There are a lot of ways to watch reality television. Some people act if it is the real world. They hold cast members to the standards they apply to their real lives. They judge the cast by how they would act, what they would say, how they would feel. Their favorites become extensions of their own selves, any criticism a referendum on their own values, any betrayal a personal injury.
It takes all kinds to make a world, and I guess that’s fine. But this approach is not only parasocial and creepy, it is also silly. None of us live in an enclosed, filmed, fishbowl of a world where our vacations are mandatory, our conversations have call times, and from which there is no escape. The genre is at its most entertaining when it is filled with conflict and chaos, but hardly any of us would choose to live like that. It’s more honest, and a lot more fun, to take unscripted television for what it is: a giant social experiment that forces people into dysfunction for our entertainment.
Here’s the thing about experiments: To get results, you have to play by the rules. Otherwise, you’ll be left with a putrid mess. I am not a scientist, and this analogy can only go so far, but my point is that this week’s Vanderpump Rules was the most engaging yet. Finally, blessedly, these people have shown up to do their jobs, and the narrative thaw has begun.
This week, we head to Lake Tahoe, which everyone is still pretending is “Schwartz’s trip.” Katie, ever a good sport, tells Ariana she doesn’t think Schwartz has ever even planned a trip. Obviously, he still hasn’t. But before we go on the trip that Evolution Media planned for Schwartz, we have to attend to the real world.
Ariana and Katie have wisely opted out of cast tripping with their exes, and are dealing with their fair share of shit back home. No, literally — somebody shit on the Something About Her patio. As if that weren’t enough, the West Hollywood permit process is proving arduous. Impending changes to sidewalk zoning mean the patio must be torn out (though, given the poop, this might be for the best). Parts of their building are not ADA-compliant. And every time an inspector tells them to change something, the entire process starts over.
It’s the first behind-the-scenes look we’ve gotten of Something About Her, and I am hungry for more. Two seasons ago, we had to suffer through the Toms’ acid trip (or was it shrooms?) where they tried and failed to come up with a one-sentence mission statement for Schwartz & Sandy’s. Surely we can follow Katie and Ariana meeting with Nancy Meyers’ production designer. Or heisting glasses from the carcass of Pump. Or a little tipple and moodboard. Something (about her). Anything (about her). Please.
Also in the real world, Brock and Scheana shop for bikinis. Brock “Just Get Over It” Davies decides now is the perfect time to needle his wife about her mental health. ScheaShu, if you recall, is dealing with postpartum OCD that aggravates her severe anxiety. She is working toward hiring a nanny, but says that during overnight trips, she will only leave Summer with family. As Scheana tries on the swimsuit version of Kristen’s green dress, Brock snaps that Scheana’s mother has made her “paranoid,” and that he’s “not having your mum around 24/7.” It seems to all be a lot about Brock, when it really should be all about Scheana. After all, she is the one who gave birth to this tiny human and also, she is the one who, you know, has OCD.
When Scheana tells Brock to stop berating her in public, he scoffs, “that’s just optics.” (It’s actually basic decorum, evidenced by the poor salesgirl’s “get me out of here” look.) Scheana leaves, Brock storms after her, and it looks very much like she’s trying to turn off her mic pack while telling him to stop talking, which is probably code for “we did not agree to have this fight on camera.” In any case, if I was forbidden to see my first two children, I would make sure I kept it cute when speaking to the mother of my third about her parenting.
There is only so much room for reality on Bravo, though, and soon we are whisked away to the unreality of Lake Tahoe. Hear that? It’s Alex Baskin breathing a sigh of relief that most of our principals are finally together, caged like animals, forced to fight it out and give us something we can sink our teeth into. But production’s long national nightmare has yet not come to an end. It’s almost funny to watch how hard they’re working to get Sandoval back into the fold, efforts he is working just as hard to undo. “They expect me to grovel at their feet and beg for forgiveness,” he moans of his castmates.
I’ll wait for your eyes to un-roll, because if you have ever watched any reality show, this is very obviously exactly what is expected. I cannot emphasize enough how much a little bit of groveling is the price Sandoval must pay if he ever wants anyone to hear him out. Even Schwartz, in an effort to comfort Sandoval as he cries in the car from the airport, can’t resist (hilariously) reminding him that their friends are “disgusted by your very essence.”
Brock is the first to acknowledge the elephant in the Tahoe house. As obtuse as he is about Scheana’s mental health, he has a very accurate read on Sandoval’s whole deal. “You put a lot of friendships in a very difficult position,” Brock reminds him. “Your feelings are valid, but there are other people involved in this whole thing.”
Sandoval is committed to not getting it. In his mind, the “malicious” things his castmates have said and done, have balanced the scales of justice. “They’re failing to acknowledge how they came after me,” he whines. “This is something we need to mutually move on from together.”
That, of course, is not how any of this works. There is no Newton’s Third Law of Reality Television, where every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the opposing forces cancel each other out, wiping everybody’s karmic slate clean. (Like I said, I’m not a scientist.) What Sandoval is dealing with is what boys and girls in the real world would refer to as “consequences.”
As a veteran of this business, Sandoval knows better. He has seen Jax, the self-proclaimed “number one guy in the group,” come back from sin after sin. How did Jax do it? He groveled. Apologized. Prostrated himself before the group. Talked endlessly about how awful a human being he was, how cruel and selfish and lost. In other words, Jax put on his jester hat and did the dance.
Was it genuine? Of course not. Was it necessary to advance the plot? You bet your ass. His lusty self-flagellation and willingness to sit in front of a person he’d wronged to take whatever punishment they doled out, was the crumb of self-awareness his castmates needed so they could continue to do their jobs. But Sandoval, for all the years he’s spent self-producing and fake crying, seems to think he will get out of this without giving even one inch.
What’s a producer to do? In this case, the answer is to bring in Lisa, the only person left with the power to provide plausible cover to force the crew together. At the demolition site that will become Wolf, Lisa’s new Tahoe restaurant, she offers everyone the chance to swing a sledgehammer at the wall and exorcise some demons. It’s a litany of depressing revelations: “I don’t want to be single at 40,” Schwartz cries. “Should have taken better care of Graham!” James shouts. “Fucking restraining order!” Scheana shrieks, swinging with all her might in a feathered tube top.
Most embarrassing of all is Sandoval, in a Cowboy-Ken-from-the-Barbie-movie-inspired getup, who reels off every insult that has been thrown his way in the last few months: “Cheaters and scumbags! Charles Manson’s son! Worm with a mustache!” Lala, who like the rest of us, is trying not to laugh, suggests Sandoval name something related to his actions. Instead, he bellows, “Lala! James Kennedy! Motherfucking Scandoval!”
Realizing that Sandoval has whiffed on her first softball pitch, Lisa kicks things up a notch at dinner when she instructs James to name one thing he likes about Sandoval. James gets nervous laughter (relatable) and can’t summon up anything besides, “We’re sitting at the same table right now.”
It’s not until post-dinner drinks that Sandoval finally decides to take accountability — excuse me, to do his job and move the plot along. He pulls James aside and says that he just wants to coexist without hostility, and that he and Rachel never meant to hurt anyone.
For those of you keeping score at home, this is still not an apology. It’s a dark day when I agree with DJ James Kennedy, who loves to call women whores even more than he loves marijuana, but he nails it when he points out that so much of this could have been avoided if Sandoval had just sacked up and ended things with Ariana like he so clearly wanted to. In a confessional, Sandoval hints at the truth for the first time when he says the affair was just as much about being with Rachel as it was about “getting out of a relationship that no longer suited me.” But it’s too little, too late, and as James points out, “nothing will ever be the same.” Sandoval says he understands he’s broken James’ trust, finally ekes out a “sorry,” and that they can rebuild their relationship “at your ease,” which of course is not an expression at all.
The conversation feels like a relief, and this is where I have to take some accountability as a viewer. It’s not that I want Sandoval rehabbed and redeemed. I don’t, especially when we know that he recorded Rachel without her consent. Nor do I believe that his one-on-one was borne of anything other than a recognition of the increasing hopelessness of his situation.
But if there is no longer a narrative place for Sandoval on the show, then the show should actually walk away from him. Let’s try something new. Show us how Katie and Ariana are balancing Ariana’s extracurricular opportunities with the necessary work for Something About Her. Show us how Katie and Schwartz repaired their relationship after last season’s disaster. Show us Lala’s family dynamic or Scheana working on her OCD. I would even accept a look at James’ DJ career.
Insofar as production does not seem interested in any of that, there are only a few places this show can go. And there is no part of me that is interested in watching the cast avoid each other forever. I want conflict. I want drama. We won’t get any of that unless Sandoval stops complaining and plays ball. None of this is real anyway, so let’s do it for the plot.
Last calls
- Ann Watch, Week 5: Our queen is back! Without Ariana around, Sandoval has been reduced to asking Ann, a captive audience, to rate his outfits. Sandoval wants to know if his black t-shirt and red track pants will withstand a stabbing or punching. Ann, a jack-o-lantern grimace frozen on her face, manages, “It will hide the blood!”
- Watching Hippie (née Graham Cracker), famously a biter, yap at Ally’s cats made me nervous about the chaos this adoption might sow in the Kennedy-Lewber household. I hope Mr. Banks is okay.
- Sandoval looked like he was checking every price tag in that outdoor supply store. Maybe his bank accounts really are overdrawn. It’s probably for the best, as I cannot think of any person who should be kept further away from axes and knives. Also, why is he calling Rachel’s publicist? Leave her alone, get a job, etc.
- Schwartz ordered tequila and Coors in Tahoe, so I guess his period of being sober curious is over.
- At the start of this season, I said I was not interested in watching the battle over Ariana and Sandoval’s house, but I’ve changed my tune. Ariana explains she is open to some resolution with Sandoval as long as she is compensated for all the custom furniture and fixtures that she “mostly owns,” and to that end, she is going to catalogue every item in the house. I am nothing if not nosy, and if Bravo won’t show us the poop on Something About Her’s patio, they need to at least make a supercut of the dollar value of every one of Sandoval and Ariana’s possessions, down to that massive Lego portrait that the artist has apparently offered to remake to feature only Ariana. I am begging. This is the entertainment I tune in for every week.