Speakerphone Suckerpunch
Season 12
Episode 8
Editor’s Rating
1 stars
*
The SLO trip is sleepy, messy, and, well, too slow.
Photo: Griffin Nagel/Bravo
You’re trying to tell me that I spent $69 (har) of my own money on Chris and Jason’s OnlyFans massage video and we’re not even going to talk about it this episode? I cranked my … I mean, I cracked open my bank account and now we’re not even going to benefit from my “research” because all the SUR-vers are getting along and no one bothered to bring it up to Audrey? It was clearly in the preview at the end of the last episode — what kind of (master)bait and switch is that?
That’s because there was nothing to preview in this episode, because it is even sleepier than Kim on a melatonin weed gummy. Angelica and Shayne have a discussion about it when they’re alone in the hot tub. Angelica says she saw some “pretty alarming” things in the identical cousins’ OnlyFans content, that they’re oiling each other up and spreading each other’s asses. Shayne doesn’t believe it. He says there is no way they are “cracking each other open” but then adds that when he found out how much they make on OF, they should get that money however they can. Shayne also tells her a story about when he was 14 and his cousin brought his girlfriend over so that he could teach Shayne how to make women (oh, Catholic Jesus, forgive me for what I am about to say in a Pump Rules recap) squirt. He says there was nothing incestuous about that, but then Angelica jumps out of the hot tub, starts flinging water everywhere, and screams as if she’s Kevin McCallister and she just discovered her whole clan is on a plane to France. Okay, she didn’t really do that, but she kinda did.
Shayne’s point is that people do crazy stuff, but Shayne is more perceptive than we might think. In his confessional, he says everyone in the group is cool with Chris and Jason and if Angelica starts spreading rumors about them, she might end up making enemies. Damn, I am not ready for someone this intelligent to be on Pump Rules.
He’s so smart that he should probably dump Angelica. She should constantly be underneath someone’s arm, because she’s just the pits. She’s moping all around the vacation house, saying “Imagine not knowing” about Audrey not knowing the kind of content Chris makes. Oh, get over it. Then, when they’re at the street fair later in the episode, Shayne gets a pulled-pork sandwich that has more meat than either Jason or Chris is packing. (I can’t wait to tell you about the video!) He offers some to Natalie, and she takes a bite, then Angelica sulks over to Demy, saying that Shayne shouldn’t have offered her any sandwich. Demy points out that he offered some to everyone, and she’s like, “Yeah, but he shouldn’t have offered any to someone he went on a date with.” Oh, get over it. Last week, it was him kissing Audrey in a music video, and now this. You’ve been on one date with this dude! He already told you he doesn’t want to be monogamous, and you’re getting this butthurt and quivery-lipped because Natalie had some of his foot-long? Put her in the penalty box, and never let her out.
Speaking of Natalie, it looks as though the flirtation between her and Jason is heating up as the Love Island–ification of this show continues apace. Natalie needs to get out while she’s still alive, because Jason — for as handsome as he is and as good as he is at flirting with all of Lisa Vanderpump’s wine-industry mamacitas — is not the pumpiest penis in the penis pump. What I mean to say is that Jason is a little dumb. First, he has to ask what empathetic means. Then he says he has no idea what a ziti is. Girl. You are an Italian American from New Jersey and you don’t know what a ziti is? What in the Kathy Wakile’s cannoli kit is this guy talking about? That’s like Ben Affleck asking someone what wicked means.
All of the couples in the house seem to be doing well. Yes, Marcus and Kim are back together, and she was invisible for most of the episode while Marcus walked around slurring his words, drinking everything in sight, and then shirking all of his professional duties the next day. But did Lisa even need a full staff at this event? There was a two-to-one staff-to-attendee ratio at this party. Half of these people could have been back at the house doing breathwork with Shayne.
Chris and Audrey did have a bit of a hiccup. When everyone is getting ready to go serve Lisa’s friends, Jason’s twin brother, Justin — the only person on earth who looks more like Jason than Chris — calls and is on speakerphone talking about their upcoming trip to Bali. Justin says, “Yeah, we’re going to fuck mad bitches.” Audrey gets a little upset because, ugh (and I cannot state this enough), men. The episode strings the tension out on this, but when she and Chris finally chat, it’s no big deal. She says it was just the first indication that things with them aren’t going perfectly, but he reassures her that he likes her, she reassures him she likes him, then they go and make out in the middle of the street in downtown San Luis Obispo, or SLO, as the locals call it.
There’s a moment when it’s all couples — Kim and Marcus (barf), Shayne and Angelica (barf), Natalie and Jason (let’s see), and Audrey and Chris (aww) — and Demy and Venus are wondering how they got left out of all this. This leads to an extensive discussion of Venus’s sex life, and I was shocked to learn that he has not made out with a guy in seven years. What? Venus! These are seven of your hottest, most potent hole-as-smooth-as-silk years, and you’re wasting them hiding out in Winnetka, stroking your lapdogs. Honey. Get your ass on Sniffies, start a group, and welcome yourself to the club.
I shouldn’t press Venus into being the gay slut I was in my 20s. He may be looking for love and not sex, but to not kiss a guy? I mean, I could go to the WeHo CVS on Santa Monica and La Cienega right now and find three guys to smooch. Venus says that no one in WeHo hits on him because he is not big and muscular. Okay, that’s tea. She spilled with that, but Venus is a hot young man with a great body. Yes, there is nowhere on earth where the superficial body standards are worse than in L.A., and WeHo specifically, but I can still get laid there. (Don’t tell my husband.) Anyway, Akbar and Silver Lake are only a Waymo away. Get to the other side of town and find someone who is going to love a lithe little ginger like yourself. Don’t think too small.
When the gang is out at a bar in SLO, there’s an odd scene in which a dude comes over to talk to Venus and Audrey, and he is really hot. He’s giving arms, tats, good hair, strong jaw, Jon Hamm realness (at least from the waist up). Everyone gives Venus a hard time for not flirting back with this Kevin fella. But here’s the problem: He’s in a straight bar full of straight people in a straight town. Part of why gay guys won’t flirt in a place like that is safety. Like Venus says, he doesn’t know if that guy is gay, and if he went a little too far, especially looking the way Venus looks, he’s going to get his ass beaten faster than Marcus is going to drain an open bottle of rosé. Speaking of Marcus, he tries to be a wingman and goes to find the guy, who says he’s there with a girl but they’re not on a date. I don’t know — I was getting straight from that dude, but Marcus invites them both to join them as they party that night.
At the next bar, they’re prepping Venus to flirt with Kevin and giving him lessons. Chris takes it upon himself to seduce Venus, which mostly just involves him making eyes and then eating a cherry off a toothpick before asking Venus if he’s a top. Okay. Great question. But right now, Venus is not anything. He’s not even a side. He’s an under. Chris won’t make out with Venus, though, so Marcus does, and then Venus makes out with Audrey, and then he makes out with Natalie. Natalie and Audrey make out, then the boys give lap dances. They’re all grinding and making out and sucking face and bumping uglies and then, as if he teleported in from the shadows of the dance floor, there’s a very old ponytail right in the middle of the action. “Hey, guys, do you think I can get in on this?” Peter Madrigal asks as everyone looks up from their couples to wonder whose ex-husband this is.
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