Before I get into the meat of Tuesday night’s episode of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” on Bravo, I feel compelled to remind readers that Jen Shah, the arguable star of the first three seasons of the show, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for a wire-fraud scheme that victimized the elderly. That fact makes much of the actions of the cast members in this episode difficult to defend.
The television hour starts as most episodes of “The Real Housewives” do, with the women waking and immediately discussing the explosive arguments from the night before.
Whitney Rose visits Heather Gay in her room to diffuse some tension from their dispute over what from Whitney’s life should have been included in Heather’s book. Ultimately they both apologize and share a hug.
Soon after, the women take the Sprinter van to a parking lot where six mopeds await. It’s immediately clear that these women should not be behind the handlebars when Monica Garcia runs into a van. They somehow avoid any further collisions before parking the scooters to do some shopping.
Angie Katsanevas, Heather and Monica visit a perfumery, while Whitney, Lisa Barlow and Meredith Marks shop for clothes. Heather goes to buy perfume but soon realizes she didn’t bring her credit card? To a shopping excursion? Monica offers to cover the $725 for her, but initially, her card is declined. Turns out she just needs to allow international transactions, and the transaction is ultimately successful, but the second-hand stress and embarrassment for those 10 seconds were very real.
After lunch, the women travel back to their rental mansion. Then things take a turn.
Heather Gay receives a phone call, and while she’s not on camera, she is connected to a microphone, and production captures all the audio from her side of the conversation in which she repeatedly says, “I can’t believe it’s her, I’m freaking out,” through sobs.
The next thing we see is the women in full glam, sitting down to dinner, where Heather has placed a doll representing a specific housewife on everyone’s plate. She instructs the women to ask the housewife connected to the doll they received to explain a mystery about themselves. It’s as dumb as it sounds. Whitney asks Lisa why she called her dramatic, just a few hours, mind you, after Whitney chased Heather down a Bermuda street yelling about exploitation. Meredith asks Heather why she didn’t come to her defense during the cave dinner when the women accused Meredith of sending malicious DMs.
Next, it’s Heather’s turn, and she has Meredith’s doll, but announces that she would rather ask Monica to solve a mystery. “Who is the real Monica?” she asks, then orates, “The real Monica is someone who really doesn’t want to be our friend. She wants to profit from our lives and our pain. I know who you really are, and who you really are is ...” Then the screen fades to a scene hours earlier.
Heather had texted Lisa, Meredith and Whitney and asked them to meet her on the beach. Heather tells them she has something big and nasty to tell them. “Monica is not who she says she is,” Heather says. Monica had schemed to infiltrate their friend group, she explains, and Monica is Reality Von(Tea)se, the name of an Instagram account created to expose Jen Shah, but which Heather claims cyberbullied each of the women.
Heather learned this nugget of intel from her hairdresser, and things started to add up when she checked her records at Beauty Lab and found three different Monicas in her system, all with the same birthday, one of whom had never paid any of her bills. She also suspected that Monica was sending the DMs she had accused Meredith of sending. So Heather had her hairdresser send screenshots that proved Monica was the troll. Heather also reached out to what I assume is a professional investigator who confirmed that Monica was behind the account.
Whitney, Lisa and Monica are shocked and furious, because, they explain, Reality Von(Tea)se has shared hurtful secrets about each of them.
Cut back to the dinner, where Heather finishes her statement. “I know who you really are. Who you really are is the cyberbully internet troll Reality Von (Tea)se.”
“No,” Monica says, which sends Heather into a cyclone of rage. She yells at Monica, for a while, about all the proof she has. “You do not deserve to be at this table or anywhere near any of us for the way you’ve treated us!” she declares.
“That was never my account!” Monica yells back. When Heather rebukes her with “You are Reality Von(Tea)se,” Monica responds, much calmer, with, “That’s not true entirely.”
When Lisa asks her to define “entirely,” Monica tells her it’s partly true, which sends all of them into a cyclone of rage. Meredith is mad because Monica claimed she had never been to her store, but old security footage showed her there with Jen. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but whatever.
In her confessional, Monica explains that Reality Von(Tea)se was actually a group of people whose mission was to take down Jen, who, again, is a convicted felon.
When Angie tries to engage, Monica reminds her that Angie was constantly sending heart emojis in response to the Von(Tea)se Instagram stories. Angie doesn’t have much to say after that.
Monica tells the other women that it was her best friend who started the account. Which isn’t a defense the other women are buying. They tell her she needs to tell them exactly what her involvement with the account was.
So she tells them that she recorded a few videos of Jen berating her employees to be posted online. Lisa asks her if she’s going to post videos of her when she’s upset with her and Monica tells her that won’t happen if she’s good to her employees. She then explains that she didn’t post anything about anyone other than Jen. And here’s where I start to give the other women the side-eye, because they immediately come to Jen’s defense.
“We are friends,” Heather tells her. “We are the type of girls that are ride or die.” Heather then explains that she spent all her time and energy defending Jen, even on her book tour, and even hid the fact that Jen gave her a black eye, which finally explains the very stupid black eye mystery from last season.
And what I don’t understand is, why were these women so ride or die for Jen? Why did Heather cover for her? Why did she defend her on her book tour?
I, too, would be upset if I learned a supposed friend had allegedly posted secrets about me online, but I’m not sure I’d be upset to learn that friend had exposed the true nature of another supposed friend who actively ruined a lot of lives, which seems to be their main complaint.
Heather does tell Monica she’s not about to defend another bad person after spending so much time defending Jen, and tells her to pack her bags and leave, and thus concludes Season 4.