Oscars Outsider - Real Housewives of Salt Lake City S05E05 & Real Housewives of New York City S15E03 Recap/Analysis

Episode Date: October 20, 2024

This week we're diving into the latest episode Real Housewives of New York City and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. If you enjoyed this breakdown, don’t forget to hit the like button, comment below your favorite moment, and subscribe for more Bravo content! Chapters: 00:00 - Socksucker 02:31 - Real Housewives of New York City Recap 23:54 - Subscribe or I'll botch my face and have to see Terry Dubrow 24:55 - Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Recap 54:46 - There's the door, Shannon Beador 🥂 About Bravo Outsider The 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 New York City: Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan, Erin Lichy, Jenna Lyons, Jessel Taank, Brynn Whitfield, Racquel Chevremont, Rebecca Minkoff Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: Heather Gay, Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks, Angie Katsanevas, Mary Cosby, Bronwyn Newport, Britani Bateman, Meili Workman 📣 Stay Connected: Find Bravo Outsider: On your podcast platform of choice: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bravo-outsider/ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/bravooutsider TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@bravooutsider https://www.bravooutsider.com Find Dylan Ferguson: Substack: https://dylanferguson.substack.com/ Find Craig Midwinter: chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/craigjmidwinter Find Tim Gray: Instagram: https://instagram.com/timgrayrulez 📖 Credits Music by FASSounds from Pixabay #RHOSLC #RHONY #bravo #realitytv #RealHousewives

Jared, you are my best friends. But are you willing to make me feel safe and do the things that are uncomfortable for you to make me feel safe? And I don't have to be so confused all the time. That was a heavy, heavy talk. I thought his movements. Heavy eyelids, the world's slowest blinker. I don't know if you noticed this, but the, way that he blinks was driving me fucking crazy. It was a blink that felt like it was designed to make

you think you're crazy. The way he responded to such slow blinks. Interesting. That's something that like you see someone blink like that. You know they're a cocksucker. I don't know what better way to put it. He doesn't ever post about me on social media. He won't get off dating apps. And when we walk by cute girls, he'll drop my hands. If I had a little bug in her ear, I would have been like, well, make it fucking official or don't call it private. Hold my hand the whole time. Don't let go when you see a single woman, you know, and then our messages are private.

Otherwise, we're friends. Put it in encrypted. How is he even seeing these other women when he's blinking that slowly? You know, they say like a. small town, you blink and you miss it. He missed New York City. Hello and welcome to the Bravo Outsider podcast. I'm your host, Craig Midwinter, and I've got a special guest co-host today. It's Tim Gray. Tim, how's it going? What's up? Tim Gray, back by unpopular demand. That's right. They listen to your comments on the Reddit board,

and they ignored them. They brought me back. Because this is a, if nothing, and not a meritocracy. You're not going to. Well, we've got some awesome episodes to talk about today. We're talking Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and Real Housewives of New York right now.

Which one of these do you want to start with, Tim? Oh, baby. Well, let's start with New York City. All right. Do you want to give us a little bit of a summary as to what happened on this episode? Okay. So in this episode of Real Housewives of New York City, the ladies go to the Hamptons and they all take interesting ways of transportation. I'm sure I'll be talking about the helicopter audio. And it gets cold, not just in the weather, but in the relationships between a few housewives. including one that kind of puts herself center stage into controversy. And then, of course, it all ends with a credit title.

And what question were you left with? Oh, my question, I was left with. Well, I mean, it's like the stupid one of how much did they drink that weekend. How much of that food did they eat? I was kind of, I got a little more respect for, again, sorry, I'm a little bit new on the names, but like the one where Uba was going off and then just calling her a bunch of insults like F you and whatnot. And then she had that nice little piece in the monologue where she's like, use your words, honey. I was raised to insult somebody creatively.

Yeah. really like how Uba is actually doing, like she uses metaphors a lot. We see her talking about pigeons. Pigeons. The framing narrative for the trailer that we got for this season was about all the pigeons in New York City, which I just love that as like a visual idea because that's such an iconic piece of the urban landscape of New York City. Absolutely.

And so for this conflict to devolve to a point where Uba is no way. longer using metaphors and like talking about playing telephone and pigeons and just being like, you know what, fuck you, fuck you. That really speaks to kind of the heightened emotion and the way that Bryn was able to effectively really get under her skin. Absolutely. Bryn should be hired by the CIA for interrogation, right? Like they should have Bryn in the room with like somebody who they need an answer from.

She'll just be like, nice shoes. Was there anything that stood out to you in terms of the presentation on this episode? Well, I'm starting to really enjoy it when the housewives have like an occasion. Like they go to a place because the travel's always funny and there's always like room for drama there. It did seem like there wasn't as much fighting as maybe the producers would have liked. You know, it's like, something like they were almost forcing the issue of like, well, she's going to, although I did find that funny. That lady, I forget her name, but she wasn't going to, she wanted to come up with the group, but because she gets car sick, she needs to drive. Oh, yeah, Raquel.

Maybe that's why she likes to ride a motorcycle because she gets sick in the car. Maybe, yeah, it's like the constant front seat. Yeah. But that character was phenomenal. Her, like, story about art collecting. and whatnot at that dinner table. That was pretty cool. Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up the dinner,

not being full of drama necessarily, because I think that with this cast of Real Housewives of New York, we have seen them use the dinner environment for really an earnest discussion. In this case, we saw them really get to know Raquel a lot better, and we got to learn a bit about Rebecca, including the fact that she still owns the bed, she lost her virginity.

Really funny. Just the frame. That doesn't make it better. Also, we found out a few of the housewife's safe words. Didn't we? Was it grapefruit one of them or something like that? No, zucchini. Oh, it was pineapple or something like that was some sort of word.

That was a big mystery. That was, they left us with. Yes. Pineapple was like the Manchurian candidate. But instead of turning into a killer, the Uber just shut down. Binape, pineapple, pineapple. But weren't they saying when they were sitting at that dinner

getting to know that artist said that something about safe words, something about sex? I think Ubu said something about, oh, if, am I having sex right now? No, well, then I'm not enjoying myself or something like, I don't know, that wasn't it. But, you know, that's what I said actually just now. That's what I said to you just before we hit record.

no I'm not happy to be here I have somebody that requires sex constantly my cooch is out that was another thing that popped up that I'm like is ever does the word cooch get used every episode because so far every episode

somebody makes reference to their cooch being out being cold being dumb it's going on the drinking game the official rony drinking game anytime someone says the word cooch take a shot Speaking of that quote, did you have any other quotes that sit out to you? Not a specific quote, but that I was taught to be offensive by using your words creatively.

You know, I'll just go to someone and say, nice shoes. And I'm like, ow, what's wrong with my shoes? I know you weren't talking to me. That's effective. You see a glimpse of how good they are at playing those social games. Yeah, totally. I think that the strategy was really on display here. We got to see a lot of choices and movement happening.

Yeah. I thought was pretty interesting. Was there anything before I get into it, was there anything that stood up to you? Yeah, I love the flow of the chat between, um, um, uh, see a, right, or who, Sai. Sai, sigh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, sigh and, uh, on the couch there, you know. But then like everyone's in the other room like they kind of know what's going on and they get like called in individually to like to have to back up with the this person is saying. I kind of like the way that played out.

Yeah, there was a lot happening and not a lot of movement as a result. I thought this was pretty interesting because we had Sai and Bryn really kind of trying to hash out their problems. Yeah. Brin wants to put this to bed and just kind of move forward. I think Sai is. you know, she is right that Bryn is not like acknowledging her feelings at all. She's just trying to see under the rug. I think that that is, that is definitely what is doing. But I think, in terms of the social positioning that was going on here, it was interesting because we saw in like episode one where when this all started that Jenna was, you know,

really playing a skillful social game, in my opinion, by kind of getting in front of this and you know telling well she told Aaron that you know what was going around about her because of brin and then we saw her managing her relationship with sigh by uh kind of outing brin as being one of the sources of the information about jena saying that she didn't like sigh and yeah i i think it was it was smart for brin to really call jena in here into this conversation in this episode and get her to, you know, go on record in front of both of them. Yeah. In terms of what her position is going to be.

Right. Because otherwise, you know, Bryn and Sire are just going to keep going back and forth, back and forth. And Jenna is able to like, you know, keep her hands clean. Yeah. Yeah. Any sort of accountability. Yeah.

In this. And she kind of dodged it a little bit too, didn't she? Yeah. I think she did a pretty good job of dodging it. But also she had. She had to pick a side here. Yeah. She was forced to like, you know, pick a side and she landed on on Brin's side, which, you know,

makes sense because they have had a lot more friendly of a relationship. Sure. Things are just kind of like developing with Sy. Sy is the person that said this. Like, um, I think Cy has done a good job of making this conflict not about whether or not she said she didn't like Jenna, but making it about. who is passing this information back to Jenna. Yeah.

Which really, if you take a step back and let the dust settle, you know, it doesn't matter because she's, she said it, right? Yeah. She said it. Yeah. That's what they should be fighting over it. But I think side did a really good job of making this about, you know, oh, who's talking behind someone's back?

And, you know, I think that, you know, it makes sense for a friend to be like, oh, did you know that this person is talking shit about. you know that's yeah that's not something that you really need to get thrown under the bus no no no no we do it all the time you and me yeah but stuff gets heated at the curling rink and well speaking of i one thing that i really liked about this episode was we got like a shot of someone's phone where they're going through text messages and there's like this big group chat that's called roney season 15 and i was want into that group chat. That is like that is some shit talking that I would love to witness.

Imagine that. I wonder if like one day they'll sell, hey, if you want to be a VIP, you can be a, you could be in this group chat for $15,000 a month. You can't comment, but you'll be privy to. Let's let's get into our highlights. What highlights did you have from this? Well, one highlight was Jenna being on the phone with her kid and saying, don't call me, okay, I'm going to be drunk for the next three days. I loved that. I'm like, yeah, these girls, like, party. Like, it is, you know, it's set up for this, but it's also, it's kind of sweet.

I just love that these friends got together in the Hamptons and really turn one on. Except for Rebecca, who says that she's not drinking. Yeah. Why aren't you drinking? And she's like, oh, I get headaches. I'm really tired after. And Britain's like, yeah, that's called a hangover. Like everyone gets up.

Yeah, exactly. Grow up. Did you have any other highlights from this? Yeah, I don't know. I think I just liked Ova stepping a little more into the ring, being less like just a side character for different people and a support, like kind of getting in there and honestly kind of going toe to toe with one of the most badass of the housewives.

You think Uba is the most badass of the housewives? Oh, I think the... Oh, sigh. Sigh is definitely the most badass, but the one that I would want to have a fight with the least would be Brin, I think. I just feel like I would walk away with my pants around my ankles and not knowing why. Not in a sexual way, okay? Like my suspenders went up in a comical way.

Stop it. Get some help. Yeah, I had a lot of highlights. I really enjoyed the callback that we got to last season's Hampton trip when, The gifts are given out. And Jenna brings the Christmas tree costume. That was nice. For Jessel, I thought that that was a funny callback.

Yeah. Really kind of spoke to them being on a lot more stable ground. I think the first season, since it was a brand new cast, everyone was a little bit unsure about the footing that they had. And so we saw Jessel being very reactive to that gift. And I thought that that was like, that's definitely a memorable moment from that season. Yeah. So to see the fact that she's, you know, close enough with Jenna now that she's able to, you know, take a joke. And yeah, I just really like how that was a token of the way their friendship has moved.

It was such a like a very heartfelt kind of moment. Like I felt vulnerable for her when she got that gift and she laughed and stuff like that. But then she was like, oh, everyone else got. lingerie and I got a Christmas tree. You know, and I was like, that, you could have done just that, Jenna, and you could have created, like, a season of fights or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, I felt like it was delicate, but she did give her lingerie, and then they all got the, that's nice.

That's super freaking nice. There was a few, like, really wholesome moments in this episode that made me like, oh. Yeah, for sure. And I think you're right. She could have started a fight with Jessel, but I think that, it's a, you're, you're right. If there's anyone that does not want to start a fight right now, just given their social position within this group, it would be Jenna. Like she, she's at the top. She would prefer everyone be, you know, beefing with each other and not with her.

So I think that it was, you know, it was a nice thing to do to obviously give her the gift. But she also doesn't want to start shit because that is not going to help her at all. Any other highlights from this? No, again, I mean, I just need to send a very heartfelt shout out to the audio engineers for capturing some more crispy dialogue in a helicopter. So there was a moment, there was a moment in the helicopter where they were like, what do you want to do if they ask us about your Scientology? Yeah. And then that never came up again. Yeah.

It didn't come up this episode. I feel like it has to be coming up later this season. Yeah, right, right. Rebecca kind of deflected from that or we got, you know, the things that we learned about Rebecca were very surface level or silly. Like, even when we had that dinner scene where they were out for dinner and we learned about, you know, Raquel's backstory and also her love story. Yeah. We got very superficial surface level stuff from Rebecca, like the thing about the bed that she lost her virginity in. And, you know, her parents saying, if you don't do drugs, I'll buy you birth control pills or something like that.

Yeah, that was it. She wasn't really revealing a lot here. Oh, and I don't know if it was that scene, but also that she, like, one time she sneezed and her diva cup shot out like a rock at her. Whatever. Out of her cooch. Yeah. But we're not. really seeing her give the sort of like vulnerability that we like to see from from housewives like

she's not really bringing a lot here i understand why she's was classified as a as a friend of instead of a full-time housewife because what we're seeing on camera yeah she's not giving enough in any given area to be that and she's not well-rounded enough to be compelling so yeah i'm curious to see how this all plays out with a Scientology stuff. My feeling is that because she's not a hostwife, or I'm thinking this because she's not a full-time hostwife, that we actually won't get a lot of resolution. That's my gut feel on this where it's going to be something that's kind of just left hanging a little bit.

They'll probably dive into it a little bit, but I don't think that we're going to really get anything all that juicy here. do you know do you know what the contracts are like for these real housewives like did they make that public is it like you see what they like their starting salary is and like do they get bonuses if they get you know a drink thrown in their face or something like that i wonder uh not we don't get to see that level of detail sometimes it's announced you know what a housewife is earning but it's not as like transparent as it is in like the sports world where you um get really detailed looks into what a what a contract looks like. Wouldn't that be funny? I would love to know though. Each housewife series has like a salary cap, you know,

and they like trade. Drafting from the miners. I would love it if there's some sort of mechanism for like bringing up housewives. I think we've talked about this on previous podcast where, you know, having like some sort of like try out for real housewives. Yeah. would be really fun.

Get six of your friends and record a weekend at a cottage where you rip into each other personally. And you could be the next. Let's get into our stars. Who are your stars from this episode? I'm going to give first star to Jenna, putting it together, making herself available for questioning and kind of step in with Uber. And then Uber's getting number two because I like, I don't know, I like Uber.

And then the third star, I would go to the first, but I think it was just recycled footage. But of course, the audio engineers on the helicopter capturing clean audio in impossible situations. Yeah, I think that those are pretty good picks. I think that I would have to give a star to Uber for sure. I think that her being size spokesperson in that final breakfast scene, seeing her get heated. I thought that that was very compelling because someone identified it earlier in the season

and maybe even in this past episode that Uba is using this as a way to get back at Bryn for outing her boyfriend. Her anger is not actually about this situation with Sai. She's using this as a way to get her anger out, which it's compelling to see her get this heated I am excited for this conflict between Uba and Brin because I like both of them and I like seeing fights. So this is perfect.

But I think that this is interesting because I think even Uba maybe identified this about Brin, the way that she operates is she tries to sweep things under the rug when she's mad at you and then it's going to find a new conflict that she's got better footing as a victim on. And so there's a little bit of a kind of reflection going on here between how Uba is using another conflict as kind of like a proxy war for her anger and the way that she has identified Brin as operating. And that's actually, I think, within the context of housewives, then maybe this is a piece that makes Brin a really compelling housewife. I think that using another conflict where you've got better footing in order to kind of strike out. That's actually a really smart way to play this game. I'm sure that it's a strategy that's employed by a lot of housewives, but I've never really seen it picked up on so specifically here. And I think that that's like a really good way to operate in this context.

Maybe not a healthy way to operate as a human, you know, going about your day to day life. But in the context of this kind of social game that we see here that plays out on housewives, I think it's really smart. Yeah. So yeah, I think Uba and Bryn are my two stars here. Yeah. And I'm going to give a star also to Raquel because I'm liking that she's being an open book here. We're seeing her backstory here. Yes.

I think that we haven't seen her get into a lot of conflict. And we got a little spark here with the potential conflict with Sai and possibly Uba over the driving situation on the way in. I think that she did a good job of just being like, oh, it's. like whatever, it's fine and really kind of downplaying it a little bit. I think the people that were latching onto it, like Aaron and Bryn and Jessel, when this came up, you saw their eyes light up because it was seen as, you know, this potential to drive a wedge between Sai and Uba and Raquel and clearly pull a number onto their side potentially. Raquel was able to really put a damper on that situation for now, or at least it seemed that way to me.

So, yeah, I want to give her a star as well. I like what I'm seeing from her as a housewife so far this season. Let's go Raquel. Yeah, let's bring it. Before we get into Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, just want to take the opportunity to ask our listeners and viewers to hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're watching this on. It helps us out a ton. Please.

Leave a comment if it allows you. And check out our YouTube. We're trying to drive more people to our YouTube because, you know, we're just so pretty. You got to see us on video. You got to see us. We are good looking. We need to get special cameras because the cameras kept melting because they were so hot and bothered by our stunning visage. Good.

Great. If we don't start getting more views on our YouTube, it's going to make me, insecure. I'm going to have to go and get some work done on my face. I'm going to go see Terry DeBrough. Get the full lip treatment, you know. I'm going to get a Brazilian butt. Yeah. For the audio only listeners, he's showing us his current butt right now. So. I have six butts. That was me clapping my cheeks. Where you want to be when Jesus comes back. Let's dive in to realize there's Salt Lake City. Do you want to give us a summary of what happened on this episode, Tim? On this episode of the real housewives of Salt Lake City, the real housewives in Salt Lake City, have a fun time.

They go skiing. They reveal some incredibly personal stuff. And at the end of the day, they still remain tentatively friends. Are you drunk? I'm sorry, I did watch this one kind of late last night, but I just remember specifically like that. crazy conversation between Electra and her ma. Anyways, but that's probably, you're probably jumping. Oh, Gwen and her mom.

Gwen and her mom. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can't wait to talk about that. I really liked how this theme was handled. I liked the presentation of the scene that we got between Bronwyn and her daughter. But to start things off, I think that the very first thing that we see on this episode, the very first scene is Lisa Barlow's house. we see Lisa talking with her son who's basically ignoring her and just playing video games,

you know, not really acknowledging her. And I really like this as a bit of a contrast or a, you know, a reference to the theme where we're talking about acknowledgement of family. And there's all these questions surrounding how Bronwyn's daughter Gwen feels about acknowledging, you know, her biological grandparents and learning about her dad. And so to lead this off with a scene where we've got Lisa's child. Super interesting. Not acknowledging her, I thought was a really poetic choice.

And then it also is the behavior that is at the core of her insecurity and that Angie is attacking in her conflict. So just this, like, tiny little scene that we got to lead. this off is such a important choice in terms of the overall presentation of these shows. Sometimes people will say, oh, we're like reading too much into these things. We're picking up stuff that's not there. These are deliberate choices that are clearly been made. They're thinking about themes when they're putting these together.

Yeah. And, you know, yeah, told you so. We told you so. But we told you so. Who do you think you are? I am. Nailed it. What was that?

That was a cat toy. I love it. Craig and I will be doing a dueling soundboard episode soon. Yeah. What's it out to you in terms of the presentation? You know what now that you said that, Maybe I'm guilty of watching this episode as more of a viewer and less of a critic in terms of the way I was taking it in. I think because I think it was presented extremely well to give you these very personal viewpoints.

It's funny. It's funny to watch like the evolution. I mean, you could speak to this because I'm only like dipping in and out of this. And now I think I'm full bored into it. But the real housewives, the evolution of it, right? the way that these reality stars, these human beings who are forced into celebrity, but they're utilizing this channel to get celebrity, they find ways to gain that system. And you see it more clearly because they're the ones on camera, right?

And the way that they talk and the way they set things up. But then, of course, there's the whole production team that's evolved at the same time. And they're finding different artistic ways to not only capture moments in their lives, but then, yeah, present them in the editing. that scene off the top where I found it to be kind of heartbreaking, you know what I mean? There was such a distance between her and her son, not only emotionally, but physically. He's on the upper floor with his name or his bedroom and he's looking down at her and not even looking at her really. He's like pretending to be tired.

It's like, do you don't even look tired? Oh, yeah. the scene between Mary and her son Robert Jr. Robert Jr. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was, that was a powerful scene in that it made me feel really, like, sad and uneasy about their family relationship. I mean, he clearly seemed like he was on some sort of substance.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. much says that he's got a substance issue without saying it or implying something about something else about his lifestyle that makes them not employable. My God, yeah. And Mary being, you know, your body is a plant. You need to feed it, healthy stuff.

Yeah, you got to water it. Water it. And otherwise it'll die. Whoa. There was so many complexities to that. I felt so, I felt really bad for Mary. And it gave me just a lot of sympathy. just how difficult that must be.

Yeah, I think that's such a great call out about the physical distance that we get between them in this scene. It feels like it just grows and grows and grows the distance between them as we watch this scene. And they're not doing anything in terms of how it's blocked. But you see it in the way they talk to each other and in their body language that there's a huge divide between them that they need to overcome. And yeah, it's painful to think about having a relationship with your kids that's that divided and strained. When you're walking on eggshells, yeah. You can tell that Mary, like, obviously really cares about her son. Absolutely.

This is sort of a scene that does not require any sort of specific chronology to it. They could have taken this scene that they have filmed and stuck it in any episode in this season. and the fact that they chose to include this in the episode that they did because it's so consistent with the theme, you know, regarding the closeness of family that we see in Bronwyn's story here is another great choice that the production team and editors have made here. Such a fantastic scene.

Pulled on a lot of heartstrings this episode. And at the same time, I'm so bad. I'll get these names. I trust me, I'll get these names. listeners are just going nuts. They're like, why I gave this fucking guy back on? Why can't have this fucking guy back?

I just even know the fucking name. But you know when they're sitting in the two chairs and they're talking about they're like they're recapping what she said about her son. Lisa and Heather and the salt cave. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Perfect.

Thank you. Lisa and Heather. In the salt cave. Don't spill your drink. The cave's going to fall down. all for you. Between the skiing scene and the salt cave scene, like they broke up the kind of the heavier moments

with some really beautiful scenery and stuff. Yeah, totally. Another thing I want to talk about in terms of visual presentation was in that scene that we got between Bronwyn and Gwen. I just loved how this was shot and edited because it reminded me of the scene in Real Housewives of New Jersey that we got earlier this past season where Joe Benino is getting the results from his cancer test, where there's like very little music and it's shot in close-ups that are taken from like a distance.

And so we get the feeling of that intimacy by it being like so tight on them. Maybe they're just trying to like crop out the dogs wearing sweaters. But we get it so tight, but it's clear that this is like on a zoom from very far away. So you've got that distance where you also feel like you are. Just to let me be an observer. You're not. You're an observer. Yeah.

You're maybe overhearing something that is very private. Yeah. I thought that the, the presentation on this scene in particular is, was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when we talked about the scene in Real Housewives of New Jersey, we talked about how this genre is able to leverage the tools of documentary filmmaking. And yeah, this was a great example of that, in my opinion.

Yeah, it's entirely in the cinematography. Yeah, it's in documentary filmmaking, there's always a director who puts their voice quite literally into the piece, right? Here, you don't have that at all. you have to tell you have to create art with using dialogue given to you that's interesting it's cool man yeah that's cool uh were there any quotes here that sit out to you oh um no yeah there were there were i'm sorry okay so that that that scene that we were talking about like that the the heavy one at the end between the mother and the daughter and the daughter questioning about whether or not.

I mean, I guess it's maybe like the final blow of the episode when it's the monologue and she's reflecting on that conversation with her daughter. And she said that the daughter is the only one that didn't get to make a choice. Yeah. And she has to feel all of the weight of everyone's choices. It was so honest and like and insightful and just like let down her prize. you know and was very vulnerable and it's like okay that sounds like you got a long time to work on that maybe a lifetime but nice of you to know that I found the way that she encouraged her daughter

throughout that self-discovery was very very well done I'm like oh my god you must have either you're a therapist or you've paid for a lot of it yeah totally um yeah that definitely stood out to me When we hear Bronwyn talk about how she thought that just being there for Gwen was enough, like more than enough for her. And she wanted to make it so that it was enough for Gwen and kind of acknowledging that there was like selfishness in that. I thought, yeah, that took a lot of reflection because it's very easy to be like, I am doing everything for my child. And think about that as something that is very selfless. Yes. But to acknowledge that there was selfishness in how you made the decision to be like the only person for your child and to think about how Gwen was the only person that wasn't able to make a choice here and she has to feel the weight of everyone else's choice.

I thought that, yeah, you're right. That is such a powerful quote instead of dialogue. So much courage to look at yourself like that. Yeah. I am so impressed with Bronwyn as a hostwife so far this season. We're getting so much out of her. We're seeing her give a very personal story. We're also seeing the way that she's engaging in conflict, I think is really compelling.

So far, this is a fantastic rookie season for a housewife. Heck yeah, absolutely. Might be setting some rookie records for this. Also, I love her style. I love her aesthetic. I love, you know, another thing about just the setting of that conversation with her daughter, Bronman, was that living room was so, like, well curated. It was such like an artistic piece. But it also looked livable, you know, like functional as like a place you could relax with a couple of dogs in sweaters. Yeah. Or like host a little party. Like it didn't, it didn't seem like, oh my God, wait. Oh, no, that was back in the Hamptons. I just really love that kitchen renovation. Oh, New York.

Side by side. Because she's like, I don't even know if it's going to be ready. It's like they're just getting it done now. It's like, what do they replace a faucet? Yeah. It looks the exact same. What about strategy here? Was there anything that stood out to you in terms of strategic decisions?

Yeah, I thought that that salt cave moment was, I thought that that was kind of almost an obvious, some obvious strategizing and setting up. But the way that it was, shoot, what's her name again when she's the one that she received it and her son's, she was being insulted about her son playing video games? Lisa Barlow. Lisa freaking Barlow. One of my favorites. Baby gorgeous.

Baby gorgeous. Lisa Barlow, the way she like sat, received that information in this salt cave and then just like, like emotions all the way up. And just to find like a bit of a delayed response even with her emotions. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny to watch it like first she's like processing it from like a strategic.

strategic position and being like, okay, this is what's going on here in this dynamic. And it's like, wait a minute, she's attacking me where I'm super insecure because her story has been about her son that's going off on a mission trip and her trying to reconcile a child leaving the nest. And we've seen stories about her trying to like balance work and family life. And so this is an attack on something that is like really core to. her and like a really core insecurity. And so for us to see the kind of delayed reaction from the information landing and it like kind of traversing the nerve up to the brain was, yeah,

it was really good. Yeah. One thing that I thought was interesting strategically here was, we're seeing Mary come to play. I thought that the scene at the end, the tailgating scene, by the way, really funny to watch Mary process the idea of tailgating in real time in the confessional. But the fact that she was ready to go on the attack with Heather and be like, why are you so up Lisa's ass, basically? I really like that.

I think that that's not something that we see Mary do a lot. She's kind of been a lone wolf up until this season, and now we're seeing her form close relationships and take on a position within that side of the social dynamic and function in a team player role. So the fact that she was there and she was there with Heather and Lisa and able to be on Angie's side here and go on the attack, I thought was a really interesting development here. Yes.

Maybe it was the adrenaline from the zip line. She was just feeling. But I loved it. I love that. We see Mary calling out Heather for being two-faced. Yeah. And she still got mud on her face from the mud ride over. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed that.

Okay, let's get into our highlights now. Did you have any other highlights? Yeah, the zip line was fantastic. I mean, yeah. I think I covered my highlights. I've got a few highlights here. The scene that we got in the car with Whitney and her husband and her kid. Oh my God, yeah.

So we got to see Whitney calling a podcaster on the phone to get Intel. And I really like that Salt Lake City is now not shying away from the way that housewives are engaging with the meta and social media. So we saw a seismic collapse at the end of last season in the big finale reveal where the divide between the fandom and the housewives is shattered. And so now that we see them engaging with podcasters and the way that we're seeing Intel about Lisa Barlow potentially operating a fake fan account. as well where she's like disseminating information to to cause a beef. I think it is interesting. I'm liking it right now just because of the trajectory that Salt Lake City has been on. And I think that it's compelling on its own here.

Super compelling. It's not necessarily something that I want to see spill into a lot of franchises and, you know, become front and center everywhere because I think that that could get a little boring. Would you say this is like an organic development in this world where that world should be? Yeah, I think that it's the way that this is fitting into the storylines that we're seeing on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, it does feel organic here and that's why I'm okay with it. Yes. But I think that like one of the most annoying parts about the whole Bravo universe is the way that fans tried to insert themselves. into the drama.

So I don't want to see it really empowered and platformed more than it already is. It did give us some great moments, but also, you know, I want to see, like you said, organic stories about the relationships that these people have together. Yeah. Because that's more relatable as a human, like seeing those relationships. Play those games. Survival of the fittest. Yeah. Yeah, but seeing how relationships evolve and respond to changes, I think is one of the things that's really compelling about these shows.

Even if there are like artificial elements and like a meta game that drives it, I still think that, you know... It's still human beings reacting to human beings over time, right? Exactly. You know, when people criticize reality TV as being set up, it's still, you can't take away the fact that these are still actual people that are responding with. actual motivations in these situations. Like they're still motivated to make sure that they've got a certain personality that the public thinks of them in whatever way. They do have genuine friendships with their cast members and external relationships that they have to manage. Like we see when Lisa is talking about her relationship with the grandparents of Bronwyn's child. She's she's careful about their reputation because she's,

she's close with them, that is motivated by her human connection that she has with those people. It's not motivated by some need to forward a plot. So, like, yes, reality TV has things that are set up. There's set up situations. There's like storylines that are driven by production, feeding information. There's all of that for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. are still humans that are operating within that. It's not a...

Which is the beautiful part of it. Yeah. Right. Because humans are way... You can't... You could spend an entire lifetime trying to write a book with characters that operated in a, as nuanced a way as a real human. Yeah. But you still wouldn't be able to capture it because you just can't. It's impossible. Yeah. And why can't we just have... have two things. I can watch Seinfeld, a scripted program where people react in predictable, hilarious ways, or I can enjoy human beings reacting to human beings and captured and edited

by true professionals in a beautiful, beautiful way. Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Oh, oh, can I say one more highlight that I had from that episode was the dinner with an Osmond. Oh, yeah. I can't believe we haven't talked about that. Yeah, let's go for it. What'd you like about this? Heavy talk. I thought his movements. Heavy eyelids, the world's slowest blinker. I don't know if you noticed this, but the way that he blinks was driving me fucking crazy.

He blinks like someone that is just so cocky. And it was a blink that felt like it was designed to make you think you're crazy. The way he responded just such slow blinks like. Interesting. I could see that as a strategy. That's something that like you see someone blink like that. You know they're a cocksucker. I don't know what better way to put it.

His movements coming in, his slow hug around her, like the whole thing. And then like, and then you're right. That blinking, it's all like to set set it off because it's like this is all abnormal behavior. abnormal behavior. And then she's like, I'm, I'm nervous. Like, of course you are because you feel threatened because these movements that he's doing are like a predator in the wild, like, hunting you, you know? Like slow movements. Careful. You know what I mean? So you're just like, why is this person acting like this to me? But I mean, what did you think about that? What did you think about their, about the precipice of their fight about sharing text messages to somebody? So I think here,

like Brittany is obviously not taking any accountability for her part in Lisa getting a hold of her phone and sending text messages and FaceTiming. Like obviously she allowed that to happen. Sure. She needs to take accountability for it. That would have hurt for them. But seeing this dynamic between Brittany and Jared, like someone get her out of there. Exactly.

The confessional where she's like, he's very convincing, almost manipulative. Yes. Like he's definitely 100% manipulative. 100% manipulative. 100% manipulative. And the other part of that, that's like telling about his behavior where I'm like, I don't know if I had a little bug in her ear,

I would have been like, well, make it fucking official or don't call it private. You know? Hold my hand the whole time. Don't let go when you see a single woman. You know? Like make a social media post. about us together

and then our messages are private. Otherwise, we're friends. How is he even seeing these other women when he's blinking that slowly? You know they say like a small town, you blink and you miss it? He missed New York City. It's a long he blinks this fucking blinker.

Okay. Let's get into our stars. Who are your stars from this episode? My stars for this episode would be Gwen. Gwen was the 17, was the kid? Yeah, Bronwyn's daughter, yeah. Bronwyn's daughter. Yeah, I thought that that was like a lot of her to share that on camera and to be very

comfortable like that. I didn't, you know, I thought that she deserves a star. That was very vulnerable. Totally, yeah. I think I liked the waiter. who came off to get the order with the dinner with the Osmond. I felt sorry for him because he came up to me. He's like, eh, is this a good time to take your order?

Yeah. And then he's just like, we'll do the chakutory board and then we'll go from there. Yeah. That waiter did his best. Yeah. And then and then, and then, yeah, maybe throw it up to Mary. Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah, I think my number one star is going to be Bronwyn.

with a 1A being her daughter here. I think that that was just, you know, obviously so compelling. I am just loving what Bronwyn is bringing. We've gone over that quite a bit. Number two, I think I'm going to give to Mary because, yeah, I think she is coming to play. We saw her awkwardly dancing at that hip-hop dance. I love that she is letting her emotions. just kind of guide her as well.

Yeah. The fact that... She's trying new things. Yeah. And we saw her, like, bring up the fact that she saw Heather's daughter. And then as soon as Brittany asks about it, like, Mary cannot stand. Britney, she just clams up and she doesn't want to talk about it. It's like, yeah, the wind brought her to me.

I'm not giving you fuck all. You're not getting any information out of me whatsoever. Yeah. I really, really love that. Then I think I'm going to give number three to Britney just for, you know, I think that this relationship that we've got between her and Jared Osmond is like, it is painful to watch. It's something kind of compelling about it, though.

It definitely seems like she's coming from an honest place. It almost feels like she's threatened by him. in some way that that's why she needs to defer responsibility for the text messages and whatever onto Lisa. Yeah, I think that that is interesting. So I want to give her a star there. Yeah. I didn't.

Another thing that run me the wrong way about that guy and the way he made her, her, Brittany feel bad was let me play out how the weekend went. Okay. You messaged me. Things are going great. you're going to follow with me after the game. And then I start freaking out. You don't message next day.

You don't message. Like, dude, she's on a girl's weekend. Yeah. Why do you need her to be checking in with you at all? You're not even exclusive. You're not nothing. Like, shut up, dude. You don't.

Why make her, you know what I mean? That's that manipulation move. That's that, look, this is how you hurt me. And you need to be accountable for it. Let's put a pin in it. I want to put a pin in you, you piece of shit. I thought that Brittany did a good job at that dinner of like standing up to him regarding that. And this is something that we actually have talked about on past episodes as well.

But I think one of the interesting things that we see often on these shows is when these women are in these relationships with men that have maybe a more like traditional and regressive. view of things. They're able to, like, leverage the, the cameras and the platform. Yeah. In order to take power back in that situation. And I thought we got glimpses of her doing that in the way that she stands up to Jared in a way that he seemed almost like he was caught off guard by. Like, it's not something that he is used to in their relationship dynamic.

And so I thought that was, I always love to see. it when we see that. It's something that was on like full display actually in the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. When we discussed that, some of those women on that show were in these very traditional relationships where men are traditionally empowered. That's just kind of the culture of the Mormon church in Utah. Now that they are the breadwinners, they've got the cameras following them. We see a few of the men on that show spiraling because they are losing control and losing the the upper ground there that, you know, they had no right to begin with, especially, you know, in the case of like Zach Affleck, who is getting his way paid through medical school,

thanks to his wife's TikTok account to see him really struggle with the idea that he is not the number one in that relationship. It's, yeah, it's really compelling to see. So love to see that we get a little bit of that dynamic here as well. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this. This was a lot of fun, Tim. Do you want to let people know where they can find you?

You can find me online, zellers.biz. Yeah, zellers. dot biz. Check out Tim Gray. I'm Craig Midwinter. You can find me on chess.com. Craig J. Midwinter, add me as a friend. You can kick my ass at chess.

But other than that, you can just find me at Bravo Outsider on Instagram and TikTok. Leave a comment on our YouTube. videos that helps us own time. Please do it. If you don't do it. If you don't leave a comment, if you don't subscribe, if you don't like, if you don't do those little things for us, then how do you

expect us to come to you? Exactly. Until next week, keep on wiping.