But protective mommy swans ready to run me down are nothing when compared to the threat of allowing Kristen entrance into a wedding where alcohol will be served. During the brief sit-down between Lisa and Scheana, it is implied that Kristen might cause some trouble on the big day.
I realize that this scene was meant to serve as foreshadowing, but let’s be serious. Can such a thing ever BE constituted as foreshadowing when you’ve invited a mentally unstable lunatic shrewish shell of a deranged person to an event with all the people she genuinely believes have wronged her? Could there really be any other outcome besides total insanity? The only way this could evolve into a situation that would end up striking any breathing and lucid viewer as actually shocking would be if Kristen didn’t throw a fit at the wedding and instead ended up sitting quietly at her table, sipping Pellegrino through a straw, while musing to the nearby swans that she had finally seen the error of her psychotic ways.
She’s still invited to the wedding, but Kristen is lunatica non grata at the rehearsal dinner since it takes place at a location she is now banned from forever. She will instead spend the evening meditating at home, thinking deeply about where things went so wrong for her and which paths she should perhaps have avoided in her tumultuous years. Actually, that’s the choice a normal adult might make. What Kristen plans to do during her banishment is get drunk and make Lisa Vanderpump voodoo dolls, which I hope turn out to be cuter than the bullsh*t tee-shirt line she just started.
At Sur, the party is underway. Shay shows up with his soon-to-be bride, and it’s maybe the first time he hasn’t appeared onscreen wearing a ribbed cotton tank top. Sandoval and his scruff arrive along with Ariana, and I like Ariana so I hope that her vagina appreciated her boyfriend’s shave. Katie and Schwartz are there, as is Jax, which makes sense because it’s a party one invites dear people to attend, and how could one classify Jax as anything if not a loyal and wonderful friend? (Answer: he can also be classified as a vile and damaged misogynist who needs to be toppled like the Ayatollah, lest he gain followers.) And look, I’d love to spend more time discussing his terribleness, but my focus has been pulled by the appearance of James.
James shows up alone because his girlfriend is not welcome anywhere near or around the perimeter of the restaurant where she told her manager to suck a d*ck. Poor James feels sad that his number one teammate is not by his side, and I cannot possibly be the only person watching who thought immediately that James needs to either quickly switch teams or take his balls and go home – or, better yet, to go fleeing to someone else’s home where his girlfriend is not drinking wine from a bottle while trying to coax fake lashes onto a voodoo doll. I could rhapsodize for a century about James’ peculiar romantic choices, but again I find myself getting sidetracked, this time by his outfit. See, James arrived wearing an ultra-low cut tank top with a few long layered necklaces, and perhaps when my kidneys thaw out from the terrifying sight, I can discuss his hair, but I’m just not ready to tackle that sh*t yet.
He and Sandoval go outside to smoke a cigarette and Sandoval informs him that Kristen recently texted him to ask if he wanted to get together to “shoot the sh*t,” as though they are still friends. And while I want to throw myself in front of Sandoval and beg him not to poke Kristen-the-limp-haired-beast, I think his goal in this revelation is weirdly to protect James from Kristen’s stratosphere of crazy. It’s a lovely intention, but I’m thinking James is way too far gone to listen to any of Sandoval’s suggestions and advice, and I’m anticipating that this little bro-talk will be the impetus of what begins the gore I’m expecting to see splattered across Scheana’s cocktail hour.
Please allow the swans flee to safety!
As we move closer to the wedding, the text onscreen starts to alert us as to how impending those nuptials are. The day before, Scheana and her bridal party – and Katie – go to the venue. It’s a beautiful place, and it’s there we meet Danielle, the Wedding Coordinator Scheana found on Instagram. I’m all for social media, but I can’t deny that I might have heard a dun dun dun sound in the distance upon realizing that all of the variables of Scheana’s day rested in the sweaty hands of a woman who might not be all that qualified. But really, should things go terribly wrong at least everyone can drown themselves in champagne and sangria, because there’s a ton of it on the premises, much of it provided free of charge by Lisa Vanderpump’s daughter, Pandora.
Away from the wedding site, James and Kristen go out to lunch and James tells her that the rehearsal dinner was kind of uncomfortable, especially when Sandoval told him about the texts Kristen had been sending. And it was beyond hilarious, this moment, because the second that Kristen heard Sandoval’s name, her head popped up as if attached to a spring on a well-used mattress. Seriously: had she been animated, the reaction would have been accompanied by a sound cue that went boiiiinnnggg. Kristen attempted to insist that she is anything but giddy about the fact that Sandoval has been talking about her to James – though let’s be honest here and call out that Kristen is beyond thrilled that her name has passed through Sandoval’s lips, and maybe nobody who has won a lottery or survived a grave disease has ever looked more pleased than Kristen when she says, “Tom is obsessed with me.”
The thing that should haunt all of us is that she believes that.
James plows forward, though, telling Kristen she should not be sending texts to her ex, especially ones accompanied by emojis that include winks or tongues, and that moment made me feel a real sense of nostalgia for what used to be a simpler time, before texts could be sent on an unhinged whim and before the look on a smiley’s face could be deemed provocative.
“I made it clear that it’s going to take me some time where I don’t go through spells where I give a sh*t,” Kristen explained to her mortified boyfriend, and I found it rather appropriate that this witch of a person used the word “spells.” I also now cannot stop my mind from veering towards imagery of Kristen surrounded by potions and cauldrons and cloaks, and I strongly suggest that anybody who has ever met this girl should begin to lock their doors and their windows and pray for daylight.