Vanderpumped

I came for the topical drama, I stayed for Bravo's sublime reality production.

OK, Lisa, you got me. Prior to a month ago, I had not known one thing about Vanderpump Rules, save for knowing that Lisa was a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, and she was apparently popular or savvy enough to get a spinoff about the workers of a restaurant she owned. Then, the Tom/Tom/Ariana bomb blew up over everything, everywhere, all at once and on a level I haven’t seen since early 2000s monoculture (like when you paid attention to the gossip rags at the grocery store and they all had their angle on the same scandal. Remember InTouch?!).

But in today’s era of niche culture, and especially for “celebrities”¹ of this stature, this is rare. Only a few love triangles in the last couple of decades or so have aroused this level of intensity². It was all over Instagram, it was served to me on TikTok, every pop culture podcast I listen to addressed it—even if the hosts themselves had no idea who these people were. On that note, often I’ll see a post of someone on a red carpet and the comments are full of people asking that very question. But a couple funny things happened with the Vanderpump Rules scandal aka #Scandoval:

1. In the comments sections of the IG posts breaking the story, users weren’t asking who these people were; they were gasping, they were gagging, they couldn’t believe this news. I had no idea how many people were into this show (I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that). 

2. It just kept coming. The twists on this story! It wasn’t just an affair, it was a spectacularly messy affair; there are two Toms; the whole cast has all been sleeping together forever? For the best breakdown I’ve heard so far, listen to the Tom Sandoval Who? Weekly episode.

3. IT’S STILL GOING ON. It is season 10 of Vanderpump Rules, and producers wisely knew they had to catch the fallout of this. I mean, this story broke on March 1; I would not be writing about it now if it wasn’t still all over my phone screen.

What I can’t believe the most is that they made me care. It wasn’t the people on the show or even the scandal itself, it’s the fans who have made me care. The sheer reactions to this affair have been so breathless it’s given me pop culture FOMO. 

So this is how I tell you that I started watching the show. Lest you think I have any intention of catching up to the current season, I am fully aware there are 186 episodes, and this is an hourlong reality show. No, I’m doin’ it for the fun of it.

Level-setting: I’ve only really watched the early New York and New Jersey seasons of Housewives, but for a few years, I was hopelessly devoted to them (I once saw Jill Zarin at a work event and dumbstruck, just said, ‘JILL ZARIN’ to her, in all caps.) Since then, I’ve let reality shows die off from my viewing habits.

But here I am, embarking on the start of a 10-year-old reality show. I’ve watched the first two episodes so far, and let me tell you, the warm arms of a Bravo reality series has wrapped its familiarities alll around me. The story beats are fast, with entertaining non-sequiturs interrupting the main plot just for funsies. The cast members of Vanderpump Rules, at least in their inaugural season, are authentic enough to make them interesting while being familiar enough with reality TV to give perfectly horrible little soundbites. Watching it is the opposite of a slog; its lightning pace doesn’t even give me a chance to pull out my phone and start background-watching it.

Here are my early observations.

• Everyone is attractive in a very early 2000s way (the amount of kohl black eyeliner, flat ironing and handerchief tops is giving me PTSD), but I can’t tell people apart yet—aside from Jax and Stassi, whose toxic romance dominates the first couple of episodes (and I assume first season, which: sigh, but OK). 

• One thing that’s really speaking to me is the time period of their life, aka early 20s messiness. The cast is mostly in their twenties, living in a fun city, and making little money while dreaming big dreams. It’s the stuff of a thousand movies, but it also reminds me of that time in my life, where every small friend-group transgression was a giant drama. It’s easy to think every plot turn is ridiculous, but I remember how major it would be if someone flirted with your friend’s boyfriend on a drunken night out and then it would be all passive aggressive group email chains and side-taking on Monday. It’s much more relatable than anything that happens on the Real Housewives, which is endlessly entertaining, but I haven’t yet reached that point in my life where my friends are going to jail for fraud. Wish me luck though! 

• Love a reality show villain. Especially love that the person I have been told to hate (Stassi) and do in fact immediately hate has since been outed as a racist bigot. 

• This early, I’m still having a hard time connecting the players of Scandoval to the cast I’m watching on the show. I know both Toms are present, but I still don’t know which Tom did what bad thing, and I know not everyone involved is on the show yet. But it’s a credit to this series that the reason I wanted to watch this show and the reason I will keep watching this show are totally different now. 

Ultimately, this is an amazing distraction for me right now, even though I’ve been consuming other great media in time for last weekend’s Oscars (most notably Triangle of Sadness, but I can’t say anything more about that movie that hasn’t already been said. Watch it if you haven’t!). Bravo, indeed.

1. Celebrity now has the most broad definition, and I don’t mean that as a drag on reality TV stars but rather an acknowledgment that the definition itself has expanded due to all our apps and algorithms and their ability to serve us exactly what we want, whether we knew we wanted it or not.

2. Brad/Jennifer/Angelina, Kristen/Robert/Rupert, Jude/Sienna/the nanny