First-time reality stars often say that the mere fact of their filming forced them to have conversations they would have avoided as civilians. Real life doesn’t require the kind of confrontation that reality television demands. Not only are cast members paid to bring all their conflicts to the fore, they are made to dissect every angle of every emotion they have, to one another and to producers. Without extensive media training and the kind of immunity to questioning that only develops after years in the hot seat, it’s difficult for reality stars to keep their dirt under wraps.
This is what makes early-season reality television so thrilling. No one understands what they’ve signed up for, no one has been able to watch back footage of themselves to learn how they come off, and no one really knows how to control the narrative. With enough time — and enough alcohol — the truth will come out. And that’s what’s happened in this week’s episode of The Valley, where subtext has become text.
Welcome back to the world’s worst babymoon, where Janet is still bitching and moaning about Zack’s obvious troll of an Instagram story. “I don’t want to be friends with someone who would poke at me the way Zack did while I’m pregnant,” she whines, and there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe how little I care about her delusional anxiety that Zack is going to burst out of the bushes and attack.
Luckily, almost everybody else brings it. One by one, our cast says the quiet part out loud, setting up what is sure to be a juicy finale.
Michelle on her marriage
As the women set up Janet’s surprise baby shower, Brittany checks in with Mrs. Miserable on how her conversation with Jax went. Even when the Cauchis are at each others’ throats, they still find the time to debrief on how storylines are progressing. That’s professionalism, baby.
All season, Michelle’s told us that she’s merely unsure whether she wants to move forward in the relationship, but finally she acknowledges that she’s done. “There’s nothing he can do for me to think he’s attractive,” she confesses to Brittany. “Not just physically — everything bugs me.”
Michelle feels like a failure because try as she might, her love for Jesse is gone. She knows that if she wants out of this misery-making relationship, she’s the one who has to walk away. “I want to feel how I used to feel for him,” she admits through tears. It’s the most raw we’ve seen her all season, and unlike her glassy-eyed denials of an affair, this time, I actually believed her.
Danny and Nia (with an assist from Brittany, Jasmine and Jason)
Later that night, the group has a ‘fantasy’ dinner — each couple dresses up as their significant other’s ultimate fantasy. I thought this group reached peak hetero hell with their hibachi newlyweds’ game, but I was wrong. Danny, who is already wasted from the boys’ fishing excursion, keeps going, downing one massive shot after another as his Jamie-Fraser-from-Outlander wig slips and slides over his head.
Perhaps feeling like it’s somebody else’s turn to have their relationship in the hot seat, Michelle prods Nia and Danny about their disagreement over where to live. He prefers the affordable Valencia, while she wants to live near their friends in the expensive Miracle Mile or WeHo neighborhoods. Danny gets carried away talking about how he and Michelle are “bursting at the seams” in their 2,300 square-foot condo, and somehow the conversation turns to how difficult fatherhood is for him. “Raise your hand if you have three kids,” he half-shouts, waving his own around with abandon.
“Nobody says thank you to the dads,” Jax chimes in, which is the wrong thing to say in front of a woman who carried and birthed Danny’s three under two, and is battling postpartum depression. Jasmine steps in and points out that actually, Nia also has three kids, and maybe everyone should try listening to what she thinks and feels.
Danny gets snippy first with Jasmine, then with Nia, who tries and fails to defuse her increasingly agitated husband. “You wanted this conversation, so let’s clear it up,” he snipes at her. “You fucked me over.” (I feel the need to point out that, actually, Michelle started this. Her ability to cause chaos — first the Mondrian hallway fight, now this kerfuffle — is unparalleled. She and Doute could be so powerful if they would just team up.)
At this point, I don’t know what Danny is even upset about, but that’s the least interesting thing about his outburst. In a confessional, Jason observes that “normally when Danny gets like this, Nia picks up the phone. But you can’t get him out of the situation when you’re in the house you’re at.” We’re shown a montage of Nia excusing herself from parties with various excuses — the babysitter called them, or she needs to pump, or her boobs are leaking — a drunken Danny in the background, starting to get involved in whatever chaos is going on at the time. And indeed, Nia still manages to wrest control back and packs drunk Danny, bad wig and all, off to bed.
All season, I had chalked up this pattern of early exits to, well, having three under two. I hadn’t noticed that Danny had been drunk, or that he’d wanted to get involved with the drama, each time Nia spirited them away. Jax did call him “Darkside Danny” in the pilot (the name of this episode, by the way) but I hadn’t thought much of it, mostly viewing Big Bear as an aberration.
Now, I wonder if there’s something deeper going on. It’s hardly my place to label Danny’s relationship to alcohol, but hearing that Nia has a playbook for handling him certainly suggests that this isn’t new. And I’ve wondered for a few weeks now just how traditional their marriage really is. I could see them having the type of dynamic where Danny is happy to support Nia when she’s struggling, but also expects to occupy the “head of household” role, entitled to cut short girls’ night out or choose where they live. His kvetching about not being appreciated for being a father could be the understandable venting of an exhausted new dad, or they could reveal a man who is uncomfortable with the “different times” he’s found himself in. Only time will tell.
The next day, Danny’s sober, and Nia explains to him just how isolated she’d feel in Valencia. To his credit, it seems like he hears her. “I would never move if you were unhappy,” he assures her. He acknowledges that he lashed out because he’s bottled up his own stress, which is certainly the most emotionally mature thing a man has said this whole trip. The Booko-Sanchezes don’t seem to be anywhere near Lally/Taylor-levels of dysfunction, but we need another season to get to the bottom of their dynamic.
Jesse on Michelle’s secret boyfriend
While Danny and Nia are mending fences, Jesse’s guns are turned on Michelle. It seems the unhappiest couple in Los Angeles slept together this morning, and Jesse’s post-nut clarity has him realizing all sorts of things. Like the fact that Michelle kept her eyes closed the whole time, as if Jesse wasn’t even there. Or like the fact that Michelle closes her phone every time he walks by and won’t even let him go near it.
Jesse is starting to question Michelle, and is worried that they’ll look foolish having spent all this time and money working on the relationship if Michelle has been stepping out all along. (Don’t worry, Jesse. Only they’ll look foolish.) “What if it comes out, here’s a picture of Michelle in lingerie that she sent to someone?” he asks. It’s about time, Jesse.
Brittany on Jax
Much like Jesse, Brittany also seems to have reached a tipping point. She and Janet go on a walk, and it all comes out: She’s sick of Jax making it look like she has a drinking problem. She never drinks when she’s at home with Cruz, and most of her life is spent home with him. “I know you guys don’t believe in divorce…” Janet starts. “Oh, we would go down that path,” Brittany corrects her. It’s the first time she’s ever said “divorce” out loud, and personally I could not be happier to see her put the pieces together. Dump! His! Ass!
Jesse on Jax’s marriage
When the group returns to Los Angeles, Jesse gathers his pals for a “gentleman’s lunch.” The whole branding of this event — men dressing up in fancy suits to gossip and drink expensive wine — is painfully on the nose and unnecessary to boot. Fellas, it is not gay to love your friends.
Anyway, Jesse has some hard truths to dispense to Jax, who still thinks that divorce is not in his or Brittany’s vocabulary. “We love each other, we’re each other’s best friends,” he insists. Whether out of concern or a desire to prove that Jax’s marriage is very much “on the fence,” Jesse is all too happy to relay that according to what Brittany told Michelle and Janet, she’s having a very different experience of their marriage.
“My wife would never leave, ever,” Jax intones, like a broken record. Well, we’ll see how that goes.
Janet on nothing and no one
As usual, Janet brought very little to the table. She started this season as a promising shit-stirrer, but she’s flopped one episode after another. It seems like Janet is trying to position herself as the voice of reason, dispensing marital advice to her friends, but I would prefer she lean into her true messy nature. There’s always next season!
Balls and chains
- The women’s childbirth anecdotes only strengthens my longstanding belief that if women who had given birth were fully honest with women who hadn’t about the process, there would be far less childbirthing. Michelle had a three-day labor during which Jesse got in a fight with their doctor; Brittany had back labor; Nia almost bled out and warns Janet to start massaging her perineum with primrose oil so she won’t tear from stem to stern. Poor Janet, who looks just as harrowed as Jason did last week during the “being a father has ruined my life” summit.
- I liked the way the editors broke the fourth wall this episode. Jax telling Danny not to sing “Circle of Life” on camera because Bravo doesn’t have the rights, and the group adapting the lyrics to “the triangle of Big Bear Lake” was a fun way to showcase Jax’s only real skill: making reality television. And Nia admonishing Danny for “saying the f-word to me on national television” was a smart way to establish her camera-consciousness and throw us a Bravo wink.
- Jesse continues to hate on Danny, calling him a “horrible actor.” Darkside Danny or not, it’s sweet that the sharpest retort he can come up with is “jeezy peas.”
- Michelle would be the new supreme of this show if she would just own up to cheating on Jesse, but unfortunately takes a page out of fellow flop Tom Sandoval’s book: Deflecting from her own shit by accusing Kristen of having cheated on all her boyfriends too. “Does that mean she’s cheated on Luke?” we hear a producer ask her. “I don’t know,” she smirks in reply. Michelle…if you see something, say something. There is no room for this coy nonsense on Bravo.
- Jason thinks Jax wants to call all the shots in their relationship, but he’s wrong. Jax is actually trying to make Brittany so miserable in the relationship that she’s the one to leave him. That way, he can act like she is the problem, and refuse to leave their house.