Once upon a time, reality television was a closed circle. Events on the show were confined to the show, and conflicts were dealt with within its universe. Fights were fought on camera, commentary given in confessionals, and loose ends hashed out at reunions. Rinse and repeat.
This is not how things work anymore. Not only are storylines discussed ad nauseam on cast podcasts, interviews, and an entire cottage industry of pundits, social media gives any viewer the ability to give instant feedback to their favorite (or least favorite) reality stars. And the total breakdown of boundaries between fans and people in the public eye means ordinary people deputize themselves as judge, jury, and executioner to dispatch consequences for events that have nothing to do with them in the first place.
In a world like this, what does “accountability” mean? When someone does a bad thing — in this case, Sandoval cheating on Ariana with Rachel — who do they owe an apology to? Who has the right to punish them? And ultimately, who bears responsibility when things go too far? These are the questions that this week’s Vanderpump Rules clumsily tries to address.
The day after last week’s See You Next Tuesday confrontation, Lisa invites Scheana and Lala over for a summit at Villa Rosa. She asks them — the cast’s most prolific podcasters and certainly the two who have created the most content about the affair1 — to take it easier on Sandoval.
While this is happening, Sandoval and Billie Lee are at a “quantum wellness studio,” the most Los Angeles thing I’ve ever heard. I thought they were both getting treatments, but it seems Billie is just here to watch Sandoval pant in a float tank and cry about his isolation. I have not forgotten when Sandoval and Ariana schemed to push Kristen off the show after she clocked their affair, so it’s hard for me to feel bad that the cast is giving Sandoval a taste of his own medicine. But I also believe Billie when she says she was worried Sandoval might have taken his own life last year. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t wind up in a dark place after experiencing unrelenting hatred from thousands of strangers for months on end.2
Back at Villa Rosa, Lisa tells Lala she owes Sandoval grace because Lala’s life is filled with support and Sandoval’s is not. This is odd coming from a woman who told Lala she should have seen the red flags in her textbook #MeToo situation; nonetheless, Lala acknowledges that she hasn’t considered Sandoval’s mental health and is tired of being angry all the time. Scheana, who is famously bad with boundaries but also has been friends with Sandoval longer than anyone else in the group, cries that she risks losing Ariana if she opens the door to him again.
The girls take this energy straight to James and Ally’s party. Scheana fills Ariana in on her SUR back-alley confrontation with Sandoval. She confesses that she misses their friendship, which Ariana dismisses as “not genuine.” Ariana believes that Sandoval made his own bed, didn’t think about anyone else’s mental health when he chose to have the affair, and that anything he says about suicidal thoughts is an “annoying” manipulation. Scheana says nothing, but she’s clearly struggling with how to hold space for two of her longest-standing friends.
Meanwhile, Lala tells Schwartz she’s tired of being a dog in everyone else’s fight. It’s a self-reflective moment from the perpetually furious Lala, who along with James dominated last season’s reunion despite both being peripheral to the Scandoval, and she’s right when she says she needs to learn how to let go of anger for her own sake. Schwartz apologizes to Lala for the way he’s treated her in the past, but seizes the opportunity to jab at Ariana again, citing her “exalted status” and saying he won’t beg for her validation.
Some time after the pool party, Scheana, Brock, James, and Ally grab beers and discuss Sandoval. The consensus is that while they’re committed to Team Ariana, they don’t want to risk Sandoval hurting himself and knowing they didn’t try to reach out. “It could get dark and messy real quick,” Brock says in a rare moment of lucidity.
It feels like we are in a narrative cul-de-sac, mostly because none of these conversations are really honest. Lisa, who will always be just as much of an executive producer as she is a human being, undermines her own narrative by suggesting a trip to her new Tahoe restaurant rather than professional counseling as the antidote to Sandoval’s suicidality. I believe she’s genuinely concerned for him; I also believe she won’t pass up an opportunity to force the group back together. Failing that, she will at least get screen time for another one of her businesses.
Sandoval has suffered at the hands of the fanbase and Lala and Scheana have capitalized off the situation. But the game is the game. He knows how the business of reality television works, and has cited his brand with both Schwartz and Ariana to justify his real-life missteps. He should understand that there will be no narrative room for anyone to hold space for his pain until he goes through at least the performance of remorse, which he stubbornly refuses to do. It’s far too late in the game for him to pretend not to understand the rules of the road.
Schwartz is right that Ariana has reached “exalted” status, but she does not possess the ability to put herself on the pedestal that the fanbase created for her. She’s always had a big ego, but Schwartz never took issue with it before, and it’s convenient for him to pretend his ostracization is her fault, not his. He continues to insist he wasn’t an accessory to the affair, but we watched him try to paint Ariana as a negligent partner last season and make jokes about Rachel’s type being “taken” men. Those who are listening to Rachel’s podcast also know that Schwartz’s apartment was her and Sandoval’s meetup spot.
Lala, who has spent much of her run on Vanderpump dealing with audience vitriol, should understand that there is a fine line to be walked between commentary and incitement. And Scheana, a professional “do it for the plot” reality star, should know by now that she is playing a different game than Ariana, who is more committed to her real life than to the show.
Ariana is not obligated to compromise her boundaries. But she’s off base when she says Sandoval’s suicidal ideation is solely his fault. He started this ball rolling down the hill, yes, but it’s the fanbase who believe themselves entitled to harass him, as though he cheated on them, who ultimately bear responsibility. Nor is it credible for her to act as though she, along with most of the cast, didn’t egg on the harassers.3
This is where Bravo’s lack of commitment to breaking the fourth wall gets frustrating. Reality television has been around for long enough that a big chunk of the audience understands how this all works. They understand that cast trips are inevitabilities set up under false pretenses. They understand that Lisa has a financial stake in not just the Toms but in the continuation of the show. They understand that a show whose cast refuses to film with each other risks falling apart.
But production is muddying the waters just enough so that fans who take the show at face value and aren’t tuning in to Watch What Happens Live or listening to podcasts in their spare time, may just buy into the narrative the cast is trying to produce. Maybe Lisa genuinely does think a trip will be healing. Maybe Ariana’s ego has gotten bigger. Maybe Lala and Scheana’s podcasts are what sent Sandoval into a hole.
In acknowledging some of our reality, but not all of it — Ariana and Katie’s discussion about the Lyft driver who drove Ariana and Sandoval home the night she discovered his affair was gold, and we need the man on a Reddit AMA immediately — Vanderpump is satisfying no one. No one is allowed to say that the reality of making TV with a limited cast requires that cast to be around one another. But the explanations being offered for why the cast needs to reunite just months after the scandal broke aren’t believable either.
Perhaps the real reason Bravo can’t be direct about how we got here is that it would point the finger at us. Who harassed Sandoval into suicidality and Rachel into a mental health facility? The fans. Who would, and did, turn their ire on anyone who dared to say that perhaps death threats from strangers were not an appropriate response to cheating? The fans. Who created the narrative that Queen Ariana has never done any wrong, a narrative that is blatantly ahistorical and ignores the years she spent enthusiastically participating in Sandoval’s misogyny? The fans.
In order to avoid blaming us, this week’s episode took massive liberties in conflating the fan base’s behaviors and attitude with the cast’s behaviors and attitudes, and it’s just not working on any level. And perhaps we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Last calls:
- Ann Watch, Week 4: We didn’t get any Ann this week and I am upset about it.
- We finally got to meet Jo Wenberg this week, who Katie once called “spooky” and Schwartz hilariously describes as “a human being.” We were first introduced to Jo as “Kristen Doute’s crazy friend,” and she apparently put Sandoval, Rachel, and Ariana on a group text immediately after the affair broke to express her affection for all three of them. She also sent Katie a text after her divorce telling her that “Bieber loves you,” then immediately moved in with Schwartz. Wild stuff. She seems exhausting, but so did Kristen, who was nothing if not fantastic television. I’m reserving judgment, but out of loyalty to Katie I am pre-annoyed.
- James chugging cannabis drinks while Lala and Ally discuss his “sobriety” was a hilarious and pitch-perfect bit of editing.
- Not so hilarious? The revelation that James’ “rock bottom” came after an argument with Ally that spurred her to move out of their Burbank home for two days, taking her cats with her. If you just watch the show, maybe this doesn’t seem so bad. But rumors of intimate partner violence have been swirling around James for a while. Last year, a Bravo gossip account alleged that Kristen fled to a friend’s house for a night after James hit her, a story that Kristen confirmed via DM. Last season, Rachel said she considered ending their engagement by packing up all her things and leaving the ring while James was out of the country. She’s since said on her podcast that she hasn’t shared the real reason for the breakup, for fear it would ruin James’ life. Ally recently refuted rumors that she and James had to be physically separated during a fight en route to a MTV Movie Awards afterparty in 2022. All these insinuations paint a disturbing picture, and they only widen the gulf between viewers who are in the know and viewers who are not. The Graham scene that closed out this week suggests that James will be getting a positive edit this season, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how things develop.
- Current and former Vanderpump cast (Scheana, Lala, Kristen, Jax & Brittany, and Stassi) recorded at least 50 podcast episodes between them about the affair and its fallout. ↩︎
- Sandoval, Rachel, and many of their friends, received death threats and online vitriol for months. It got so bad that Rachel’s family called in the FBI and she checked into a mental health facility. This season, Sandoval said that Billie Lee, a transgender woman and former recurring Vanderpump cast, got transphobic hate for remaining his friend. In addition, fans review-bombed Schwartz and Sandy’s, left angry voicemails for Sandoval, vandalized bathrooms, harassed servers, wrote in “Team Ariana” in lieu of tipping, and no-showed reservations booked under “Team Ariana.” ↩︎
- Current and former Vanderpump cast were asked on Watch What Happens Live and other platforms whether the fan reaction had gone too far.
Some felt it had:
Lisa: “Vigilante justice I don’t agree with at all. This aggression can have serious ramifications.”
Schwartz: “The threats, the mob mentality is out of control.”
Jax (on Scheana’s podcast): “We’re getting to the point where somebody [might] hurt themselves.”
But most felt it had not:
Scheana: “They deserve what’s coming to them.”
Lala: “We’re having a heyday, let us have fun.”
James: “When you do outrageous things, expect people to be outraged.”
Ariana: “I don’t see any sort of mob mentality, I see people who are affected by something that happened and who have opinions and they have every right to voice those opinions.”
Katie (on Lala’s podcast): “You [Raquel] deserve what’s coming to you right now.” ↩︎