Of all the yahoos on Vanderpump Rules, a summer-school session of remedial algebra, Scheana has always held a special place in my heart. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because she is always besieged by Stassi, Kristen, and Katie — a sort of Captain Planet formation if the elements combined were judgment, sadness, and false superiority. Maybe it’s because she is always entangled in a horrible relationship she was trying to make work. Maybe it’s because Brandi Glanville hates her and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I don’t know.
But I have changed my mind about Scheana (no tea no) Shay. This talking fake ponytail is unequivocally the worst. I don’t even really want to talk about her “drama†because it’s so obviously pathological that delving into it is like trying to find emotional depth in an early Justin Bieber track. Anyway, Scheana is mad that Katie told everyone that Jen, another waitress at SUR, saw Scheana’s man Rob making out with someone. Scheana asked Rob about it and said that they were both laughing about how absurd the allegation was and that it was obviously false.
Scheana’s justification is that Rob doesn’t even like to kiss her, so why would he kiss another girl? Um, that is exactly why he would kiss another girl. If he’s not getting it at home, he’s going to get it somewhere else. Also, the fact that her boyfriend doesn’t like to kiss is not something she should be proud of when she’s trying to convince everyone how rock solid her relationship is.
Last episode, Scheana confronted Jen about what Katie said and Jen told her flat out that Rob was making out with another girl in a way that would make Scheana uncomfortable and she saw it with her own eyes. In Scheana’s head, somehow this turned into “Katie, Kristen, and Stassi are making things up about Rob and spreading it around.†If Jen, who has no dog in the fight, says she witnessed these things, there is no way they are making this up just to hurt Scheana. Yes, they are probably spreading it around to hurt Scheana, because that is how they roll, but I think we should start assuming this is true.
Instead of trying to entertain for even a minute that this man might have made out with another girl, Scheana drives herself to anxious starvation to prove that there is nothing wrong. Wait, something has to be wrong. Scheana can’t be so blind and dumb as to not see that this dude is totally gaslighting her.
The worst part is when Lisa confronts her about her weight loss and her relationship at the restaurant. Scheana says that her relationship is perfect and it’s these girls that are ruining it. Lisa tells her she’s heard all this before about her ex-husband, Shay. But then Scheana says that this time their relationship is going to last, she’s sure of it. (Too bad they’re already broken up.)
The great revenge that Lisa takes on her is that she forces her to sit down and eat before her shift. She goes back into the kitchen and just grabs a random croissant sandwich and fries and forces Scheana to eat it right there in the middle of the restaurant. Scheana hasn’t had that many carbs since her mother drank two glasses of apple juice while she was in the womb, and now she has to choke down not only fatty fried potatoes, but also a bread substance made mostly out of butter and French disgust at breakfast foods. That’s just cruel, not just to Scheana, but Katie’s poor customer who never got her croissant sandwich.
The Brittany and Jax fake-up (that’s a fake break-up) continues to be about as exciting as Jax’s outfit for gay Pride day. While everyone else is all kitted out with flower crowns and face paint, Jax looks like he’s a porn star dressed for an awards show in his usual black T-shirt, trashy tattoos, “enhanced†muscles, and semi-sexy scowl. If he didn’t want to get festive, maybe he should, you know, quit his job. Jax is the worst.
However, nothing compares to when he is at his Reiki session and he gets all emotional when Kelsea, the energy manipulator, asks how he’s doing. “During all of this Brittany stuff,†Jax says. “No one is asking me how I feel.†Um, that’s because how he feels is completely irrelevant. No one asks Robert Durst how he’s feeling, they’re too concerned about all the people in his life who have wound up mysteriously dead. The same with Jax. No one cares how a serial cheater and emotional abuser is doing, they’re more concerned with getting Brittany to dump his stupid ass and go out with a cater waiter who just moved here from Minnesota and is forced to work at the vomitous basicness of a rooftop La La Land screening in Hollywood.
There’s also something really weird going on with Tom and Katie. Katie has asked Schwartz not to do shots, go on any guys’ nights, or get completely obliterated. Then, he and Sandoval go and break all of those rules all in one night and Schwartz gets so plastered he passes out on Sandoval’s couch. The next day, when they’re playing grab-ass and pretending to be bar owners at Tom Tom, Schwartz says he was acting out subconsciously to see how Katie would act.
Turns out, when he got home in the morning she was initially very upset with him, but then he explained something (I’m not entirely sure what, but I’m sure there’s not a Hallmark card for it) and she came around and didn’t mind. That means that, in Schwartz’s mind, he doesn’t have to obey the rules anymore. He tells Sandoval that she was warm and loving to him in the morning when he finally got home. “Isn’t it sexy when a woman acts like that?†Sandoval asks. You mean it’s sexy when a woman doesn’t call you out for breaking the rules and instead looks the other way and lets you actively mistreat her? Yeah. Super sexy. Put on the Sade and the satin sheets.
While all of these people are driving me absolutely insane, the one person on the show I love more and more each episode is Lala. I couldn’t stand her last season, but she’s really turned it around. Not since Saint Camille of Grammer rehabilitated her image on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills have I seen such a comeback. It was amazing when DJ James Kennedy freaked out on her and her “fat boyfriend†who she sleeps with “to pay the rent.†She is not going to let any man talk to her like that, so she got up and left him alone to drink his disgusting concoction of bourbon and maple syrup all alone. “Stop coming for people who have your back!†she shouted at him while she waited for the valet to pull around the Range Rover that her fat boyfriend pays for.
James totally overreacted to the silly thing that Lala and Logan, his gay best friend (or GBF) did to his girlfriend’s pasta. (Exactly what they did is still sort of unclear.) James is in the restaurant shouting repeatedly, in what is sure to be one of his new catch phrases, “It’s not about the pasta.†James said it was about respecting his girlfriend, but, let’s be honest, no one respects Raquel, a candy-cane shaped tube of Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker.
That is especially true of Logan, the gay elf formerly known as Hermie the Dentist. At Homosexual Gay Pride Day, Logan is all wasted and kissing up on James’s neck, trying to get him to admit in front of Raquel that James is in love with him. James says, “Raquel and Logan fill totally different voids in my life.†Well, that answers Jax’s question about who is on top and who is on bottom.
This whole “James is screwing his GBF†story line seems rather contrived. I don’t think that James is really doing it with him and I don’t think that Raquel is as repulsed by Logan as the editing would like us to believe. However, at Pride Day, across the bar at SUR, Tom and Tom leaned back on the bar, shoulder to shoulder, watching Logan nuzzle into James’s clavicle while shoving a hand perilously close to the crotch of his jeans as Raquel looked on.
“God, kids these days have no shame,†Schwartz said. “They have no respect for the girlfriends.†He and Sandoval both pivoted their heads and looked into each other’s eyes while grins spread across their faces like the warmth in your chest after your first sip of brandy. They couldn’t go much further, not with Katie and Ariana both working that day, but Schwartz did manage to weasel his hand over Sandoval’s tight slacks and drummed quickly on the taut fabric over his ass crack. It was like Babe Ruth pointing over the fence or Neil Armstrong putting his flag on the moon. He was marking his territory with those innocent little taps, and letting Tom know just where he would be coming soon.