![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0605f0c711bb0d037d78bd3c5634605d2b-thevalley-ep3.rsquare.w400.png\")
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The Valley<\/a><\/p>\n The Santa Clarita Trail<\/p>\n \n Season 3<\/p>\n Episode 3\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 2 stars<\/p>\n **\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Bravo\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to tell you how old I was when Y2K didn\u2019t fry all the computers, airplanes, robots, microwaves, and gas pumps like we thought it would when the millennium changed, but I was on the verge of adulthood. What\u2019s odd is that I don\u2019t remember any of the things that the girls wore for their Y2K-inspired girls\u2019 night when they went to a bar owned by Kristen\u2019s friend Katie. (No, not that Katie<\/a>.) Butterfly clips? Okay, sure. Maybe a couple in She\u2019s All That, but I don\u2019t remember that being a thing, at least not all along a ponytail like Nia is wearing them. Giant fuzzy bucket hats? Both Lala and Brittany have them on, but in all the raves I went to in all of my days, and I went to enough for the ecstasy to dry up all my spinal fluid, I never saw even one of them. Where were the JNCO jeans? Where were the little babydoll tops with rhinestones? Where was anything even vaguely referencing Britney Spears, then at the height of her powers? Did we all live in the same Y2K?<\/p>\n The only one who actually resembles something I remember from the era is Jasmine, who crushes it with baggy jeans and a bandanna over her hair, like she\u2019s Aaliyah (RIP). Sadly, that is the only thing right that Jasmine does all episode. It starts at the bar when Jasmine is talking to Michelle, who mentions that if she and Jesse weren\u2019t in this \u201cfriend group,\u201d then she would never see him, and things would be really different. Jasmine says that if it weren\u2019t for this \u201cfriend group\u201d (read: the show), Lala wouldn\u2019t hang out with her either. Michelle, who wouldn\u2019t know a Delia\u2019s catalogue if it hit her in the face, runs right over and tells Lala, who doesn\u2019t know where this is coming from. Apparently, the two had a friend-date dinner just a few nights before and got along really well, so Lala is caught off guard.<\/p>\n When Lala confronts Jasmine, in the nicest way that we have ever seen Lala confront anyone during her whole tenure on Bravo, she denies that she says it. Michelle tries to correct the record, with her babydoll voice, and Jasmine starts yelling at her and telling her not to condescend to her and talk to her like a child. It\u2019s a weird fight that makes no sense to me. Is Jasmine drunk? Did she forget what she just said? Is she so scared of Lala that she doesn\u2019t want to repeat what she said in front of her? I think it would have been natural to say, \u201cWe\u2019ve known each other a long time, that was the first time we hung out alone, and I had a blast, but I don\u2019t think it would have happened if it weren\u2019t for the show.\u201d I think that is reasonable, and Lala keeps it 100, like all of my scores on my third-grade spelling tests, and she would have agreed.<\/p>\n Lala then says in a confessional that she thought she and Jasmine had a fun time, and she opened up to her, but this reminds her why she doesn\u2019t get vulnerable with people. She says each time she does, she feels like she gives away a bit of herself that the person doesn\u2019t deserve. That just made me sad. I get how Lala has been screwed over by friends in the past. Her bestie is DJ James Kennedy, the White Kanye himself<\/a>. I can see how she\u2019s scarred. But making new friends, giving them little pieces of yourself and taking little pieces of them, is one of the great things about life. Even if they prove that they don\u2019t deserve it, that exchange of affection, knowledge, love, interest, and all the other good things is what we need to keep going. Little bits of other people are the food that feeds the soul, and to keep those parts only to yourself means that, eventually, you\u2019ll cannibalize your own soul.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the only drama at the party, other than Nia having to go to the party bus to feed her baby, sporting the world\u2019s most adorable postnatal faux-hawk. It\u2019s so funny that they were in that bar at 8 p.m. when it was empty, and they were done by 10:30 p.m. tops, with everyone drunk and back at home eating chips and watching Below Deck<\/a> in their beds. (Well, not Zack, Benji, and Michelle, who went out to the WeHo gay bars until two. Now that is living like me in Y2K.) The second party of the episode, Danny and Nia\u2019s cowboy-themed housewarming in Santa Clarita, looked just as boring. Why are we making these ladies and gents party? Can\u2019t they go over each other\u2019s houses, watch The Bachelor<\/a>, and then get in a fight over some ros\u00e9 like real suburbanites? They clearly don\u2019t want to be out. Why are we forcing them?<\/p>\n The housewarming is, of course, at least an hour for all of the L.A.-based people to drive, and seeing their long journey through traffic really speaks to why Nia feels so isolated from not just her friends but also civilization. (That said, I bet the Santa Clarita Target absolutely slaps.) In the car on the way there, Lala once again brings up what happened with her and Jasmine. She says she heard that Jasmine says one thing to your face and then talks behind your back, and when you confront her, she doesn\u2019t remember what she said. That\u2019s exactly what happened at the Y2K party, and Michelle says that is why she brought it up to Lala. Then we have to hear from Brandon, Brittany\u2019s now-boyfriend, who lives in a place that few have heard of and even fewer can pronounce, says that Jasmine has always been nice and lovely around him.<\/p>\n In her confessional, Lala says, \u201cBrandon just got here, and he\u2019s already, like, picking sides?\u201d Exactly! He doesn\u2019t know these people. He doesn\u2019t know their history. How can he really say? At the party, Brandon is chatting with Jasmine (and Jesse\u2019s girlfriend Lacy, who looks like she was about to die of hypothermia but also wouldn\u2019t ruin her outfit with a jacket). Jasmine brings up that they were talking about it in the car, and Brandon essentially confirms to Jasmine that Michelle said she was fake, even though she didn\u2019t really say that, even though, well, she kinda did.<\/p>\n Jasmine confronts Brittany and Michelle about it in the kitchen and says that Brandon said that Michelle said that she was fake. Now Jasmine is in the middle of the second fight she\u2019s concocted out of nowhere in one episode. Zack says it perfectly: Jasmine seizes on something she thinks someone said, even if they didn\u2019t say it, and then thinks that it\u2019s real. Even though Brittany drags Brandon in and he tries to defuse and explain the situation, Jasmine still goes into a rage and says, \u201cThis is so stupid.\u201d Well, if it\u2019s stupid, she only has herself to blame. She\u2019s the one creating the stupid.<\/p>\n Brittany is mostly upset about Brandon\u2019s role in this and says that Jax also loved to gossip and stir up drama, and she\u2019s afraid Brandon is doing the same. For me, the jury is still out on Brandon. I\u2019m with Zack; it seems a little too much too quickly, and he certainly seems eager to be on the show, but I won\u2019t use \u201clove bomb,\u201d which is neck and neck with \u201cgaslighting\u201d as the pop-psychology term most overused when discussing people on these shows. However, I do think what Brandon did and what Jax used to do are two different things. Brandon seemed to be trying to defuse the situation; he was trying to tell Jasmine that he had her back, and it was all good, and he convinced her friends of it. Then, in the kitchen when she\u2019s heated, he again tries to tell her that Lala raised a question about her, but they all decided she was cool. When Jax did shit like this, it was to stir up drama, to create more fights, to make a show. Brandon seems like he just wants everyone to be cool, but, unlike Jax, he doesn\u2019t know how this show works or how to perfectly craft it, so he\u2019s just stepping into booby traps right and left. (The booby traps are made out of Brittany\u2019s discarded breast implants.)<\/p>\n The only other consequence of the episode is whatever is going on between Danny and Luke, a spider trapped in an empty cooler. It\u2019s a bookend to an earlier conversation that Luke had with Jason at a coffee shop, where he wants to welcome Jason back into the fold of the guys. That was a really weird chat, because Luke was basically trying to enumerate all the reasons he had beef with Jason but also trying to say that he wanted him back. Jason says he\u2019ll apologize for calling Danny names but won\u2019t apologize for defending his wife from attacks. Jason also says he doesn\u2019t think that Danny is ready for reconciliation because he apologized for what he did but didn\u2019t change, which he says is the worst behavior. He\u2019s not wrong, but Janet has also apologized and is still going after Danny, so isn\u2019t the same true of her?<\/p>\n These conversations really speak to the impasse of the show. Janet and Jason are still on the cast, but just barely. It seems like none of the guys want to hang with Jason, and other than Brittany and Lala, no one wants to hang out with Janet either. It seems like the cast is making an effort to freeze them out of filming and, well, it\u2019s working. We didn\u2019t see a hint of Janet the entire episode, not even a little glimpse of her at home snuggling the baby. Luke, of all people, is trying to convince Danny to go for a cigar night with the boys (minus Zack, who gets irreparable boners from stogie smoke) so that he and Jason can talk, even though, honestly, this discussion seems doomed. Danny says that he has to think about it. As Luke walks off, his shirt undone and his furry belly prickling in the desert cold, Danny turns and stares out into the backyard. Looming large above it is a solitary mountain. Well, not really a mountain, more like a giant brown hill with some tenacious scrub attached to it. This was the major draw for Danny to buy the house, something scenic right out back, something to inspire him about the beauty of nature, how little he feels with that looming over him, how the knowledge of his insignificance makes him try a bit hard every day. He sees the mountain and, for the first time, thinks about climbing it, if he could do it, how he could do it, and whether he should even do it. Would the dusty shoes, the sunburned shoulders, the eagle talons of thirst tearing at his throat be worth it for him to stand on top, conquering it, using it to survey everything around him and get a new perspective on his life? He thinks for a moment more and then finally makes up his mind. 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