very well told me that they know 'someone' who worked for you, and that your company is very sketchy, and they pleaded guilty and now they are an informant".  Jen responds "Who?", but Danna refuses to tell her,  and then continues with her cryptic omninous tale. 

 

"This is someone who I've known for a long time and they just told me to be very careful".  Again Jen says, "Who?". Danna says, "I cannot tell you that.". Understandably heated, Jen says "Let's be very specific and very careful right now ... if you want to bring it, take it to the finish line honey."  Danna replies, "I can't ... " Jen screams, "You are talking about my life!".  Danna pauses, then replies, "I'm just trying to tell you how I feel coming into this damn fucking group".  Another class act, this one. 

 

Now in full Jen Shah mode, she screams "Check your source!".  Danna says she's only trying to get to know Jen, but doesn't know how to talk to her.  Again Jen screams, "Check .. your .. source!", adding, "The constitution says you're innocent until proven guilty!".  She then references the events earlier in the day, "Girl I let you drive me ...  I put my life in your hands!"  Who knew go-carting created sacred bonds?  Jen then storms off. 

 

As Meredith chases after Jen, the women remaining at the table have a conversation about the position that this case has put them all in.  Whitney describes it as "the dance they all do." ... they want to bring it up, but they are all fearful of Jen's wrath.  But being the newcomer to the group, Danna is a more-than-willing sacrificial lamb; she has no skin in this game.  She tells Angie, Whitney, and Lisa, "The person that told me said that Jen knew exactly what they were doing.  Like why would the mother effin' feds just suddenly come after her so hard?  There has to be something there." Of course Pastor Mary raised the same question last season.  

 

Angie says, "Until we get official word from the court (or a guilty plea), I feel like I just have to believe Jen.  Lisa Barlow agrees.  Whitney says that if Jen goes away, she would have to sit down and have a tough, awkward conversation with Jen at a “conjugal visit”.  Lisa then whispers to Witless, explaining what the conjugal visit actually.   All I know is I hope the geniuses at Bravo can figure out a way to include an incarcerated Jen Shah in season four.  But that's very unlikely, because unless the cameras have have been secretly rolling as we count down the remaining hours before Jen's sentencing, it's "Shah-lome" for Jen Shah.  

 

Upstairs, Heather tries to console Jen, but makes it about herself, and says to Jen, Meredith, and a mannequin head, “All you have to say to shut all of them up is ‘Why don’t we talk about how Heather really got her black eye? And we’re not gonna tell them because they don’t deserve to know ... because they already do, and they just want us to say it out loud.” Simultaneously, Meredith and I both say, “Whoa ... huh?”

 

And just like that, the San Diego trip is over and the women are all back in Salt Lake City where they belong (until a court of law says otherwise).  Then in a series of discombobulated scenes, Whitney’s doing yoga, Lisa is suddenly trout fishing for some odd reason, Twink Brooks and Chloe are hard at work strategizing over how to take his trek suit business to the next level.

 

Heather pays a visit to long lost Angie H. (the blond Angie).  Angie has already heard all about the San Diego trip which she was barred from, and like everybody else in the world, she wants answers on how Heather got a black eye. Angie tells Heather that shouldn't be protecting whoever did this to her, and while Angie suspects Jen or Lisa, Heather is staying mum.

 

Meanwhile, Jen does a video call with her therapist, who tells her how important it is for her to lean on those around her. Jen worries about the pressure her situation is putting on her husband partner in crime and two sons, and she is carrying a tremendous amount of guilt about it. In the chaos of the season, it’s easy to forget how remarkable it is that we’re essentially watching a woman grapple with the fact that she’s going to prison and away from her family for years. But through it all, she still finds the time to throw do this silly show.

 

 

Meredith is having a fashion show for Brooks' hoodies and trek suits under the guise of raising awareness for the mental-health and addiction foundation that her sister and nephew has created.  You might remember her nephew as being the boy who swallowed a bottle of bleach.  First to arrive are Angie K and Danna, and Meredith isn’t exactly thrilled to see either of them after they ratted her out to Lisa for talking smack about her SEC filing. In a funny bit, Meredith wants to make it very clear she’s not mad, so much so that the editors include a “I’m Not Mad” counter at the bottom of the screen which rings every time she says "But I'm not mad." (she is clocked in at saying it five times). 

 

Meredith  maintains that she wasn’t really gossiping because it’s public information, which of course makes no sense.  Despite all of this, Lisa still showed up to support Meredith’s cause; however, according to Meredith, Lisa only came for the photo op for her social media. Jen and Coach Sheriff show up as well.  

 

  

 

Determined to resolve her dispute about her not paying Angie K. for Sheriff’s party, Jen requested an invoice and arrives at the function with check in hand. God forbid the Shahs come off as dishonest people.  In a confessional that follows shortly thereafter, Angie says she’s going to run to the bank and cash the check as fast as she can (before the government freezes Jen’s accounts).

 

The next day, Heather visits Whitney at home.  After gifting Whitney 10 yr. old daughter with a birthday present, the two sit down for a chat.  Whitney longs for the days when the pair talked on the phone twice a day and told each other everything. But not so fast;  Heather isn’t ready to let Whitney brush this "friendship break" under the rug, as if nothing happened.  Heather tells Whitney, “When you break something, it’s broken. And it’s never as strong as it was."

 

 

By now everyone knows that on Friday morning, Jen Shah was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.  She was ordered to turn herself in on February 17 to begin serving her sentence somewhere in Texas.  Her particular crimes require that she serves 85% of her sentence, which means she won't even be eligable for parole until August 17, 2028.