The Valley Recap: Aloha-ha-ha

Sometimes, when watching the latest Marvel nonsense or a movie like 28 Years Later, where you know the first movie is part of a planned trilogy, there is a small character, just a little blip, that stands out a little too much. Maybe he’s played by a famous person; maybe he has some crazy facial disfiguration; maybe he’s just so wackadoodle that he just doesn’t fit in with his surroundings. Whatever it is, that character makes you think, “Oh, he’s totally the villain in the next movie.” That is the exact vibe I get from Scott, Jesse’s “life coach,” who is insinuating himself into this show like the glitter from your child’s art project has a way of insinuating itself into your butt crack. Yes, it seems small now, but just wait. In three years, he is going to be running a cult that all the men are in, and Janet is trying to find a deprogramming expert to get her husband back. (This will not happen to Brock because, for all of his assets, he does not have a brain to be washed.)

At Scott’s urging, Jesse convenes a men’s group, which is like 16 Joe Rogan podcasts rolled into one and smells like Lynx Lower Body Spray and ZYN. Scott says they need a men’s group because only men can understand what other men are going through. Please. Have we not heard of empathy? Women understand what men are going through; they just think it’s bullshit and that men should grow the fuck up and try to live as a woman for even 30 seconds without their knees buckling, their eyes falling out of their heads, and their blood curdling until they’re just a pool of loose cells lying on the kitchen floor. Also, I am a man and don’t understand what they’re going through, so, um, yeah. (Speaking of which, why wasn’t Zack invited to this dudes’ summit? Only straights count as real men, I guess.)

Scott makes them all “circle up” and put their arms around each other like they’re about to play pickup basketball. At that moment, I realized what we were in for, and it was that men’s retreat where Teresa Giudice’s husband, Luis Ruelas, made that super embarrassing video with a group of grunting shirtless guys standing behind him. Scott tells the bros that if they have resentments toward each other, it comprises a list (insert NeNe Leakes “Okkkkk” GIF), so to clear the list, they have to stand in front of that man (insert NeNe Leaks “recoils in shock” GIF) and tell him his feelings while placing his hand on his chest (insert NeNe Leaks “It’s Getting Weird” GIF). I know NeNe is doing my reacting here, but I physically gagged when Scott told them what to do. Like, I almost barfed up the peanut butter and jelly on toast I had for breakfast when this whole plan came onto my television screen. What’s the matter with men? Girl, I couldn’t tell you, but this is not the way to fix it.

Most of this list clearing is of no consequence. Jesse apologizes to Luke for something that happened a year ago, while Jason and Danny apologize to each other and immediately fall into forgiveness. Meanwhile, Jax Taylor turns on the tears so crocodile-like that Scheana Shay tries to skin him and make him into a fake Birkin. Things get a little interesting when all the guys accuse Danny of hiding his drinking, which he seems to cop to. However, Scott explains that he did it because all men are sneaky and squirrelly. Um, is he sure about that? Are we trusting a man who looks like he wears a knit beanie indoors in the summertime? We’re not now because he just told us he’s sneaky and squirrelly. Also, are we just going to let him excuse Danny’s bad behavior because that is what all men do?

While the boys are at Jesse’s being slowly introduced to the manosphere, the women are at El Coyote having dinner. It was such a weird scene. They are all packed into one horseshoe-shaped booth with Janet and Michelle on one end and Kristen and Nia on the other end. Suddenly Janet is flopping around and spilling nonsense like one of those singing trout your hillbilly uncle has on his wall. Michelle is upset because she thinks Kristen introduced Jenna, the weird girl who used to date Michelle’s boyfriend, Aaron, to the group. It was Zack! We all saw it. We all know it. Zack is even taking credit for it. Why is she blaming Kristen? I swear, this whole show is just people blaming others for starting rumors they didn’t start.

Janet starts screaming at Kristen for this slight that wasn’t even her doing; she insists she’s trying to hold Kristen accountable. Kristen storms out, and Jasmine, in confessional, tells us that Janet is doing too much. Thanks, Jasmine. Next, she’s going to tell us that Jax is a raging narcissist with substance abuse problems. What would we do without her?

Nia is pulled into the fray and starts crying, saying it’s “too intense.” Janet tells her that she is always crying when it gets too intense and then blames Nia for spreading the rumor that Jason wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, a rumor that she had already falsely pinned on Jasmine when it was Kristen who started it. This is just like a game of Musical Recriminations, but when the music stops, everyone has a seat, but it is somehow in the wrong chair.

Later, at a totally unnecessary field day, Janet says that she is blaming Nia and Danny for the rumor because Kristen spread it to defend them. What? This lady makes no sense. It’s not like Nia and Danny asked Kristen to start this rumor in their defense; that’s just Kristen being Kristen. That’s like getting upset at Luke when he wants to do a nitrous balloon in the parking lot of a Phish concert. She’s so wrong. She’s even more wrong than the coverup Brittany wears in Hawaii, which neither covers her body nor is up.

Before we can get to the Hawaii trip, there is some very important business to take care of. Luke has to drop his gecko off at Kyle Chan’s because, of course, the jeweler to the (reality) stars also moonlights as a reptile babysitter. I don’t even need to come up with a mean description for Luke in this paragraph because I think he and Kyle did it all on their own.

Brittany and Jax are also supposed to have a sit-down where they talk about how they’re going to co-parent. It’s unclear how long Jax has been out of rehab at this point, but he still hasn’t seen his son. When Brittany is late, he accuses her of always being late in a way that sounds just like he said, “Women be shoppin’!” Then he calls her and finds out that she is not attending because she woke up to her DMs full of photos of Jax getting wasted at his bar the night before and hanging out with girls. She says he’s been gone to rehab for 30 days and hasn’t changed at all.

Jax says that they’re separated and that Brittany doesn’t get to tell him what to do with his free time anymore, and, ugh, I hate to admit it, but he’s right. Jax can hang out with all the girls he wants. Jax can invite them all over and eat them out one by one if he wants, not that he would do that because I don’t think he has ever gone down on a woman. The point is, he could, even though he wouldn’t. She has no say over the matter. The drinking, however, is a different story. If he’s still regularly abusing drugs and alcohol and expects that he’s going to be able to care for his son unsupervised for days at a time, then that is surely Brittany’s problem. She should have showed up to tell him that to his face, but it is still her problem.

Then everyone (except Jax, thank the Catholic Jesus) is off to Hawaii, where Jesse gets upgraded to the presidential suite, only to find out that he has to share it with Zack and Benji, who won’t get out of the party shower. Most of the attention is initially on Jason and Janet and Nia and Danny, who have a little confab in the pool. Janet starts by apologizing for yelling at Nia at the girls’ dinner and says she had too much to drink. “That early in the evening?” Nia asks with an aggression so passive that every one of my English neighbors showed a sign of respect. They decide to move on with each other, and then Janet thanks them for still inviting her on the trip, adding that she wouldn’t have invited them. Yeah, Janet. We know.

Then, attention turns to Jesse and Aaron, Michelle’s boyfriend, who has come on the trip. First of all, Aaron is giving us body tea on the beach, so much tea that he’s going to have to put some honey in it, honey. Jesse is mad that Aaron is dating a woman who is still his wife and hasn’t called him, “as a man,” to say that he’s spending a lot of time with his daughter and to ask if he has any boundaries. I’m sorry, but that’s not the way this works. Jesse should communicate his boundaries regarding his daughter and her relationship with other men in Michelle’s life, and it is up to Michelle to decide whether or not she wants to enforce those boundaries. Jesse and Aaron do not have any relationship, as men or otherwise.

This is what Jesse, Scott, Jax Taylor, and all the rest of the people who are about to fall under the spell of a man who sports an unironic goatee fail to understand. Their relationships with each other “as men” are absolutely useless unless the women in their lives are taken care of. Sit around and clear your lists and grab your balls and howl at the moon as much as you like, but I’ll tell you one thing, boys, none of you are as important as you want to be, and none of you are as in control as you think you are.