Seth Marks Is the New Worst Househusband

Bad husbands are as plentiful in Real Housewives franchises as middle-aged women doing shots at dinner. The uninitiated might be surprised to learn one of the worst Real Housewives husbands is Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer. Other horrible husbands: David Beador, Michael Darby, David Foster, Jim Edmonds, Mario Singer. Honestly, almost all of them are breathtakingly bad. But a newbie has trotted up to the front of the bad husband line, and I can no longer hold my tongue about his depravity.

Seth Marks is the new worst househusband.

The second season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is jam-packed with plot lines about women who are actual criminals, which makes the conspicuousness of Seth’s wickedness all the more impressive. There are many other places to look: Jen Shah’s wire fraud, Mary Cosby’s cult, Lisa Barlow’s speech patterns and personality. And yet we are looking at Seth, horrible Seth, loudly performing the character of “sex-obsessed husband who loves golf, guy’s night, and boobs” to the obvious uncomfortableness of his wife Meredith. We are watching him tell the guys at guy’s night, "My deal with Meredith is I can have sex with her anytime I want … as long as I don't wake her up.” Ha-ha!

Many on Twitter have made the case that Seth Marks is “the Kendall Roy,” from Succession, of the Real Housewives, and I believe that is an apt comparison. There is clearly a great disconnect between the way he believes he is portraying himself and the way he is actually coming across; a disconnect that can most easily be described as “cringe.” The way he has chosen to depict his supposed ravenous sexual attraction to his wife is by frequently talking about her boobs in public, like the way a 13-year-old boy might imagine talking to his big-breasted cartoon wife when they go out to a fancy French restaurant for shrimp cocktail and hamburgers. My gosh, he seems to think we’re thinking, this guy is a classic man’s man, plus he’s funny, and he loves fucking his wife!

It was Seth’s birthday on RHOSLC’s Sunday night episode, and preceding his party he and the other househusbands went to play golf on a distractingly shitty golf course. In the episode prior, Seth poked fun at Whitney’s husband, Justin, for playing golf with Whitney. Golf is what you do to get away from your wife!, he joked, and ha-ha-ha, we are all laughing at his masculine wit. So here they are now playing golf with exclusively men, as both God and Augusta intended. The men ask what Seth wants for his birthday, and he tells them cleavage; specifically Justin’s wife Whitney’s cleavage. Justin laughed the way you do when you know you’re being filmed for a television show.

Right before Seth’s birthday party, we watched Seth and Meredith roll up to the party’s entrance. “I’m gonna treat you like you’re my second wife all night,” Seth growled, attempting to portray genuine masculine wife-based horniess as well as he could. (It is worth noting that Seth filed for divorce from Meredith in 2019 citing irreconcilable differences; they have worked through things since.) Meredith gave the response she has typically given when Seth tries his best to be a sexual husband on-screen, which is to feign a smile and laugh sort of like if Janice from Friends spoke at half-speed. Ah-heah… heah … heah.

At the party, Whitney presented him with a cake in the shape of her boobs, which he motorboated. Ah-heah… heah … heah, said Meredith.

Before I rest my case, my colleague Claire Carusillo has another gripe about Seth, et. al, which is I believe relevant and which I’d like to include for the record. "Whenever househusbands are heavily featured, it makes me sick,” Claire said. “All they do is talk about boobs and butts, and they clap at each other's jokes instead of laughing because — and this is my working theory that nobody will let me write about — laughter is effeminate and gay to them. It's also a power thing like I deign to approve of your joke not with laughter but with some other sort of acknowledgement." True, Claire.

Seth Marks is the new worst househusband. Enough with him!