Remember the days when Britney Spears bopped around with Sabrina the Teenage Witch? Or when the Mad About You cast said hello to some familiar Friends? Who could forget Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana?
Tonight’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City scratches a similar itch, tossing us into unfamiliar territory in some familiar waters. The ladies have gone Down Under… in a sense. Canouan is in the Caribbean, which isn’t exactly my idea of “down under,” but hey, I’m not the captain of this ship. That’s Jason. The first-ever Below Deck crossover is here, and it’s a treat whether you’re a fan of boring boat shows or not.
That’s in part because, after six weeks of hilarious TV, the Real Housewives have finally upped the ante with some real stakes in their storytelling. Will local sweetheart Britani Bateman ever find love? Watch as she flirts with every deckhand and stew on this boat!
The real story—compelling as Britani’s unicorn with Jared’s voice is, don’t get me wrong—comes as rumors leak about Bronwyn’s allegedly criminal past. Identity theft and fraud allegations have surfaced—some charges as recently as 2021, and the cast only has one question for her: Why did Lisa do this to you?
No one really cares about Bronwyn, so no one really cares if she stole some woman’s identity and is running a massive fraud gambit. They’ve already done the whole “federal criminal” thing. Same old song, join in if you know the words.
Instead, Heather has seized the opportunity to launch an attack on Lisa under the Kyle Richards guise of “just be open and honest!” Heather (and Whitney) are incensed once more at the idea of Lisa lurking in the shadows, like it’s Season 2 all over again. But this time, they’re not only calling into question her friendship with Meredith. The two are taking Lisa to task over the idea she’s leaked every bad thing in the press, that she’s the secret mastermind behind all the cast’s downfalls.
The findings are flimsy. After a passionate fan leaked the allegations that #ConwynFraudport kills people for a living, Braunwyn can’t help but recall Lisa herself nicknaming her “Fraudwyn,” which rings alarm bells in Whitney’s head.
“It’s not a coincidence that troll is using the same name that Lisa was using for Bronwyn, within days,” Whitney says in a confessional. The red dye has seeped into her brain, twisting her QAnon conspiracies in increasingly thin ways.
Obviously, Lisa does herself no favors, which is the Bad Weather promise: Spin the truth, tornado, destroy… and watch the fallout. She’s loving the Bronwyn comeuppance, and she can’t even enjoy it for 20 minutes before the ladies turn it on her.
#RHOSLC Preview: After Bronwyn exposes Britani throwing shade at Lisa and Meredith, Meredith throws water on Britani!!! pic.twitter.com/bfDnMeMIFP
— Queens of Bravo (@queensofbravo) October 28, 2025
“I don’t like to throw around the word karma. I think it’s grossly overused. But… Why did you come for me so hard when you’ve got such icky skeletons in your closet?” Lisa giggles with glee in a confessional. That’s the calm. Then comes the storm.
Things are all cute as Bronwyn arrives in a little costume and the ladies engage in some antics, bopping around the boat like good-time gossips. The rooming arrangements are a perfect storm, Meredith and Lisa sitting in the Sagittarius room of silent assassination, while Heather and Whitney get their feet wet with some real producing.
Meanwhile, across deck, Britani and Bronwyn share a room because they’re such outsiders that no one really claims them—not even each other. While the other duos engage in some sisterhood, Bronwyn threatens to throw Jared the Unicorn overboard, while Britani brings out the elephant in the room: Did you commit several crimes?
Of course, Bronwyn bops her head around, making sure to shut down the claims as best she can. And she’s quite successful, given the aforementioned fact no one really cares about her. She’s also helped by the fact Lisa is her own worst enemy, word vomiting so much that she throws herself right into the fire.
Bronwyn’s approach is to nod left and right while not-so-subtly saying she’d be really displeased if someone who might be named Lisa Barlow could have canoodled with the “press” (a dermatologist with a Twitter account), which just isn’t gonna work for Heather. So, she tosses Bronwyn to the side to take the reins on this whole situation. After all, this is the Lisa Barlow takedown—again, for the 62nd time. She’s a cartoon villain who’s blasted into oblivion once a week, only to return just the same in the next episode.
Still, the Powerpuff Girls do their best to land a killshot. Heather delivers a confessional timeline with the same gusto she delivered Monica’s fatal blow, doing her best to make Lisa out to be a Machiavellian villain.
The thing is, it’s always flimsy when you peg rumors on one of your castmates given it’s well-documented how deeply deranged the fans are. That was the whole issue with Monica! She infiltrated the show to be the human embodiment of the dark underbelly of social media, revealing just how unsettling the hate comments are when they get an on-screen representation. So, whether or not Lisa eggs on Twitter dermatologists, it seems like the problem is far deeper. After all, the season premiered with everyone discussing Lisa’s own lawsuits. So what’s fair game and what isn’t?
It’s just an… odd avenue to take for a Lisa takedown, when there are so many smarter routes. But it reveals something far more interesting than “Is Lisa rooting for Bronwyn’s downfall?”, a question the answer to is so obviously a yes it doesn’t even need to be speculated about. What this all reveals is the power struggle between Heather and Lisa, not unlike the later-years tension between Kyle Richards and Lisa Vanderpump over on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
The alphas of this show have far different, yet complimentary, roles. Heather produces and prods, spending most of her time on the sidelines to ensure a well-delivered ensemble story. Lisa reacts, stepping on Heather’s landmines to further the conflict. The two spent three seasons as mortal enemies before falling into a friendship stasis once they finally “saw each other,” but it was always going to bubble back over.
And so it has. Bad Weather even try to recruit Meredith to their side, which obviously fails because our resident lawyer believes in the due process. She’s not one for a witch trial… unless she’s tossing a bucket of water on Britani, who doesn’t even melt. So she tries again.
That’s the amuse bouche of the episode, a little Britani vs. Meredith fight that’s both insane and hilarious. A flashback to a shopping trip between Britani and Bronwyn—one that should have aired in full with no edits—reveals Britani’s gripes with “big sister” Lisa and, more importantly, Meredith and her “seizures.”
“She said that you pretend to have seizures. She said you slur your words. She says you go from zero to 100 over nothing. She thinks that’s an act. She doesn’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth,” Brownyn spews, which gives Meredith a chance to do some accent work.
“Pretend to have seizuresssss? I’ve never had a seizure in my life. But that’s a horrrrrrrilble thing to say about somebody!”
Then comes the drink throw, one that barely fazes Britani because she’s not a witch and she won’t ever melt. She is the daughter of the witches you couldn’t burn.
It’s a great diversion, but it’s not enough to distract from the main event. Heather and Whitney aren’t going to let some improv get in the way of the song and dance they cooked up in their cabin. So, Heather looks Lisa in the eye and says, “I think you’re the source of all the dirt.” And then they all cry, scream, and throw up (well, that part’s just Angie, who’s out of commission all episode with sea sickness. She’s not used to yachts!). Thus, Lisa explodes.
“I’ve been called a cheater, a f—ing Jen Shah; what else are you gonna f—ing say about me!? You’re lucky I f—ing talk to any of you,” Lisa shoots, before melting right to the ground. Screaming F you at each other, Heather and Lisa revive their feud like it’s 2020 all over again. It has nothing to do with Bronwyn, and neither one even pretends it does.
It’s such a stark contrast to the Heather of the premiere, who blindly served as a Lisa soldier. And what’s most interesting is how real—and almost gentle—it all is, even in the moments of devastation. It’s as though Heather is so wrapped up in her producerial role, she can’t even fathom why this accusation would send Lisa spiraling. She thinks you can create a great scene and break bread in the next, as the Salt Lake City women so often do.
But what happens when soup men fall to the wayside, the stakes get too high, and the drama becomes too real? The crux of the issue can just about be summed up by this exchange:
“You’re saying I’m the source and the leak!”
“Why is that f—ing bad!?”
The two alphas don’t see eye-to-eye on what fundamentally makes this show, and that might be the most enticing thing of all. In Salt Lake City, subtext is everything. If it weren’t, well, people probably would’ve spent more than five minutes asking Bronwyn if she committed identity theft.
It’s not really about the “leak,” as, like I said, whether or not Lisa leaked the info, she’s reveling in its reveal. Whether or not Heather believes in the good of Lisa Barlow, she’s giddy to get one up on her. And whether or not Meredith truly believes her friend’s innocence, she’ll never turn on her for some TV drama.
The stakes are high, the waters ahead are risky, and nothing’s quite clear about what direction we’ll head next. The only question now is: Can we get out of here, asked by Britani to Captain Jason. Never underestimate a woman on the prowl, who I sure hope finds love on this boat so she can toss Jared and his weird little unicorn overboard—for good.
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