Reality television transmogrifies ordinary people into heroes and villains. This metamorphosis is not only necessary for a good story, it makes for a revealing viewing experience. Which cheater is worse? Which toxic couple do you find yourself rooting for? Where do you draw the line between entertaining and irredeemably bad behavior? The flip side of this kind of transformation is that from time to time, in order to keep the narrative going, we are made to listen to people spin fantastical yarns to justify choices we can all see through.
This tension is at the heart of this week’s battle of wills between Ariana and Sandoval, who are each trying to establish dominance over their shared home. Sandoval has reached new levels of delusion, referring to his stint on Special Forces as “penance through pain.” Since his return from New Zealand, he has opened Ariana’s mail to put her license plates on her car (a move that screams toxic passive-aggression) and purchased a white noise machine so Ariana can’t eavesdrop on his classified, top-secret conversations.
He also wants to have a birthday party, which ends up the episode’s main event. But before we get to that, let’s check on the rest of the group.
The dissonance between the reality of produced television and the cast’s reality gives Vanderpump a frenetic tone for the second week in a row. It’s closing time at Pump, another Vanderpump-Todd joint. Pump was last relevant when Schwartz had a panic attack 15 minutes into his first (and last) bartending shift there, which is to say that it was never relevant at all. But because it’s Lisa and Ken’s place, we must sit through a dramatic montage of Pump’s history and listen to Lisa talk about what it meant to her. If nothing else, the whole affair demonstrates that we have progressed past the need for Lisa. She may have taken offense when Jax called Vanderpump Rules his show, but let’s be real — no one was watching for her. Especially as the cast have become parents, it is no longer remotely believable that Lisa knows what is going on in their lives.
Speaking of parenthood, Scheana is grappling with the way her postpartum OCD has made her life smaller; it took almost a year before she felt safe enough to watch Summer Moon by herself. Brock, fresh out of Have You Tried Just Not Being Sad Anymore University, reduces Scheana’s struggle to an “inability to let things go.” Things get a little too real as we watch him antagonize first Scheana, then her mother, then Tori the babysitter (who I think is the girl in the Schwartz-Katie love triangle teased in the season trailer) for being “yes people” who validate Scheana’s feelings too often. My guard has been up with Brock since we learned about his estrangement from his two other children and a past incident of domestic violence, but for Scheana’s sake I hope the man gets his shit together.
Also in this episode, James and Ally discuss their desire for a dog,1 Scheana gets back in the studio, and Ally reads Schwartz’s birth chart, but this is all just filler for the main event: Sandoval’s birthday.
Sandoval wants to throw himself a party, and asks long-suffering Ann to get Ariana’s okay. In a disingenuous show of consideration, he offers to put Ariana up in a hotel for the night, which of course begs the question of why he can’t just have the party at a hotel in the first place. Ariana finds this disrespectful and says she will call the police on her ex and his friends. Ann eventually brokers a compromise in which a small group will be allowed in the house until midnight, but not before the standoff ripples out to the rest of the cast.
Schwartz and Sandoval have an uncomfortable meet that shows just how far their friendship has fallen from their motorcycle-and-sidecar days. The two barely make eye contact: Schwartz is upset that Sandoval made no effort to help Schwartz & Sandy’s get out of the public relations crisis he caused, while Sandoval is upset that Schwartz shaded his tour on Jax and Brittany’s podcast. Sandoval explains that he just had to go on tour because Ariana skipped out on the mortgage and home bills for months, leaving his bank accounts overdrawn. It appears he was telling the truth about the bills, but tours are famously expensive, especially if you are paying all your band members the way Tom is. At best, this explanation feels nonsensical. “Are you going to stick with me or not?” Sandoval asks Schwartz after telling him about the party. “I think I’m going to do what’s best for me,” Schwartz replies. (Spoiler alert: He attends. Obviously.)
At a smoothie date, Lala is taken aback by Ariana’s police threat, and asks if it wouldn’t be easier to just move out. I understand why Lala feels that way — her breakup seemed far more dangerous than Ariana’s, and baby Ocean significantly raised the stakes of potential future violence from Randall — but the projection is undeniable. Ariana has referenced the expense of moving and not wanting to uproot elderly pets, but quickly cops to the fact that she’s holding the line because after Sandoval broke the home, he shouldn’t get to keep it too.
Here’s the thing. Sandoval and Ariana are each trying to be the top dog in Valley Village. Neither wants to give in to the other. And that’s fine! But I could do without all the pontificating. No part of me believes the white noise machine is meant to protect Sandoval’s privacy or that he would rather party at home than at a hotel, such as the Mondrian. At the same time, I’m skeptical that Ariana’s financial future would be compromised if she got a rental. What I do know is that both are extremely well-paid, both are astrologically Cancers (as am I, and we are famously petty), and both want to win. Ariana is entitled to all the revenge she wants, especially just three months out from the breakup, but as a viewer I am not exactly enthused about an entire season of these two trying to get one over on each other.
Despite Sandoval’s mushroom chocolates, the party is a snooze-fest. As James says, “it’s a who’s who — as in, who the fuck are these people?” They appear to be mostly Tom’s bandmates and tech crew, otherwise known as people who are paid to be around him. Somebody named Brett, who I have never once laid eyes on before in my life, complains that Katie “pushed him out of the friend group,” and I am left wondering when exactly he was in. Kyle Chan, who designed Scheana, Katie, and Brittany’s engagement rings, is in attendance. Oh, and Billie Lee is back.
James has stopped by on a fool’s errand: an attempt to extract an apology from Sandoval. Pathologically unable to take responsibility for anything, Sandoval brings up the time in 2013 that James slept with Kristen right after Sandoval had left her for Ariana, who he was rumored to have been sleeping with already. James, intent on proving his maturity, storms out to pee in the bushes. It’s a predictable and exhausting end to the whole affair, and after two off-kilter episodes, one can only hope that the cast is forced together soon so these dynamics will come to a head in a group setting and produce the kind of drama that is actually fun to watch. Until next time.
Ann Watch
Each week, we’ll track poor Ann Maddox’s main duties in what seems like the world’s worst assistant job. This week:
- Conveying to Sandoval that if he has a rowdy party, Ariana “may have to call the police”
- Putting up balloons for Sandoval’s birthday party, which he describes as “baby shower vibes”
Last calls
- Lisa said Pump shut down because the rent was raised to an “untenable” level, but Pump’s landlord has denied these claims and is now suing Lisa and Ken for nearly $1 million over breach of contract and unpaid rent. What’s true? You decide.
- Many thanks to the editor who compiled the dozens of insults the Vanderpump fanbase sent Sandoval’s way. My personal favorite: “Sandoval smells like cheap cologne, wet dog and vodka.”
- Scheana is a consummate reality professional, and ‘Good as Gold’ is a certified bop, but her emo/screamo remix with The 27s? My culture is not your costume, Schea-Shu.
- I am open to the possibility that I am being humorless, but Ariana, a wealthy, beautiful, blonde, white woman, is not the right person to make jokes, no matter how hyperbolic, about the police — I thought we covered this in Season 8.
- A painfully obvious pickup shoot that sets up the return of Graham Cracker/Hippie, the biting labradoodle. In reality television, a pickup shoot refers to footage that is filmed to bridge narrative gaps that emerge after the core story has been edited together. For example, if two cast members fight on camera but make up during off hours, producers may ask them to recreate their reconciliation for the sake of continuity. The infamous Season 2 scene where Schwartz hurls a drink at Katie was a pickup — producers missed the actual drink throw, and the two had to recreate their fight the next day. Poor Katie. ↩︎