Vanderpump Rules Recap – 12/28/15

Now it’s time for Kristen and Jax to meander their way through a bar filled with people, none of whom are recorded asking, “Why do you have a microphone shoved into your cleavage?” The guys are all actors or models and there’s one guy who is twenty-four and Kristen says hello to him against the bar and then grabs his face and kisses him and I can only hope that somewhere the guy’s friends are deleting his number from their phones or preparing him for the witness protection plan.

And just when I thought that there could be no worse twosome than Kristen and Jax, Lala and James slither their icky way onto the show for really the first time all night. They hug hello because she’s done with being mad at him just because he f*cked someone else (someone she has to work with and see every day) and she tells him she doesn’t hold grudges (because she’s a moron, and on that one I speak from experience) and she calls him “my love” and I’m sort of hoping that this entire scene is a really bad dream. It only gets worse when James has but one small request for Lala: that she not flirt with Jax. It makes him so angry because he knows that he’s just so much better than Jax and a small smile flashes over Lala’s face as she realizes that James is jealous when it comes to her and other guys and all of this is shaping up to be a very healthy relationship.

Then Kristen comes into SUR and the entire restaurant doesn’t spontaneously implode – so bravo to the structural team who built the place – and she and Katie sit outside and have a drink just like they used to do before Kristen was asked to leave the place in disgrace. Kristen tells Katie that she is looking to apologize to Ariana for all those times she blamed the breakup of her terrible relationship squarely on the girl – and, you know, for the detailed death threats she sent her way and those bruises caused by all the times Kristen shoved needles into her Ariana voodoo doll. Kristen realizes that maybe it’s a little too late to right her wrongs, but she’s going to try. She heads right over to the garden bar where Ariana is blessedly surrounded by bottles she could smash and use as a weapon at a second’s notice and she launches immediately into her mea culpa. Kristen explains to her blank-faced nemesis that she was very selfish back then and she didn’t mean to have immature meltdowns or to say cruel things to Ariana or to wish that Ariana was killed by a plane or a train or really any mode of transportation. Ariana does not react to Kristen’s shocking eloquence with anything resembling gratitude or even surprise. She is done with this woman. It’s all fine and good that she’s apologizing now, but Kristen was evil to Ariana and made everything that was already awkward absolutely f*cking miserable and I think it’s great that Ariana is listening to Kristen’s apologies and not actually forgiving her. She might so far have behaved rather humorously all season long, but I think Ariana might be my new hero. Suck it, Spiderman!

Speaking of Ariana, Sandoval’s mother adores her. It’s a meeting of the minds between these two no-nonsense ladies and there is an ease to their interactions that I have experienced myself a few times when I met some of the parents of the people I have cared about and there’s something quite nice about that kind of dynamic. Also, it’s very worth noting that Sandoval’s mother all but calls Kristen a lunatic and tells Ariana that she has put up with a lot of bullsh*t the crazy one has tossed her way. Validation is always appreciated, but Ariana is still struggling with the fact that some of her closest friends are even deigning to associate with a person who has been so f*cking hurtful to her for so long.

We have now been away from Schwartz for far too long because we have been forced to go swimming in Kristen’s rivers of insanity – which I hear she pees in – so I’m thrilled to be back with our favorite male model as he gets abdominal muscles painted across his stomach. The guy needs to eat strictly Paleo, do some sit-ups, and repeat “Sugar is the devil” sixteen times a day and he’ll be good to go in about a month. Katie stops by to properly ogle her boyfriend and to tell him that she wants Kristen to accompany all of them on the Jax and Sandoval Birthday Tour, to which Schwartz rightfully responds that Kristen is still a liability to Sandoval, to Ariana, and to mankind in general. (Okay, I threw in the mankind part, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate.)

Later that day, a bunch of our SURvers show up to watch Sandoval and Ariana perform in the diary show. Even James and Lala are there and I think it’s entirely possible that Lisa shut down her own restaurant just so her entire staff could bear witness to a theatrical event that weirdly mirrors one of my longstanding nightmares in which the journal I kept in high school is read to the masses from a stage. Ariana comes up and we find out the riveting information that her college dorm was crammed with Wiccans and lesbians. Then Sandoval raps some sh*tty lyrics that I hope he wrote a very long time ago and everybody laughs good-naturedly about how terrible it all is except for James, who is staring at Sandoval like he has just seen a superstar with whom he should definitely write his next song.

After it’s all over – the bad lyrics, the flaunting of the ass tattoo – Jax invites Lala to go get a drink with him and Lala tells him that she’d love to go but that he really needs to stop looking so great all the time because it makes it difficult on her. I get it, sweetheart. It’s very hard to hold oneself back from leaping atop the worst guy in the whole world, but it’s impressive that she’s restraining herself so she can keep herself available for the worst guy in the whole universe. Yes, James comes over just then and the look in his eyes upon seeing Lala and Jax together is like someone took every sociopath from a Bret Easton Ellis book and shoved them into a blender and ended up with this furious and scary concoction. Sensing he needs to piss on something to mark his territory like my dog did with the Christmas tree skirt, James all but licks Lala’s cheek to stake his claim. It’s sort of repulsive, as is the way Lala tells Jax that he needs to start kissing her in front of James to get back at him. And as for Brittany, neither Jax nor Lala seem to give a sh*t about her at the very instant when she is bubble wrapping every single one of her belongings in an effort to move across the country to live in close proximity to these people.

It all ends this week with more unpleasantness. Back at Ariana and Sandoval’s apartment, Jax explains that he doesn’t want James joining the Birthday Tour but he would very much like Kristen to be there. To such a ridiculous suggestion, Sandoval quite properly loses his mind, especially when Katie attempts to equate his refusal to allow his ex to come to his birthday with Stassi refusing to allow Katie to have any friends besides her. Sandoval is right here. He is not stopping anyone from hanging out with the woman who almost caused him to chew his own femur off just to get away from her. There are no ultimatums being handed out like orange Tic Tacs. But he thinks it’s very possible that the rest of his friends have amnesia for even suggesting that Kristen join them for what’s supposed to be a happy experience and I think back now to some of those warnings posted on that church’s sign and I’m wondering if the first visual clue of the End of Days is a woman in a romper who keeps insisting that she is as calm as could be.

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.