After a stellar first season, The Valley cast delivered a sophomore follow-up that was uneven at best. The absence of local terrorist Jax Taylor, though necessary and in Brittany and Cruz’s best interests, highlighted just how much the rest of this cast does not quite have the sauce to pull off what he can.
This is not really a compliment to Jax, the person. The traits that make him good at reality television are ones we run from in real life: He has no bottom, no loyalty, no shame. He will embarrass anyone and everyone around him and expose their secrets for the sake of television. He will hammer someone, over and over, hoping to get a reaction that will be captured on camera.
Nor was this season by any means weak. Though Janet failed to break through Nia and Danny’s iron fortress, we still learned a lot about our cast. But Jax’s wrecking-ball approach in the finale revealed just how far we have to go.
We spend the episode wrapping up every conflict to the best of the editors’ ability. First, the former Lallys have yet another sitdown that feels like foreplay in which they decide to try and be friends. Jesse puts on the performance of a lifetime, wiping away fake tears while snuffling that he believes that Michelle did not cheat on him with Aaron and claiming to take full accountability for his part in their breakdown. Michelle makes a big show of inviting Jesse to her “zen” finale party that he is contractually obligated to attend, and he jokes that he should wear his ayahuasca beanie from last season. They even hug.
But by the zen party, Michelle is upset with Jesse for not asking once about her mother’s health. And with footage from the reunion revealing that Michelle accuses Jesse of offering to eat out a client and Jesse accuses Michelle of infidelity, it’s safe to assume the Lallys are doing worse than ever.
We touch down with Kristen at Brittany’s to discuss Luke’s above-average sperm count and Kristen’s grief over being labeled “infertile” by her doctor’s office. “I don’t know if this is ever going to happen for me,” she sniffs. (Happily, Kristen and Luke have welcomed baby Kaia Lily to the world, who will hopefully not grow up to defend sex pests just as ardently as her mother.)
There’s also a tantalizing look into Benji and Zack’s relationship. Benji, who has had approximately two minutes of screen time this season but has managed to make them count, reveals that his ex left him and that he was very much still in love and heartbroken. Benji says he wants to move forward, while Zack tells us in a confessional that he’s hoping for wedding bells. A rebound relationship or one with a future?
The big showdowns don’t occur until the zen party. Janet sidles up to Nia to announce that she’s here if Nia wants to get anything off her chest. It’s a pleasant switch-up from last season’s finale when Janet refused to engage with Kristen, but it sputters out into nothing when Nia acts like everything is okay while telling us in a confessional that she’s done with Janet and that her actions are “unforgivable.” Nia tells on herself every time she acts like criticizing her husband for groping women is a bigger transgression than the groping itself. But just as big a sin, at least in the context of this show, is refusing to engage when invited to. Say it to Janet, Nia!
Then there’s Janet (and kind of Scheana and Michelle) versus Kristen and Zack. Scheana, a consummate professional, has come to this party to work, and corrals Zack to ask why he’s spreading the rumor that she and Janet were the ones to bring around Jenna of used-to-date-Michelle’s-new-boyfriend-Aaron-and-also-once-slept-with-James-Kennedy-while-he-was-with-Kristen fame.
Zack and Kristen launch into a tirade about how Janet is trying to destroy Danny’s reputation, and Kristen spits that Janet has been the ringleader of this entire summer. I have to agree with the ringleader bit — I cannot stress enough how it was Danny who destroyed his reputation — but even so, it’s not Janet’s fault that nobody else on this cast carried their weight this season. Kristen apologizes-but-not-really for calling Janet a whore and threatening to knock her out by shouting that she says “colorful shitty things when mad,” which is certainly true but is an embarrassing excuse past 40 years old.
I have nothing more to say about this fight. Kristen’s refusal to let the mouse go over a feud that she started last season is exhausting. Janet’s overreaction and refusal to own her part in spreading the late-term miscarriage narrative are exhausting. I blame Kristen for all of this more than Janet, because as the reality elder in the situation, she should know better than to drag out the world’s most boring conflict. Regardless of whose fault it is, I just pray that we do not have to watch one more season of their sniping.
(An aside: I love Zack, but his continued insistence to Brittany that Janet is as dangerous as her abusive and violent ex is probably why she isn’t more loyal to him. This glimpse of his drunken meltdown paired with his Kristen-like tendency to hyperbolize makes me wonder if there is more to his alleged off-camera comments about Janet and Jared Lipscomb than we know about.)
The centerpieces of this episode are, of course, the final Cartwright-Cauchi conversation and Jax’s final attempt to wallop Daddy Darko. After their disastrous confrontation over alimony and custody and coparenting, the former Cauchis sit down for what could be their final on-camera scene.
Jax claims to be hurt that Brittany divorced him while he was in “rehab.” Brittany, in yet another stunning show of vulnerability I didn’t know she was capable of, says that her meeting with the divorce lawyer where she shared Jax’s rage texts was a lightbulb moment for her: “I have to do it now, because if he gets out and I see him every day I’m not going to to be able to do it.” It was the lawyer’s reaction that made her understand she needed to get out. Though I’ve never been a particular fan of Brittany’s approach to this medium, the way she’s bared it all this season has won me over. The woman is a star.
When Brittany asks Jax if he’s going to sign the divorce papers, he goes full mask-off and sneers, “I’m going to wait until the last minute. Just because. Just because.” Brittany calls him a narcissist, bemoans that she’s going to have to spend the next few decades with him, and then Jax stalks off in a huff.
It’s fantastic work from them both. Brittany continues to bleed for this show in a way she never has before, all the ugly, thorny, difficult parts of untangling from a partner who is no good for you but whom you still love on full display. She feels like the only member of this cast who isn’t constantly thinking about how they’ll come off on camera, unafraid to admit the kind of thing that will doubtless get her bashed online by people who don’t understand the depths of her trauma bond. Perhaps it’s because Brittany and Jax’s relationship has never really existed outside of the cameras, but the way they both seem to need to have their most difficult conversations on camera produces the kind of electric television that is why I watch Bravo.
I can’t say the same for Nia and Danny. Both are making a huge show of not drinking at this party, though Danny’s grumble that he’s had “seven waters with lemon” reads like a glaring admission that Daddy really does need a drink. (Nor do I believe that he’s totally sober — after all, he’s already admitted he sneaks alcohol.)
Regardless, he’s certainly more sober than Jax, who’s arrived ready to fight after working overtime all episode to lay the groundwork for this final confrontation. Gathering all the straight men on the show (sans Danny) at his townhouse, Jax claims he’s had to call Nia multiple times to pick Danny up from “his” “bar,” that she storms in yelling every time, and that his “business partners” say they’re going to get sued over Danny’s continued bad behavior.
Do I believe his “business partners” said that? Not really, if they got into business with Jax. Do I believe that Nia, who has already shown herself to be Danny’s mommy and manager, has to collect her drunken husband from his nights out with Jax? Absolutely. Jax has no room to act superior to Danny — I laughed out loud when he said Danny shouldn’t judge anyone without a clean slate of his own — but he has always seen other shitbags clearly due to being a massive shitbag himself.
At the zen party, Jax comes out swinging, telling Danny he’s a terrible drunk who’s been kicked out of bars multiple times for feeling up women. (“Once!” Danny retorts. “I dealt with that!”) Jax accuses Danny of living in a fairytale world and says he and Nia are committed to looking perfect all the time, claiming they’ve said off-camera that they’re “protected.” In retaliation, Danny drops the big news that Jax sleeps with the employees at his bar. This is a little like if Zack revealed that Kristen is messy. We know, dude.
The most interesting bit of this conversation happens after Jax storms off. As Danny vents to Nia, she pulls at him anxiously: “That was on camera. It’s right behind you.” He looks at her like she’s crazy: “We’re on camera right now. There’s a camera right here, there’s a camera right here. I had three kids all day today while you got your glam squad. I am trying to keep it together. I’m hanging on by a thread.” And just as she’s done all season, Nia shushes him into submission before he says or does something she doesn’t want on tape.
This is the second time editors have included footage of Nia reminding Danny to watch himself around the cameras, and the I-can’t-remember-what-time we’ve seen her perform for them. It’s also a reminder of the simmering resentment Danny has about the demands of multiple children and Nia’s desired lifestyle, fueling his longstanding desire to move to Santa Clarita.
With the caveat that we don’t actually know these people, only what the editors show us about them, it seems more clear than ever that the Booko-Sanchez’ whole deal is a fuse just waiting to blow. What will emerge from the rubble is yet TBD, but I’m willing to bet money that there’s a trail of harassed women in Daddy Darko’s wake who we simply have yet to hear about.
Jax’s true motivation isn’t justice or redress, so he doesn’t deserve praise for his Danny fixation. But I do understand his frustration. Reality television is an ensemble medium. It must be maddening to have your whole life raked over the coals while other cast members collect a paycheck on the back of your humiliation without sacrificing anything themselves. Worse still if members of your cast construct a false image they profit from while others bleed for the show, inviting all the attendant public judgment and condemnation. Dare I say it’s reminiscent of Lala’s beef with Ariana in last season’s Vanderpump Rules finale and then reunion?
Yes, Jax made his own bed by being a loathsome human being. No one should feel sorry for him. That doesn’t change that Danny is a sex pest with a problematic relationship to alcohol, nor that Nia is working overtime to keep his uglier bits off camera. It took ten years for Tom Sandoval to be laid so bare nobody could deny who he was. It won’t take nearly that long for Danny.
With that, the season ends. Jax isn’t returning next year, and I wonder what will become of this cast. Will they rise to the occasion in his absence? Can they learn how to handle both the conflict and the resolution these shows require, or will we get another season of fights that half-sputter out and go nowhere because no one wants to go to the gutter? Only time will tell.
The reunion looks better and more dynamic than most of the season proper, no doubt due to Andy Cohen’s experienced hand. While I won’t have time to recap these last three episodes, you can follow my takes on TikTok. It’s been fun — see you all next season, Vallerinas!