Photo: Bravo/Griffin Nagel/Bravo
Usually, I am here to sing the praises of the editors of every single Bravo show. They do make everything better. Just look at this episode when Brittany tells Tom Schwartz, a puddle of spilled bong water, that Jax hasn’t paid her mortgage since May. It is the editor who supplied us with the date, which is in August. So, yes we love the editors, but I have a major bone to pick with them: how did they have hours and hours of footage of Brittany’s shark-themed pool party, and we didn’t get even one single frame of Brock Shay, Scheana Shay’s husband, in his budgie smugglers? We got six photos of Zack in various and sundried states of having his abs painted on his stomach, and we can’t see even a glimpse of Brock’s big man-chest and slightly furry stomach that he certainly doesn’t need any muscles painted on.
I’m really freakin’ mad, but of all the travesties this episode, that is really the least of our concerns. The first half of the episode focuses on the railroading of Danny Bucco. If you will recall, he committed the cardinal sin of having a swig out of a bottle of tequila and then sleeping through dinner. Jason tells Danny that when Janet saw him take a sip, which he insists is not secret, it made her uncomfortable. The problem here is this is all Janet’s problem. Nia knew about the tequila and didn’t care. Danny didn’t do anything except miss a meal, and now it’s turned into some giant incident. Even Jason didn’t think it was a big deal weeks ago, and now, at his wife’s insistence, he’s trying to drive this storyline and Danny’s reputation into the ground.
However, Danny can’t be entirely exonerated and that has to do with the Jasmine situation. As I’ve said before, it wouldn’t seem like Danny has an alcohol problem, except he did touch one of his coworkers without permission, and that is now straining his relationships with his friends. That sounds like a problem to me. However, Janet is using this bogus incident of pantry drinking to try to stoke some kind of rectification that I don’t think is necessary. She’s taking a nothingburger and trying to make it into a full meal.
After his chat with Jason, Danny takes Jasmine and her girlfriend Melissa to a brewery, where he orders a performative glass of water and apologizes to them once again. I’m glad he did this because we only saw flashbacks of his first apology (for grabbing her leg and telling her to, “get daddy a drink” and for grabbing Melissa’s butt without permission). Here, he apologizes again, and they explain to him why what he did hits differently because they’re a female couple, and people don’t take them as seriously. It was a great conversation; he seemed to really feel what they were telling him, and he seemed genuinely remorseful for what he did. Yes, his behavior was terrible, but if Jasmine and Melissa can forgive him and he never does something like this again, I feel like the man deserves a single, solitary second chance.
Janet is not allowing that to happen however, nakedly using Jason to push a narrative that isn’t really there. Even Jason feels bad about it. After their altercation at the hamburger place, Jason pulls Danny aside at the Shark Party and issues him a teary apology. Danny immediately forgives him, they hug, and all is forgotten, once again displaying why there isn’t a single solitary reality show about a group of male friends because it would be as boring as watching Luke lose to a 10-year-old at Mario Kart. Actually, that would be hilarious.
The only reason this beef isn’t as squashed as Jesse’s hair follicles under some stupid headband is that Luke told Kristen about it, and she has decided to single-handedly take revenge for what Jason said. When Luke recounts this story when they’re having brunch with Jesse, Kristen says that the rumor is that Jason goes out and takes off his wedding ring. This is a two-year-old rumor that Zack brought to the group. It’s so old it predates the Monster Energy Drink mini-fridge that is currently sitting (fully stocked!) on Zack’s kitchen counter.
This is taking Janet’s nothingburger about the tequila shots and meeting it with a nothingburger about Jason cheating. But as Jason hilariously points out, it’s not even a rumor about cheating; it’s a rumor about him wanting to cheat and failing at it, which is somehow so much worse. (And, let’s be honest, I would stand in line for days to climb that jungle gym and wouldn’t even care if there was a wedding ring on it or not.) This is setting up a Kristen vs. Janet match-up that has been brewing all season, and, personally, I can’t wait to see Kristen, a master practitioner of the reality television arts and sciences, make a smash burger out of Janet’s face.
Speaking of absolutely clearing someone, did you see Jesse try to talk to returning champion Lauren “Lala” Kent at the Shark Party? Lala is basically like, “You called your ex-wife a whore, and you’re a horrible person, and I don’t even want to look at you.” Even nine months pregnant, Lala is absolutely able to cut this man down to a size so small that he would be sucked out through the pool drain. Her most accurate read, however, was before Jesse even tried to talk to her. “Why does he look just like his personality is?” she asks the girls gathered around a table. That is so right. Just by looking at Jesse, you know exactly what you’re getting. It’s like when you look at a Big Mac meal deal and know just what you’re getting, and what you are getting is stomach cramps and diarrhea the next day. Jesse is just like that.
Jesse also tells on himself during this confrontation. Lala just asks Jesse a simple question: if some man treated his daughter the way he treated Michelle, how would he act? Well, knowing Jesse, he would probably egg him on. In confessional, Jesse says, “Calling Michelle a ‘lying, cheating whore’ is a moment of weakness. But the truth is, she’s a liar and a cheater, but she doesn’t deserve to be called a ‘whore.’” How about not calling her anything? How about trying to give your daughter a loving and supporting partnership from which she can flourish? How about just thinking about someone else for a change? Sorry, Jesse will never do that.
Speaking of a man that will never change, Jax Taylor continues to wreak havoc on all of our lives, even while ensconced in the world’s shittiest rehab facility. Let me get this straight. While he is away in care, they let him return to his home, take the covers off all the security, and then give him unlimited access to his phone so he can monitor his wife when she’s in their home and use that knowledge to threaten her and make her think that he has people watching her? This is a place that is supposed to fix him? Sorry, but I think the only way we are going to fix Jax Taylor is if we fix him like a stray dog. Just chop that man’s nuts off and feed them to Luke in his Denver omelet.
At her party, Brittany assembles all of her guests, or at least all of them who have at one time or another been paid to be in front of a television camera, with an important announcement. She wants everyone to know that her soon-to-be ex-husband is a piece of shit. Sorry, but that is like standing up in front of the nation and giving a news conference to inform everyone that Sabrina Carpenter is, in fact, blonde. No freakin’ duh, sister. The new news is that Jax says he wants to work on their relationship, so he’s not moving back into the house that they’re paying for, and he’s not moving into Brittany’s rental. Instead, he got a lease in an apartment next door to Tom Schwartz.
The problem with Jax isn’t that he’s evil; the problem with Jax is that he’s evil and stupid. Did he not think about this for even a second? He’s telling Tom Schwartz that he’s been diagnosed as bipolar and medicated for it and that has changed his life. Meanwhile, it seems like he is in the midst of a manic episode, not only taking out a lease on an apartment he doesn’t need, but also paying for it by skipping his mortgage payments. Brittany delivers that news over MeeMaw’s beer cheese with Tom Schwartz and then cries that she might get kicked out of her home and have her credit ruined by that man. I’m sorry, but what other way was this going to end? How did Brittany think that life with Jax would play out? That he would get a real job, take up bocce, and never look at another woman again? Did she think he would pay his bills on time and, even if he didn’t, that he wouldn’t lie about it? Did she think that one day, when Cruz is grown, they will retire together and go in an Airstream trailer across this great nation of ours, fondly looking over all of their memories like swiping through the photos of your last birthday party in your camera roll? No, Jax was always going to fuck her over; he was always going to ruin her life; it’s just amazing he took this long and has gotten this creative while doing it.