The Salt Lake City housewives finally pushed Andy Cohen to do the unthinkable: walk off his own set.
Photo: Jocelyn Prescod/Bravo

Historically, Andy Cohen has attempted to ban props at reunions since Kenya Moore’s scepter and megaphone sparked a physical brawl. But every once in a while, we see that rule get bent, and, luckily for us, Angie managed to sneak her signature prop past security — not sunglasses, but a scroll that supposedly holds proof that Lisa Barlow is the one behind an anonymous troll account. Reality Von Tease: Here We Go Again. “The person trolling me has the same phone number Lisa has,” Angie says, as Andy peruses the hate comments. But an unruffled Lisa tells him that Angie’s evidence holds no water and that her number is in no way attached to that account, calling the scroll a “prop flop.”

But how did Angie allegedly crack this case? Well, she tried to log in to the troll account, clicked “Forgot Password,” and Instagram sent a password reset link to Lisa’s number, which Angie shows. The problem is that when you do this, you’re the one who types in the number the link is sent to. You can even see in her screenshot that right behind the pop-up saying a link was sent to Lisa’s number was Instagram, prompting Angie to enter that phone number herself. And let’s be real, if it were this easy to identify anonymous troll accounts, we’d be living in a much different world. Nonetheless, both couches are screaming back and forth over this so endlessly that Andy’s only hope to squash it is to walk off the stage himself — marking a reunion first — at which they all apologize for their bad behavior and beg him to return.

While they take their lunch break, we get a peek into Meredith and Lisa’s war room, where they’re not even trying to hide their alliance. When Meredith tells Lisa she’s been performing well so far, Lisa craves specifics for her compliments, asking, “Like which part?” But their real focus is on what’s still ahead, and they prep for the inevitable conversation about the flight from hell, which Lisa says they have to be ready to back each other during because they both know the truth. What Meredith doesn’t know, however, is whether the set decoration of various Greek foods is real or fake — and I could watch her pensively contemplate that for hours.

Before we get to the cast trip, the conversation turns to Mary, who tells us that Robert Jr. is currently incarcerated after breaking the restraining order that his ex-wife had against him — but she’s at least relieved to know he’s somewhere where he can’t be using. As for the recent TLC documentary alleging that Mary’s church is actually a cult, Mary brushes it off and says that while it (and her family’s participation in it) hurts her, she just put it in the “pile of all the rest of the things that hurt me.” Andy notes that RHOSLC fans seemed uninterested in the documentary, which is probably because the whole thing is old news and we saw that same discussion already play out on the show years ago. Catch up, TLC! Who knows, maybe in five years they’ll release a documentary about what happened on that fateful flight.

That one might actually be worth watching, because it still doesn’t seem like we’re getting any real answers. That whole alleged blow-up, of course, began with Britani bringing up the TikTok that claimed Seth was cheating, but more recently, Britani also claimed on Watch What Happens Live that she has other proof. “Well, not proof that would hold up in court,” she quickly backtracks, but she claims that Seth told someone she knows (who Lisa says is Jared) that he has two girlfriends where he works. If we’re talking Jared’s word for anything, we’re doomed, but nonetheless, Lisa then starts to bring up all the other claims that Jared made, including one about Todd going to Dubai for ED meds, which we see unseen footage of them talking about at Amy, the Utah Socialite’s, party.

I don’t care about Jared or what he’s doing, but I am grateful that Amy, the Utah Socialite, is back on my screen, even in a flashback. It begs the question: Why isn’t Amy, the Utah Socialite, at the reunion? She should be first chair. No, she should be hosting it. Amy, the Utah Socialite, wouldn’t have walked off. At the very least she should be the one bringing out drinks at the end for the women to toast with. I’m already looking forward to next season when Amy, the Utah Socialite, is center snowflake.

Until then, we finally get to the question on everybody’s mind: Why didn’t anyone think to take out their phone and record whatever was happening on that plane? Whitney regrets not doing just that, while Heather says that that would have been a shitty thing to do, even though Andy points out that she had no problem doing it when Lisa lost her ring in the bathroom. Heather’s point doesn’t click for me, especially because she’s the one who normally has the most reverence for the Housewives art form and knows what makes for good television. The better explanation comes from Britani, who reminds us that she was attacked for an entire season for recording on her phone. Ultimately, I think the most likely explanation is that this was a six-hour flight, and Meredith’s anger was very drawn out, so there wasn’t one specific moment that felt intense enough to film.

Somewhere along this conversation, Meredith says that Heather has been screeching at her for two months, which makes Heather completely blow up, telling her that their friendship is over. I had no idea that screeching was such a sore spot. Heather then points out that even as they’ve talked about the flight, they went out of their way to not mention the slanderous things she was actually saying against Britani, not to protect Britani but to protect Meredith. “We’re definitely not protecting Britani,” Mary mutters in agreement.

When Andy asks a pointed question about whether or not Meredith had a drink before the flight, Meredith artfully pivots, instead wishing to reveal why she has such a fractured relationship with Britani in the first place. She says that the rift was “rooted in bigotry” after Britani showed support for a nail technician who was under fire for making antisemitic comments. Britani’s side of this story is that he was Meredith’s nail tech who reached out offering free services, then asked her to leave him a good review — she blindly did so, then once she found out about his hateful comments, she took down the review and never contacted him again. Meredith finds it hard to believe that Britani didn’t know about the situation because it was all over the news, but let’s be real, does Britani seem like somebody who watches the news?

In any case, Britani already apologized to Meredith personally and does it again on the reunion stage — but nonetheless, Meredith suggests that Britani has a problem with her because she’s Jewish. Naturally, this assertion makes Britani sob her makeup off as she denies it and storms off the stage in tears. And we still don’t know if Meredith had a drink before that flight.

VULTURE NEWSLETTER

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!

Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice