Oh man, all season on Vanderpump Rules I have really been loving James Kennedy … Until last night, that is! Down goes the Jack Daniels, and James’ decency follows suit. He was a horrible, ATROCIOUS drunken buffoon to Lala Kent and Raquel Leviss when he should have reserved that treatment for Scheana Marie. If only so Rob Valetta could rush in to be knight in shining armor and fix it. I hear he’s good at those sorts of things!
Scheana Marie invited a select group ‘non-assholes’ to Rob’s cabin in Big Bear. After the Toca Madera cheating non-scandal, she’s desperate to prove that some of her non-friends are capable of behaving like decent human beings. Except slim pickings. She can’t invite the Three-Headed SheBeasts who are too busy bedazzling scooters while fake crying apologies after their birthday party breakdowns (plus they started the rumor), so Scheana was forced to choose Jax Taylor and James?! Scheana is a cesspool of failed logic and I really believe all the therapists on this show are being wasted on Jax. Absolutely he is in need, but um… spread the ‘py, because there’s a six car pileup of people needing psychiatric attention.
After screaming at Katie Maloney and Kristen Doute, then fleeing her birthday party in a Patrick-induced drunken breakdown, Stassi Schroeder has been crying into her ranch dressing (and probably mixing it with vodka). Bringing along her checkbook she comes to decorate motorized scooters and beg forgiveness. Envision this scenario fast-forwarded 40 years with this same dysfunctional group riding bedazzled Rascals to terrorize the poor people of Boca. Luckily, I’m sure by then Lala will be living in the old Vanderpump Mansion with her third rich hubby.
Stassi grovels into her glue stick, because without Patrick what else does she have left in her life? Please believe if he had run off into the sunset with her she’d never have come crawling back to Vanderpump Rules or Krazstie! After she hands over $1400 to repay Katie and Kristen, they of course forgive her, because without Stassi they are a wheel without its axis. It is funny that post-Patrick, Stassi is stripped of all her power like lint-covered tape. I mean in theory it’s still sticky, but nah. Patrick’s dismantling of Stassi’s facade made everyone realize she’s just a paper tiger. Or maybe it’s that Katie and Kristen have grown-up a bit? Again, nah.
With SUR under construction following the fire, Lisa Vanderpump has her all-star team of Scheana (snort), Ariana Madix, and Tom 1 working at Villa Blanca. Jax is apparently salty that he’s still in time-out, so even the prospect of a little vacation with Super Rob won’t revive his feelings of inadequacy. But doesn’t Jax feel blessed and exalted?!
Rob’s family owns a cabin in Big Bear, but naturally because Scheana envisions herself the self-titled Mrs. Rob, it’s her cabin too. Scheana is obsessed with impressing people using an image that, not for one iota, anyone buys into! Like if I buy a giant blown-up photo of Scheana and Shay at their wedding poster of a Rembrandt, I know damn well it’s a cheap copy – Scheana doesn’t realize everyone is equally well-aware that she’s a cheap copy of happiness and success. While Ariana and Tom look on in bemused horror, Scheana actually Freudian slips and refers to Rob’s cabin as “ours,” while waxing poetically to Lisa about the ELEVEN years they’ve spent going there together. What Scheana neglects to mention is that she went as SHAY’s wife!
Lisa is not impressed by Scheana’s determined amnesia, but she’s even less impressed when Jax texts to complain that as a 38-year-old man with a “bad back,” who is in a serious relationship, he will NOT be reduced to sleeping in a twin bed whilst Ariana and Tom have non-sex in the only other queen bed. Ungrateful much?
Jax is not coping well with his reduced station in life – he’s finally ousted from Lisa’s affections, in the doghouse with Brittany Cartwright (no sandwiches!), and his reiki teacher hasn’t succumbed to his charms. Yet. I diagnose that Jax feels insecure next to Rob. Rob, who has a boat and magic hands which can hang a TV in 7 minutes or less (a useful skill in the apocalypse), when all Jax has is Brittany T&A and cheap beers on the couch.
To Jax happiness is convincing himself that women are still willing to fall for his lines, offer their services (and sandwiches!), and be his ‘cheat,’ but stacked up next to a ‘real man’ – one who can, um, what was it? Move Scheana’s suitcase from the floor to the bed, poor Jax is noticing his shortcomings! For some reason I just keep hearing Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise replay in my head as it relates to Jax. Among such poignant lyrics: “I take a look at my life and realize there’s none left. ‘Cause I’ve been brassing and laughing so long that even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone…” And going the way of Coolio, Jax seems preoccupied that he will finally fade into the obscurity he belongs in! I’m just shocked Rob’s not capable of ‘fixing’ Jax too – being like a ‘real man’ mentor!? Don’t think Scheana hasn’t suggested it to Brittany!
Did I mention that Scheana also invited James to Big Bear? As if that will make the right impression on Super Rob!
As Scheana is cuddling her delusions, and showing off her summer body while rambling to her girlfriends about the Power of Rob, Katie gives him some competition in the fix-it department! Is an HGTV show in their future?!
As always Katie, Stassi (and the oblivious Tom 2) are in a strange co-dependent Sister Wives relationship, where Katie is the ‘hubs’ to both Tom and Stassi. Or maybe Stassi is the ‘hubs’? Basically the one who wears ‘the metaphorical pants.’ Since Patrick has abandoned Stassi to nervous breakdowns (again), it is Katie who must screw together the wobbling bench in her apartment. Alas, no amount of twisting the allen wrench can set Stassi straight, so she turns to the supernatural where delusion is nurtured and encouraged. They visited some blonde woman’s apartment to sit on of the floor of her spare bedroom on top of a floral sheet to have their futures told by a pack of tarot cards the woman probably bought on sale at Anthropologie. I’m venturing to guess the floral floor covering came from that same sale rack?
This tarot woman, who can safely make her predictions as a person who has definitely not watched Stassi’s disaster relationship on TV, and ‘draws’ The Fool card, featuring Stassi swinging a pinot grigio bottle while wearing a broken crown, and places it next to a card with Patrick’s face on a serpent’s body which is named The Douche. This reveals that despite endlessly trying, Stassi will never make things work with Patrick. But she will get prego sometime in 2019 so her condition of ‘dating assholes’ may have a cure! Or maybe Jax’s assholism will be cured and they’ll reunite to make babies? (I’m gagging myself here)
In Big Bear James starts hitting the bottle the moment he gets out of the car and um, doesn’t stop until 6 in the morn. It was almost as tragic as Scheana constantly bragging about how amazing Rob is while her friends sat, eyes glazed over, wishing they weren’t contractually trapped in a cramped lake house with her. During a game of ‘I Never’ Rob was asked if he’d ever be a swinger. He wouldn’t because he doesn’t want his dick to fall off (he can’t reattach it and fix it with his super magic skills?). Like the soulless blow-up doll Scheana is, she recited how much she loves Rob’s dick too. While Scheana is just SO pathetic, even worse is Raquel.
Raquel makes Kristen’s crazy outbursts seem positively sane, because Raquel has one mode: JamesBot. Once again she silently accepts being The Tom 2 (aka third wheel) to James’s drunkenly mauling others. It’s Logan Dejavu, except even stranger given James and Lala’s complicated past.
During dinner and all throughout the night, as James gets increasingly trashed and belligerent, he’s also increasingly inappropriate towards Lala and touching her constantly. Lala doesn’t seem to mind until James starts making little digs at her and telling to “shut-up.” Lala and James just have such a weird, untenable relationship. They’re like siblings, but flirty friends, and it’s just uncomfortable. Raquel tries, timidly, to explain to James that he’s upsetting her, but Raquel’s standards are so low she accepts being called a “skinny hot bitch” by Lala as the ultimate compliment.
The bottom line is that James + booze x insecurity = James Kanteddy. Eventually Lala has enough and decides James needs a ‘Come To Jesus, Madonna, and Lala’ talk about the status of their relationship. She lays it out for him that they’re both in other relationships, the past is the past, and he has to stop making comments about her man and “coming for” her. Her words were impotent (zing!). Instead of apologizing and agreeing that he’s out of line, drunk James basically confesses that he’s still in love with Lala, and he can’t respect her relationship because he thinks she deserves better than a guy who used her as a sidepiece while allowing her to be harassed for being a mistress. That could be a sweet sentiment if it weren’t for the fact that James mostly seems jealous because he isn’t rich enough to be Lala’s man. Keep spinning those C-U-Next Tuesday tracks…
Do I think Lala is weirdly defensive about her “man”? Yes. Do I think a part of Lala loves being adored by James and relishes in his attention, no matter how toxic? Yes. Do I think James is out of line and needs to stop simultaneously juggling shots and beers (and also Raquel and other people)? Yes.
While James and Lala are “talking,” Scheana whines that the noise is keeping Super Rob awake. He needs his rest because he’s driving the [tiny] boat all day tomorrow – the boat which HE FIXED WITH HIS OWN BARE HANDS! Jax is also frustrated. He confides to Tom 1 that he’s feeling left-out because Tom and Tom are moving forward with TomTom, whilst he’ll probably be bartending at SUR forever. All the reiki is putting Jax Jason in touch with his emotions for the first time, and he is eager to show how he’s creating distance between himself and James instead of engaging. But no one is impressed by Jax finally doing what he should’ve been doing all along. Not even Brittany, who was exhausted from trying to mediate between James and Lala and just wanted to go to sleep.
Who wants to bet that after Brittany passed out Jax called Kelsey, his reiki therapist, for an emergency Skype ‘session’?
Rob Sought Advice From Lala’s Man About Appearing On Vanderpump Rules!
TELL US – IS JAMES OUT OF LINE WITH LALA? IS STASSI TRULY SORRY? CAN JAX ACTUALLY CHANGE?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
