Vanderpump Rules Premiere Recap: The Breakup Bunch

Nothing gets me wetter than a dramatic cold open at the beginning of a season premiere. The episode opened with an emotional retrospective of the tumultuous, alcohol-fuelled cesspit of misery that Tom and Katie called a relationship. Aside from Ron and Sam of Jersey Shore fame, these two human beings probably had the worst relationship of any reality stars I've ever seen and that's rich considering Jax Taylor spent eight seasons on this show. Although Schwartz never dragged Katie's bed into a hallway while she was still on it, he did pour beer on her orange hair.

After a miserable 12 years together, Katie finally decided to pull the plug on her black hole of a marriage. I want to say these two should've divorced years ago but in all honestly, they never should've gotten married to begin with. From day one, Tom never listened to her, he constantly chose anyone else's side over her and cheated with enough women to staff one of Lisa's restaurants. To top it off, they never had sex and were essentially roommates who spend their time either blackout brawling with each other or eating Taco Bell in bed. Enough was enough and society as a whole began to heal the day that Katie called it quits.

Schwartz still doesn't know the exact reasons why Katie broke up with him, mainly because he has the listening skills of Helen Keller. However, one rule the two settled on was not to hook up with anyone else in the group and considering this show is Vanderpump Rules, I think we can all guess how that turned out. We all know Tom hooked up with Raquel but I feel bad for Katie because there aren't even any hot guys in this group for her to have a hot revenge hookup with. All we've got is DJ James Kennedy and Tom Sandoval whose morphing into Michael Jackson before he died. Seriously, can someone perform a wellness check on Tom #1 because he went from being a hot WeHo "mactor" to looking like a 70-year-old gender-confused Asian lady? Make it make sense.

In all seriousness, Katie leaving Tom is probably the best decision she's made in her entire life. She spent the last 12 years of her life mothering an overgrown, ambitionless man-child who treated her like shit and sucked the soul out of her. I know being #TeamMaloney isn't a popular stance but if riding with Katie is wrong then I don't want to be right. At present, Tom and Katie are happily co-parenting their dogs and making it work as friendly exes but I give it three episodes and five tequila shots before their back to wishing death on each other and brawling in the street.

For the first time in a long time, this show finally feels like the garbage-soaked trainwreck it used to be and I couldn't be happier. Almost everyone is newly single and back in shitty WeHo apartments, which is how it should be. We don't want to see these people taking out mortgages and getting engaged, we want to see them skulling tequila, fighting with their exes and ruining their lives one bad decision at a time.

Speaking of bad decisions, DJ James Kennedy is drinking again which may be horrible for society as a whole or anyone who has to interact with him but it's amazing for us. Clearly, James has worked on himself during his two years of sobriety and he only initially quit after Raquel's ultimatum, so it makes sense that he picked the bottle back up following their split. If you're going to commit to sobriety you've got to do it for yourself, not your Bambi-eyed bitch of a girlfriend. No shade to Raquel, but there was no other way to finish that sentence.

From the moment Raquel Leviss and her innocent eyes bounced onto the scene with fairies and unicorns floating around her head she's never been my favourite. However in saying that, I'm here for her adopting a drunk, slutty alter ego for the upcoming season. Following her breakup with James, Raquel decided to use poor old Peter as a pawn to get under his skin. Watching these two bottom-of-the-totem-pole cast members flirt made my butthole clamp shut. Bless Peter's heart but if drunk midwestern girls didn't stop by Sur while visiting LA then I have no idea how he'd manage to pull any pussy. Also, how is he STILL the manager of Sur ten years later? If anyone deserves a promotion at this point, it's Peter.

Speaking of things that make me sad, why the fuck is Raquel still waiting tables? Surely she has enough IG endorsement deals that she doesn't have to rely on a $9 tip for running a plate of goat cheese balls to table six but I guess WeHo rent isn't cheap. Six weeks after his breakup with Raquel, James managed to find a woman with even fewer brain cells named Ally who he's declared is the love of his life. Let's be real, the true love of James' life is himself, then alcohol and then somewhere far down the list is Ally. Unless you're Pamela Anderson, it's impossible to find "the love of your life" within weeks of breaking up with your fiance but if that's what James needs to tell himself to sleep at night then it's fine by me.

Following all the breakups in the group, James *finally* admitted that he did cheat on Raquel with all those women who came out of the Sur alleyway to accuse him of such. I'm not surprised he stuck his penis in someone that wasn't his girlfriend, I'm just surprised he came clean about - but they're no longer together so he doesn't have anything to lose by telling the truth. Lala ALSO dropped a bomb that she and James cheated on Randall and Raquel with each other in the early days of their relationships. This admission was obviously designed to fuck with her pickleball-obsessed ex who is *definitely* tuning into this season while he does blow off a hooker's asshole.

Lala is still reeling from her split with Rand and has made it crystal clear that if you communicate with him she'll cut you out of her life faster than you can say, Range Rover. Lala broke up with Randall Emmett, or the Mini Harvey Weinstein as he's known around Sur, after he was caught cheating on her. I'm sure it's heartbreaking splitting up with the father of your child after he sticks his dick in someone that's not you but considering how they met, is she really surprised? For all intents and purposes, Lala was Randall's sugar baby until she became his main girl so it shouldn't come as a shock that he'd repeat the same pattern once they created their own family together.

At this point, Randall getting caught cheating is the least of his concerns. In an LA Times article, the fraudulent "producer" was accused of running a "casting couch" which is Hollywood speak for offering women roles in exchange for blowjobs, as well as getting his assistants to run cocaine for him. On top of this, he's also being sued for $25 million dollars across multiple lawsuits. While discussing the Randall drama, Lala channelled her best Erika Jayne impersonation and gave the girls her "I’ll remember who was with me and against" speech which she definitely practised in the mirror upwards of five times. Whatever the fuck Randall was up to definitely isn't at the same level as Tom Girardi's scandal, however, I guess Lala is the Erika Jayne of Vanderpump Rules but on a much smaller scale.

If you think about it those two women have had almost an identical reality TV trajectory. Both Lala and Erika were in relationships with rich older men and revolved their entire personalities around the lavish lifestyles they were living, only to break up with those men when the world found out how they really made their money. Now both ladies have downsized their lives and are solely dependent on their Bravo paychecks. They're also both obsessed with sex and can be raging cunts to their costars but that's neither here nor there.

After Lala gave the group strict instructions to cut Randall out of their lives, Tom Schwartz couldn't help but play pickleball with her estranged ex which was subsequently met with a rage text from Lala. This is why you shouldn't play pickleball. Not only is it a boring activity that has taken up way too much screen time on Bravo in the last two years but it's now driving a wedge between this group. Is Lala being overly dramatic but not allowing her friends to talk to her ex? Maybe, but unlike this dysfunctional group, not everybody wants their exes in their life after a breakup. If you're Lala's friend and she's set clear guidelines about communicating with her ex, you can either follow them and stay her friend or drop her and hang out with Rand. It's that simple.

I'm #TeamLala on this one. If you want to play pickleball with Randall, then play until your heart's content, it just means you won't have Lala in your life anymore. It's cut and dry but for a Libra like Schwartz, I understand the confusion.

As a Libra myself, I can confirm we're indecisive, diplomatic, social, avoidant creatures who don't like conformity and also want to serve a cute lewk in the process. Tom hanging out with Randall obviously wasn't malicious as he just wants harmony with everyone in his life. I understand his side of the argument completely, however, in this situation you can't have it both ways, which has always been Tom's biggest problem, aside from binge drinking. He needs to choose a side and stick to it, which is a challenge for Libras. I didn't want to take this recap to a place of astrology but sometimes there's no avoiding it.

Aside from Raquel's encounter with a man who had neither a face nor a shirt and Sandoval admitting he's invested ONE MILLION DOLLARS into Schwartz and Sandy's, nothing else notable really went down in the premiere. It's fine though because we need to save room for the rest of the season which shaping up to be just as iconic as the early days of the show. I can feel it in my bones!

Vanderpump Rules airs Wesnesday at 9/8c on Bravo. Stay tuned at Good Tea for our shady recaps and exclusive tea on the sexiest SURvers in LA!