Never has a chill run down my spine so ferociously as it did watching Bronwyn pick Todd up from the airport dressed in an inflatable sloth costume. “How was the flight?” she asks, knowing full well that on the last flight he was on, he got caught looking at lingerie photos of another woman. The scene of the crime is no place for bits. It’s simply too soon to be dressing up as a sloth at the arrivals gate for a man who I don’t think has ever cracked a smile, let alone laughed, in his entire life. But if this is the first slow, sloth-y step toward reconciliation, then so be it.
Maybe Whitney could use an inflatable costume in that case, because as she sits pensively on her back porch, it’s clear that she and Justin are facing issues of their own. They’re still reeling from the failure of their business with Whitney blaming Justin for taking them down the MLM rabbit hole. She resents him and is mad at herself for trusting him. Part of the reason this show is a success is that the women at its center understand that the secret formula is brutal honesty. Whereas lesser Housewives try to present the best version of themselves and hide the embarrassing skeletons in their closets, the women of Salt Lake invite the cameras into those bone-filled wardrobes without hesitation. From failed businesses to Heather’s stained, decades-old mattress, there’s nothing off the table.
Take Bronwyn’s relationship with her mother, for example, the messy details of which she’s shared over the course of the season. In fact, all of this focus on that relationship feels like deliberate exposure therapy to help me get over my fear of Muzzy. But to her credit, this scene — in which Bronwyn takes her to a sex shop to buy pride flags to protest Utah’s law banning them in government buildings — is Muzzy at her best. While such an outing is obviously outside of her comfort zone, she seems to like Bronwyn making her branch out, and the pair even have a heart-to-heart about breaking generational patterns and being proud of Bronwyn even if she doesn’t say it. It’s like something clicked and Muzzy realized that tormenting her daughter on television week after week wouldn’t be a good look.
But what’s so magical about this show is that we can go from a heartfelt scene of Bronwyn and her mother crying together to a shot of Angie stepping out of a car onto an empty loading dock dressed as Betsy Ross and I didn’t even blink. I completely accepted it without question, even before I remembered that Bronwyn was throwing a “Boston Spilling the Tea Party” to celebrate getting her U.S. citizenship. So naturally, the women all arrive in their finest colonial garb. It’s Book of Mormon meets Hamilton.
But why a loading dock? Over the many years of Real Housewives, the definition of what a “party” is has continually gotten looser and looser. And now here we are, with a “party” taking place in this warehouselike space, where a colonial-themed set has been built. After handing out powdered wigs to all of the women, Bronwyn explains the party’s gimmick — spilling all of the remaining tea that they have on each other so they can start fresh and move forward … or some dumb idea like that that was clearly designed by producers with the intent for it to backfire.
But before we get to that, there are two beautiful moments that we have to address. First, Mary is perplexed that hot dogs are being served, saying, “Did hot dogs go that far back? Are they B.C.?” I will think about that collection of words for the rest of my life. I’m simultaneously wondering when Mary thinks the American Revolution happened and picturing Jesus eating a hot dog. But secondly, as production quizzes the women on the Constitution, Britani claims to have been her school’s valedictorian with a 4.2 GPA. And I do believe her, because book smarts don’t necessarily equate to being smart in relationships. But more important, I need someone to dig up a tape of that graduation speech and the song that no doubt accompanied it.
“They spilled the tea, and after the mess was made, they cleaned it up and were able to move forward,” Bronwyn tells the women of the revolutionaries. “And I think that applies to us today in this group of friends.” This comparison, of course, is insane. After the tea was spilled, a war broke out. People died. Wait, maybe this comparison is more apt than I initially thought …
I was worried that, because so much tea had already been spilled this season, this exercise would be a repetitive rehashing of drama we had already seen — but leave it to Angie to bring something new to the table. She kicks things off by admitting to doubting Lisa’s claim that she bought a horse, a tidbit that had been left on the cutting-room floor until now. “I own a horse. It’s not anything grand. It’s just for me. It’s my horse. And I’m looking at getting a second one,” Lisa says, defending this horse we have never seen or heard about until now.
“What would you do with two horses?” Angie asks. It’s perhaps the funniest question ever posed on this show or any other. “What would you do with two horses?” It is simultaneously so genuine (What would she do with two horses?) and cutting (What would she do with two horses?). And while I have no less than a dozen other follow-up questions about this horse, Angie doesn’t linger and ends the shady conversation by throwing her tea into their makeshift harbor.
The other tea isn’t as riveting: Britani is mad that someone told Jared about her flirting with the crew on the yacht, Heather promises to stop talking about Todd farting during his infidelity, and Bronwyn apologizes for ratting on Whitney to Meredith. The latter naturally reopens a can of worms, and Meredith and Whitney get into it again over what did or didn’t happen on that flight. But without any cameras and without any definitive answer, I can’t be bothered to care about an infinite “she said, she said.” Something I do care about, however, is when Whitney calls Meredith an alcoholic pill popper, and Meredith promptly leaps to her feet and returns with gifts for all of them: caviar and drug tests. If she’s going to be accused of taking drugs (an accusation she was clearly prepared for), they should all take drug tests, she says.
I love propwork. I love thinking about the glee in her eye when she first got the idea. I love imagining Meredith Marks logging into her Amazon account and purchasing seven drug tests. I love picturing her wrapping them all up in little gift bags and then sitting there patiently waiting for the right moment to bring them out. I love considering what might have happened to those gift bags had nobody accused her of popping pills. Would they have just gone home with her? She must have been ecstatic when the accusation got thrown, knowing it meant she could do her big stunt.
Ultimately, this conversation is a dead end (though it did give us this incredible gift exchange). When they finally understand that no resolution will come from litigating and relitigating the plane incident over and over, they move on.
After they come to this conclusion, Bronwyn excuses herself to do what Bronwyn does best: a costume change. She reemerges wearing a gown with the Constitution printed on it and suggests that the women all propose new amendments to abide by for their own Bravo constitution. They all make proposals, laying the groundwork for a more perfect union. But much like our real Constitution in this current political landscape, I’m sure half of these amendments will quickly be forgotten and ignored.
