After their disastrous date night, Brittany Cartwright is grumpy toward Jax Taylor. “What is wrong with you?” he snaps. “I’m just feeling a little stressed out today,” she answers. They start griping at each other.
Flashback to after their date night when Jax apologizes to Brittany for making her cry. “I know my delivery sucks,” he says. “I’m learning.” Apparently not.
Brittany tells her mom over the phone that she wants another baby but Jax is more concerned with opening his bar, which his mom is against. “I don’t think this is good for a marriage.” Let’s see, Jax around tipsy women late at night? What could go wrong?
Janet and Jason Caperna are going to host a hibachi dinner at their house and invite everyone — except for Kristen Doute and Luke Broderick. “I feel like I’m not there with Kristen right now to invite her,” Janet tells Jason.
Kristen Doute throws Jax and Brittany under the bus
Kristen and Jasmine Goode meet up for some vino in the Valley. Jasmine has some tea to spill but she doesn’t know how to get it out and eats a piece of cured meat while Kristen waits.
The snack gives her the boost to say, “I had a conversation with Jax and he said that you had some information about Michelle [Lally] possibly texting another guy … after all these issues we had in the past, like, I don’t know what to believe.”
“Who’s the only person talking about it right now?” Kristen asks. “Jax.”
In a confessional, Kristen says, “So here’s the secret. From what Michelle told me, she was texting with someone who was not Jesse. She had, I guess, an emotional affair with this guy.”
At the bar, Jasmine tells Kristen, “It’s just weird that he would say that you were talking about Michelle having some kind of like, interaction with a man.”
“He’s the one who said it to me at lunch a few weeks back,” Kristen responds. Flashback to when Jax took Kristen to a steakhouse and wanted to spill the deets about Michelle. He asked if the cameras were rolling and seemed scared to tell Kristen because Brittany was the one who told him in confidence.
Kristen then read Jasmine a text Jax sent her after their dinner. “He said, ‘Do not repeat anything personal to Michelle. You could destroy a life and I don’t know if it’s true.'” She says that spoke to Brittany about it, who claimed that Michelle was talking to someone famous.
Jasmine tells Kristen that she and Jax are the same person with their gossip and stirring up drama. Unsurprisingly, Kristen doesn’t see it.
Jax Taylor leaves Brittany Cartwright high and dry
It’s hibachi night and Janet has invited everyone including some randos named Simon and Jhor but not Kristen. The group starts gossiping about Kristen and Jesse Lally says he removed her from their group chat. Jax chimes in and says that he full-on blocked her.
They’re all enjoying their food cooked with flair when Jesse harps on Michelle’s use of the term “butthurt.” She says, “You always try to correct me and I’m like, that’s a word.”
“My response was, ‘Your butt’s going to hurt,'” Jesse quips. Zack Wickham’s eyes roll so far up that they almost touch his hairline.
Inside, Brittany is not feeling well so Jax goes to check up on her. She thinks it’s the shot of sake she just took. “I’m like, in a lot of pain,” she tells him.
Brittany tells Jax to stay while she takes a car home. “I don’t know why I feel so nauseous,” she says. “Drinking … told you,” he tells her before walking out the door.
“I had one sake shot. It was my first drink of the freaking night,” Brittany tells the cameras. “Like him snapping at me, it is so hard to constantly be somebody’s punching bag. It’s not fair.”
The Vally cast’s sex life needs work
It’s time for some games and their friend Jared comes out as a drag queen named Sparkle.
“The name of the game is ‘Drag Your Heart,'” he tells the group. It’s a couple’s game where they have to see how well they know each other. Since Jax is now solo, he suggests that Zack be paired up with him. Zack’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree.
The first question is which partner is the catch. Zack, who is playing for Brittany, says her name. Jax agrees, which shows he can at least pretend to appreciate her.
It’s Jesse’s turn, who says, “I’m in couple’s counseling right now so I have to say, Michelle.” She looks less than pleased.
Sparkle asks a question everyone doesn’t need to know, which is how long their partners last in bed. Michelle is like, it’s time for revenge, and she says, “Two minutes.” The other answers range from seven to 15 minutes, which is likely the reason everyone is so snippy with each other.
The last question is who everyone’s partner would choose for a threesome. Even before Danny Booko can think about his answer, his wife Nia Booko says, “Daniel,” while giving him a signal that he must not answer or he will be banished to the depths of hell. He gets it and says that he wants to have a threesome with her.
Zack Wickham is the Kristen Doute whisperer
Kristen is preparing a pop-up event for her t-shirt line and talks to Zack about who to invite, given that she was excluded from Janet’s hibachi night. She’s confused because everything that went down has nothing to do with Janet.
Zack tries to explain to her, “You didn’t directly scream at Janet but it’s just another moment of you making a decision that kind of ends up ruining the night or putting like, a sour taste at the very end.”
“It really sucks for Kristen because I feel like people blame her for drama but like, Janet is a sh*t stirrer,” Zack tells the cameras. He’s not wrong, even though his hair totally is. He thinks she’s getting away with murder because she’s pregnant.
Zack advises Kristen to just invite Janet and Michelle to her event in order to stop the drama. He is the reasonable one out of all of them, despite having the worst hair.
Jesse Lally wants to be a changed man
Jesse knows that his marriage is in trouble and has booked a one-night excursion to do plant-based medicine. “The idea of doing something like this is so against my personality but I’ll try anything to make myself the person that Michelle wants to be with,” he tells the cameras.
“We’re working on our marriage and one of the fundamental issues is that you always say like, the Jesse show and the idea is that to be that guy who walks into the room without an ego who naturally draws people to you,” Jesse shares with Michelle.
“Behind all of that, you’re a very good person at heart but you’re your own obstacle,” she says.
“What do you want out of it?” he asks her. “I hope that you can change a little bit, in terms … change your personality,” she answers. It’s going to take a lot more than one ayahuasca session to change Jesse.
Kristen Doute and Janet Caperna keep not inviting each other
Zack is helping Kristen set up her pop-up even for her t-shirt line James Mae and she tells him that she didn’t invite the Lallys or Capernas. His bangs flip up in concern.
“If it would have been as simple as just texting the flyer for James Mae party to both Micheel and Janet, I would have done it in a heartbeat. But I know that it would have not been that easy. It would have required a poem, a sonnet, my first-born child,” Kristen says in a confessional.
Meanwhile, Janet calls Brittany and Jax to invite them to her babymoon in Big Bear. They’re excited to go but Janet tells them Kristen is not invited. Jax then feels the need to tell Kristen about the trip at her James Mae event. He thinks all the non-inviting is childish, which says a lot coming from Jax.
Brittany tells Zack about Big Bear and now he’s all offended because Janet hasn’t invited him thus far. “What did I do to you?” he says to the cameras. Now, Zack is heated because he thinks Janet didn’t invite him because he’s close with Kristen.
Because Jax isn’t the center of attention, he gathers everybody around and informs Kristen about Janet and Jason’s babymoon. “Unfortunately, they don’t want to invite you guys. I was the only one who said that you guys should come.”
Strangely enough, Zack starts crying and it’s not because he feels bad for Kristen, but it’s because he’s not invited to the babymoon. Kristen tries to soothe him even though she’s the one who got snubbed. Fun times.
