It was always about the pasta—and it was always about Tom. If that sentence means nothing to you, then you’re probably also not sure why something called “Scandoval” has been trending nonstop for the past week. 

The answer lies in the Bravo-verse, which has been aflutter since TMZ broke the news that Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval has been cheating on Ariana Madix, his costar and girlfriend of nearly 10 years, with their fellow castmate Raquel Leviss—who was previously engaged to their castmate James Kennedy, who once cheated on Raquel with their costar Lala Kent, who…well, you get the picture. The drama surrounding SUR—that would be Sexy Unique Restaurant, the Lisa Vanderpump–co-owned eatery around which Vanderpump Rules revolves—is currently at an all time high.

The messy, genuinely shocking news of Sandoval and Leviss has shaken even the most casual Bravo fan to their core. The details and allegations of the affair—that it had been going on for six months; that Sandoval’s best friend and business partner, Tom Schwartz, may have helped cover it up; that when Madix reportedly caught Sandoval sneaking out of Leviss’s guest room in the middle of the night, he allegedly told Madix he was simply getting her a glass of water—are enough to make your head spin. Heck, even the paper of record has gotten involved, with The New York Times releasing an explainer breaking down the affair for the uninitiated.  

Even the initiated, though, may feel shocked to see *Vanderpump Rules—*a decade-old reality franchise—making such a splash after all this time. In recent years, it’s seemed as though Vanderpump Rules was on its last legs, even that it needed to be put down for the good of humanity. 

The show’s nadir came in June of 2020, when longtime cast members Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute—an ex-girlfriend of Sandoval’s—were fired from the series after allegedly calling the police on one of the show’s only recurring Black cast members, Faith Stowers. (Doute and Schroeder both apologized for their actions shortly before the news they were fired.) Bravo also fired lesser Vanderpump personalities Brett Caprioni and Max Boyens, after discovering old tweets of theirs that used the N-word.

And it didn’t end there. In December of 2020, original Vanderpump cast member Jax Taylor and his wife, Brittany Cartwright, announced that they were leaving the show as well. Their exit followed intense criticism of their decision to hire (then fire) an antigay pastor to officiate their wedding. (Like Schroeder and Doute, according to People, Taylor also made false allegations about Stowers, saying that she was wanted by the police. Taylor has not commented on his statement.) In her wider look at the racial reckoning at Bravo in 2021, writer Anna Peele noted that the once delightfully messy reality series had become “a liability”; the cast shake-up seemed to be the network’s attempt to rescue the franchise. 

As if the stench of racism and homophobia weren’t enough to sour the delicious cocktail that was Vanderpump Rules, the reality series subsequently got, well, kind of boring. Cutting loose all those agents of chaos left the show with a core cast that was older, wiser, and wealthier than ever before, swapping drunken fights behind literal garbage cans for passive-aggressive arguments between semi-stable couples moving into identical homes in the Valley. Illicit affairs and questionable hookups were traded for tense arguments about whether or not to have children (Sandoval wanted them, Madix didn’t—perhaps smart in hindsight.) It’s true that after almost a decade, the former 20-something servers of SUR were now in their mid to late 30s, entering new, more mature chapters of their life. But while that made sense from a passage-of-time perspective, it didn’t necessarily make for thrilling reality television.

So thank goodness for the #Scandoval, which has shocked Vanderpump like a jolt to the heart. Though to be fair, the show was better this season even before it came to light—perhaps because basically every couple that wasn’t Sandoval and Madix had called it quits by the end of season nine. The cast’s feral, newly single energy has been present from the jump this year, with Leviss asking freshly separated Schwartz (the other Tom) point-blank if he wanted to make out during a recent episode. 

Real ones will remember that Vanderpump Rules began in 2013 as a spin-off of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, centered around the very concept of cheating. The first season largely revolved around original cast member Scheana Shay, an employee at SUR, getting ostracized by her fellow waiters because she had an affair with RHOBH star Brandi Glanville’s then husband, Eddie Cibrian. Infidelity has always been the lifeblood of the series, and with the #Scandoval—as despicable as it may be—we are back to basics. Vanderpump isn’t, or shouldn’t be, about people starting businesses, or marriages, or bar openings, or sandwich shops, or cover bands—it should focus on the primal urges of one extremely horny and volatile group of friends. On extremely messy people, doing extremely messy things.  

And thankfully, as each day passes, the #Scandoval gets messier. Sandoval has released a statement apologizing to “everyone [he’s] hurt,” specifically Maddix. Leviss released a statement as well, apologizing to Madix and promising to work on her “patterns of codependency and addiction to being and feeling loved.” Speaking of boundaries, according to People, Leviss is also seeking a restraining order against Shay, who allegedly punched her in the face after finding out about the affair. Shay did not respond to People’s request for comment. There’s so much drama that Bravo has extended filming on season 10 of Vanderpump Rules, so viewers will get to see the fallout play out on camera instead of in the blogs. 

Last night on Watch What Happens Live, Vanderpump finally made her opinion on the #Scandoval clear. “I think it’s equal,” she said when asked point-blank by Bravo patriarch Andy Cohen who was more to blame for the affair, Sandoval or Leviss. “It takes two to tango, and they’ve been tangoing for sure.”

And luckily for Lisa’s pocketbook, we’ll get to watch them dance for the rest of the season on her namesake show. Of course, Vanderpump’s checkered past should not be forgotten or excused—and rumors that certain problematic cast members are apparently trying to capitalize on the drama as a way of returning to the series are unsettling to say the least. But for now, at least, we have a good old-fashioned Vanderpump drama from a simpler time—and it’s okay to care about it once more. Raise your glass, #PumpRules fans: These really may be the best days of our lives.