![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/f13994de2abf0dba8054d94a9b830cb60f-valley-ep7.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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The Valley<\/a><\/p>\n Triggers and Tiaras<\/p>\n \n Season 3<\/p>\n Episode 7\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 3 stars<\/p>\n ***\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Griffin Nagel\/Bravo\n <\/p>\n I always used to say that Southern Charm<\/a> was a show about men behaving terribly and the women who tolerate them. I have also used that line about Vanderpump Rules<\/a> and Summer House<\/a>. This episode, watching Luke and Danny especially, I thought, \u201cThe Valley is a show about men behaving terribly and the women who tolerate them.\u201d Then I realized, maybe it\u2019s not all these shows that are about that, maybe life is about that. Maybe the problem is just\u2026 men. As a man, I am not a man-hater (and considering my abiding love for Kyle Cooke, I have certainly tolerated a horrible man), but so very few of these men are worth anything. Even Schwartz, who is so afraid to hurt anyone that he disappoints everyone, and Jason, who admirably stands up for his wife though she is almost always wrong, aren\u2019t it. I love Zack, but he\u2019s the one who is telling Luke, a tank top that exposes a farmer\u2019s tan, that he\u2019s great even when he\u2019s not. Even the gay guys are exempt from being good.<\/p>\n The first one to be terrible is Luke, a Rainbow flip-flop that will never be broken in. Everyone goes to a terrible sports bar called Draft, and Kristen is not feeling it because she is having her first period after giving birth and is gushing so much blood that she\u2019s wearing an adult diaper and, unlike Lisa Rinna, she\u2019s not making $2 million for it<\/a>. She wants to leave Draft and go home. Luke asks her if she wants him to go with her, stay at the bar, stay and get her food, and bring it back. Okay, so far, those are all the right questions.<\/p>\n It goes wrong when Kristen complains about how she\u2019s feeling, and he says, \u201cI\u2019m not in your body.\u201d He says that he can\u2019t know what she\u2019s feeling and can only have limited empathy and sympathy. Really dude? I don\u2019t know what arthritis feels like, but I know that if someone were complaining about their arthritis acting up, I would try to help in any way that I could. Or maybe Luke can imagine that a steady stream of blood is coming out of his dick and that is how Kristen feels, but it\u2019s also a million times worse. Just imagine that.<\/p>\n In this particular instance, Kristen is spoiling for a fight a little bit. They\u2019re standing in the restaurant litigating it, and then she gets upset that Zack and Brittany come over to check on her. She doesn\u2019t want to make a scene; she just wants to lie down and watch Love Island reruns. But, you know what, let Kristen spoil for a fight. She just shot a baby out of her vagina, and now it is bleeding like an extra in a John Wick movie. She gets anything she wants. Luke should remember that for the next six months or so. Many of these fights could be resolved if he just sucks it up, gives Kristen everything she wants, and just eats all the shit for a while.<\/p>\n But no. Luke is out there talking about how he needs to feel like he\u2019s a good father and partner. He says that he feels like he\u2019s working for them as a team, and Kristen is fighting against him. No, Kristen is fighting for herself. That\u2019s all she can handle right now, dude. It\u2019s like you\u2019re WWE tag team partners, and right now Kristen is in the ring, and his job is to stand on the other side of the ropes and cheer her on while waiting to be tagged in. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s your only job. Can you manage that? I will give them credit that the next morning, they have a nice chat on the swing and tell each other the things they most need to hear. Kristen apologizes for being sharp with Luke, for freaking out, for demanding too much, and for not thinking about his feelings. She compliments him and soothes his ego. He thanks her for doing that. Okay. Maybe it wasn\u2019t everything Kristen needed to hear, but considering how we\u2019ve seen her act in the past, this whole convo was very mature, and I love this for them.<\/p>\n Before we can talk about Darkside Danny and absolute angel Nia, we need to have a brief interlude to talk about Lacy, who might as well be butterscotch, because I dislike her so much I don\u2019t even want to see her on someone else\u2019s sundae. It starts at Draft when she and Jesse ask Jason and Janet to hang back so they can talk. Lacy is mad that Janet said she threatened to sue everyone last season, because now, when you Google her, that is all that comes up. Also, she\u2019s mad that David Hasselhoff blocked her, which, I don\u2019t know, seems like a blessing in disguise. Janet says she has no beef with Lacy; she\u2019s just upset that she sent her friend Michelle a legal letter. Lacy expects an apology, but also says that if Janet said she was upset and sticking up for her friend she would get it. Well, that is what she said, and why should she have to apologize for that? Then Lacy mentions how when she met Janet, she had done a deep dive on her and found out that she auditioned for Real Housewives of Orange County<\/a> four times. (I have a feeling that the reason we\u2019ve never seen her be terrorized by Tamra Judge is that she\u2019s too boring, not because she didn\u2019t take it.)<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m blinded by my dislike of Lacy, but I can\u2019t think of a single way Janet handled this wrong. Janet stayed calm, she explained her position, and wouldn\u2019t give in to Lacy\u2019s unreasonable demands. Jesse pipes up and says that this is the kind of apology from Janet that people hate. Ugh, men. See how he makes it all worse? She decides to storm out, and Lacy hangs back to tell Jesse to stop yelling and making it worse. Why do I hate it when she does this? I mean, she\u2019s right, but why does the way she orders him around give me a case of the hives?<\/p>\n Back at the house, Brittany says that Lacy and Michelle should talk about the past at some point, and, oopsie daisy, Michelle is sitting right there when she says it. Lacy says something about how she knows what Michelle and her friends were up to, and Michelle replies with a Lacy ender, \u201cBut you threatened to sue me.\u201d Exactly! She sent Michelle a cyst and deceased, and Lacy would get that joke if she were ever cast on RHOC. What I dislike about Lacy is that she plays innocent, she plays the victim, but that\u2019s not how she\u2019s acting when not on camera. She is a sleeper agent in her own life, playing normal in front of everyone, only to go home with a Homeland<\/a>-style revenge board on her dining room wall of how she\u2019s going to destroy every single woman on this show.<\/p>\n This is when she starts in on the first text that Michelle sent to Jesse about her, where she says Michelle made fun of her appearance and said she would never be Isabella\u2019s stepmother. Then Lacy brings up that Michelle threw Jesse through a window, a story that Michelle disputes, and the whole thing escalates until Michelle begs Jesse to just divorce her and sign the papers already. End of story. Amen.<\/p>\n The editors do us the favor of showing us the texts. And, well, they\u2019re not great, but Lacy is making them sound way worse. The worst is that she called her \u201cfake,\u201d which is the most common insult on reality television, and then said, \u201cI don\u2019t approve of a girl who looks like that to be Isabella\u2019s stepmom.\u201d Later, at the San Diego Zoo (the inspiration for one of my favorite songs<\/a>), Michelle explains that she was upset because she and Jesse had agreed not to introduce their daughter to people they were dating, and then Jesse showed up with Lacy. She says those texts came from a place of anger because Jesse is always so controlling and setting rules, but then breaking his own rules when he wants to. Lacy says in confessional that her end goal is to get along with Michelle rather than be right, but then why does she keep bringing up the texts? Michelle essentially apologized for them. If that\u2019s her only issue, then move on. This is what I don\u2019t like about Lacy. She keeps bringing up these old texts, these issues from the past. You\u2019re new here! We don\u2019t even know you yet. You don\u2019t get to bring up old shit when it\u2019s your first season.<\/p>\n Now we have to talk about Danny, who starts misbehaving from the start of the day, when we all hear about Schwartz\u2019s graphic sex dream about Lala. (I would pay for that OnlyFans video, by the way.) They\u2019re getting on the buses at the zoo, and he\u2019s not helping out enough. Nia is looking to keep herself and the baby cool in the heat, and he\u2019s not giving her any assistance or finding something to fan them. He\u2019s just acting like a petulant baby all day, which is ironic because he seems upset at the petulant baby in his wife\u2019s lap. He says he wants to be able to have fun alone with his wife, which is why they brought the nanny, but he won\u2019t do anything to help his wife relax so that she\u2019ll want to have fun with him.<\/p>\n It gets even worse when it\u2019s time for all the ladies to dress their guys up in drag for a silly pageant that Nia devised as a nod to her days as Miss U.S.A. (Lala is assigned Schwartz, which I think is part of his sex fantasy.) This should be a fun, silly thing, and most of the guys are taking it that way. Luke and Kristen are getting into it, and Luke says it\u2019s the most bonding they\u2019ve done since the baby was born. Zack is thrilled to be getting into drag for the first time (how is this possible?!?) and is sporting tits as big as Brittany\u2019s. Schwartz is picking out dresses even though we know from his time on Pump Rules that he makes the world\u2019s ugliest woman. (I referred to him<\/a> as a \u201cmelted Courtney Love,\u201d and I stand by it.)<\/p>\n Danny, however, is getting competitive. Ugh. He\u2019s one of those people who ruins game night, isn\u2019t he? \u201cThis is a competition, and I don\u2019t lose,\u201d Danny says while complaining that the dress that Nia picked out for him isn\u2019t form-fitting. She asks him if he wants a full face of makeup. \u201cWhy are you asking me?\u201d he asks. She says it\u2019s because they\u2019re partners. \u201cThere\u2019s no partnership in this. It\u2019s win or lose,\u201d he says, with complete seriousness. Nia then tries to put makeup on her, and he doesn\u2019t like it. \u201cWhat are you doing to me? I look like a clown!\u201d he shouts as if he\u2019s Manny MUA\u2019s first subscriber and knows what a contour should look like. When she puts a wig on him, he is upset that it\u2019s not styled. Dude. You admitted you know nothing about this. You should know that the plastic ass wig that Nia got at Party City is not going to hold a style. If you try to put a curling iron in it, then the wig would literally combust. How about you just let a beauty queen do her fucking thing and have a little bit of fun?<\/p>\n Lala overhears him talking to Nia that way, and she tells him to knock it off, saying that she\u2019s \u201ctriggered.\u201d In confessional, Nia says that on one hand, she wants Lala to butt out of her marriage, but on the other hand, she\u2019s glad someone else sees how awful Danny is acting towards her. I agree with Nia. I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s Lala\u2019s place to speak up, but Nia definitely needed an ally in that moment, and I\u2019m glad she had one. But Danny, still drunk, still disorderly, keeps hammering on the word \u201ctriggered\u201d and how ridiculous it sounds. He\u2019s probably right, but Lala is one bear that you do not want to poke, and she hits him with a \u201cknock it off, dawg\u201d that he didn\u2019t anticipate. If there is one thing that Lala is going to do, it is stand up to a man and thank the Catholic Jesus for her. Someone has to, someone must, because each one of them, like so many turds on the floor of a forest, is making this world a little bit of a smellier place.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Housewives Institute Bulletin<\/p>\n Dame Brian Moylan breaks down all the gossip and drama, on- and off-screen, for dedicated students of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n