How ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ Season 5 is Reality TV At Its Best.

I’ve watched reality since I was a tween. Like every other tween girl in the early 2010s, I fell in love with the intense drama between the moms of the Abby Lee Dance Company’s elite competition team portrayed in Lifetime’s Dance Moms. I quickly moved on to RuPaul’s Drag Race, Supernanny, and I’m A Celebrity…, but since then my palette has refined some.

I’m not tooting my own horn or anything, but I’m a bit of a reality TV connoisseur. However, unlike many of my friends who prefer competition reality, I am a loyal reality-soap supremacist.

I get the lure of competition shows. Watching celebrities or other abnormally hot people compete for money, bragging rights, or a romantic partner, watching the drama unfold in the thick of the battle, can be fun. However, nothing tops watching friends get into a screaming match on camera over pasta or looking like Sia during their bachelor party.

Since I started watching the genre though, there’s been people that look down at me, or are shocked that I would ‘waste my time’ watching it, and this isn’t an isolated experience! Many feel like reality, and those who consume it, are vapid, stupid, or lacking intellectual curiosity. To those people I’d say; 1) Have some fun; not everything we do has to be productive and intellectual, and 2) according to sociologists; you’re dead wrong!

According to studies, 4 in 10 people watch some form of reality TV. So sure, maybe 40% of society are vapid or lacking in interesting gossip in their own lives, but scholars say otherwise. An extension of gossip, which is a vital part of conversation, community building and dissemination of information, reality allows us to do just that, without the social consequences of potentially getting found out, or hurt feelings among your community. It can provoke the same feelings of connection that gossip does, and opens conversations about timely topics, and it can shape culture, for better or for worse.

“Reality TV has radically altered the landscapes of celebrity, politics, and power. It has made many people extremely rich; Kim Kardashian has a net worth of $1.8 billion… To state the obvious, reality TV also restored the cultural capital and catalyzed the political rise of our 45th [and 47th] President.”

Take what sparked this article; The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, one of the newer instalments of Bravo’s famous franchise, which has been crowned the best Housewives show currently on air by both fans and critics alike. They have had what can only be described as a stellar season, with nary a filler episode or overly produced side plot in sight. Although newbie Bronwyn Newport instantly became a favourite for a phenomenal freshman season, the housewife who stole our hearts this season was none other than Mary M. Cosby.

Cosby has been part of the show since its first season in 2020, going between full time cast member and Friend. Personally, I’ve always been a Mary fan to some degree, confused (and flabbergasted at times), but amused by her antics and one liners, but this year she was a new woman.

Although funny, she’s never tried particularly hard to create or maintain relationships with any of the other ladies, often declining to take part in activities on trips and not showing up to events. At one point, she opted out of an activity on a trip she planned, sitting in the rigged sprinter van by herself, and convincing the driver to take her through the McDonald’s drive-thru. Honestly, it was the happiest I’d seen her the entire series.

So what changed this season? Apart from Mary having a very personal storyline, she found friendship, and support in Angie Katsanevas, a Friend on season 3, and an addition to the main cast in season 4, who took centre stage (and centre snowflake) in this newest season.

Angie herself said to The New York Post;

“I think with Mary, this season, she just feels supported, she feels, she has friends. She’s having fun again. She’s herself.”

The fans’ reaction to Cosby, Katsanevas, and their deep bond and friendship, speaks to the reason why we seek out reality television in the first place. I, for one, was thrilled to see Mary finally get her hands dirty and show us her true self. The fact that we got to see Angie and Mary’s close bond, makes it all the sweeter, because we all deserve a friend that brings us the confidence we need to be authentically ourselves.

The reason why viewers (me included) fell in love with them is because they brought us behind the Louis Vuitton embellished curtains and the “high body count hair”, and allowed us to see them be normal humans.

Although viewers may watch for the gossip, backstabbing, or witty one-liners, many enjoy the voyeuristic nature of the shows, watching the wealthy and privileged deal with the same things as us. For example, some might enjoy watching Kim and Kourtney Kardashian get into a fist fight because they too grew up with sisters, and like seeing those family dynamics play out on screen. Others might not have sisters, or a son battling addiction, but watching can help them feel understood, or navigate tough conversations with friends and family, thus benefiting from their mistakes or triumphs by simply watching along.

Mary’s storyline this season revolved around her son. At the beginning, she mentions in her confessionals that her son, Robert Jr, has been staying out late, having no ambition or drive, not looking her in the eye, and overall acting unlike himself.

Things then come to a head during a conversation in Robert’s bedroom in the Dec 11 episode, where he admits that he’s been battling depression and addiction, taking Xanax, heroin, cocaine, Oxycontin, and more, in secret from the time that he was 16, with his addiction progressively getting worse.

Mary and Robert Jr. break down in one of the most vulnerable scenes I’ve ever seen on TV, expressing their love and support for each other, and Mary promising to get RJ help if he’s ready to accept it and recover. Later, Mary confides in Angie, who had been struggling to come to terms with her own late mothers’ addiction this season, leaning on her for support and secrecy.

39.5 million people worldwide are diagnosed with drug use disorders, up nearly 50% in the past 10 years, with 1 in 5 people going through treatment globally, according to the UN. Cosby, despite her eccentric style and extravagant lifestyle, is experiencing something that millions of families go through across the world.

There may be people out there who have never been impacted by addiction, have never spoken to someone battling addiction, or might not understand why people become addicted to substances. Seeing people like Robert Jr. and Mary go down this road together on screen, can expose viewers to this issue, and humanise them, and people like them in the ‘real world’.

Another example straight from the Bravoverse is Vanderpump Rules alum Lala Kent, sharing her decision to have a second baby through a sperm donor, and why she did so, on Season 11. Many viewers at home have never met someone who has decided to become a single parent by use of a sperm donor, and those casual encounters through television can open us to new communities and family structures.

At its best, reality TV gives us, as viewers, an opportunity to expose ourselves to unfamiliar ways of life, habits, and traditions, fosters an environment to have difficult conversations at home, and for Christ’s sake; makes us laugh!

If you couldn’t tell, we need that right now. In a time where disinformation and intolerance runs rampant, we need to be exposed to different family structures, different experiences, different hardships, etc. If Mary and Robert Jr were able to provide that opportunity for others with their vulnerability; that’s a win in my book. Who cares if it’s Bravo that provides that?

Although escapism and harmless gossip are absolutely a part of the reason why we watch the genre, they appease our natural curiosity (read: nosiness) and are supposed to be funny and culturally thought provoking.

That’s exactly what RHOSLC accomplished this season. From Angie and Mary’s friendship, to new Friend Britani’s cringeworthy on-again-off-again relationship with a D-List Osmond, to Lisa Barlow’s temper tantrum about having to sit in coach for less than two hours, this season was truly a masterpiece from beginning to end.

The genre name is a bit of a misnomer because for most people, our reality looks nothing like those of the Real Housewives. For a generation like mine, where most of us worry we’ll never own a home, middle aged women who live in McMansions and wear Balmain archival pieces, are incredibly far from our reality. What is part of our reality however, are difficult family dynamics, messy relationships, and friendships that are our shoulders to cry on and the source of our confidence.