vanderpump rules

Tom Tom Finally Opens, Thank God, on Vanderpump Rules

Photo: Bravo

Vanderpump Rules may be careening toward its timely end (in spirit), but one thing you have to give the show credit for is its persistent ability to pack an incredible amount of drama into its limited 43-minute timeframe. In this episode, for example, Tom Tom opens and … there is still an entire half of the episode to go. Then, the group travels Mexico. Incredible. We are truly getting our money’s worth here with Vanderpump Rules.

In a move that is nothing short of the blog definition of iconic, the Toms wore matching white suits to Tom Tom’s opening. “It’s James Bond in a Wes Anderson movie,” Ariana said when she saw Sandoval, accurately. Sandoval picked Schwartz up for the opening-night party in the motorcycle and sidecar he bought for $18,000, seemingly for this use exclusively, and it ran out of gas on the way to Tom Tom, and then they got more gas, and then they arrived to a cheering crowd. Lisa Vanderpump says this sort of pointless grand gesture is exactly why she wanted the Toms involved in the first place, and I do believe her.

I was looking forward to a Breaking Bad “Fly”-like Vanderpump Rules Tom Tom bottle episode (I just caught up on the last few episodes of This Is Us and one of them was a not-very-good hospital waiting-room bottle episode, so the concept was on my mind), but the Tom Tom portion of the episode was over somewhat quickly. Sad. Maybe Rian Johnson can come in to direct a Tom Tom bottle episode at some point later in the season.

Everybody (except James) was at the opening-night party. They had cocktails and they liked them. Katie was upset with Schwartz for not hanging out with her enough, which is foreshadowing. Lisa talked to Lala about her behavior last week, and, after Lala denied any wrongdoing, she called Scheana over to rat on Lala right in front of her face, which was, damn, a very cold move from Lisa. (And a very Scheana move from Scheana.) It doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen to Lala, though, so I guess whatever.

(Oh, another small thing from the party that I wanted to point out was how, at first, when Jax was trying to tell Brittany that she probably shouldn’t drink, because of her stomach issue, it seemed like it was just because he cared about her. But then, in his talking head, he explained that he needs her to stay healthy because he wants to get her pregnant soon. Heh. Just a slight recalculation in motivation that made it make sense in terms of Jax, I thought.)

James Kennedy kept his word and stayed away from the Tom Tom party, which Lisa thanked him for at a visit later on. At the same visit she asked how much he’d been drinking since he “stopped drinking,” and he told her he had “one beer,” yeah right, when he went out for tacos with his dad. You can’t have tacos without beer, he explained. Mm-hmm. He tells Lisa that his dad was proud of him and “thought he deserved” a beer. “Celebrating sobriety with drinking is like celebrating virginity with fucking,” Lisa says, aptly.

James, as we could already tell, is not particularly serious about getting sober, nor does he think he has a real drinking problem. (“Did you lose your job and your friends from it?” Lisa asks. People are just picking on him, James maintains.) Lisa says that it seems like his dad is not on the same page as she is, which seems true to me. It’s a fucked-up situation, honestly.

Then: Our friends go to Mexico. And: Oh, gosh — there is an immediate disaster. Schwartz and Scheana get randomly chosen to be bumped up to first class, leaving the rest of the cast, including Katie, in coach. She is very unhappy about this, particularly because she feels Schwartz has been neglecting her for the past few weeks while he was busy opening Tom Tom. And now he’s not even sitting with her on the plane? Oh no.

Schwartz tells us that Katie rage-texted him throughout the flight about how selfish he was to take that first-class seat. (This is an old “Tequila Katie” move she employed often in past seasons — sending an onslaught of rash, angry texts — but seemed to have stopped doing since she stopped drinking as much tequila and started smoking weed instead.) (Maybe planes should let you smoke weed on them for this reason?) The mood is very bad once they get to the resort.

Schwartz tells Katie not to ruin the vacation over a two-hour flight, which is reasonable, but said in a condescending tone that would send anyone deeper into a rage. They shout “wherewithal” at each other for a while — Schwartz says Katie doesn’t have the wherewithal to put off being mad for a little while, since they just got there. “You don’t have the wherewithal to say, I’ve been a shitty husband!” shouts Katie. “Try being with a shitty fucking wife for seven years!” says Schwartz. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone else is having a good time, though. The rooms are insanely beautiful. The view is insanely beautiful. I wish I was on vacation with the cast of Vanderpump Rules in Mexico.

Next week: We’re back in Mexico with, I assume, more fighting between Tom and Katie.

Tom Tom Finally Opens, Thank God, on ‘Vanderpump Rules’