The New Orleans trip resurrected this season of Vanderpump Rules. The whole thing was such a hot mess that I don’t even know where to begin. Luckily for me, I don’t have to since Jax Taylor and Tom Schwartz just opened up about the latest antics that went down this season. Plus, these two really have a way with words.
Jax and Tom recapped (what little they remember about) the bachelor party in New Orleans; they shared their opinions on James Kennedy’s girlfriend; they reflected on Scheana Marie’s divorce (spoiler alert: they both saw it coming); and of course they both addressed the criticisms about their own relationships.
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As per usual, Jax had a ton of hilarious opinions and Tom was trying to be nice and give anyone the benefit of the doubt whenever he could on the Pump Rules podcast.
When they were talking about James’s girlfriend (that he obviously cheated on) Raquel Leviss, Jax wasn’t shy at all. “From what I’ve seen, she has two marbles rolling around upstairs. I think that’s why he likes her so much: because there’s not much going on. She’s so dumb and he can pretty much get away with whatever he wants.”
Schwartz tried to play nice, “Maybe she’s too young to have proper critical thinking skills.” Jax chimed in with this self-deprecating remark, “I never did.” And this is why I think he’s the best cast member on his show.
When the podcast host recalled James saying that he traded alcohol for ice cream, Jax made it clear that he wasn’t buying it. He rhetorically asked, “You don’t honestly think he gave up drinking, do you?”
Jax made a plea to James just in case he was listening: “Dude, you didn’t give up drinking. Stop your bull shit lying. If you’ve learned anything from me, man, stop your bull shit lying.”
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The way Scheana and Mike Shay‘s scenes were edited together during that last episode was awkward to watch. It seemed like he tried his best to share his analysis about the stuff that went down during the joint bachelor/bachelorette party while Scheana steamed her clothes and ignored him. I felt vicariously embarrassed for Scheana when she was ripping on all the other couples in comparison to her marriage with Shay. We all know how that ended up. But anyway, aside from that awkward packing scene, Shay was basically missing from the New Orleans episodes.
During the episode, Scheana said Shay was staying behind due to sun poisoning, but Jax and Schwartz weren’t buying it. Not for one second.
Jax said, “First of all, New Orleans was hot, but it wasn’t sunny.” Schwartz added, “Knowing what we all know now, it all makes sense.” And of course, Jax has been dissing this marriage from the get-go, so it’s not surprising that he said, “I kind of put two and two together in the beginning, but I didn’t want to say anything. It wasn’t my business” Tom hypothesized, “Earlier on than we thought, he might have been planning an exit strategy.”
To be honest, I would put nothing together if I was watching that blindly. Shay was never a big presence on this show, so I wouldn’t think twice about it in comparison to last season, but maybe I’m just being naive. The divorce announcement came about right around the start of this season and so far it hasn’t been discussed at all in the episodes, so I have been wondering this whole time if it was going to make the cut. And apparently Jax was thinking the same thing.
Jax admitted, “I’m kind of curious about how that’s going to play out in the show itself.” Schwartz replied, “I don’t know about you, Jax, but I didn’t film anything in regards to Scheana’s divorce.” Jax said, “No,” because he hadn’t either.
Jax added, “I know there’s film of that. I didn’t partake in that. I want to say it was between Peter [Madrigal] and Tom Sandoval and maybe Ariana [Madix]. I know it was very last minute. I know production was kind of getting wind of what was going on. It was toward the end of season. So I know there was footage, but not how they’re going to put it in and how they’re gonna edit it.”
The conversation moved back to the New Orleans confrontation that Kristen Doute‘s boyfriend Brian Carter got involved in. Awww, his first reality TV argument. What a milestone. And he picked a doozy of a fight to get involved in, especially since it involved clique history from before he came into the picture.
Jax explained, “Personally, I love Carter. This is nothing against Carter. I would have kept my mouth shut just because he’s jumping into a situation he knows absolutely nothing about.” I have to agree. I’m all for him standing up for his girl and her opinions, but he had no personal insight here.
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Schwartz shared his two cents about Carter sharing his two cents and he (most likely) insulted his wife Katie Maloney and Kristen in the process. “And listen, you have to remember… Katie’s my wife and I love her, Doute’s my girl and I love her, but when they’re upset and drinking, they’re going to be telling Carter a very, very subjective, version of what happened. Very biased, very skewed. Love you guys.”
Yeah, that’s not going to go over well since the synopsis for every fight between Katie and Schwartz is basically her asking him why he doesn’t have her back.
Schwartz explained the difference between the male friendships and the female friendships in the group: “[Carter] was coming from a good place. It’s not like me and the guys are an echo chamber where we go ‘You’re right.’ We challenge each other all the time. We call each other out. They’re my boys, I love them, and I’m loyal to them, but I will call them out.” Jax added, “The girls don’t do that,” and Schwartz agreed.
That is pretty much the biggest complaint of the viewers, and Scheana and Ariana, when it comes to the Kristen, Katie, and Stassi Schroeder trio. At least they’re loyal though- right?
Of course, we can’t forget that Kristen was the one who blessed us all with the theory that Katie‘s underlying issue with Tom is that she believes he slept with someone else in Vegas two years ago. Was it valid? It doesn’t matter since it was the worst time to bring it up. Why talk to someone who’s blacked out drunk at his own bachelor party about this?
At the very least we got that epic Sandoval “battered wife” monologue. Schwartz remarked, “Tom deserves a f–king Emmy for that scene.” It was iconic. Instantly iconic. They need to create a category at the Emmy’s just to accommodate this speech.
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Schwartz didn’t get into the accusations that Kristen brought to the table, but he did say, “She has come a long way. For a long time, I would say I borderline hated Kristen Doute, but now I look forward to hanging out with her.I wanted to kill Kristen. She Dr. Phil-ed me outside.”
I have a bias to love Kristen Doute. She is such a great character on this show, but even I think her timing could have been way better. Plus, I find it hard to believe that every issue in this relationship has something to do with whatever happened in Vegas.
Weirdly enough, even Ariana seemed to understand Kristen’s theory. After the fact, Schwartz seemed to have remorse for how he handled that drunken encounter, but Jax defended him by saying, “I don’t think you were a d–k, man. Jesus Christ, everyone was coming after him.”
Yeah, I’m not sure what rattling off Stassi‘s dating history and telling Katie she didn’t deserve unconditional love really had to do with anything. It wasn’t Schwartz’s finest hour, but he seems to be owning it and things seem to (hopefully) be better with him and Katie these days.
Unfortunately for Schwartz, he had to discuss his arguments with Katie and her grievance that he does not stand up for her.
Schwartz admitted, “This is a very complicated topic here for me because this has been something that me and Katie have been coming back to non-stop since we started dating. ‘You don’t have my back. You don’t have my back.’ I think I would always counter with, ‘Well, why are you always getting yourself into situations where you need somebody to have your back?'” Jax interjected, “People don’t see what goes on behind closed doors.”
Schwartz gave his best analysis of the arguments with Katie. “Early on in the relationship, Katie really was contentious. She had really poor conflict resolution. She was always upset with someone.” Early on in the relationship? That’s how it seems to be in the present day…or at least whenever this current season was filmed.
But anyway, Schwartz added an extended metaphor to the conversation, “So I built up a callous, a really big callous, and now it’s getting softer. For a long time, in her defense, sometimes – in her defense – when she really needed me to have her back and hug her, comfort her, and know that I care about her, I was just like, ‘You’re not doing this again.’ The callous would come into play and I would be like, ‘I don’t want to deal with this. You always do this.’ I think I took it too far in extreme in the other direction.”
That analogy actually makes a lot of sense and it’s the best defense anyone has provided for Katie‘s on-screen persona this whole season. See, your husband really does have your back!
Tom also shared that this isn’t the first time he explained his theory about how he built a callous when it came to comforting Katie. Tom admitted, “She knows. We’ve talked about this in therapy.”
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Jax chimed in and said, “I feel really bad. Katie has taken a lot of heat this season.” Yeah, she sure has. Schwartz revealed, “In the beginning, I think they broke her for a little bit, not fully , but they almost broke her. And I have to remind her how many good things she has going on in her life. I love her.”
Schwartz listed all of the great things Katie has going for her: “We just had the best wedding in the history of weddings. She’s healthy. All of her family is alive and doing well. She’s making some cash. She lives in a great building. She has beautiful dogs. She wakes up alive.” I couldn’t help laughing at the “beautiful dogs” and the “great building.” I just love Schwartz. Even Jax added, “And she’s got a really successful blog and she’s killing it.”
Even though most of the podcast (and this season) was spent analyzing Tom and Katie‘s relationship, Jax and Brittany Cartwright‘s romance has gotten some heat as well. I guess not all of the viewers applaud Jax’s chronic demand for turkey sandwiches. Jax admitted, “I do have to be careful with the way I talk to Brittany sometimes. I do get a little too intense. I’m trying to work on that because I know. I watch back the episodes. If anything, I learn a lot from the show.”
Well that’s good. If you’re going to embarrass yourself and your girlfriend on a television show, you might as well learn a lesson in the process. And naively enough, I have to admit that I ship this couple, but then again Jax is my favorite cast member on this show, so it’s safe to say that I don’t have the most sound judgment. But anyway, I hope these two are able to work it out. And if they do, I hope they don’t have a joint bachelor/bachelorette party. That is not a good idea. Clearly.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK TOM AND KATIE WILL MAKE IT AS A COUPLE? DOES KATIE DESERVE THE CRITICISM SHE’S RECEIVED THIS SEASON?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
