I’m beginning to think that Janet might be evil. I don’t mean in a real evil way, but more in a fun, campy Ursula the Sea Witch kind of way. In fact, I couldn’t picture anything else but our tentacled icon when she was on the phone with Zack and her two little hench-eels were in the closet with her flipping birds and silently tittering so that the other toxic gay in this show’s orbit doesn’t hear them. I think what I’m spending too many words saying is that Janet is terrible, and we can’t help but stan.
But there’s also something about her maneuver to keep Kristen, Luke, and Zack (who I would call an innocent bi-stander if he weren’t so damn LGBTQ+) off of what is clearly a cast trip feel a little bit like someone playing dress-up. Janet has been friends with the Pump Rules crew for a long time and is obviously a student of the show, as evidenced by her giving Jax a shirt depicting his near drowning in Big Bear five years ago when Scheana’s boyfriend Rob had to rescue him and then put a television on the wall in seven minutes or less. It seems like she has been waiting to have this kind of power, knows the levers to pull, and is exercising her rights before she fully understands what she’s doing.
The episode starts, and everyone is still crying at Kristen’s James Mae T-shirt launch event. They are crying because of Kristen’s outfit, a knotted T-shirt on top of a sequined diaper that is covered by a floor-length diaphanous skirt. I have never seen anything uglier, and I have looked into so many Fire Island house drag bags and seen so many little dresses destroyed by men’s big shoulders. They’re not really crying about the outfit; they’re crying because Janet didn’t invite Kristen or Zack to Big Bear for her “babymoon.”
I totally get why Janet didn’t invite Kristen after everything that she’s done this whole season, but it seems like Janet is getting ahead of herself. She’s trying to ice out Kristen, who there wouldn’t even be a show without. She’s telling Zack, “It’s not a ‘friend trip,’ it’s my babymoon.” No, sister. Production paid for this, you have to invite everyone. That’s the way it works. But somehow, Janet got her way. Do you think a producer lost their voice and now has legs because of it? Probably.
But the scene where Janet calls Zack from her house with Simon and Jared in the background is hilariously unhinged. So is Janet having Simon text her from Kristen’s party so she knows what is going on. Jasmine called him Harriet the Spy, and that is the funniest thing I have seen on Bravo since a plane flew over James Kennedy’s house every time we visited it. Janet is evil, her gays are evil, and I am here for it. (This brings me back, once again, to why we can’t have a reality show about messy gays. Get Zack’s gaggle and Simon and Jared’s gaggle to go to war. That shit will be better than Squid Game and will have twice as much Kacey Musgraves and ten times as many jockstraps.)
When Zack calls, he’s coming in hot and Janet says that he’s being a little aggressive for someone who is looking for an invitation from her. She has a tiny bit of sway, and she is wielding it, honey. He knows he shouldn’t have to ask her for an invite ’cause he’s on the show, but she is going to make him beg for it. Then Janet tells him that her phone is about to die, so she hangs up with him. That’s such a great move. I’m going to start answering my phone with that. “Sorry, I’m at one percent, so if the call drops, then …,” but the call doesn’t drop; I just hang up because if you’re calling and you’re not my mother, my husband, a lost delivery driver, or the ghost of Ed McMahon with a $1 million giant check, I want nothing to do with you.
Zack doesn’t get to go; neither do Kristen and Luke, who have a marriage counselor over to their kennel. Guys, I have never seen two people more ill-matched in my entire life than these two, and I remember all of Britney Spears’s marriages. Luke wants to live in Colorado, but Kristen does not; Luke likes to be uncomfortable, and Kristen has stock in Vuori; Luke hasn’t told a lie since he said he doesn’t own ten Caterpillar trucker hats, and Kristen wouldn’t be able to find the truth with two hands and a flashlight. They should just break up, but, hey, The Valley is renewed for season two with the whole cast, so these crazy kids are going to try to make it work for TV’s sake.
Yes, that means both Jesse and Michelle will be back, even though they clearly hate each other and are already broken up. Jesse returns from his “plant medicine journey” wearing a slouchy knit cap. If you see a middle-aged man wearing one of those in public, it means he’s going through something: unemployment, custody battle, addiction issues, Axe Body Spray withdrawals. You should avoid at all costs.
Jesse opens up to Michelle about his trip, and the editors do a great job making his description as psychedelic as possible, with Jesse describing how he was fighting a demon and he thinks that he died, but it is really an ego death. Like gaslighting and weaponizing, he has no idea what ego death means, but he heard Machine Gun Kelly say it once, so it must be cool. Jesse is talking about how he’s a changed person. I hate to tell you, bro, but that is just the comedown. That is the drugs. You’re still an asshole, and your wife is still yawning at you while you tell your tale of psychedelics.
So everyone piles into some cars and drives to Big Bear on a Monday, which is something that people with normal jobs definitely do. When they arrive, Janet tells everyone that if they say Kristen’s name or talk shit, they have to put $20 in a jar, and whoever talks the least amount of shit gets the money at the end of the weekend. Janet then … immediately starts talking shit about Kristen. She’s like Kramer with the “I’m out” in that infamous episode of Seinfeld.
The girls all go on a pontoon boat and talk about nothing except Zack and Kristen, and the guys go to the beach where they all strip down to their swimsuits except for Jax Taylor, who is so vain he doesn’t want anyone playing “Where are the abs?” on his middle-aged torso. Everyone else is looking damn fine, though. Not as fine as Jason, who should have the drool emoji tattooed on his ass, but what were they expecting? Speaking of tattoos, I am dying to know what the bad tattoo on Jesse’s neck is. I bet it’s a Hootie and the Blowfish logo.
As Jesse floats away on an inflatable raft, the guys all talk about how Kristen has been telling people that Michelle has been sexting with a guy for a year. Wait, I thought Kristen said that she heard it from Jax, who heard it from Brittany? Or did Brittany hear it from Jax, who heard it from Kristen? I don’t know how this game of telephone works, but this is exactly how you’re supposed to play reality TV, so good work from three of Lisa Vanderpump’s darkest disciples. They decide that someone has to take Michelle aside and let her know what is being said.
When the women arrive at the beach, Nia asks the women if they remember the self-defense training she gave them a couple episodes back and they start sparring a little bit, with Jesse and Michelle really going after each other. God, they hate each other. Their marriage is like a sandcastle at low tide. It’s standing now, but give it a couple hours and that thing will be completely dissolved.
The only other people who might hate each other more than Jesse and Michelle are Jax and Brittany. She gets a video from the nanny of Cruz crying at his swimming lesson, and Jax treats Brittany like she’s playing a video of a pod of baby sea lions being chainsawed in half. It’s your child, Jax, and he’s crying. Aren’t you the least bit concerned? Then Brittany pukes from being carsick on the way back home and tells the women not to tell Jax because he’ll be a dick about it. I’m sorry, but this is not a healthy relationship. (Did we ever think Jax would have a healthy relationship? Does James Kennedy shit in the woods after too many bumps of “pasta”?)
I only tell you this because it will be important in the next episode, but the most important thing for the next episode happens at the end of this one. It is also the most shocking thing we’ve seen this hour, even more shocking than Jax’s naked money grab by wearing a “#1 Guy in the Group” sweatshirt on national television. (Sorry, but I’m not clicking on that swag until you get a font as good as “Send It to Darrell.”) He tells Michelle that they need to have a little chat about what Kristen has been saying about her.
He takes her on the deck and says that Kristen told everyone that Michelle has been texting some guy dirty pictures for about a year. We all know Kristen, and we all know that her relationship with the truth is as tentative and hedging as Lindsay Lohan’s comeback. We’re waiting for Michelle to say that Kristen is absurd, that she’s making things up, that she has the story all wrong. But then Michelle says, “She’s right. I have texted multiple people.”
Gagged. Gooped. Galumphed. Other made-up words starting with G. I don’t know what’s crazier, that Michelle admitted this on television or that Kristen was actually somehow right about something. No one can believe it, not me, not Jax, not the needles on the pine trees of Big Bear, not the gnats cavorting in the lake, not the pontoon boats or the bait shops, not Scheana’s ex, Rob, or his giant television. No one, and now we have to wait for next week to find out how many janky tears Jesse will shed when he hears this.