The Passion of Heather Gay
RHOSLC Recap
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City
Season 5, Episode 7: “The Huzzbands”
Grade: B+
I have some questions! This is the second episode that Meredith is completely absent from (except from the opening, which spills over from the previous episode). Is it giving final season? As I’ve mentioned before, Meredith is at her best when she’s on defense. When someone is coming at her, she’s one of the best on this show. In lieu of any real opps this season, Meredith is kind of floundering. Also, she was inexplicably the guest on Watch What Happens Live when she wasn’t even in this episode. All she did was back up everything Lisa did this week. How about we hear from Lisa instead, who’s actually been driving story this season?
Mary is also absent most of this episode, but thankfully, we open the episode with one of the best Mary scenes this season. The real star of the season! We pick up with the impending brawl between Justin and John. Whitney accuses Lisa of trying to “incite THE HUZZBANDS into this drama right now.” Angie has had enough of this and breaks up the fight. She informs everyone that Mary will be giving a blessing for the wedding anniversary. At this point, Mary insists that everyone hold hands in prayer — and she specifically wants Lisa and Whitney to hold hands. They refuse at first, but it only takes Mary snapping at them once for them to fall in line and pray together. And that, unfortunately, is all we get of Mary this week.
The bulk of this episode centers around the fallout from Lisa and Whitney’s feud, but this week is also about Heather Gay. And this episode has been five seasons in the making! Heather has always been a bit of a producer type. She’s a Gizelle Bryant, a Kyle Richards, she’s good at stirring up drama and hiding her hands so none of it blows back on her. She also needs to “sit at the cool kids’ table” as Angie eloquently puts it in this episode. This has led to blind devotion when it comes to Jen Shah and also Lisa Barlow. The relationship with Jen was more nasty and volatile, but Heather has been fixated on Lisa since the first episode of the series. Between all the drama about Lisa not remembering her from school, then referring to Heather as a “good time girl” (and she named her new book this!), Heather has been dying to be besties with Lisa. And now that she finally has what she wants, her relationship with Angie is collateral damage and she certainly doesn’t like a new girl like Bronwyn coming in and stealing her spot.
Few people have called out Heather’s sniper from the side tactics on the show because they’ve mostly been directed at Whitney. Whitney is unable to articulate herself well, so when she tried to tell everyone about Heather the past two seasons, it fell on deaf ears. This season, however, Mary is on Heather’s neck. But Mary doesn’t particularly care enough to apply that much pressure. So that leaves Bronwyn. She has Heather’s number, and she’s ready to go to war. And this episode is the first strike. But as much as I’ve been loving Bronwyn this season, will she be successful in her attempts to take down Heather? Let’s find out.