Back at SUR, Lisa calls a meeting and James is concerned that it’s because he’s been behaving disgustingly, but shockingly this is not all about him. Instead, Lisa tells her (onscreen) staff that she needs them to be there for the charity event and they all look more than happy to do their part except for James. See, James has a lot on his mind lately and there’s no excess room in there to care about helping kids far less privileged than he has ever been. I’m really starting to lose hope that this cast is turning things around like a summer’s day in winter and that thought gained a little bit of momentum when Lisa attempts to explain to Sandoval that he really needs to be prepared for his upcoming meeting and his blank face might as well have signaled a thundercloud to pass overhead and rain rejection letters down from the stormy sky.
Then Scheana and Katie meet in the back and talk about how Scheana and Shay are heading to therapy and how maybe they should be nice to Lala, but they can’t come up with a consensus about whether to welcome her into their collective bosom or hiss at her when she walks by, so they table the discussion for another day.
At the bar, James announces to the guys that he’s off to go pick up the rest of his stuff from Kristen’s house and Jax tells him that he just saw her and they went to boxing class together earlier in the day. Just the idea of the girl he hates most touching gloves with the guy he hates most makes James’ blood curdle like mine does when I see him in low cut tank tops. Jax also manages to drop that Kristen has a date coming up and the two guys begin to snipe at one another and watching it is like stumbling across a Battle Royale fought by two toddlers. These guys are so infantile and such d*cks that I almost can’t believe that there are two of them – and that Kristen nailed both.
And speaking of Kristen, she greets the piece-of-sh*t-son-of-a-bitch wearing a little tank top and teeny tiny denim shorts that show off her labia because she doesn’t care about him at all and she makes sure to pour herself a gigantic glass of wine before he arrives. The conversation between them is as compassionate and gentle as you’d expect from people this horrible and James starts by bringing up how messed up it is that she hung out with Jax earlier and that Jax was the one who told him everything. Kristen’s reaction to hearing this comment is a smile of pure satisfaction because, remember, she is a shell of a broken human lady who enjoys watching other people experience pain. But it’s not like James is any better. He tells the girl he claimed to love that he wishes the next guy who lands her luck and that he won’t miss her because he’s been thinking about Lala and not her. Then he tells her she’s wretched and she tells him that he’s going to end up getting fired from SUR like she did and he responds by chortling that she will never get married and, if she does, she’ll end up divorced and she has nothing going for her but a stupid t-shirt line and she pretends to stay calm while cooing to him, “You’re so upset right now.” And the thing is, both of them are absolutely correct. They are describing one another perfectly and if they weren’t each so loathsome, they could maybe be actual soul mates. It all eventually ends with Kristen grinning triumphantly when James brings up her date with a guy named Alex who’d better start running now and James walks out of the apartment, first stopping to hock a loogie on her door and shouting, “Bye, slut!” down the hallway and I would like my regular brain back now please because just visiting Crazy Lane is f*cking exhausting and soul-depleting.
Up next is The Tom Show. They show up to Pandora and Jason’s office and they both look cute. Both guys are sweating as they explain that they would like to champion the sangria brand as Brand Ambassadors and Sandoval is the one who can’t seem to put together the words to make a sentence, but one he does manage to construct results in him volunteering to work for nothing. The guys talk in circles and say things like, “I’m in!” to offers of nothing and they have almost no answers to any questions and I think the stereotype that male models are idiots just gained a wee bit more momentum. Then they accept a job that comes with absolutely no salary and walk out of the office more confused than when they entered it.
Inside Jax’s apartment where there are a few bikes on the wall, a huge mounted TV, and a well-worn futon, he and Brittany sit down to talk. He tells her that he and Lala had drinks together – that she asked him to hang out – and that he told Lala that he and Brittany had never broken up, which is kind of exactly the opposite of what happened. Then he makes sure that Brittany knows how much he cares about her and that she should definitely move in with him after professing to the masses that such a thing would never happen.
And now it’s the day of the Youth Dinner and Scheana is excited and impressed by how giving her boss is while Sandoval is in a tizzy behind the bar because the meeting didn’t go well. I think it’s pretty hilarious that he blames Schwartz for why things didn’t work out when he was the one stammering away. As is typical, Ariana listens to her boyfriend complain and remains calm and it’s nice to see what happens when there is one very stable person in a relationship. In another part of the restaurant, Katie sets up for the dinner, Ken shows up with Giggy, and Lala and Jax bond over how much of a jerk James is because he spit on Kristen’s door and they know that because Kristen called to tell Jax about it while the spit was still all drippy. Now Jax would like James to apologize to Kristen for impersonating a mentally incompetent caveman and Lala thinks it might be quite a while until James gets to tell her that she’s the prettiest girl in the world again.
What’s this? Sandoval and Ariana are fighting! They are fighting about something that they’re pretending is actually a fight about drinks they’re making and, no matter if Ariana’s totally wrong here, I want Sandoval to stop what he’s doing and apologize to his girlfriend because he knows damn well what the other women he has been with are like and he can’t lose this one.
The kids from the charity arrive next and they look fantastic and they’re beautifully dressed and so excited to be there. Fruity virgin cocktails are passed out to them and Lisa introduces the group to the servers and to her dog. The SUR staff is welcoming but it’s probably Scheana who is the most impacted by the gratitude she sees before her and it’s hard not to sit back and smile and hope that the entire night goes off as perfectly as it is right now.
But all of that joy goes right out the window the moment Peter approaches Sandoval in front of Ariana to invite him to attend a guy’s only weekend in Vegas. Heteronormative activities fuck everything up, thunders Ariana, and I’m kind of surprised that she’s turning into kind of a pill before my eyes and that anyone on this show used a word that has more than three syllables and I’d really appreciate cutting back to the appreciative kids gathered around a table surrounded by twinkle lights. Unfortunately, we end up in the kitchen where Jax confronts James about spitting on Kristen’s door and then Jax asks Young James, “Aren’t you tired of saying you’re sorry all the time?” and I laughed harder than I have all day. James doesn’t laugh, though. He is furious and he hates Jax and he wants to remind Jax that he’s fifteen years older than he is (which doesn’t really matter in this conversation, but it’s nice that he knows how to do math) and their voices rise louder and louder until Lisa busts into the kitchen to shut them the f*ck up. Neither assh*le will close his mouth because each one is a selfish moron who believes that the other person is not agreeing with him simply because he hasn’t shouted loudly enough yet.
“Just stop it, okay?” Lisa hisses to James like the true Jackie Collins heroine she was born to be. “Go out there and realize how bloody lucky you are.” And James retreats and tells Lisa he’s sorry because apparently he’s not tired of having to say he’s sorry all the time and Jax is still carrying on the conversation. He apologizes to Lisa too before he somehow calls SUR “my restaurant” and I’m disappointed that she didn’t knock his teeth out.
It will be a cigarette sucked down in the alleyway that will calm James down after experiencing such lunacy. But it might need to be a bolt of lighting Mother Nature heaves my way to level out my own heart rate after watching these people attempt to destroy themselves and one another while a microphone is strapped to their chests.
Next week, the guys head off to Vegas – so the girls do the only thing they can do after being left behind like they’re spinsters: they tongue the sh*t out of one another, record it, and send it to their boyfriends.
True love is so f*cking sweet.
Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon. Check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.