This whole essay is about the most recent season and scandal on Vanderpump Rules. If you haven’t watched I think you’ll still get it and if you’re scared of spoilers then I don’t know how you have avoided them with the Internet in the last few weeks.
A little over three weeks ago I had never seen an episode of Vanderpump Rules. Every now and again someone would post an Instagram story that they were at Pump or Sur because it’s the restaurant from the show but I never felt any inclination to watch the show or go to one of the restaurants. Then in early March my timeline exploded with something called Scandoval and although I have a disease where I must always be in the know for current events, I kept letting this one slide. I would let these names swirling every corner of the Internet remain faceless even though I was extremely intrigued to hop on board. I am new to loving reality TV and tried to let this moment slide because my life has been busier than usual so I’m behind on all TV (and just realized this weekend I’ve been to the movie theater maybe twice this year?) and episodes and seasons of Vanderpump are long and I felt like it was too much homework. Then one Saturday morning, after an incredible night of dancing to Abba music, I woke up to find that my glittery makeup from the night before betrayed me and gave me pink eye so I was forced to lock myself in my bedroom for the weekend to do nothing but watch all of season ten of Vanderpump through crusty, watering, bloodshot eyes.
Quickly I felt a nostalgia for this show, even though I had never seen an episode. It made me feel like I was watching The Hills, but everyone was now in their thirties. I also didn’t know the Vanderpump cast was around my age (to be honest I thought the show was about a family running a bunch of restaurants in WeHo). I’ve been going back through old episodes of Vanderpump and it’s creating this even deeper nostalgia for my early years in LA. Those years I wore very similar clothes and looking back I am filled with disgust with not just how they looked but with their general texture and feel. I also went to most of those places they are going to on the show- WeHo was very much the place I hung out in when I first landed in LA thanks to the only other person I knew in LA living near Fairfax. And watching this early season feels like watching ghosts of me and my friend walking those same streets and eating at those same restaurants and has reminded me that even though we were a business casual bunch, being a millennial in the early 2010’s was kind of nice after all.
As I watched almost the entire season 10 in one day, which was only interrupted every 3 hours for a dose of antibiotic eye drops, I tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I loved Katie and Lala, and Ariana seemed like the girl at the party where we both would find each other in the kitchen looking for White Claws and somehow end up bonding over similar childhood youth group experiences. The boys on the show seemed very much like boys, Tom Schwartz being the one I would initially have a crush on then realize I would love for him to just shut up sometimes and Tom Sandoval being the guy I would groan if he walked into a first day of an improv class. Then there was James Kennedy, who I instantly hated but then grew to favor as the only one actually saying out loud what people were thinking. And then there was Raquel- and maybe because I could feel her palpable 28 year old energy though the screen, I just could not get on board with her and it quickly became very obvious to me she was not a girl’s girl. I was, however, riveted because I knew the bones of the scandal to unfold later in the season, and I watched with careful pink eyes to see any hints of the affair earlier on in the season.
And then it happened- the thing that took a chokehold on the Internet I finally saw happen in real time. If you haven’t watched, Ariana’s boyfriend (Sandoval) of 9 years had a 7 month affair with one of her closest friends (Raquel). It was a season you couldn’t write, a season that not even the producers knowingly edited together the shocking drama that would be the finale. And I think the reason why this season was so polarizing for so many people was because it felt more than just your boyfriend cheating on you, or your best friend lying to you. It felt like watching one of your worst fears actually come to life and seeing that humans who were supposed to love you most still have the capability to destroy you in the end.
I get it, cheating happens. Society is moving towards more progressive types of relationships that completely takes away the idea of cheating within partnership being bad, but for me the true rancid behavior here is hurting one of your girls. Some of my worst heartbreaks have been within female friendship and that is where I wanted to lose all faith in Raquel. Although I was wincing during Ariana's brutal takedown of Raquel during part 3 of the reunion episode, where the cast was able to all come together for a look back at the season, I knew cathartically this beratement needed to happen (especially after realizing they filmed this so close to the news unfolding).
I did have some sympathy for Raquel though during the finale. I think that she is still young and the real villain is Tom, a man 14 years her senior who absolutely groomed and manipulated her to follow along with his plan. He is the one that deserved the verbal beatdown thrown at him and every moment of vitriol aimed at him I think should have happened ten times over. I don’t ever want to be in the same room as Raquel but I also don’t want to be on the same planet as Sandoval. Being 28 is hard, you are barely touching fingers with your Saturn Return and you think that the horizon ahead (turning 30) is old age. It’s a lot at once! And if I hit my head hard enough on a wall I could see how she could carelessly go along with fucking her best friend’s long term boyfriend behind her back in her home while her best friend was grieving both the loss of her grandmother and dog. But also being 28 means your frontal lobe is formed and you are still required massive accountability and remorse for your actions.
I set up all this because the shocking news for me after watching all the pieces of this scandal take form over the last few weeks is that Raquel is adopted, something that obviously hits close to home with me these days. Instantly my heart sank because I could see her actions as part of a larger reaction to something growing in her brain since she was a kid. I could place her as another victim of just wanting to “belong to a crowd” because the person you wanted most in life left you initially and you’ll forever be wandering towards that kind of affection. It's that lifelong mission to do anything to be accepted by anyone that a lot of us adoptees face and now she was reinforcing on a public stage. I felt mad because I could now extend some grace her way, even though that grace was paper thin.
I feel bad for her in the way that I hope in ten years she can own up to her mistakes. Everyone on the cast has a complicated past but they have all put years and work behind those mistakes. I didn’t think it was fair to bring up their pasts of cheating and scandal, because it’s very obvious this cast is healing from that and growing from that. We don’t need to keep throwing old mistakes in people’s faces as a “gotcha!” because in the end what is the point of accountability and growth? The person I was at 27 is nowhere near the person I am now in my mid thirties. My thirties are the decade that taught me the importance of female friendship over everything and my thirties are the decade that taught me how much being my own person and relishing in my independence is actually better than any man on this earth holding my hand.
I know it’s just another reality show on the surface, but watching this show over the last few weeks has really made me grateful for the friends I have and everything we have gone through to get where we are now. How healing and growth can happen and how there will always be some dumb Toms laying around to try and stop that growth but getting older it’s much easier to see through that while showing some compassion that your twenties are stupid and pointless. I hope nothing but chaos for the rest of Sandoval’s life and I do think that Raquel can potentially become a better person through a lot of help and reflection. My blood will still boil for what they put Ariana through and I absolutely cannot wait to eat sandwiches at Something About Her, the sandwich shop she is opening with Katie from the show.
All that to say, I do hope that Charlotte haunts Raquel forever.
