The Biggest Snake in the Grass
The Valley
The Biggest Snake in the Grass
Season 2
Episode 8
Editor’s Rating
Photo: Well done
It was just the last episode that I was yelling about Brock Davies, Scheana Shay’s husband, being at a pool party and the editors not giving us one shot of Brock in his budgie smugglers. This week, we not only got a shirtless shot of Brock in the pool, but we also got a very intimate conversation during a game of Truth or Dare at the beach. Scheana chooses a truth and is asked how big is that budgie that Brock is always smuggling. I wish you could have seen me in that moment when I paused the video, stripped off all my clothes, put on a bathrobe, picked up the nearest tube of lotion and the nearest box of Kleenex, and settled down to hear the answer.
Scheana tells us that it’s girth-y rather than long, which, I don’t care what game show you’re on — Jeopardy, Password, Is It Cake? — that is always the right answer. Then she says, “It perfectly fits in all holes.” All holes? Like llllllll holes? Then Scheana says that once he stuck it in her butt (oh yeah, that’s all the holes), and it gave her hemorrhoids. Okay, that’s excellent to know, but are you doing it wrong, girl? Did you use enough lube? Did you adequately relax the area and make sure to dilate? I don’t mean to brag, but in my long career of putting things in all the holes, I’ve never met one that gave me hemorrhoids, and I’ve been to a Brazilian brothel.
There are so many things about this beach trip that I want to talk about that have nothing to do with the biggest fight that happened at the beach. Like why do they keep making our Los Angeles–based reality shows go to the beach when it’s freezing and windy and they all just sit there in blankets complaining? Also, of all the relatable things that Kristen Doute has ever said (I just did a rough tally, and she has said zero relatable things), her talking about how every time she goes to the Grove she loses her car is by far the most relatable. But don’t worry; she’s learned her lesson. Now she valets. Smart girl.
The main takeaway from the scene, unfortunately, was not parking advice for LA shopping malls. Instead, it’s that Jasmine gets into a huge fight with Jason and Janet about the rumor that Jason goes out to bars and takes off his wedding ring. As more than one person mentions in the episode, they seemed to laugh the comment off when Kristen raised it to say last episode, but as time went by, Janet and Jason (and by “Janet and Jason,” I mean Janet) got more and more worked up until it became a big thing.
What’s even more annoying is that this is what Janet always does. She’s one of those practitioners of the reality-television arts and sciences who is always looking for ammo, blowing it out of proportion, willfully misreading it, and manipulating it so that she has something to be mad about. For an example of this, look at when The Real Housewives of Potomac‘s Gizelle Bryant said she’d be beautiful long after Karen Huger’s husband was dead, and Karen turned that into “Gizelle wished death on my husband.” It’s exactly like last season when Janet turned a bitchy but innocuous comment by Zack into “Zack wanted me to miscarry and for my unborn child to die.”
During their confrontation on the beach, Jasmine explodes at Janet and says, “Janet, you have been a shitty-ass friend; you’re a vibe killer; you’re exhausting; you give Karen energy, and I’m done with it.” This is such a precise and accurate description of Janet’s character that it’s staggering. The way that Janet takes her ammo out on her other castmates is what Jasmine means by “Karen energy.” This is just what a Karen does. She takes a slight inconvenience, something small or ordinary, and complains about it so much that it becomes a giant argument, and the next thing you know, there is a video of the fight circulating on social media and everyone has lost their jobs. Unless, of course, it happens on Bravo, and then the video is on television, and everyone gets to keep their jobs, but you know what I’m saying.
Jasmine didn’t start the rumor, Jasmine didn’t believe the rumor, and Jasmine didn’t bring the rumor to the show. She really has nothing to do with it. She is one of apparently many people who heard this gossip, and she may or may not have mentioned it to Kristen, who is the one who lobbed it back at Janet and Jason when they were coming for Danny and Nia. (For the record, Kristen says she didn’t hear it from Jasmine.) Janet says, “I’m both impressed and annoyed at how good Kristen is at creating distraction and filling up bullshit in a room to distract from the truth.” That’s exactly what Kristen is doing, just like she did last season with the rumor about Michelle and the boyfriend she had for two years.
What’s wild is that Janet is falling for it, and that is why Kristen is a veteran at this game and Janet is like a drunken mascot flailing on the side of the field, looking for attention. Janet has an issue with something Kristen said, and the next thing you know, she’s questioning Jasmine and intimating that she is the one who started the whole rumor in the first place. That’s like trying to make Scheana’s famous enchiladas with a recipe for chimichangas and then being surprised when there aren’t enchiladas on your plate.
After Jasmine freaks out on them, Jason and Janet leave the beach hang, and their relationship with Jasmine is in tatters, and rightfully so. But then we see Janet sitting at home with her husband and child, talking about how she has been crying all day, and she doesn’t want her child to feel her negative energy because it will ruin his ability to be a happy baby. Really? So now, because Jasmine was mean to her, it’s ruining her child’s life? If this isn’t giving BKE (Big Karen Energy), then I don’t know what is. What Jasmine said was shitty, and I get Janet feeling betrayed, but this is a fight that Janet picked, one that she brought to Jasmine and that she encouraged. She could have let it drop, talked to Kristen, or approached Jasmine like a friend and asked, “Did you really make this up?” rather than standing in Scheana’s kitchen and saying that Jasmine clearly doesn’t care about her because of this. I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted.
Janet and Jason sitting in the living room brings me to another question: Why do they have a mini-fridge full of Gatorade in their living room? Zack’s Monster-branded fridge on his kitchen counter is understandable for its kitsch value, but their house isn’t that big. They can’t walk to the fridge for a dose of electrolytes clouded in sugar and dyes that would make RFK Jr. regrow a brain worm?
Seriously, though, the question is, What the fuck is going on with Jax Taylor? This man makes every part of me weary. Do we even need him on this show? We have Janet blowing up friendships over the dumbest of pretexts. We have Jesse Lally saying the most heinous, misogynistic things. We have Luke with his hot body, Danny with his drunken dark side, and Kristen with her ambiguous relationship with the truth. It appears that we have everything Jax Taylor offers covered by the rest of the cast. Can’t we just let this man fade into red-faced obscurity and keep our sanity?
Jax calls Jason while they’re next to the Gatorade aisle of the Caperna household to talk about how transformed he’s been by his time in rehab. He’s so grateful; he realizes he needs to be a new man; it’s all going to be different after this. Yeah, right. I have heard this more times than I have heardHOT TO GO!” this Pride Month. (Yes, I know we’re only three days in, but I have already heard it 9 million times.) The worst is when Jax says, “My dad must have put me (in rehab) for a reason.” Excuse me? Wasn’t it just a few episodes ago when Jax was saying that his father would be rolling over in his grave that he was going to rehab? Now, it’s his father who booked him the room and paid the $60,000? That is what is so evil about Jax; he will take anything and retrofit it to blend with the narrative that he’s trying to create.
The big takeaway from the call is that Jax is going to help Brittany with her mortgage by giving her his portion of their podcast money until she pays it off. Wait, isn’t that podcast going to end now that they’re broken up? Is that kind of like saying, “Yeah, I quit my job, but you can have my last paycheck”? But again, here is Jax saying something on-camera to make himself look so magnanimous when there is really no sacrifice at all.
Then we see the scene of Brittany moving back into their shared house, even though she had already prepaid to live in a rental for two more months. Brittany starts by reblocking the security cameras so that Jax can’t see them. Then she calls Jax’s sister, Jenny, to talk shit about him. I didn’t really like this. Yes, Jax is an asshole, but Jenny knows that all on her own. Brittany doesn’t need to call her and then talk shit about the woman’s brother right to her face. That seems not only unnecessary but also a little unkind.
While they’re on the phone, the producer gets a text from Jax saying that he can hear everything Brittany is saying and that it’s childish. Brittany asks if he could have put a bug in the house. The producer remarks that’s the only way Jax would have known to text her. He then emails Brittany to say that he talked to the bank and that their house is in foreclosure, so he’s not paying the mortgage anymore, but she can take it over if she wants. I’m sorry, but most of the crazy bullshit on this show is fun. Zack and Janet’s gay getting into a fight is fun. Jasmine and Janet shouting on the beach about a stupid rumor is fun. Hearing about all the times Scheana and Brock have tried anal is fun and arousing. But you know what is not fun? Watching this man torture his soon-to-be ex-wife. If it were up to me, I’d keep Jax in rehab forever because if he’s not going to learn anything in it or out of it, at least in rehab, he can continue not to change far away from us.