I sold my soul to Vanderpump Rules four episodes into its first season, when Stassi Schroeder lost her mind after her volatile ex, Jax Taylor, crashe
I sold my soul to Vanderpump Rules four episodes into its first season, when Stassi Schroeder lost her mind after her volatile ex, Jax Taylor, crashed her Las Vegas birthday party. Taylor shed his chunky, cream-colored knit sweater to fight her up-to-date boyfriend as Schroeder sobbed. And this was only the beginning of their warped love affair. Just one season later, Taylor would prove his devotion by getting Schroeder’s name inked on his bicep.
For years, Schroeder, Taylor, and their coworkers at Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood hotspot SUR wreaked glorious havoc on Bravo. But in 2020, separate controversies led both to exit Vanderpump Rules. The series drudged on for a few uninspired seasons, teetering on the verge of cancellation until the 2023 cheating scandal known as #Scandoval catapulted the show into series-high ratings—and opened the door for some memorable alumni to return.
Now both Schroeder and Taylor are firmly back in the Vanderpump fold. He appears on the sophomore season of Bravo’s recently-returned The Valley, which he filmed with his estranged wife Brittany Cartwright and his fellow VPR OG Kristen Doute. Schroeder has a plum role on season two of Vanderpump Villa, a Lisa Vanderpump-hosted competition series, all episodes of which are streaming on Hulu. Both shows are much more fascinating this year than they were in their first seasons—and they also prove that the Vanderpump kids will always have a home on TV, should they want one.
Early episodes of The Valley felt like a melancholy reunion of people who peaked in high school, while the first season of Vanderpump Villa gave us a bleak view of the incoming freshmen class. In the wake of the Vanderpump franchise’s uncertain future, other unscripted shows swooped in. Scandoval protagonist Ariana Madix reclaimed her jilted woman narrative as host of the American version of Love Island. The source of her heartbreak, Tom Sandoval, launched a full-on reality redemption tour, culminating in a charmed edit on The Traitors season 3. Meanwhile, Bravo confirmed that Vanderpump Rules would be recast for its upcoming twelfth season, moving onetime stars like Scheana Shay and Tom Schwartz to the more age-appropriate confines of The Valley.
That series began as a mildly amusing trip to suburbia, a place where married couples in the Vanderpump orbit could showcase their relative maturity. But several of those marriages were actually on the rocks—and as they cracked, the show became a riveting case study in all of domesticity’s pitfalls. Two couples broke up shortly after filming the first season, and when cameras pick up for the second, both estranged pairs—Taylor and Cartwright, as well as Jesse Lally and Michelle Saniei Lally—are in the throes of nasty divorces.
So yes, The Valley season two is massive. But it’s also highly watchable. Given the state of its central relationships, it’s impossible to imagine the show continuing like this for long. But the brass at Bravo are well aware of that, and are shrewdly using season two to reintroduce some legacy Vanderpump players who might stick around after the original cast quits.
This season, the Lallys bicker over custody of their youthful daughter and take shots at each other’s up-to-date partners—which is how Vanderpump Rules MVP Scheana Shay gets back in the mix. When Michelle tells us that a friend told her Jesse’s girlfriend is also dating someone else, the friend is all too elated to confirm the rumor on-camera. That friend, of course, is Shay. Tom Schwartz—who, like Taylor and Sandoval, saw his Valley Village home broken apart on reality TV—also appears alongside Doute, trying to pull their friend Jax out of his spiral. Cartwright is threatening to take full custody of their son and file a restraining order if Taylor doesn’t complete a 30-day stint at a mental health facility. Says the now 45-year-old reality star: “You know I’ve hit rock bottom when Kristen Doute shows up at your house before noon to talk about your fucking issues.”
As Jax Taylor braves his lowest point, Stassi Schroeder may have landed the cushiest gig on reality TV. She and her brood are summer-long guests at Lisa Vanderpump’s Castello Rosato in Italy, where Vanderpump Villa has relocated after its France-set first season. While attempting to become an Italian citizen like her husband Beau Clark (whom viewers first met on Vanderpump Rules), Schroeder is enlisted to be Vanderpump’s “eyes and ears” among the junior staff. She proves to be less a watchdog than a cheeky sounding board for the employees—the Tim Gunn to Vanderpump’s Heidi Klum, if you will.
Although she does work wonders on a up-to-date cast member named Aidan, a self-proclaimed Virgo and empath who speaks almost exclusively in riddles, like “I am an artist, but I don’t like putting brush strokes over people” and “I don’t need WiFi for a confession.”
“What the fuck?” Schroeder retorts. “What does that mean?”
Schroeder and Doute were both fired from Vanderpump Rules after they allegedly called the police on one of the show’s only recurring Black cast members. That history is only briefly acknowledged: when Vanderpump asks why she’d want to return to reality TV, Schroeder replies, “If we really wanna be real here, I didn’t ask to leave your world.” But it’s clear that Villa is meant to be a launching pad for Schroeder’s own upcoming Hulu series, Stassi Says. And it shows just how good she is at this. While other would-be reality stars fight to pull focus, Schroeder floats into frame, Aperol Spritz in hand, for a spirited reality TV homecoming that Bravo surely wishes it had nabbed.
Schroeder’s arrival isn’t the only savvy change Villa has made to its format. Vanderpump finally brings stakes to the summer—offering the season’s top employee a $30,000 bonus and a position working at one of her other businesses. But Villa focuses more on the soapy shenanigans of sizzling singles sharing dormitory-style lodging. Episodes still feel long, but the show as a whole is lighter on its feet. Think High School Musical 2 meets the Italy season of The White Lotus—if a lot more twerking had been involved.
Hulu also dabbles in a genius bit of cross-promotion when stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives stops by the Villa. The crossover is opulent enough to provide ample material for both series. Even better, it gives us the opportunity to hear Vanderpump purr the words “Mormon mummies.”
COMMENTS