About a minute into this premiere episode, my jaw dropped to the floor like it was Christina Milian in 2003. I wasn’t shocked about the Tom and Katie of it all. I read “Page Six.” I go to Daily Mail parties. (Haha. JK. Those only happen on this show.) I was not surprised by this at all. It’s the brand-new opening that made me almost stand up out of my chair. For the first time in a decade, we are outside of SUR! We start with a zip by Schwartz and Sandy’s, where the two bro-trepreneurs toast at the bar. Next, the drone flies to Tom Tom, where Katie, Lala, and Ariana hold court. After a quick cruise by Pump — which was probably closed because no one was there — we’re finally at SUR where Scheana, James, and Raquel sit on chairs before we swoosh over to Lisa in her own booth.
What is even going on? Who is this dog with Lisa that is not Giggy? Where is Ken? Has he finally been caught by the Ghostbusters and sent off to his eternal reward? And why is no one spilling anything? There is not one martini entirely on the floor. There is not a hankie dress in sight. There is no group photo at the end where they trot out Peter, Max, Charli, and Lala’s and Ariana’s gays. Honey, we haven’t just updated — we have upgraded!
The entire show also has. For years, we’ve talked about how to fix Pump Rules, and I think it might have just done it by itself. All it needed was for nearly everyone on the show to break up, to get them out of COVID so they could go back to partying in public, to make Tom Schwartz the deluded villain to replace Jax Taylor (nee Jason Cauchi), and to get the cast back to having organic interactions again instead of the stupid improv sketches that Lisa Vanderpump forced them into.
Just look at everything we get in this episode. Katie and Tom actively hate each other even though they’re pretending to be friends right now; Tom and Tom are legitimately struggling with their business; Lala is unmoored now that Randall is out of the mix; Raquel and James are never going to get along; and Scheana, well, she’s taking a well-deserved break after carrying this show for the past few years. I know I have been optimistic before, but folks, it looks like we have a season. It might not be as good as this show in its glory days, but it will definitely be better than the half-heated leftovers we’ve been served the past few years. Of all the Bravo casts, this is the one that is made up of actual friends who hang out during and after the season. I’m glad these deep connections are finally being exploited.
Speaking of being exploited, here is DJ James Kennedy, the White Kanye himself, with his second girlfriend in three years, who is dating him to get on the show. Well, it’s a formula that works, which is good news for Ally, a Soho House employee with about 8,000 Insta followers who shoots herself in a style best known as blandly inoffensive influencer. They met only six-ish weeks after Raquel dumped him, and they’ve already moved in together. Oh, Jesus. Raquel points out that she looks just like James’s mother and that he has more mommy issues than the entire run of Parenting magazine. Of course, he does. James has a demanding alcoholic mother who he is always trying to (unsuccessfully) please. He’s now acting out the same pattern with Ally that he did with Raquel, finding a woman he can satisfy and then raging at them when he can’t or when they dare think to themselves.
The pattern between Ally and Raquel is evident to everyone, including Raquel. Both she and James are still pretending that they work at SUR, and they have an altercation in front of the gender-neutral restroom. Excuse me? There is the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the SUR alleyway right there at the restaurant. Couldn’t you have fought there for old time’s sake? James tells Raquel that Ally is the love of his life, and she says he said the same things about her. This is the same kettle of fish, just being boiled over an entirely different flame. I have a feeling that Ally, much like Raquel, will eventually wake up to the terror that is the insides of DJ James Kennedy’s brains.
Meanwhile, Raquel is dating man-bun barnacle Peter, the eternal manager of SUR, who is still wearing the same going-out shirt to work that he’s had since the last Bush administration. Remember when I said that the show isn’t relying on fake storylines anymore? I meant all but this one. I don’t believe this for a second. Raquel doesn’t even seem too enthused about it, like she’s using him as a placeholder until someone else comes along. This happens in real life, of course, but Peter dating anyone? It has to be producers.
Katie and Schwartz are pretending like everything is cool with their divorce, even though she says in the first minutes that he can’t date anyone in the friend group. We’ve seen the headlines about him and Raquel. We’ve seen your future, and it is one where they hate each other, and Katie says that she’ll be long dead before she ever sees Schwartz take responsibility for anything. I can’t wait to watch this devolve. Katie is having some fun, though. She’s made out with three guys and had sex with two others, and I need to hear all about this immediately. Bring them on!
Schwartz is having trouble in his other relationship as well. He and Sandoval have spent $1 million on Schwartz and Sandy’s, and it’s still not open. No wonder it’s not. Sandoval shows up with a bunch of tchotchkes he found thrifting and wants to put them in the bar. He hands them over to the beleaguered designer for the bar, and you can see she wants to toss them over her shoulder, crack them on the ground, and never think about them again. She says, “No more changes before this party on Friday, right?” cause you know these two brain trusts have been just throwing every dumb stray idea at her for the better part of the year.
Even worse, Sandoval took off for months to work with his new band, and Schwartz felt abandoned. Schwartz finally had to tell Sandoval that he was out of money to get him back into the bar and away from wearing ill-advised eyeliner on stage. (Sandoval does look fetching with a mustache, which was Ariana’s idea. She knows that a mustache makes every face 78 percent more handsome. That is science.)
These two seem reunited, which is more than I can say for Schwartz and Lala. Oh, it is so nice to have Lala back where she belongs and having fun just hanging out and assembling chairs with Katie and James. I also love how it is intercut with them talking about Raquel and Peter while Raquel talks about it to Scheana. The two are at Shape House, someplace in L.A. where you get under a super-hot blanket, and it heats up your organs to feel like you had a cardio workout. It’s like a human crock pot, and there is no way this works, right? I mean, it can’t possibly, right? RIGHT?!
So the Schwarz and Lala beef started when Lala broke up with Randall. She says she called all her “close friends” (read: cast mates) to Scheana’s roof and told them she doesn’t want any of them talking to him or hanging out with him. She says it’s because they’re in a custody battle, but come on, like any judge would give Randall a child to raise. But I get her point. If they’re telling him things about Lala, he could use it in court. Tom says that the meeting was egotistical of her, but I think it makes perfect sense. These are all public figures. They’re going on podcasts, red carpets, and Watch What Happens Live. People will ask what is up with Lala and Randall, and I think it’s wise for her to get all her friends on the same page.
Seven months after this, Schwartz goes to play pickleball with Randall. As everyone points out, he is not the only person in L.A. who plays this faddish sport. I mean, there is literally a pickleball court on the roof of the municipal building that overlooks SUR. He could just hang out there and wait for a pickup game with a nice, handsome West Hollywood gentleman wearing a too-tight shirt and too-short shorts, but then he might run into a problem with Sandoval. Because they hung out, Lala has cut Schwartz out of her life.
In this instance, Schwartz is entirely wrong. Yes, everyone has to choose sides in a divorce; some go with one partner, and some go with the other. But you know that when you choose one, the other is dead to you for life. Lala made the right decision. However, I don’t think she has the best tactic in going about it. She says, “This is a year of burning bridges.” Okay, it’s one thing to cut him out; it’s another thing to make him mad. If you want to ensure that he talks shit about you to Randall, burn that bridge. I think she should keep Tom strung along but still be her friend until the divorce is final and then never talk to him again. Right now, she needs as few enemies as possible, not more enemies.
This all goes down at Hotel Ziggy, a crappy courtyard party hotel on the Sunset Strip whose rooms still go for about $300 a night. Everyone came to see DJ James Kennedy’s set, including Ally and Raquel, Tom and Katie, Sandoval and Ariana, and a hot guy who offers to have sex with Lala while her baby is sleeping in the next room (I would totally take him up on that offer). Eventually, as the party dies down, Schwartz returns to his sad, lonely Valley Village apartment, which he pays $3,600 for on top of his $6,000 portion of the mortgage. Why both halves of a newly-single couple would choose to live in the Valley is beyond me, but Tom is happy when he walks into his apartment.
Though something seemed off. The mail on the table had been moved. There was an extra glass in the sink. It smelled like someone has been shaving their forehead in the bathroom. As he entered the bedroom, he saw Sandoval asleep on his front, completely naked, and on top of the duvet. With a smile, he stripped off his pants and socks, pulled his shirt over his head, and lowered his boxer briefs. He cuddled up next to Sandoval, not quite laying on top of him but getting the most surface area he could, his hot skin touching Sandoval’s.
His lover stirred a bit. “Where have you been?” he asked, half groggy. But Schwartz didn’t answer. He planted a kiss on Sandoval’s forehead, his cheek, then square on his mouth. The two of them joined together, their warm mouths consuming each other like DJ James Kennedy chugs vodka Red Bulls onstage. Tom asked a question, but Tom wouldn’t answer. At that moment, in that bed, mouths were not made to be talking, and with a quick flip of Sandoval onto his back, his pride flag aloft like it’s June 1, Schwartz finally put his big mouth to work.
This recap has been updated to correct the confusion of Lala and Raquel. Dame Moylan apologizes and regrets the error.
