“The Valley” crew minus Kristen Doute and Zack Wickham are still in Big Bear and about to throw Janet Caperna a baby shower.
Brittany Cartwright tells Nia Booko that her husband Jax Taylor apologized for screaming at her while she was sick and accusing her of being a drunk. It’s apparently an easily forgivable offense to Brittany but then she’s used to dealing with Jax.
Meanwhile, the guys are fishing and Jesse Lally is already raging because he has to pee. Someone bring a shaman around to do a shrooms ceremony. There’s a bathroom in the middle of the lake and Danny Booko instructs the captain to drive away. Jesse is unbothered and waves from another person’s boat with a blanket tied around his head.
At the cabin, Michelle Lally complains that Jesse is going to therapy and it’s working a bit too well. Apparently, he’s giving her too much affection and she’s like, ew. Brittany is not getting enough from Jax and wishes she had a man all over her like beer cheese on bread.
“Do you still feel like you want to be in the marriage at all?” Brittany asks. “I do and I don’t,” Michelle replies, which basically means she doesn’t. Brittany asks if she’s still attracted to Jesse and Michelle gives a half shrug. She admits that she’s not happy with him. All the shrooms are not going to save their marriage.
Surprise! Baby shower for Janet Caperna
Janet comes down from her nap and is greeted with a surprise baby shower that she totally knew about. Still, she gives a good surprised face.
They all eat some finger sandwiches and play baby shower games like chugging water out of a baby bottle. Everything is all fine and dandy until Brittany and Michelle start sharing birth stories. Michelle gave birth for three days and almost bled out and Brittany had back labor.
Thankfully, the guys come back and they’re all sunburned because none of their moms wives were there to apply sunscreen. Danny is hammered and the boys all need a nap before Janet’s fantasy party.
Sweet, sweet fantasy baby
Everyone is supposed to dress up as their spouse’s fantasy and Jason Caperna is wearing a hot dog costume. It’s too much to decipher, so let’s move on.
Jesse has a bunch of fake tattoos all over his body and it’s the first time Michelle looks at him with an ounce of interest. He ruins it by saying, “Maybe I can actually get someone to sleep with me.” Her desire-o-meter goes down.
Speaking of weird costumes, Danny is bummed that Nia is not dressed up as ranch dressing, which is a weird fantasy. He goes as Jamie from “Outlander” and has a horrible brown wig on complete with a bad Scottish accent.
Janet’s costume is a painting of a vanilla bean because Jason likes standard sex. So far, everyone in the cast is showing America that the Valley is the place to become sterile.
Mic drop — Michelle comes down in a leather overcoat and lingerie. She reveals that this was the outfit that she wore when wooing Jesse in the beginning.
Danny Booko had too much to drink
Danny is obviously tipsy but does harmless things like sticking flowers up his nose and talking in a Scottish accent. However, Jesse goes too far when he calls Danny, who has been in many movies, a “terrible actor.”
His feelings are hurt so he decides to drink more. “I want Daniel to have a good time. He’s having a little bit too much of a good time right now,” Nia says in a confessional.
Michelle tries to change the subject and asks Nia about their plans to move. Nia wants to be in the thick of Los Angeles like West Hollywood and Miracle Mile. “Hope you got a lot of money,” Jax jokes.
Nia doesn’t necessarily want a big house, but it’s the location that matters to her. Meanwhile, Danny points out that they’re currently living in a 2,300-square-foot condo and still don’t have enough room for their three kids.
“What I make and we make collectively, this is what we can afford and in the Valley is where we need to be looking,” Danny says. He starts spiralling and Nia whispers to him to stop.
Danny keeps bringing up the fact that he has three kids. It’s not a competition, which Jasmine Goode points out. After Nia keeps telling her drunk hubby to chill, he says to her, “You f*cked me over.” She reminds him that he’s cursing at her on television.
She urges Danny to go to sleep and he stumbles downstairs and after he goes to bed, she’s ready for a shot.
Jesse and Michelle Lally are doomed
It was clear from the start that Jesse and Michelle’s marriage had issues but it’s sad to see it going down the drain right before our eyes. The next morning, they talk about the cheating rumor that Jax claimed Kristen brought up.
“You know, I don’t like to hear stuff like that. Because then it makes me question you,” Jesse says. “And it’s like, okay, why would somebody just randomly make that up?”
Michelle drinks her coffee and she looks guilty as heck. “Well, I mean, I’ve been pretty clear with you about everything,” she says.
Jesse points out that Michelle hides her phone whenever he comes anywhere near it and then there are those darn rumors. “I think that funny that you’re questioning me like this right now,” Michelle tells him. A-ha, the old switcharoo!
In a confessional, Jesse says that the morning started out well because they finally had sex but afterward, he realized that she had her eyes closed and didn’t seem into him. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I can feel the energy is completely different,” he says.
“Kristen is accusing me of being a cheater when she has cheated on her boyfriends,” Michelle tells the cameras. When a producer asks if she’s alluding to Kristen possibly cheating on her boyfriend Luke Broderick, Michelle just smiles and says, “I don’t know.”
Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright aren’t any better
Brittany and Janet go outside to talk about Jax. “He was like, almost making it sound like I had a drinking problem or something,” Brittany says immediately. Flashback to Jax yelling at Brittany for being sick and accusing her of drinking too much when she only had one drink that day.
“His delivery is wrong and super harsh,” Janet says. “Like, he can’t just come out and scream at you.”
Janet thinks Brittany and Jax just need to communicate better and it shows that she has clearly never been in a relationship with him.
“Jax is impossible to communicate with. I’ve had to deal with this for eight years,” Brittany argues. Michelle just doesn’t them to divorce and says that they would never go down that path, to which Brittany says, “Oh, we would go down that path.”
Danny Booko and Nia Booko have a solid marriage
It’s now Danny and Nia’s turn to talk outside. She tells him that their conversation about where to move was personal and not meant to be talked about at dinner in front of everyone. Nia gets that he wants more liveable space but he doesn’t understand that she doesn’t want to move to Santa Clarita.
“It is a community that I have no connections in at all. I don’t feel emotionally connected to that space and that’s why I feel like you’re not hearing. I want to feel heard and understood,” she tells him.
“I hear you. Everything you’re saying is valid. I would never move if you were unhappy,” Danny says. “We’re in a season right now where some days you say, ‘I don’t want to get out of bed and I want to cry all day.’ And, I want to be the rock. I want to be there for you. I want to be there for our kids.”
“And you always are,” Nia assures him. “But I’m not like that every day. So when I’m okay, I want you to step away to make sure that you’re doing things for you because I enjoy seeing you be happy.”
Danny hasn’t realized how much he’s been holding stuff in while trying to be strong for Nia as she goes through her post-partum baby blues. They both kiss and make up. Jax should take lessons from them on how to talk to a spouse.
Jesse Lally hosts an expensive gentleman’s lunch
To further prove how bougie he is, Jesse reveals that he has a weekly Friday gentleman’s lunch during which he and other people with XY chromosomes shoot the sh*t.
Jason, Jax, and some guy in a suit are invited this time. Because shrimp is for plebians, they are served langoustines, which Jax can’t even pronounce.
They start talking about Big Bear and marriage. Jax says, “Everybody was diving deep and talking about things that guys normally don’t talk about. I said I’m in a place right now where I’m very aware of what is going on in my marriage.”
“Brittany and I both say we’re stuck with each other forever. We love each other more than anything. We’re our best each other’s friends,” he says. Apparently, he can’t pronounce langoustine or get a grasp on syntax.
Jesse calls Jax out and says, “I think it’s a little worse for Brittany than you think it is.”
In a confessional, Jason says, “I think maybe he’s sticking his head in the sand a little bit. Jax always says he’s never going to get a divorce. I think that that’s kind of thinking from a standpoint of he’s the one who calls all the shots here.”
He continues, “Brittany also can call shots. Like, Brittany, she actually could just divorce you and you can’t do anything about it.” Jason’s a lawyer so he knows what he’s talking about.
At the lunch, Jesse tells Jax that he doesn’t want him to regret not working harder on his marriage to Brittany.
Jax tells the cameras that he thinks it’s hypocritical of Jesse to dole out advice when he’s also going through marital issues.
“She would never leave,” Jax says to Jason and Jesse. Boy, was he wrong.
