While this may be the first season of The Valley, it is not the first reality-television rodeo for many of these players, which is why I’m a little bit mystified why the whole episode was taken up with the most rudimentary fight in all of the reality-television arts and sciences: who was invited to what. I swear all of The Hills can be summed up with talking about a party someone is going to throw, discussing who was and was not invited to the party for which reasons, people being upset they were or were not invited to said party, three shots of the party where Spencer Pratt splashed someone in the pool, and then talking about who did or did not come to the party.
Janet kicked the whole thing out, and, well, maybe she should learn how to walk on television before learning how to run. She has a hibachi party in her backyard and invites everyone but Kristen and Luke, a Carhartt mannequin that got fired for being immobile. Jasmine meets Kristen for wine and tells her that she’s not invited, and Kristen gets madder than a honeybee with a hard-on. (I’m not sure why honeybees don’t like boners, but it seems right to me.)
Kristen and Jasmine have other things to talk about, namely that Jax told Jasmine that Kristen is talking about Michelle texting some guy outside of her marriage. Kristen says that Jax is the one who brought it up with her and told her not to tell anyone. She also says that Jax told her it was Brittany who got this intel from Michelle and that the guy she was texting is an actor. Since Kristen’s brain is so scrambled there is a game of telephone between her ear drums and her frontal cortex, this is probably the director that everyone has been speculating Michelle is messing around with but Kristen interpreted it as an actor.
At the start of the party, Jesse asks everyone if they’ve ever heard the phrase “butt hurt†before because Michelle uses it, and he doesn’t think that it’s a real idiom. This seems off to me. Jesse seems like the kind of guy who definitely gets in petty fights on Reddit that he can’t win; I’m sure dozens upon dozens of people have accused him of being butt hurt before because he refuses to believe that vaccines aren’t putting microchips into our bloodstream.
After Brittany takes one shot of sake that sends her right home to her window-licking son, Janet’s friend Jared puts on a wig and a year’s supply of Anastasia of Beverly Hills cosmetics and comes out as Sparkles the drag queen. He plays a game called “Drag Your Heart,†but it’s really just the newlywed game. Most of the answers are pretty unremarkable, except if you look at Michelle and Jesse just insulting each other across a suburban backyard as answers, then those answers were pretty good. Also, everyone wants to have Jasmine as their ideal threesome partner. I also learned in this episode that Jasmine has a girlfriend named Melissa. Did we know this before? Did I miss this when I was still refusing to believe that The Valley could be good? I like her a whole hell of a lot more now. Gay men are over, and bisexuals don’t exist, so lesbians are where it’s at these days. Can we just shorten the whole acronym to L+? I’d be happy with that.
While this was a funny and silly event, there was no interesting drama or heated conversations. Why? Because Kristen wasn’t there. We can’t have a whole episode of people catching shrimp in their mouths; we need someone who is actually going to bring it. They are trying to freeze her out, but they don’t know that Kristen is signing all of their checks for the (hopefully upcoming) season two.
The next event is one that no one is invited to; it’s Jesse’s “spiritual retreat†that may or may not be an orgy in the Hollywood Hills. No, he’s going on a “plant medicine†journey. For the uninitiated, plant medicine is when people take ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, or ayahuasca for psychological reasons. I’m not sure why they call it plant medicine because only one is a plant, one is a tranquilizer, one is a mushroom, and one is what teens do so that they can feel even hornier while they dance to terrible music. I’m with Michelle on this one; he thinks this one night is going to change him into an entirely different person and save their marriage. Please. Also, Michelle is already more checked out than the sluttiest book in the entire library. She is dunzo and unless Jesse comes back with a new personality and someone else’s dick it is not going to save their already doomed marriage.
The next event that everyone tries to freeze Kristen out of is Nia’s return to teaching self defense classes. Most of the girls from the show (I include Danny in this) assemble to learn the basics, but Michelle and Janet both cancel when they find out Kristen is going to be there. They don’t miss that much, but Kristen says that she is the “peacemaker†of the group, which is a lie almost as big as her being an “empath.†Brittany calls BS on this and tells Kristen to keep her name out of her mouth when talking about Michelle texting the second assistant director on NCIS that she’s having an affair with. Well, we’re not sure it’s him, but that is how Kristen is currently interpreting it.
After this, the invite cold war really heats up. Even though Brittany and Zack tell Kristen to invite Michelle and Janet to her James Mae relaunch event, she refuses to because she doesn’t want to have to send an apology along with the flier. (Also, bonus points for showing Katie Maloney being mean about Kristen’s graphic T-shirt brand way back in 2018 on Pump Rules.) The event seems like a total bust, with the racks of clothing blowing over in the wind, only one tray of sad looking wrap sandwiches, and everyone sweating through all of their layers. When Jax finds out about who is inviting whom to what, he says, “This is childish even for me.†If Jax Taylor calls you a child, you either need to grow up quickly or turn yourself back into a zygote and start over because you are entirely roasted.
Once everyone leaves the party but the cast, Jax gathers them all around to let Kristen and Luke know that they aren’t invited to Janet and Jason’s babymoon in Big Bear because they’re mad at them. But wait. Isn’t this a cast trip? Don’t they have to be invited? We got a “To Be Continued …,†but isn’t the continuation just Kristen and Luke showing up at the cabin and being like, “Helllooooooo …†into a vast and echoing foyer? The one who is really upset, however, is Zack, who didn’t get invited because he’s not a part of a couple. That is discrimination, and if Zack wanted to go on Grindr right now and find himself someone to drag along to the nearby mountains, I’m sure he could. But he cries and cries, his tears dried by the musty breeze coming off of Jax’s soiled shirt. He wants to be a part of the group; he wants to be a part of it so badly. Well, not enough to have a baby and move to The Valley, but enough to put on one of Kristen’s ugly T-shirts and wear it on national television. That’s sort of like a fashion death, and no one had to invite him to do it.