Tears, screams, and rumors. Yes, Bravo’s popular reality show, Vanderpump Rules returned on Monday, Nov. 7 for its fifth season, and certainly without a shortage of drama. I’m typically a fan of reality shows; I find the scripted drama of “reality” to be entertaining, which is a quintessential quality of this series. However, the first episode was a mere disappointment, as looks the rest of the season.
Vanderpump Rules is a reality show about a group of young people that work in an L.A.-based restaurant, Sur, under the ownership of Lisa Vanderpump, a star in one of Bravo’s other reality shows, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.. All of these people happen to be beautiful, and coincidently, all have some type of history together. This first episode started by catching the audience up on the cast’s lives. The same cast as last season has returned, which includes Lisa Vanderpump, Jax Taylor, Stassi Schroeder, Scheana Shay, Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix, James Kennedy, Katie Maloney, Tom Schwartz, Kristen Doute, Brittany Cartwright, and Lala Kent. Between all of these people are webs of relationships, deceit, and other kinds of unnecessary drama.
We learn that Stassi, Katie, Kristen, and Scheana are all on good terms, which is hard to believe. We also hear Jax spread rumors like wildfire about his girlfriend, Brittany, who evidentially fooled around with one of the girls in the group, Kristen. I could tell instantly that this would be a central plot to the season, which was bothersome. It seemed incredibly scripted, and is a focal point that I do not care about. Jax proceeded to tell all of his friends this story, which Brittany and Kristen both said was almost entirely fabricated, especially at the OK! Magazine party that the group attended. This is where most of the night’s drama occurred.
Out of pure cattiness, the group demanded that Lala and James leave their area as the hated duo approached the table. Things picked up rapidly when Lala retaliated by commenting on how the ladies at the table clearly hadn’t been “working on their summer bodies,” and James paired this statement by asking Katie if she was pregnant. Scheana then told the two to leave and James commented on her nose job.
The group reacted back to these insults just as one could assume based on how this show operates: with more insults. The girls complained about the comments, yet were quick to send them right back. They, too, were quick to tell their boss (Vanderpump) about what happened, which was then addressed with James. It was clear that this group of young people could not handle themselves in a mature manner and that they could not settle their issues amongst themselves. Instead, they turned to their boss and expected her to fix it, as a young child would do.
This seemed to be the theme of the night: attacking others based on appearance and spreading gossip and rumors. It surprises me that this show has reached its fifth season and that audiences repeatedly ask for this type of drama in their entertainment. Continuously seeing this type of behavior only reinforces it in actual reality. It may give impressionable young teens watching the show the impression that tearing others apart for their physical appearances is just a part of life, when in reality, it should not be.
This was basically the entirety of the episode. Yes, this is a reality show so that should be taken into consideration, but I usually find parts of this show to at least be funny. Instead, I found that it dragged on, did not find anything said to be remotely funny, and was just waiting for something of substance to happen. Unfortunately, I was utterly disappointed.
As for the coming attractions for the rest of the season, I’d guess that 90% of it was solely about the Brittany and Kristen incident. This seems to be a real reach by the network to give the show some kind of plotline, but it’s simply just a meaningless topic. If the only thing that will be discussed during the entire season is one rumor, insults, and negativity, you can surely count me out.
imagine taken from E!