Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: Bravo, Entertainment, Tom Sandoval, VPR
Marissa Dow
After the finale of all finales, everyone’s been wondering: Will Vanderpump Rules return? It sure felt like a proper ending, but when there’s still money on the table you can’t count anything out and the first part of the season 11 reunion already showed that there is still unfinished business to be exploited on television with this crew. It seems like since the reunion aired, even Sandoval’s biggest defenders during the season have come to realize they may or may not have been on the wrong side of history (cough Scheana cough). As she recently realized on Scheananigans, Sandoval broke the group in an unprecedented way. Now that everyone from West Hollywood to Tom’s boot camp in New Zealand can see it, what are the odds Sandoval will leave the show? Next to none, if you ask me. But should the Bravo give the world’s whiniest villain the boot? Not yet. Let me explain.
As previously predicted by your friendly Bravo astrologist, Tom Sandoval would rather eat a dick flute full of legos than quit the show. The chances of him leaving voluntarily when he can continue feed his ego and his growing list of friends on payroll through screentime, whether it’s negative or not, feels like it hovers somewhere around a hard 0.0%. In fact, Tom spent the end of the finale ranting about how hard he works for VPR unlike his “lazy” ex-girlfriend (who has about three full-time jobs right now) of course ending with his creepy Robert Durst audition where he reveled in the rest of cast finally seeing his side of things. Walking away from the platform he treasures, especially when Schwartz and Sandy’s is still recovering from the scandal, seems unfathomable.
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It pains me to type this but: no, and here’s why. Sandoval is already playing the martyr for being held accountable for his actions by fans and the world for literally one season. (Yes Tom, CNN can cover your mind-blowingly messy break-up and the war against Ukraine at the same time). The length of the saddest song that Tom would play on the world’s smallest violin would be longer than his entire relationship with Ariana. Plus, now that Lala and Scheana have seen how moonlighting as the devil’s advocate has worked out horribly for them, they all deserve to duke it out over who got played the hardest, without the popularity contest against Ariana skewing the girls’ perception. I hope the show, if it stays alive, will bring in fresh faces from James and Ally’s circle. Wouldn’t it be so delicious to watch Sandoval be relegated into irrelevance by his own tired storylines while constantly being asked to comment on Ariana’s overwhelming success? If he’s not fired in a way that he can spin as in defense of Ariana, then he’ll have no one to blame but himself. The idea of watching him fade away from our TV screams instead of kicking and screaming while being dragged brings me more peace than any screamo meditation session ever could. Or, if I’m being honest, firing him now works too. A win is a win.