Of all the sad, awful things that we’ve seen on Vanderpump Rules, a game of beer pong with actual human casualties, the saddest, awfulest thing is Kristen Doute saying, “If I’m getting married it is going to be to Carter because I’m getting older and I don’t want to be miserable and alone.†When I heard that, it was like my penis took a piece of Miss Havisham’s rotted wedding cake, crawled inside my body, ate the cake, and then died, leaving its rotted corpse to poison my body for eternity.
First of all, the only thing worse than being miserable and alone is being miserable and stuck with someone who makes you feel awful. There is no amount of company that smug fart-sniffer Carter can provide Kristen that will make up for the misery he inflicts on her. Also, just because she’s getting older doesn’t mean that she should settle for a lemon. There are plenty of dudes out there who would be willing to put up with Kristen’s inherent rage that won’t take her wallet to go on trips and rack up giant balances on her credit cards. She deserves to find one of those.
Just look at Stassi. She found one. Her relationship with Beau, who is so adorable and wonderful that I will forgive him for wearing a bow tie made out of wood in his interview shots, is the foil for the shambles of Kristen and Carter’s. As sweet as everything between Stassi and Beau is, though, the whole meeting with his mom, Isa, is really weird.
This is the first time that Stassi is meeting the woman, and as soon as she sits down she starts with, “I love your son very much and he makes me very happy.†Then Beau tells his mom that he and Stassi are best friends and then both he and Stassi start crying. It’s great they’re in love and want to share that, it really is, but meeting a parent for the first time should be a bit like the first date. It should be more, “Where are you from? What do your parents do?†and less like a home visits episode of The Bachelorette. Let’s take a bit of time to work up to complete emotional honesty, shall we?
Maybe these revelations are because Isa is some sort of relationship expert, though her credentials are never fully explained. Is she a psychologist? Does she have a master’s degree in social work? Is she even a registered life coach? We have no idea. It seems like she might just be a busybody who loves to talk to other people about their relationships. I’m a busybody who loves to talk to people about what they’re doing with their genitals, but that doesn’t make me a sex therapist. (Dr. Ruth and I do share a certain resemblance, though.)
This doesn’t stop Isa from holding a relationship-coaching event at Kristen and Carter’s apartment. She basically just sits all the kids down and talks to them about “the reptilian brain†and says that if someone’s partner is acting irrationally that they might have triggered their “reptilian brain.†If one is aware of that, then they can avoid fights and conflict. Not to knock Isa or anything, but that isn’t the deepest advice. Seriously, Isa gave her lecture less scrutiny than Lala gave to the pair of pants she wore to that party, which is like ten feet of rope laced around a small swatch of denim so that she looks like the bathroom of a nautical-themed seafood restaurant.
While Kristen is out on the balcony talking to Isa more about her relationship with Carter, Katie and Stassi are sitting on Kristen’s bed minding their own business and probably casting a spell against someone who cut in front of them at the self-checkout at the Rite Aid on Sunset. Carter comes in and sits down next to them and starts talking condescendingly about their relationships. Then he tells them that the reason that he and Kristen fight so much is that she comes home from hanging out with them and complains about them because they’re so mean to her.
This is the dumbest thing that any human has ever done. If Carter found a wasp’s nest nestled in the eaves of his balcony, would he hit it with a broom? If he was on Twitter, would he make a comment about how Harvey Weinstein wasn’t that bad of a guy? If Carter saw a grizzly lying in the middle of the sidewalk in front of his apartment, would he try to teabag it? Probably yes to all of these, and the result of any of these stupid decisions wouldn’t be nearly as bad as him lying in that bed with Katie and Stassi giving him the full Richards sisters treatment, screaming and pointing down at him.
Even if he was right, this was not a fight that Cater was ever going to win. The rage of these two will flood over him like a tsunami and their shouts will deafen him like an avalanche. Their indignation is a force of nature, and he is not the warlock who could possibly harness it. Like Tom Schwartz, an Adidas sandal with a human face, recognizes, it’s like Thunderdome in that room and no one should get involved unless they have a limb or a liver to spare.
To make it even worse, Carter doesn’t seem to have much of an argument. Well, it really is a chicken or the egg kind of thing. Katie and Stassi say that they make Kristen mad because she complains so much about Carter that they tell her to break up with him. Then she goes home and complains about them being mean to her, because she doesn’t want to break up with him. Then Carter is mean to her about that. So, is it Carter’s fault for treating her badly, or Katie and Stassi’s fault for giving her advice she doesn’t want to hear? I mean, it’s probably Carter’s fault, but he’s not wrong that Katie and Stassi are both awful friends to Kristen.
Kristen responds to the fracas by kicking Stassi and Katie out and, deep sigh, the friendship that these three share really is like the seventh seal of the apocalypse isn’t it? It’s going to be crazy next week when they make up. If I fought with someone so badly they had to be kicked out of my house, I would never talk to them again, but that’s why I’m not on a reality-TV show and they are.
There are several other relationships going through ups and downs this week, too. Lala and the unseen ghost Randall get back together after he gave her back her Gucci slides and apologized for being a jerk. She and Stassi go to get a haircut and Lala tells Stassi about how they met when Lala was working at SUR and Randall came in for lunch. Then they slept together and the next day he got her a car. Stassi’s response is an instant classic: “Is your vagina made of sparkles?â€
Their whole conversation is absolutely amazing, but mostly when Lala talks about how she gets what she wants out of Randall, including a role in The Row, which currently has 22 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a trailer which can be seen here. “Does daddy wanna play with Lala’s asshole,†she coos to Stassi, showing off her seduction tactics. “Does daddy want Lala to play with your asshole?†I am dead. I have passed away from secondhand delight and in my next life I hope to come back as Lala’s favorite strap-on.
Tom Sandoval and Ariana are going through this weird thing where they’re both looking to buy a house but also fighting about whether they want to have kids in the future. Tom definitely wants them, and Ariana thinks that babies are gross and would like people to stop asking her about when she’s going to want to have babies. I think that is a perfectly fine stance for her to take and, yes, people should get their heads out of her vagina and mind their own business, particularly when that person is Jax Taylor, named Plan B’s Bachelor of the Year for 19 years running.
Since this episode aired, they bought a $2 million house, and it seems like Sandoval had a very nice reaction to Ariana not wanting to have kids. He tells her that he is definitely going to have them, and when the time comes for that, she will be able to decide if she wants to be a part of it or not, and if that means she needs to leave him or stay. At first this sounds like a 10-year-old telling her mom that she wants a dog and promising she won’t have to do any work at all, but then I realized that Tom is giving Ariana the choice. She gets to decide if she wants to have the kids or adopt. She gets to decide if she even wants to be there. He’s not issuing any ultimatums (though as Schwartz says, ultimatums do really get shit done), he’s letting her steer her own life and her own womb. And isn’t that what feminism is all about, giving a woman choice and respecting the decisions that she makes? So, yeah, good on Tom.
After the party at Kristen’s, the Toms and Katie and Ariana all went back to the Schwartz homestead. While Katie and Ariana gossiped about what went down, Schwartz told Sandoval he left something in his car and asked him to go downstairs to retrieve it with him. Sandoval walked to the elevator and pushed the button. “No,†Schwartz said. “Let’s take the stairs.â€
He opened the battered grey door and the motion-sensor light flickered on with fluorescent intensity. Sandoval was chugging down the stairs in front of Schwartz but at the first landing he was suddenly thrust against the wall by Schwartz. “What the fuck, man?†Sandoval asked.
Schwartz undid Sandoval’s belt and yanked down his pants so that Sandoval’s ass was hanging out. Schwartz then rubbed his groin against Sandoval, who relented a little and started writhing against his best friend. “I’m gonna do it,†Schwartz said. “It’s gonna be mine.â€
“What?†Sandoval said, horny but confused.
“I’m gonna put a baby in you,†he said, and Sandoval turned to show his smile.