What happens to Vanderpump Rules if its cast can’t stand each other?
As the blockbuster 10th season of Vanderpump Rules comes to an end, its cast vows to avoid each other
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Bravo, bravo, bravo.
Last night, Vanderpump Rules finally delivered the episode everyone had been waiting for since March. At this point, the details of Scandoval—i.e. Tom Sandoval trashing his near-decade-long relationship with Ariana Madix by cheating on her with Raquel Leviss—are burned into the collective memory of Bravoholics and casual observers alike. But finally seeing the cast react to the news was thrilling, and delivered, if not the best episode of the show to date, its strongest showing in years.
The episode opens two days after the cast found out about Sandoval’s affair (the same day Raquel and Scheana Shay visited The A.V. Club and Jezebel in New York). We dive immediately into the much-teased confrontation between Sandoval and Ariana, giving the rest of the episode space to check in on the rest of the cast and gauge their reactions. Most of the episode is one-on-one conversations, with surprising highlights being Sandoval’s conversation with Scheana, and Ariana’s with Tom Schwartz. These were painful conversations between longtime friends, both ending with the women telling the men in their respective scenes that they were not interested in staying friends.
Ariana expressed a similar sentiment in an interview published by The New York Times this morning. When asked whether she’d be open to filming with Sandoval or Raquel again, she said: “No. I have nothing to say to either of them. Our show is very real and follows a real group of friends, and neither of them are in the group of friends, so, good luck.” With the upcoming reunion episodes long in the can, it’s perfectly plausible that Ariana will be able to avoid them for a while.
So where exactly does Vanderpump Rules go from here, then? Ariana’s pain is real and reasonable—anyone would feel similarly about the infidelity of a life partner. But Tom and Ariana were never just partners. They have always been coworkers, not just at SUR or in their business ventures, but as stars on a reality show. And, lately, they’ve been doing their jobs extremely well. This series has never seen such public discussion, the cast has never seen this level of fame. It’s unlikely that Bravo would easily let anyone leave the show at this point.
There have been other instances in the Bravoverse of cast members refusing to film together—Real Housewives Of New York’s Bethenny Frankel and Jill Zarin come to mind, but there have been others. Usually, this untenable situation ends with someone leaving the show. If the cast is icing one person out, it’s easy enough to fix. But when a cast is divided—it’s not just Sandoval and Raquel, but Schwartz too that no one wants anything to do with—the situation would be more complicated.
Of course, there is a chance that things could thaw, but this is a genuine betrayal that is on a scale beyond a typical reality show. Vanderpump Rules has always stood out because the cast has always believably been real friends. Most of them were friends before the show and bonded further through the experience. There have been cast changes, sure, but the Toms have been the de facto protagonists since the departures of Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute (who did return for the finale), and Jax Taylor. Drawing a line in the sand and setting healthy boundaries is pretty antithetical to reality TV.
Unless the show is going to spend a lot of time on its B-list members or develop a spin-off about the Toms, something is going to have to give. The prospect of centering a show on people with so much vitriol for each other is an intriguing one (even if that also has a finite shelf life). But the cast needs to be in the same room, talking, screaming, and throwing fists for that to happen. Unfortunately, reality TV is a painful game, and you can’t play—or win—by protecting your peace.
23 Comments
I still have no idea what this show is, and when I try to read an article like this, my brain just goes “Doesn’t look like anything to me.” I guess I’ll continue with my sort of half-formed conception of it as a sitcom continuation of Rules of Attraction starring James Van Der Beek and, idk, some kind of pump.
It’s prototypical “reality” drivel. Avoid at all costs.
Unless you like reality TV drivel, then definitely check out it because that finale, along with this season, has been all time classic reality TV drivel.
i thought it was a type of shoe at first
Assuming you’re being serious. It’s a spinoff of The Real Housewives Beverly Hills, which had a cast member Lisa Vanderpump who owned a few trendy restaurants in and around West Hollywood. VPR originally focused on the staff of her latest restaurant, SUR, who were all aspiring models/actors, and friends and lovers in real life. In the first few seasons, they were generally dirt poor, spending all of their tip money and meager salaries from the show on partying hard while living in dumpy apartments. As the show grew in popularity, the focus focused on the restaurant less and less, especially as the cast began to get rich and famous from the show alone and they eventually stopped working there, and after that stopped pretending that they worked there. New cast members were occasionally added, supposedly as new SUR workers, but were generally just cast for the show, or as new boyfriends/girlfriends of the established cast. 10 years in, most of the cast is approaching, or has surpassed, 40, and have begun slowing down in their partying. They’ve begun opening their own bars and restaurants, buying multimillion dollar homes, getting married, and having babies, and as a result the show had started to become boring, the drama was increasingly obviously staged, and ratings began to dip. Which is why Scandoval blew up so much this season, because it was genuine drama and emotion, seeing such real betrayal happen between relationships going on for well over a decade, and viewers have been along for the ride with them the entire time.
Can you also explain the title? Is it Vanderpump Rules! like meaning Ms. Vanderpump is awesome? Or is it the rules Ms. Vanderpump has for her staff?
My favorite meme of the new AV Club is them pretending that we deeply care about reality shows.
I know the one girl is named Rachel but she calls herself Raquel(because that sounds more sophisticated?) and she banged Borat, which is a big deal apparently.All that thanks to The AVClub.com
Right here with you. Is this fiction? Reality? Quasi fictional? A type of anti-infammatory cream?
I know someone that knows someone that was involved with the show. They’re also (at least some of them) MAGA fascists, but don’t tell that to the show’s audience.
I assume it’s about how to pump Vander, whatever that is?
If?
What comes to mind to me are the early seasons of Real Housewives of New Jersey, where most of the cast venomously hated Danielle (can’t remember her last name). Tbh, it worked great for me. The forced reality TV confrontations were over the top with the venom of genuine animosity. I could definitely feed on one or two seasons of that kind of heat here.I do agree the show can’t survive with Katie, Lala and James as its core cast. Katie isn’t charismatic enough and Lala and James are too volatile. The Toms were the “stable” ones. But considering people already thought the show was on its way out when everyone was happy and married, this renaissance season and another season or two of pure beef sound great to me.
I feel bad an actual human has to write about this. It’s not worth it
Burns: Have the Kardashians killed.Smithers: But sir, these aren’t—Burns: Do as I say!
Our show is very real and follows a real group of friendsLol, lmao the cast has always believably been real friendsRofl, lol
Probably none of that is a lie from their perspective – when you get that rich, and that spoiled, catty bitchiness is friendship, because there’s actually no reason to form serious relationships, and there’s nothing else to do.
I don’t know if it’s wealth, really. At least in the earlier seasons, these people had drab apartments and stuff. But it’s incredible watching the show and seeing people be like “Scheana is one of my really close friends” when they fucking fight all the time, betray each other’s trust, butt into each other’s business, etc.I don’t know whether they really believe their friends or they just feel contractually obligated to act like it. Probably some combination of the two. But like one of the dudes (James) is just an unremitting piece of shit, never nice to anyone, blows up into hysterics at the slightest provocation, treats every girlfriend like total garbage, and yet still gets invited to every party? People still hang out with him? Bullshit, no–he’s good TV.
What happens to Vanderpump Rules if its cast can’t stand each other?Ratings will probably go up.
Is this a serious question? They will stick with the same formula of putting people who hate each other together in restaurants, on vacations, in bars, whatever, fully expecting cough orchestrating cough fights.
Hmm, that’s an interesting question, but I believe I have a better one: who cares?
Vapid people with no discernible personality whose sense of self-worth is directly linked to the number of views and likes they receive for the dumb, vapid shit they say.