Welcome to “Vanderpump Rules” Season 8.
Here’s what you need to know from the start: Katie Maloney, Lala Kent, Ariana Madix and Brittany Cartwright no longer work at SUR, but Jax Taylor and Scheana Shay still do. Raquel Leviss is now a server there, which is awkward considered James Kennedy was fired by Lisa Vanderpump last season.
At the top of the episode, we met Dayna — a blonde-haired, blue-eyed TomTom hostess who was soon moving to SUR — who revealed to her coworkers that she had just slept with Max, who Tom Schwartz described as “the glue” that holds TomTom together. Max is the bar’s GM who allegedly “has a new girl every week.”
Later, Scheana introduced a new server, Brett, to the SUR staff — after letting him know she was divorced: “It’s okay, it doesn’t define me!” Lo and behold, Brett revealed in his confessional that the two had already hooked up.
“A few nights ago, we were out at a bar in Santa Monica. I was with a buddy,” he explained. “She of course invited us back to her house to play Scattergories. The next thing I know, we just kiss. That wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he added with a laugh. “Nothing against her.”
“Wait,” an off-camera producer interrupted. “Are you saying she’s not a good kisser?” Brett replied, “That is what I’m saying.”
In her own confessional, Scheana explained that she hadn’t spoken to Adam “in a couple of months” and that she “did briefly date” Max, but he ended up ghosting her. “I literally bought him an Apple Watch to show him how much I cared about him, and he couldn’t even use it to text me.”
Jax told Scheana he was so frustrated with Tom Sandoval supposedly ignoring his calls and texts that he bumped him from his role as co-best man in his wedding. Meanwhile, Sandoval explained to Schwartz that the reason Jax demoted him was because he couldn’t it make to his pre-bachelor party because he had already booked a flight home to see his mom for Mother’s Day.
The two also have beef because they bought almost identical houses and moved into the same neighborhood, so it’s been a bit of a game of tit-for-tat — at least according to Sandoval, who feels Jax tries to one-up everything he does. Did we mention Katie and Schwartz’s house also looks just like the other two and is also in the same neighborhood? For the record, Tom and Ariana were there first, and she wants you to know that.
Elsewhere, Jax vented to Brittany Cartwright about the fact that he feels Sandoval should be paying more attention to him and his wedding and that the two “don’t have that much in common anymore.”
Later, Stassi Schroeder and Beau Clark dined at TomTom. Though she was thrilled her book was on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list, she was incredibly sad because her grandma had just passed away. She vented to Lisa, who just so happened to stop by, that she was frustrated with Kristen Doute for accusing her and Katie of hating her boyfriend and not checking in on her. Stassi was annoyed with Kristen for telling people she and Brian Carter had broken up even though they were still living together, hanging out and having sex.
“I don’t know if the person I’m hopefully growing into can be friends with the person who’s not growing at all,” Stassi said in a later confessional.
While preparing for her grandma’s funeral, she told Beau about her end-of-life wishes. “When I die,” she began, quite serious, “I just want it to be like a haunted house theme, and then there will be tray passers and they’re all gonna look like me. And I wanna be taxidermied so that people can come and take selfies with me. Scheana will literally move my dead body so that she could take the selfie on her good side.”
We also caught up with Lala, who stopped by Lisa’s house to chat. She was seven months sober and said it was the greatest gift she had ever given herself. Lala said she had reached out to James to make amends, prompting Lisa to reiterate, “He needs to get sober.” After all, that’s a big part of why she fired him in the first place. But Lala said she didn’t feel right “pushing” her sobriety on others. She then asked Lisa about opportunities to work at Vanderpump Dogs given her work with the Humane Society in her home state of Utah.
Later, Stassi stopped by Kristen’s to chat and catch up. She looked like he had been crying for days and offered Stassi a drink. Kristen had recently bought a house in the Valley and told Stassi she had to be out of her apartment in a week. Nothing seemed packed.
Kristen told Stassi she felt abandoned in the midst of a breakup, but Stassi felt she had been lied to about the status of the relationship. Bottom line, Kristen was still “trying to figure it out” with Carter, which didn’t make sense to Stassi, who’s seen her friend cry over this man for years.
Tom and Katie then hosted a housewarming party, where Dayna eavesdropped on Scheana talking about how close she still is with Max. She even said the two were going to Palm Springs together. Moments later, Brett walked over to Max, and the two bonded over both having been with Scheana. Brett let Max know he wasn’t interested in dating her and asked her if she was all over him in the beginning.
“Her and I weren’t like legit together,” Max explained. “I’m gonna be honest with you. With Scheana, I mean I think we all know that she’s very boy crazy. It can be a little overwhelming at times. Like, you just got out of a serious relationship, as did I. Like the last thing you wanna do is run into something. I then made the mistake of hanging out all the time, every day. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to, though. But then I realized, I’m like, ‘F–k, this is a lot.'”
Katie, who heard the whole thing, ran over to tell Scheana, who then confronted the guys. “Did you say I’m boy crazy?” she asked Max, reminding him that he was the one who pursued her. Even though they hugged it out, Scheana still ended up crying. “I don’t like being called crazy. I’m not crazy,” she said through tears. “And I’m over chasing boys, I’m not f–king crazy.” Max apologized again, told her he loved her and leaned in for another hug. Dayna watched the whole thing.
Max then took Dayna outside and asked if he could take her out on a date. Confused, she brought up the Palm Springs trip with Scheana. He didn’t realize she had been listening to him, but he maintained the trip wouldn’t be with just her. When Dayna asked what the deal was with them, he promised they hadn’t hooked up since they stopped hooking up. Though Dayna admitted in a later confessional she saw “red flags,” she was just too into him.
Elsewhere, Lala decided to have a one-on-one conversation with Carter, who wound up coming to the party. If you recall from last season, it was alleged that Carter doesn’t work, doesn’t pay bills and refuses to move out.
“It does seem like you latched on, and it’s a comfortable situation where you can go home at night, you know you got your bills paid,” Lala said to Carter. “If you can’t afford it and take care of it, baby girl has a job.” Carter admitted Kristen had “taken care of” him in the past but that that wasn’t the case now. He also said Kristen wants him around and that he’s been shooting her videos and photos for her website. Lala was starting to realize there was a “gray area” in the whole situation.
“I know what it’s like to not be the financial equal of your partner, but I contribute in other ways. I’m running a household, I’m giving killer BJs,” she later told the camera. “What is Carter doing besides sitting around playing video games and sucking the life out of my friend?”
Sandoval and Jax ended up having a heated discussion outside about everything that had been bothering them, and Jax re-extended the co-best man invite. Sandoval said in a later confessional, though, that he felt Jax was taking advantage of the fact that he was getting married to make sure all attention was on him and only him.
Fast-forward to drunk o’clock. Carter told Kristen what he and Lala talked about, which angered Kristen because she felt it wasn’t Lala’s place. She assured Carter she would continue to defend him. He then kissed her (in front of everyone) and said I love you.
Kristen confronted Lala, who was just as annoyed. She felt Kristen had been lying to them about what was really going on. “I don’t like when people are confiding in me about something that couldn’t be further from what’s really going on,” she said. Kristen said she was sorry her “messy” situation wasn’t working for Lala and the girls, prompting Lala to fire back, “Is it working for you?!”
When Kristen maintained Lala hadn’t done much to help her in her time of need, Lala asked her not to call her anymore with any Carter drama. “You’re doing to me what you did to Katie and Stassi, and I’m not into it,” she said, before Kristen stood up in a rage. “I’m not doing it. I’m not doing this bullshit! You just pulled a ‘Katie and Stassi’ card. That is how I know you’re not you!” The screaming match escalated until all eyes were on them. Kristen said Lala was acting like a “f–king bitch,” which only made matters worse. “If you are my friend, do not call me out of my name!” Lala repeated, waving a finger in Kristen’s face.
“I will not be spoken down to by this sugar mama who I’m just trying to save from her disaster of a relationship,” Lala later said.
Katie got involved and reprimanded Kristen for walking away. “No one is attacking you,” she said. “No one is getting in your face. Everyone is trying to be real with you.”
“Do you hear your voice right now?” Kristen interrupted, which infuriated Katie, who fired back, “Stop acting like no one’s been there for you! Please! It’s so tired and old. I’m gonna scream this in your ear so you get it because I’m tired of you talking about what an amazing friend you are and everyone’s a shitty friend. That shit is bullshit. Get over yourself!”
“Vanderpump Rules” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Bravo.
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