Oscars Outsider - VPR S11E09 & The Valley S01E02 Recap/Analysis (w/ David Arnold)

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

This week hosts Craig Midwinter and Dylan Ferguson are joined by David Arnold to dig into S11E06 and S11E09 of Vanderpump Rules and S01E02 of The Valley. Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 02:25 - The Valley S01E02 Recap 31:12 - Vanderpump Rules S11E09 Recap 1:08:01 - Outro 🍸Featured Bravolebs: Vanderpump Rules: Lisa Vanderpump, Tom Schwartz, Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix, Katie Maloney, Scheana Shay, Lala Kent, James Kennedy, Ally Lewber, Brock Davies The Valley: Brittany Cartwright, Jax Taylor, Kristen Doute, Luke Broderick, Danny Booko, Nia Booko, Janet Caperna, Jason Caperna, Jesse Lally, Michelle Saniei Lally 📣 Stay Connected: Find David Arnold on Twitter https://twitter.com/dmuma22 or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dmuma Are You My Mother, a podcast about mother characters in media https://open.spotify.com/show/4z3BJC5pFAejLLGVoU5Fll?si=615563088f83444d Gimmicks, a podcast about high-concept, experimental, gimmick episodes of TV https://open.spotify.com/show/41M1llIEHyyxKc7ZBUABSk?si=5aa3f68fab094f02 Find Dylan Ferguson on Substack at https://dylanferguson.substack.com/ Find Bravo Outsider on Instagram at ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/bravooutsider https://www.bravooutsider.com 📖 Credits Music by FASSounds from Pixabay #vanderpumprules #bravo #realitytv #pumprules #scandoval #thevalley

Hello and welcome to the Bravo Outsider podcast. I'm your host Craig Midwinter joined as always by Dylan Ferguson. Dylan, how's it going? It's going good. As you can see, I'm wearing a baseball cap in solidarity with our sweet, quirked up millennial princess, Joseph J. Joseph Sen. And yeah, just standing, standing with her, standing against hate against bullying, against nickelback and the word moist, which I presume are also her enemies.

Glad you are also showing solidarity, Craig. Yeah, absolutely. You actually just interrupted my breathing work here. I was just in the middle of something. Well, we're super excited to be joined by the host of the podcast. Are You My Mother and Gimmicks? It's David Arnold. Hi, friends.

I'm David. It's wonderful to meet you. And yes, I'm a flirt, but home is where my heart is. That's really good. Do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about the podcast? Yeah. So I'm on a couple. I do one with my buddy Derek where we talk about weird episodes of television.

So anything where like they shift genres or suddenly it's all in black and white or nobody's talking. And that's called gimmicks. And so we do that every other week. And then on the off weeks, I'm talking about TV moms. We've done reality TV or not just TV, any media. We've done movies, reality TV, regular scripted television, and video games. So just a pretty wild look into mother figures and how they like betray the expectations of what it means to be a mother in reality. Yeah, that's that's super interesting.

Motherhood is like a theme that we see portrayed in so many different ways on the Bravo shows. So yeah, definitely give those podcasts to listen to it. Also, we see a lot of experimentation with the genres in reality TV. We've seen some real divergence from what you would expect a traditional reality show, or at least incorporating a lot of elements from outside of the traditional reality TV genre. Yeah, we even get a little bit of that with this, though, with the assignment that you all have given me for today, especially with the Valley, which I'm excited to talk with you all about. Yeah, so we're going to talk about the Valley as well as Vanderpenterpenter.

Pump Rules. Did either of these excite you more? Is there a place you'd like to start? Oh, I'd much rather talk about Vanderpump Rules. I'm interested in the series of the Valley, especially where you see it going. Yeah. Okay. Let's start with the Valley. So we're going to start with a three-sentence summary. If you want to give your perspective on what happened in approximately three sentences, you can give that a go. All right. I'm going to do my best. Tensions run high on behalf of wrong to spouses from last week's nipple grab and pantsing incidents. The boys and girls both have their own nights out and in, but everything goes off the rails when Jax invites Kristen's ex Alex to come out with the boys.

No matter who's on the screen, everyone is navigating little ones in their lives or potential little ones coming. Oh, excellent. Do you do this for a living? Yeah. I worked really hard on these. I'm really happy that you liked that. That was great.

Now that you mentioned it, isn't really funny how this is being framed as like the more grown-up spin-off of Vanderpump rules? And as you mentioned, the main plot points are nipple grabbing and dancing. Thank you. So right off the top, I was like, wow, these are the most immature conflicts that have ever existed in all of human history. Yeah, that leads us into our artistic analysis because that was the like the theme that I saw throughout this was, you know, that contrast. between the very like middle school dynamic that all these people have with the presentation of, you know, these are people who are more adult than, you know, the sibling show Vanderpump Rules. What did you pick out?

Yeah, I got a little bit of that as well. I framed that in sort of the whole idea of change and growth because we've got characters who presumably, again, I'm like totally new to this, but presumably all from Vanderpump Rules or at least we're connected to it in some way. And these couples that we see are all on the cusp of either new life, new child, new children in their life or the expectation of new children in their life. And that's kind of this move to, it's interesting because the show really seems to frame it as the suburbs for like sad moms in the suburbs. But this is, it's the San Fernando Valley is not exactly the suburbs. Just to be real clear.

But whatever, I bought the conceit and it was good. And I also kind of liked that the, that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, now. Navigation of maturity is also something that the audience is probably going through because we've been used to seeing these sort of like wine throwing gads about town and now we're all in like baby Bjorns. And so it's changed on like the audiences side and the character side. And that was kind of a fun contrast. Yeah, totally.

Dylan, what's out with the valley for you? I'm mostly just like really happy to have Jacks back just because the energy he brings. It's like, I mean, it's not exactly a fascinating observation to be like, oh, Jacks is the most interesting part of the valley. It's like saying, oh, Paul McCartney is the most interesting part of Wings. But it's just great to have him back and just have his like very manic, wounded, defensive, masculine energy, which just pops off the screen every time he's there. Yeah. I like Jacks a lot too.

This is my first run in with Jacks, but he is like a shining star. I like, I mean, I like a man you can fix. That's kind of what I go for. and Jack's screams fix me. That one is so beyond fixing. No, that one is so beyond fixing. No, Dylan, I can do it.

I can fix him. But that's actually one of the things that I love so much about Jacks. He is like a piece of shit who just like, it always says terrible things. But I feel like there's still like a bit of like self-awareness. There's still like a bit of like an actual desire to be a good person somewhere like in that little like shriveled black heart. just assaulted from wave after wave of

anabolic steroids and cocaine. There is a little glimmer of like love and hope somewhere in there, I think. And that's the thing that makes him a fascinating character as much as he's like a terrible dude too. And one thing that I look forward to seeing as the show goes on is that we have like one of his friends there, Jesse like seems to be like it's still early.

So, you know, it's still like very prohibitive reads on these people and waiting more information. But Jesse reads to me as like just a straight up like heartless piece of shit. Just like something about like his kind of like dead eyed stare and just like unemotional laconic sarcastic delivery of every line and the way him and his wife loathe each other. It's just like I feel like we have like one guy who is an asshole but also is, completely devoid of ever having a shred of a heart. And to have that like in the mix with Jacks, the asshole who might have a little sliver of a heart somewhere still down there is like going to be a really interesting dynamic for me going forward. Totally. So I'm obviously the outsider for for these Bravo shows, but my husband was a big watcher of a million dollar listing.

Is that that? That's a umbrella. Okay. Yeah. And so he watched these with me sort of under duress, much much as much as Jesse's wife lives in duress. And he said, wow, this looks like a guy who auditioned to be a million dollar listing and was rejected because he wasn't, like, cool enough. Totally. I feel like there's almost like a progression that you can go through on Bravo in terms of like if you're that type of guy.

Early in your career, you start out on like below deck and then you move into million dollar listing. And then you can like retire in the valley. That's awesome. That's incredible. You know what? I like a good pipeline. So that's pretty good, Craig. like that.

Yeah, I think we touched on the theme that I, like, stood out to me. And throughout this season of the Valley, or the first two episodes, at least, this contrast of being, having this super juvenile source of conflicts that is happening while being presented with this idea that these are people that are like, you know, more mature and adults. And it seems to, like, permeate through the entire cast of characters. Like every little thing, even down to Kristen's boyfriend, Luke, and how he interacts and how he's like so defensive. And it's like, like, yes, you want to like defend your partner.

But his like anger and like his moral position all seems to be stemming from this like this root idea that he has of what it means to be a good partner and a good like man. And it's almost this like caricature that he's striving to be as opposed to like being like something that he has developed through his experience. Yeah, that was that was my big takeaway. And how good of a visual image of it is that when he like goes to the counter and orders a whiskey, traditionally the most like adult man seen and gets in a little plastic cup because they're in an arcade like for children. They're literally hanging out at arcade, drinking whiskey out of little plastic crap cups. I'm going to stick with whiskey. Not even solo cups, like the crappiest plastic.

It's like a chunky cheese, yeah. That did not stop my man, Luke, from being like, I order whiskey. The rest of your drinks are not even worth my time. Yeah, yeah. I loved it. I loved him. Would I play ski ball? Nothing but the finest bourbons for me.

I'm the only adult here. Like, that is. truly was going for it. He said, this is going to be my character is I'm the one who's got my shit together. It's good.

Wow. It's like, Jacks go up and order swamp water. Yeah. Like when they sit down at the restaurant with Kristen and Jackson is like, I'll take a cheeseburger with just cheese and ketchup only.

And Kristen's like the way a child orders. Like, yep, Kristen, you're right. That is the way of child orders. You lost me, Kristen. That's a perfect way to order a cheeseburger. Just, you know, don't over, Don't overdo it. Don't overdo it.

Can I talk about another... You have diverging opinions. Can I talk about another theme that I sort of picked up on this, though, that I think the editors did a really good job with, which was telling this sort of story in a couple different parts about bodily autonomy. We've got it with Kristen's storyline as a woman who's interested in childbirth, but she's, you know, geriatric. She's 40.

Nia's storyline about historically being in this Miss Universe pageant and almost being assaulted, framed both of these storylines against the girls going to Taekwondo, which is about sort of the defense and fast in your body. And then, of course, the infamous Titty Twister, which was sort of the invasion of the body. And I actually really liked that these were playing in the same water. Yeah, totally. And also the pantsing from the previous episode that we get referenced.

How could I forget? Yeah. The show would not let me. Yeah. also I love how his his penis is referred to as a pee-pe. That's just another juvenile. I didn't even catch that, but of course you're right. Because they just kept doing it, and I was like, whatever, this is just who these people are.

And you're right. But that's what you would say to a child is your pee-pee is out. And then the last thing I picked up on was that when it came to this like pantsing incident, when it came to this titty twister, and then later when it comes to Max coming out, or sorry, Alex coming out and being there and Alex is the ex of, um, gosh, I'm Kristen. Yeah, Kristen, who's now Luke with. It's always framed for us as the partners of these people are the ones who are upset. So for, uh, you know, Kristen is sort of upset on behalf of Luke. Luke is upset on behalf of Kristen for the Titty twister. Oh, yeah. Mia is upset from the last

episode and then still today, on behalf of Danny for the pantsing, which he thought was kind of stupid, but also kind of silly. I love the reaction, the immediate reaction to Jack's pantsing daddy is for his wife, he had to start crying and run away crying the other room. And then daddy's reaction is to be like, oh, don't worry about it, bro. Yo, I love you, man. Yeah. Yeah.

So I wondered if the show was planning on playing with this idea of transference because there's so much couple energy going into this versus Van derrick. where it did seem to be a like, there's a little bit of mix and match of who is in a relationship. And presumably with so many children involved, this is not going to be like a trade your spouse situation. And so one of the ways that you can tell conflict is through transference, which is this very normal reaction that we have on behalf of somebody else. But it's almost always wrong. And so like when I went to school, you have to like literally take classes on how not to experience transference to your clients. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. That's not something that I

picked up on. But now that you mentioned, we also sort of get a glimmer of that when towards the end of the episode, when Brittany kind of reveals that Alex is going to be at the guy's night to Kristen. And, you know, Kristen is upset on, on Luke's behalf. And Britney is upset on Jack's behalf for Kristen being upset. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Because it's all, it's all by proxy, though. It's like nobody is actually upset for themselves. They're all upset for someone else. Yeah, totally. That's a really interesting dynamic. We want to do a section called Pull Quote. I want you to pick out what your favorite quote of this episode was.

Unfortunately, unlike Vanderpump Rules, where I was a little more spoiled for choice, there was only one that I wrote down that sort of made the cut. And favorite was not really what I was going for. It was just the most memorable. And I think actually kind of despicable, which was Zach describing himself as a platinum gay, talking about what that meant for new viewers in the Middle West who have like a gay nephew. And it's one of those things that I think plays well to certain audiences, but in queer communities, it's actually like a pretty misogynistic term because it's about like how the vagina is so forbidden and evil and all harms come from it.

And it's this really like isolated way of looking at queer identity. Yeah, that's interesting. That's stood out to me. like that's not a term that I had ever heard, but to hear the like explanation that he gave for it, contrasted with all these women who are, you know, putting out there their difficult journey through motherhood to an audience that

is like, um, mostly women. Yeah, it seemed like really confrontational the, the way that it was framed almost. Yeah. At odds with the audience.

It, and it always isn't. It's where I think like a lot of transphobia, within gay male communities comes from is this idea that the vagina, which is just a part of human anatomy and genitalia, is somehow portraying its ills upon the world and telling you what you should and should not do. And that's just not the case. Dylan, had you run into this term before? Or was Zach like teaching the masses? Yeah, he taught me something there. I did not know about that term at all. Just to add layers, a gold star gay then is someone who is born vaginally but has never had

sex with a woman and a platinum star is born by cesare and ergo has never touched a vagina. They're both pretty offensive. So what, is there silver and bronze? Yeah, maybe like you finger a vagina? I don't know how. Okay. Well, if I continue to watch at the Valley, which spoiler alert, I will not. I would look for Zach to be a growing force of villainry, at least to my household,

though I could see him being sort of a hero to others. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting that you mentioned, like, that his, his function of, like, teaching the masses. Because, I mean, Brittany comes from Kentucky, and they did a spin off of Vanderpump rules where Jacks and Brittany went to Kentucky. And I feel like there's maybe a segment of the population, especially in that region, that could use some education. Sure. I thought, maybe I'm, am I wrong in this? I thought Zach came from Kentucky, too. Yeah, he did.

Yeah. So how come he doesn't have the accent when Brittany has such a thick, lovely accent, and Zach just doesn't have any Kentucky accent that I could detect anyways? You know, he just made a conscious effort to get rid of it, maybe. It's not unusual for especially gay men in rural areas to adopt affectations to sort of signal to others that they're interested in other men as romantic or sexual partners. And so it's possible that because that's at complete odds with a Kentucky accent, and I agree, Brittany, hot a shit accent. I love a good Southern Bell accent. If Zach had a little bit more, maybe he wouldn't be such a villain to me.

But alas. Or he's got it and he turns it on and off. I mean, it's true for all of us. My Midwestern is almost completely gone unless you get me to talk about what you put in breakfast cereal, which is milk. But I don't know, you're from Canada, so you all have different accents too. Yeah, totally. The fact that he's from Kentucky might inform some of his, like, misogynist tendencies. just, I mean, this is me stereotyping a whole region of the United States that I don't really know too much about.

But the trope would be that it is a bit more of a misogynist area. You got evidence from the character. I think this is a fine interpretation. Stop giving gay white dudes a pass just because of one part of our identity. I assure you that we are quite awful. Yeah. Okay, let's get into our highlights then. We'll start with you, David.

What were your highlights here? Well, we already talked a little bit about Jacks being sort of incompetent, but I loved him. I loved that it was book-solved. I loved that the episode opened with Jacks, don't you know that your best friend from forever is a vegetarian? Why'd you go to a steakhouse? And at the end, it's all about like, oh, I'm such a dummy for inviting Alex out. And so to me, it sold his incompetence as kind of cute, which is why I wanted to fix him. And then my other one was just about all this like motherhood.

And I think it was best conceptualized by this scene with Jasmine going to buy baby stuff. I wish Jasmine was in more of this episode. I found her a lot of fascinating. But at one point of time, we get a cutaway to a confessional of her, just being like, holy shit, I thought I was just picking out the color of the crib.

Like, babies are fucking complicated. And chef's kiss, love her. No notes. Yeah. Yeah. The point that you made about, like,

Jack's incompetence being played off as cute is such an accurate, like, encapsulation of him. It's a way that he's able to, like, weaponize his incompetence. And I think that he's, He plays us to perfection both in his relationship, but also within the structure of reality TV. Like we saw him making the decision to invite Alex out because he knew it was going to create drama and just playing it off like he's just being a dummy who wants everyone to be friends.

It's clearly like a veteran reality TV star move. He knows he can cause problems. He's got Chris in there. He knows all the buttons to push with her. And so he's going to do that. Yeah, that is such a classic Jack's move to do something, which is, to be clear, intentionally malicious. And then when he gets called out about it, just like start to tragically being like, what?

I never would have to consider that. I wouldn't, that never came. Oh, I'm so stupid. Why didn't that idea consider to it? I didn't think that you might be uncomfortable. It never occurred to me. Oh, my God. It's just classic Jacks.

Like, the entire reason he did that was to make Luke uncomfortable 100%. And it's just so odd character for him to like adopt that that frantic and confident persona when people point out that's clearly what he did. This is so funny to me because in my memory, I'd only watched this one. So I'm so sorry to both of you. I couldn't do a second run. In my memory when he got called out about the whole Alex thing and I know he didn't do this.

I just know this. I remember it. He put both of his hands in his back pockets and he sort of kicked and looked at the ground and was like, oh, shucks guys. I didn't mean to do that. And I know that's not what happened. but in my mind that's what happened. And so, and I don't disagree.

It's totally malicious. I have seen reality TV before I know what's happening here. But to me, it was sold to me through editing and through storytelling that this was just a goofball, not a evil diabolical mastermind. And you have so much more history with this guy. So like, it's awesome for both of us to have those two different reads. Yeah. It's impressive what he's able to do because you're not the only person that is sold on this idea because his wife, Brittany. who has even more context about, you know, his history is sold on this and is even like trying to sell the story to Kristen that, oh, it's such a big deal that Jacks would want, you know, him to come along.

It says it says so much about how he values Luke, which is like complete bullshit. But Britney like seems to authentically like believe this. God bless her. God bless her heart. Yeah. I think we covered most of my highlights. Did you guys have any other highlights before we pick our stars? I just, you know what?

Sorry, not totally done talking about Jacks. Just there's not to have him back. But one thing that I am really enjoying about the first two episodes of the Valley is that it was always one of my favorite kind of subtle subplots in Vanderpump rules that Jacks and Kristen were always kind of perfect for each other. Like they both had like a bit of a, they both were kind of manic and both. unreliable and and a little egotistical. But they also have this long history together and they're really good friends.

And I always feel like in that like black and tripled little shard of a heart for Jaxx, he always has a bit of room for Kristen. And I think there's that's something that we're seeing being elaborated a little bit more here. Not that he like wants to get together with Kristen, but I think that's motivating him like not wanting her to have a, a lifelong partner that she'll have children with. Like, I think he likes the idea of her, like, never settling down because he just like, he likes to have her around as, like, somebody who's not completely, you know, tied up with

another man kind of thing, I think. And, uh, and I, I feel like that's kind of a motivating factor for him, uh, just, uh, completely, you know, try to pull the limbs off Luke and the way that he knows how, you know, he smells blood in the water with Luke. he knows this guy's not as ruthless and hard-edged as like him and some of his other friends are. And he knows how to toy with him. And I think that a lot of that is probably coming from a place of a kind of love that he has for Kristen. Not a healthy kind at all.

But there's a reason why I think he doesn't really want Kristen to settle down. And it's not just entirely thinking of her and being like, oh, are you sure it's the right person or whatever? I don't know, we need to see more of this Luke guy, but he definitely seems to be like the least asshole-ish of the many assholes we've seen Kristen Date in the past. So that's something in his favor, I guess. I kind of got asshole vibes from him. Like one of those people that has like asshole like simmering under the surface.

I don't know. That was my like initial gut reaction. I think that. Yeah. I think Luke gave us a couple flavors of asshole that are really aligned. with this, like, toxic idea of masculinity. And there are, there are two points of evidence from this episode, which is all I've given, all in giving Luke.

One is his overreaction to the titty twister. And being like, I am offended as the man who owns this woman that this happened to her. Don't love that. And then number two is the drink order thing of just how much sneer he delivered with, like, no, I'll have a whiskey, like a man. Yeah. Which, don't me wrong. A whiskey is good.

Like, like, there's nothing wrong with ordering a little. whiskey, just don't think that you're ordering something that isn't booze. Like, just calm down. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I didn't know where to put this, but watching these side by side was so interesting to me because this show is shot like the second episode of a brand new series in such a way that like before every commercial break, it was like, don't worry,

we're coming back with more. Don't leave just because you have to learn about these sketchers that you put on without touching them. you have to come back. You have to come back. And then the end was such a to be continued that even though I feel like the Vanderpump Rules episode actually had a better cliffhanger from a plot perspective, this story was shot and edited in a way that was like,

if you don't watch the next episode, you might die. Yeah, totally. There's more of a desperation to the edit. Yeah. Totally. And that's normal because most other than like Jackson, Kristen, these are a bunch of people that we don't really know yet. So I feel like they must feel like they need to hook the audience more with new characters that we have to get to know and haven't had the time to get to know yet.

Let's get into our stars. David, we'll start with you. Who are your three stars from this episode? Yeah, I mean, then I've got to give it first and foremost to my man, Jacks, who was in my heart and stood out to me and really like elevated the storylines that were going on because he was like the driving force of conflict. Yeah, totally. And then I'm only going to give one more, and it's Jasmine because she was perfect to me. I hope there's more Jasmine in the future. Yeah, I like Jasmine a lot as well.

Dylan, who are your stars? Yeah, I'm going to have to give first star to Jack's Taylor. It's just so much, so much stuff going on. The little scene where he plays hockey, too, and they last for four minutes was great, too. Remember the time that Jacks tried to convince everybody he was going to move out of L.A. because he had like he pretended he had a job doing PR for the Taffa Bay lighting. Yeah. Just wanted to remind everybody of that.

That was really funny. You're ruining Jacks for me. He'll do that. He'll do that all of his own if you watch it up on these episodes that were. After that, Kristen, yeah. I also like, I haven't talked about her as much, but also delighted to have to have her energy back.

as well. And let's give a third star to our, to our boy, Luke Colorado. As Kristen says, do you know where his last name, where he's from? Yeah,

the answer to both is Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was fun to have him there too. Yeah, my number one star has to be Jacks.

Taylor. Like you said, Great to have him back. Same with Kristen, who would be my number two. I got to give number three to Jesse just because he seems like he is emerging as like a really great toxic figure on these shows. And I, you know, this is my outlet for toxicity in my life. So I'm glad to see some fresh poison on the channel. Love it.

Yeah. I do enjoy how like Jesse and Michelle just. hate each other. Like they just seems to be like a marriage just full of hate. Like when they're doing the little riding the bike thing, teaching the kid on a ride a bike. And it's like, did you look at the YouTube video I sent you about how to teach a kid how to ride a bike?

No. You put their feet on the pedals. Wow, that's actually the opposite of what it said. It's so great. Also, just a little quick show that I really like how Michelle says a statement that I hear all the time for people who are married with kids, you know, understandably

I'm sure. But she says like, nobody tells you how hard it is to like raise a kid and have a happy marriage. And I feel like everybody tells you that. Everybody tells you that. And everybody further tells you that nobody tells you that. Why are you people not listening to each other? Yeah. Except like counterpoint to that is that it pretty much immediately cut to Danny being like, yeah, whatever. The kid's got to sleep eventually. Like I'll, I'll play Xbox when he sleeps. Like no big deal. Um, yeah. And like Danny, you know what? Danny could take my third star place because I also was enjoying Danny for what he gave us in this episode, sadly not a lot. He's showing so much subservience to Jacks, too, just being like, you know, please don't be angry at me for the thing you did to me.

It's, it's, he's really funny to me too. You brought up the moment of like the bike training. And that's one that I had forgotten. about, but there's nothing more, like, no more frustrating dynamic than like putting a lot of effort into researching something and then have someone else come in with a super strong opinion about like how to do something and like completely override you. And to have that dynamic within a partnership would be very frustrating. But I think, I think that part of the first, and like, listen, if this, I used to do couples therapy. If this couple came in, I would just like

shut my doors and hide like, um, there are missionaries knocking on the door. I have no interest in this. But I think part of it is that her, her willingness to do research, Michelle's willingness to do research that is sort of blown off by Jesse being like, I'll just inherently know this is there's, there's also a layer of like patriarchy associated with that and a little bit of Dunning Prueger that's just like, of course I'll know because I'm in,

I'm incompetent and ergo, uh, I will know. And that, that's, you know, that's, I don't know. That's, I think going to be something that continues to develop as a negative in their relationship. Yeah, for sure. And it's interesting to see, like, how often that dynamic is accompanied with this, like, weaponized incompetence, like, being both like, I am so bad at things, you do it, whereas also I know everything just inherently.

I don't need to research it. And I'm, I'm right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about Vanderpump rules. We'll start with a three-sentence summary. David. All right, well, the stakes are high now because the first one you both were so happy about. But let's see if I can do this just as well. Well, we get both sides of entrepreneurialism when James DJs a party at a fancy hotel and Katie, Katie and Ariana continue to flounder with their sandwich shop. The whole friend group is gripped by the news that Tom Schwartz made out with Sheena over 10 years ago, motivating Katie to sleep with Schwartz's best friend Max. Meanwhile, Ariana is out of her relationship with Sandoval. but their shared housing arrangement is causing them both a lot of grief with no end in sight.

Yeah, that's excellent. Great. I love it. Okay, let's get into our artistic analysis. We'll start with you. What's it out in terms of themes or devices? Well, you know, one of the things that, like, it's hard to tear yourself away of for this one is this villain set up for Katie and Ariana. Like, I don't know how far are these shoot in advance if the sandwich shop was like the case of some sort of.

sort of mysterious arson and we're just setting up a plot line associated with that. But no show has ever said like these two are the bad guys, whether it came to their little bullying of the whole hat incidents with Joe, the fact that they have done a second tasting in a year of these kind of mid-sounding sandwiches that even Lisa Vanderpump is starting to be like, girls get your shit together, which is like, wow, a bridge too far. Yeah. And so I really liked that one. the other thing that really struck me was,

and I had no better way of referencing, I said to say that there's this persistence of memory that seemed to run through this episode that everyone remembers and hangs on to these memories even though they become very distorted and what they mean has become very

distorted. And so that decay seems to run a lot of the conflict of the episode, whether that's the Ariana Sondival thing with their relationship and what the house means. Katie's past relationship with Schwartz and this whole thing with Sheena. It's just a lot of,

a lot of decay that drives conflict, which is interesting. Yeah, totally. And it's interesting how time treats all of these conflicts differently because we have seen the fact that James cheated on Raquel with Lala. And that is played off as no big deal. But that's way more recent than this like makeout session between Sheena and, and Tom Schwartz,

this is like somehow a much bigger deal to this group. Dylan, what did you have for your analysis? Well, in terms of the way it was framed, one thing that's really interesting to be is we've already talked a lot about how this season Lala has kind of surprisingly been emerging as kind of a mature voice of reason in the show. And as somebody who has kind of been straddling both sides, like remaining still a supporter and friend of Arianna and Katie while also being open to

being friends with Tom Sandoval and seeing his perspective and that the way she's been like having a lot of like one and ones with everybody in the cast and like showing like a pretty like reasonable aware analysis of the situation in this episode we really see the show really embracing I think the idea that Lala has become kind of the middle ground voice of reason slash audience substitute by making it seem like the show's editing is like in league with her. Like we have a moment where she's like in the confessional and she's like, oh, this is boring. Let's skip ahead to the interesting part. And they have a little graphic of like, of the like editing being done like as if it were being done at her behest, as if like the, you know, the editing choices

being made and Lala's perspective have become like. joined together. Like the show's perspective really starts to link up with Lala's own perspective. I really like that. We get that at the end of the episode too, where she kind of provides these final points on each character.

Will we get, like, for some reason, like a grainy black and white filter over shots of them will she talks? So that's really interesting to me that the show is really embracing this idea that Lala is the new like the new audience perspective in

within the show in the way. I love that take, Dylan, because even when Lala shows up for Sandoval's meditation, sound bath thing, whatever the hell of that thing was. Her face was my face too. And it was as if to say, I am watching an alien surgical procedure that I can't possibly understand, even though, like, girl, you're a water Somali. So, like, calm down. Just what's happening here?

Yeah, I mean, she is the one who is like, oh, why don't we go to the place where we pump syringes of goo into our mouths? Thank you. Like, it's not like she is like, she is totally free of indulging in like Southern California woo-woo bullshit herself. Have you all been to Southern California? Because this shit is real. Like, this is just constantly all over the place there. I haven't spent a ton of time in Southern California. Dylan was in L.A.

I spent some time there last winter. I definitely caught glimpses of the reality of this stuff, which I love. I find it hilarious. Like I find Dr. Voo hilarious, this guy that, that, that, you know, like just puts on, plays some like new wave vibe jams and just shouts at, at Sandoval where he, where he wears a blindfold. And it's just, I love this, these bullshit fake doctors who just totally make their stuff, their stuff up. And what we learned while being there. So we were there for three months because we had to work with the consulate who was based there in L.A. So we just got an Airbnb for three months and just lived in Hollywood, which is great.

We ate at pump for a goodness sake. Oh, yeah. Listen, this is what I was waiting for. It was coming on this podcast. It was fine. There's nothing to write home about. But we would even meet some of these people when we would go out to like the bar. And they'd be like, oh, no, I don't like fucking believe in any of the shit.

But I charge $600 an hour. So like you put on a front and you sell it. And I was like, that is so. psychologically exhausting to do as your career. And like a lot of us have jobs where we don't really believe in the output of them. But they're not like our personal like endeavor. And we're not selling ourselves as like the sound bath person of L.A. Yeah. This this, this sound bath scene was one of like my,

one of the things that I picked up on in terms of how it tied in with one of the themes this season, which is this like rebirth for Tom Sandoval. The fact that we got something that like so, um, it sounded so much like, like someone in labor the way that he was like having these like controlled breathings and like grunting and this loud like final push that we got. We're so close to getting into like the altered states like Ken Russell montage there. Yeah, totally. Ken Russell fans will love that.

Enjoy all of you. Actually it's like a trigger for another artistic thing that I sort of picked on, which is this like thing that Schwartz has got going. on with the use of substances, the role of addiction, and this sort of using the language of addiction with sobriety, which I, like, I used to work with adolescents who had drug problems. This was, this was my bread and butter. And so I've never heard of someone being like, I'm going to binge sobriety this weekend. Like, I'm just going to like really go for it.

That was completely ruined. He has a drug in three days. He says, I about a sobriety bender. Sober for three days straight, man. Still in your system. And I assume like other substances are part of his life as well. Oh, yeah. Just a guess.

Okay, great. Yeah. Another thing that I picked up on visually was this scene that we got at lunch where we have this like walk up of Sandoval with his like new vibe. And he like shows up and everyone at the table is wearing black. except for him who's in this bright yellow and white. And like we're seeing this like fresh reborn Sandoval immediately following the scene that we got where we saw his birthing scene.

I just, I love that it was a nice touch. And I feel like Vanderpump rules especially does a lot of this sort of visual storytelling with how people are dressed. Like we got it. A notable example would be at the end of last season where we got the funeral, rooftop funeral scene where Schwartz comes in to talk to Ariana in the fallout of Scandival and everyone is wearing like black for his for his funeral basically. Yeah, I just I just love these touches where they are able to communicate things through the the wardrobe choices of these people. Love it. That is so great because I'm sure that like I picked up on that

without knowing that I was picking up on that, but I didn't actively clock wardrobe as something because I guess I had suspended enough disbelief that these people were all dressing themselves. Except for, of course, in the first scene, James does not dress himself. His girlfriend, Allie, does. And get it, get it, Allie. I say, get it. And we never heard from them again. That was like their one scene and they were gone.

Okay, let's do a polko out. What were the quote or quotes that stood out to you? I had to pick a winner eventually. And because of the way in which her story was told, especially at the climax of the end of the episode, it was Katie in a confessional talking about all the things she didn't like, but among them, the worst thing that she cannot stand is especially lying by omission. And this confessional was used to sell me, the viewer, that she has an ethical code for herself, which is that people shouldn't lie by omission. And then at the end of the episode, she lies by omission about sleeping with fax, ergo, she has violated the only, thing that I know about her, which is this one ethical construct, and that makes her a hypocrite, which we all agree is a villain trait.

Yeah, totally. Also, a little fun thing this week was we didn't see Max appear on. Oh, I guess we got a flashback of a month and a pump rule. Yeah. But he was in the background of Guy's Night in the valley. You could see him there. And yeah, I thought that was a nice little Easter egg. I didn't clock that now.

Let's get into our highlights. David, we'll start with you. What were your highlights here? Yeah, I mean, Tom Schwartz and his yo-yoing relationship with addiction and these terms were just wild to me. I wrote a lot of them down. A lot of them were contenders for my pull quote because they were so wild. I loved that at one point in time, he referred to Sheena kissing him as micro-dosing on him. And that's the most asshole thing you can say in the entire world is that a kiss for me is like a micro-dose of me.

barf, barf, barf. I don't want to give any of your listeners with misophonia a problem or I would make a retching noise on Mike. It was the worst. Also, another thing to keep in mind, I don't know if this was like brought up in the episode, but like he's often talking of these bullshit fake addiction terms

around Lala, who is somebody who was an alcoholic who's been recovered for years. Oh, she's in recovery. That's fantastic. Good on you, Lala. And she has to put up with shorts being like, yeah, I'm like, binging sobriety and sober curious these days.

The doctor said if I keep rolling my eyes, are going to get stuck this way. So we're going to move on. The other highlight that we haven't talked about yet, that I love, because I think this would be me if I was on Vanderpump rules, is Sheena tracking everyone was sold as this, like, terrible thing.

But I'm kind of obsessed with her doing this. I love her. Go, Sheena, go. Yeah. I have questions because, like, I'm a bit of a Luddite. I'm not a very, like, I don't, I don't know what my phone does. And it's just a brick there that occasionally makes noises. But is this a thing that a lot of people do?

Like, they're tracking their friends? I have never heard of it. Is that like a normal thing for a certain friends group that you just like, you have like all of your friends and acquaintances, apparently, just like have their phones tracked and you, you check their locations before you go to bed at night. Like, what is this? You need to consent to this behavior. So the only things that I track are my husband. and then anything we've put an air tag on, which frankly is just luggage,

and it's only in case our luggage because lost during travel. It's the most boring version of Sheena in the entire world. But I know where my husband is in case, like, he isn't home, and I can see that his phone is in jail and I do nothing. Or he's in the hospital, and I go and attend to him. Or he just hasn't returned from the bar yet. That, I think, is normal when you're in an 18-year marriage.

I think knowing 63 of your friends' locations, first of all, even to look at the map because it's like we'll have all of their little faces on a map of Los Angeles. That's wild bananas to me. Yeah. Yeah, I've never heard of this before. And I love it.

Like the fact that people would consent to this, Sheena, if you want to track my location, just like fly into our DMs. No, I was what to say post-recording. We'll just all enable this and we can see where each other are. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah, this is, yeah, I've never heard of this.

I guess maybe it's a thing that people do, but I, yeah, brand new behavior to me. I mean, you sort of have to assume that Sheena comes up to new people in her life and goes, share your location with me. Yeah, because that's the thing. If it's like 60 people, not all of those are close friends. You don't have 60 close friends. There are acquaintances that you are presumably asking for permission to track everything they do. How does she keep getting away with it? why has the NSA tried to recruit her?

Because she is apparently really good at this. Yes, send her down at Guantanamo. She can convince somebody to do something. Good for her. Yeah. That being said, it's so, it is that alien. You both told me to be on the lookout for like alien encounters in watching these. It's alien of me.

It's alien to think to find somebody's location and make assumptions about their behavior based on that location. Truly and honestly, if I, if I were to see my husband at a different like, what is clearly someone's apartment, I would be like, thank God, less work for me tonight. That would be my only reaction to that scenario. Dylan, what were your highlights? Yeah, I'm still really happy to have Joe there. And we could all agree that they're like super mean to Joe. Yeah, totally.

So mean. And speaking of like middle school behavior and stuff, it's like taking your hat off and being like, no, you're not wearing your baseball cap. I'm going to keep it from you as such, like, school yard behavior. And so it's just like a naked attempt to, like, police their friend group and be like, no, you're not allowed in. Access to died. Not in the clubhouse.

And not just poor Joe, but, but poor little James is DJing his heart out and nobody cares. Nobody cares. Yeah, I love the scenes with James's DJ, DJing. Because, like, the music that we hear is all overlaid because they can't have anything with copyright and they need, like, clean audio. So he's just there, like, mimicking while there's probably, like, soft music playing that isn't going to get picked up on all the mics. Yeah, it's definitely just for show. Because, yeah, like you said, they're filming a scene. He can't be, like, blasting out copyrighted bangers.

So it's, he's just, he's just putting out a show in front of the cameras. But also this bullying that you mentioned of Joe, I love how, I think it was like Sheena's friend, was it Madison or whatever, was like, complimented Joe's like eyebrows or something. And Sheena just refused to like give her any credit. Like she just would not give it up. The most disappointing part of the bullying for me is how much like Sheena is such an active participant in it because Sheena has been the victim. of bullying from those same women, like when she was newer to the show at earlier seasons. And now she seems like very, very invested in not being frozen out from the girl gang again and has to like show, has to show her loyalty to the to them and to being a member of the

in group by bullying the new person who comes in. But it's just disappointing to see like her taking, feeling like she needs to take the lead in being a bully when she has been on the receiving end of that in the past. What I also found interesting about this bullying was that like Lala was in the bullying group, but somehow evaded any culpability for what had happened. We sort of forget instantly that she was on that side of the divide. Yeah, totally. That seems very intentional.

But this show like are this dynamic that we see on this show is clearly like steeped in this idea of othering because we are seeing like Tom Schwe. and Tom Sandoval get a like not like a complete like free pass for their behavior but they are a lot less um uh derided and like pushed aside than people in their orbit who are you know behaving less badly like we're seeing joe get like other and she clearly is expressed like she is clearly like ADD and like that information. influences or behavior and it's like identifiable. And Billy Lee is another person that is like getting um, sideline and really like, uh, ridden very hard by by this group for just being a friend to Tom

Sandoval. Yeah. Obviously, Raquel is another person that has been treated very poorly and like not given the same opportunity for redemption as Tom Sandoval. But the fact that we have this group of people who are, you know, um, in the majority and all very like neurotypical othering people that, you know, that don't align with, um, with them is, uh, kind of ugly to see. Um, but yeah, that was just my pickup on that. Yeah. And I just don't want to lose Joe's energy, energy from the show, either from having her run off the show or from her feeling like she has to change the way she acts in order to stay on the show. Like, uh, I've made fun of her in the past. It's easy to make, of her like kind of outdated millennial like you know epic so random personality but that's a dying

breed actually we need to protect the examples that are still there and and she's great and she but but seriously she brings such a different like energy than everybody else does it's it's very like it's very positive too she's and it's just always nice to have somebody who's not just conforming to the same like personality traits that most people have she's sitting cross-legged in the confessional. I've never seen anybody said cross-legged in a confessional in any of these shows before. Have you Craig? No, I can't remember.

An example of why she's bringing something different to this show. So let's let's let's protect her, let her love. And I hope to see whatever. I'm a little bit worried that you're going to like kidnap me and Joe and forces to breed in captivity to like retain elder millennials or something. But

I probably did resonate the most with Joe, which is that I have been to a party, instantly hated it and left. And I like baggy clothes and wearing hats, like, even though I'm the only not hatwear today. Oops. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I feel like this energy that she brings to the show is so unique. And it's, it's this, this show is a show that was like dying prior to Sandoval and in need of like some fresh energy.

And like, we can't drag the. the scand of all out, you know, for seasons and seasons and seasons, even though it seems like everyone wants to do that. But this show, like, um, this show needs to keep evolving and keep like finding new, new sources of energy and conflict in order to stay interesting. And yeah, I feel like Joe is just such a great addition, especially, you know, because she does bring, like, this built-in conflict with, with, with, Katie because of her relationship with Schwartz. But just having this,

her personality, which is something that we have like not seen anyone like this on this show or on Bravo before. Yeah. A very welcome edition. Yeah. And screw Katie for calling her a crack whore that needs to be burned or whatever. Like so I'm sorry, Katie. I guess she's just not normal and cool enough that she can like shuffle around in a

in a bedroom scowling and projecting hate at everyone. But in that way, I also loved Katie. I mean, Katie is so mustache twirling. The train will hit you in five minutes. Like, she is the villain of villains. I found our twirling the edges of her ball. She does have an evil bob. Like, if you cast someone in like, you're the bad guy, this would be the haircut you give them.

Ariana on the other hand. Why did she just wear nightgowns down? What did that? I can't fault her that. I too. I'm not saying I falter that. It's just like it's a real choice. She's like,

she's a couple episodes away from just having like a little floppy hat with a palm and carrying like a single candle on a dish and getting spooked by noises in the other room. I love that take because I was actually going to go that she's like a bond girl where she's like has like a sheet draped over her after just getting like railed by James. And like looking wistfully out of window because that's sort of her vibe. But she's like, you can tell she's going to betray people. She does it by the climax of this episode. Whereas, like, Ariana is like, what I think of more is, like, the prototypical housewife's villain in that, like, she's greedy or she wants this thing that's sort of undefined and she uses her emotional manipulation to get what she wants versus Katie, who's just like straight up cartoon villain. Yeah, totally.

Dylan, did you have any other highlights here? Lala responding to Schwartz's kind of. joking pseudo-flirty. We haven't had sex yet with Schwartz. I would break your dick at half. That was a good read. Again, another classic Lala moment.

Spoiler alert, I love Lala too. Like, during the first scene, I was like, what is happening here? But it was the syringes. The syringes were the thing that was throwing me the most off in the entire world. But how my gosh, you got to actually know Lala. I was here for it.

Big swings fashion-wise for Lala, big swings. But I'd rather, I'd rather you strike out and at least make a go for it, then just walk to base. Yeah. And just another little funny thing about the syringes for me is because she had to keep returning to that conversation to explain how she gained this piece of knowledge about Schwartz and Sheeta kissing 12 years ago or something, which honestly, who cares?

But at first you'd be like, so yeah, me and Schwartz were at the place where you have like the syringes of like what, and then later on you'd be like, so me and Schwartz were having juice. Anyways, like just like Has to figure out ways to say this efficiently and get to the point because it's indescribable that whatever they were doing. Yeah, I had a few highlights here that we

haven't touched on. One thing was I love how the clip choice within this episode, like all the flashbacks that they chose and you know, the scenes that they chose to represent only by clips. Like we got that moment of Tom Sandoval bowling and doing like the the twirl and striking a pose.

I thought that that was great. We got to see a flashback to Shea's proposal to Sheena and we got the They Love You moment between Tom and Raquel. That was so good. Oh my God. Yeah. It's just like really great clip selection in this and, you know, it was a nice walk down memory lane.

And a very efficient way to like if you don't. if you're somebody new to the show and you don't know who Saddival is, you know exactly who he is after seeing a clip of like his idea of going out for bowling, which is to go to the most ostentatious bowling alley and show up with his idea of a bowling outfit. And being like, I'm going for like late 70s bowling vibes or whatever. That's classic Saddival. You understand it right away just from seeing that. 100% agree.

As the person who had never seen any of these, I know I misinterpreted the one to three stars thing, but I was prepared to give this three out of three stars because to me, this was a perfect episode of reality television. There were multiple loci of conflict. All of the conflict had stakes. Like Dylan, I didn't buy the stakes of a 10-year makeout questionable that even matter anymore. I didn't buy that, but the characters seemed to, and they sold it. I was spending all 56 minutes at the edge of my seat waiting for someone to be like, oh, who cares?

No one ever did. And so you know what? Frankly, I bought it. I bought it because they sold it. Yeah. I love how this was like set up so perfectly at the beginning of this show where, um,

uh, Lala's talking about how she's like so done with people lying and, uh, Katie being talking about like lying by omission being such a big deal. And then at the end, we get to watch this piece of information float around based on a decision that Lala makes as to like, who she's going to tell talking first, whether it's going to be Sheena or Katie. And we see this information, like, move around and change and the story adding depth through this whole scene at Sir at the end where, you know, Schwartz goes over and, like, talks to

Katie and Ariana right after. And then comes back and talks with Brock. And Brock is like, oh, by the way, did you know that Katie slept with your best friend, Max, like two nights ago? And then so there's like so much dimension that's like at play here. And we got this conflict between Sheena and Brock kind of manifest at the end. And Sheena just like such a pro as like as frustrated as she is with Brock for like leaking this information to Tom Schwartz. She says she wanted to like keep that close because she's like making progress with with the girls.

but she knows that like this is a piece of information that she was going to be able to potentially use later in a strategic social setting, which is like the core of what these shows like the game in these these shows are. She sees that this like information is like losing its value immediately and needs to like make a pivot in her strategy and chooses to expose this at a table like expose Katie at a table in front of everyone in the moment where. she's able to defer a little bit of the blame onto Brock in this moment. All of the blame, which is also what she's doing too, right? Because she is still so terrified of transgressing within the boundary of that girl gang and being like frozen out by them. She makes an explicit point of coming over to the table and being like, I'm not saying anything. None of this is coming for me.

Brock is going to say it right now because I'm angry at him. And I'm just going to sit there with my arms crossed and show that I disapprove of this information being disseminated. Yeah, totally. It's funny. It's a failing of my own brain. I'm only able to hold one hymbo at a time in my short-term memory. And so, so Brock and Jacks are the same person as far as I'm concerned.

But it worked because he is this like, he's a lovable duff in this moment at the bar. He's like, oops, I guess telling people hurts something. Oh, and I have known that. Perfect.

I loved, I loved this whole thing at the end. It's funny for an episode that started a little slow with like, Ali dresses me. and I'm DJing at this hotel to then evolve into this giant thing at the end that's like everybody now has a stake against Katie. It really made me want to watch the next episode, which is funny because Vaynerpum Rules doesn't seem to care if I watch the next episode versus the Valley, which is like the stakes couldn't be higher. You have to come back. Yeah, it's, it's amazing.

The comparison between Brock and Jacks is is really interesting to me because like, yeah, they do both have like huge hembo vibes. But if Jacks were to leak this information, I would, it's not that I think that Jacks is like smarter than Brock, but it would seem like a more strategic decision coming from him just because he is like a little bit more of a calculated reality star. Whereas Brock, I feel like it's trying to like make his first play here. We've seen him on the show for like three seasons and he hasn't really been one that is able to. use information in a way that is strategic. So him to like, you know, put this out there and be like, oh, I'm going to, you know, float this one piece of information that me and my wife who are operating as a team now here have.

And for Sheena, who is like a pro at this to be so, like, pissed off at him for doing that. I just, I love, I love to see him like fumble the ball here so badly. and to see Sheena do the like the fumble recovery. It was, it was brilliant. I don't see it as much as a fumble though. I think I agree that I think they were seeing Brock like becoming more of a player in this season, like becoming a guy who makes things, gets things done. I think that was the right moment to deliver the information.

And I think you do it. You know, I think he was there like, all right, like he's time to turn things against Katie. And just like it is. And I love the way he comes out with his story and the way he describes and the way he describes the emoji. And then she's saying me like, you know, he's got the eyes and, and, and the melts a straight line. It's just like, that's great.

Like I was, I was, I was digging rock in this episode. I've been digging him this season. He's been, he's been fun. I think it was the right moment for the show for this to like come out. But from Sheena's perspective, like, she's in a very, like, precarious situation with Katie especially. And so to like, have this come out right while she. like in hot water.

You know, I guess this kind of forced a like a, a conflict between Sheena and Katie that wasn't there at the beginning of this episode. And, you know, now there's like two elements at play for it. So yeah, I think that this is probably not how Sheena would have liked to play it if she was playing strictly for herself.

But for the show, it definitely was the right moment. I totally pick up on what you're playing down there, Craig, because it's a little bit like Sheena is in the, the NFL. She's playing at the highest professional level. And Brock is good at reality TV, but he's, he's a college ball player. And so he's a call up. Yeah, he's still making mistakes. He's still fumbling a little bit, not actually fumbling, but like just not performing perfectly. And so that's probably a little bit more interesting game to watch as a spectator, but it's, it's not the most well-crafted game that

it sounds like Sheena is playing at in a totally different level. That's a really cool way of thinking about it. Yeah, totally. Um, I think that about covers my highlights. Uh, did you guys have anything else before we pick our stars? That covers it for me. I'm ready. Cool. All right. Let's get into our stars. David, who are your stars? All right. Right on the top, Lala. Uh, I mean, especially that now you have told me she's audience insert and I am a narcissist. Ergo, of course I love Lala. Um, I, I, I didn't love her when she first showed up. Uh, and so she also then was most improved for me because of how great she was, especially at the end of the episode just being, like, I reject the premise of all this and I'm out. Loved Lala. My number two is Katie.

I think I've already talked about loving Katie. I love how evil she is. I love this thing that we're being sold on this. I even watched, I don't know how far I was supposed to go for this, but just because I was trying to look up a piece of information and it showed me a video of like an after thing that Katie was part of. I even watched a couple minutes of that.

Loved her there. She's just, she's great. And then I got to give it out for an underdog for the third position is T, this newcomer who is coming. Going off the board. Yeah, I really, I really liked her. I liked how she was presented in this flashback as kind of like sitting behind the main group, but then she kind of got brought up, got ambushed by Ariana. And so I'm excited to see more tea.

Yeah, totally. She was, she was definitely like blindsided. I love that Brock made the decision to make that introduction. That's just so funny. Yeah, I think like Brock is deserving of a star. I'm going to go before you, Dylan. I think Brock deserves a star here, even though he didn't play things the way that we wanted or that China would have wanted. I think it's great for TV and also the introduction with with T. I have to also give a star to Lala. She's been really great this season for all the reasons that you have mentioned.

And my third star, I think, is going to be the email that Sandoval sent to Ariana, that interrupt. in that super tense conversation. And he's just like, oh, uh, sorry, Arianna.

The first like dialogue that we see this season between these two is like, oh, did you get that email that I said? Yeah. The, the first time they've spoken like since everything blew up is in literal as per my last email. No.

And I'm sorry, Sondival. Who are you? My Midwestern aunt, do you really need to come up and be like, did you see the email? Did you, did you get the,

it's like, it's like when you send somebody in email, but they're not good enough with email. trust that it happens. So they text you. And then they call you. Did you get my text about the email that I sent you? It was wild.

I just want to make sure it's sent. At a hotel party where your buddy is DJing. Justice for James. Dylan, who are your stars? First star got to give it up to Lala. You know I love Lala. I thought she had a terrible season last year,

but this season she just keeps getting better and better to the point where they seem to have given her the reins of the show. so I like the la less supremacy here. Second star Joe, still rep in Joe. Give us more Joe. Hats on for Joe. That's my new hashtag. Hats on for Joe.

And third star Brock are like it more and more. And a little thing about Brock, let's point out that he's added some drama to both of these shows. Because if we go back to episode one of the Valley, Brock was the one who told Jacks to Pants Danny. He was the guy standing behind him, like, oh, pull his pants down, pulls pants down. Like so he's he's making it happen on two shows now.

He's stepping up. He's making things, making things happen. Wow. Good for Brock. Wow. Brock and Jacks together is more than my, my poor little brain can handle. That would be,

yeah, we haven't really seen them interact that much, but it would be amazing to have a whole, just do like a body cop movie of Brock's and Jack. It even sounds like a buddy cop movie, Brock and Jacks. Like, wow. Totally.

Awesome. David. Well, thank you so much for, doing this. This has been a ton of fun. Do you want to let our audience and Sheena know where they can find you? Sheena, please.

Sharing my location now. No, thank you both so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. When I told my co-host, I was doing this, he said, why? And I said, I think the part of being a podcaster is being out in the world and, like, saying yes to guest spots.

And, like, you get to do fun and different things. And I may never come on to these shows again. So this was, like, a real treat to poke my head into something. But if you want to follow me, I'm most active on Twitter. unfortunately. You can find me there as D-M-A-22. That's D-M-U-M-A-2. I'm everywhere else's D-M-A, Instagram, Blue Sky, wherever. As we mentioned at the top, I'm the host of

of Ari and My Mother, a podcast about moms in media. And I also co-host a podcast called Gimmicks in which my co-host, Derek and I talk about weird, high-concept and genre-baking experimental episodes of television. Fans of this podcast might enjoy our conversation about the 30-Rock episode Queen of Jordan that parodied Bravo reality TV, on Sherry Shepard's character, Angie Jordan. Both of those are part of the Glitterjaw queer podcast collective. You can find them at Glitterjaw.com.

Awesome. Dylan, how about yourself? You can find me on Substack writing about movies. The name's Dylan Ferguson. If you want to hear some back episodes of me talking about horror movies, there's a podcast that used to do called Mind Over Splatter. So I'll look that up to if you want to hear more of my voice.

Awesome. I'm Craig Midwinter. Not super active on many socials, but you can find my Instagram at Bravo Outsider. Subscribe to us on YouTube and rate and review us. Tell your friends about this podcast. It really helps us out a ton. We're at Bravo Outsider.com. We post VR versions of our episodes if you're into that.

I guess if you're into VR and you want to connect with me, you can add me on Oculus, Midwinter 86. Until next week, keep on wiping.