It is a truth universally acknowledged that being on a reality show means you probably suffer from some sort of personality disorder. To subject yourself to producers whose job is to inflict psychic trauma on you for the sake of entertainment and millions of strangers who feel entitled to send you their unsolicited opinions about your life (and sometimes death threats) for a shot at Z-list fame is an undeniable symptom of spiritual sickness.
In this economy, I get it. But still.
This psychosis is on full display on The Valley, which heads to Santa Barbara this week for the season’s first cast trip. Through the three confrontations that drive this episode, our cast shows us just how committed they are to torturing themselves in pursuit of a paycheck.
And in the proud Bravo tradition of all hell breaking loose whenever a “healer” or “spiritual worker” shows up (RHOSLC’s disastrous Zion pilgrimage, RHONY’s Moroccan psychic announcing Mario’s infidelity, RHOBH’s dinner party from hell, RHOC’s psychic who just didn’t see Brooks’ cancer), the final showdown is midwifed by a combination ceremonialist-embodiment guide-sacred photographer named Willa Kveta. Yes, really.
Jax and Brittany
Things are dire even before Willa shows up. Jax — on day 3 in the asylum — is in seven hours of therapy daily, allowed his phone for 15 minute-spurts between sessions. He makes the most of that phone time by rage-texting Brittany every chance he gets. From the small sampling of messages editors show us, it’s clear Jax hasn’t even begun to grapple with his actions that landed him in what he refers to as a prison. Newsflash, Jax — they don’t let you record reality television from prison.
“Dark” doesn’t really begin to describe the texts. “you took my son from me,” one reads. “you took my job away from me.. I’ve worked so hard for two years for this and you took it from me,” says another. And: “iam doing this for my son.. my god your family is the most fucked up I have ever seen and they would never do what you did.” “I will never ever forgive you… you destroyed the only thing that I love doing.”
Yet some are also hilarious. “iam in a mental health clinic your not answering” sent me into hysterics, as did “going out partying while your husbands in mental health house is come across real nice…” Father forgive me for laughing, but the typos are just sublime.
Jax also graces us with what appears to be self-recorded footage from his room at rehab. (As Zack says, what the hell kind of place is this? I don’t remember Rachel releasing any videos during her stay at the Meadows.) He’s had the wherewithal to bring a second Jax’s Studio City hat to wear on camera — black-on-white instead of last week’s white-on-black — but not enough to stop himself from saying some truly ludicrous things.
“When we got married, it was in sickness and in health, and right now I’m sick,” he grumbles, the domestic violence that prompted this kinda-sorta-5150 seemingly erased from his mind, Eternal Sunshine-style. He’s upset because Brittany hasn’t checked on him, hasn’t sent him a care package, and hasn’t tried to visit him. Did I mention he’s only been there for 72 hours?
Besides the usual emotions I feel when watching Jax, which are primarily horror and a kind of hysterical amusement, I also located a deep sadness. I believe Jax feels neglected, even as I also believe it’s completely ridiculous for him to demand care from the woman he’s abused for nearly a decade. As I wrote last season, “Jax is still the demon he’s always been — a selfish liar, a spiteful cheater, a vicious bully. But mixed in with all of that is a terrified little boy who was taught that softness meant weakness. Jax Taylor is many things, but above all he is a man who lacks the tools he needs to be honest about what it will take for him to be happy, and therefore is unable to take ownership of his own life.”
Jax’s god is reality television. He loves it more than he loves his wife, more than he loves his child, maybe even more than he loves himself. But reality television is an all-consuming deity, one that sucks everything from you before coming back for seconds. Put someone like Jax who loves to be the center of attention and does not possess the emotional regulation or maturity required for traditional employment in an environment that encourages substance abuse and rewards him for his worst behavior with season renewals and a higher paycheck, and it’s easy to see how we ended up here. It may be too late for the 45-year-old Jax to ever change, and there’s no telling how many more people he’ll hurt in the process.
As for Brittany, I once again tip my hat to her willingness to share all this mess. She’s never been quite as skilled a liar as Tom Sandoval or Ariana Madix, but she spent much of her Vanderpump run just as committed as they were to presenting a pretty picture. Finally done covering for Jax, she’s spent this season turning over every stone to expose the rot.
But the flip side of this liberation is its own form of sickness. This is the Faustian bargain of reality television, where one must excavate one’s deepest hurts and darkest secrets to stay relevant. At this point in their lives, it’s probably worth it — after all, how else are these two going to earn a paycheck? And yet it’s twisted all the same.
Janet and Zack
A lighter interlude before we touch base with The Valley’s other horrible divorce, Zack and Janet finally sit down to hash things out. Zack expresses how hurt he was by Janet’s ostracization last summer, at one point beckoning Nia over so he can clutch her hands through his distress. Janet still claims to believe Zack wished a miscarriage upon her, but admits that she should have handled things herself instead of sending her pink-booted minion to do her dirty work for her.
While Zack seems to be sincere and vulnerable — though I’m not sure whether he and Janet were ever as close as he claims — Janet appears to be making just another stop on her apologize-to-the-fan-favorites tour. Their kumbaya will surely last all of five minutes, especially because Janet reveals that Brittany is the one who told her the allegedly terrible things Zack said, which will kick off a whole new conflict.
But it doesn’t matter. This is the kind of fake resolve that reality stars force themselves into in order to keep the fiction of the show going and make their work tolerable. I don’t blame them. If my job was to socialize with people I hated, and I had my sights set on a six-figure paycheck, I’d make nice too.
Jesse and Michelle
Like the ex-Cauchis, the ex-Lallys are in dire straits. Unlike the ex-Cauchis, the ex-Lallys aren’t imprisoned by reality television so much as they’re both, with mixed success, wielding the medium as a weapon against each other.
Jesse is hard at work gathering allies and positioning himself as a spurned spouse instead of, as I will keep reminding everyone until I am blue in the face, a man who kicked his wife out of their marital bed for a year after she gave birth because he didn’t want to wake up overnight to tend to their baby.
He moans to Danny and Jason that Michelle hasn’t acknowledged him once on this trip. Nor did she accept the white flag he handed out to each member of the cast as they entered the Santa Barbara house: “You especially need this,” he sneers. Jesse can play innocent all he wants, but if there’s one thing he’s more committed to than cosplaying old money, it’s antagonizing Michelle and acting like he’s the victim.
The act continues at Willa Kveta’s Healing Session, where the cast must pass around a gratitude ball and say what they’re grateful for like kindergarteners in sharing circle. Jesse, who loves a fake dramatic cry even more than Sandoval, immediately begins weeping about how he’s in a “toxic situation right now” and is grateful that Isabella is thriving. The tears suspiciously disappear the very moment he looks at Michelle out of the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction and sees her stone-faced. When Zack rolls his eyes at the theatrics, Jesse mutters that he’ll “throw this guy off a cliff.” Okay!
As much as Jesse is needling Michelle to get a rise out of her, she’s doing the same thing — albeit on a much smaller and less toxic scale. I thank her for attending this cursed cast trip, but as she readily admits, her objective is to make this entire weekend as uncomfortable for Jesse as possible. When Willa prompts the group to affirm something they’re releasing from their life and something they want to accept, Michelle pointedly speaks about looking forward to a new life filled with happiness and love (sotto voce: unlike the life she led with Jesse).
And it’s working. When Michelle says she can’t think of a single moment from their marriage that was positive except for the moment they decided to have a child, Jesse storms off in tears. He doesn’t like or respect Michelle, but it’s clear how deeply his pride has been hurt by her leaving him. If, as so many men believe, one’s wife is a reflection of one’s own worth and status, losing a woman as beautiful and uninterested as Michelle is a death blow to Jesse’s ego. Michelle seems to genuinely want to be free of Jesse and his psychological warfare, but he wants to keep her ensnared in his orbit, a plaything for him to poke at.
In a fit of pique, Jesse rips off all his clothes — save a saggy pair of giant gray briefs — and tells producers to get out of his room. That’s where we leave the most dysfunctional cast on reality television, the bulk of Mr. Capri’s meltdown saved for next week.
I respect Michelle not ceding territory to Jesse on the show, but my god. These people have such an unhealthy dynamic. Jesse can claim to care for Isabella’s well-being all he wants, but at the end of the day he is devoting serious time and energy to needling her mother. And both he and Michelle are eager to establish dominance on a show that will do nothing but make their terrible relationship worse. It’s horrible for them, but beautiful for me. That’s reality television for you.
Balls and chains
- Shoutout to Kristen Doute for delivering us one of the most compelling fertility storylines on Bravo. “I just feel like a failure,” she admits through tears, having incorrectly tracked her ovulation cycle. “I don’t know why I can’t figure it out. I hate my body.” In contrast to all the years Kristen’s spent causing chaos by repeating rumors and being messy, it’s a nice change of pace to see her dealing with something more grounded for once. It’s also easier to watch knowing that she’s just weeks away from becoming a mother and fulfilling, as Luke describes it, God’s plan for them to procreate.
- Where are Jasmine (and Melissa)? We know Jasmine calls somebody a Karen later in the season and that she’s owed a showdown with Danny, but otherwise she’s been largely absent. Are they simply too normal to stand out from this motley crew, or is Bravo hiding the lesbians from us? Either way — fix it, Jesus.