{"id":404278,"date":"2026-04-30T03:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/404278\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T03:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:14:13","slug":"the-valley-recap-season-3-ep-5-the-hive-mentality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/404278\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Valley\u2019 Recap, Season 3, Ep. 5: \u2018The Hive Mentality\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Valley<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hive Mentality<\/p>\n

\n Season 3<\/p>\n

Episode 5\n <\/p>\n

\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n

2 stars<\/p>\n

**\n <\/p>\n

\n Photo: Bravo\n <\/p>\n

Janet Caperna has well and truly painted herself into a corner. It\u2019s gotten so bad that when she and husband Jason show up to a pool party, Danny says that he\u2019s deathly allergic to Capernas and is trying to avoid them at all costs. The whole episode, really, is about whether or not Janet and Jason can find their way back into \u201cthe group\u201d before their big trip to San Diego, and the answer seems to be a resounding no.<\/p>\n

Nia has no interest at all in talking to them or even a strategy for avoiding them. When she goes to visit Michelle at the gymnastics gymnasium, she says that avoiding Janet and Jason just comes naturally to her. The real takeaway from the gym scene, however, is Michelle\u2019s complicated history with her mentally ill father. She says that he got her interested in gymnastics when she was five and told her that she was going to the Olympics before she even knew what it was. She loved the rigor of being obsessed with gymnastics her whole life \u2014\u00a0the schedule, the diet, the training \u2014\u00a0but that was all taken away at 15 during her parents\u2019 divorce. The way she explains it, her father has never been diagnosed with mental illness, but he thought that people were after him, so if he moved away from his wife and daughter, these mysterious forces would have no reason to come after them. He left them so that he could protect them.<\/p>\n

Turns out Janet\u2019s father is alive somewhere in the L.A. area, but she never sees him because he\u2019s still distant and afraid. This is fascinating, of course, because I\u2019ve never heard anything like it, but it is also terrible. If only he could get the help he needs, maybe medication and lots of therapy, and he can be there for Michelle again, right back there in the gym, this time watching Isabella do flips and tumbles in a collection of brightly-colored leotards. Maybe this could heal them, maybe they could repair the strained bonds, build back the missed time. I want that for them, but it seems Michelle is resigned to the reality of her father keeping himself at a distance, and that makes my heart break for her for more than her divorce. She could use her dad way more than she could ever use Jessy Lally.<\/p>\n

While they\u2019re at the gym, Kristen, Brittany, and Zack are getting Brazilians and spray tans. The girls are off getting all bare down there, and Zack is getting his spray tan. He goes to find the ladies and walks past the treatment room where the door is open, and Kristen is hugging her knees so that the technician can get all up in those lady parts. He shields himself from it and says, \u201cI think I saw your uterus.\u201d In confessional, he\u2019s like \u201cFull flaps! Flap jacks! All up in my face!\u201d Okay, this scene is funny because who wants to be confronted with their friend\u2019s genitals? But there has always been this strain of gay guy body horror about vaginas that I really don\u2019t like. Sure, we\u2019re not used to seeing them, but bodies are beautiful, parts are just parts. There\u2019s the surprise of seeing your friend like that, but also, who really cares? I\u2019ve been nude in hot tubs with all my besties, and I think I could stand seeing a vulva or two without freaking out.<\/p>\n

Anyway, while Zack is having his flap attack, Lala, Michelle, and Janet are doing Pilates, and Janet is trying to figure out just who in the group is talking to her. She decides that she\u2019s going to have a game night and she\u2019s going to invite everyone. She says that she and Jasmine repaired things a few weeks ago and that she thought she was in a good place with Zack; he was just mad at her for what happened with Danny and Nia. She\u2019s even going to invite Danny and Nia, knowing they\u2019re not going to come, but to prove to them that she\u2019s open to burying the hatchet.<\/p>\n

Game night rolls around, and Janet arrives at a brewery with a full Plinko board<\/a> we don\u2019t even get to see anyone use. Is this a copyright issue, because the only thing that could have redeemed this doomed game night is a round of The Price Is Right\u2019s best game? Anyway, the RSVP list for Janet\u2019s game night includes Jason (of course), her best gay Jared (of course, but to the tune of a Madonna song), Lala, Schwartz, Michelle, Brittany, and then several random gays that we don\u2019t really know. (One is Ariana\u2019s best gay Logan, who we met on VPR but goes uncredited). This is what is needed for Janet\u2019s gay-me night: seat fillers.<\/p>\n

After the games, the ladies are all talking about the situation, and Janet says that she wishes that everyone would tell her what she did so she can apologize for it. Here\u2019s the thing about Janet: I want to feel bad for her. It can\u2019t feel good when everyone in the friend group and neverly everyone in the Bravo fandom is against her, saying she sucks, and telling her that she\u2019s ugly and she should kill herself. That must suck. But also, haven\u2019t they made it quite obvious what they\u2019re mad about? Even if it is \u201cpetty shit\u201d like she says Zack is mad about, there was a whole season of them saying what the problem was, a whole reunion of them addressing it, and several months since for her to check up on it. I\u2019m sure she could ask Brittany. I think Brittany knows.<\/p>\n

During this same conversation, Brittanny says that she\u2019s tired of being in the middle. I get that, but I think Brittany is part of the problem. She either needs to tell Janet what everyone is mad about and get her to make some kind of amends for it, or she needs to tell everyone else that it\u2019s stressing her out the way they treat Janet and just find some way to get over it, be civil with her, or keep her out of it. Brittany needs to take a stand one way or another because riding this fence is probably really chafing her freshly waxed coochie. I did like it when Brandon, her new BF, stood up to Kristen at the pool party and told her to be nice to Janet because it stresses Brittany out when she isn\u2019t. Finally, someone is putting Kristen in check and telling her how to behave. Sure, he\u2019s new to the group, but keep looking out for your gal.<\/p>\n

As the conversation at game night continues, Janet says that she has to keep apologizing while Danny liked a comment on Instagram about how Jason likes to watch Janet have sex with other men. \u201cWhy is that okay, but I can\u2019t talk about what he\u2019s done?\u201d she asks. Zack says that Janet just always wants to make herself into the victim, and here she is, doing it again. Also, she said that Zack was just upset about petty shit, but she\u2019s mad that Danny liked a shitty comment on Instagram? There\u2019s no way for her to move forward if she\u2019s going to get hung up on each one of these infractions.<\/p>\n

On the way to Brittany\u2019s pool party, there are a few other scenes. Jesse and Lacy have lunch, and I still have a hard time caring about either one of them. Zack talks to Luke about getting couples counseling, and it\u2019s the smartest and most empathetic that Zack has ever sounded. Schwartz says that he has no game, and he\u2019s really into a girl, but we have yet to see her. I wonder if he met her at summer camp, and we wouldn\u2019t know her because she lives in Canada. Kristen is worried that her baby will forget about her now that she\u2019s spending all of this time with the nanny. Once again, my heart surprisingly aches for Kristen.<\/p>\n

But the focus is still on Janet. Jasmine says that she doesn\u2019t want to hang out with her, but at least she texted her to say why she wouldn\u2019t make game night. Lala doesn\u2019t get why people won\u2019t just get over it already. Kristen is sick of talking about her, even though she\u2019s not even there. Yeah, same. How is this fight, which happened last year, still looming so large in the group?<\/p>\n

When Janet arrives, it doesn\u2019t cause any conflagration around Brittany\u2019s pool. She and Zack go to have a chat, and Zack tells her that he doesn\u2019t want to have this conversation again, because it seems like every season they need to go through it. She gives him the whole \u201cWhat did I do?\u201d question, and everyone is listening from afar and joking about how Zack has a detailed list of everything that Janet has done to him, going back to pre-COVID times. Gays are like elephants; we never forget, and we also hear with our feet. (That\u2019s why we walk so fast.)<\/p>\n

Rather than dealing with their issues, Zack, who has been drinking, asks Janet how she feels about Danny and Nia right now. This is really the crux of the issue. If Janet still has a problem with them, then everyone still has a problem with her. Janet says she doesn\u2019t want to talk about it, but she needs to. Actually, what Janet needs to do, at least if she wants back in the group and back on the show, is to eat all the shit. She needs to gobble it up like I would attack a funnel cake at the state fair. She doesn\u2019t need to apologize for certain things; she just needs to apologize for everything. She needs to say she\u2019s wrong. She needs to swallow her pride along with that shit, and just take it, take it, take it, take it. That\u2019s the only way back, but she seems incapable.<\/p>\n

As she and Zack continue to talk, it begins to go better, mostly because she appeals to Zack\u2019s vanity and says that the way he handled Jasmine and Danny\u2019s situation last season was perfect, that he acknowledged the problem, supported his friends, but didn\u2019t insert himself in the drama. Janet wants credit for \u201cmoving differently, behaving differently,\u201d but how can she get credit for that when it\u2019s barely happened so far, and people are keeping such a distance that they can\u2019t see evidence of it? Janet has a long road ahead of her to get back with the inner circle, but it seems like she\u2019d much prefer the shortcut. On her ride home from the pool party, she stares out the window while Jason drives her, the Juicy Scoop podcast playing lightly in the background. She did all she thought she was supposed to do, she smiled, she talked to Zack, she tried to seem unbothered, she didn\u2019t bring up Danny and Nia. The mask was starting to hurt, pulling on the sides of her forehead like too much Botox. She watched the lights turn on in the houses as they sailed past, each one a family, each with its own drama, each with its own story. But none like hers, she told herself. None as hard as hers, she thought as she pushed down the urge to scream like she was drowning a kitten in a pool.<\/p>\n

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