Mention It All - That’s A Wrap On Monica (RHOSLC Reunion)

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Dylan is back for one more RHOSLC recap this season, breaking down the epic third part of the reunion. First, he unpacks the news that Monica will not be returning to the show next season, and why it���s ultimately probably a good thing. Back at the reunion, Angie makes a strong case for herself, while Monica struggles to find the right tone, and even Andy isn’t having it. Heather also closes the loop on Black Eye-gate, but is everyone satisfied with her apologies? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See Store Online for details. Betches Media presents. Ha ha, laugh, funny. Mention It All, a Bravo by Betches podcast. We don't say that, but now we said it. With me, Dylan Hafer. We're going to check me, boo. Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to the Mention at All podcast. I'm Dylan Hafer, and quite frankly, you all know why we're here. We have part three of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City reunion to discuss. And we're going to talk about the news that Mom Monica will not be returning to the show. We're going to get through it together. But first, happy Wednesday. It is Wednesday.

I hope everyone is doing well. This week, this week just keeps coming. I still can't believe we have Vanderpump coming on next week. And I still can't stop thinking of the traitors. I swear every 10 seconds, just going through my mind, I have, Oh, Lord, baby Jesus. Not Ecken Sue. Not Ecken Sue.

But anyway, there was this article that popped up on my feed this morning. So Larsa Pippen, and this is a spoiler alert, if you aren't caught up on traders, skip ahead a few minutes, go watch it, whatever. You've been warned. Larsa Pippen was sent home last week on the traders. And she did an interview with Entertainment Weekly talking about her time on the show. And I actually find this fascinating because Larsa is somebody, obviously, we see. see her on Real Housewives of Miami in lots of different situations. But hearing her speak in an interview about her time on this weird competition show is just, it feels different than how we're

normally used to seeing Larsa. So, you know, she says that Sandra needs to get her eyes checked after saying she looks 10 to 12 years older than her. She's saying that she feels like she's more outspoken, some of the other housewives. But the real, the real gem of this interview comes when she's asked about Janelle. And the question is, what did you make of Janelle saying it was suspicious that you were toasting Marcus when he was murdered? And Larsa Marie Pippen, is her middle name Marie? It could be. It could not be. It feels like it fits. This is what Larsa says. I think Janelle was upset that I was getting a lot of camera time and she wanted me off the show because I make good television and she doesn't. She didn't like that. So she wanted me off the show. So she had more

camera time. I thought she was weird. From the very beginning, I felt like her personality was weird. She was very selfish, and I called her out on that from the very beginning. I'm like, hey, I'm competitive as well, but you're so selfish. You'll do anything. When she untied herself and ran to get the shield instead of helping the person next to her so we can make sure that we win the challenge and make all this money, she wasn't concerned with that. She was basically just worried about herself. Literally, I was one of the first people that untied myself. I untied like four people. And then Johnny Bananas was yelling at me, go find the map. But I kind of figured it'd be a little bit more camaraderie during the challenges where we all want to win in the very

beginning to make sure the pot is big enough and not necessarily be so selfish. Oh my God. She says if she could go back, she wouldn't have been so open with her opinions. It was a great experience. She's happy that she did it. She's upset at herself that she switched from thinking it was Dan to that it was CT. Just those comments are much not. I make good television and she doesn't.

It's such a hilarious thing to say about somebody who's shows. you've never watched. Like earlier in the interview, she's like, well, I watched Housewives so I know Tamara, but like, I don't know any of these competitive people. It's like I'm not even a big brother watcher, and I could tell you that I think Janelle Pierzina does make good television. But that is neither here nor there, because what we are really here today to talk about is the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

The conclusion of this three-part reunion, I didn't really get to talk about part two. And to be honest, that was okay. I think in any reunion situation like this, it's always going to kind of like inch up and up and up. And part three, you always hope, is going to be sort of the climax. And I definitely think it was. But yesterday, Tuesday, depending on when you're listening to this, the viewing experience of the reunion was colored a little bit by the fact that at around 5 p.m., news broke via people, our friend Dave Quinn, that Monica will not. be returning to the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City next season. Monica, at least at the time I'm recording this, has not officially confirmed that. She posted on Instagram last night,

suggesting that she might turn her receipt burn book into an actual book. That's going to be flying off the shelves, I'm sure. But she is reportedly, you know, not coming back to the show. They are set to start filming within the next week or two. I think we've even had sort of comments from people with production that that is that is the plan we don't know yet if everyone else will be back but i i suspect that they will be we'll talk about that and particularly i think heather is kind of the biggest question mark but we'll we'll talk about that in a little bit but monica not coming back to the show so full transparency when this came out at about 5 p.m. yesterday i had already seen the reunion episode i watched it in the afternoon i had had time to digest it a

little bit. And so the reaction on social media to this news was pretty strong. And I'm sure that this is not totally representative of how everyone watching the show feels. But I was seeing a lot of people that were like totally distraught over the news that Monica would not be coming back to the show. And I think it's really, it's really interesting to see the reception that Monica has received over the last month or so, kind of since the last couple episodes of the season, going into the reunion. Obviously, the other women on the cast have been extremely anti-monica since Bermuda. I mean, I remember at BravoCon, it seemed very notable that they clearly did not want to have anything to do with her. And then that was as the season was airing. We were getting closer to the finale.

of course, now we know. But the fan response was pretty polarized. And I think that as much as many of us can understand why the women have such qualms with Monica sort of being in their circle, at the same time, you can't deny that this season was a great season of reality TV that would not have been what it was without Monica, for better or for worse, she was the one sort of causing all the conversation. So I get why people are, you know, upset. And when you think back to the position we were in with this show a year ago,

season three was a little tough to get through. And then Jen was carted off to prison. And, you know, really up until when this season was starting, there was kind of this feeling of like, what are they going to do now? Where do we go from here? And I think with Salt Lake, you know, they've been on the air for four seasons now. They have this kind of core four plus Mary, plus Angie. And with the core four, as much as I think they're great housewives, I think all four of them have contributed a lot to the success of this show. At a certain point, you've kind of put the

pieces in every different configuration you can. And so, it's like, okay, how many more ups and downs of Meredith and Lisa's relationship can we really care about? How many more times are Heather and Lisa going to fall out and start to patch up their friendship? There is a limited runway for what we can do with the same relationships. I mean, look at where we are with Real Housewives of New Jersey with Teresa and Melissa. Finally, after 10 seasons on the show together, getting to a point where they're just going to be done with each other. At least that's what they're saying right now. Like, I don't want Salt Lake City to be a show where it's just 10 seasons of four people fighting and making up.

Even though, I mean, to a point, that's what Housewives is, but you have to have some extra pieces to the puzzle at a certain point. But, you know, we were surprised this season. It turned out really well. I don't know what creatures are lurking in Salt Lake City that they could find to join this show. But I don't know. To get back to the sort of timeline of yesterday, when this news broke, I had already seen the episode. And so I knew that the way the reunion ends is essentially closing the book on Monica, at least for now. I mean, there's no way to watch that episode and feel like, well, of course she's coming back.

Oh, yeah, it would make so much sense. Like, that doesn't mean that you have to like it. But the way that Monica handled herself at this reunion is not the way that somebody who really cares about staying on the show would have approached this situation. And I was thinking about this from the first moment. at that dinner in Bermuda, when Heather brought everything up about reality vontees, that that could have been the start of Monica sort of shedding the layers and doing the work of getting these women to trust her and to want to be friends with her and whatever, but that she never really was interested in doing that.

And it was clear that like from what happened on the finale, from what happened on social media after the finale, from the whole lead up and into the reunion, that Monica wasn't ever really willing to give an inch. She never really owned anything more than the absolute facts that were on paper. And even then sometimes was kind of debating reality, I would say. Like she could have said, she could have said at Bermuda and at the reunion, look, I was in a haze from my toxic relationship with Jen, just like you were, Heather. And it took me some time. And did I come on this show with some questionable motives? Sure. I wanted attention. I wanted the money. I wanted to get to the level that I felt like you guys were at. And was that a lot? And was that a lot of. little shady of me? Sure. But once I was there, once I started to meet you all and to get to know you all, I found myself in a position of feeling like I had this solid female strong support group for the first time in my life and I'm a single mother of four and I'm doing all this stuff. even if it was bullshit, she could have played that card, almost a little bit of a sympathy card,

a contrition card of saying, I have done wrong, and I made you wrong again. But right now, this is real. And I feel that these relationships are real. I feel that these connections are real. But she went in the opposite of that. And so when you talk about coming back to the show, doing another season, being around these women, having any sort of, you know, plausible relationships with these women, Andy gives them the opportunity at the end.

And, I mean, none of them are willing to leave the door open for that. So good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack stores now and up to 60% off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame, and Free People. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

I was texting with my friend Jared, who's been on the show last night, and he was bringing up a past season of Jersey where Danielle Stahub kind of had that basically solo arc, and then I think there was really just one kind of big confrontation scene. They could have done something like that, but I'm just not sure that the juice would be worth the squeeze. And I think that we saw at the reunion, Monica sort of unable to come down to Earth a little bit and meet everyone on a level where you could sort of come to an understanding. And I thought that it was really interesting.

Obviously, there was a ton of yelling at this part of the reunion. Not all of it was super clear and coherent and, you know, interesting. I think it's a fine line. And I don't think they always stayed on the, the, ideal side of it, but when Angie and Monica were yelling back and forth, and this is, you know, there's the rumors about the Greek mafia and Angie's businesses and Angie's husband. And for one, even Andy was trying to get Monica to understand this concept that even if you are not the absolute root source of a rumor, if you are the first person to bring it up on camera,

in the universe of the show, you are the one responsible for the rumor. This is something, a tale is oldest time. It's the oldest trick in the book that there is a difference between something that is happening in the world, in real life, in a personal life, in a social circle, in a community, in the streets, as they say. it is a different thing for that same information to be a topic of discussion on the show, on camera, on mic, naming names, speaking openly. Those are two separate things.

And if you are the person who brings it from one world into the other, you have to own that. And that is something that Monica seems either to not be able to grasp or to not be willing to acknowledge. But I think maybe more than most people in the group, I think Angie has genuine reasons to be unhappy with Monica. All that stuff about the business, the stuff about her husband. The moment where Angie calls her a lowbrow fucking rat in the sewer. And Monica, I don't know if she misheard or if she purposely misconstrued. straight and she goes, a brown rat. Wow. And Angie like flies up out of the seat and she's like, brow, low brow. And Andy in that moment wants to, I don't even know, he would rather be absolutely

anywhere else. I was watching that moment in the office yesterday and I was like actually laughing out loud at my desk to the point where I had to like pause and explain what was happening because people were like, are you okay? When Angie and Monica are yelling back and forth at each other, Monica is not the best at responding, listening, getting a point across. And Lisa points this out. She says, you don't argue well. And I think that that is actually a really good observation on the part of Lisa. And something that we don't necessarily think about or talk about as much because there are lots of housewives who are great with a comeback or great in a confessional at a little shady moment, a little dig.

And I think that Monica, Monica has that to an extent. You know, she gave us a lot this season. And there's a reason that people were responding so strongly to her. But that in this reunion context where you are in the moment and the point of the reunion is to work through stuff that happened on the show that season, Monica is not really able to communicate effectively in this setting. And I think that she is on a cast with a bunch of women, maybe with the exception of Whitney.

I don't know how well Whitney does at this, but that Lisa is a really compelling talker, where she is going to tell you how she feels she's going to get her point across. Meredith is a fucking word smith. When she says that it's, what is it, extremely problematic to move forward in a situation where trust has been decimated. I'm like, come on, Miss Thesaurus. Tell her how you feel. Heather is, you know, incredibly well-spoken.

I think she, you know, she goes through the fire a little bit in this part of the reunion. And I think whether or not you like Heather, I think she does. a really good job of kind of stating her case. And Monica just, she doesn't quite have it. And so I think on top of not coming to this reunion, willing to sort of own it or apologize for anything, she also isn't really able to stand her ground and deliver these clapbacks in a way that would really make you stand up and root for her. Because of course on Housewives, we want there to be mess.

We want there to be drama. We're not just rooting for everybody to get along and braid each other's hair. So I think if Monica could, she either needs to be like 20% smarter as a villain or 20% less of a villain. Because she's in this weird middle ground where it's like, yeah, why would these women

give you the time of day? But also, you're not like, winning over them. It's tough. I mean, that burn book, the burn book is, it's rough. We only really see a few of those first pages where it's just basically like a direct rip-off of mean girls.

It's like, okay, Andy's favorite. Monica is a fugly slut. It's like, okay, okay. She says that there are like more actual receipts later in the book. So I tweeted yesterday. I tweeted a photo of Monique Samuels with her receipt binder and Monica with her burn book. And I said that the receipt books always flop. And I got a surprising amount of pushback on saying that Monique's receipt binder flopped. I guess people still feel strongly about Monique. This is something that I feel like I am not really exposed to on a daily basis. I respect that opinion. I will note that that was Monique's final season as a housewife and I don't really know what she's up. to now, but more than that, because I don't have any beef with Monique, it's not necessarily about the content of the receipt book, because you can have the most damning evidence, you can have

every screenshot, every, you know, transcription, whatever, a housewives reunion is a video, audio, television format. So when you come to the reunion with dozens of pages of printed out text of, you know, receipts and transactions and all of that, we are not going to be able to see it. It's clear from Andy's perspective that he doesn't really want to go through all of that. He's willing to play, you know, a voice recording on Heather's phone that we can hear and we can engage with. But flipping through chapters of written information, it's just not good TV. And so, you know, her photo shoot with a burn book, it looks great.

She looks beautiful. I'm, you know, I'm happy for her for that. but it's really it's really just about coming prepared for the event that you are attending and i don't think that printing out 100 pieces of paper is ever the right way to go i mean if you look at receipts that have maybe worked better it's when jen aden blows up instagram dm screenshots to like 300% and puts them on a poster board. Like, we need to be able to see that shit from space for it to land. And I saw people being like, oh, well, production dropped the ball or editing.

They should be showing us on the screen what's in the book. And I'm telling you right now, you don't want to read all of that. Maybe if it's on social media, if it's on a Reddit thread, sure, take your time. But if these are pages and pages of DM, and texts and emails and screenshots, you're not pausing to read all of that during the episode. That's just not how it works. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes.

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That seems like a legal liability. And to be honest, how much do we believe? Because one of the craziest moments of this reunion episode is when the topic of Monica doing these alleged drive-bys at Jen Shaw's house, comes up. And there are, you know, there are receipts. There's Heather plays another voice recording where she's like, I'm outside her house. Like, oh, the car's pulling up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's clearly Monica's voice. She says that there are like dozens of these. Monica says she did it like two times. She says that's not stalking, but in the voice recording, she's like, I don't want to get

a rest of her stuff for stalking. And she tells us that this was after she had given her witness statement about Jen Shaw. So she must have known that she was being investigated already, but she says that the point of doing these drive-bys was because she wanted to expose Jen. And that was why she started Reality Bontees or was involved in it, whatever. But then the kicker, when she says that the FBI asked her to spy on Jen in the hopes of catching her drinking and driving or just drinking maybe

therefore violating her probation because this is after she had been indicted it just it strains credulity and that's a nice way of saying It sounds like fucking bullshit that the FBI, that James Comey or whoever's doing that now, would like dial up Monica and be like, hey babes, hope the baby blanket business is going well.

If you have a few free minutes after dropping the kids off at carpool today would be so cool. If you could just, you know, do a little drive-by, you know, maybe park outside 10, 15 minutes. Don't make it too obvious. Just get the binoculars, look in the window. And just if you could see if Jen, if you get any photographs of her like with a bottle of Henny, you know, maybe like double fisting, getting in the car behind the wheel, that would be amazing. You can just, you know, DM us the screenshots once you have them. Think so much, girl. Best of luck.

That didn't happen. Like, what? And she clarifies for Andy, by the way, that she was not an informant on Jen. She was a witness in the case. So she was never even in the position. Like, the FBI or whoever, the government, had already had their eyes on Jen for years at that point. So the idea that Monica, who just sort of happened to be in her orbit and know about stuff that was going on, The idea that Monica would be like brought into this investigation at some sort of higher level,

I have seen enough police procedural dramas to know that that's not how that works. And even if it was, why would you be talking about it on TV? Why would you be posting about it on Instagram? The whole like breakdown between reality of aunties and Monica saying that the goal of reality Vantes was to bring down Jen, to expose Jen, but that the page was started after she had already given her witness statement to the feds. It's like, why are you so worried about exposing Jen on social media if you know that they're putting together the evidence to arrest her right now? It's already been taken care of. You already spoke to them. I don't know what goes on in Monica's

head, but I really think that she had some idea of like vigilante justice or something, that she was going to be the one to bring down Jen. I'm sorry, the one to bring down Jen was the federal prosecutors. They don't need help from reality of aunties. They just simply don't. As much as as, as fucked up as our justice system is, Jen Shah was the easy one to get, I think. I don't think she was doing a terribly good job of hiding what she had going on. Okay, I guess that's all for Monica. We should talk, though, about Heather Gay and this black eye debacle. Because, you know, we get a little more context on the black eye reveal about Jen. We get some security camera footage from Heather's room on that California trip of Jen showing up in the morning. And Andy says

that the audio was unintelligible. So, like, at the time last year, I guess they had told them that they were talking about something else unrelated to the black eye. But now, Heather says that this conversation they're having in the video is basically Jen saying, oh my God, I did that to you. And Heather's saying, like, don't worry about it. I got you. So Heather tells us that she fully volunteered to protect Jen and to not tell anyone that it was her. And that this was not something where Jen threatened her or told her not to, but that she just kind of, offered and that she was scared at the time. She, you know, feared what could happen if she was honest and told about Jen. And obviously she still had this really, um, toxic sense of loyalty to

Jen Shaw over everything that was happening. Look, I choose to believe Heather in that sense. I don't think that she was being willfully whatever. I think that her relationship with Jen Shaw really did have her fucked up in a lot of ways. And I'm willing to give her grace on that. Of course, the problematic part of this comes in where we saw on the show last year on Watch What Happens Live at the reunion on book tour where she's coming up with these alternative theories suggesting that it could have been someone else in the cast, suggesting that it could have been somebody broke into their rental house and that production was covering for

them and didn't want a lawsuit or a liability. Like, she was really throwing out all of these theories. And now, if we believe this timeline, to know that she knew that none of those were true the whole time. And this is where, I mean, Andy is clearly upset with her because she was suggesting that it was production's fault or that production was complicit in this. And that is, I mean, it's a bad mistake. And I think that, Like I said, I think that Heather's relationship with Jen did have her sort of not thinking straight in a lot of ways. But at the same time, that's not an excuse. And she is a, you know, adult woman who should know better and who I think does know better. And she really makes an effort at the reunion to apologize to Andy, to the other women, to production, to the viewers.

I think she recognizes sort of the gravity of this situation. And obviously in the monica of it all, her black eye scenario kind of got a little bit downplayed in the finale. But when you look at sort of the overall contour of the show over the last two years, this is a big deal. You know, I don't know if what Heather said at the reunion is 100% satisfactory. I think, you know, in a way, time will tell. think she'll get brought back to the show. I've seen a lot of people in the last, whatever, 12 hours sort of chattering back and forth about whether it's time for Heather to go. I know, I mean, some people just don't like her, which is fine. Some people don't like the way

she handled this specific situation, which again is fine. But I think when you look at where this show is and, you know, what might be coming down the pipeline, knowing that Monarch, is not going to be back, knowing that they're going to have to sort of figure out what the show looks like again without her. I just am, I don't think that getting rid of people right now is the right way to go. I hope that they can find one or two really great new people. I definitely think Angie will be back. It seems like Mary could be back. I mean, I was sort of, based on the way she was absent for the last chunk of the season. You know, she wasn't in Bermuda. We never really got an explanation there. I was sort of expecting Mary to be done after this season, but I thought

she had a pretty good reunion performance. Her back and forth with Whitney, I think, will always be compelling. She and Angie have a really weird, interesting thing. She does, I think, have a real friendship with Meredith. It was interesting to see her come in and sort of take Monica's side. in things. But I think Mary, I don't, I'm not really jazzed about having her as a full-time housewife. I don't think that she's really willing to play the game in, in a way that I want full-time housewives to. But I wouldn't be mad about seeing her again next season, especially knowing that we're going to have some gaps to fill. But I don't think at this moment getting rid of Heather is the answer. And partially, I think it's because I like Heather.

And I, you know, I think she's a solid person for the most part. But partially it's because I just think that this show has had a tough time really putting pieces together. And I think that Monica seemed like a really exciting new piece. And if you're looking at the puzzle, there's a big gap now. And I don't think that taking away more pieces is really the way to move forward. maybe in a year or two we'll be in a different spot but right now I think they need to

focus on what they have and try to build from there rather than like taking it apart more but I don't know I mean I would love to hear what you guys have to say about Heather we're definitely going to talk more about Salt Lake I think on tomorrow's episode

I have a fun guest and then you know from there who knows what will happen they'll be filming again before we know it but in the meantime thank you so much everyone for listening and don't forget to rate review and follow the show wherever you listen

You can follow us on Instagram at Bravo by Betches. And until next time, be cool. Don't be all like uncool. Mention It All is produced by Dylan Hafer, Sean Kilby, Jorge Morales Pico, and Rebecca Sousmacat. Editing by Horace Pico, social media by Dylan Hafer, guest booking by Dylan Hafer and Ali Friedlander. Be sure to follow at Bravo by Betches on Instagram and Twitter. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

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