The Valley Recap: Schwatzapo-Losers

The Valley
Schwatzapalooza
Season 3 Episode 12
Editor’s Rating ★★
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A wise man once told me that the only thing worse than no party is a bad party, and I have never seen the adage play out as it does in this episode. The whole crew, minus Jason, who can’t bend his knee, and Lacy, who needs a whole day to get to an airport owned by John Wayne, goes to Punta Mita, Mexico, to celebrate the birthdays of Schwartz, Zack, and Danny. I have never wanted to skip a trip so badly. Seriously, none of these people are equipped to be traveling at this particular moment. Brittany is literally still in a diaper and just days away from having plastic sacs filled with her only bodily fluids removed from her body. She needs a wheelchair at the airport, which, sure, but for an elective surgery? Danny and Nia are traveling with their baby and a nanny, and Kristen and Luke, a Lincoln Logs set that can only make a shooting range, are also traveling with an infant, her sister, and brother-in-law, and so much emotional baggage that Jet Blue charged them $35 million in luggage fees. (That $ is for Mexican pesos, not dollars, but it’s the same symbol. The things Gemini AI teaches me every day. This recap was brought to you by Gemini AI, the best way to suck all of the water out of the Earth’s crust.)

I’m sorry, but this trip does not look fun at all. When everyone arrives, Zack, Benji, Schwartz, Danny, and Luke are all at the swim-up bar as the storm clouds roll into the resort. They’re still there under a thatched roof, trying to drink spicy margs as the rain comes down and ruins Zack’s hair. This makes it even worse. They don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there, and even the sun doesn’t want to be there. Does every season need a trip? With everyone sidelined due to either infants or medical impairment, couldn’t they have just gone to the Chuck E Cheese in the Valley, where they took Erika Jayne for her pizza party on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?

The drama starts before everyone even gets on the plane. Kristen goes by Brittany’s house, and they get into a fight about how loyal either of them should be to Nia and Danny. Brittany insists that she loves Nia and (mostly) Danny, but she thinks that Nia is sometimes performing being nice for the camera. Kristen says she doesn’t understand why people insist that there is something darker lurking under the surface with the pair. We peer under the hood a little bit when Jasmine and Zack talk about Danny, once again, sneaking drinking at Zack’s housewarming party and Monster energy drink fridge memorial. I get why Danny is not telling people he’s drinking because he doesn’t want the group to freak out, but Zack makes a great point: If everyone knew he was drinking and saw that he wasn’t grabbing asses and shouting at his wife, maybe they would shut up about how even a drop of alcohol turns him into a caricature of a frat boy. The problem is that he’s hiding it, which, hello, makes it look like he has something to hide. It’s kind of like plastic surgery, either do it or don’t do it, I don’t care, but don’t lie to me when I notice that something is totally different about you.

Zack and Jasmine have this chat while they are both getting butt facials, which are facials for your butt. But is it a facial if it happens on your butt and not your face? This is a question for the PornHub community, me thinks. After dissecting Danny with their cheeks in the air, the convo turns to how Zack isn’t sure if he wants kids, but he knows Benji does, and is unsure if he can commit to him because of this. Then he starts crying, and Starla, the technician, tells him that he isn’t the first person to cry while getting the procedure. Really? Are we sure? There is no crying in baseball or butt facials, and I believe that Zack has probably broken both of these rules during his lifetime. I’m not going to lie, despite the crying, it did make me want to get a facial, but on my butt.

There is plenty of crying on the trip, which happens as soon as everyone lands and Kristen has her first freakout. She has historically been a very anxious traveler (possibly the only trait that Kristen and I share), and when she is changing the baby’s diaper in the ladies’ room, some fans of the show try to take her picture. Okay, everyone, this one is on us. I know how exciting it is to spot a Bravoleb in the wild, and they feel like they’re our friends, so we treat them differently than we might other stars. Sorry, but that is not the case. Let this woman change her baby’s diaper in peace! A public bathroom is no place to take sneaky photos. Do Kristen a solid and wait outside the ladies’ room and approach her like an actual human. I bet she’d pose for the picture with you; she might even introduce you to the rest of the cast, and you could get as many pictures as you’d like. Heck, Janet would probably insist on photos. I think approaching the Bravolebs sweetly and kindly will get you what you want. Unless it is Ramona Singer. In that case, keep at least 30 feet away, or you might lose a limb. 

Luke and Kristen squabble for the entirety of the trip, which only adds to its miserableness. I do believe that they’re both kind of wrong and that meeting somewhere in the middle is the only solution. Kristen is freaking out because she’s traveling, she’s still postpartum, and she just wants to spend her time with her daughter. I get it, and if I were in charge of this show rather than just one skanky corner of the Bravo internet, they wouldn’t have even gone on this trip. But she’s there and has extra help; she should try to enjoy it at least a little bit. She says that Kaia will only be this age for one second, but that will be true for the rest of her life. There will always be milestones, there will always be little things to miss, but she has to accept that. The alternative is that she smothers her, never leaves her side, and has to be thrown out of Kaia’s university for insisting on attending classes with her. Being with her every second is unsustainable.

However, Luke is crazy to push her while it’s just four months in. He’s right, he has no idea what she’s going through mentally or physically, and he needs to give her at least nine to 12 months to settle into her new role as a parent. Brittany is right, he needs to give her more grace, agree to take a back seat, and take more of what Kristen says on the chin. As Brittany says, it’s temporary. It may be tough, but it will end soon enough. Maybe if he let up on her and had some more understanding, then she wouldn’t be so mean. When Luke says he’s going ot the pool and she passive-aggressively says she’s going to care for her daughter, I wanted to slap both of them with a deflated water wing. 

That said, Kristen (as she is wont to do) is making these edicts about him and her life, which may or may not be true. She says that now that she’s a mother, she doesn’t want to go out and party anymore. Okay, that’s true now, but is it true forever? She doesn’t know that in three years she’s going to be like, “Dear Catholic Jesus, please get me a babysitter so that I can go out and get drunk wth Scheana Shay.” She also says that Luke wants to hang out with his friends and party, which she doesn’t. Okay, then she can let him do it without guilting him. Again, it’s about compromise. She doesn’t want to go out to brunch at Tom Tom on Sunday, but why not take Luke? Why not surprise him once a quarter with a boozy brunch for the two of them to focus on each other? He’ll be so happy that she’s doing something he knows she doesn’t love for his benefit that it will only bring them closer. They’re letting these issues divide them by taking opposite stances, but they need to take the same stance, which is helping each other, being there for each other, raising a child not alone but with each other. 

If I were Kristen, I would not have felt bad skipping Tom’s Schwartzapolooza party because, well, it is terrible. It is supposed to be a great beach party with a bonfire, but it gets rained out, and they are all huddled under an awning wearing too much body glitter and eating from a greige buffet. They put glow sticks on the tables, they give Schwartz a Pride sash that says, “It’s my birthday, bitch,” but there is no livening up this party, no matter how many times Danny shouts, “Let’s gooooooooooo,” to everyone’s annoyance. 

At some point, they just had to call it. The whole crew was injured, fighting, or not in the mood. Finally, Tom retired to the suite that he’s sharing with Zack and Benji. He pulled off the flower crown that he also wore at Rachella, and lifted his white lace shirt over his head. He looked down at the rainbow sash on his bedspread and remembered something, something from his past, someone he loved long ago. He walked across the sitting area between the bedrooms and lightly rapped on Zack and Benji’s door and opened it before hearing a reply. “Guys…” he said softly as he looked in the bed and saw Zack and Benji making out in the gloom.

“Tom!” Zack shouted, a little upset and confused. 

“Sorry, but I… I… I really miss Tom,” Schwartz said. Benji separated from Zack, patted the spot on the bed between them, and then opened up his arm as an invitation. Schwartz slid between the two of them, kissed Benji first and then Zack, Zack and then Benji, back and forth as lips found lips, hands found flesh, underwear found the floor. They rolled around in a delicious tumble when Schwartz finally ran his hand over Zack’s ass. “Damn. How did that get so smooth?” he asks before he dove right back into the buffet.