Season 5 of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” ends as it began — with Lisa Barlow enraged at Whitney Rose, Mary Cosby and Angie Katsanevas bonding, and Heather Gay acting as the group’s philosopher.
“It’s true that we chose to do this,” Heather says in an introductory voiceover. “Putting our lives out on display, showing our weakest moments, showing our darkest secrets, leaving ourselves open to criticism, open to judgment. And those opinions can hurt.”
After a brief montage of cast members at their angriest, Heather continues, “but what happens when the friends you turn to for support have turned on you, too? And you realize your closest friends can cut you the deepest?”
That’s when we get a quick teaser of the argument brewing for this season’s finale, followed by shots of the cast members in makeup chairs the next morning. A producer is heard asking Lisa, “Do you think there’s any road back at this point?” Lisa replies, “I really don’t know.”
Eight Lisas at lunch
It’s the last full day of the castmates’ trip to Puerto Vallarta, and Heather has planned a thank-you lunch for Lisa, who organized the trip. Lisa hates themed events, Heather says, but knows “there would be one theme that Lisa would love.”
When Lisa arrives, she is stunned into silence when she sees the theme: All are dressed as Lisa, wearing straight brunette wigs, and constantly saying “I love that!” and other Lisa catchphrases.
Lisa goes along with the joke, as some castmates do their Lisa impersonations. Then Whitney reveals that she kept the tags on her outfit so she can return it after the trip, and that’s a joke too far for Lisa.
Whitney accuses Lisa of being fake. “You are in friendships that serve you, and when they no longer serve you, you move on,” says Whitney — who started the season by telling a podcast that Lisa “has always been the villain.”
Lisa demands Whitney remove her wig. “Don’t be me, because you’ll never be me,” Lisa says.
Britani Bateman then jumps to Lisa’s defense, and Mary criticizes her for speaking up a day after Britani was everyone’s enemy for recording their conversation. Britani tries to extract an apology from Meredith Marks for calling her “vile” and “vicious” because of the recording, and when Meredith doesn’t oblige, Britani storms away.
Lisa, Heather and Angie follow her out to console Britani. Mary gets angry that Angie — who has been Mary’s closest friend this season and the only castmate who knows that Mary put her son, Robert Jr., in rehab — would help Britani after Mary called Britani out.
Later, at dinner, Mary at first gives Angie the cold shoulder. Prodded to speak up, Mary tells Angie that her abandonment issues came to the surface when she saw Angie helping Britani. Angie starts crying and says, “I do love you, and I want to be your friend forever.” Their reconciliation is as quick as the dispute that made it necessary.
The memory of Monica
At that dinner, Meredith asks Whitney to settle some unfinished business: Whitney’s accusation weeks ago that Lisa planted the online rumor that Whitney’s jewelry company was getting cheap merchandise from a Chinese online outlet.
Meredith declares that she reached out to Whitney’s source for this rumor herself — and that the source, a podcaster, said Whitney got it wrong and “twisted his words around.”
Whitney doubles down on her accusations against Lisa, saying that “it’s no secret that you fed Reality von Tease.” That’s the social media account that trolled the Housewives until the end of season 4, when Heather revealed that their own one-season castmate, Monica Garcia, ran the account.
Where did Whitney get her information? “I reached out to Monica,” she says. And the table practically levitates with the shared outrage over this news.
In confessional, Heather sums it up: “After everything we have gone through to distance ourselves from [Monica] and her memory, there’s no f---ing way you did this. What level of desperation and paranoia led you to think that was a good move, that that would somehow strengthen your case? To go to the one person that has the least credibility out of all of us?”
Opening Pandora’s text messages
Heather has had enough of the rumors and conspiracies, and lets the other cast members know it.
“Look at us,” Heather says. “We are so obsessed with trying to, like, find the receipts, trying to find the proof, trying to poke holes in each other’s stories, expose each other, to find out who planted a story about us.” (The fact that Heather exposed Monica last season with the meme-famous declaration, “Receipts! Proof! Timeline! Screenshots!” isn’t remarked upon here.)
Heather recalls the season’s biggest arguments. “We should support each other,” she says. “It hurts when we’re called bad mothers. It hurts when someone attacks our business. It hurts when someone says we are ugly. These are the types of things we have to fight in the world. We shouldn’t have to fight it here at this table.”
Heather recalls how Monica brought a “burn book” — a replica from the movie “Mean Girls” — to the season 4 reunion, and was ridiculed. But “we all have our own burn books,” Heather said. “They’re in our phones. And none of us are without fault. We’ve all said horrible, hurtful things about each other, when we should be honoring and celebrating and keeping this space sacred and private.”
So Heather declares that, at this dinner, they’re going to solve the problems that Monica’s exile didn’t resolve. Each cast member will be asked to pull up the nastiest text they’ve ever written about a castmate, hand her phone to that castmate, and have them read it aloud.
“We burn it and move on,” Heather says.
Mary starts with a text about Heather, saying that her business success “changed her to be competitive and super-mean.” Heather replies, “I understand why you said those things,” and in confessional says that “I don’t ever want my newfound confidence to come across as mean.” Heather and Mary agree to, in Heather’s words, a “clean slate.”
Britani hands her phone to Mary, and everyone agrees her text is underwhelming — but Britani says it’s the meanest thing she’s written. So they move quickly to Bronwyn Newport’s text, where she calls Britani “emotionally manipulative” and that she “trauma-bonds her relationships.” Bronwyn tells Britani that she’s willing to improve relations, “to get to know a different side of you, if there is one.” And they agree to let their dispute go.
Angie then gives Bronwyn her phone, to read a text Angie wrote about Bronwyn’s “business plan of marrying a guy with one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana peel.” (Bronwyn’s husband, tech entrepreneur Todd Bradley, is 26 years older than her.) There’s also something about the hot-dog dress Bronwyn wore on the Milwaukee trip, but it’s too vulgar to repeat. Angie says, “it’s how I felt in the moment,” and adds, “I think you’re beautiful, and I’m sorry.”
Then Whitney reads Heather’s text, where she called her cousin “a low-life thirsty piece of s---. She sold her soul for fame and recognition.” Whitney cries, and Heather apologizes. Heather reminds Whitney that their bond is among the strongest at the table. “If anyone understands me, you do,” and they cement their truce with some cousins-only hand gestures.
Whitney and Lisa, again
It all seems to be going so well, with each revelation ending with harmony. Then Whitney hands her phone to Lisa, and the conflict that has colored this whole season reignites.
The details of the text are salacious and, in the end, immaterial — except to say they involve Whitney repeating to Angie what someone said about Lisa and her husband, John Barlow. And when Lisa hears it, she no longer wants to play Heather’s game of burning old texts.
“This is not something you throw away and burn,” Lisa says in confessional. “This is how you burn a relationship to the ground.”
Lisa yells at Whitney and doesn’t want to hear Whitney’s attempt at an apology. Lisa also gets mad at Angie, for being on the receiving end of the text — and Angie gets so angry at Lisa that she throws one of the table’s flower arrangements at her, prompting a crew member to run into the scene to separate them.
Lisa keeps yelling, “It’s always OK when it happens to me, and nobody else.” Meredith responds, also yelling at Lisa, “There’s nothing OK about any of this.”
Lisa leaves the table, ripping off her microphone. Meredith, who never had to read anyone’s text about her, storms out soon after. Whitney remarks, “Why can we sit here and take it and they can’t?”
“Everybody’s true colors at this table are coming out,” Bronwyn says in confessional. “The people who want to have friendships, the people who can own their own s---, and the people who are surface f---ing narcissists.”
Whitney, in confessional, praises Heather for “the courage to make us do this. Because it was really healing.” (With Whitney’s Utah accent, it sounds like “hilling.”)
The producers give Heather the last word.
“Friendships are hard, they’re not easy. They take a lot of work,” Heather says in a final confessional. “These friendships are worth fighting for. It’s not over for any of us. In many ways, it’s just the beginning.”
A note to readers • The season is over, but the talk isn’t. The first part of the season 5 reunion of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” is scheduled to air on Bravo on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 8 p.m. Eastern time — 6 p.m. Mountain time on DirecTV and Dish, and 9 p.m. Mountain time on Xfinity. (The show streams the next day on Peacock.)
