How Did ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Get This Season So Wrong?
Ultimately, Tuesday's finale was a fitting end to a season made most memorable by the enormous gulf between what Bravo intended and what fans actually wanted.
Photo: Screenshot/Bravo YouTube EntertainmentTV
On Tuesday, Bravo aired the third and final part of this season’s Vanderpump Rules reunion and finally did what they’d been frothing at the mouth to do all season: make Ariana Madix cry. In a move of stunning cruelty on the part of Bravo’s producers, part three ended with Andy Cohen announcing that the final scene of season 11 had been withheld from the cast in order to make them watch it all together and get their real-time reactions. This meant that Madix–who’d been open about not watching this season in an effort to protect her peace–had to sit by and watch as the man who cheated on and humiliated her excoriated her to her friends (“she talks shit about all of you behind your backs!” he whined). In the episode, her friends (Katie Maloney excluded) agreed with him, adding insults of their own.
Particularly vicious were the remarks from self-described “Michael Vick attack dog” Lala Kent (who is also paradoxically in her “soft” era), whose tirade against Madix for not filming with her ex finally unmasked the very thinly veiled jealousy Kent has held for Madix’s post-Scandoval stardom all season. Clearly, the producers thought this was the type of explosive ending fans wanted. Instead, viewers flocked to social media to point out the cruelty of the moment, which was so clearly designed to hurt Madix specifically after she’d avoided being baited into a breakdown by her castmates, her ex, and the producers, all season.
Ultimately, the finale was a fitting end to a season made most memorable by the enormous gulf between what Bravo intended and what fans actually wanted.
This reunion was just so fucking hard to watch. So hard to watch a woman recognize in real life that her friends aren’t friends at all, I can’t imagine what it’s like to process that all at once. Lala, Scheana, Sandoval, can all rot. This just sucked. #PumpRules #VanderPumpRules
— A.J. (@Trust_Progress) May 29, 2024
Longtime fans of VPR will know that Scandoval was hardly the show’s first cheating incident. In fact, dating and then cheating on each other has been a central tenet of the show since it first aired in 2013. Jax cheated on Stassi with Kristen (who in turn was cheating on Tom Sandoval). Sandoval cheated on Kristen with Ariana and then cheated on Ariana with Miami Girl. Tom Schwartz cheated on Katie with a parade of unnamed women; Jax cheated on Brittany with Faith–the list goes on and on. Cheating men were at the heart of the VPR universe, and redeeming them (while labeling the women around them “crazy”) has been the show’s tried-and-true formula for years. But when season 11 aired this past January, and the Tom Sandoval redemption arc began to unfold, for the first time ever, VPR fans pushed back.
The hamfisted attempts to make us all feel bad for Tom was immediately clocked as inauthentic by fans who called bullshit on Lisa’s faux concerns for his mental health (especially given the fact that she felt none of the same compassion for Rachel, who was actively in a mental health facility at the time). His tearful “healing meditation” session with Scheana read as similarly contrived. Combine that with his disastrous New York Times interview from February, in which he compared himself to George Floyd, and by episode four, fans were saying they’d had enough of his attempted comeback.
It’s impossible to know when Bravo became aware of its miscalculation. If producer Alex Baskin is as “in the comments” as Scheana, I can only imagine it was immediate. From Reddit to TikTok to Twitter, fans were flooding the show’s hashtag with one message: Ariana Madix, they could never make us hate you.
@joshintheoval THAT was what they thought was gonna make us not like ariana? lol #vanderpumprules #pumprules #arianamadix #lalakent #scheanashay #katiemaloney #tomsandoval #tomschwartz #jameskennedy #bravotv #realitytv #lisavanderpump #andycohen #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Josh the RHONY stan
But why? Why did what’s always worked for the show in the past fail so spectacularly this season? I have a few thoughts.