Reality TV fans are not okay. In fact, we may never recover.
Why are they all so dramatic, you may be wondering?
Well firstly, it's the environment that we've been raised within. But secondly, we've experienced the most perfect reality TV finale of all time.
The final episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was cinema! It was melodrama! It was high art! It was a goddamn masterpiece!
And Jennifer Lawrence agrees, with Bravo's biggest fan taking time out of her Golden Globes campaign to discuss the finale on the red carpet. “I mean the Real Housewives of Lake Salt City," Lawrence told Entertainment Tonight. “I just want to give a shout-out to the best finale I have ever seen on reality TV.”
The Academy-award winner went on to say the housewives deserve an Oscar. "I'll give them mine, I don't care," she quipped. "They deserve it."
Okay, okay, now that I've hyped it up, what is all the fuss about?
What happened on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City finale?
Let's go back to the very beginning. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City debuted in 2020 and quickly found a cult following for its unique portrayal of the ways religion intersects with the lives of a bunch of privileged women. Based in Utah, the series features housewives who identify as Mormons, along with other women excommunicated from the church.
The first season introduced housewives Lisa Barlow, Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose, Mary Cosby, and controversial figure Jen Shah. The following seasons would be dominated by Shah's criminal charges and eventual conviction, with the disgraced housewife pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after she was found to be running a telemarketing scheme that defrauded elderly people.
As of season four (the current season), the cast is Lisa Barlow, Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose, season three joiner Angie Katsanevas, and newcomer Monica Garcia.
The finale's controversy revolves around Monica, a mother-of-three and former Mormon who was excommunicated for having an affair with her brother-in-law.
And no, this is not the most bonkers part of this story.
Monica spent the bulk of her first season feuding with her mother Linda, and sharing rumours about the other women. This was nothing unusual for a new housewife, but in the finale, Heather came to a startling discovery: Monica is not a regular housewife.
Monica Garcia was unmasked as Instagram troll, Reality Von Tease.
Four years ago, Monica started an Instagram account to expose the women on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
The name of the account is Reality Von Tease, a rather hilarious username now part of reality TV history. The page describes itself as “Your local RHOSLC hot tea hoe. For entertainment purposes ONLY."
So basically, it's an account dedicated to trolling the Utah housewives, especially Jen Shah, who occupies most of the grid space on the page.
Heather learned about Monica's connection to the trolling account from her hairdresser, Tenesha, who also runs the page, and assumedly fed information gathered from their hair appointments to the account.
This brings us to a scene in the finale of the four OG housewives – Heather, Whitney, Lisa, and Meredith – meeting at a beach in Bermuda, where they were holidaying to end the season for Monica's birthday.
“Monica is not who she says she is," Heather begins, in a moment that would give any true reality TV fan full body shudders.
"She’s not our friend. She’s someone who has schemed and worked to infiltrate our friend group. And the name that you all know her as, the woman whose birthday was celebrated, who we’ve been trying to champion and support and defend is Reality Von Tease.”
At the time, most people would have no clue what Reality Von Tease even was (me included), but it was clear this was a very bad thing, as the rest of the women descended into shock, tears, and an echo chamber of 'No, no, no'.
For us folks playing at home, Heather elaborated in her confessional.
“Reality Von Tease was an Instagram account that was created over three years ago and was dedicated to annihilating and exposing Jen Shah, but it quickly expanded to troll all of us: me, Whitney, Meredith, Lisa. These were character assassinations. We never knew who it was.”
Armed with this information, the four women went to dinner with Monica (and Angie, remember her?) to confront her. In a moment that can only be described as the most masterful speech in reality TV history, Heather annihilated Monica.
"The mystery for me with Monica is, who is the real Monica?" Heather asked during the dinner. "When I met you, we kind of, we bonded over being single mums, mums of daughters and we really had a great time, lots of fun. Charming, funny, witty, smarter than probably people think... I thought pretty much, like, an open book, you know? Truth teller. But I don't feel like that's who the real Monica is."
"The real Monica is someone who really doesn't want to be our friend, but wants to profit from our lives and our pain," she said. "Who you really are is the cyberbully, internet troll Reality Von Tease."
At first, Monica denied any involvement with the page. "That is bulls**t!" Monica hit back. "That was never my f**king account!"
Heather then borrowed the words Monica had previously used when explaining sharing gossip about Angie, but turned them back on the troll account owner.
"I have your perfect formula: receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots, f**king everything to prove that you are a f**king bully and a f**king troll and you do not deserve to be at this table or anywhere near any of us for the way you've treated us!" Heather shouted.
"Every single one of us has woken up in fear for the s**t that you posted!"
Watch the incredible moment here. Post continues after video.
This is the performance of a lifetime. Heather doesn't just deserve an Oscar, she deserves an EGOT.
As the women all got involved, shouting their disgust at Monica for deceiving them all, she eventually admitted she ran the account. "It’s not true entirely... it’s part true.”
In her confessional, Monica grinned at the camera as she spilled the beans on the whole operation.
"Von Tease was never just one person," Monica revealed.
"It wasn't just me. There were several other humans involved, but bottom line, our mission was to take down Jen. The other women were just collateral damage."
Back at dinner, Heather instructed Monica to leave, which she did but not before divulging that Angie was a fan of the account, often sending DMs about the RHOSLC stars.
“I knew this information would come out. Even Gossip Girl couldn’t stay Gossip Girl forever," Monica quipped in her final confessional.
This simply was a level of reality TV excellence that is once in a lifetime. This is our moon landing.
But was it all in the master plan for the season? According to producers, they claim they had “no idea” that newbie Monica helped run Instagram account Reality Von Tease before inviting her on the show.
“Had they been aware prior to [the ladies’ holiday in] Bermuda, they would have never withheld that information from the core four,” a production source told Page Six.
“It was a shock to everyone, even Monica."
As if this wasn't enough drama, Heather went on to confirm in her speech the show's worst kept secret: at the end of season three, it was Jen Shah who gave her a black eye, a secret she kept and used as an example of how loyal the RHOSLC friendship group remains to one another.
Shah has since denied this, a claim made from her prison cell where she's serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence.
So anyways, RHOSLC truly came through this season. The saga will continue on the season's three-part reunion.
If this is a taste of the reality TV to come in 2024 (a year likely to depend on non-scripted TV in the aftermath of last year's writers' strike) then our future looks bright!
The entire The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City series can be streamed on Hayu.
Feature image: Hayu.
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