There is a lot of strange and questionable behavior on Vanderpump Rules, a Russian plot to poison the minds of people with too many vowels in their first names, but nothing is as strange or as questionable as what we learned in this episode. Lala Kent, a grown woman in her 20s, has a bottle every night before going to bed. We all have strange nighttime rituals. I have to watch at least one episode of Voltron: Legendary Defender before I can even think about turning in, but even that infantile behavior pales in comparison to Lala, who actually suckles on a bottle like a human infant.
We see her putting honey and warm milk in her “bubbie†(which should not be confused with “Bubba,†Tom and Katie’s pet name for each other) and then she explains to Scheana how she administers this treat. She lies on her back, with one of her favorite shows on the television, and props the bottle up on her blanket while she lies back and literally milks on the teat of her bottle. She looks like someone buried in the sand trying to get a sip of the orange Slice that is perched just three centimeters too far from her lips.
Lala explains that she is on a low dose of her anxiety medication and she finds this behavior soothing. I’m sorry, but this is taking “self care†and “self soothing†a step too far. I’m all for whatever you need to get yourself through the day, as long as that does not include literally infantilizing oneself. There are plenty of other things that could make her feel good — snuggling a stuffed animal, eating kale chips, breathing exercises, brushing her hair and counting each and every stroke — that do not include falling backward on the evolutionary ladder.
However, I will admit that Lala’s baby bottle is one of the best bits of an otherwise extremely boring episode. I think it was so lackluster because all of the fights we saw on this Mexican vacation were handled quickly and maturely. God, if the Pump Rules cast starts growing up then the rest of us are doomed. Just like Lala, Kristen has a lot of anxiety, especially when she’s traveling. Stassi tells us that she, Kristen, and Katie took a trip earlier that spring to Copenhagen and Kristen freaked out by throwing a fit and making everyone around her miserable. Now she’s doing it again in their hotel room in Mexico, ranting at Stassi and filling the room up with smoke.
It gets so bad that Stassi shows up at Katie and Tom’s room at 4:30 in the morning and crashes in their queen bed for the night, just like she showed up at their honeymoon. If there was ever going to be a third person from this cast in Tom and Katie’s relationship, I would not have bet on Stassi. What I find suspect about this whole thing is that there is no footage of the “freak out.†A camera crew watches Tom and Katie get pizza stains all over their bedspread, but there isn’t anyone covering Kristen cussing out Stassi and potentially burning down a hotel room? I find this horrendously suspect.
The next day, the fight continues when Kristen says that she understands she’s a difficult travel companion, but Stassi is at fault too. I call bullshit on all of this. Maybe her freak out wasn’t as bad as Stassi made it out to be — we would know for sure if there were actual footage of it — but Kristen getting wasted and treating Stassi shabbily sounds like a one-way problem to me.
I am also someone who struggles with acute anxiety while traveling and I average at least one full-fledged panic attack every time I leave the confines of the city. But I know this about myself and I have the medication to get me through a weekend away. It’s a high enough dosage that it would work even if my friends forced me to go to literal hell. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean literal hell, I meant a water park that consists of a lake filled to the brim with drunk idiots where they force you to accentuate all of your body’s trouble spots by shoving you into a life vest that doesn’t fit properly. Or, you know, literal hell. What I’m trying to say is that Kristen should just rely on Xanax and no one would have a problem.
While doing their hair and makeup, Stassi and Kristen decide not to fight anymore and that’s it. It’s all over. The same thing goes for the brewing fight between Jax and Scheana. It starts out with some small rumblings, but then James tells Jax that Scheana was trying to set Brittany up with Adam, the hot new bartender at SUR. Shockingly, Jax doesn’t flip out. He also doesn’t flip out on Brittany when he asks her about it. She tells him that Scheana just invited them all out and let her know he had a crush on her, but she wasn’t going to do anything about it because she doesn’t care.
The most shocking of all is that, later in the night when they’re all drunk and at the club, Jax still doesn’t freak out while talking to Scheana. I mean, this is clearly a case of Scheana being an asshole for no particular reason. Wait, there is a reason. This all comes back to when Jax told everyone that Rob told him that he hasn’t said “I love you†to Scheana. Scheana couches this as a “rumor,†but we all know it’s true because we literally saw Rob tell it to him on television. Also, we have all seen the way that Rob treats Scheana. It’s not unlike the way someone leaving a highway rest stop treats an Auntie Anne’s pretzel wrapper stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
Finally, she admits that she wanted Brittany to realize that other guys out there like her, too. All of the women on this show, from Stassi and Lala to Lisa and Kristen, have told Brittany she should break up with Jax. That is just advice. However, Scheana is the only one underhanded and slimy enough to actually try to undermine their relationship. That’s scummier than the bottom of the pond where Lisa’s swans live at Villa Rosa.
Even with all of these fights, this episode was boring. Not even looking at Schwartz’s burgeoning dad bod could get me excited. Neither could everyone posing with dirty parrots all over their body at the water park, a visit to another restaurant named SUR down south, or even talk about DJ James Kennedy being beaten up and bullied as a youngster. I did almost get worked up noticing that every single person on this trip is constantly drinking booze out of a bottle. What does the cast have against cups? Is it that no one trusts them with actual glasses and they all hate plastic so they just drink right out of the bottle? Or have they all been hanging out with Lala and her stupid baby bottle too much?
Okay, there was one thing that got a bit of a rise out of me: the wooden penis flute that the cast found at one of the vendors in the market in Playa del Carmen. I would book a ticket right this minute to go buy that damn flute and then come home and whistle on it all day like I’m a GIF of Lauren Bacall. Tom Schwartz really got down on that flute, putting it up to his lips and squatting close to the ground while playing a little ditty. Tom Sandoval looked on and walked over to Schwartz in the group and said, “I’ve seen you take a lot more than that!â€
Schwartz handed his flute over to Sandoval and said, “This isn’t the first time this trip I’ve given you my dick.†Sandoval looked around to make sure that Katie and Ariana were up ahead. When he saw the coast was clear, he slipped his hand in Schwartz’s back pocket.
“Just wait until tonight,†Sandoval whispered. “We’re gonna lube this bad boy up and see if you can make it whistle with something other than your lips.†He handed the flute back to Schwartz, who started to pull it away, but Sandoval kept a firm grasp on it, feeling every inch and crevice of Schwartz’s dick, the little nicks, the veins, the smooth ridge before the bulbous head, before finally giving them both the satisfaction of releasing it into the steamy Mexico night.