Andy Cohen likes to tell new Housewives at their first reunions that the purpose of the exercise is to reach “resolve.” In Bravoland, “resolve” doesn’t require two people to kiss and make up. It just means that they reach clarity on how to move forward with one another. Restoring a friendship to its former glory is “resolve,” and so is deciding that something fundamental has shifted in the relationship, never to be the same again. A happy ending isn’t necessary for resolve, but a willingness to hash things out — no matter how uncomfortable — is.
Resolve is particularly tricky when a breakup is involved and the viewers want closure that cast members may not want to give. And the past eighteen months have been a banner time for Bravo breakups. First, there was Scandoval. Then, Kyle and Mauricio (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) announced the dissolution of their 27-year union. Next, Carl and Lindsay (Summer House) split just weeks before their wedding. Alexia and Todd (Real Housewives of Miami) and Dorit and PK (also RHOBH) have announced their separations as well.
Not to be outdone, two of The Valley’s five main relationships collapse in its first season. The unhappiest couple in Los Angeles are finally done, with Michelle asking Jesse for a divorce just three days after filming wrapped. But it’s Jax and Brittany’s separation (and now, their probable divorce) that prompted cameras to come back up six months after the original finale.
Before we can watch these two unions go up in smoke, we have to go back in time to the opening night of Jax’s Studio City, which brings little resolve to the group’s shaky dynamics and only cements my belief that the flop alliance are going to have to step it way up next season.
Against all odds, Brittany and Jax are a united front the night that “their” “bar” opens. The succulent wall is built, the booths upholstered, the walls papered. Brittany has even flown in Jax’s sister Jenny and her husband as a surprise. Even Schwartz is here, bearing a bottle of Fireball for Jax because that’s what his late father used to drink.
Though the full-time cast’s feuds have occupied most of the season’s plot, it is Zack and Jasmine (‘friends of’ who need to be promoted as soon as possible) who carry the day. Zack tries to hash things out with Janet, but she continues to deflect responsibility. She first claims that she never asked Jax to be the messenger at Kristen’s James Mae party, then tells Zack she would have invited him had he had a better attitude on their pre-Big Bear call. It would be so much easier on everyone if Janet would just tell the truth: she’s just not that into Zack right now.
Their tête-à-tête ends poorly, with Janet calling Zack “loser-ass trash.” Jasmine — who has been playing peacemaker this whole season and must be exhausted — finally snaps when Janet dismisses her attempt to broker a truce with a condescending, “Have his back, good luck with that.”
“I’m not taking sides, fuck that,” Jasmine declares. “It’s fucked up that you guys are trying to make me choose between him or you.”
Jax, who will lie to save himself without hesitation but will never cover for somebody else at his own expense, is happy to oblige when Jasmine calls him over to shut down Janet’s obfuscation. “Be careful with your tone right now, I’m pregnant,” Janet intones as soon as Jax states that he was sent to deliver her message. Rather than let herself be devoured by the #1 guy in the group, she flees once again.
Kristen also gets an opportunity to hash things out with Michelle, who doesn’t respond when she reiterates that Janet is the one who’s been lying this entire time. Without a reunion where Andy can force Kristen, Michelle and Janet to have a real conversation about their feelings, we won’t know until next season whether the group’s alignments will shift, or whether we’re locked into these teams for another year.
Six months later, Brittany has moved out of her home with Jax and Michelle and Jesse are knee-deep in their new, separated normal. Kristen got pregnant in October, only to discover nine weeks later that she’d had an anembryonic pregnancy, causing a miscarriage. Also, Janet has given birth to her son Cameron, and Zack has a new adorable boyfriend named Benji.
Let’s get Jesse and Michelle, who are too new for their breakup to carry much emotional weight, out of the way. They’re sharing custody of their daughter and their dog two days at a time, which sounds like a welcome break for Michelle and a 10,000% increase in responsibility for Jesse.
Though they are done, the Saniei-Lallys are still managing to traumatize little Isabella. As they bicker over whether they need to codify the split of their shared realtor business (I beg of you fools, put those terms in writing), their daughter wanders over from the open kitchen and asks for barbecue sauce in a way that really means, “I can hear you fighting and I would like you to stop.” Of course, they don’t, and I hope for her sake that they figure out how to keep their shit off her plate next season. In order for Isabella to reap the benefits of her parents being happy separately instead of unhappy together, they actually need to shield her from their fighting.
The emotional center of the episode, at least for me, is the liberation of Brittany Cartwright. For years, Brittany has been derided as a “fame whore” who sought Jax out because she wanted his platform and money, putting up with all manner of betrayal and humiliation because she was thirsty. This narrative is usually deployed to explain why she deserved every put-down he threw her way. I’ve always thought the explanation was much simpler, and much sadder: However the relationship began, she fell in love and chose to build a life with this man. Nine years and a son later, their origin story barely matters — their enmeshment is real, and their untangling will be painful.
Both Brittany and Michelle have ceded the family homes to their ex-husbands and are renting apartments on their own dime. This is hardly ideal, but both emphasize that their situations had gotten too toxic to remain in. Janet “maybe I’ll call 911 on Zack” Caperna comments that Brittany and Michelle are “a lot nicer” than she would be. Sometimes, feminism means taking your fate and finances into your own hands to get you and your children out of an unhealthy situation rather than waiting for an asshole to do the right thing.
Brittany says that after a particularly bad Jax blowup where he started screaming at her in front of Cruz, their history hit her “like a ton of bricks. I started noticing everything he did to me. What am I doing? Why am I here?”
She confronts those questions head-on at their old house while Cruz is at the playground. (Michelle and Jesse, take notes — this is how the professionals do it.) The meet is maddening, a veritable buffet of all of Jax’s favorite plays. He lies, obfuscates, denies, misrepresents. The falsehoods seem endless, and at multiple points even Brittany seems stunned by his audacity. But amidst the insanity, something wonderful is happening: None of his tricks are working.
In all the years Brittany and Jax were together on Vanderpump, their ups and downs followed a predictable pattern. Jax would fuck up, give a lackluster apology, and she would forgive him. The one time it seemed like she might actually be done was when he slept with Faith, but then his father passed and they found their way back to one another.
This time, Brittany isn’t taking any of Jax’s shit. He claims to have made an appointment with a therapist, but she gets him to admit that he booked it the day before they started filming again. He acts confused when she accuses him of saying horrible things to her, but she stands her ground: “As soon as these cameras drop, you’re going to rage text the shit out of me. Be real!” He claims to have never lied to the press about their relationship, so she pulls up a Page Six video where he says they still live together.
“You made people think I was lying,” she snaps, and she’s right: Many, many viewers speculated that the couple had staged their split to drum up attention for The Valley.
Jax’s gesture toward accountability for his many sins leaves much to be desired. He admits that he unleashes his pent-up aggression on Brittany, but also tries to claim that the men in his family taught him “not to show emotion.” As Brittany points out, he has no problem showing that emotion when it’s anger toward her. In a confessional, she tells us that she feels like she’s finally awake: “What was I thinking, staying with him this long?”
Brittany knows all of Jax’s tricks, all his tells, all his patterns. Not since Stassi have we seen someone expose Jax so thoroughly for all his machinations. I was proud of Ms. Kentucky Muffin, who got herself out of a relationship that was no longer serving her and seems willing to reflect on what she got out of a partnership with a man who has never treated her right.
As for Jax, I’m more than a little horrified to find myself feeling bad for him, too. Just a little, tiny bit. 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, and whose only foray into therapy resulted in the therapist getting drunk and spilling his secrets to random people at Los Angeles bars. 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.
This is the real tragedy of The Valley, I think. Jax and Jesse are deeply flawed, and both seem to have at least a passing understanding that they have many things to work on. But neither is willing to step into true accountability. Instead, they put the onus on their (ex-) wives to put up and shut up. Brittany and Michelle’s unwillingness to bear the brunt of their husbands’ shortcomings is cast as a personal failing: “I thought you had such strong family values that you would do whatever it takes to fix this and not abandon it,” Jesse says. Though I have no particular affection for Michelle or Brittany, it’s impossible not to root for them to get far away from their toxic man-children of husbands.
As I write this, filming for Season 2 is well underway. Jax has been served with divorce papers on camera (real television is back!), and Michelle is uploading cryptic Instagram stories that suggest Jesse continues to be a pain in her ass. My biggest question is what “resolve” will look like for these couples: Jesse and Michelle are finalizing a divorce agreement, dating new people, and looking to the future. Jax and Brittany, on the other hand, are still deeply entwined in their businesses and ventures. With children involved, both couples will have to figure out how to coparent.
And then there’s the matter of what will happen with the rest of the group. Will Kristen ever repair her relationships with Janet and Michelle? What’s really going on behind closed doors in Danny and Nia’s house? Will Kristen and Luke last? Will Zack be invited on trips now that he has a boyfriend? Will we ever find out who Michelle was texting behind Jesse’s back? Now that Janet isn’t pregnant, will she find a new excuse to disengage from conversations, or will she be more powerful than ever?
It is a crime that Bravo opted not to give The Valley a reunion to get to the bottom of these issues. A cast with this many newbies needs a bit of hand-holding to learn how to speak their minds, stand in their truths, and move forward. But with the ever-increasing levels of chaos and conflict this group is serving every day, it’s hard to imagine a world where Andy Cohen doesn’t put the cast in the hot seat come Season 2. Until then, let’s give thanks that Vanderpump Rules’ spiritual successor is everything that we hoped for and more. See you next year.