Snip, Snip
Season 3
Episode 2
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
Photo: Bravo
Even though it’s only barely three years old, The Valley has given us a number of truly sad moments, but none is sadder than something Kristen says in her confessional. Luke, a pile of Pac Sun clothing that became a regional manager, is talking about how he wants to get their sex life back on track, only three months after she gave birth to her gorgeous baby girl. Kristen says, flat out, “I hate that idea.” In confessional, she says that her therapist told her, “Kristen, what is 15 minutes out of your day?” That is it. That is the saddest thing.
I get where the therapist is coming from. It seems like a small sacrifice to keep your partner happy, just do the one thing that they’re looking for, and all is settled. Also, just diving in, she might realize that it’s not as bad as she thinks it’s going to be. Okay, sure. But has this therapist ever had sex with a headache or been bloated from eating too much pizza, or when the first part of the Summer House season 10 reunion just started, and we need to see exactly what Ciara is going to say to West? There is nothing worse than pity sex when your head and mind aren’t in the game. I put myself in Kristen’s shoes and just thought about her hating her body, only thinking about her daughter, and just having to close her eyes and bear the thrusts and grunts of this man for an entire 15 minutes. It feels like it would take 15 years. I’m sorry, but the only thing worse than no sex is bad sex, and if Kristen isn’t going to show even the scintilla of arousal necessary to get her partner turned on, too, then she might as well just buy Luke a subscription to Brandi Glanville’s OnlyFans and a wad of Kleenex because they would both be better off.
Well, the pressure campaign worked because when Luke gets to his daughter’s first birthday party, he proudly tells Schwartz that Kristen let him hit it again. Congrats. Well, technically, it’s Lala’s daughter’s first birthday, but I have decided that it is canon that Luke was the sperm donor of Lala’s baby. Just like, in my mind, Lea Michele can’t read, and Katy Perry is the grown-up Jon Benet Ramsey. These are facts, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise.
Speaking about the party, I really enjoyed it. I don’t know what is happening with me — have I been getting a consistent 8 hours of sleep, have I been getting the right levels of Omega 3s, have I fallen prey to an early English spring — but I actually kind of like everyone on the cast, even (gulp) Janet. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. There’s just something in me that feels a little bad for her being so on the outs. Yes, she has totally earned it, but, guys, I’m softening. I’m thawing. The edit is working. Sure, I still hate Jesse, but in a way that is fun, and I am growing to hate Lacy even more every day in a way that is not fun, but the show is hitting.
Even Schwartz, the mewling little pest that he is, can be so adorable when he’s just throwing the same ball down the slide with Brittany’s son Cruz over and over again. He’s a good foil, the one single guy who wants the settled-down life that all the other guys are chafing against. Even Lala, who proved her worth this episode by flirting with her very hot and shockingly age-appropriate lifeguard while at her daughter’s party. She’s not nearly as angry as she used to be or trying so hard to grab the spotlight, but she is pushing the story in the right direction. She’s here doing her job (while Scheana Shay sits at home combing the hair of her Lala voodoo doll just waiting for the right moment to strike).
Lala is also the bridge between Janet and the larger group since she and Brittany seem to be the only two not only talking to her but also interested in having a conversation with her. At the party, Janet sits down with Jasmine for a chat and gets straight into the business of apologizing for getting involved in her business last season when it wasn’t her place. Jasmine is kind, says they need to have a larger conversation somewhere that is not a literal child’s birthday with toddlers making every flat surface sticky, but at least she hears Janet out. That is, until Janet sort of asks for an apology from Jasmine for saying she has “Karen energy” and freaking out on her at the beach last season. Jasmine almost chokes on her corn dog when that comes out of Janet’s mouth. I also almost choked on my corn dog. She is on the outs with nearly every person on the show, but she’s still thinking she can get an apology? Oh, sister, take every seat in that backyard, including the one that a 3-year-old just left a half-melted ice cream cone in.
Janet does say that she’s in therapy and learning that the words she was using last year were meant to hurt. OK, great. But what is she going to do with that? How is she going to change? That’s what I haven’t seen at all. You know, the more I think about it, the less I’m willing to forgive Janet. I take it all back.
This is especially true after her conversation with Nia, which Lala orchestrates. As everyone involved said, it was the fastest conversation that anyone has ever had. It was even faster than Luke finishing in Kristen after not getting any for three months. Lala brings Janet over, Janet congratulates Nia on the baby, and tells her that if there’s anything she’d like to say or get off her chest, Janet will listen. Nia just stares at her, as perilous and unblinking as the sun, and doesn’t say a word. Janet says, “I’ll talk to you soon,” and runs away. I know that there are some bad bitches on Bravo — Phaedra Parks, Lindsay Hubbard, Tamra Judge — but none of them is scarier than Nia Sanchez. She is not fooling around for even a second, and when she is done with you, she is done with you. She doesn’t need to scream or yell about it either; she will just smile to your face and bury you in silence.
Janet runs off to the bosom of her best gay and starts talking shit about Nia in a bedroom, which Nia then walks into looking for a place to nurse her baby. She quickly excuses herself and finds another bedroom with Danny, where she says she has nothing to say to Janet, and she has had it, officially. Janet is also telling her best gay that she doesn’t want to be friends with Nia. Okay then, why try? Why? Yes, they have to film this here show, but can’t she stay away and just say she’s not ready? Can’t the two of them just choose to exist on parallel and untouching planes?
Speaking of planes, Zack takes Jesse to an aviation-themed bar where they have a conversation about, I’m not sure what. Not much. About how neither of them is invited to the birthday party. I’m even really liking Zack this season. Sure, he gives big villain energy, but just like Rodrigo on Southern Charm, he’s proving to be the only one who can go between the drama of the boys and the drama of the girls. When the guys need to talk about their real feelings and can’t do it with the other dudes, they go to Zack. But still, he’s all up in the middle of the mess, like telling Brittany that he thinks she’s repeating the same mistakes she made with Jax with this new guy. We have yet to meet the new guy, so I’m going to delay judgment a bit, but I love that Zack is fulfilling his best gay friend duties.
Zack’s duties with the boys include going with Danny for his consultation about getting a vasectomy, which is just littered with the worst dad jokes, sex puns, and testicle humor that Danny could unleash in a doctor’s office. Speaking of which, even the doctor gets in on it. Do we need this? Do we need any of this?
There are a few more conversations to round out the episode. Michelle and Schwartz go for a sound bath in a salt cave, which is so woo-woo that I just barfed up an entire eagle feather and sent it to the Golden Door for a cleansing ritual. Schwartz calls it their “first date,” which Michelle says it’s not. I like the two of them together, I like the flirting vibe, but it’s clear that Schwartz knows a good storyline when he sees it, and that Michelle is going along with it. She’s downplaying it and pushing Schwartz away every opportunity she gets.
Then Jesse goes to dinner with Lacy, and I’m not sure what this is supposed to be about. Are we supposed to like Lacy? Are we supposed to like Jesse? Are we supposed to like Lacy because Jesse likes Lacy because, last I checked, none of us like Jesse and his slouchy knit cap that he wears indoors. She didn’t do or say anything offensive at their dinner; she just gives me evil mastermind energy, and watching her makes me want to take a sound bath in a salt cave and, well, that just makes me hate myself.
The final conversation of the episode really brings us full circle when Nia gets home from a long day in the car with a newborn who won’t nurse. Danny is telling her about his vasectomy and saying he needs to not do any work around the house for 10 days. He gets the same stare she gave Janet, and then she tells him that if she can have a C-section where a knife cuts through seven layers of muscle like a Tostito slicing through a seven-layer dip, and be walking around later that same day, then he and his little balls are going to be fine.
What does Danny do? He keeps making jokes about his “swimmers,” how he needs 30 ejaculates to get rid of them, and how much she’s going to love helping him get them out. She might as well have reached to her bedside table, got a box of Kleenex, and told him to find Luke’s Brandi Glanville subscription because that is all the help she is going to give him. She says that she has four kids, her house is a mess, her body is decimated, she thinks she’s doing everything wrong, and she’s on the verge of burnout. What does Danny tell her? He tells her to remember the important things, which is a good start, until he ends it with, “all the lovemaking I put on the calendar.” She tells him that she feels like a failure, and he crows about how they’re in the “honeymoon phase for life.” That’s when it goes down, that wall, as if an invisible shutter closed between them with Danny pawing at one side and Nia, on the verge of tears, fending him off. Yes, it’s just 15 minutes out of her day, but it’s every day, it’s constant, it’s like the roar of the ocean or the drone of killer bees, and if she can close her eyes for just a second, if she can look inward, maybe for just a second she can make the incessant need of the man across from her sound a little something like soothing.
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