There has been a lot to keep track of in the last few episodes of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. We have Jennie and Duy’s conflict over having more children, which could be the saddest plotline of the series so far. We have a new almost-cast-member who caused such a stir that unsuspecting caterers were forced to post text message screenshots in self-defense. We have so many references to fast food that I’m praying for Lisa to eat a single vegetable. But this week, RHOSLC has gotten so complex that fans are left to consult secondary sources to fully understand all of the action. Now, even more volatile turmoil is brewing. A powerful church is getting into big trouble. (No, not the powerful church.) Meredith is either the most naive or most deviously brilliant person in the whole cast. And, as we’ve known from the first moments of the season premiere, Jen Shah has dug her own grave.

All season, Jen has tried to go from “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” to “restore, repair, reclaim the narrative.” After (unsuccessfully) trying to reconnect with her son a couple of episodes ago, she tries to be the fun quasi-auntie to Jack and Henry by showing up to their photoshoot in a lifelike timberwolf head. (Jen and Lisa purchased two of these a month before, where Lisa helpfully observed, “Ooh they have little claws. Rewr.”) But when Lisa and Jen sit down one-on-one, Jen is caught off-guard when Lisa brings up [redacted.] No literally—names have been bleeped out to protect the innocent. [Redacted] was a dress designer who used to work for Jen, and in audio that leaked earlier this year, she viciously berates and threatens him for allegedly missing deadlines and lying about it. All of the other Housewives have heard the six minute rant, and everyone but Lisa a) knows this looks bad for Jen and b) doesn’t seem to feel sorry for her. Lisa and Jen, meanwhile, frame this as an issue of loyalty and trust (as in Jen feels betrayed by this designer,) rather than, you know, a boss horribly mistreating an employee. Lisa may appear like she’s there to support Jen, but she also just happens to bring up damaging info about one of her freminies—she saw on Instagram that Whitney gave [Redacted] free Iris & Beau products. The enemy of my enemy who is willing to plug my recently rebranded skin care line is my friend, or something. Jen, as usual, gets frantic and defensive, and Lisa foolishly agrees to defend Jen more to the friend group.

I have to imagine that the Lisa drama in recent episodes will feel inconsequential with an arrest and cult allegations on the horizon, but she really has been down bad the past several weeks. Even in a cast with no shortage of, um, abrasive personalities, she has managed to irk pretty much every other Housewife. A quick roundup: she was accused of sabotaging a charity event for Angie, one of her closest friends. Heather and Whitney have never liked her, and despite a multi-episode campaign from Lisa to change that, the cousins are still wary. She and Mary got in a fight last episode after Lisa suggested Mary might be wrong to say that sparkling water freezes your ovaries. Even Meredith seems on edge after Lisa tried to force a truce between her and Jen. It’s rough out here!

This week, Lisa takes a break from pissing everyone off to focus on her business partners/children. Lisa’s sons started a men’s hair product company called Fresh Wolf, and she insists repeatedly that this was all their idea, not hers. (You know, because it’s every 9-year-old’s dream to make it big in the men’s beauty industry.) Too much of the episode is spent exploring a week in the life of these young He-E-Os. They model and direct the aforementioned photo shoot and host a branded charity event for Utah Foster Care. The party has a limited guest list that Lisa, once again, claims was entirely their idea. That means the Marks family is included and so is Whitney, because I guess we’re supposed to believe Jack and Henry have a deeply meaningful relationship with Justin Rose offscreen? The other cast members, though, are not invited. I’m sure everyone will handle this possible slight with grace and maturity!

Everyone is invited, though, to an event that we already know will be a disaster before it even begins. During a girls’ lunch with their daughters, Meredith just happens to mention to Heather that she rented a huge ski house in Vail but has nobody to go with. She decides to invite all of her Bravo sisters—even Jen. Where have we heard of this trip before? Oh yeah, this is the one that kicked off the series weeks ago when federal agents come looking for Jen in a limo as other cast members watch in horror. Is Meredith a master schemer, or is the timing just a coincidence that would make any reality TV producer shed tears of gratitude? Whatever the truth is, Jen is blissfully unaware, and this episode milks the edge-of-your-seat tension for all it’s worth. She and Stuart make money from an “infomercial lead” that definitely doesn’t sound suspicious while she feeds him a banana. (It doesn’t make any more sense in context.) Heather then officially invites Jen to Vail while the two play ring toss with dildo headbands. (Again, I’m at a loss.) Cool high school English teachers should use this episode in their lesson plans about dramatic irony. That flop Shakespeare never exposed his characters’ hubris while they dressed for the world’s saddest bachelorette party!

Both on and offscreen, there have been plenty of punchlines about Mary marrying her step-grandpa, but this season has shown just how dark and upsetting the situation actually is. A couple episodes ago, Mary all but told Meredith that she barely tolerates her marriage to Robert Sr. This week, Mary tells Heather and Whitney that her marriage wrecked her relationship with her mom. Mary says her mom wanted to inherit her grandma’s church and business empire, and she disapproved when Mary married Robert Sr. and took over. (Maybe, just maybe, Mary’s mom also was weirded out when Mary said God told her to marry her step-grandpa.) The two haven’t spoken in 25 years. Mary then connects this somehow to her fight with Lisa over carbonation and ovaries, which, sure.

Just as Mary shares how Faith Temple divided her family, Meredith and Lisa discover the church’s damage reaches much farther. At the Utah Foster Care fundraiser, Meredith meets Lisa’s friend Cameron, who tells Meredith that he was a former preacher at Mary’s church. Heavy emphasis on the former here—without getting into specifics to a woman he’s barely met, Cameron warns Meredith that Mary and Robert Sr. have “done some things that have been very harmful.” Meredith is shaken by the conversation, and Lisa says she knows that Mary and Cameron had a falling out and that Cameron “experienced real trauma,” but she won’t share any details she knows with Meredith (at least while the cameras are rolling.) 

This all feels…fishy. It’s been an open secret for a while that Mary’s church is bad news. There were rumors before the show even started that Faith Temple was essentially a cult, and a September article in The Daily Beast put explosive allegations on the record, including verbal abuse, financial manipulation and brainwashing. I’m surprised—and more than a little skeptical—that the other cast members had no inkling that Mary’s church had a dark side. I also wonder why Lisa has had nothing to say about Mary’s behavior, which she clearly knew at least something about, for a season and a half. Is she protecting Cameron’s privacy? Protecting Mary’s? Protecting herself? As even more big secrets are about to be revealed, the collateral damage could expand far beyond Jen and Mary. As a wise woman once said, “How did the feds know you were at Beauty Lab?”

Random observations:

• Sadly, Jennie is barely in the episode this week. We do get another small segment of Karlin’s “science Saturdays.” Some streaming service should buy a science-themed educational children’s show starring Karlin. I’d watch it. (Well, I’d show it to my kids if I had kids.) 
• After rollerblading in matching T-shirts, Whitney and her brother Will have a raw conversation that feels uncomfortable to eavesdrop on. Months ago, Whitney suspected her dad Steve was not sober while babysitting her children, and she asked him to leave. Steve has not spoken to her since, even though he is keeping contact with Will. 
• Heather reveals that when she was at BYU, she was a travel companion for a little person flying to Cancún over spring break. Never a dull moment!
• Unfortunately, I must go back to the penis ring toss. It’s called Dick Head Hoopla, and when Jen says tell Heather her headband is crooked, Heather replies, “It works the same in the end.” I admire the comic timing; I hate that this game exists; I’m concerned about what Jen buys when she goes to Zurcher’s.

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With a title that’s memorable, to-the-point and a little bit cheeky (sorry), Pioneer Theatre Company‘s Ass is designed to grab your attention. Though the in-your-face title reminds you that you’re definitely not seeing Frozen (which is now playing downtown at Eccles Theatre BTW), Ellen Simon’s world premiere is not needlessly provocative, or even particularly crude. Instead, it’s a gently funny family drama that explores the difficulties of living in the shadow of genius.   

Jule (T. Ryder Smith) is a New York City sculptor known for his evocative depictions of single body parts (a big toe here, an ear there.) He is widely lauded as a genius, and he has the ego to match. He also has a strained relationship with his son Will (Ben Cherry), an art history professor who pointedly avoids studying the contemporary work his father creates. Will nervously travels to his father’s New York apartment with his bubbly wife Ana (Elizabeth Ramos) hoping to ask for financial help. The couple visits as Jule’s health is failing—while he waits for a kidney donation, he spends hours a week in dialysis with nurse Ray, (Vince McGill) who is refreshingly immune to Jule’s self-important posturing. As Jule struggles through treatment, his much younger ninth wife Tory (Laura J. Hall) obsessively monitors his health and finances as Jule slowly creates what may be his final work, a large alabaster sculpture of Tory’s ass. 

Playwright Ellen Simon took inspiration from her relationship with her famous, brilliant father, the playwright Neil Simon. Without writing a literal memoir, Simon draws from often painful situations and emotions that clearly draw from her own life. This personal history is both intriguing and, from a creative standpoint, risky. In a narrative with significant parallels to her own life, Simon’s writing could have easily come across as navel-gazing, especially considering dysfunctional families and difficult artists are not exactly unique subject matter. Luckily, Simon avoids these potential pitfalls. She is a sharp writer, with an ear for unforced dialogue that balances humor and emotional resonance. Though Will appears to be the most direct stand-in for Simon, I never felt that she wanted to settle scores or stack the deck. She writes each member of this messed-up family with nuance—their motivations are transparent and human, even if they aren’t always exactly sympathetic. You probably don’t know what it’s like to live in the shadow of a father with sculptures in the MOMA, but the feelings of jealousy and betrayal that Will feels are relatable to pretty much anyone. 

As the play’s most important character, Smith gives one of the best performances I’ve seen onstage in a long time. You know that he’s, well, an ass, but crucially, his charm and magnetism shine through too. It’s clear why the other characters can’t resist his gravitational pull—he has an easy chemistry with the other cast members that makes his obliviousness, and occasional outright cruelty, genuinely sting. Smith seems to relish the opportunity to play with the haughty persona of a capital-G Great Artist, and Simon subtly questions a culture that allows the powerful and famous to behave badly without impunity. (Jule is a womanizer with a taste for younger wives, but he is not an abuser or harasser. Still, the play’s exploration of great art made by much less great men feels especially relevant to modern debates about #MeToo and cancel culture.)     

While Smith is a clear highlight, the entire cast gives wonderful performances. Led by director Karen Azenberg, who understands the play’s intimate scale, the cast keeps their work natural and human-scaled. The two women stand out in parts that easily could have faded into the background. Ramos is a warm, charming presence whose character has the unenviable task of tiptoeing around her in-laws from hell. Hall has fun with her role as a tightly wound WASP (or, as I couldn’t help whispering to my friend, a gaslight gatekeep girlboss) who Will derisively calls “number nine.” By the end of Ass she may be the least likable character, and Hall leans into her character’s narrow-minded desperation with dark humor and surprising physical comedy. As Jule’s most frequent victim, Cherry portrays the mixture of resentment and (usually unrequited) affection he feels toward his father. Jule is certainly not wrong to describe Will as “needy,” but I also rooted for him as he tried to break through the family’s dysfunction. 

The play is less compelling when it moves away from the claustrophobic family dynamic. Ray, Jule’s nurse, is the play’s weakest character, though this is no fault of McGill, who gives a strong performance. The relationship between Ray and Jule becomes one of the most important in the play, but despite the actors’ best efforts, it never is clear exactly why these two characters have a strong impact on each other. Buried somewhere in their relationship is an interesting observation—Jule can only be emotionally intimate with Ray because there’s a clear power dynamic that he can control. Unfortunately, Ray is too thinly written for the friendship to register, and when Ray interacts with the rest of the family in the second act, he feels like a one-dimensional source of wisdom while the other characters are allowed more complexity. 

Still, you shouldn’t miss this sharply observed, intimate comedy. Though Simon’s writing has a cynical streak, especially in the tartly funny first act, Ass is sentimental at its core. Even when the characters act selfishly, she never loses sight of their genuine desire for connection and the love, as messed up as it is, that binds them together.  

Ass runs through Nov. 6 at Pioneer Theatre Company. For tickets and more information, visit their website. Read all of our theater coverage here.