S02.E09: I Was Driving Carpool!

[TexasGal]

Quote

Mary hosts a cooking class and confronts Whitney for missing her call and disobeying the dress code. Heather meets with her once devout Mormon niece and Lisa defends her son’s charity guest list. Finally, the ladies get ready for their trip to Vail; but before they depart, Jen receives an urgent call leaving her friends shocked and concerned.

Airdate: 11/07/2021

Do not discuss any offseason events until they are mentioned in an episode.  Spoilery conversations about particular housewives should happen in their individual threads or the media thread.

[Straycat80]

My guide is saying this is two hours? I don’t know if I can handle it for that long. 

[b2H]

1 minute ago, Straycat80 said:

My guide is saying this is two hours? I don’t know if I can handle it for that long. 

Bravo sneaks the WWHL episode on several of these shows.  They do it in such a way that even DVRs record the entire two hours.  Thank evil Andy for that piece of work.

[Stats Queen]

14 minutes ago, b2H said:

Bravo sneaks the WWHL episode on several of these shows.  They do it in such a way that even DVRs record the entire two hours.  Thank evil Andy for that piece of work.

I hope that’s it since WWHL is usually only 30 minutes.

so fed up with Bravo screwing up from DVR

[Stats Queen]

So I’ve had too much wine and I thought Jennie said something about Toobin (https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/media/jeffrey-toobin-fired-new-yorker/index.html) when she was talking about tubing.
Well, at least I amused myself.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Stats Queen

[Straycat80]

Mary is such a snob, she talks so belittling to staff, I hope they show her take down this season. 

[bosawks]

I almost have to admire Mary’s commitment to being batshit.

Almost.

[Ss55]

I only half watch the SLC crew… I’m watching now  - Mary is so wacky and awkward.  And there are 2 brunettes that I can never tell apart and one has a very drawn out nasally voice - she bugs.

Whitney seems the most likable but since I don’t fully watch - I could be way off!!

[Keywestclubkid]

This is the most petty fucking fight ever. She didn’t answer her phone. … 

[Keywestclubkid]

Mary is god damn psychotic… 100% red flag waving bunny boiling single white female stealing your identity bat shit insane 

[Straycat80]

5 minutes ago, Keywestclubkid said:

This is the most petty fucking fight ever. She didn’t answer her phone. … 

And didn’t follow the Italian street wear dress code. The nerve! 

[Lassus]

Mary is fucking frightening.  She really has the Crazy Eye.  I would stay away from her, Whitney.

[Keywestclubkid]

Awfully calm for your husband internally bleeding Jen 

[Straycat80]

Shareef  has internal bleeding = I gotta get the hell out of here, the cops are on the way to bust me. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Straycat80

[rlc]

Mary is so insane that I find it uncomfortable to watch her. If I didn’t know how awful she is and how she’s ripping people off in her cult, I’d accuse the show of exploiting someone who is unwell.

[MerBearStare]

Jen is a con artist who has scammed money from old people, but I still think Mary is the fucking woooooorst. God damn, what an asshole; I can't wait for her to get hers. Who sets someone up to wear something embarrassing outside of like Legally Blonde? All because she didn't return her call quick enough. Honestly, the fact that these women don't call her a grandpa fucker every time she acts psychotic and rude as hell shows the amount of restraint they have.

The whole episode waiting for the feds to show up I was like:

Edited November 8, 2021 by MerBearStare

[bosawks]

Lisa’s lucky Homeland Security didn’t arrest her for the crime that was that coat.

Edited November 8, 2021 by bosawks

[mbaywife123]

Mary got lucky that the Feds came for Jen because it looks like Mary was getting set up (for lack of a better description) for her shady "church" activities and grift.

Mary is just so wrong in so many ways and always looks like her closet threw up on her. YIKES!!!

 

[heatherchandler]

I really want Mary to go to prison.  Can’t they look into her shady church?  Come on FBI or IRS, anybody?

[islandgal140]

1 hour ago, bosawks said:

Lisa’s lucky Homeland Security didn’t arrest for the crime that was that coat.

And those braids.

Jen sure can lie easily and elaborately. I just feel a certain kind of way about her lying about her husband having what sounds like a serious health emergency. Call me superstitious, but I think that invites bad karma.

I loved seeing all the hamster wheels turning in the wives heads as the situation unfolded. 

 

[ichbin]

At the very least, Mary comes off like one of the biggest assholes out of any of the franchises.  

For sure I would have been Heather, getting off the bus to ask questions instead of just sitting there and speculating.  

Getting tired of Jenny's overly precocious kids being used for her dedicated scenes. It's starting to feel too staged at this point.

[princelina]

2 hours ago, Keywestclubkid said:

This is the most petty fucking fight ever. She didn’t answer her phone. … 

 

2 hours ago, Straycat80 said:

And didn’t follow the Italian street wear dress code. The nerve! 

Actually in her case is was Italian hooker garb! IMO that was the crux of the matter, and also showed Mary's cult leader personae - it's one thing to claim it was a prank; that would just be a bitchy housewives move.  But to berate her in front of everyone because "she didn't wear what I said!" even after you knew that she knew it was a prank - that makes Mary the jerk, and gives some insight into how she treats her "congregation".

 

23 minutes ago, ichbin said:

For sure I would have been Heather, getting off the bus to ask questions instead of just sitting there and speculating.  

Would you also have been carrying on about your fear of the "po po" in front of the "po po"?  I judge her for that.  🙄😄 

I guess it will be an unpopular opinion, but I liked Lisa's coat on the bus 😁

Edited November 8, 2021 by princelina

[ichbin]

10 minutes ago, princelina said:

33 minutes ago, ichbin said:

For sure I would have been Heather, getting off the bus to ask questions instead of just sitting there and speculating.  

Would you also have been carrying on about your fear of the "po po" in front of the "po po"?  I judge her for that.  🙄😄 

 

No.  I would have simply been digging for information regarding what was going on.  Her "po po" talk sounded ridiculous.

[SemiCharmedLife]

Mary is crazy and delusional. Her awful treatment of Whitney and her "prank" is probably just a small slice of what she does on the regular with her parishioners.

[Cheezwiz]

Dumbest pettiest fight ever, and, as predicted, the entire episode was filler until the very end when the cops showed up. Mary is really letting her psychotic freak flag fly.

No previews for next week? I wonder if they're actually going to show footage of Jen getting busted and cuffed?

[Caseysgirl]

Why is no one offended by the horrible fake Italian accents, Mafia talk and the idea the “Italian street wear” means you need to look like a hooker.  I’m being facetious but honestly, the stereotyping was ridiculous.

[SweetieDarling]

This episode gave us some funny moments:

Meredith fluffing Whitney's aura

Meredith: The Mary Whisperer

Jen passing Whitney paper to blot the shine on her forehead

Edited November 8, 2021 by SweetieDarling

[Baltimore Betty]

Odd Mary wanted this authentic Italian cooking lesson complete with Italian street wear(?) but serves French champagne and not prosecco.

[bosawks]

9 minutes ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Odd Mary wanted this authentic Italian cooking lesson complete with Italian street wear(?) but serves French champagne and not prosecco.

You probably could have stopped at "Odd Mary".

[Baltimore Betty]

Odd Mary's wig is looking worse and worse thru this season, seriously, nobody on her team says anything?

 

[TexasGal]

9 hours ago, islandgal140 said:

 

Jen sure can lie easily and elaborately. I just feel a certain kind of way about her lying about her husband having what sounds like a serious health emergency. Call me superstitious, but I think that invites bad karma.

 

I thought the same thing!  At first I thought she meant her father in law - it didn't click with me when she was saying Sr. that meant her husband until someone said something about Coach.  I would never invent a lie about a family member being really sick. 

Mary's "Italian" accent.  Nope.

[Baltimore Betty]

1 minute ago, TexasGal said:

Mary's "Italian" accent.  Nope.

She also wanted everyone to say their names in "Italy."

[pasdetrois]

Jen looked guilty as hell as she listened to whoever was telling her to skedaddle. I wonder if she thought of "Coach is sick" or if the person on the phone gave her the lie. News reports at the time said that it was coach telling her to go to a specific place, knowing that law enforcement would be waiting for her. I've been wondering if Coach sang like a canary in exchange for a deal of his own.

Also, the little talk with Stu, her partner in crime, was odd foreshadowing. Did the two of them suspect something was coming and try to (lamely) paint their relationship as innocent?

Jennie has smart, well-mannered children.

I left the room when Whitney and Mary were arguing over each other, with the peanut gallery chiming in. It was incomprehensible babble.

Edited November 8, 2021 by pasdetrois

[sugarbaker design]

10 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

I really want Mary to go to prison.  Can’t they look into her shady church?  Come on FBI or IRS, anybody?

There's no proof the church is shady.  For centuries churches have leeched off their constituents legally, pressuring parishioners to tithe et al.  All the church needs to do is keep bookkeeping records of what they do with the money, which would include salaries for the leaders of the church.  On paper Mary probably doesn't make a lot of money from her church.  From what we've seen she has about 100 parishioners.  It doesn't look like a major money grab to me.  Mary has other businesses like a mortgage company.  That's where the big money is.  It would be interesting to see if there is any overlap between the parishioners and mortgage holders.

[heatherchandler]

18 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

There's no proof the church is shady.  For centuries churches have leeched off their constituents legally, pressuring parishioners to tithe et al.  All the church needs to do is keep bookkeeping records of what they do with the money, which would include salaries for the leaders of the church.  On paper Mary probably doesn't make a lot of money from her church.  From what we've seen she has about 100 parishioners.  It doesn't look like a major money grab to me.  Mary has other businesses like a mortgage company.  That's where the big money is.  It would be interesting to see if there is any overlap between the parishioners and mortgage holders.

Is it illegal to pressure parishioners into giving money?  I would thinks so, but I don't know.  I posted this in the Mary thread, she berates people, and it was caught on tape:

https://starcasm.net/rhoslc-why-mary-cosbys-church-is-accused-of-being-a-cult/

“You’re not in church, you think I’m stupid? Coming in here draining me? I ain’t preaching over y’all’s sin. I’m doing everything else, ya’ll ain’t helping. Halfway pay your tithes,” Mary says. “I got 14 birthday cards. Your old stingy selves. You old poor people. I don’t want no poor people around me. You’re poor as hell. And if you ain’t poor, you stingy cause you still poor! God said you was poor.”

I would think it is illegal to do what she is accused of doing.  She "manipulates and exploits her congregation. She convinces them to work in her family businesses for free, or for low pay, and tells them they’ll be condemned to hell if they don’t tithe enough."

 

[sugarbaker design]

8 minutes ago, heatherchandler said:

Is it illegal to pressure parishioners into giving money?

If it is, the FBI should storm into my mother's catholic church, where every Sunday a priest is asking for a regular contribution and a contribution for repairs to the roof, in addition to preaching the evils of gay marriage and dressing little girls in boys clothes.

8 minutes ago, heatherchandler said:

I would think it is illegal to do what she is accused of doing. 

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.  The parishioners still have the volition and the agency to simply say no.

Edited November 8, 2021 by sugarbaker design

[pasdetrois]

There are so many other examples of this kind of emotional manipulation in "churches." It's brainwashing. Think of Jim Jones, Jim and Tammy Faye, Scientology, and Kanye using a church to make money. All those mega churches that preach prosperity gospel. Kim Zolciak recently stated that she was running some kind of online spiritual service that is clearly a ploy for money.

I do think Mary may get caught for financial crimes. She and Robert Sr. supposedly ran some kind of scam in NYC for three years.

Edited November 8, 2021 by pasdetrois

[sugarbaker design]

29 minutes ago, pasdetrois said:

There are so many other examples of this kind of emotional manipulation in "churches." it's brainwashing. Think of Jim Jones, Jim and Tammy Faye, Scientology, and Kanye using a church to make money.

Jim and Tammy Faye got in legal trouble for mismanaging funds, not brainwashing.  Scientology and Kanye are still in business.

[pasdetrois]

Absolutely. I was making the point that what Mary does is not unusual.

[amarante]

What was Jen hoping to avoid by fleeing from the bus? 

Was it merely her attempt to avoid being arrested on camera because it doesn't appear as if she was attempting to actually avoid arrest - not that anyone in her position would think they could actually be successful in fleeing to Maldives or some other place that has no extradition for financial crimes.

The only logical thing would be for someone to head for their attorney's office so they could arrange to turn themselves in and avoid the "perp walk" - which didn't happen.

I have always wondered why people are so big on avoiding the perp walk. I mean you have done something heinous and are facing huge legal bills and incredible stress and most probably time in prison and you are worried there are pictures of you being arrested?

Edited November 8, 2021 by amarante

[sugarbaker design]

25 minutes ago, amarante said:

I mean you have done something heinous and are facing huge legal bills and incredible stress and most probably time in prison and you are worried there are pictures of you being arrested?

A picture's worth a thousand words,  Walking in handcuffs, being accompanied by police, means automatic guilt to some people and potential jurors.  I can see trying to avoid that.

It would've been better to see Jen and Stuart getting arrested with snowshoes on!  Perpwalk in slow motion!

Edited November 8, 2021 by sugarbaker design
Changing Mary to Jen. I'm confusing my RHoSLC felons!

[SemiCharmedLife]

2 hours ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Odd Mary's wig is looking worse and worse thru this season, seriously, nobody on her team says anything?

 

They are probably either too afraid of her to say anything or... this is their revenge on her atrocious behavior.

I love what Heather said about Mary playing spin the bottle to see who she is angry with today.  She's becoming more unhinged by the minute!

[Baltimore Betty]

2 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

From what we've seen she has about 100 parishioners. 

Interesting that there is such a low number of members, wasn't that church the bone of contention between Mary and her mother, her mother wanted that church, why fight over a small church when there are many more money making business in the family?

[amarante]

38 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

A picture's worth a thousand words,  Walking in handcuffs, being accompanied by police, means automatic guilt to some people and potential jurors.  I can see trying to avoid that.

It would've been better to see Jen and Stuart getting arrested with snowshoes on!  Perpwalk in slow motion!

The reality is that being arrested by the Feds on financial crimes means you are guilty. There is more than 90% conviction rate in Federal Courts which is why almost everyone pleads out. I think at this point with all of the electronic data it would be impossible to prevent leaving a paper/digital trail. 

I understand what you are saying but I guess I am more of a bottom line person. If I were being arrested, public embarrassment would be the least of the things I was concerned about. And most jurors would not have seen the footage or else theoretically would have seen much more than a perp walk if the criminal was truly notorious in some way. 

[Baltimore Betty]

1 minute ago, SemiCharmedLife said:

They are probably either too afraid of her to say anything or... this is their revenge on her atrocious behavior.

She does get strangely angry about the darndest things.

Couldn't Jesus come down and fix her wig? I don't think he wants her doing G-dly work looking like she just pulled her wig out of a dryer, right?

[sugarbaker design]

9 minutes ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Interesting that there is such a low number of members, wasn't that church the bone of contention between Mary and her mother, her mother wanted that church, why fight over a small church when there are many more money making business in the family?

I'm only going by the scenes at Mary's church.  It looked like a small congregation.  I would wager there was many more parishioners when Mary's grandmother was running things.  It's easy to imagine a small exodus of followers after grandpa married step-granddaughter.

[SemiCharmedLife]

2 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

Is it illegal to pressure parishioners into giving money?  I would thinks so, but I don't know.  I posted this in the Mary thread, she berates people, and it was caught on tape:

https://starcasm.net/rhoslc-why-mary-cosbys-church-is-accused-of-being-a-cult/

“You’re not in church, you think I’m stupid? Coming in here draining me? I ain’t preaching over y’all’s sin. I’m doing everything else, ya’ll ain’t helping. Halfway pay your tithes,” Mary says. “I got 14 birthday cards. Your old stingy selves. You old poor people. I don’t want no poor people around me. You’re poor as hell. And if you ain’t poor, you stingy cause you still poor! God said you was poor.”

I would think it is illegal to do what she is accused of doing.  She "manipulates and exploits her congregation. She convinces them to work in her family businesses for free, or for low pay, and tells them they’ll be condemned to hell if they don’t tithe enough."

 

Thank you for quoting this. To me it is unbelievable that a religious leader would talk to her congregation like that (reminds me of Jim Jones toward the end) and that the parishioners would stay around for more.  I wonder if any of them saw the way she flaunted her wealth last season?  They contributed to her outlandish spending and hording through the tithes they were required to make.  If it were me, I would see the hypocrisy in what she is preaching vs the values of the original Christianity. It would be interesting to know if the exposure she received through this show led any of her flock to leave.

Edited November 8, 2021 by SemiCharmedLife
typo

[Keywestclubkid]

17 minutes ago, SemiCharmedLife said:

To me it is unbelievable that a religious leader would talk to her congregation like that

To me is unbelievable that she would text and talk to Whitney like that ... The first thing out of my mouth would have been I aint one of your parishioners... you better set that ass back down quick 

[bichonblitz]

11 minutes ago, Keywestclubkid said:

To me is unbelievable that she would text and talk to Whitney like that ... The first thing out of my mouth would have been I aint one of your parishioners... you better set that ass back down quick 

Exactly! How can a woman of god have so much hate and jealousy in her heart? Unbelievable. 

Is Sharieff going to divorce Jen? I'm waiting for it. 

[JenE4]

So I’m curious whether Jen and Stu’s snowshoeing expedition that could have been a scene out of a mobster movie if only Jen had adopted Mary’s horrendous “Italian” accent was filmed later or Jen had a heads up that she was being investigated and an arrest was imminent. She was really getting Stu to pledge his loyalty after all she gave up to provide for his family!!!

When Jen answered the phone, she said, “Hi, baby!” Confirmed they were still in the parking lot of Beauty Lab + Laser, and then said, “I need to come home?” She then tells the girls that “the hospital called” and she needs to get right over there. I mean, I think it was obvious that the internal bleeding was a lie, but it was pretty apparent that it was Coach who called because the police came to their house, and Coach told them she was at the parking lot, where they immediately came looking for her. She may also call her son “baby,” so it has to have been one or the other who called her and directed the police to her current location. She may have been following direction that they need you to come here, but the authorities decided to go to her last known whereabouts rather than wait for her to return. But, not even local or state police but Homeland Security and NYPD?! Gurl, you in trouble!

Mary is…well, let’s say a unique character.  She was outraged that Whitney didn’t show up in a Party City costume! And not like embarrassed at herself for trying to trick Whitney and Whit not falling for it, but truly angry at Whitney for having the audacity to ignore her dress code! Although Whitney looked great, I think she did sort of fall for it. The “look book” had all of these gray pinstripe suit gun moll costumes, and Whit did put on a designer bleach-splotched pinstripe suit. I don’t think all the arm-circling in the world is going to get Mary’s auras back in alignment. Grandma God herself could descend from the one of the apparently 4 levels of heaven, and she’d have a heck of a time compelling the demons out of Mary or whatever is going on there. So we learned that “speaking in tongues” is common practice in Mary’s church? Is that what was happening there with all of this incomprehensible nonsense and vitriol Mary was spewing?