Tom Sandoval is back from the Lake Tahoe trip, which means Ariana Madix’s peace is destroyed. It’s bad enough that she has to share a house with her cheating ex, but she also has to deal with his assistant Ann being around doing his menial tasks while he’s gone. She’s pleasant enough, but Ariana still can’t be free in her own home.
Ann asks Sandoval how the trip was and he says some things were resolved. “The stench of the scandal is starting to wear off,” he says in a confessional. “People are humanizing me again. I feel optimistic,” he tells the camera, not knowing that his future self would compare Scandoval to George Floyd and get ripped apart by the public again. Someone please get this guy a crystal ball.
Scheana Shay complains to Lisa Vanderpump about Ariana Madix
Scheana Shay visits Lisa Vanderpump to talk about herself. “I cried so much, my eyelashes were dry and hurt,” she says of the Tahoe trip. She shares, “I’m going through stages of grief with Sandoval … of that friendship.”
“And you feel you can’t have him because Ariana’s gonna be upset,” Lisa puts in. “It’s just hard when I try to tell her how I’m feeling when it comes to Sandoval. She literally said, ‘I don’t wanna hear about it.'”
“I’ve done everything I can to be a ride-or-die for Ariana, but is it not enough still?” Scheana says in a confessional. “I’m afraid to express how I feel because it’s not about me. It’s never been about me, it’s only about her. So, I’m struggling with having any conversation with her lately because I feel like I’m not valid in my feelings,” she adds, making it about her.
Lisa then brings up how Ariana got “Dancing With the Stars,” which Scheana says she’s been preparing for in hopes of getting on the show.
“I am so happy for her, but it’s like, I can it happy for her and sad for me at the same time,” she tells the camera. “I mean good for her, she has come a long way since becoming my backup dancer,” she doesn’t say shadily.
Lisa advises Scheana to tell Ariana how she feels, but she’s reluctant to because her friend has shut her down.
Lala Kent tries to reason with Ariana Madix about Sandoval
Ariana and Lala Kent have coffee. Ariana tells Lala that her photoshoot was “cathartic” because she doesn’t allow herself to rage, and the “Vanderpump Rules” editors beg to differ by showing flashbacks of Ariana raging. “So, I wanna hit things more often,” Ariana tells Lala, who is on board with that.
Lala tells Ariana that Scheana is stressed about having to worry about enjoying spending time around Sandoval. Lala points out that people came for Scheana after posing next to Sandoval and Ariana didn’t come to her friend’s defense. “I’m not gonna post and have my sh*t reposted as headlines and stuff,” Ariana reasons. “Even for your friend?” Lala asks. “I guess I could,” Ariana admits. Lala isn’t buying it.
Lala adds that Scheana got a restraining order over defending her BFF and tells Ariana that she needs to step it up. Ariana responds with, “I can always tell her I love her because I do. But my position has not changed that he doesn’t get any sort of access to my life via me or via mutual friends. I’m not down with him, like, being around.”
“You can’t be that way, Ariana, you can’t shut down like this,” Lala says. Ariana argues that she wants Scheana to be happy but she also needs to look out for her own happiness as well. Lala doesn’t look convinced.
Katie Maloney thinks Sandoval is a demon
Katie Maloney, Kristina Kelly, Scheana, and Lala meet up for cocktails/mocktails. Scheana tells the girls that poor Summer Moon fell off the sofa and broke her arm, which is now in a pink cast to coordinate with her outfits.
They talk about Tahoe and Sandoval’s tearful moments, which Scheana thinks were “genuine.” Katie doesn’t look convinced.
“Do you think he’s more sad about losing your friendship than actually being out of a relationship with Ariana?” Kristina the therapist asks. “Honestly, yes,” Scheana says. “Because he was so unhappy with her for so long.
Kristina asks why they were together for so long and Scheana points out how former “Vanderpump Rules” stars Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright are still together as an obvious plug for their new reality show “The Valley.” Well done, producers.
Scheana brings up her “grieving process” again, noting that Ariana had already gone through hers. She again states how Sandoval was the only one who had her back in the “VPR” early days, which Katie says was “12 years ago.” In other words, move on, Scheana.
“I wish Scheana would just wake the f**k up,” Katie says in a confessional. At the restaurant, the group tries to move on from the conversation but Katie can’t. She tells them, “That man has never offered me a sincere apology since the day I met him. And he’s been awful to me. He interfered in my marriage. He made everyone think I was a monster. My own ex-husband, I think. And the fact that anyone is having trouble getting over this trash bag of a human is fathomless, because this person is, they’re a demon.”
Lisa Vanderpump gets real about Scandoval
Sandoval visits Lisa at TomTom. He tells her he’s worried about Rachel Leviss and that he misses her. Lisa reveals that she spoke to Rachel. “I don’t know. Some of the things she said, she just didn’t seem very happy with you.”
Apparently, Sandoval encouraged Rachel to lie about their affair, which he denied. He gets upset and says, “I’ve been worried sick about her, like, I just want to give her a f***ing hug and like, know that she’s okay.” Lisa tells him to reach out to her but he says that Rachel blocked him. “Well then it’s over,” she says.
Lisa is busy this episode. She visits Lala at her office. Lala tells her she wants to rebrand Give Them Lala and find a sperm donor, which are two very different conversations. She reveals that she wants to have babies (many) on her own terms and not have to share responsibilities with another person. “Just mine,” she cries in a confessional.
They talk about Tahoe, which is apparently the topic of conversation despite the trip being over for days. “I don’t have to be torn between Sandoval and Ariana, which Scheana does,” Lala tells Lisa. She talks about Ariana not defending Scheana, which is turning out to be the storyline this season.
Lala reveals that Ariana shared a tweet defending Scheana’s pic with Sandoval after their talk so that should end all the drama. Lisa, however, foresees a “s**t storm.”
Jo makes her debut on Vanderpump Rules
Tom Schwartz brings out his roommate girlfriend friend Jo to SUR and she’s just as awkward as he is. They’re both wearing baseball caps and awkwardly sit down. Schwartz introduces Jo to James Kennedy and Ally Lewber.
James asks if Jo and Schwartz are “friends with benefits” and things get even more awkward.
The foursome talk about Graham Hippie being a changed dog since living with James and Ally. Then, they notice that Sandoval has arrived. “Yay!” Jo squeals, clapping her hands like a two-year-old.
Sandoval gifts James with sunglasses and Jo says, “That looks SOOO good.” Then she tells Schwartz, “Ew, you spit on me.”
Ally thinks Sandoval is buying James’ love and is worried about her man getting sucked back into the Sandoval world.
The next day, Jo and Schwartz hang one-on-one. He tells the cameras that he didn’t spill his true relationship status with Jo before because he was afraid of Katie’s reaction. It’s unclear what their status is now, as Jo divulged that she and Schwartz hadn’t hooked up for a month.
Apparently, Jo thinks there are still feelings between them but Schwartz, unsurprisingly non-committal, says that they’re just friends.
Ally Lewber does an astrology reading on the Vanderpump Rules girls
The girls go to Ally and James’ house to get an astrological reading, while James, Schwartz, Sandoval, and Brock Davies go eat some meat. Ally tells Ariana that she has a bunch of planets that will give her luck.
Ally does Scheana next, whose moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter has aligned with Mars. She talks about the different houses and tells Scheana she has to fill her own cup before filling others’. “Story of my life, putting everyone else first. That’s just the way I was raised,” she says in a confessional.
Lala has Pluto in her first house, which made Ally gasp for some reason. Ally tells Katie that she’s lived a lot of lives, to which Katie tells the group she was a male before. “That’s why I’m having a hard time stepping into my feminine sh*t.”
Ariana Madix gets real about her finances
The topic of conversation naturally turns to Scanoval. Ariana reveals that a week before she found out about the affair, she was in talks with her camp to improve her finances, which were not good at the time.
“When I first started making, like, decent money, we decided we wanted to buy a house and I was playing catch-up all the way up until Katie and I found a great location for our sandwich shop. Then, a bunch of my money went towards that and now I was at a point where in March, I was literally on, like, my last $2,000,” Ariana says in a confessional.
“He created this situation and now I’m f***king scrambling,” Ariana tells the group.
Sandoval tells the guys Lisa spoke to Rachel. Sandoval feels uncomfortable talking about it in front of James because of obvious reasons, but because they’re all wearing tuxes, it’s okay.
“I haven’t heard from [Rachel] probably … over a month,” Sandoval tells the group. “It sucked. I’m sitting here looking at my phone every f***ing night. She doesn’t call, I’m like, alone, I can’t f***ing do this anymore.”
Ariana Madix vs. Lala Kent
Back at girls’ night, Ariana criticizes James for hanging out with Sandoval and Lala tells her that everyone is afraid of losing her as a friend.
“I think it’s both. I think there’s a big layer of the you as his friend but then there’s also the layer of, dude, dont’ forget that he f***ed your ex-fiancée,” Ally the Astrologer says.
Lala asks Ariana what she would do if James became friends with Sandoval again, to which Ariana says she wouldn’t “f**k with that.” Lala uses this as an opportunity to point out to the other ladies that if they hang out with Sandoval, they’re dead to Ariana.
Katie challenges Lala, who turns into Meredith Marks from “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” and tells her to “disengage.”
Lala says in a confessional, “Nobody knows what it’s like to deal with a sh*tty ex more than I do. I’m never rid of this person that I had a child with and this is why I know that harboring resentment towards your ex like Ariana’s doing with Sandoval, it will eat you alive. It’s like drinking the poison and expecting it to kill the other person.”
Ally attempts to bring peace by pointing out Lala and Katie’s differences. “We can all just get along if you just understand people’s birth charts.” It’s unclear if Ally is a genius or just plain kooky. Only time will tell.
