The Valley Recap: The Ties That Bond

The Valley
Friendships Shaken, Not Stirred
Season 3 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating ★
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I’m sorry, but I am not talking about Danny and Jasmine/Danny and Janet/Janet and Nia. In the words of Ramona Singer: I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I am not at all interested. We have all come to an agreement on what happened: Danny was wrong to touch Jasmine, but made amends; Janet took it too far criticizing him; Nia is blind to her husband’s worst characteristics and doesn’t like other people discussing them. Case closed. The end. The episode showed, once again, their worst behavior: Danny carrying on drunk, Janet making an apt but totally sensational comparison between Danny and Charles Manson, Luke inserting himself in a situation that doesn’t even concern him, Kristen showing off her “pitbull” to make a boring conversation that much worse, and Brittany sitting there and crying about how badly Jax fucked her up. It was like a repeat of last season on fast-forward.

I’m sorry, but we need to move on. I can’t do it again. I can’t keep watching this same fight. I will reiterate that either Janet and Jason or Danny and Nia need to go, or everyone needs to take a vow of silence about this old shit. This one stupid fight is keeping the whole cast divided and on their own individual sides. Maybe we need new characters, maybe we need someone else for everyone to be mad at, so that we can redraw the lines of the show. 

I think producers thought that person would be Lacy, but I think she’s showing why she was never cast for The Real Housewives of Orange County, even though she auditioned 17 times. I don’t know that Lacy has the goods to create conflict or make a story. That said, she’s actually good as an observer and in a confessional. (Ugh, complimenting Lacy feels like itching a rash, good in the moment, but making the problem worse.) Last episode, when she peeked at each pizza at Zack’s party and said “ew” was excellent work. This week, she talks about how her plans for Schwartz’s James Bond party would be different: valet parking, butlers holding Champagne, passed canapés, and million-dollar décor. Has she not been to one of these parties? Does she not know that these are the alumni of Vanderpump Rules? She’s lucky that there are even paper plates at this affair.

Speaking of their baser tastes, Jesse and Lacy meet Kristen and Luke, a bowl of Cap’n Crunch with Sunny D in it instead of milk, at the farmers’ market to go to the pickle stand. Kristen is on a first-name basis with the pickle guy because she loves them so much and thinks other people need to love them as much as she does. As soon as she says that, I come up with my whole argument for how pickles are disgusting. I hate the taste, the texture, that restaurants sneak them onto your plate without permission, and that they give everything they touch that pickle taste, and also all the germs of everyone in the kitchen just grabbing them with their bare hands. Ugh. Gross. Just as I’m thinking all this, Lacy says, “I don’t care if it’s a pickle handpicked by God, I hate pickles.” Stop making me almost like Lacy. I don’t wanna. 

Another side character who I’m coming around to is Benji, the Teller to Zack’s Penn. (Teller is the silent one, right?) I appreciate that Benji is the only one who showed up in a real costume at the James Bond party, complete with an eye patch and a furry cat to pet. That is dedication. That is thinking outside of the box. Zack was wearing a blue suit and a cheap button-up with a contrasting placket (that’s the part of a shirt with the buttons), the rest of the guys are in tuxes, and Benji is over here saying, “Hold my Monster Energy Drink(–branded fridge)” and turning a lewk. Between this and (ugh, here we go again) catching Danny sneaking a cocktail at the party last week, Benji is a dark horse. 

While it’s not a reason to love Benji per se, I appreciate that Zack and Jasmine talk about Benji’s immigration status, given everything that is going on in the good old U. S. of A. in regard to that topic. Bravo is truly one of the last purple cultural forces, and I think it’s important that people see how government policies are impacting very real people, especially those whom we know through the TV screen. Also, don’t worry about getting married for a visa, Zack. I certainly did! I was in a relationship already, but the visa just pushed the issue, and it’s all worked out. I see the same for him and Benji, our own silent assassin. 

A tertiary character we won’t get to know more of is Brandon, Brittany’s now-ex-boyfriend, whom she used to date in Kentucky, started dating again in California, and subsequently kicked to the curb. Brittany says that she got a text from his ex-wife that their 4-year-old daughter said she was hanging out at another woman’s house and that Brandon was FaceTiming with some new chick. Just look at that sentence. The multiple women, the preschooler getting involved, and going behind Brittany’s back. That is a red flag so large that if you ran it up a flagpole, it would block the sun for the whole Northern Hemisphere. Then Brittany says that he asked her for money multiple times. Oh, Brittany, you in danger, girl. 

I think Lala makes an excellent point, saying that Jax ruined Brittany’s self-esteem so much that she needs to take some time to build it back up. Getting with another man so soon, she’s definitely attracting the wrong type, the ones who want to exploit the emotional loopholes that Jax hardwired into her brain. Be alone for a bit, Brittany. Just hang out at gay bars with Zack and Benji. I know there are plenty of fun-loving gays who will buy her shots while those two go around telling guys they’ve seen them from across the bar and like their vibe. Gays and therapy. That is what Brittany needs. 

It is funny that Jax haunts these proceedings, mostly because he lives in the unit right next to Tom Schwartz. I was wondering how Jax was going to handle having the cast and cameras so close to him, and that he would probably try to hop over the little glass partition to get back onto “his show,” but then it’s easily explained. Jax is out of town. That’s the only way they could use Schwartz’s house for a venue. But what a terrible venue. There are so many stairs. First, Jason risked life and limb to limp all the way up to the second floor. Then Brittany, with her “drains” and bandages still on her, hobbles up multiple flights of stairs. We can’t have everyone on this show be medically unwell. I get that Jason had an accident, but couldn’t Brittany have elected to have her elective surgery when the cameras weren’t following her? I get that she wanted a discount for giving her (hot) doctors some exposure, but couldn’t this have happened in the last episode? Then we see the surgery, see Brittany see the results, and then we just see her at the reunion a few months later looking fresher than the sweat on a cold White Claw. Isn’t that even better advertising? 

The episode ends with Jesse pulling Michelle, who has command over all of her limbs, onto the roof to have a chat. I thought he was going to ask about why she turned her wedding ring into a diamond necklace, but it wasn’t that. He asks her about when they sat in the coffee shop together and she asked him to sign their divorce papers and started to cry about how sad it was that their marriage was over. Then he heard her at Zack’s party say she was glad to get out of a toxic relationship, and he wants to know which is the real reason.

Michelle handles this perfectly, saying that it was toxic when they were divorcing, and she was dealing with her mother’s failing health, and it’s also toxic for her to see Jesse treating Lacy the way she always wanted to be treated. “I had to move on because my husband refused to treat me well. It’s all hard for me,” she says. But then she says the thing that really struck a chord, “Can we go? Can we go? I’m tired.” Yes. Exactly. It’s the same old story with this show, with these men. It’s Jesse going over a stupid point so that he can feel some kind of victory. It’s over. The Danny thing, the Janet thing, the Jesse thing, they’re all over, and we want to go, we want something fresh, we want some new stories to move on to. Just like Michelle, we’re all so freakin’ tired.