Is this the end of Vanderpump Rules as we know it?

Before last year’s “Scandoval”—a.k.a. the cheating scandal involving Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix, and Rachel Leviss that leapt from Bravo into the pages of The New York Times—Vanderpump Rules was practically on life support. Over the seasons, the young, volatile cast slowly grew up, got real(er) jobs, got married, got sober, got divorced, bought houses, had kids, and got boring. There were a few attempts to bring fresh blood into the show, but nothing stuck. The audience was invested in this core group of friends, and without them, Vanderpump Rules would cease to exist.

As Lisa Vanderpump herself said, Scandoval was an interpersonal nightmare but a “producer’s dream.” Scandoval happened at the tail end of season 10, after primary filming had wrapped but before the reunion had taped. Expectations were high for season 11, which aired its final reunion episode Tuesday night, and those expectations were not met. After early discussions of the scandal, the season dragged on and attempted to get things back to normal, but the damage was done. Ariana, understandably, didn’t want to spend any time with Tom, but it’s an expectation of a TV show cast to film together. The public narrative that she was the Good One grated on the rest of the cast, and in the final moment of the season proper, Tom, Lala Kent, and Scheana Shay break the fourth wall. Scratch that. The producers break the fourth wall, and allowed us to see what these guys actually talk about. Their grievances were focused on Ariana as a coworker more than as a friend, with the implication being that if she isn’t willing to live as openly, she shouldn’t be on the show.

So can the show, with fourth wall breaks and a heroine who’s turned into a thorn in the cast’s side, go on from here? Is there still a future at SUR, or should the audience just move onto the middle-aged VPR that is The Valley? A.V. Club staffers Drew Gillis and Matt Schimkowitz talk through the end of the season to find out whether Vanderpump Rules deserves a future.

Matt Schimkowitz: I have never been a huge fan of Lala on the show, so for me, it was a real “Worst Person You Know Makes A Great Point.” She’s right. The job of reality TV is to make interesting things happen on television without a script. There is obviously some pushing and direction from producers, but in its truest form, the drama created on the show should inform the conversations and generate entertaining situations. That’s what I want, and at its best, I think that’s what VPR delivers. If one person refuses to participate, I can imagine that being really frustrating for the rest of the cast. It’s certainly frustrating for the viewer because nothing happened this season.

The season was building towards a confrontation between Ariana and Tom. Ariana denied us the ending, which is her right, but it definitely made for a ho-hum ending to a ho-hum season. It was kind of exciting to watch them argue with producers and “break the fourth wall” a little (IMO, they barely scratched the fourth wall), but Lala’s description of their jobs was convincing, and I’m happy someone said it. She has a right to be mad: The show is going down the tubes because the protagonist doesn’t want to engage with the antagonist. If Lala hadn’t delivered that monologue confessional, the end of the season would’ve been Ariana walking out on production. I don’t think that’s what anyone wanted. Think of the poor editors!

On that same note, I didn’t really buy Ariana’s “Tom didn’t apologize in person” thing. All these people must do some calculations about how their actions will play on TV and probably decide to, say, engage in an illicit affair because they’ve been rewarded for bad behavior in the past. That’s not a value judgment. It’s just the way it is. It’s their job to create drama, and if they don’t, then the show goes cold. By that same token, if Tom wants to save his genuine reactions for the camera, I think that shows a commitment to the job that Ariana doesn’t have and maybe never did. That’s fine. I want people on the show who want to create good TV, just like I want a baseball player to hit the ball.

What about you? What do you think of Lala this season and in the reunion? What’d you think of Scheana because she was kind of thrust into the center of it all?

DG: I think I’ve always liked Lala a bit more than you, but I really thought she came to play this season. Lala found a good method to keep things moving this season, where you kind of nitpick your cast mates’ behavior but do it in a way that makes you look like the voice of reason. And, ultimately, she was willing to film with the entire cast, which can’t be said of everyone. I totally understand her frustration, because ultimately it was her coworkers not doing their jobs and making it harder for her to do hers. And I do think she was right to be mad about the way her marriage to Randall ended and how her treatment compared to Ariana’s. Granted, Randall was never really a presence on the show but the situation was objectively worse and there was a child involved.

Scheana is kind of a cipher to me because she’s often at the center of things but not necessarily contributing a whole hell of a lot. I think she genuinely does want to be friends with both Tom and Ariana, but I think there is some same motivation as Lala, which is to keep the show moving. She’s less willing to break the fourth wall than Lala is, and that has been happening a lot in recent years. (See: Jax’s final argument with Lisa in the season eight finale.) That doesn’t happen on the other Bravo/Housewives shows I watch.

MS: I would say Scheana’s role on the show, as it always has been, is to catalyze the story. She was, after all, an early investigator of the Scandoval. But it’s on the rest of the cast and producers to run with it. Nothing was clicking because we had to have a fake love triangle between Katie, Schwartz, and what’s her face. Also, while I have your attention, maybe it’s time you cast Scheana on Dancing With The Stars, Drew.

DG: I would honestly start tuning into Dancing With The Stars if Scheana was competing. Speaking of another DWTS alum, I found Lisa Vanderpump’s comparisons to her time on RHOBH to be interesting. It seemed that she was saying that showing up to the reunion was enough if you wanted to stay on the show. (Some backstory for readers who may not know: LVP was basically run off the show by her other Housewives over a very dumb scandal dubbed “Puppygate” and didn’t go to that season’s reunion, signaling she was done with the show.) As someone who watches a lot of RHOBH I’m curious what you think, because I do not agree with her.

MS: This kind of blew past me a little bit, but I just don’t think these two reality shows are the same. Lisa on RHOBH has so much more power and has the wealth to exit the show. By the time she had left, she had her restaurants and her spinoffs locked in. Vanderpump Rules was consistently one of the highest-rated shows on cable. It might hurt the show short term but Lisa’s absence won’t affect her life or the lives of her castmates. The relationships between cast members, especially Ariana and Tom, are more complicated and intertwined. Has Lisa ever shared a house with one of her castmates? Has she begun freezing her eggs to have a child with another cast member? I think that if Ariana didn’t want to come back, not showing for the reunion would be a good way to signal that. But, to me, I think showing up to the reunion without watching the season is almost more offensive and disrespectful to your castmates because it directly impacts the episode.

What do you think of Lisa’s position on the show? I think Jax might’ve been on to something with that “superfloosluous” comment.

DG: I think part of the reason I disagreed so much with Lisa’s “Well at least you showed up” comment is because that’s how RHOBH has been running for years. That cast shows up and will be perfectly happy to do their planned activities without any kind of argument, even for an entire cast trip, which is like four episodes of television. It is really boring. But on that show, Lisa behaved like a producer, trying to gin up conflict from the sidelines and behind the scenes, unlike on VPR where she literally is just a producer and can make the whole cast visit her restaurant in Tahoe and put them all up in the same house so they fight. That’s pretty much what she is now. I don’t think any of them work for her, and her business partnership with the Toms seems almost entirely like a pretense for the show.

What’s interesting is that on VPR, Jax was the closest analog to Lisa on RHOBH in terms of acting like a producer. Jax is just a constant conflict machine, and without him, no one has really taken the reins, when it really should be Lisa. But that’s not her role here. She acts more like a fairy godmother, and it would be entirely inappropriate for her to get down in the mud over an off-camera affair. Jax Taylor is a horrible person but great for this social experiment, and his presence would have helped move a lot of this season’s stagnation along.

MS: I think this is a great point. The thing about Jax, though, is that he’s often telling the truth. Sure, there’s his big “my parents founded CVS” lies, but when he’s talking about the behavior of people on the show, he’s usually right on the money. You see it on The Valley, too. He’s often acting as a Greek chorus during fights, standing on the sidelines and criticizing the fight strategy. This is why Lala was such a standout this season; she filled that role and was often on the money with her assessment. To that same token, James also stepped up. He wasn’t in the central drama, and I have a push-pin conspiracy theory board over whether or not Hippie is Graham (to the day I die, that is a different dog), but James was often correct this season. It also helped that his truth bombs were very funny.

DG: Do you think there’s a future for this show? What would they have to change?

MS: First things first: If Ariana doesn’t want to be on the show, she should leave. The same goes for Katie, who Lala also accused of playing things too close to the vest. One of the biggest missteps this season was letting Raquel get away, and ultimately, we were stuck in limbo for 15 episodes as everyone worked around two main characters who didn’t want to be there.

Some of the cast needs to do a little soul-searching and decide whether being on reality TV is what they want. The form is inherently embarrassing and cruel and if that’s not the type of performance they want to be a part of, it’s best they exit. It’s for the best for everyone involved. No one should be on this show if they don’t want to be there. It’s not that important.

My dream scenario would require each cast member to take a shift at SUR or one of the restaurants because the show is infinitely more compelling when they’re struggling, overwhelmed, and emotional. We lost something when they left the service industry. The stipulations impose artifice on the show, but it activated the drama, which made the show special to begin with. I would certainly take a forced service shift over another water tasting. Yeesh.

But sometimes, I think the show has run its course. The Valley is doing a much better job of the 40-something Vanderpump show. Maybe some of the VPR cast just takes a drive north. It would be an awful commute for Scheana, but she deserves a show that respects her contributions. I swear there isn’t anyone more actively looking for storylines than Scheana. She is the glue. An even easier solution would be getting Jax back on the show. That guy can make magic happen and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

I’m curious what you think of the season. Much was made about this being a Tom Sandoval redemption arc, with Ariana as the villain. I don’t know if they necessarily got there, but I did think Tom was, by far, the most compelling cast member this season. He was willing to humiliate himself for our entertainment. In the end, isn’t that what we all want?

DG: I totally agree that some of the cast needs to hang it up because they clearly don’t want to be on a reality show—at least not anymore. It’s not usually a forever job. Most of the Real Housewives last three to five seasons, and if they make it to 10 it’s a big deal. The exception is the Kardashians, because Kris Jenner is an executive producer on the show and has final say to minimize her family’s embarrassment; that’s not to say there’s none, because someone has to feed the beast. But you’re not going to get an episode that makes Kim Kardashian out to be a straight-up villain in the way Tom or Ariana could be on VPR.

I think part of what was so jarring for Ariana is the fact that she is objectively correct in this situation from an outside, normal perspective. She was cheated on and humiliated extremely publicly, gave the show the blood it needed when she filmed her breakup conversation with Tom, and now she doesn’t want to see him again. This is a sane reaction, but she is not in a normal situation. She doesn’t want to play the game anymore, and that’s fine and she can leave, but right now she’s kind of the kid flipping over the Monopoly board when everyone else is still trying to play. Maybe she wasn’t losing, but she didn’t want to risk not winning. She wants to live her life going forward to minimize humiliation, and this isn’t the job for it. And it clearly is just a job, as she said that the reason why her boyfriend Daniel didn’t film with them in San Francisco was because he’s not getting paid. She often seems like she’s showing up because she’s contractually obligated to.

Tom (and Scheana and Lala, at least) showed up willing to play and get dirty, so for that reason he can’t completely lose, even when he spent much of the season as a punching bag to the rest of the characters. He was willing to film with Ariana, he was willing to film with Jax and let himself be owned, but it doesn’t keep it from feeling like the wheels are falling off Vanderpump. I’d say Sandoval (and Scheana and Lala) gave good auditions for The Valley. They are still willing to be on a reality TV show with all the pros and cons that come with it. But I can’t say that I want to watch another season of VPR like this. As it was, I was skipping episodes, and it didn’t matter. Three years ago I would have been sad to see this end, but I can’t say that anymore.