It's rare for a single episode of television to invite comparisons to “Big Little Lies,” “The Usual Suspects,” Agatha Christie's novels and Christopher Nolan's films.
It's even stranger when the show in question is the 10th domestic version of a long-running reality TV franchise whose best-known star is currently serving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for wire fraud.
But that's exactly what happened when the season four finale of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” aired on Bravo this month. In a surprising twist that had been teased for months, sassy and extremely quotable cast newcomer Monica Garcia was discovered as one of the masterminds behind Reality Von Tease, an Instagram account that trafficked in gossip about Jen Shah, a breakout star of the show. and Garcia's former boss, who is now imprisoned in Texas, and occasionally made fun of the other “Salt Lake” ladies.
Set on the windy beaches of Bermuda, where the cast had apparently gone to celebrate Garcia's birthday, “Mysteries Revealed?” was quickly hailed as one of the all-time great episodes in the “Real Housewives” pantheon, and arguably all of reality television. It set off an avalanche of memes and frenzied analysis on social media, capping a season that offered more campy theatrics than a high school production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” (for example, when cast member Angie Katsanevas told her nemesis Meredith Marks, “You look like a trampoline with eyes,” an evocative reference to her abnormally tight skin.
Suddenly, thanks to Reality Von Tease, “Salt Lake City” was the only thing the Bravo fandom wanted to talk about. But just as “Scandoval” turned “Vanderpump Rules” into an inescapable pop culture phenomenon last year, “Misteries, Revealed?” was undeniably compelling: It became the show's most-watched episode since the Season 1 premiere and attracted attention far beyond the usual “Housewives” audience.
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) cited the ending during a House Oversight Committee hearing. It was even the talk of the red carpet at the recent Golden Globe Awards, where noted bravoholic Jennifer Lawrence described the finale as “the best reality show finale, I think, ever,” and said the women of “Salt Lake” had provided performances. worthy of an Oscar.
“I'll give you mine. “I don’t care,” the actor joked. “They deserve it.”
No one in the cast chewed more scenery than Heather Gay, who has played the role of Relatable One since “Salt Lake” debuted in 2020 and is the author of a best-selling memoir called “Bad Mormon,” about her journey away from the Church of Jesus Christ. of the Latter Day Saints.
Heather Gay on “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.”
(Bravo)
Gay confronted Garcia about his virtual alter ego during a beachfront dinner with the entire cast on the last night of their trip to Bermuda. With the help of Bravo's astute editors, who made liberal use of flashbacks and time jumps, Gay laid out the damning evidence against Garcia in a fiery monologue that would have fit perfectly into the final act of a David E. Kelley legal trial. . drama.
It painted Garcia as a sociopathic imposter and enthusiastic fan who, like a basic cable Eve Harrington, ingratiated herself with her co-stars while trying to trash them online. She delivered every line, every gesture, with the precision of a classically trained actor reciting a Shakespearean soliloquy, until reaching a final farewell in which she told Garcia: “Pack your bags and go.” To explain why she was so concerned about Garcia's apparent deception, Gay even dropped one last bombshell, claiming that last season's mysterious black eye was caused by Shah, as many viewers had long suspected. Gay had been traumatized by a manipulative co-star and didn't want to relive that.
The performance turned the phrase “Receipts. Proof. Timeline. Screenshots”. became a meme overnight (seriously, Google her name) and helped Gay, a fan favorite whose status had fallen due to her baffling loyalty to Shah, reaffirm her status as one of the brightest stars in the “Housewives” firmament.
However, every great hero needs an equally accomplished villain. And all the legitimate praise for Gay, and the wildly entertaining episode he so skillfully presented, ignored one obvious, if inconvenient, fact: Garcia had not been accused of anything illegal, or even particularly egregious by reality TV's (admittedly low) standards. shows. Unlike Shah, she had not perpetrated a decade-long scheme to defraud vulnerable seniors out of their savings. What she had done (using a finsta to throw mud at her co-stars) is barely a misdemeanor under the “Real Housewives” penal code.
But most egregious, at least to her castmates, is that Garcia, the show's first Latina, was guilty of a different kind of crime: desperately wanting reality TV fame and being too skilled to play the game. While it has become common for social media comments and fan chatter to influence “The Real Housewives” storylines, Garcia was a fan who managed to infiltrate the show and become a real character, like a stand-in. who took on the lead role on his first night.
Meredith Marks, left, Heather Barlow, Whitney Rose and Heather Gay on “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.”
(Bravo)
In Part 1 of the Season 4 reunion, filmed months after the fateful trip to Bermuda on an elaborate set resembling a pirate ship, Gay played a voicemail message in which Garcia said she worked as an assistant from Shah because “Kim Kardashian was a fucking assistant and Look at that bitch right now.” Evidently, Gay saw the message as irrefutable evidence, exculpatory evidence showing that Garcia was an applicant working for Shah, apparently without pay, because she wanted to appear on a reality show. (With her dark hair, puffed lips, and heavy tanner, Garcia, like many other aspiring influencers of her generation, even has the physical appearance of an AI-generated Kardashian.) García's response to these accusations was indifferent. “Why wouldn't she try to appear on the show herself?” she said with a shrug. “I applied like everyone else.” Her point was simple: everyone is on television because they want to be on television. Why deny the obvious?
Among “Housewives” fans, there has been debate about whether Garcia should return for season 5. Bravo has yet to make any announcements, and in an interview with the hollywood reporterThe show's producers made it clear that there is a lively discussion about how to proceed.
It would be wise to bring Garcia back. While some Housewives spend years dodging painful conversations about their marriages or finances until their evasions finally catch up with them, Garcia was open and vulnerable from the start, or at least she was smart enough to know that it would benefit her to appear that way. During one of her first meetings with Gay, she revealed that she had been excommunicated from the LDS Church “for screwing my brother-in-law for 18 months.” She spoke of being abandoned by her father, argued brutally with her mother on camera, and refused to be intimidated by her more experienced co-stars: on a cast trip to Palm Springs, she even dared to criticize Lisa Barlow, Diet program. She is a diva addicted to coke, melting over a $60,000 ring that she lost in the bathroom.
If she also made statements that seemed dubious (like when she said a Secret Service friend had informed her about Shah's investigation) it didn't matter, because she was good television. From the beginning, the divorced mother of four understood that what makes “Salt Lake” unique is how extra and completely deranged the show can be, and she's leaned into drama at every possible turn.
Since its debut in late 2020, a time when audiences were desperate for some absurd diversions, “Salt Lake” has always had a low-quality feel compared to other cities in the franchise, such as “New York” or “ “Beverly Hills.” The outfits are cheesier, the cosmetic upgrades less refined, and the McMansions somewhat more generic. The cast members are not real estate moguls or fashion designers; They run medi-spas or have husbands who work for multi-level marketing companies.
What they do offer is a shameless willingness to risk anything in front of the cameras. If, as Susan Sontag once wrote, “Camp is a woman who walks around in a dress made of three million feathers,” “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” is a show about a group of women who wear nothing else. What striking feather dresses. dresses. and hats. AND jackets. The fights have always been more ridiculous (see: the premiere episode, in which Cosby told Shah, “You smell like a hospital”), the meltdowns more quotable (see: the hot microphone tirade in which Barlow called his former best friend Marks a “piece of fucking trash”), the stirring of the pot is more obvious. This self-aware performative quality (plus the daring editing) is what makes “Salt Lake City” a delightfully campy spectacle.
What also helped “Salt Lake” stand out was its cultural and geographic setting in Utah, the home of the LDS Church. It may lack the aspirational glamor or cultural vitality of other places, but the setting adds a fascinating spiritual dimension to a show that has always been a fascinating look at gender, class and race.
Most of the women in the original cast were current or former members of the LDS church; another, the perpetually moody Mary Cosby, who left the show after season 2, only to rejoin as a “friend of” in season 4, is the first lady of a Pentecostal church and married to her grandfather. Just as crucial, Utah is also a hotbed of influential mothers, many of them Mormon, who project an idealized version of domesticity on social media. Many of the cast members, including Garcia and Gay, have spoken out about the pressure women face in LDS culture.
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The show's future was thrown into doubt last year when Shah, the cast's most trusted dramatic source even before his indictment, pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges. Now, at a federal facility in Texas, she continues to generate stories away from the Bravo cameras (she has reportedly found a new purpose as a fitness instructor and is helping fellow inmate Elizabeth Holmes strengthen her core).
By taking on the role of villain, Garcia filled the void and launched “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” into the stratosphere.
