You guys we just got through another Vanderpump Rules wedding, and now we’re rushed right into another engagement. I just… don’t… think… I … can… take… it. I am fatigued, y’all. Fatigued! I feel about these weddings the way everyone else on this show feels about their friendships with Kristen Doute. I am wrung out on made-for-TV pseudo-happiness and forever afters.
The latest couple to plod towards the aisle escorted by all the Bravo trappings is Stassi Schroeder and Beau Clark. Blah, blah, blah – beautiful proposal, fabulous vintage Tiffany ring (omg – swoon), followed by a fantastic surprise engagement party thrown by Lisa Vanderpump at Villa Rosa which made Brittany Cartwright, former princess bridezilla, jealous. Worth it just for that!
See Brittany is done bride-ing, and is now riding Jax Taylor for the rest of live-long days. She wanted a frog who turned into a prince, but what she got was a frog who turned into an ogre. But at least that ogre can push a lawnmower!
The first words Stassi says to Beau on the morning of their would-be engagement is, “I”m sorry I was an asshole.” This was because she freaked out on him at the Witches of WeHo wine launch for not exorcising Kristen from his life swiftly enough.
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Basically, not an auspicious start to a long and fulfilling marriage! Or maybe it is if you’re marriage begins in a graveyard, shopping for the place to die together, with your husband-to-be prying the ring out of the grass after pretending someone randomly dropped an urn trying to dispose of their relative’s ashes on the cheap? So Beau, playing a literal grave robber, asked Stassi if even death couldn’t do them part. Oh, trust us Beau — you won’t be able to pry Stassi’s cold dead hands off your clammy ass with a pitchfork. She has hooked her claws into you and knowing she can bury you alive with her bullshit, she’s hanging on for dear life (and lack thereof!).
Well congratulations! Stassi she seems very happy and now she gets to play the ultimate zombie bride. Stassi is thrilled to be planning a wedding, because despite all her feminist AF bullshit all she’s really ever wanted to be was Brittany a wife. I just can’t with these girls who feel like the penultimate moment of their existence is planning a wedding and flashing an engagement ring. As if everything else stops once someone deemed them good enough to throw a white gown and a diamond on them. I’ve been married for 10 years so maybe I’m jaded? I was also the girl who wanted my dolls to be rock stars and secret agents instead of brides though.
After saying Yes, Stassi immediately calls Katie Maloney. Even before phoning her parents. Then they drive to Lisa’s. Even though they’re not supposed to know a surprise engagement party is happening? In the car Beau gets a text from Carter, who is clinging onto the last gasps of relevancy for 15 minutes of semi-semi-famous life. Carter is basically a semi in a drunken hookup with the hottest person you’ve ever seen. He’s also just the type of prick who would see a couple’s newly engaged insta and try to ruin their happiness.
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C’mon – anyone marrying Stassi has fleeting happiness (see, Schwartz, Tom 2) available, so leave’em be! Carter texts Beau to complain that even though Kristen introduced them, they’re cold-hearted enough to ditch her in a paupers grave. Stassi is furious that she has to deal with Kristen before getting to celebrate. She leaps from joy to rage in an instant. She’s gone from a nagging shrew to the happiest, luckiest girl alive. BAARF. Also, I’m so over Stassi thinking it’s cute to be the crazy demon girl. You’re a 100 years old and a ghost of your former self. We don’t believe you’re poisoning dildos anymore to destroy your enemy.
Kristen is the only person not invited to this engagement party. Even freaking Scheana Marie is there and Stassi likes Scheana about as much as she likes a can of tuna that’s left in the trashcan from yesterday’s lunch. And tuna is always a last-ditch lunch anyway. It’s one notch above egg salad. So I guess that makes Kristen the mashed hard boiled egg of their mostly dysfunctional lives?
Lisa even has the decency to be surprised and disappointed that Kristen didn’t make the list. Lala Kent and Katie come over early to help put out drinks, and Lala is wearing a slip as a dress with no underwear. She then lifts it up in the back to give Ken ‘The Lala.’ Ken is smarter than Randall though and runs the other way.
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Before Stassi arrives Lala calls Kristen to see how she’s doing. Within seconds it devolves into an argument with an emotional Kristen insisting she’s FINE being the only person left-out and Lala seething that Kristen has some nerve. Don’t they all?
Lisa even had Stassi’s family flown in to surprise her. She is really going all out for the girl she once dubbed “not important enough to hate.” Stassi is on Cloud 9, celebrating her, her, her… and kind of Beau. Except Kristen is always there in the shadows! An uncomfortable reminder that life goes on even in death [of a friendship].
Poor Ariana Madix gets stuck sitting beside the empty chair that was designated for Kristen. The ghost of friendship past still haunts! Isn’t that poor hostessing on Lisa’s part? Couldn’t she just remove that place-setting quickly? She’s been in this game long enough to know better. Or was it on purpose… A warning that Ariana is the next to be ghosted?
Scheana gets stuck sitting next to Stassi’s precocious little brother Nickolai, who’s now a teen. Scheana plays Mrs. Robinson making him gag while getting a spontaneous erection as she low-key flirts, then swears she’d never date anyone still in high school. Someone please get Scheana some hormone therapy before we find her in a Lifetime Movie special about women whose mid-life crisis led them to seduce their friend’s brothers. “Brother, You May Not Sleep With Cougars” coming soon!
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The day after the party Jax and Brittany go over to Kristen’s house to ‘cut her grass.’ AKA cut her down to size. Jax is apparently some sort of lawn mowing impresario courtesy of his midwestern childhood where everything was idyllic and bucolic, and that’s why he didn’t invite his mother to his wedding and turned out to be such sociopath. It also says something about Jax’s maturity level that his dream job is mowing the neighbor’s lawns. 40 going on 14! He’ll take his tips in ham sandwiches.
While Jax is struggling to shove the mower through Kristen’s overgrown jungle of a lawn, Brittany is struggling to shove the sense into Kristen’s overgrown mind. Kristen was so distraught about being excluded from Stassi’s party that she sent the dogs to stay with Carter overnight so she didn’t throw them into a canine depression from feeding off her emotional instability. Um… Mkay. Kristen also pretends not to know about the text Carter sent Beau until Jax reads it aloud. Kristen is secretly thrilled that Carter stood up for her and defended her honor. Yeah, he’s a regular knight in shining armor. Oh! Maybe he could get a job at Medieval Times!!
While all this old married people stuff is going on there is a whole ‘nother faction of people having nothing to do with any of of this and working at SUR. Yes, there is a show within a show and it’s about people who are young, and hip, and psycho, and slutty enough to actually be on a reality show about young, hip, wannabe 20-somethinngs working in a trendy bar. That show is called Vanderpump Rules, and it is far superior to Love & Death In The Valley, aka Vanderpump Plans A Wedding.
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After an awkward run-in with Max Boyens as the Witches party, Dayna Kathan is relieved she’s found Brett Caprioni. She admits to Brett that she wished she’d never fucked with the twiggy, post-adolescent Max and had met Brett first. Brett agrees they have deep, oh so deep and thrusting, conversations and he really enjoys their connection. Dayna delivers her entire spiel without taking a breath, changing her inflection, or making any eye contact. She’s a FemBot. Meanwhile there is Charli Burrnett, who is celebrating the great accomplishment of eating pasta for the first time! And where did this milestone take place? At Olive Garden, of course!
How did Dayna become the newbie producers chose to focus on? Even with fucking two guys from two different restaurants she’s still BORING AS HELL. More Danica Dow! More Charli! Danica is literally stalking people. Like blowing into her breathalyzer to trail her exes around town before probably bashing in their car windows with a curling iron and tossing in a dildo grenade. Danica is a true crime podcast waiting to happen. Charli is afraid of pasta and super sarcastic funny. Her fake boobs are her imaginary friends. Meanwhile Dayna is only marginally less boring than Max and Brett combined, but at least the latter two are marginally hot. That is if you like men who lie after sex or cry after sex….
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Finally everyone meets up for the now annual SUR vs Tom Tom softball game. The losing team has to clean the rival restaurant’s bathroom with toothbrushes. It’s no surprise that Tom 1 is competitive about having the best outfit and winning, of course. Unfortunately his motley crew of metrosexual males, helmed in part by Tom 2 and James Kennedy, doesn’t stand a chance of defeating the badass bitches of SUR in their hot pink knee socks from the stripper costume store. Procured by Danica of course! Also there’s a relationship rivalry: sometimes DJ of special events, James, is playing for Tom Tom while Raquel Leviss, of course, is batting for SUR.
Lisa throws the opening pitch wearing a purple satin bomber jacket and a smirk about how she encourages her staff to hit home runs… Just not in the bedroom! (wink, wink; nudge, nudge). Scheana did not get that memo!
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It turns out that Scheana played softball through high school and her great aunt was a member of the Georgia Peaches, one of the women’s baseball teams featured in A League of Their Own. That is AMAZING. I love this! Scheana can pitch through a wedgie if it means a 20-something bar back is staring at her ass. Charli has also played softball since childhood, and manages the incredible feat of picking a wedgie while rounding bases into home.
Tom’s team features Ariana, who accidentally bounces the bat off the ground and whacks herself in the mouth, resulting in a bloody lip; and Katie, who stands in the outfield eating sunflower seeds and sulking. Katie doesn’t want to be there. Katie doesn’t like the outdoors. Katie doesn’t like fun. Katie doesn’t like people. Katie doesn’t like sports. Katie doesn’t like life. Katie doesn’t like James.
Oh wait… a new development there! During the game, a now one-month sober James, sits down next to Katie and sincerely apologizes for all the body shaming. He really does! Without alcohol James is realizing how much he’s missed in terms of feeling and internalizing life. Katie seems shocked, but begrudgingly accepts, and James is so happy and relieved. Sober James is amazing! He’s light, fresh, and exuberant. He’s the James we’ve loved in snippets over the years.
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Katie remains Katie. And all the things we have not loved over the years. And Jax is still Jax. Bashing Tom 1 from the sidelines, complaining that he knows nothing about sports and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to decide the softball rules. Just as Jax is offering to trade Raquel for someone from the opposite team, Raquel goes up to bat, hits a line drive and does flying leaps and high kicks to first base. Never underestimate a pageant girl whose talent was bringing Lisa Frank’s Magical Universe to life and believes Mermaids can have it all if they only learn to sing.
Raquel will defeat Jax with her CareBear stare and turn all his moody storm clouds into gentle rains that make the grasses grow so he can reach his happy place pushing a mower in rhythmic rows, tuning out the sound of Brittany’s voice begging him to look at their wedding album for the 400th time.
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TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF STASSI’S PROPOSAL? SHOULD KRISTEN HAVE BEEN AT THE PARTY? WAS JAMES’ APOLOGY TO KATIE SINCERE?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
