It's Time to Get Over Scandoval and Admit Tom Sandoval is Excellent Trash TV

Friends, the moment Scandoval broke a few years ago, I knew Vanderpump Rules, the second-greatest reality show of all time, was over.

First, let me get something out of the way: I did not understand what the big deal with the whole thing was. (You know, VPR cast member Tom Sandoval was caught cheating on his long-time live-in girlfriend, Ariana Madix, who was also a castmate.) I don't say this to make myself seem above it all– as this post will demonstrate, I very much love to roll around in the mud for my own amusement. I just thought it was a foregone conclusion that scummy reality TV boyfriends cheat on their girlfriends. This is the entire premise of the damn show! It's how those two had gotten together in the first place! I had seen this man with my own eyes scamming on girls outside his dumb bar, TomTom, before it opened with other cast members. (Not Madix, obviously) And if I knew about it, surely everyone knew about it, right? Come on, now!

So why was it over when this silly little show finally broke into the mainstream a decade into its run? Simply put, because it attracted the wrong kind of person's attention.

Now, if you don't like reality TV (GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE), you may be operating under the assumption that every show in the genre is similar. I am here to assure you that it is not. I prefer mine far trashier, with terrible people willing to fight, scream, scheme, and generally do anything to keep the attention on them. I am, of course, a Bravo person. I don't mess with shows that even attempt some semblance of reality, like the Bachelor franchise. They're incredibly boring, vaguely Trump-y in a way I can't quite put my finger on, and a watered-down version of the good stuff. Basically, they're a glass of wine with too much ice, and I like my reality to be akin to a Four Loko chaser after chugging a pint of Long Island Iced Tea at 2 am after getting kicked out of the bar for bringing my own vodka in because the bartender waters down the shots.

I am not looking for heroes and villains when I sit down to watch my reality trash. I want to watch a coked-out lunatic take his shirt off and try to fight someone, anyone, in a parking lot and then get arrested for shoplifting sunglasses in Hawaii, and yes, I am describing the greatest reality show villain of all time, Jax Taylor. (Now you may think I'm meandering everywhere but hear me out, I'm about to take you home, and finally make a point. Not promising it will be good, but we'll get there in the end.)

The whole point of VPR was that they were (and most likely still are) all irredeemable, awful people who torment each other and then act surprised when bad things befall them. It was essentially the living embodiment of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's not that Sandoval broke bad, it's just that his castmates were simply more overtly awful than him so he was able to skirt under the radar.

Who gives a shit about him lowgrade tormenting his girlfriend when Stassi Schroeder is out there popping girls in the mouth for sleeping with her boyfriend and then sticking around after to stare them down in the aftermath, or Kristen Doute is chain-smoking cigarettes at work, telling her boss to "suck a dick"? She had her reasons, ok?!

Naturally, one can only be a monster for pay for so long until it catches up to them, and all of the best ghouls were fired from the cast for reasons that will not surprise you: racism, rumored raging narcissism (and also racism.) So, who gets left on the show? The incrementally less awful but exponentially less entertaining.

This is 600 words to point out that if Scandoval brought you in, the hook that led you to Bravo was the story of a woman scorned; not terrible people doing awful things to each other for entertainment. Essentially, Bravo people got forced into a Bachelor Nation storyline, and let me tell you: it has sucked!

It forced Sandoval and Madix into the show's lead characters. Those two were always much better in supporting roles. Sandoval wasn't out there physically fighting and getting arrested, but he was the one smugly bringing it up to people he shouldn't be talking to about it while simultaneously defending the shitty men of the cast at all costs because he's always been a weasel. But he's so deluded in his own abilities, and likeability, that dammit if I don't enjoy watching him.

Look--in your personal life, it's a good thing not to be head monster of a reality show. It means you have a shot at the Good Place in the afterlife. It also means you're dreadfully boring to watch, especially if you remember the show's roots. To add insult to injury, what once was a show where everyone was cheating on everyone became some weird woman scorned, girl power thing. Which, cool, yes, set your boundaries. But that's not what reality TV is about! At least my corner of the genre.

To be clear, I do not begrudge Ariana her success, and frankly I think VPR was long in the tooth before Scandoval happened. It bought them all an extra season to make some bank and figure out the next steps (please, oh, PLEASE, just don't let that involve Lala on the f-ing Valley. ENOUGH WITH HER.) What I do begrudge is the weird parasocial relationship people have with Sandoval and this hard-on for hating everything the man does, because do you even reality TV?!

We've established he cannot carry a show as a lead, but as a supporting cast member, especially when he's not getting a gentle edit from a VPR producer, he is GOLD. I lovingly refer to him as my Little Idiot on Traitors because he can't help himself. He thinks he's leading the charge to suss out all the Traitors and yet falls flat each time. It's delicious.

Then, we haven't even addressed the doll challenge, where he said with no hint of irony that he was the only one musically inclined in the cast, so it was his duty to carry out the challenge and save the day. So he sat there, listening to a doll hum a tune backward, memorized it, and then ran across the field while holding one finger in his ear as if the music would escape out of it in order to sing the tune into the phone. It was exquisite.

Finally we have his weird feud with Delores from Real Housewives of New Jersey. I think it's highly likely that he targets her for a Traitor not because he actually thinks she is (but who knows what goes on in that vapid space between his ears) but because he wants to be the last Bravo person standing in the show, as if that means anything. I don't know him, but I'm pretty sure to him, it would--because you KNOW it has ALWAYS stung to him that Jax once told him to "stop trying to be the number one guy in the group" because Jax was the number one guy of the group. If you think that's dumb and not amazingly entertaining, I don't know what to tell you. It's actually both. (Twist.)

...and there are people out there who would have this man banished from reality TV forever because he cheated on his girlfriend, and since we watched them on TV together, we're all somehow involved in that. Save that shit for the Bachelor!

I want this idiot on my screen for as long as possible. He's just about to reach the point where he's solidly in his 40s and then the real magic can begin. What was typical 20s shenanigans that he never grew out of can begin to take on an air "past your prime, escalating to stay young and relevant" desperation pretty soon. Kyle Cooke from Summer House is basically there. So is Sandoval. (Think of where the men of Southern Charm started, and then remind yourself how trashily fantastic the first seasons of that show were, and you get where I'm coming from.)

Look, the entire genre is inherently exploitative. I'm not arguing with you. I'm simply saying if you're one of the scolds who thinks Sandoval needs to stop existing because he cheated on the girlfriend he cheated on his last girlfriend with, I need you to get a grip and keep that crusade to yourself. He is the right kind of delusional for the genre, and if you can't see that, I suggest you go back to The Bachelor. I'm sure they have a new iteration of the franchise starting.