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More than a decade Vander Pump Rules

0:28

has been a hit reality show on

0:30

the Bravo network. The show reach new

0:32

heights of tabloid infamy last season do

0:34

to a much discussed affair between two

0:37

members of it's cast. The whole thing

0:39

was nicknamed scanned of all and lead

0:41

to record breaking ratings and countless means.

0:43

Bender Pump Rules is about to return

0:45

for it's eleventh season and if you

0:47

want to catch up on all the

0:49

drama from last year, we've got you

0:51

covered. I'm Stephen Thompson today in this

0:53

encore episode of Npr as Pop Culture

0:55

Happy Hour. We are talking about

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need of a good read or just want

2:32

to keep up with the books everyone's talking

2:34

about, NPR's Book of the Day podcast gives

2:36

you today's very best writing in a pocket-sized

2:39

show. Whether you're looking to engage with the

2:41

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2:43

from them, we've got an author who'll speak

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Day podcast only from NPR. Joining

2:52

me today is Emil Niazi, freelance writer and

2:54

columnist at The Cut. Hi Emil. Hi.

2:56

I'm so excited to be doing this

2:58

right now. Excited to

3:01

have you. Also with us is culture writer

3:03

and critic Shamira Ibrahim. Hey, Shamira. Hey, Steven.

3:05

Glad to be back. Yeah, it's great

3:07

to have you both. So I know the two

3:09

of you follow this show closely and have many

3:12

thoughts, but before we get started, I

3:14

do want to give a quick bit

3:16

of background for those who might be

3:19

new to the Bravo Cinematic Universe. Vanderpump

3:21

Rules began as the first ever spinoff

3:23

of Bravo's Real Housewives. Restorator Lisa

3:25

Vanderpump was a mainstay on The Real

3:27

Housewives of Beverly Hills, and on this

3:29

show, we follow her and the staff

3:31

of her restaurants in LA. The cast

3:33

of Vanderpump Rules has evolved quite a

3:35

bit over the years with new

3:37

people coming and going, getting married and

3:39

divorced, hooking up, fighting, fighting about hooking

3:41

up, and so on. In

3:43

season 10, the principal cast includes a

3:46

cluster of friends, enemies, and frenemies as

3:48

they plod through this waking life. Two

3:50

guys named Tom, Tom Schwartz, and Tom

3:52

Sandoval are trying to get a restaurant

3:55

off the ground. Sandoval's partner Ariana and

3:57

Schwartz's ex-wife Katie are planning to open

3:59

us. sandwich shop, Raquel, who's a

4:01

server at a Vanderpump restaurant, recently broke

4:03

off her engagement with James, who's a

4:06

DJ, Sheena is a podcaster who's marrying

4:08

an Australian named Brock, and Lala is

4:10

looking to get back into dating after

4:12

the collapse of her engagement to disgraced

4:14

Hollywood producer Randall Emmett. But

4:17

late in season 10, things get

4:20

much more serious, as we learn that

4:22

for several months, Raquel has been having

4:24

a secret affair with Tom Sandoval. Tom's

4:27

been in a serious relationship with Ariana for

4:29

many years. Raquel has been

4:31

in conflict all season with people

4:33

who've been accusing her of other

4:35

illicit relationships. She's also very close

4:37

friends with Ariana. It is a

4:39

huge mess, news of which doesn't

4:41

fully break wide open until the

4:44

season's nearly over, so we wound

4:46

up with a three-part reunion fiasco

4:48

in which there was much yelling.

4:50

The Raquel and Sandoval embryo, which

4:52

has taken on the hashtag Skendoval,

4:54

has had a huge

5:05

impact on these people's lives. You

5:08

can stream all 10 seasons of Vanderpump

5:10

Rules over at Peacock, Emil Niazi. We

5:13

have so much to

5:15

unpack, but I'm going to start with you.

5:17

For those who don't follow the Bravo Cinematic

5:19

Universe, why is Sandoval such a big deal?

5:22

Sandoval, I think, really gripped

5:24

people's imaginations because of the

5:27

incredible level of betrayal that

5:29

was taking place. I

5:32

know we've bandied about this word

5:34

Shakespearean so often these days. It's

5:36

described to this show and that

5:38

show, but it really did feel

5:40

Shakespearean in its level of malice

5:43

and truly just betrayal. So

5:45

imagine if your partner of

5:48

nearly a decade is not just cheating on

5:50

you with one of your very closest

5:53

friends, whom you sort of took under

5:55

your wing in order to help her

5:57

thrive and find herself after a bad

5:59

moment. relationship, but they planted it

6:01

in front of your face for

6:04

almost a year. And they

6:06

got matching necklaces and they wore funny

6:08

outfits. They had inside jokes and they

6:10

were doing it all right in front

6:12

of your face. The amount

6:15

of pain and torture,

6:18

it's despicable. And

6:20

there was a conversation in this

6:22

season between Ariana and Raquel, where

6:25

Raquel is, you know, having this very

6:27

sort of intimate, you know, friend conversation,

6:29

trying to ask Ariana about the state

6:31

of her relationship with Tom and it's

6:33

the kind of relationship conversation you have

6:35

with someone who you're very close to,

6:37

who you trust implicitly.

6:40

And she's sort of poking at Ariana to

6:42

get her to admit that they don't have

6:44

sex and that, you know, she doesn't see

6:47

them having a future. I feel like in

6:49

a relationship you should not have sex. But

6:53

you have to be like emotionally intimate.

6:55

We physically were emotionally intimate at

6:57

one point, obviously. Right. Like when

6:59

we spend time together, you feel

7:02

like you're sexually attracted to him.

7:04

But what happens is Ariana says

7:06

she does love Tom and she

7:08

wants to stay with him. And

7:10

you can see the disappointment in Raquel's face

7:12

and to know now that the

7:15

whole time she was sleeping with

7:17

Tom, it just blew people's minds.

7:19

And I think that that's why

7:21

there was such a guttural, visceral

7:23

reaction to this news because it

7:25

just, you can't imagine anyone being

7:27

so heartless. How about you, Shamir? You

7:30

know, I think in the reality

7:32

TV ecosystem, it's really difficult

7:34

to find a show that

7:36

escapes the kind of production traps that

7:38

happens when a show becomes mature over

7:41

the years. A show exists

7:43

for five plus years. People are very

7:45

focused on their image, curating narratives

7:47

for themselves, really crafting a way

7:50

to protect themselves and sell their own

7:52

brands, sell whatever merchandise. This

7:55

really pierce the veil of really being

7:57

able to create entertaining TV and sensational

7:59

TV. in a way that's really kind

8:01

of authentic to their early seasons, where

8:03

they were young, fresh on the scene,

8:05

trying to, you know, become stars by

8:07

any means possible. A lot of

8:09

these scandals happen a lot of the time. The heft

8:12

of the betrayal is significant, for sure, right? But it

8:14

was also the fact that we were able to get

8:16

those emotions raw and in the moment.

8:18

They didn't delay them till the next season. And

8:20

as they were filming for the Bravo fanbase,

8:23

they were able to play this heft at

8:25

the same time in the buildup to knowing

8:27

that the scenes we were going to see

8:30

were as raw as possible. We knew, oh,

8:33

they're filming something that just broke on

8:35

the press. Production had actually

8:37

cut for this season. They chose to pick

8:39

up the cameras, and now we can predict

8:41

what we think is probably happening because now,

8:43

you know, the Internet is everywhere. And so

8:46

provide a level of gravitas of everyone's level

8:48

of sakes in the situation where a lot

8:50

of reality TV is about the show within

8:52

the show, and it becomes an experience that

8:54

all of the fans can participate in because

8:56

we've essentially watched them grow up for 10 years. Well,

8:59

yeah, and you have the effect almost

9:01

like, you know, if you see a

9:03

really good mystery and there's a big

9:05

twist at the end that recontextualizes everything

9:07

you've seen up to that point. Exactly.

9:10

There is this kind of mystery that's

9:12

unfolding. I watched season 10 after all

9:14

this stuff broke. I watched it. And

9:16

it was really interesting thinking about how

9:18

I'm viewing the show, knowing what I

9:20

know versus how I would have watched

9:22

this show not knowing what I knew

9:24

and how different my allegiances would have

9:27

been. And even knowing what I knew, I

9:29

was frustrated watching the season with how

9:31

much bullying of Raquel was going

9:33

on. And I really felt like

9:35

Raquel was mistreated for big chunks

9:37

of this season. At the same

9:39

time, knowing what you know, it

9:41

does hit very differently, and

9:44

the level of betrayal is really wild

9:46

to watch. And I think it's a

9:48

really good point you make how carefully

9:50

curated the lives are

9:52

on this show. These people are

9:55

all trying to be Instagram influencers.

9:57

The ecosystem here is really different.

10:00

from what at least I'm used to in my

10:02

day-to-day life. And it's interesting to

10:04

watch this where like all

10:06

of a sudden something really actually raw

10:08

is happening. And this is a legitimate

10:10

friend group. Like, you know, a lot

10:13

of reality TV are people who are

10:15

brought together for the purpose of making

10:17

reality TV. You know, this is

10:19

as close to a late 20s experience as

10:21

you can get, right? You know, the show was brought

10:23

together the premises of a bunch of

10:25

people who work in West Hollywood who

10:28

one day dreamed of being a model

10:30

slash actor slash musician, whatever the

10:32

slashes can be, right? You know,

10:34

and the person who happens to be their boss happens

10:36

to also be a reality TV star who has an

10:38

opportunity to put them on a camera, right? And now

10:41

those dreams completely transitioned to, well,

10:43

we're making more money this way

10:45

than we are getting these, you

10:47

know, nominal bookings as background actors

10:49

or making these nominal filming reels,

10:51

right? And now they're legitimate reality

10:53

TV stars. So all this shifting

10:55

group dynamics are not just shifting group dynamics on

10:57

camera, it's shifting group dynamics that happen within

11:00

anything that would cause chaos within like any sort

11:02

of group of associates, right? The same way you

11:04

would text group, text each other amongst your friends

11:06

about who did what with who. That's

11:09

the same way that people are doing on

11:11

Reddit because it has the same level of

11:13

chaos, which adds a level of heft versus

11:15

people who are more so negotiating over contracts

11:17

or salary, or if I'm going to sit

11:19

down with this person, I need this amount

11:21

of money. You know that there's a level

11:23

of personal significance on top of,

11:25

of course, the financial impact and all

11:27

of the other branding implications that come

11:29

with it. It's interesting. The core conflict

11:32

at the end of the season revolves

11:34

around an affair as Shakespearean is that

11:36

betrayal can feel. It's also just the

11:38

oldest story ever told, right? Like he's

11:40

having a midlife crisis. She

11:42

is kind of at this phase in her

11:44

life post breakup where she's Kool-Aid manning through

11:46

every boundary she can find. And

11:49

in some ways it's, that's like a cliche.

11:51

Right. I didn't

11:53

find their affair particularly interesting

11:55

and don't find them particularly interesting

11:57

as people, but what's is

12:00

you've spent an entire season, and

12:02

maybe it's 10 entire seasons, with

12:05

people squabbling about things that

12:07

aren't actually terribly important, but

12:09

you suddenly put them in a position where

12:11

what they're squabbling about is a real issue,

12:13

and that's a very different feeling. I

12:16

actually feel like the quotidian nature of

12:18

it is what makes it so relatable,

12:20

and why so many casual viewers can

12:23

access that relationship in a way

12:25

that other incidents that

12:27

have been way scandalous over the years,

12:29

which I'm sure Emil can also testify to, have

12:32

been uniquely ridiculous. But

12:35

knowing that two people choose to get into

12:37

an affair, completely rupture a friend group,

12:40

a lot of people can access that level of heartbreak

12:43

of a long-time partner who's thought you

12:45

could build a life with. So you

12:47

start to project and really connect to

12:50

whatever experience you have with previous heartbreak,

12:52

however that destroyed you, and that becomes

12:54

an extension of, oh Ariana

12:56

is me. Ariana is all the words I

12:58

wish I could have said to my ex

13:00

who destroyed me, and now she

13:02

gets to sit and give that defiant final

13:05

moment, right? She gets to sit on the couch and

13:07

tell the ex, who is your ex, who is

13:09

all the terrible exes you've ever had, right? That

13:11

you are nothing to me, right? And ride off

13:13

into the sunset and get all the great branding

13:15

opportunities, and be the person who rose

13:18

above in the abyss of all the

13:20

terrible trash, misogynist men who have

13:22

never really accomplished anything, right? And

13:24

that is a lot more accessible than a

13:26

lot of the more dramatic things, which is

13:28

for example, Lala's story, which is something that

13:30

is a very Hollywood story, someone who was

13:33

with a CD producer, right? Got

13:35

exploited, that's a very complicated

13:37

story to navigate. A lot of people

13:39

don't know how to relate to something like that, which

13:42

is like a power imbalance, child custody

13:44

issues, what that comes with. I

13:46

wanted to talk a little bit about the

13:49

parasocial relationships that the audience has

13:51

with this show. And you guys

13:53

are super fans. Yeah, definitely. What

13:55

is the depth? What is the

13:57

lowest point of your parasocial relationship?

14:00

with the people on this show? I mean,

14:02

I don't consider it to be low,

14:05

my relationship. I'm sorry,

14:07

what are the sites? What are the... The

14:09

sites, exactly. What is the precipice? Well, I've

14:11

been watching since day one. I'm

14:13

not a bandwagon jumper. I didn't

14:16

hear about something scandalous and start

14:18

watching. I've been with these people

14:20

since they were truly just, you

14:22

know, servers at sexy, unique restaurant

14:24

restaurants. Sexy, unique restaurant restaurants. Which

14:27

is the name of Lisa Vanderpump's flagship,

14:30

Roflop. But I will

14:32

say that I felt in the beginning that I did

14:34

have to apologize for watching a show like this. And

14:36

I would often get comments from people saying, oh, but

14:38

you know, you're so smart. Why do you watch a

14:40

show like this? And I always found it very offensive.

14:43

You can engage critically with a show like

14:45

this that reality television can have more to

14:47

say about the human experience than,

14:50

you know, prestige television. And I

14:52

found that I still

14:55

did have some shame in, for example,

14:58

following them on social media or looking

15:00

up their interpersonal relationships beyond

15:02

the show. I've been

15:05

sort of flabbergasted watching what's

15:07

happened as a result of Skandoval.

15:10

And the... Now,

15:12

I'll admit to the low depths

15:14

that it seems this relationship has

15:16

sunk to people wanting to

15:19

destroy the restaurant that Tom Sandoval is

15:21

a part of. People finding

15:23

where Raquel is staying to get

15:25

mental health treatment and trying to

15:29

infiltrate that and really crossing up

15:31

a line that is preserving people's

15:33

health at this point, preserving their

15:36

safety. And that's where I

15:38

draw the line for myself personally is,

15:40

yes, of course, when the news first

15:42

started breaking, I immediately went to James

15:44

Kennedy's Instagram page and looked for his

15:46

comments on Tom Sandoval's page and tried

15:48

to decipher things. And I think we

15:50

love the Easter eggs, as Shamir has

15:52

brought up, that sort of solving the mystery

15:54

in real time. But when it

15:56

does really impact real people and real

15:58

lives, I feel... That's where

16:01

I sort of asked myself like have we

16:03

taken it too far? Has it gone

16:05

too far? And are we putting people in danger?

16:08

It didn't feel good watching the

16:10

reunion and seeing Raquel be called

16:12

nothing over and over again By

16:15

you know panel of men and women her

16:17

peers It was just horrible to watch

16:19

and that you know I did feel

16:22

like I was thinking to a dark

16:24

place watching that thinking am I participating

16:26

in this Humiliation of a

16:28

young woman and am I

16:30

deriving pleasure from it this season? What

16:32

really was like my low points was just like my

16:34

need to consume information. I've never once commented

16:37

on a Bravo,

16:39

Liberty or reality influencers posts or

16:41

replied or DM'd mostly because there's a possibility

16:44

that I may interact with them at some

16:46

point Or interview them for something. So it

16:48

just feels a little bit like crossing a threshold for me

16:51

but When I'm fixated on

16:53

something I need to consume everything possible So I

16:55

have listened to a depth of

16:57

podcasts that I did not even know

16:59

existed Like I am probably in the

17:01

point zero five percent of Sheena

17:03

Shay shenanigans podcast I have this

17:06

is about like first thing in the morning, right,

17:08

you know it drops. I am there right

17:10

Krista Dowdy I'm here for her

17:12

redemption tour, right? I don't know who did vile

17:14

was I don't watch The Bachelor, right? I know

17:16

who he is now When

17:18

it started to get into the space

17:21

of aggressive, you know harassment and conspiracy

17:23

very Oh, is she pregnant did Brock

17:25

sleep with Raquel? Like all these things

17:27

are beyond the pale for me in

17:29

the way that I don't think it's entertaining right now You're

17:32

kind of in the true crime podcast Industrial

17:34

complex in a way that I don't find

17:37

amusing Beyond of course additionally

17:39

like the violence and the defacing property

17:41

or whatever I think all of

17:43

that is unnecessary and also just abusive right

17:45

and those are not things I've ever condoned

17:47

in any capacity I think that

17:50

Bravo has kind of constructed the last

17:52

the later years of the reality because there's no

17:54

way that it's almost like wrestling But you have to

17:56

acknowledge that if it's like wrestling great,

17:58

right, but then Engage in the fantasy

18:01

of it. Don't cross the threshold into then

18:03

participating in the violence, right? That

18:05

is the part that started to make me very

18:07

uncomfortable where people felt that it was justified to

18:09

do all these things. It's like people are not

18:11

going to stop loving their friends. If

18:14

your personal friend does an awful thing, you're

18:16

not going to stop talking to them, right?

18:18

Like that's reality. So that was where

18:20

it started to go beyond the pale for me in a

18:22

way that I thought was, okay, I

18:25

don't wanna think I'm part of this person

18:27

just because we listened to the same podcast and

18:29

now they're jumping out and doing the same

18:31

thing. You start to wonder like what bucket am

18:34

I in at this point just because we're in

18:36

the same part of the same information funnel, right?

18:38

Yeah, I think that's a really, really great point. And

18:41

there were several points in the season that made me

18:43

really uneasy as a viewer, like feeling

18:45

like I'm participating in something that I

18:47

shouldn't be participating in. And I think

18:49

earlier in the season, these pileups on

18:51

Raquel that really feel like bullying. There's

18:53

clearly an imbalance in how women

18:56

are treated for their transgressions versus how men

18:58

are treated for their transgressions, which sometimes they're

19:00

even willing to comment on. I

19:03

mean, Raquel herself uses the phrase slut shaming

19:05

at some point, but the

19:07

show is occasionally commenting on it

19:09

while, how much do you feel like it's participating

19:11

in it? I feel like if you watched

19:14

the last five minutes of the final

19:16

reunion episode, it felt like

19:18

the producer was really goading Raquel to

19:20

go further than she wanted to go,

19:23

pushed her past the point of discomfort,

19:25

the point of tears, a

19:27

point where she didn't want to cross. And

19:29

she very vocally said, well, I don't want

19:31

to betray the one person I have left.

19:34

And the producer kept saying, but

19:36

why not? Just do it, just

19:38

say it. And that felt designed

19:40

not to protect the person participating,

19:42

not to protect Raquel. It

19:45

felt designed to satiate the

19:47

viewer's hunger and desire

19:49

and curiosity. And at that

19:51

point I felt like, okay, the show has

19:54

gone from, isn't this crazy

19:56

to how much crazier can we

19:58

make it for you? Because

20:00

we know that you as the audience

20:02

are craving more and more and they

20:04

even built that final moment up throughout

20:06

the last three weeks Saying there's going

20:08

to be this reveal at the

20:11

end of the episode that is going

20:13

to change everything And so the amount

20:15

of speculation was so over the top

20:18

but I also remember reading in the comments

20:20

people saying I'll be so upset if it's

20:22

not as chaotic as I

20:24

want it to be and so I

20:26

could feel the producer actively trying to

20:28

milk that moment and It felt

20:31

very wrong. I really felt like the show

20:33

was actively Participating in

20:35

someone's demise and that's never what

20:37

you want to be a part of right? I

20:40

think that because of

20:42

the build-up over the weeks, right?

20:44

A lot of people started building up

20:47

ridiculous expectations. I really felt like what

20:49

that was really trying to do was

20:51

honestly Resituate the dynamics

20:53

of the group, right? You know in

20:56

the context of okay I'm going to

20:58

remove Tom Sandoval's consistent narratives about

21:00

the reunion of it was one

21:03

instance No, you were consistent mistress

21:05

which the argument or the

21:07

semantics of what a mistress is or is

21:09

not that continued throughout the reunion Was completely

21:11

absurd, but that's neither here nor there, right,

21:13

you know, but move the idea of I

21:16

Made this one mistake be belabored over it's

21:18

like no we've committed to this one thing for

21:21

months, right? But at the end of the day

21:23

when it comes to castings about who will film with

21:25

who for various scenes Because it's

21:27

about who gets along with who I

21:29

really thought that moment was really more so about

21:31

okay Now people are realizing that she needs

21:33

to not be on this camera for some

21:36

time, right? She needs to take some

21:38

break She has clearly been put through

21:40

a level of abuse that is really affecting her

21:42

and it's Tom who has been manipulated a narrative

21:44

That has now really put the rest of the

21:46

group in a really fragile position Do

21:48

you find as you've watched this show over

21:51

the course of ten seasons do you have

21:53

favorites? Do you have people that you relate

21:55

to closely that you like and not just?

21:58

monitor For

22:00

me, I think that having favorites

22:03

or like teens and reality TV

22:05

is a little bit counterintuitive, right?

22:07

But at the end of the day, you know Everyone

22:10

is going to lie or make a mistake or

22:12

construct a perspective of themselves over

22:14

the years, right? it's really

22:16

about trying to figure out the whole picture of them

22:18

as a human and Really trying

22:21

to get an understanding of them. So I Will

22:24

be like I think this person was right

22:26

in this circumstance, right? Because right two

22:28

seasons later that person will be completely

22:30

wrong in a very similar circumstance Like

22:33

like for example Katie Maloney is someone who

22:35

has been very maligned over the years, right?

22:37

I'm very popular rules. I have

22:40

always felt like oh, well, yes, she has an

22:42

awful things Definitely has used

22:44

a lot of horophobic language on the show, right?

22:46

I think that's you know, speaking to the way

22:48

that people have applied misogyny throughout the show But

22:51

I've also felt well a lot of is

22:53

because she's a miserable person, right? And when

22:55

I say miserable, I don't mean because she

22:58

is a bad person because she has been in

23:00

a miserable relationship She's been lashing out because the misery

23:02

in her relationship and you see

23:04

that a lot in the show That doesn't mean that I

23:06

defend every single thing she does That just means that I

23:08

see her as a whole person And so

23:10

when you start making team whatever then it acts

23:12

like I have to defend the fact that she

23:15

started calling You know Raquel a

23:17

whore or called Sheena a whore for a

23:19

season as opposed to no I just understand the

23:21

context as to like why she was bad She

23:23

fell through a skylight to have a traumatic brain

23:25

injury, right? You know, there are things that happen to

23:27

people that you can understand. I think when you start going

23:30

very hard on the team thing that's when the The

23:33

stand behavior happens on social media in a

23:35

way that lends itself to the kind of

23:38

Inappropriate and excessive harassing

23:40

behavior that you see now, right? I

23:43

like some people. I definitely have favorites.

23:45

I really like Ariana i've always

23:47

liked her since her appearance on the

23:49

show. I've always felt that she Has

23:51

had a kind of a remove from

23:53

a lot of the gossip and sort

23:55

of bad behavior You can see her

23:57

try so hard this season to appease

24:00

both sides of this feud. People are

24:02

upset with Raquel. She really wants to

24:04

defend that friendship. People are

24:06

upset with Katie. She really wants to protect

24:09

that relationship. I end up

24:11

liking some of the really

24:13

terrible people. Like I can't help but have

24:16

a soft spot for James Kennedy. I

24:18

feel like he started bad

24:20

and he got progressively worse.

24:22

But then he has these moments. He's

24:25

almost like a kind of a puck

24:27

character to me where he'll have this

24:30

like moment of brilliance and say what

24:32

everyone's thinking. But then he's scheming

24:34

and mischievous. But ultimately he's his own worst

24:37

enemy. And I feel the same way about

24:39

Tom Schwartz. And yet there

24:41

is this charm. There's something about him

24:43

where you don't totally end up hating

24:45

him. And he knows that. And people

24:47

talk about it very openly in the show. Like how

24:49

is he getting away with all of this stuff?

24:52

And everyone else is taking the blame. So I

24:54

wish I could be a bit more removed

24:56

and not have favorites. But there's definitely people

24:58

I really like and people I really don't

25:00

like. And on the flip side of what

25:02

you're saying, Shamiro, is someone like Katie to

25:04

me, I think I'll always dislike her. And

25:07

nothing she can do will ever redeem that

25:09

in my eyes. Whereas I

25:11

think you're correct in saying, if you

25:14

stand too hard for someone, then you

25:16

do feel that you're making apologies for

25:18

their bad behavior. Whereas for me it's

25:20

like, I will never like Katie. And no

25:22

matter what redemptive arc she has, I'll always

25:24

find a way of being like, yeah, but

25:26

it's Katie Maloney. So I do end

25:28

up choosing sides and playing favorites. Because how

25:31

can you not? It's a bit like sports.

25:34

I should add a caveat. I will

25:36

never, ever, ever be okay with Jax

25:38

Taylor. Like I should add that caveat.

25:40

No, agreed. And I always

25:42

say that because there's like a slow movement to

25:45

reintegrate him into the universe in a way that

25:47

literally gives me highs. So yeah. I

25:49

do think with somebody like James, he's

25:51

sort of the embodiment of that classic

25:54

click hole headline, heartbreaking the worst person

25:56

you know just made a great point.

25:58

Exactly. Oh, absolutely. Exactly. I think in some

26:00

ways he is my least favorite person on this show. Because

26:03

somebody asked me at one point, like, well, who do you

26:05

like, who do you hate? And I was

26:07

like, I think my least favorite person is whoever's

26:09

speaking in any given moment. That's

26:12

fair. I think Lala is so vicious.

26:15

Yeah. She's gone through genuine hardship.

26:18

I have several moments throughout the season where

26:20

I sympathize with her, in some

26:22

cases deeply. But, oh, she

26:24

is just such a bully. Yeah.

26:27

But, Shmira, I love the point you made about looking

26:29

at each of these people as entire human beings

26:31

who are never 100% one thing. I

26:34

think that's a very generous

26:37

and correct way to look at

26:39

the world. I think Lala, someone I have

26:41

a soft spot for, I have many critiques of

26:44

her. I am not 100% a fan of hers. But

26:47

I think a lot of her performance, and

26:49

she would be the first

26:51

one to admit that a lot of it is a

26:54

performance, right? I don't think that's an unfair rendering of

26:56

what I have to say about her, is that

26:59

she has a resentment over the fact that she has not

27:01

been given a complete narrative on the show. The

27:03

fact that she doesn't get complete context

27:05

over her behavior, right? A lot of the people

27:07

who, for example, are critiquing

27:09

her over her relationship with Randall

27:11

being transactional, those same people

27:13

were asking Randall for money, for projects.

27:16

But that's conveniently forgotten, right? Because somehow

27:18

she was the one who made the

27:20

moral indecision and somehow broke up a

27:22

marriage with a woman. And those two

27:24

are sense friendly. But all these

27:27

things are conveniently ignored because she's the mistress,

27:29

right? And that doesn't make her less of a

27:31

bully. That doesn't make her less obstinate. That

27:33

doesn't make her less doing too much for screen

27:35

time. But it's like, at what point do

27:37

we get the moment of reflection to say a

27:39

lot of what Lala has been through is

27:41

effectively a classic Me Too

27:44

story. At what point do we

27:46

go, she was engaged with a

27:48

man who is directly participant in

27:50

Bruce Willis's decline. And so having

27:52

that context and removing it from

27:54

just like a nasty comeback for

27:56

a scene, right? And letting her

27:58

have that arc. I think,

28:00

would allow a lot of air out

28:03

of it, so that I can critique her properly.

28:05

Like I'm tired of her using AAVE improperly. Like

28:07

every time she does it, I cringe and I

28:09

want to lay down, and I'm like, you're from Salt Lake

28:11

City, please relax. There's plenty of things that

28:13

I can say about Lala that I would be

28:15

the first to stand up and say wrong, but

28:17

she's clearly issued for the ability to even say

28:20

her story properly, the same way a lot of

28:22

these characters are. And she has the

28:24

right to have a critique if I think she wants it to be told

28:26

in the first place. And there's always

28:28

something else superseding it. Like this Randall

28:30

situation is this year, and Scandavals

28:33

superseded it, right? Yeah, this is

28:35

a complicated, messy show full of

28:38

complicated, messy stories. We want

28:40

to know what you think about Vanderpump Rules.

28:43

Find us at facebook.com/PCHH.

28:45

That brings us to the end of our show.

28:47

Emile Niazi, Shamira Ibrahim, thanks so much for being

28:50

here. Thank you for having me. Thank

28:52

you. We want to take a moment

28:54

to thank our Pop Culture Happy Hour

28:56

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produced by Ramel Wood and Candice Lim

29:12

and edited by Jessica Reidy and Mike

29:14

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