Vanderpump Rules finally addresses the Tom Sandoval in the room

If last week’s episode of Vanderpump Rules served to check in on how Ariana Madix and her orbit were faring in the wake of Scandoval, this week’s is about introducing us to the cold war that she and Tom Sandoval are still fighting. They’re still sharing their Valley Village house, and while this apparently isn’t much of an issue while Tom is off filming his other various reality shows, it’s less than ideal when they both try to live there. Ariana is only willing to communicate with him via his assistant, the coincidentally named Ann Maddox, a woman whose visible anxiety on screen is only slightly less than Milicent, the character who replaced Ashley Tisdale on The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody when she got too famous.

Anyway, it’s Sandoval’s birthday, and he wants to have a party at the house. He offers to put Ariana up in a hotel for the night if she doesn’t want to be there. She flatly refuses and tells Tom (via Ann) that if he tries to have a party in their house she will call the police. She tells us in a confessional that she used to dread Tom’s parties, which could go until 6 in the morning, and now she doesn’t have to pretend to be okay with it anymore. That’s fair, but calling the cops is a little ridiculous, and every other cast member who gets to voice an opinion about it agrees.

Lala Kent continues her two-episode streak of having mostly astute observations and tells Ariana that the more she lashes out at Tom’s slights, the more slights he’s going to commit because he enjoys messing with her. Tom also does legitimately own half the house (and claims later in the episode to have paid all the bills for eight months amid the scandal) so his desire to have a birthday party in it isn’t totally unfounded; Ariana doesn’t want to move out because she thinks it would make Tom’s life too easy. Lala offers whatever critiques she can and listens patiently. Later, she’s the best dressed at the Pump closing party. Strong episode for Lala, overall!

But yes, Pump, Lisa Vanderpump’s explicitly gay bar, closed this episode. It was strangely a non-event. We were treated to a very earnest montage of Pump moments, like Katie Maloney asking Lisa to officiate her wedding—Katie’s only real moment of the whole episode, sidelining her for the second week in a row. The montage unfortunately does not include DJ James Kennedy screaming, “More cosmopolitan, Pumptini!,” a drink my colleague at Kotaku Alyssa Mercante referred to as “cotton candy gasoline.” So it goes.

Both James and Tom Schwartz feel betrayed by Sandoval: James because one-half of Scandoval featured his ex-fiancée, and Schwartz because Sandoval kinda-sorta left their business high and dry in the wake of the scandal. James’ new girlfriend Ally apparently runs an astrology business now (she’s a Capricorn sun, Libra moon, Pisces rising, in case you were wondering) and invites Schwartz over to read his birth chart. “To put it nicely, I feel like he could just use a little direction,” she says in a confessional, putting it as nicely as anyone can. Schwartz is divorced, was a homeowner for about a year, and has two troubled businesses because his partner couldn’t keep it in his pants. But he’s such a Libra, he’s not good with conflict. Ack!

The episode ends with Sandoval successfully having an over-by-midnight small gathering. He apparently managed to round up 12 friends (including former Sur employee Billie Lee!) for this event. James shows up (while Ally, also being such a Libra, stays in car) and tells Sandoval that he feels betrayed. We end on a “To Be Continued…” that feels less like a cliffhanger and more like we just ran out of time for resolution.

On that note, Scheana Shay’s storyline revolves around 1. working up the nerve post-partum to be able to leave her daughter alone with a close friend and 2. recording an emo version of her Platinum (on my cardio playlist) hit “Good As Gold.” We don’t really get payoff on either of these things, but there is more on the horizon. Don’t open Pandora’s box on ’em like that, Scheana!