Despite endless squabbles over authenticity and who’s being “real,” all reality television is a stage — and all its stars are performers. Nothing in this genre is truly real; in no world do two people have a fight on Monday and then get summoned to a scheduled, filmed debrief on Tuesday. Every reality television scene is a contrived setup,
But that hardly matters. Even when cast members are covering up how they really feel, the truth leaks out from behind the artifice they bring to cameras. As long as the emotional stakes are real and people are willing to follow through on the grenades they throw, the television will be compelling.
The Valley is chock-full of real emotional stakes, but the cast flails when it comes to finishing what they start. That reticence has made the difference between an excellent season and a perfect one, but the delta between how they want us to perceive them and the bits of their true selves on display has made for fascinating television anyway.
Let’s start with the (straight) men, who spend the bulk of their screen time this episode assembled at a men’s rights convention led by the Lallys’ sinister marriage counselor-turned Jesse’s life coach in the backyard of his divorce palace. Scott runs “men’s groups” for “issues that men are going through,” because only men can understand each others’ problems. Zack is the luckiest guy in the world for being excluded from this.
The purpose of this summit is to “clear lists,” Scott’s New Age woo-woo term for getting rid of resentments by putting your hand on the chest of a man that you’re angry at, looking him in the eyes, and telling him “what he did and how it made you feel.”
“I invite any man to call on another man and clear a list,” Scott intones. “We are brothers.”
Far be it from me to mock male vulnerability. If men were even 10% better at communicating their feelings to themselves and each other, this world would probably be at least 25% less violent. But as Jesse clears his list with Luke, and Danny and Jason clear lists with each other, and Jax puts on yet another one-man show to try and convince us that he wants to change, I couldn’t help but laugh. Rather than using this exercise to genuinely talk things out, each man doubles down on the performance they’ve been shilling all season.
First up is Jesse, who says Luke’s blind loyalty to Kristen last season made him feel “angry and aggressive” but that he’s willing to let the resentment go. He would like us to believe that he’s forging a real friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Mariposa, but it’s abundantly clear that Jesse came into this season determined to forge alliances and take the attention off his bad behavior — and it’s worked. There is no one better to have in your corner than Kristen Doute, who will doggedly defend gropers and abusive men as long as they are nice to her. Luke is an extension of that alliance, and I do not believe for one second that Jesse respects him any more than last season when he was making fun of Luke’s non-LA style and (in Jesse’s mind) beta status.
Then comes Jax, who rattles off a well-rehearsed list — he doesn’t want to be angry anymore, he takes his feelings out on everyone else, he’s having a rough time. Scott tells Jax that he’s modeling growth for men everywhere, the ones who have little boys trapped inside them who are afraid to cry. It might be a nice moment if we hadn’t heard this exact spiel a million times before, and the only real information we learn from this speech is that Jax is still convinced he can make himself seem like a good guy who is trying to grow. Sad!
Finally, Jason and Danny take the stage. Jason is actually honest, and says that he’s not ready to let things go yet but wants to keep working on their friendship. Danny, who is great at apologizing for things he said when he was drunk but not so great at not getting drunk in the first place, says sorry for calling Janet a snake at Jax’s Basement Bar. Jason correctly points out that he’ll take the apology, but that Danny’s words mean nothing if his behavior doesn’t change.
Then, something interesting happens. Perhaps because he’s surrounded by the warm embrace of other straight men, Danny finally tells the truth. Jesse explains to Scott that the group’s problem isn’t with Danny’s drinking, but that he’s hiding the extent of his drinking and that that deception is what gives everyone pause. Scott asks Danny point-blank if he makes a habit of buying a bunch of drinks at once while pretending he’s just gotten one. Danny hems and haws, but finally admits that yes, he does.
It’s a beautiful lead-in to the girls’ dinner, where Nia, Michelle, Janet, and Kristen puts on the performance of a lifetime. Things coming into the dinner are tense. Janet and Nia are at loggerheads, and apparently so are Michelle and Kristen.
Michelle believes Kristen has purposely brought Jenna Willis, who used to date Aaron and is eager to relay her story to Jesse, to group gatherings to antagonize her. Zack takes credit for this in a confessional, but it’s beyond belief that Kristen didn’t have something to do with this, given her grudge against Michelle for — checking my notes here — being upset that she spent last season determined to expose Michelle’s infidelity.
As we learned from Miami Girl, Kristen has a predilection to encourage people to start drama under the guise of telling the truth. In any case, any reality training Zack has came from Mother Doute. Those two share a brain. As a viewer, I love it. I understand why her castmates do not. And it seems Kristen’s lost her mojo. Instead of daring the group to have a problem with it as she would have in her heyday, she flaps her hands and squawks, “WHO CARES? What does that have to do with me?” before fleeing the table, Janet-style.
Meanwhile, Janet, who is toasted on margaritas and infuriated by Kristen’s refusal to “be accountable” — the favorite phrase of reality stars everywhere — decides to insert herself into this battle that has nothing to do with her, calling Kristen a “sniper from the side.” Nia, who has even less to do with any of this, takes this opportunity to start crying. “It’s all just so intense,” she whimpers into Kristen’s ear before fleeing herself.
Look. Janet is a Karen. She’s anointed herself judge and jury of the group, and tries to hide her clear intent to produce a storyline under the banner of social justice and getting redress for Danny’s victims. Janet’s assessment of the Booko-Sanchez dynamic is ultimately correct — Nia’s insistence that Danny only had “two seltzers” last week was comical — but she’s a blunt-force instrument who lacks the finesse that a more seasoned reality television practitioner would deploy to show-not-tell the audience that Gropey McGee is a problem drinker whose wife runs interference for him. The fact that Scott got Danny to admit in seconds what she hasn’t been able to accomplish all season long should be at least a bit embarrassing to Ms. Caperna.
Nia’s performance is more subtle, and much more effective. As a former Miss USA and Christian tradwife, she’s clearly aware of the power of her own beauty and femininity. All season long, soft-spoken, doe-eyed Nia has positioned herself as the poor victim of bullying to deflect from her very real obfuscation of Danny’s drinking. Her disgusted reaction to Janet’s declaration that Danny’s groping was “horrible” last week was the closest her mask has come to slipping. (I hope it doesn’t have to be said, but yes, groping two women in one night is horrible.) Crying because someone is yelling near her is the feather in her cap — if you can’t win the argument that your husband is not actually a drunk who gropes queer women, change the conversation to how you’re a damsel in distress who is being attacked.
Both women are triggered by the other’s act. Nia sees Janet as a hostile invader, someone who is here to wreck the safe space she’s created with her sex pest of a husband and their billion children for the sake of a storyline. Meanwhile, Janet is infuriated by Nia’s ability to maneuver and control a narrative, a reminder that she lacks the tools to crack the veneer that anyone with discernment can see through. Watching these two spar is nothing if not a fascinating clash between two modalities of white woman tears.
I’m still waiting for a real blowout between them, but it looks like it will never come. The group jets off to Maui, where Luke plans to propose to Kristen. In the hotel pool, Janet apologizes to Nia for yelling at her and blames it on the alcohol. Nia, on-message as ever, sneers, “That early in the day?” It’s a masterful deflection that creates the impression that Danny’s drinking is the problem and not 1) the things he does while drunk and 2) his subsequent refusal to attenuate his drinking in order to avoid those outcomes, but if Janet hasn’t figured out how to express that at this point, she never will.
Still to come on the remainder of this season: Kristen drives Luke to madness and tears, Jax compares Danny to Ted Bundy, and Luke makes Mariposa his fiancee. Will Janet ever land the plane? Will Danny have a drunken outburst? Will Nia be pushed so far that she starts defending Danny’s groping? Only time will tell.