Vanderpump Rules recap: 'Lost Cause'

For a perfect visual representation of Vanderpump Rules, look no further than the hotel room Jax stays in after finally breaking up with Brittany. Which he did, of course, immediately after having sex with her in the morning because, “Sex is sometimes not about relationship;s sometimes you just need to get off.” Except, y’know, when you’re in a relationship, and especially when you’re about to end said relationship; then it’s…usually about the relationship.

Anyway, that nightmare room: There is plenty of room inside for Jax to pretend like he feels human emotions, but for some reason there only seems to be one bed, one digital clock — the likes of which you have not seen since your parents turned your childhood bedroom into a guest room — and upwards of 100 different beverages littering every flat surface available. There was a bottle of Tito’s in the entry way, there were Coors Light cans in ice buckets, there were Coors Light bottles on counters, there were, inexplicably, a number of Diet Dr. Peppers — all waiting to be consumed by a recently-sexed Jax, and a hopefully-one-day-to-be-sexed TomTom.

You’ll have to excuse me if I dwell on the living accommodations of S(exy)U(nique)R(estaurant)’s finest bar backs; as a resident Real Housewives recapper, I’m accustomed to a certain level of, shall we say…not-window-units in my Bravo detail recounting. Sure, I’ve noticed that every apartment on VPR has the exact same microsuede Wayfair couch, but when actually tasked with filling in for your regular recapper and, like, paying attention to Vanderpump Rules, a comedy of errors where all the errors are unprotected sex and tax evasion…the apartments seemed to be all I could focus on. Even if there were an unusual number of armchairs within inches of the kitchen at that house Tom Sandoval and Ariana toured, I felt like I couldn’t exhale until I spotted those granite counter tops.

Now, it’s entirely possible that I was subconsciously just trying to find something to distract myself from the torture of listening to Jax talk about how he’s breaking up with Brittany because she deserves better than him, and Brittany talking about how she deserves better than Jax, when we all know where this is headed. Nonetheless, Monday’s episode opened with Brittany calling Jax a dumbass, and hopping in an UberPool. Jax, sensitive spirit that he is, goes straight to the refrigerator for some pizza after she leaves.

Now, given that Jax picked the jalapenos off the pizza, I have to assume that it is not pizza that he personally ordered. And therefore that he just ate Brittany’s leftovers moments after breaking up with her…which I actually find much more offensive than having sex with Brittany moments before breaking up with her.

People who don’t know about the pizza thing think it’s mostly the sex thing that’s really bad. All the VPR women are on Brittany’s side, and devote their time to calling Jax an asshole and encouraging Brittany to flirt with Hot Adam the Bar Back. While TomTom recognize that Jax will likely be back to “his man whore roots” in no time, they still go to support Jax in his beverage-filled hotel room post-breakup. Schwartz says Brittany knew about Jax’s behavior before she got into a relationship with him, so surely she could have expected this. “This is just the process of getting Jaxed,” he says whistfully.

After 20 episodes this season, doesn’t it feel like we’ve all been well and truly Jaxed? But with only one episode to go, here in the penultimate hour, we’ve finally made it to Lala’s debut musical performance, which serves as both an opportunity for newly single Brittany to show her whole boobs to Hot Adam the Bar Back, and for Lala to show her original music.

And, listen: it’s fine! Yes, Lala’s outfit is 75 percent boot and otherwise seems to just be a cotton-knit jumpsuit from ASOS; and yes, she seemed to only sing two songs, one of which heavily featured DJ James Kennedy rapping; but she sounded fine, and it was sweet to hear Lala talk about how much her confidence has grown in the last two years. It was even sweet to hear her profess her gratitude to DJ James Kennedy for believing in her and giving her the confidence to perform. And definitely sweet when she toasted to her strengthened relationships with the SUR women as only Lala can: “Bad b–ches need to unite — let’s just, like, make it one big, united p–sy fest!”

Of course, the absolute sweetest thing that happens at Lala’s showcase was Tom Sandoval walking up to Tom Schwartz holding a picture of Lala’s face in front of his, and singing the words of her song right into Schwartz’s ear. “Let me know if I can f–k with you, boy,” in that way that one 13-year-old might ask another 13-year-old if they want to make out, but if met with even a moment of hesitation, quickly add, Hahaha I was just kidding, you should have seen your face, Schwartz!

And now that Schwartz and Sandoval have gone to pick out $125 uniform shirts so their bartenders “can wear something that they feel comfortable in, that looks f–king sexy on them,” it’s truly almost time for the premature TomTom debut. Almost. We’ll have to wait for next week’s finale to see which short-sleeve-print-paired-with-weird-vest-and-dear-god-please-not-shorts uniform they’ve chosen. For now, we’ll just have to settle for watching Jax go to his therapist because his beloved reiki master is out of town, and listening to Brittany yell out, “Thanks for the boob job, asshole,” resting easy in the knowledge that they’ll both end up in the exact same place.