The Valley Recap: Image Rehab
Did we really need a supersize episode for Jax to come out of rehab and immediately prove that he has changed as much as the stern and stony faces on Mt. Rushmore? No, we surely did not, and as an illustration, let’s just look at a few of his more ridiculous quotes, shall we? My favorite, obviously, is “I just got out of rehab. I want to go out.” This is in reference to the party at Jesse’s that Zack is throwing for his boyfriend, Benji, now that he’s back from exile in the frozen northern lands of Canada. (I think making it the 51st state is a stupid idea, but that sure would solve a lot of immigration problems for Zack.) Yes, that is Jax’s first thought when he gets home: how he can go to a party where alcohol and other substances are served — right after he gets a fresh fade and a top-up on his Botox, of course.
But Jax wants it to be known, very clearly, that he is not giving up drinking. He’s not drinking now because he doesn’t want to, but he is still going to be drinking in the future. Is this supposed to be a promise or a threat? Jax is not a quitter, and he fully intends to go back to alcohol. Why? Because his problem isn’t drugs and/or alcohol; his “drug of choice” is anger. That’s like saying that you’re giving up sugar because it makes your acne worse — but you’re giving up sugar only until the breakouts are gone. Then, when the skin is clear, you go back to the Snickers and Nerds Rope, and guess what? So many zits that not even 19 packets of Starface patches will help. That’s Jax and drinking, so maybe he shouldn’t go to a party just yet. Isn’t there a sound bath or something he can attend? Maybe go get a Vampire Facial?
The next quote occurs when Jesse drops Jax off at home and decides that the house he and Brittany share — the same house he stopped paying the mortgage on yet refers to as “[his] house,” as if he has complete control over it — must go on the market immediately. He says, “No woman needs a five-bedroom house, seven-bath. You are a woman with a child. Get something like a three-bedroom that is manageable as a woman.” Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Does he mean it’s not manageable as a woman because women naturally make less money than men, so she won’t be able to afford it? Does he mean that a woman without a man doesn’t have the capability to care for and clean a house that big? It sure looks as though Brittany was able to manage both the payments and cleaning on this one, so what is Jax even talking about?
The last quote is just a classic Jax misinterpretation, like when he doesn’t know what full custody means or when he says partaked, which is not a word. This comes out when he is erroneously accusing Brittany of keeping “[his] son” from him. “I don’t have a leg to stand on right now. I’ve done everything she asked, and I’m still being punished,” he says. He is correct: He doesn’t have a leg to stand on because he is the one who got angry at Brittany, punched the wall, and threw furniture, and that is why he needed to go to rehab for 30 days. But that’s not what he means. He means that even though he has done everything Brittany asked of him, she isn’t giving him any benefits. That is what he thinks the leg is. He thinks not having a leg to stand on means he is being denied something, and, God, not only is this man toxic, but he’s also dumb.
There were some non-Jax things to happen in this episode, the worst of which is Jesse keeping his daughter, Isabella, from seeing her dying grandmother, but this week, let’s just do the thing that Jax wants the most and really focus on him. Don’t worry — we won’t be saying anything positive.
Well, I’m going to say some positive things, but they’re about everyone else on the cast handling him perfectly. First up is Kristen Doute, who continues to shock me with each passing day as the voice of reason in this cast. Jax brings up how mad he is that Brittany and the gang took over his bar and turned it into “Britt’s” for a day. Kristen responds, “It was fun and funny. Let her have her moment.” Jax says that she had her moment for 30 days while he was away. Oh, so while he was in rehab, not paying the mortgage or taking care of their child, and was spying on her in her own house and rage-texting her every chance he got, that was her moment? Yeah, sounds real fun! He then tells Kristen that she better have been spending a lot of time with Cruz, which is when Kristen really turns and says that he better never question the way she is raising their son because, well, she’s not only doing more and paying for more and parenting more … I have nothing to add to that. She’s doing it all, and yet Jax refers to him as “my son.”
The party at Jesse’s is well attended, which is shocking considering no one can figure out how to open the front door. Still, no one seems to want to tussle with Jax. At one point, he is standing in the kitchen near Scott, Jesse’s “life coach.” Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do not let that walking supplement commercial anywhere near Jax. We don’t need him making Jax somehow worse than he already is. These two will start a podcast that will somehow get the ghost of Chuck Woolery elected president.
Luckily, someone else enters the kitchen who knows just how to handle Jax, and it is Zack. Speaking of Kristen-like transformations, first-season villain Zack has also become something of a hero, single-handedly dismantling Jax with the ease of opening another Monster Energy from the branded fridge that sits on his counter. Everything Jax says Zack has a rejoinder for. He makes fun of Jax’s crappy rehab that let him leave to go to the house; he picks on Jax for spying on Brittany and texting her all the time; he accuses him of not taking any of the therapy he did seriously. All excellent points. When Jax says that they’re not going to bring up things he did five years ago, Zack says he’s bringing up things he did five days ago.
The best part happens when Jax tries to leave the conversation by saying, “It’s my show. My show. My show. Not yours.” First of all, this is not his show. If you listen to fans and read the comments online, it seems as if people are tired of Jax and happy that the season is centering on the Jesse-Michelle breakup and whatever drama Janet is currently unfolding. Yes, Jax might have gotten it green-lit, but just like the last time he referred to a Bravo property as his show, I would love to see him get canned immediately after those words left his clenched jaw. Zack still has the perfect response: “Not for the last 30 days it wasn’t!” Sick burn.
Though Tom Schwartz has done nothing in his life other than ally himself with some of the dirtiest dogs to ever roll around in the mud, he still manages to tell Jax the truth. When Jason and Tom are helping Jax move from his house to the townhouse next to Schwartz’s, Jax says he’s not going to bow to Brittany’s wishes until she lets him see “[his] son.” Jason tells him that is a bad idea, and Tom says, “Just say, ‘Yes, anything you want. Done.’” Yes, exactly! The way to get Brittany to be nice to him is, shockingly, being nice to her. Thirty days in rehab and he still didn’t figure that out. What a waste of $60,000 and all of our time. When Jax expresses that he wants to be cool with Brittany like Tom is now cool with his ex, Katie Maloney Schwartz Maloney, Tom says, “That all depends on how you handle yourself for the next six months to a year. That is so attainable. You just can’t go back to reptilian-brain Jax.” How is Schwartz both so wise and yet friends with the worst people on Bravo? It’s like Yoda getting a job at Miramax.
Of course, no one knows how to deal with Jax like Brittany. She points out that he’s always the victim in his own story. She victimizes him the best when she tells us all about Frank Dremon, the Finsta that Jax created to post positive comments on Stories about himself. “He’s a legend,” Frank posted on a Story about Jax going to rehab. He also rebuts other users in the comments, coming to Jax’s defense. When Brittany shows Janet the account, she also discovers that Jax, while logged into that account, DM’d Brittany like he was talking to her directly from his own account. Janet says that this is cringe and sad at the same time. And it is. This is where Jax is: so lacking restraint, so lacking friends, so lacking support, so lacking anything that would make him a functional member of society that he is posing as another man to defend himself, because no one else would. What kind of monster would do that?
The saddest moment, though, comes when Jax is moving into his new place, and there is a knock on the door, and the process server hands him a manila envelope. Oh, this is about our podcast, Jax thinks. Wait, what? Did he do something about the podcast? Is he prepared to get sued over something else? But no, it’s divorce papers. It’s over for Jax. It may be his show, it may be his stardom, it may be his life, but it’s unraveling one measly shred at a time. He stands in the kitchen fighting back tears and tamping down his anger, but neither of those things will help him. Nothing will help him except change, and that is both the hardest thing and the furthest thing from his mind. He should be thinking of ways to improve, exercise empathy, and put the Golden Rule we all learned in grade school to good use. He should be thinking about how to exit this relationship amicably and how to be a good role model for his son to make him into a better man. But he’s not. He’s just staring down that envelope, wondering what it means, thinking about how long it will take to recharge his golf cart.