The cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City may look a little different this season, but the drama is just as explosive.
Tuesday’s season 4 premiere episode saw the return of veteran Housewives Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Lisa Barlow and Whitney Rose, as well as new full-time Housewives Monica Garcia and Angie Katsanevas.
But former Housewife Jen Shah remained a topic of conversation among the women, even though she is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for her role in a long-running telemarketing scheme.
During the premiere episode, Heather, 49, revealed she was doing “surprisingly” fine without Jen, 49, saying, “I feel like a weight is lifted” now that Jen is in prison.
In a confessional, the Bad Mormon author admitted, “I felt like I couldn’t be honest with Jen. With everything she had going on in her life, the stakes were way too high. It was not a time to talk about our friendship and to work on boundaries.”
She continued, “But now that she is in prison, I feel like I can just shut the door on it and move on.”
Earlier in the episode, Heather said she had been under public scrutiny for her friendship with Jen. “I’ve learned that hate is always going to come but right now I’m just trying to block out the haters and for the first time, live my life authentically for me,” she added in a confessional.
And while Heather is evidently putting last season’s drama behind her, the episode featured a dramatic flash-forward scene to the cast’s trip to Bermuda, which will air later this season. In the scene, Heather was heard answering a phone call that shocked her.
“Are you kidding me right now? Shut the f — — up,” she said to the caller, adding, “I cannot believe it’s her. How did we all fall for it? I don’t know who to trust anymore.” However, when RHOSLC producers entered Heather’s room to capture the conversation on camera, she immediately turned them away and slammed the bedroom door.
Tuesday’s episode also saw the return of Mary Cosby as a Friend of the franchise. (Mary previously starred as a full-time Housewife in seasons 1 and 2 before exiting the show.) She made her grand entrance in true Mary fashion: walking into Meredith’s Park City store to a compilation of some of her most notorious comments on past seasons, including, “Jen smells like a hospital” and “You can go, little girl.”
Mary, 50, and Meredith, 51, met for lunch, where they caught up on each other’s family lives and briefly discussed Jen’s prison sentence.
“Look, there’s nothing to say about it anymore,” Meredith told Mary. “She said she’s guilty and she’s going to serve her time. Everyone can start healing and moving forward now.”
Mary replied that she believes in karma, telling Meredith, “You get what you deserve.” She also added in a confessional, “I’m interested to see what it will be like now that Jen’s gone. She was the big elephant in the room.”
Even in Jen’s absence, tensions were already bubbling between the women, and new Housewife Monica Garcia — who is a former friend of Jen’s — claimed to know “dark secrets” about her fellow cast members in a confessional.
She said of her skepticism, “It is so crazy hearing them portraying these perfect lives. We’ve all heard things about each other thanks to Jen. So I’m like trying to walk this fine line of being open-minded and non-judgemental even though all their dark secrets are very heavy on my mind.”
Still, Monica said she wants to make her own “assumptions” about the women, despite Jen “never saying anything nice” about them to her. “Everything that came out of her mouth is bulls — -,” Monica added in a confessional.
In the spirit of moving forward with the ladies after a tough past year, Heather hosted a “Fresh Start Party” for the group. But despite throwing the event with good intentions, conflict arose between some of the women.
Meredith confronted Whitney, 36, at the party about comments Whitney made to the press regarding her and her husband Seth’s bathtub scene from season 3. While Whitney admitted she was being “shady” by calling the couple bathing together “creepy,” Meredith felt “it was a dig on my marriage and a dig on my bathtub.”
Despite the rising tensions with Whitney, Meredith did take steps to mend her relationship with Lisa, telling her she’d like to “set us up for success rather than failure” and meet one-on-one.
Lisa admitted in a confessional that she was surprised by Meredith’s effort but said, “Let’s be honest, I know she missed me. I mean, I would miss me too.”
The party ended with a light-hearted snowball fight between the women, though it quickly turned into an intense match that Heather jokingly likened to Lord of the Flies.
“Don’t mess with us,” Whitney cried out, while Lisa shouted, “These hurt.”
Mary fittingly chose not to participate and asked, “What is going on?” as she watched the women laughing and tackling each other in the snow. “Are they having fun?”
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
