“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” finale drops one of the biggest bombs in franchise history

Monica Garcia All About Eve'd her way onto the show after being a part of an Instagram account that trolled the cast.

Leading up to its finale, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was already having a banner season but tonight's episode took the entire Housewives multiverse through choppy, uncharted waters. Fitting, then, the ladies were in Bermuda.

To be fair, it feels like we've been in Bermuda for 12 years, though it's only been the last four episodes. And that's the hallmark of a good Housewives trip: when it takes up nearly half the season.

We're in Bermuda ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of newest cast member Monica Garcia, who had at one point worked for former Housewife and current inmate Jen Shah. But Monica's been keeping at least one big secret that Heather Gay unfurls in one of the most masterly scenes ever to grace the Bravosphere.

Jumping between the confrontational dinner (there's always a confrontational dinner) and flashbacks leading up to that dinner, Heather pieces together the mystery of Monica Garcia (or Fowler, depending who you ask).

For the past few years, the ladies have contended with an Instagram account, Reality Von Tease, which played a shady hand in Shah's downfall.

"Reality Von Tease was an Instagram account that was created over three years ago and was dedicated to annihilating and exposing Jen Shah," Heather said during a confessional. "But it quickly expanded to troll all of us. Me, Meredith, Whitney, Lisa. These were character assassinations, but we never knew who it was."

Until now. Heather reveals it was Monica all along.

Heather called a clandestine beachside meeting of the OG ladies (sorry-not-sorry, Angie Katsanevas) four hours prior to the dinner to spill the tea on what she had learned. It's so Big Little Lies but without the murder (that we know of) — just character assassination.

So Meredith Marks, Lisa Barlow, and Whitney Rose all go into this dinner — with tables formed into a triangle to really drive home the Bermuda setting and the impending storm of no return — fully informed and start playing a seemingly innocent game. But as with every game the Salt Lake cast has played this year, it ended in a screaming match.

While Monica admits to taking some videos of Jen Shah that Reality Von Tease posted, she denies writing anything about the women besides Shah, who she says mistreated her and her other employees.

But Monica's involvement with the account was too much of a betrayal and Heather told her to pack her things and leave. She kicks her out of Bermuda. And by the looks of it, off the show. Because why would and how could the other women continue filming with her?

Still, Monica von-teased that she had even more tea to spill and hopefully the water's on the kettle for next week's start of the three-part reunion.

In the annals of The Real Housewives, this bombshell may be unprecedented...but it also feels inevitable. The franchise has a loyal and occasionally rabid fanbase. Women that go on these shows now have often been fans for years and have studied past seasons and past Housewives and they know how to play the game.

That a fan/detractor could infiltrate the show they had previously trolled is basically the plot of All About Eve. Here, Eve Harrington, the seemingly innocent ingenue is Monica, which makes Jen Shah the Margo Channing she usurps. However, Bette Davis never punched Celeste Holm (again, that we know of).

In the middle of all this bombshelling, Heather finally reveals what everyone kinda figured in the first place: that Jen gave her the mysterious black eye last season.

Yet the question remains: how did Monica get on the show? At the beginning of the season she was introduced as Jen's assistant and more or less told us all that she had dirt on everyone in the cast. But did the producers know she was a blogger? Or has the reality TV shark finally begun to eat itself?

Well, hopefully these and other questions will be answered — and even more questions raised — when part one of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City reunion airs Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

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