Have you ever seen one of those trees at Christmas where you write your wish on a ribbon and then tie it to the tree and it’s supposed to happen? Every year, Katie Maloney-Schwartz wishes for a good haircut, and it never happens, so they must be total bullshit. How about instead we write all of our annoyances on a ribbon and tie them to a statue of Katie, then we all just stare at it, and nothing ever happens. Oh, right, we already do that. It’s called Twitter.
I am so sick of this Katie-versus-Schwartz-versus-Sandoval hate triangle because they all hate each other except for Tom and Tom, who are wholly and utterly in love and you can’t convince me otherwise. The whole thing kicks off when Lala, Katie, and Scheana meet for Pilates and their instructor is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Katie and Lala are talking shit about Sandoval, which Scheana will report back to him at the first chance she gets because, honestly, Scheana is the only person in this whole group who is a good friend and all she gets is shit for it. While the girls are at Pilates, the boys are playing golf, and Sandoval loses a bet, and James gets to hit a golf ball out of his butt crack. I would pay $100 for a raffle to hit a golf ball out of Sandoval’s butt, so someone get on CharityBuzz and make that happen.
The next day, James comes over to Schwartz’s house with Sandoval to taste mocktails for the new bar. One of the mocktails is called a Cape Canaveral Caprese and forces you to stir your cocktail with a Caprese salad and then eat the tomato, basil, and ball of cheese while sipping on some wheatgrass swill. This is supposed to be a mocktail, not some celery juice that also comes with homework. All of Sandoval’s cocktail ideas are so complicated and cringey that I would never go to his bar. Also, they’re going to take a million years for the poor mixologists to concoct. You’re going to be waiting at the bar longer than Kal Penn waited to come out.
Lala actually does an amazing impersonation of him talking about his cocktails, and the genius editors intercut it with him giving the actual spiel for one of his drinks. It is the best part of the episode. Let me see if I can do an impression of Lala doing an impression of Sandoval. “This cocktail is made with a rare Tibet spirit where the flowers of geraniums are fermented in civet piss and then buried for 14 years in Yoko Ono’s backyard before she whispers a secret into each jar and sends it to market. It’s blended with the bitters made from the tears of the last remaining giant and a vermouth whose secret recipe is tattooed on the grundle of monks so that they will never forget it. There is dry ice to make it steam, a sparkler to make it shine, a touch of pink sea salt from Fujiyama, and the best gambler in Vegas blows on it. These symbolize water, fire, earth, and air, the four elements of the universe and the four types of benders from Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I was watching the first time I masturbated. The ice is sculpted into miniature Janet Jacksons, and the waitress who brings it to the table just watched “Liza Minnelli Turns off a Lamp.†It’s called … Escapade.â€
Anyway, the fight that they’re having is the same as it’s been all season. Katie wants to help with the bar, Sandoval doesn’t want her to, and Schwartz is too much of a box of Ramen without a flavor packet to do anything about it. Katie keeps saying that Tom needs to have her back in this argument, and ideologically I agree with her, but Tom clearly doesn’t want her involved. Sandoval also has a valid point in that he went into business with Tom and not his wife. Katie says that if Schwartz says he wants her involved that she should be involved, but the problem is clearly that he doesn’t want her involved. Instead of blaming this on her husband, Katie blames it on Sandoval, but Schwartz is just letting him take the fall to keep his wife out of his business.
I really want this to be Katie’s fault, so I’m trying to skew my argument in that direction, but trying to find fault here is like trying to find a pubic hair in a rugby team’s shower drain. There is just so much of it to go around that it’s disgusting. In Sandoval’s slight defense, Katie says he can’t take criticism very well, but her criticism is just “Your name blows.†It’s not very nuanced and quite defensive. Her alternative would be “Once Upon a Tom,†which is definitely the name of the erotic novel that I am working on in my spare time. It’s not any better. But also she should consider that her criticism isn’t wanted. If she has problems, she should take it up with Schwartz. But she says that Schwartz should be more assertive, but she only wants him to be assertive when it’s in her defense. Ugh, it’s all so exhausting I can’t even handle it.
Instead, let us talk about something nice: DJ James Kennedy’s arms that look like two-toned little turkey drumsticks that have yet to be roasted. I mean that as a compliment to both his arms and fair-skinned people the world over. He sees his father’s friend Peter, who is something like a sponsor for James, and he convinces the White Kanye that it’s time to stop smoking weed. He tells James that the weed is just silencing the part of him that is angry, not making it go away. Yes, this is why James needs a real recovery program or at least a therapist or something, but I will take an English man with a strong spectacle game any day. It’s often the best you can get for free.
James stops by SUR, and we get to see all of our old friends. There’s Peter and his ill-advised ponytail. There’s Lisa with one of her tiny pets in an outfit that costs more than the annual waxing budget. There’s Ken, a ghost who is still clinging to this mortal coil because he has unfinished business on this plane, joining an all-lesbian Rod Stewart cover band called No Rods Allowed. There’s the SUR alleyway, a war-torn expanse that should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Oh, remember the show this used to be? Remember the fun times we had here?
Oh, you probably don’t because now we’re off to Brock’s Mad Max–themed birthday party, which is naturally in Sandoval’s backyard, a place we have visited more this season than Shiv Roy visits the Chic Coats Depot. I’m with Scheana. I am so sick of these theme parties. Can’t these clowns just get together and be like, “Girl, I don’t know. The theme is we’re filming and there might be a fight, but please don’t make me order anything off of Amazon.†The outfits leave a lot to be desired and mostly consist of steampunk goggles that someone bought ten for $10 at a going-out-of-business sale at a Party City in Reseda.
However, however, however, however, however, we do get to see something that I have been longing for since his long-haired presence first popped up on Scheana’s Instagram. We finally get to see Brock’s bodacious body in budgies, and Brian’s banana is banging for a burnishing. He’s big, he’s hairy, he is far too much man squeezed into a far too small bathing suit, and he is probably a bit more of an asshole than you realize. I’m not sure that you’re aware, but that is exactly my type.
The party is marred not only by being boring and one of Brock’s friends trying to grab Charli’s ass without her consent (I think we will deal more with that next episode, so I’m saving it) but also by Lala thinking that Schwartz should stick up for Katie more even though no one should ever stand up for Katie because she has historically been more wrong than feeding a Gremlin after midnight while wearing white after Labor Day and crossing streams from a Ghostbuster’s proton pack. Then Lala tells Schwartz that she can’t hear what she says because Sandoval’s dick is in his mouth.
After everyone left, Schwartz is in the kitchen and he’s ranting about Katie and how he doesn’t want her at the bar. He said how Lala should just mind her own business and that he loves Scheana for telling them that Katie and Lala were talking so much shit about them. He rambled, monologued, mansplained as if he had no audience at all. Then he said, “And can you believe that she said she couldn’t hear me because your dick was in my mouth? What is she even talking about?â€
Schwartz looked down and saw the top of Sandoval’s head, his nose deep in his opened khakis with a bit of drool running down his chin. He pulled his head back, and as Schwartz left his mouth, there was a wet pop, like pulling a suction cup off a shower tile. “That’s crazy,†Sandoval said. “It’s Tuesday. That means it’s my day to give and yours to receive. Doesn’t she know our schedule?â€
“Speaking of which, get back to work,†Schwartz says. “You’re almost as good as when I got my dick sucked by that cocktail you made last night.