Punkee Recaps Vanderpump Rules: This Group Is In Tatters
It’s been a big week in the Bravoverse.
Former housewife Leah McSweeney announced a lawsuit against Bravo and Andy Cohen over its “rotted workplace culture”, our season 11 gone girl Raquel/Rachel Leviss dropped a revenge porn lawsuit against Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix, Vanderpump alum Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright are allegedly separating, and in happier news, my queen Lala Kent shared that she is pregnant via sperm donor with her second child.
So naturally, I haven’t slept a bloody wink.
With all that overwhelming information, I think it’s best we take things back to a simpler time. A time of tranquillity. A time of Tahoe.
We pick things up the morning after James and Sandoval’s semi-reconciliation chat. Everyone is slowly waking up, and Lala comes into Scheana and Brock’s room for a debrief with the former (the latter having gone off to play golf because he is a white male in his thirties). Scheana reads Lala her messages from Ariana, who is keen to get the tea on the trip. “It’s honestly been beautiful and chill. Everything today has been very surface level, nothing deep and no fights yet…” we see in a screenshot of their texts.
“I just know I can never be friends with him again,” Scheana tells Lala, who adds, “It’s really freaking sad”. We learn through Scheana’s interview about an act of kindness from Sandoval back during the pandemic. “I woke up to several thousand dollars in my account, he knew I was struggling at the time. My podcast got cancelled, I’m pregnant, I had no income, and he was there for me in a time when no one else was”. Ok that’s actually an incredibly kind gesture, I kinda get Scheana’s dilemma.
“I’m struggling not forgiving this human who has been there for ME!” Scheana tells Lala, pointing to herself in case Lala wasn’t sure who “me” was. When Lala asks her if she’s feeling torn, Scheana responds, “I’m not feeling torn, I’m team Ariana until I die”. Let’s hope we won’t still be talking about this by then.
Back in LA, Ariana is having a photoshoot for her new cocktail book Single AF. Katie brings her lunch and I really love these two Tom survivors banding together. “It’s MY cocktail book” Ariana points out, and for the OGs, we understand. For everyone else, Ariana explains in her interview. “The cocktail book that I did before was with Tom. I think he really thought I couldn’t do anything on my own,” she tells us, before we see old footage of Tom trying to name Ariana’s cocktails before he blatantly asked to get in or HER book deal. “With this book, this is essentially my breakup album. I’ve been super inspired by people like Alanis Morrisette, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce, trying to make some lemonade out of lemons… but with vodka.” LOVE that for her. She explains to Katie that the book tells the story of her relationship, with chapter titles like “Honeymoon”, “Betrayal”, “Devastation” and “Resilience”. The cocktail names also reference her relationship/relationship breakdown, with drinks like “Coachella” and “Little Sister Vibes”.
Back in Tahoe, Sandoval welcomes the yoga/meditation teacher/guide Shannon and they head out to the deck. “Is there anything in particular you want me to touch on?” she asks Sandoval. He explains the dynamics of the group currently and Scandoval and we see her face trying desperately not to outwardly show disgust. Like a true professional, Shannon suggests that they don’t do a “normal” yoga class, rather a seated meditation. The crew (minus Brock who is running late) makes their way downstairs and joins Sandoval and Shannon, admiring the stunning lake views. I honestly think if I meditated in that setting all my issues in life would simply disappear. Shannon starts the session by asking them to all be in the moment, with everyone peacefully sitting in silence until the big galumph of a man Brock comes and joins them, apologising for being stuck in traffic.
When Shannon tells the group that they’re going to be doing partner work, Scheana immediately clocks that her partner will be none other than her arch-nemesis Sandoval. She is not happy nor is she zen.
Shannon instructs them to sit back to back, with Brock, James and Ally working together as a trio due to odd numbers. “Allow yourself to be open to the full experience,” Shannon guides them, then tells them to imagine watching a movie of their life, which is a brilliant opening for producers to edit in a montage of Scandoval moments. If Sandoval’s last few months were a movie, it would be an erotic thriller/psychological drama that scores 18% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Scheana is wildly uncomfortable. “Can you come join our three?” she asks Brock, who doesn’t oblige her. Shannon tells the group to put themselves back together and think of a time they felt whole. In her interview, Scheana explains how this is the longest she’s ever gone without speaking to Sandoval, and how uncomfortable the situation is. “I’m not ready to fucking meditate and breathe together, like, no no NO”.
“Is that ok?” Sandoval asks Scheana about their positioning. “It’s fine,” she coldly responds. Shannon reminds the group that now is the time to practice some assertiveness and be honest, which breaks Scheana. “Ok so I’m NOT ok!” she cries, before running up the stairs to the house. “I still fucking hate you!”
Brock runs after Scheana and comforts her in the kitchen as she sobs. “If you feel very uncomfortable with Sandoval, I get that,” he tells Scheana, “Go into that!” Brock doesn’t want this experience of expression and healing to be wasted, as you can tell he’s bloody over it all. “I would like to do this with my husband,” Scheana tells him, with Brock explaining both in his interview and directly to Scheana that he deliberately chose not to sit with them as he knew it was important that the two have their moment. “We’re a whole bunch of friends down here, we’re trying to figure this out,” Brock tells her before we cut back to the mediation where everyone is sitting around awkwardly waiting for the couple to return. Schwartz is talking about birds and Shannon is probably questioning whether the pay cheque for this gig was worth it.
They head back outside to the group. “I don’t feel well today and I’m just uncomfortable,” Scheana tells them. They sit back in their group positions, and Shannon reminds them, “The moments in your life that have felt difficult have also made you who you are”. More tears, more footage of the past, this time it’s a montage of Scheana and Sandoval’s fifteen-year friendship.
Shannon instructs the group to turn and face their partners. “I want you to imagine this is the last time you will ever see them,” she tells them. Now Sandoval is crying too. “No matter what has transpired, just always try to remember there is so much love before the loss,” says Shannon, and at this stage I’m convinced that Sandoval wrote out a script for her to perform.
“I need to like, let go of the hate, because it’s not good for me ” Scheana weeps, “but I’m just so mad at you still. Like, I don’t know you…” she tells Sandoval. “Yeah you do,” he insists. “I know who you are to me, but what you did to her…” She starts. “You just don’t understand,” Sandoval tells her. ”I don’t know if I need to,” Scheana shuts him down.
“If this were the last day, I got very sad. But then I took a moment to think about all the beautiful and amazing times we had together, and just took a moment to take it in, to sort of like celebrate it.” Damn Sandoval, this is intense. Scheana is really worked up. “I was genuinely worried you were going to do something to yourself,” she tells him, “and I don’t wanna keep hating you, I need to let go of that because it doesn’t feel good. But you did this”.
Brock is crying too, the rest of the cast are essentially extras at this point. “I know that this is especially difficult for Scheana, so I really appreciate the fact that she was willing to do it, but also be vulnerable with me,” Sandoval explains in his interview. “I’m hoping that Scheana is reminded that I’m not this ruthless heartless villain and that I’m a friend. I miss her.” TBC hey.
They finish up the session with a prayer circle kinda thing before Scheana rushes upstairs crying. “The mask fell, and I saw that there is still a soul inside. I’m like, oh fuck, that’s my friend Tom. He misses me and our friendship and he knows how bad he fucked up,” Scheana tells us.
Both Lala and Brock come to comfort Scheana, who is at this stage breaking down over the genuine tears she believes she saw from Sandoval. She tells them that she messaged Ariana telling her the morning had been hard for her emotionally and that she loves her and has her back. Lala wisely reminds Scheana, “He made a mistake and it was fucked up and it changed the dynamic of the group, but there’s nothing we can do to change it”.
Back at the photoshoot in LA, Ariana and Katie are sitting in a beautiful garden having lunch. Ariana explains that Scheana had messaged her filling her in about the morning’s activities, “I don’t know, she was like ‘I was sobbing, I was so uncomfortable’, I didn’t have the time to ask the follow-up questions, I was just like, that sounds awful,” Ariana tells Katie. “The truth is though, if someone does want to be friends with him again, you ain’t gonna be their friend,” says Katie. “Yeah” confirms Ariana.
I keep going back and forth on whether I think Ariana is in the right for setting these boundaries, but I guess whether it’s right or wrong, it’s working for her so who am I to judge? “I’ve made it very clear it doesn’t work for me to have mutual friends with Tom Sandoval because I don’t want him to have access to me,” she tells us, explaining that she only wants friendships that feel safe.
Personally, I love it when my exes have access to me, but that’s because I’m deluded and imagine them scrolling through my pics devastated to have lost me.
Anywho, we chat about old mate Kevin, or whatever his name was, the one from Emo Nite that Katie went on a couple of dates with. We see footage of Katie having to explain to Kevin that penne is a type of pasta, not sauce, and that’s illegal sir. “I just don’t think I can see myself with someone who doesn’t know what penne is,” Katie tells us. “I just don’t know if I want another project boyfriend.”
Back in Tahoe, the gang heads out to ride gondola lifts (you know, those terrifying trams in the sky?). Schwartz calls the group “One big fucked up family” and where is the lie? Ally is afraid of heights and was assured by James that he’d be there to support her, so he is of course yelling and dancing and jumping around. “James, sit down NOW!” she’s gonna make a great mum, with all this practice on James.
“Did you guys get something out of the morning things?” Sandoval asks Schwartz and Brock, in the other gondola. Schwartz talks about his nice moment with Lala, feeling like they’re making progress with their strained relationship. We see footage of their meditation exchanged. “I wanna be softer,” Lala tells Schwartz. “You’re a really good mum and you have great eyebrows,” Schwartz tells Lala. Beautiful.
Predictably, the conversation goes south as Sandoval starts talking about intentions (you can literally see Schwartz clock the turning point and sink into his chair). “The one thing to keep in mind is that I did not do any of this, neither Raquel nor I… Rachel nor I, did any of this with the intention of hurting anyone,” Sandoval tells Brock. “But the way you guys reacted was very intentionally trying to hurt both Raquel and I.”
Brock ain’t buying it. “Bro, your girl put a restraining order on my wife.” They go into the she says, she says of the alleged punch, and Schwartz is hating life. “If I’m looking at Tom right now, we have a percentage of accountability and in blame, it’s probably like a solid 10% accountability and 90% blaming everyone else for his issues,” Brock tells us in his interview. Great math.
“Something happened and then there was five months afterwards of someone on a fucking hate crusade,” snaps Sandoval, referring to Scheana. “Bro, your team was pushing rumours of me sleeping with Raquel!” Brock fights back, before explaining to us that in the height of Scandoval there was an article that came out suggesting Brock was also cheating with Raquel. When he followed up with who the source was, he was told it was someone from Sandoval’s team. They argue back and forth about “teams”, and Sandoval tells Brock he’s willing to take a polygraph to prove his innocence. On that note, WHY are celebrities (reality TV stars) obsessed with the concept of polygraphs proving innocence? I live for the absurdity.
“We are here, my wife’s figuring out how to rebuild this friendship so you need to fucking stop that,” he tells Sandoval, before venting to Scheana and declaring that he needs a beer. Same.
Brock heads back to Sandoval in an attempt of resolution and apologises for his emotional approach. “I’m not trying to discount you guys’ feelings,” Sandoval says, before explaining how he felt like he was being constantly kicked while he was down. “I’m sure you guys probably saw me touring and thinking ‘oh this guys just fucking partying his balls off’, it looked that way but it wasn’t at all. I had to, I had no fucking money,” Sandoval explains, in reference to his poorly advised social media presence during the Sandoval fallout while he was touring with his “band”. Brock admits that he and Scheana probably took things too far with their podcast too, and the two make some sort of peace.
Meanwhile, Scheana is pissed. Page Six posted a photo from the night before of the cast posing for a photo with a fan, and the internet took that as a sign that they were all best friends again – accusing Scheana of being a fake friend. “People don’t know what I’m personally struggling with when it comes to Sandoval, they’re just assuming I’m betraying Ariana,” she tells us. “I think today’s not the day you should be reading that stuff,” Lala advises, and I agree. Today is never the day.
Anywho, time for a boat ride!!!
Alright, I’ve done a pretty good job suppressing my true feelings up until now, but I’ve just gotta say it. This is possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Lala agrees with me. “Y’all, do you even see what is out there?” she asks them, pointing at the breathtaking scenery of the water and sky and trees wowowow.
Thankfully, we soon head back to LA to check on Ariana and Katie, so I can’t get too caught up in Tahoe. The two meet with chef Penny and are interviewing staff for their sandwich shop. “I feel like I’m doing American Idol,” jokes Katie, “I’m Randy Jackson – it’s a no from me dawg.” Ariana explains to us that Penny is working on the nuts and bolts of the restaurant, whereas she and Katie are both focused on the front of house. “It’s really weird to be on the other side of the table and I just don’t want them to feel like we’re big bag boss ladies,” she shares.
We see our first applicant, Brent, who arrives wearing a pickle tie. I REPEAT, a grown man is wearing a tie with pickles on it, and I am in love with him. Ariana goes to ask Brent a question, with Penny immediately interrupting. “Big question here, what’s your favourite cured meat?” To be fair, that is an amazing question that I will now be asking on dates. Mine is prosciutto if you were wondering. “I feel like me and Katie should be the ones asking most of the questions, considering it’s our sandwich shop, it’s just kind of hard to get a word in,” Ariana vents in her interview.
Back on the boat, Scheana Facetimes with Ariana and Katie. A bit wild of them to answer and have a chat while Penny is sitting next to them, but I’ll allow it. “We’re interviewing people!” they tell Scheana, and yeah, maybe focus on that!
Scheana tells them she’s feeling depleted, and explains the intensity of the morning. “You putting yourself in a position to be friends with somebody who would do this to you, is not someone I want you to be friends with, for you,” Ariana tells Scheana, and I’m gonna need a whiteboard and some red string to figure this one out. “We’re not what we used to be, we never will be” Scheana assures Ariana, “It was just like, really heavy”. She continues, ‘You know how close we were, and it was just a really heavy loss for me. I’ve just been struggling with that and I’m like, I miss you but it’ll never be the same”. Yikes, Ariana and Katie aren’t vibing this. “I don’t think he gave a shit about your friendship” Ariana says. “I felt like for the first time I got genuine tears from him and not performative. I just feel like I needed to let go of the hatred I had for him, I can’t keep hating him for you.” REEL IT IN SCHEANA THIS ISN’T GOING WELL LITTLE LADY. “Scheana’s definitely getting close to crossing a line with Ariana,” Katie says in her interview, “You’ve got the wrong audience chick”. Lol. Ariana mentally checks out by the looks of it.“That sucks. I sound fucking awful,” she tells Scheana. They wrap up the conversation and it seems friendly but yeah, this dynamic is gonna need to be examined.
Back in Tahoe, Schwartz snaps a cute moment of Ally, James and … Hippie (Graham) and they decide to post a family picture. Ally knows the ramifications of such a move. “I’m really nervous for James to post that we have Hippie. It’s kinda like, hard launching a relationship on Instagram.” “It’s my puppy now, I love you,” James tells Hippie.
Meanwhile, Schwartz is chatting with one of the boat staff and invites them back to the house. “Can I give you my number? Is that weird?” he asks one of the women. It wasn’t weird until you said that, Schwartzy. Get some game! Ally, Sandoval and Lala and doing shots of oxygen (?) and Lala asks Sandoval if he’s had good chats with everyone on the trip. She then sees this as an opportunity to have her moment with him.
“When you could like look me in my eyes, and say like, you need to be real, you need to be honest with your life, all of those things knowing that you were doing what you guys were doing, how could you look at me and say those things?” she asks him. Okay, we’re going there. Sandoval claims to not remember saying this, but James chimes in saying he remembers this, backing up his bestie Lala. “You even went on to do an article, the day before you guys got caught,” she says, with Sandoval correcting her, “It was actually the day of”. So you DO remember saying it? Hmmm.
“Sandoval was in this publication saying that I have douchey energy and I just need to be real. And I just thought, how poetic that this would come out on this day and how rich coming from you,” she quips in her interview. “Lala, your entire life was a mystery and off limits for years and years and we respected that,” he tells her, before explaining in his interview that he finds it hypocritical of Lala getting on his case about lying about a seven-month relationship versus her lying about her six-year relationship. “We both lied, we’re both liars.”
“We can go down a laundry list, and honest to god have a heyday with my past, I go through this in my mind and no one’s gonna beat me up more than I beat myself up,” she tells Sandoval. “You don’t get to talk to me about my past…” Sandoval interrupts. “Ok, likewise!” Lala is slowly getting more and more heated. “No, I do get to talk about it because you looked at me in my eyes and told me that I needed to be real when you were doing what you were doing.” He accuses Lala of cheating for six years (it’s complicated, but she didn’t). “I’m so happy that we’re having this conversation, because I thought in this moment you’d say, you know what La? That was fucked up, and I’m sorry that I did that. And instead, you wanna hold me to my past yet again. It’s not about me, it’s about you right now!” Lala is emotional, and rightly so. “Ok,” Sandoval exclaims, “and I’m taking accountability”.
Sandoval is now yelling at her about the fact that the rest of the cast were putting their lives out there and Lala wasn’t being transparent, and she is triggered given how much of herself she has shared with the audience. “You talk about this every year because it’s all you have on me, and you will not allow me to evolve, but yet this happened four months ago and I’m allowing you to evolve!” Lala yells. Sandoval claims that Lala is only softening her stance because of public backlash, but Lala tells him it’s because of Raquel’s final Vanderpump Rules interview where she said if she doesn’t fall in line with Sandoval, she’ll have no one. She accuses him of isolating and grooming Raquel and storms off and this boat trip now sucks.
Brock comes in and tells Sandoval to take a breath. Ally is trying to calm Lala down, while James and Schwartz are disassociating (and I don’t blame them). Scheana joins Brock in trying to talk some sense into Sandoval, explaining that all Lala wants is an apology for the specific “be real” comments. Sandoval admits in his interview that it was hypocritical of him to say that while he was hiding an affair.
Lala returns to Sandoval and he explains that he misunderstood her initially (alrighty). “I’m not coming for you, I’m tired,” she tells him. Hell freezes over and Sandoval apologises and gives her a big hug, so maybe this isn’t the Titanic after all? “I’m still processing this, these last few days, it’s a lot” he tells Lala, “It’s a lot for everybody”. The scene finishes up with Schwartz telling the aforementioned boat staff, “We’re not usually like this btw… I lied, we are. This is actually normal for us”. Ahhhh, Schwartzy.
We’re back at the house. We learn that Brock is wasted because he’s been doing shots with the Captain. He and Schwartz (who is also quite boozy) admire the sunset and discuss love. When the topic of his ex-wife comes up, Schwartz admits, “There’s a lot of things I don’t like about Katie, but I know she has a pure soul. She was willing to date me when I had nothing”. Yeah, it’s cos you were smoking hot in your twenties honey. Brock tells Schwartz that his first love was the pig farmer’s daughter who lived next door, and I’m so glad this man is on the show. Everyone is getting ready to call it and we see Scheana and Lala lying together in bed again.
“It’s been an emotionally draining couple of days,” Lala says. Scheana is still pissed off about the social media hate she’s getting after posing next to Sandoval, and Lala trolls her for checking her Twitter mentions. “Has Ariana come to your defence at all?” Lala asks. “No, of course not,” Scheana responds.
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“When I try to talk to Ariana and say that I’m struggling she either dismisses how I feel or tells me I shouldn’t feel this way because he’s a bad person. It’s just like, I know but I’m just telling you I’m struggling,” Scheana tearfully confesses. “Your feelings are absolutely valid,” Lala assures her, “Ariana is doing just fine, she’s booking everything under the sun, she is having her moment and she deserves that”. Scheana replies with, “She does deserve everything she’s getting right now and I’m so happy for her that she did not go down a dark fucking spiral. I just am hurting still”.
“It’s time for Ariana to pull her head out from her own ass,” Lala demands in her interview. “She needs to come back to reality and remember who her friends are and what they’ve done for her. Scheana has been ride or die since day one for Ariana, and now it’s time for Ariana to return the favour.” Phwoar, those are some strong words Lala, but… yeah. I’m starting to agree with you.
“Why can I ever have one moment where it can be about ME?” Scheana asks Lala, “I’m hurt, I lost a very very dear friend here, I am struggling with that. I’m not allowed to feel any of that, cos it’s only about Ariana. And I’m tired”. We’re all tired at this point, but I will continue to sleepwalk through this mess and report the facts.
Until next time, Pumpheads.
Written by Lil Friedmann, lover of all things Bravo and staunch defender of reality television. You can follow her at @lilfriedmann on socials.
Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules is available to stream on Hayu from 31 January, with episodes dropping the same day as the USA.
Image credit: Bravo, Hayu + Punkee