Oscars Outsider - Did Lisa go from Bullied to Bully? | Real Housewives of Salt Lake City S06E09 Recap/Analysis
Episode Date: November 14, 2025We want to hear your takes! Give our hotline a call and leave a message with your thoughts on what's going on in the Bravo universe at 1-833-927-0178.Join us on the Bravo Outsider Podcast as we embark... on a thrilling exploration of the latest episodes of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City🥂 About Bravo OutsiderThe Bravo Outsider Podcast offers an outside perspective on Bravo shows like The Real Housewives, unlike any other Bravo podcast! We focus on the artistic value of these shows while providing strategic analysis of the social game at the core of the Bravo docu-soap. We love thick literary references and diving into themes before diving into the drama!🍸Featured Bravolebs:We want to hear your takes! Give our hotline a call and leave a message with your thoughts on what's going on in the Bravo universe at 1-833-927-0178If you enjoyed this breakdown, don’t forget to hit the like button, comment below your favourite moment, and subscribe for more Bravo content!🥂 About Bravo OutsiderThe Bravo Outsider Podcast offers an outside perspective on Bravo shows like The Real Housewives, unlike any other Bravo podcast! We focus on the artistic value of these shows while providing strategic analysis of the social game at the core of the Bravo docu-soap. We love thick literary references and diving into themes before diving into the drama!🍸Featured Bravolebs:Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: Heather Gay, Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks, Angie Katsanevas, Mary Cosby, Bronwyn Newport, Britani Bateman, 📣 Stay Connected:Find Bravo Outsider:On your podcast platform of choice: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bravo-outsider/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bravooutsiderTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bravooutsiderhttps://www.bravooutsider.comFind Craig Midwinter:chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/craigjmidwinterFind Dylan Ferguson:Substack: https://dylanferguson.substack.com/Find Sandra Klowak:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corporealcurios📖 CreditsMusic by FASSounds from Pixabay#RHOSLC #bravotv #bravo #realitytv #RealHousewives
Transcript
Discussion (0)
But I absolutely feel this feeling of Britney being bullied.
And I can like remember feeling that in like elementary school.
One of the things that we even got in previous comments on YouTube or Spotify was it felt like the sentiment around the pylon on Lisa.
Like sympathies were turning in Lisa's favor.
Like people were being like, okay, it's starting to feel like bullying here.
I'm interested to see how this episode changes those overall sentiments because like Lisa does not.
come off looking good on this episode at all.
I'm wondering, do you think that Lisa's unfairly catching heat in this situation?
Like, these feelings of feeling bullied and isolated are like really powerful and really
visceral.
And if she was feeling so deeply ganged up on in the last few episodes, which we talked about,
I could understand her wanting to just feel a moment of relief and be on the side of like
the scariest person in the room for a bit.
I think that anyone can fall into that kind of trap in the moment and get, you know,
when it's building up and the tensions are high and the conversation's happening.
And I think, as we said, we can see her feeling some regret for that behavior.
And it'll be interesting to see if she can get herself out of that.
But I think those motivations are understandable on a really basic human level.
Yeah, that's a great point.
I think Lisa has been rightfully feeling like an outsider this whole time.
Like you said, those feelings of being bullied are so raw and powerful, almost like as powerful
as the feeling of being Greek,
it makes sense that she would be looking for an opportunity
to be on the inside and be an insider.
Because she's been an outsider.
Hello and welcome to the Bravo Outsider Podcast.
I'm your host Craig Midwinter,
and I am joined by Sandra Cloack.
Let's talk Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
We're talking about episode eight of the season, I guess.
We get the tail end of that iconic blowdeck.
crossover and then we get what in my opinion is a bit of a mystery episode that I really loved
how this was structured but do you is there something that comes to mind for you when you think
about this episode one word the word that came to mind for me is reality because it's kind
of this sequence of trying to piece together what is their truth what is the reality of what
this key moment everything is circling around that we didn't get to see which is pretty rare
on shows like this, which is something to consider.
So that was my work.
Totally.
Yeah, that relates to what I had down, which is mystery.
And I love that because, like you said, we don't get to see actually what happened on this episode,
but the entire episode concerns this event that it led to a really interesting structure
because we have all of these motivations.
We know who was involved.
but we don't actually know what happened.
And we have to sift through all this information
and piece together a truth for ourselves as viewers
because we are getting a bunch of different truths presented as one.
And I just really, really love the structure of this episode.
I thought it was fantastic.
Do you have like a favorite scene from this or a favorite shot?
I struggle to pick a favorite scene because it was consistently so compelling.
Like you're saying,
It's these pieces that we have to consider.
And every scene offered these little duet moments with two characters collaborating and discussing what happened from different angles.
And I really struggled to pick a favorite because they all work together so well.
I think that I found Lisa and Heather's brunch really compelling to watch.
I thought it was one of the most dynamic with as far as tension.
and I'd say like two very powerful characters battling it out.
So that one did stand out to me.
And then I also really enjoyed the one outlier,
which was just Angie and her daughter.
She like degrades her relationship with her daughter
in the effort to promote Greek culture
as a nice sort of relief and diversity from all of the rest of it.
So that one stood out to me as well.
That was actually my favorite scene.
out of this whole thing.
There's a lot that you could like choose in terms of standout scenes.
But this one, it was like you said,
it was an intermission in the middle of the core of this episode
where on either side we're trying to discern what has happened on the plane.
We get this little break and it's, you know,
Angie trying to convince her daughter that she should take equestrian to the next level
so that she can represent Greece at the Olympics,
which like sounds ridiculous.
and like is ridiculous, but it's also such a layered scene because like there's this earnestness
to it as well where, you know, she's talking about how this is more than just, you know,
her like brand of making grease her identity, but she's trying to promote this like intergenerational
relationship and she feels like there's an element of her persona and her family that is like
is dying and it's going away and she's trying to like maintain that connection with with her
daughter and uh like you said there's this like there's this tension in this in this scene where it's a
real push and pull between like is she coming on too strong to her daughter and like ending up
pushing her away um you know or is she going to actually be able to mind that connection that
she's seriously looking for from electra and i just really loved that that tension and this also
contained like my favorite shot within the episode where it keys in on Electra as she's talking to Angie
and she's like she can't keep her hands still she's like braiding um braiding like the strings from a
duffel bag or pillow or whatever she's constantly like moving and we get like a little close up of
her hands and it just i thought it was just such a awesome insert to include that because that adds
just like the feeling of tension and anxiety.
Like it really allows you to kind of connect with her daughter who is trying to walk a very
delicate line between, you know, taking what her mother is saying at face value, but also
conveying her own emotions on this, on this idea that is really silly on the surface, but you can
tell that it actually relates to how Angie is truly feeling.
And yeah, I just thought it was such a great insert in order to create that tension.
Exactly.
And I always love, I really like the, I guess it tends to be mother, daughter, but it could be parent-child,
storylines that come out on these shows and especially on Salt Lake.
There's been, I mean, certainly in past seasons, there's been even more.
But they're always so rich and they tend to add another dimension.
And there's so much of the women fighting.
And then there's like these really real moments that are pretty related.
And yeah, you can sort of see Angie trying so hard to connect with her daughter and just like doing it in this way that you can tell is not working.
And it's this preteen girl like trying to figure out how to like hold in some of her disdain for her mom and like figure out what her role is on this TV show that she probably doesn't want to be on while being true to herself and like sticking up for her own views which she did a great job of doing.
And it makes for such a compelling argument and kind of just heartbreaking in its way.
right? And you see how important.
You said this is to Angie and the looks on her face of earnestness and like hope and like
that she tries to make this argument to her daughter.
And it's funny how these things end up playing out in individual families.
I'm so hurt because I didn't grow up with horses and she loves horses.
And it's like, okay, interesting.
Like what does this mean?
What does this represent?
Like it's there's so much going on.
Yeah, totally.
And the bit about the horses being something that is tied to Angie's husband.
family and how that is like a generational thing that Electra is clearly really involved in and really
identifies with as like Angie is feeling like this immigrant story that is so core to like how she
has developed as as a person. That that fight is really painful. You can see it in Angie's eyes,
but it's also arguably way too much to be putting all that weight.
on her daughter.
And so, yeah, I think that the tension within this scene is, is fantastic.
And it's like, it's cut by the sheer ridiculousness of Angie, you know, being like,
you need to take your equestrian so much further so that you can, like, compete for Greece
in the Olympics.
It's just, like, really fantastic.
But you can kind of, like, see, like, it's really funny to think about, but you can
kind of see how this seems like the perfect, like, marriage.
of everything for her.
And it's like a solution to this problem that is really core to her story this season.
Like we have seen her take this like goofy grease identity meme almost that she has become and shift that into this real emotional story with the conversations that she had with her father.
And so I just think the show is doing a really great job of treating the lead up to this trip to Greece with a lot of sincerity and striking a real great balance between the humor and the sincerity of it.
I think it's fantastic.
So do you have any other shots or themes that stood out to you from this episode?
There was a shot that I really liked at about the 27 mark.
And this is something we see with this show, just this very mystical, witchy ambiance that they're creating with the opening shots, the music, the editing, obviously the sky in fast motion, which I just love across the board.
And there was one time when this was when Bronwyn and Whitney were meeting and they were both walking up to this restaurant.
Bronwyn's in this dark cape-like outfit.
it has a sort of unsteady shot up to this restaurant sign, which is a dark building.
And then we have Whitney coming in with another dark outfit long nails.
And it just feels so spooky and dark.
And I just love how they're sort of getting these scenes of these women coming together
to discuss this mysterious event and the ambiance around that.
Yeah, totally.
Great aesthetic on that scene for sure.
And as soon as you said witchy, I immediately knew that you were talking about this scene because it stood out to me as well.
I mean, I had in my notes that Bronwyn is dressed like a black light poster.
There's all these like moons and stars.
And it just reminded me of my days as like a stoner teen, the black light posters that you put up of like a wizard and a dragon.
And that was the vibe that I was getting.
Probably not what she was going for.
But that's out resonated.
But I love this scene a lot as well.
And I think that there's very interesting storytelling that is happening in this scene in particular because we are taking this initial framing that we have about, you know, what has been going on with Lisa and Meredith on the plane versus Brittany.
And they tie it to Bronwyn's storyline with, with Todd.
And, you know, this, the tweet that has come out about Todd looking at women in.
lingerie on the plane. I think that Bronwyn and Whitney both do really great storytelling here
in how they make that transition. Bronwyn does a really good job of being like, I think that
both Meredith and Todd need lessons in plain etiquette as a way of bringing this around. And then
Whitney gives her a long pause a lot of space so that she can continue taking the lead and
framing this story. I think that that is a really strategic courtesy, but also just a really good
intuition as like a reality TV personality to be like, I need to give her the space in order to
frame this how she wants, even though Bronwyn left that space open for Whitney to kind of take
it however she wanted. And Whitney really had the opportunity to frame this story however she
wanted just based on how Bronwyn kind of left left it hanging and she gives her the courtesy
to frame it however she wants. And it ends up being a really interesting conversation that they
end up having about, you know, the parallels within their relationships and dealing with these
these, these storylines going on. And yeah, I thought that Whitney's choice to let Bronwyn frame it
was a really, a really smart one. But I'm curious what you think about that. That's, that's a really
a good point and I do think that the dialogue was really compelling. I thought that Bronwyn's
segue was like, she certainly, I know, what I noted was that she made a choice to bring up her
business for a storyline and I certainly appreciate that. I mean, it was a clever segue as far as like
they should both learn plain etiquette. I'm interested that she's deciding to bring this up and I think
that's great. It's funny because of course last week on the show we had been talking about,
if just sort of a pylon storyline is going to get too old and you said you think that they'll pivot.
And look at that. We've got all sorts of new things to talk about now. And so I'm kind of interested
and I personally am very interested in this open marriage idea and storyline. So I hope it goes
somewhere right now. Obviously there's a lot more going on. But yeah, she certainly made a choice to
bring that up. Yeah. I wonder how much this choice involves her wanting to shift the conversation
from being about, you know, the lawsuits or whatever,
the charges that were leveled against Bronwyn that were kind of floating around.
And she's kind of choosing to shift the crosshairs on to her relationship with Todd.
I don't know if that's like intentional or if she's just looking to get ahead of something.
But I think the resulting conversation is really interesting.
And like I think one of the things that I'm curious about is I know that Whitney had mentioned that,
she has lots of friends that have different like open lifestyles and open relationships and stuff
like that. I'm interested to see how much of that is informed by like Mormon culture because that's
definitely something that you kind of hear about in the Mormon social media circles, the mom talk
scandal being a really notable example of that, but also the history of polygamy within the
Mormon church. I am interested to know how much of that is informed by the,
the culture of Utah and how much of this is Bronwyn kind of solutioning a way that she can take
control of this element that seems currently out of control within her marriage.
Like she doesn't have any control over Todd seemingly going off and texting with other
random women. And she outright says, I wish that it was coming to me and I could be like,
yeah, he is texting her because I picked her out for him.
Like I wish this was something that we were doing as partners as opposed to me looking like a fool when this comes out.
So I am really interested to know how much of this is Bronwyn earnestly interested in opening up her marriage and, you know, what part of this is potentially her trying to reclaim some control that she seems to be losing.
Because we've talked about Bronwyn seeming like she is.
a woman in free fall in all of her personal relationships.
This just is another, another thing that is piling on that she has no control over.
And so she, she is looking for to regain some control.
So it could be that this is not an earnest desire to have an open relationship, but just to
regain some control in a relationship that she feels like she's losing it in.
Yeah, that's, that's a very interesting point.
And I don't blame her.
I don't love Todd.
And I think she should get any control she can or be done with him.
Doesn't look like a very healthy relationship.
So I totally, it's very, I have a lot of empathy for her in that relationship.
And I'm interested in that story.
Totally.
Well, while we are on the subject of Bronwyn, I want to talk about the scene at the very beginning where we get Bronwyn and Meredith throwing uni overboard.
Do you think that was going too far?
or what's your read on that?
Okay.
Okay.
So Bronwyn does this very deliberately.
She instigates it.
She insists they have costumes, which I think I could all get on board for.
If she didn't then totally back down when she was caught.
And that just, I hated that.
Like, she decided to do this, like, nasty thing in a whole gimmicky way.
Fine, great.
And then as soon as she gets caught, she's like, it was just a joke.
just did it as a joke, whereas of course, Meredith has this pure evil moment. I wrote down her
quote because I loved it so much. She was just like, you only wanted to swim. He needed a little
dip in the ocean. And it was just so chilling. And I'm like, you own it. Yes, that's how you do
it. You're going to do something like this. You own it. So I did not like that she backed down.
And I'm confused why because it was so deliberate. So what are your thoughts on? Yeah. Like you said,
Meredith took ownership of this and had a really like cutting way of taking responsibility just
being like, yeah, you need needed to go for for a dip. She had like tanner and makeup all over.
Yeah. And it's like just like so, so cold. I feel like the reason that Bronwyn pivoted was because
the lunch that we get prior when Meredith is clearly just so pissed off at Brittany. She's
got her back turned to Brittany and is talking to Whitney and just constantly firing shots at Britney
without looking at her and addressing her. And I think that that is where the snowball started
rolling in the Meredith versus Brittany conflict that ends up happening on the plane. And I think
that Bronwyn was trying to close Pandora's box a little bit here and be like, okay, no, actually,
maybe we should cool it on Britney. Brittany has been like, is turning into a bit of a bit of
punching bag and is trying to really walk it back.
And that's why she did this U-turn and is like, oh, sorry, I thought it was going to be a joke.
I thought it was going to be funny because she probably did think that it was going to be taken a
lot more lighthearted.
But after there's this huge, you know, monstrous attack on Brittany at lunch and, you know,
Meredith is so fired up, changes this from being like playful to being hateful.
and I think that that's where she was like, no, I got to do a U-turn here.
So that's just my gut feeling as to why she did the U-turn.
But yeah, I don't know, open to other theories on that.
No, that makes total sense.
I kind of forgot about the sequence of that.
Yeah, that makes total sense because it did get pretty nasty at the meal.
And as you said, that's where Brittany starts gaining clout in this group
just because of how horrible Meredith is.
Yeah, I want to, I want to talk.
Talk about that meal soon, but let's dive into the, like, what happened on the plane, like the unseen bit.
What were you, like, piecing together happened here?
Like, what do you believe is the truth?
Well, I mean, I certainly do agree that, like, if she was being truly unruly to a legal extent, there would have been measures taken.
That's what she says, and that's what Bronwyn points out as well.
I also find it pretty strange that no one took any video if it was so insane.
same in the moment. But we can't deny that every single person has been traumatized by this
allegedly. So I don't doubt she was ranting and ranting. Brittany seems like a pretty sensitive
person. It's hard. Oh, I'm just that I'm certainly she was targeted and certainly I believe
that Meredith was bullying her. But what is Meredith? What is Meredith rating on like what is
poor behavior? Clearly she is not going to give a balanced view of her own.
of her own behavior.
Yeah, totally.
And clearly Lisa is struggling, I think, with her role because of how she's speaking about it to John.
And he's like, well, you didn't do anything to Brittany.
She's like, no, no.
And I just don't know.
I just don't know how it all happened.
All I said was this.
All I said was give her, show her the TikTok.
That's all I did.
Like she's clearly defensive already.
So pretty clear that Lisa piled on as well.
But I mean, why did others not step in to stop it?
I don't know.
What are your thoughts?
Yeah.
I think that one of the interesting, I think there's a lot of interesting parallels here.
I think one of the interesting ones surrounding Lisa is the way that she talks about this,
especially like you said, in that scene with John, but also the scene that we get with Heather,
where she's on the defense.
It reminds me a lot of her behavior during the trip when everyone was dancing around the idea
that she was leaking to the press.
that just like it smells so guilty.
So I think that there is,
she probably does feel guilty about the way that she acted in that moment.
Because like it's said within the episode,
like Lisa herself, I think says within the episode,
she, like Brittany has been a good friend to her.
Like Brittany has been one of the only people that was kind of on her side
and standing up for her when everyone was talking about the supposedly
dismissed court cases against her.
And even Meredith has, you know, been silent there and not really standing up for Lisa.
So the fact that Lisa was taking Meredith's side in the moment and, you know, egging her on to
attack Brittany, I believe Britney when she says that that is like the part that hurts the most
because she was, she was trying to be Team Lisa.
She was trying to be a good friend.
And that all collapsed.
and Lisa seems like she enabled it.
I don't know what the truth is,
but I definitely agree that the fact that, you know,
that Meredith was not arrested or restrained
or there was no intervention from the flight staff
is one indicator that it is maybe not as big a deal as we would expect.
And the fact that there is no footage of this via a cell phone
or that has come out online of this.
It is very fishy.
Like it seems,
it seems strange that nothing has come out.
Like,
that makes me feel like either it was totally nothing and this is like really fabricated
or that it was big enough that,
you know,
there was NDAs that had to be like given out to other passengers on the plane.
that it is something like that was really big that is being tightly controlled.
And one of the theories that I've seen floated online, I think was on Reddit on the Bravo
Housewives subreddit was that this, this fight, it wasn't actually about the, like, the TikTok.
It was because Brittany and maybe Whitney had agreed to film with Seth's,
alleged mistress.
And so that's what has kind of got under Meredith's skin.
And that's why she let loose on on them in the cast.
And so it's kind of the way that it's being handled is trying to preserve that,
that fourth wall and not talking about, you know, production.
You know, how you, there's kind of a little bit of an unspoken rule on reality TV where
the fourth wall is broken very sparingly.
And you don't talk about production except in certain cases where it's unavoidable or where they do it for dramatic effects.
So like we saw that was a huge storyline when Denise Richards was on Beverly Hills where she would say Bravo, Bravo, Bravo.
So they couldn't use that that footage.
The fact that they were that this was so involved, the conflict was about production.
It was like two meta and they didn't want to include that in the footage that they do have.
I think that that is a relatively reasonable theory.
I think that, you know, that's possible, but I don't know.
So one other parallel that I found interesting about this conflict on the flight was it is kind of mirrored to the last lunch on the yacht where Meredith is talking to Whitney, but firing shots at Brittany the entire time, which was really hilarious and how it was presented.
and we could see Brittany's reaction over Meredith's shoulder as Meredith was firing shots.
But the thing is she was saying all these things.
She was talking to Whitney, but she wanted Brittany to hear them.
And that is one of the charges that is laid against Meredith in this conflict on the flight.
Meredith is saying, oh, I didn't think Brittany could hear me.
She had headphones on.
I was just venting to a friend.
She was saying a ton of things that she clearly wanted Brittany to hear.
but not saying them to her.
So I think that this really undermines Meredith's argument here
that she didn't think that Brittany could hear
because she was obviously using this technique to level attacks at Brittany.
Even the blocking of this where Meredith had her back to Brittany
and Britney was behind her mirrors the layout of the seating arrangement on the plane that we get
where Brittany is sitting directly behind Meredith.
And, you know, Meredith just talking loudly.
to someone else and firing shots at Brittany and trying to break her down that way.
So this really lines up with what we see is Meredith's attack strategy on Britney.
So I just really like that.
It was we got a little bit of a sneak preview of what things might have been like on the plane here.
Exactly.
And I think we all believe Meredith can and will behave that way at any opportunity.
So I do believe that that behavior was happening on the plane, how like physically abusive it got, maybe is up for debate.
but I absolutely feel this feeling of Brittany being bullied
and I can remember feeling that in like elementary school
and being like, okay, I have this one person that totally hates me,
this one friend that I thought was my friend
that seems to be not taking my side
and then like another one that like might take my side
if it gets really bad and just like this terrified feeling
of being so alone.
And like it really does make you empathize with Brittany
even if she, even if it's all over dramatized.
That's real.
and that's relatable.
And Meredith is losing sympathy with the audience, I'm sure.
Yeah, totally.
And I think, like, one of the things that we even got in previous comments on YouTube or Spotify was this,
it felt like the sentiment around the pylon on Lisa, like, sympathies were turning in Lisa's favor.
Like, people were being like, okay, it's starting to feel like bullying here.
I'm interested to see how this episode changes those overall sentiments because I,
I think that like Lisa does not come off looking good on this episode at all.
Just she threw one of her only allies under the bus and egged on a conflict that looks like bullying of her.
And you know, for Britney's like her main sin is just being not good at the housewife game and, you know, sharing a TikTok that came up on on her feed.
it seems unjust.
So I think that, you know, the worry about this pile on Lisa was that, you know, people are going to get bored with it and then they're going to start feeling sorry for Lisa.
This has kind of alleviated those concerns in my mind.
But I'm wondering, do you think that Lisa's unfairly catching heat in this situation?
Like, what do you think the truth is about, you know, Lisa's involvement in this?
I mean, I could understand if Lisa was feeling, I mean, like, like, these feelings of, like, these feelings of.
feeling bullied and isolated are like really powerful and really visceral.
And if she was feeling so deeply ganged up on in the last two episodes,
which we talked about,
I could understand her wanting to just feel a moment of relief and be on the side
of like the scariest person in the room for a bit.
I think that anyone can fall into that kind of trap in the moment and get,
you know,
when it's building up and the tensions are high and the conversation's happening.
And I think as we said,
we can see her feeling some regret for that behavior.
and it'll be interesting to see if she can get herself out of that.
But I think those motivations are understandable on a really basic human level.
That's a, yeah, that's a great point.
I think Lisa has been rightfully feeling like an outsider this whole time.
Like you said, those feelings of being bullied are so raw and powerful,
almost like as powerful as the feeling of being Greek.
It makes sense that she would be looking for an opportunity
to be on the inside and be an insider because she's been an outsider.
So I think that that is a great call.
Let's talk about quotes.
Do you have any quotes that stood out to you?
Okay, this is my quote.
Tell me who said it.
Suck it in, blow it out like a big beer belly.
Is that Captain Jason?
Doing yoga, leading yoga in his own way that I certainly have never experienced in any yoga
studio I've attended.
But hey, the ladies loved it.
Is he qualified?
It's funny because I.
Yeah.
Obviously not.
I have not attended yoga, but this still stood out to me as being phony, like nonsense.
I think he was a yoga guru.
I think we would have heard about that already on below tag.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This scene was like really bizarre.
are and forced, but yeah, I don't know.
Definitely not yoga.
I don't know what that was.
How about you?
I feel like I've got a lot of quotes here that, you know, I captured a lot of that conversation
between Mary and Meredith at the end.
And no one particular quote stood out to me.
But I just really like how it was clear that.
Mary came in with a purpose to confront Meredith on this.
And this is not really something that we see a lot out of Mary.
I think that Mary's doing a great job of stepping out of her comfort zone and involving
herself in the drama here.
And I'm seeing that within the, you know, on Reddit and Instagram and people are just
really liking her involvement here.
And she's almost standing in as the proxy for the viewer and being the normal one,
which sounds absolutely absurd when you're applying that label to Mary Crosby or Mary Crosby.
But yeah, the fact that Heather, who has traditionally held that role is involving herself more,
is almost forcing us to look for another proxy because Heather's becoming a more polarizing figure within this storyline because she's being so active.
and the fact that we're kind of shifting our lens to be seeing things from Mary's perspective
is really, really funny to me.
Yeah, let's talk about our picks for winners and losers in terms of strategy here.
Who do you think is gaining and who's losing?
Well, I think pretty obviously, is it strategy or is it circumstance?
I mean, Brittany's just along for the ride.
She's getting plowed through what happened.
maybe not any strategy choices of her own.
Meredith, I think, is making choices that are tanking her as far as cloud into groups.
Same with Lisa.
I was interested that Angie wasn't involved in any of these duet scenes.
And I know she had her own very special scene.
So I guess she's kind of a neutral on this one.
Did you have a take on why she wasn't in any of the pairs of these discussions that were chosen, which were multiple?
Yeah, I'm not really sure why she was.
was not included.
So the fact that we know that we're going to grease later this season, there could be
like production motivations for making Angie seem a bit more neutral here so that there is like
plausible deniability that she would want to include everyone within the group in order to
bring them together on this trip as opposed to aligning on one side where it would be like
If she was clearly on, you know, team Brittany and, like, had a huge fight with Meredith and with Lisa, be like, why do you want to bring them on this trip?
It doesn't really, it's really hard to make that work from a storytelling perspective.
So I could see them using her very carefully in order to kind of preserve that idea of relative neutrality.
Not that that is like typically a problem that they need to work around.
there's so many trips within housewife history where they invite everyone just because that's like,
that's the k-fabe of the show.
They need to bring everyone together in order to fight.
But I could see them just, just they have enough conversations that are impactful enough that
they want to let those breathe.
And hers is the one that kind of falls to the wayside because for one, it's maybe not as
impactful as these other conversations.
And for two, it helps them preserve her neutrality for inviting everyone.
everyone to Greece. So that would be my, my guess, but yeah, did you have another theory as to why?
Not really. That's really good. That's really good thought. And I mean, I guess it makes sense in that she was
kind of literally down for the count the last couple episodes. So she wasn't front and center in this
drama. So it would make sense that, yeah, she would continue in that vein, I suppose. She was sort of
just laid up in the boat. So, so I said that Lisa has lost, has lost some power here.
But I have to give her a shout out for arriving one hour and 15 minutes late to her lunch with Heather,
which was barely even noted upon.
And I have to say, like, Heather not, Heather not saying anything about, I mean, of course, there's editing.
But however, how we're seeing the story, that not being brought up, maybe it was a tiny mention.
I feel like that was a real power move on Lisa's side and just set her up for like a power position.
in that lunch.
Like we just had Heather wait for one hour and 15 minutes for her.
And Heather was just doing it and ready, ready and waiting.
So I thought that was an interesting dynamic there.
Bold, bold prediction here.
It's going to come up next episode.
I feel like the fact that it wasn't mentioned in the conversation here,
but we did get it noted to us as a viewer.
I think that that,
I think it's going to come up again,
maybe not next episode,
but somewhere down the line because, yeah,
that's really,
egregious. I did like how that was that was treated though because we got you know the classic way that
they show the passage of time with the little time stamps along the bottom and the like shots of waiting.
The fact that they we didn't know who Heather was waiting for until she arrived I thought was a really
interesting choice. I think that that added to the the tension that was building and everyone was
wondering whose perspective we were we're going to get because we have Heather's
perspective pretty clearly framed going into this because we've already seen the meeting with
Brittany and we know that she's sympathetic here and we know all the work that she has been doing to
undermine Lisa. So we're wondering, is this going to be an ally? Is this going to be a friendly? Is this
going to be Heather that is working to, you know, position everyone's story for a future attack? Or is this
going to be kind of facing the beast head on? Are we going to see Heather versus Meredith here or
Heather versus Lisa and what will that look like?
So I really liked how that was used to build tension.
But I do think that the late arrival will be used later because I think that Heather's doing a lot of
strategic work within this season.
And that seems like something that she is not going to just let go without keeping in her
pocket.
In terms of my biggest gainers and biggest losers, I think you're right that Brittany is maybe the
biggest gainer.
I think it's passive gains.
Like it's not something that she is really orchestrating or doing the work herself.
She is gaining in position just based on the fact that Meredith flew off the handle
and that Lisa ended up throwing her ally under the bus and has really galvanized the side that she was opposite.
She was on the opposing side of the rest of the women within this group since it was everyone versus Lisa and to an extent Meredith.
She is galvanized them and they are there waiting with open arms and meeting with her.
And we get Heather being like, I'm sorry if I've like walked the line between right and wrong with you.
But I want you to know I'm here on your side.
Everyone is talking about how sympathetic they are to Brittany.
And she is at a position now, I think socially where she has the most goodwill that we have seen since she's been on this show ever.
and she is the most sympathetic figure that we have seen.
And it wasn't that long ago where she came across as like dirt socially within this group and also just like dirt within the sympathies of the audience because we got that scene with her and her daughter where it's clear that she is a terrible mom to like, I'm not going to put it cute just like Bronwyn.
But like a terrible mom.
And yeah, so I think that this is a huge, a huge upswing in her overall position, both with the audience and with the group socially, that it's remarkable.
And none of it is from something that she has planned.
She's just kind of fumbling through and just letting things passively happen.
And this is actually the direct result of a mistake that she is making in terms of how she played the information about, you know, Seth and Meredith.
But this is like her mistake that she's just tripping into an upswing in terms of her fortunes here.
It's very Shannon Bador.
Were there any like actual strategic decisions that stood out to you?
That's a good question.
I'm not sure.
How well you, Craig?
I think Heather, like I said, Heather is being really active with this story.
I think the fact that she decided to confront Lisa what.
one-on-one and frame this as being like, I'm being a friend. I want you to let you know how things are
with Brittany and how she's feeling afraid of you now and she feels really betrayed by you. I think that
that was a really smart strategic choice to go in one-on-one to make it be like, I'm your friend.
And if you're Brittany's friend, then you will receive this information and apologize to her.
and, you know, shore things up with her.
And I think that this was really smart as opposed to just getting everyone on side in
order to lay into another attack on Lisa because we're kind of tired of seeing that.
And I just don't think it was necessary.
I think that, you know, she doesn't need to cash in any favors or do anything in order to
make this happen.
She's in a position where she can do this with Lisa and make it look like she's.
extending in all of branch to her and when in actuality it is kind of an attack.
So yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Do you think that this was like her being genuine or do you think it was was more of an attack?
I do think that Heather toward Lisa has been very calculating and what I was seeing on the
boat was like wanting to seem like Lisa's friend, but I didn't feel being Lisa's friend.
So I think what you're saying makes sense.
And is she really Lisa's friend?
That's another mystery of the show for me.
Yeah.
I'm interested to see how this plays out.
Like obviously Lisa is in a very defensive position right now.
And she's being very reactive as a result.
So I'm interested to know what a good meal and a night's sleep will do for Lisa in digesting this information that she has got from Heather.
and if she's actually going to try to patch things up with Brittany or if she's going to let this continue to snowball.
Because I think it's clear to me that the right thing is to try to move forward and patch things up with Brittany.
I think if she is able to take a step back and look at the situation, and that's way easier to do from a podcast sitting here on a podcast versus actually being in the moment.
But if she's able to take herself out of this, she would see that Meredith hasn't really been that strong of an ally.
If she needs to throw Meredith under the bus in order to patch things over with Brittany, she can probably do it in a way where things are reconcilable with Meredith in the future.
She just needs to approach it similarly to how Heather has approached her and being like, hey, look, as a friend,
I think maybe things got, you know, out of hand on the plane.
I am going to be apologizing to Brittany for my part because my hands aren't clean.
I think that you should do the same.
And then she can go to Brittany and be like, hey, I apologize for my part in this.
I've told Meredith that she should also apologize to you because things are out of hand.
Just own it so that you can move forward.
And that's the best way to get out of the jam.
But as those words are coming out of my mouth, do they sound like Lisa Barlow?
No.
So, and I think that's one of the things that makes our great housewives.
So we'll see how it goes.
Do you have any other highlights that we haven't covered?
I don't think I do.
I think they've all been discussed.
Yeah, I think that we covered pretty much everything I wanted to cover as well.
Who are your stars from this episode?
I'm going to give a star to Bronwyn for keep continuing to, yeah, be innovative.
and bring new storylines and throw things at the wall.
I appreciate that.
I'm going to give a star to Angie for her heartfelt Greek daughter drama that we get to enjoy.
And one, to Meredith for just like going all in on being super villain.
Yeah.
So Meredith is going to be my number one star for this episode.
The super villain is like so compelling.
It is shifting the target off of Lisa and onto her, if only slightly.
but it's really interesting.
It ended up being the core of a very interesting episode.
So I really, really like that.
And, you know, she was showing why she's still on this show.
Because I think leading up to this episode, it was like, okay, what is Meredith doing this season?
Absolutely nothing.
We're snoozing right now, as Mary would say.
But, yeah, so she's showing why she's important on this show.
and I really appreciated her.
I think that number two has got to go to Angie
just because that scene was such a standout scene here.
It was like it struck such a great balance
between pure ridiculousness and actual earnesty.
So I want to give her credit,
even though it's basically the only scene that she's in.
I think Bronwyn is a great pick for number three,
but I actually want to give my third star to Daisy for the moment
where she decides to,
basically lob a grenade when everyone is leaving the boat by going to get uni the unicorn who is
still soaking wet and let them fight about that as they get off the boat. I just thought that was
such a great decision and it's so perfect. That's why you get reality TV personalities to host
the trip. If that's like if that is the one thing that came out of this below deck crossover,
I think that it was just such a smart move and I love that she did that and we got a really great moment and a really tense moment of Brittany being like, who did this and asking everyone.
And that really helped emotionally frame this moment because the tide had already turned on Brittany by this point.
And we could see that she was already like beaten up and to get this this moment where she's trying to figure out like who else is against her here.
It led to, yeah, that was a great moment and I loved it.
That's such a good point.
Thank you, Daisy.
I didn't quite clock that.
That was such a strategic choice and it just, yeah, it set everything going.
Love it.
Well, if we are missing anything that we, if there's anything that we didn't cover on this episode,
leave us a comment.
Be sure to hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're watching us on.
And that's about it for this week.
Sandra, do you want to let everyone know where they can.
find you. I am at Corporal Curios on Instagram. And I'm Craig Midwinter. I am manning our Instagram and
TikTok accounts, but to be honest, I'm not really posting on them. So if you want to connect with us,
the best way to do it is by subscribing on YouTube and Spotify. I'm checking the comments
there. I might post a reel now and then so you can subscribe on YouTube or on TikTok and Spotify
at Bravo Outsider. But until next week, oh, what is the?
new catchphrase. It was the Jared's thing.
Good night, baby.
Good night, baby. You are loved.
