The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Recap: Soup to Nuts

Not even Whitney’s psychic and his unsettling readings are enough to distract Lisa and Angie from their feud.
Photo: Bravo

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the craziest show on television for a number of reasons, but this week that reason is the fact that the episode begins with Whitney planning a garden party and singing an elaborate song (limerick?) about her friends for no apparent reason. And then, before we can even recover from that, Mary wonders why Whitney chose the venue that she did, informing us that the former owner killed his wife and himself on Christmas Day in front of their dog. “And I think the dog was like, not normal after,” she says. But maybe the peacocks walking around the garden were an attempt at brand synergy?

When they all arrive, Whitney explains that she wanted to bring them together for a day of positivity (as if) because she’s been having a hard time feeling like herself lately. She also tells them that she’s flown out a psychic from New York named Terrence, which, as you can imagine, spooks Mary, who maintains that the devil can speak through them. But then again, the devil can also speak through Real Housewives.

As they sit down to taste Utah wine, Bronwyn takes off the coat she seemingly borrowed from the Midsommar costume department, and Mary explains that she doesn’t eat tuna tartare because she doesn’t want them raising a family in her stomach. A lot to take in right from the jump.

The conversation then turns to Angie selling her house, and naturally, Britani’s ears perk up because she’s a real estate agent. Did we know this? If you were to have asked me what Britani’s job was, I would have told you “free spirit.” But apparently she’s an agent, which is why she’s perturbed that Angie never came to her during this process. “Looks like there was a price adjustment, that’s not good,” she says after pulling up the listing right there at the table. This is a pro at work. She wastes no time critiquing the listing price and the fact that it’s been on the market for 200 days, but naturally, Angie doesn’t want to hear any of this from Britani, and this just leads to a table-wide litigation over who has the most prestigious Zip Code in Salt Lake City.

But before Britani can roast the listing room by room, Jared calls — exposing the fact that she didn’t take that 30-day break that Whitney wanted her to for her daughter’s sake. Let’s all take a moment here to pretend to be shocked. We knew full well, standing in that plant store, that a month-long sabbatical from this situationship from hell was never going to happen, but maybe what Whitney has to say now will change things. She tells Britani that Jared and Justin had just hung out, and Jared said that he worries Britani only keeps him around so he’ll pay for dinners and trips. This is, of course, ludicrous because at this point, I feel like Britani would pay him a retainer to be her boyfriend if she had to, and sure enough, she starts crying.

But the timing couldn’t be better, because Terrence then calls her in for her reading, which spells out all of the details about the falling out she’s had with her daughter. There’s simply no possible way that he could have known this, she tells us, before production flashes back to the multiple times she brought it up on camera last season … and Terrence seems like a viewer. Nonetheless, I hope nothing ever extinguishes Britani’s childlike wonder.

Back at the table, Meredith uses this gathering as an opportunity to confront Lisa about Angie’s claim that she was spreading negative rumors (as opposed to positive ones?) about her family. “I don’t know what this is about, but Satan looks like she might,” Lisa says upon catching a glimpse of Angie’s glare from across the table. She completely denies it and claims Angie is making it all up, and Heather is surprised that Meredith is letting her off the hook so easily. After all, we’ve seen Meredith make a much bigger deal over much less, but it seems like Meredith and Lisa are in some kind of truce this year where they’ve decided to keep giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Personally, I hate when they fight, so I’m all for it.

Plus, this really has more to do with Lisa and Angie’s feud, and the Fresh Wolf return heard round the world, which is naturally where the conversation circles back to. Specifically, Lisa explains that she heard Angie used someone else’s credit card on a trip to Europe and then had to write a check to pay it back. Angie uses this as an opening for some good old-fashioned theatrics: opening up her purse and hurling her credit cards across the table one by one.

But as they’re screaming at each other full volume about who got a facelift (Lisa) and who is short (Angie), Meredith realizes that Bronwyn is crying at the table after her reading, where Terrence warned her about her mother’s continued health struggles and advised her to focus on making peace. Surely this dose of reality will put things into perspective for the whole table and make them come together? Nope, they move on just as quickly as it was brought up, and as Whitney drags Angie away from the table, Lisa screams at her about a mysterious “Soup Man.” Eventually, they’ve nearly all wandered off from the table during this yelling match, which means the sommelier has to saunter into frame behind them, bottle in hand, to kindly announce, “I do have another serving of wine if you’d like to come take a seat!” This show is about the fearless restaurant staff of Salt Lake just as much as it’s about these women.

But the only thing really able to break this brawl up was Terrence calling Lisa in for her reading, which surprisingly is about her and John drifting apart. She tells us that she feels like they’ve been on totally different pages lately, which seems like key context for this season. From the beginning, something has felt off about Lisa emotionally, like she’s been more exhausted and at the end of her rope with the usual Housewives antics than we’re used to. That exhaustion makes more sense if she’s already struggling in her relationship, particularly when those antics drag John into things.

As for Angie’s reading, Terrence earns some cred by saying she’s going into a new kind of business, and she reveals that he’s referring to a line of sunglasses that nobody yet knows about. This is huge news, and I’ll simply need every single massive pair of them the second they’re on the market. On a darker note, he also predicts Elektra’s horse will be injured.

But if you were worried that these readings would disrupt what feels like an episode-long fight, fear not! There’s still more left to get into — specifically, a bin of stuff. Angie brought an enormous Tupperware full of every gift Lisa had given her or her daughter over the years. As she goes through it item by item, the conversation turns to what I think is really the root of a lot of this: Kérastase. I think Angie is furious that Lisa got the Kérastase brand deal, even though Angie is the salon owner and the one who coined the “high body count hair” dig that kicked this all off.

Eventually, Lisa has finally had enough and leaves, blowing a kiss good-bye to Whitney as she cries through her own reading, and an emotional Angie grabs the toy horse Lisa bought Elektra and throws it to the ground, breaking the leg. It came true! Terrence’s prophecy was legitimate, Mary says, it was just the wrong horse. I got chills, I won’t lie.

But just because Lisa is gone doesn’t mean Angie has to stop breaking down. The highlight during this postgame meltdown is a tearful Angie screaming, “I don’t know anyone that sells soup!” But the lowlight comes as she accuses them all of going back to Lisa time and time again, an accusation that makes Mary turn on a dime, “I’m done with you,” Mary shouts at her and storms out. See, this is why they have to treat Mary with kid gloves; it’s simply never worth the heat. It marks yet another exit during Whitney’s reading … did Terrence see this coming?

While the episode ends with yet another verse of Whitney’s completely random song, I instead would like to leave you with this parting assertion from Angie: “I’m not doing anything illegal with soup.” Angie is NOT doing anything illegal with soup. Let it be known, when it comes to soup, Angie Katsanevas follows the LAW.