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Vanderpump Rules Recap: Roast Beast

Vanderpump Rules

Jax’s Roast
Season 5 Episode 12
Editor’s Rating 2 stars

Vanderpump Rules

Jax’s Roast
Season 5 Episode 12
Editor’s Rating 2 stars
Katie Maloney. Photo: Bravo

I am very worried about the foundation of Tom and Katie’s relationship. Building their future on this shakiness is like living in a house at the lip of an active volcano with a roommate who is a professional pogo-stick artist and constantly practices his craft in the living room. Does anyone think this will last? Does anyone think this is a good thing?

The two have a blowout in the paint store while running an errand for Lisa, which ends with Tom calling Katie a bitch. The last huge fight they had was at a car dealership while running an errand for Lisa, which ended with Katie telling Tom that his penis doesn’t work. Know what the answer is? Stop running errands for Lisa! But seriously, these two fight and Tom admits he’s wrong and they make up immediately and pretend that it never happened. That’s the real problem here, the relationship amnesia that they both seem to have, especially where it concerns Tequila Katie.

At one point during this episode, Scheana asks some people if they think Katie has a drinking problem. Katie does not have a drinking problem. To have a drinking problem, a person’s alcohol abuse needs to have adverse consequences on their life, like getting a DUI, getting fired from a job, or losing friends and family because of their addiction. James Kennedy, who lost his job and plenty of his friends, appears to have a drinking problem. Katie, on the other hand, is just a bad drunk. After a few drinks, she is belligerent, aggressive, and thoughtless, but that does not necessarily mean she has a drinking problem. Should she get drunk as often as she does? No, especially if she wants peace in her relationship. But she doesn’t need AA.

However, Tom is also under some kind of illusions that Katie is only difficult when she’s trashed. “The only time you’re passive aggressive and short and mean is when you’re drunk,” he says during their fight. Has Tom ever been around sober Katie? To me, she is those things every single second of every single day. Maybe Katie is just always a little bit drunk, like those people who started microdosing LSD to boost their productivity. The only difference between drunk Katie and sober Katie is the slurring.

The real reason that I’m worried about these two is because they keep having the same fight about Katie being mean to Tom and Tom not being supportive enough of Katie (especially when she’s drunk) and how this alienates them from each other. Then Katie does something rash and walks away and Tom apologizes and nothing is resolved. This fight is not going to stop when they get married. This fight is going to continue on and on for the rest of their relationship, as long as it may last, unless they actually talk to each other honestly about what they want and how to compromise to get to a place of peace. However, that would be healthy and mature relationship activity. So far, the only bits of advice that Katie seems to accept are the answers that Stassi reads for her after they do boyfriend quizzes in Seventeen magazine. (Then they read the embarrassing period stories and pretend they all happened to Scheana.)

A few stupid things happen in this episode, but few are stupider than the fact that Tom and Ariana have a “braid guy.” Now, I’m not going to be the one to tell a man that he shouldn’t have a braid guy. There are plenty of guys with hair that would look great in braids. Tom Sandoval, however, is not one of them. When he gets his hair “did” for his Fund Rager (patent pending, hopefully for all of eternity), he ends up looking like a front man from a Korn cover band or a cut-rate Juggalo. He looks like a member of the Moderately Disturbed Clown Posse. But hey, he raised a bunch of money for kids in Haiti and I can’t get mad at that.

I can get mad at DJ James Kennedy, who trotted out the most idiotic reason why Scheana and Lala’s friend Thirsty (I can’t bother to look up her name, so let’s just admit that is pretty damn close) had a picture of herself in bed with James when he was dating someone else. He said it’s because she’s a DJ groupie. That’s like a guy who works the fry-o-lator at a Chick-Fil-A accusing his girlfriend of being a gold digger. Case in point: James’s “residency” (17 billion eye rolls served) at a half-empty hotel where the only people who show up are his girlfriend and his oldest school chum. Yeah, James. You’re just like Diplo and certified sex god Calvin Harris, scoring all the trim because of your fame.

Of course, the stupidest of all the stupid things is the roast that Kristen insists on throwing for Jax Taylor. Now, with the Vanderpump Rules crew, a group of friends that is constantly one perceived slight away from creating a social nuclear holocaust, the idea of a roast just seems really ill-advised. They’ve all slept with each other, cheated on each other, stolen jobs from one another, and had each other fired. A night full of insults just seems like it would tip the balance so far in one direction that no one would ever recover.

Still, most people are respectful of their friendship and the Jax jokes mostly boil down to how he was arrested for stealing, how he cheated on Stassi with Kristen, and how he slept with thousands of women and sometimes lied about it. Also, Tom Sandoval makes one silly joke that Jax may or may not have made out with a few guys. It is one of those comments that is meant to be a joke like, “He’s made out with tons of women and maybe a few men.” There isn’t any factual or anecdotal evidence provided, just joshing on the fact that Jax is such a total mimbo (that’s a male bimbo) that no gender is off the table.

But that isn’t the stupidest thing. The stupidest thing is that Brittany brings her mother, who is visiting town. No. That is a very bad idea. That’s like inviting your priest to an orgy or asking your parole officer to come hot box your man cave before you and your boys throw illegal cock fights in your neighbor’s garage or hiring KellyAnne Conway as a panelist on To Tell the Truth. Brittany knew the types of jokes that would be made — about Jax’s sexual and criminal history — and that is not something you should expose your mom to, especially after Brittany is warned that someone might bring up the rumor that she and Kristen hooked up.

Sherri (and you know that final I is dotted with a heart with a smiley face inside of it) is a sport and doesn’t mind any of it — except the homosexual bits. Yes, the man she’s hoping will make an honest woman out of her daughter was called out for his multiple arrests, his kleptomania, his drug abuse, for knocking up several women, for cheating on just about every woman he’s been in a relationship, and for having multiple boob jobs, and the one thing that she’s mad about is that Jax might have made out with a dude once or twice.

Oh please. I know Sherri is a conservative from Kentucky, but she needs to get over herself. So what if Jax made out with a dude? That’s what guys (especially those who like cocaine and Molly) do these days. Even if Brittany didn’t hook up with Kristen, I bet you with 100 percent certainty that she once made out with a girl while drunk at some stupid backwoods kegger after going muddin’.

What’s the harm in two guys making out? What’s the big deal if, when Katie left Tom on the side of the road, he stood with his thumb out somewhere along La Brea and I pulled up in my Mercedes and rolled down the window? “If you want a ride in my Mercedes Boy,” I would say. “Tell me what you’re gonna do (with me with me with me).”

“How about I show you,” he responded, leaning over the window with his right arm propped on the car and his left thumb pulling down on both his jeans and the waistband of his boxer briefs, creating an erotic window between his pants and the top of his loose T-shirt where I could see his thin treasure trail blossoming into a full bush. He leaned in further and further, his left hand pushing his hair out of his eyes as he semi-squatted and leaned into my lips. His mouth wasn’t pressing on mine, just touching as he opened it willingly with his lips and our tongues colluded in a sexual conspiracy that would be both of our undoing. He pulled away and the doors all unlocked with a loud snap. Tom walked around the front of the car, that erotic window now partially closed, as he opened the car door and asked for me to take him everywhere.

Vanderpump Rules Recap: Roast Beast