Vanderpump Rules Recap – 2/15/16

As the next morning dawns, Stassi is feeling good and who better to turn to for advice and positive reinforcement about how to be healthy than Kristen, who I like to think of as Stassi’s fairy godmother so long as the fairytale begins at a bar and ends with someone bleeding. The two are drinking Red Bull and vodka before noon because both of them have such great lives and Kristen proclaims out loud that’s she’s really fun after already telling herself that she’s pretty seven times in the bathroom mirror. Know what’s not so pretty? Listening to a woman in her thirties call a twenty year old’s party “stupid” while claiming to be thrilled that she wasn’t there when the real bone of her contention lies in the idea that Lala might have had sex with the worst guy in the universe who Kristen decided was The One for a while. Can it get sadder? Why, yes – it can! As Stassi tells her new sage about how she has reached a point in her life (the sludge at the bottom of the barrel) where she can finally let things go, Kristen supports her and tells her that she is doing great! She is lining up her stepping-stones to get to Katie! She is working her way up the totem pole! They can all be best friends again like nothing ever happened! Sure, Kristen slept with Jax while he was with Stassi and lied to her for a year about it. Okay, Stassi smacked Kristen across the face in public and told her that she is the stench that rises off the trash a homeless man took a piss on. Fine, Stassi refused to speak to Katie out of the blue. They can overcome, my friends! One day soon they will be sitting all together on some couch in some apartment and they will talk sh*t about Scheana – cause let’s face it, Scheana’s never getting asked to sit with them for good and we all know that Stassi’s studied Mean Girls like some of us have studied Freud.

And in the most homoerotic car ride of all time, Schwartz and Sandoval sing along to Sandoval’s band’s music before turning their attention to their upcoming meeting with Pandora and Jason. Now, I might have missed something, but these guys have not yet been hired to shill sangria, right? They just keep going to meetings about maybe working for them where they make fools out of themselves? Sandoval is determined that this meeting will be different. He will not let Schwartz monopolize the conversation! It’s time for Pandora and Jason to understand his “vibe” and I for one am already giggling. But it looks like maybe Sandoval doesn’t need to worry about Schwartz saying too much because it turns out that Schwartz is not really interested in working for the liquor company. He’s still doing okay modeling and he enjoys castings and he doesn’t need a pesky job getting in the way of him making sporadic money. Sandoval knows that Katie will flip the f*ck out upon hearing that Schwartz is choosing to ignore a job that might lead to some stability, but Schwartz thinks that she’ll understand and I no longer have high hopes for this couple’s future or for the possibility that they will ever have sex again.

Inside of Sur, Scheana tells Lisa that she really believes that Stassi’s latest apology is genuine. Lisa’s response is to caution Scheana about Stassi’s motivations since she believes that Scheana likes to sweep past misdeeds under the rug to keep everything in her midst looking pretend-tidy. Lisa also realizes that what Stassi’s dishing out might not be enough for Katie and she tells Scheana to allow Katie to have that conversation with Stassi in her own time. Meanwhile, over at the bar, Jax and Sandoval have a conversation that goes something like this:

Jax: Hey! Tomorrow the same people we always hang out with are getting together again! Can you make it? Maybe my girlfriend’s new t*ts will come too!

Jax: Goals are stupid. You will never actually achieve anything. Hey, my name spelled backwards is Xaj!!

It’s so nice to have real friends who support and believe in you, isn’t it?

Jumping farther on the being-kind-might-get-me-things bandwagon, Jax joins Schwartz and Sandoval as they head over to Lisa and Ken’s house to hand over some clothing they no longer wear to charity. Of course, Jax is really there because he wants to look like a decent person in front of Lisa, but while he’s there, he joins the other guys in ogling a picture of Lisa where she is naked and wrapped in a fur throw. Jax takes a mental picture of it for his spank bank, but because he’s a f*cking moron, he forgot to use the flash.

Downstairs, Lisa sits down with Schwartz – who now sort of knows what she looks like naked – to discuss how he told Pandora and Jason that he just couldn’t commit to selling their sangria. Lisa calls him “a big, bloody, wussy p*ssy” for wimping out but Schwartz tries to explain to her that he is committed to modeling, not to selling a cocktail. Lisa knows that her alcohol line is doing quite fine without the presence of Tom Schwartz, but she is concerned that this bailing out is an indication of how he handles things and this is a guy who just committed to having a sexless marriage and that’s not something to take lightly. She wants him to own up and face responsibilities that will surely come his way now that he’s an adult.

Later that night, all of the Pumpers (and Kristen, who was fired from Sur for telling her manager to “suck a d*ck,” but, you know, that’s all in the past) show up at Lisa’s other restaurant, Pump. They’re there for a charity event and only the people who don’t matter are working down the street at Sur that evening. Kristen is sitting beside some new guy because Aleks, her last date whom I actually said some prayers for, are back to being just friends. But she does make sure to let all of us know that she and Aleks had sex four times and something sinister that’s inside of me is telling me that Kristen is mentioning the sex because the guy is seeing some other girl now and Kristen wants to make things as unpleasant for her dear friend as is humanly possible. I could be wrong, of course. (Bet you a hundred f*cking bucks that I’m not.) At any rate, now Kristen is dating Carter and the guy is wearing a hat that he keeps on even while they kiss and, oh, Kristen wasn’t invited to this party either but now she just shows up places if there is the prospect of finding either alcohol or running into a recent ex-boyfriend. Yes, at this particular party that she’s crashing with her new boyfriend, Kristen can wave to both Sandoval and James and willingly putting oneself and a new guy you allege to care about into such a situation is totally normal and f*ck you if you think otherwise. Now please excuse me while I go find a mirror so I can scream, “I’m five foot nine and f*cking beautiful!” into it.

Shoved into a corner – where all the best DJs spin their sh*t – is James. Lisa approaches to tell him that she wants no distractions or funny business going down while he’s working a charity event, and James nods solemnly. He feels badly about disrespecting Lisa in the past and we all know how long James’ sensitivity lasts so I think we should all expect that he will be taking a sh*t on Lisa’s shoes in less than a week.

In another part of the place, Katie tells Schwartz that passing up opportunities before even exploring them is foolish and his choices are her business now since they’re engaged and they have pledged a future to one another. Katie’s a bit concerned that she’s placed her life in the hands of a guy who can’t commit (oh, sweetheart – I’ve been there) and what might this mean for her future? Will her kids be able to have new sneakers? Will they be Yeezys or will her child have to steal old New Balance sneakers from Ken like Schwartz stole the guy’s shirt?

(Also, Katie was a model? Are we all just supposed to nod like such a thing makes sense? Oh, we are? Okay.)

In another booth, Ariana asks Brittany if the rumors are true and if she is getting her boobs done? She is and she is so excited and her new areolas are coming courtesy of Jax! What’s that? Doesn’t Jax have no money? Well, he’s got a friend who is a plastic surgeon (shocking) and Brittany has been so good at overlooking his larceny charges that the least he can do is reward her with gigantic fake t*ts that he can feel up. The guy’s a f*cking prince and the girl’s a moron and they will probably be together forever. Please Lord, do not let them breed…

At the after-party at Scheana’s house, Katie sits next to the hostess and tells her how annoyed she is at her fiancé while those enormous photographs of Scheana’s face cover the walls behind them. Katie’s really mad. Not only did Schwartz quit a job before he even started it, but he invited Stassi to their engagement party. The guy is not listening to her needs and she knows that Stassi is so manipulative and her head is spinning with all she has to think about. Speaking of needs, Jax needs for Brittany’s t*ts to be in the shape of teardrops and if I could smother and kill the guy with my own lovely shaped t*ts, I’d do it in the next twelve seconds because this guy is the f*cking worst and he’s so okay with being the f*cking worst and that just really offends me.

Sandoval and Schwartz sit down where it’s quiet and then Jax joins them. He’s there to tell Schwartz what a fool he is for inviting Stassi to the engagement party and that Stassi just went for the two weakest people to get back into the group: Kristen and Schwartz. He tells Schwartz that he needs to stop being such a f*cking p*ssy. He informs Schwartz that he is “a weak link.” Realizing that Jax is just being cruel and that none of it is helping Schwartz, Sandoval busts in and tells Jax to stop, that their friend is having a rough night and this badgering isn’t helping and Jax piling on like this would be like Sandoval all of a sudden ignoring everything that’s going on around him and bringing up his band. “Shut the f*ck up about your f*cking band,” Jax responds evenly – like he’s just been adopted by Mephistopheles – and Schwartz, having heard quite enough, walks away from the conversation. Still stewing in his fury, Jax actually says to Sandoval – with words – “Stop pretending that you’re the number one guy in this group. I’m the number one guy,” and I want to laugh but I am just so confused that sentences like that can first formulate in a douchebag’s brain and then come out of his mouth. I know this sounds terrible and violent, but I cannot help myself: I honestly don’t know why someone hasn’t beaten the absolute sh*t out of this guy yet and left him bleeding on a curb with only teardrop shaped implants for him to cling on to and if I actually could go back in time, I’d travel to the place of his conception and beg his parents to use some f*cking birth control.

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.com in paperback and for your Kindle. Also be sure to check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.