This column originally appeared in Brian Moylan’s newsletter, The Housewives Institute Bulletin. Sign up here to be the first to read the next edition.

Here is an in-depth plan to save The Valley and turn it into one of Bravo’s most promising franchises.
Photo: Bravo

By any metric, The Valley should be blossoming. Look at the cast. Kristen Doute has never been more relatable. Brittany Cartwright has become the center of the show without the albatross of Jax Taylor hanging around her neck. While I was skeptical of Lacy Nicole, she turned out to be way less thirsty than I imagined, and her deadpan delivery is comedic perfection. Also, she’s just the check that Jesse Lally needed to go from totally intolerable to still intolerable but in a fun way. Michelle Saniei, without being shackled to a man, has come into her own and managed to pop out from a crowded field.

And yet this season shit itself in a Chili’s bathroom. It was due to the same story repeating all season and the cast being incapable of getting out of the vicious cycle. The Valley should be the freshest new franchise on Bravo and a blueprint on how to repurpose stars as they grow up. Here is my simple five-point plan for perfecting The Valley so it will stay with us for many years to come.

The reason this season sank like a concrete turd was that factions within the cast formed around whether people are loyal to Jason and Janet Caperna or Danny Booko and Nia Sanchez. The only way we can end this fight is to eliminate one of the sides. I know this will piss off plenty of fans, but I would suggest keeping Janet and Jason. Not only does Janet have deeper roots with most of the cast, but she gets the assignment better than the Bookos. She tried to find resolution, as well as she could, and push the story forward, but it was the Bookos who refused to push past it. It seems like these two aren’t ready for what it takes to be sound practitioners of the reality television arts and sciences. Even Seth Rogen hates them! Janet will continue to ruffle the feathers of Kristen, Zack Wickham, and, yes, most of the fan base, but without Danny and Nia to coalesce around, it will force a shifting dynamic that will be wonderful to behold.

There was nothing more painful to watch than Kristen going to an ’80s night at 6 p.m. weeks after giving birth when all she wanted to do was be nesting at home. The trip to Mexico was also excruciating as everyone tried to balance parenting with partying. Let’s be a bit more realistic about what is expected from the cast, particularly those with infants. How about more short weekend trips in the area where everyone can secure child care? How about game nights at each other’s houses? That’s what people in L.A. do anyway, and a RHOBH game night gave us one of the best episodes ever. Just because they partied in their 20s doesn’t mean they have to now. The show only works if they’re together and socializing, but let’s find a way where they’re hanging out without having to be miserable at the bar.

Lala Kent is an excellent addition to the cast and was the only one trying to break the Janet-versus-Bookos stalemate. But as good as she is in the group scenes and as funny as she is in her confessionals, Lala isn’t really delivering on the personal front. Sorry, sister, but we’re going to need a bit more. Some drama at home with her family? A dating life? Opening a new business? Hanging out with her ex’s ex-wife, as she does in real life? We need something to juice it up a bit.

With Danny and Nia gone, there is room for some replacements. I’d love to see some more gays — either a gay male or lesbian couple with kids, perhaps — to give Zack and Jasmine Goode something more to play off of. Bravo is great at finding suitable replacements, so I don’t want to tell them how to do a job they already do well, but, like a vampire on his lunch break, we need some fresh blood.

Or do we? I always say the future of Bravo shows is never in the past, but The Valley was always about rehabbing old stars for new uses. Scheana Shay still finds a way to weasel into countless reality-TV story lines; maybe it’s time to take her out of purgatory (and get that hot-ass husband of hers back on my screen). Tom Sandoval has also done his time, and considering his personal life imploding yet again, now might be a good time for him to reemerge. Just no Jax Taylor or DJ James Kennedy.

I don’t care how much money it takes, how many promises Bravo needs to make, or how many virgins we need to sacrifice, Michelle’s new boyfriend, Dr. Dre, needs to make an appearance. I don’t need him as a cast member. Just a few scenes with Michelle and one appearance at a party, like Kelsey Grammer in the first season of RHOBH. But if there’s any way to get a celebrity billionaire on The Valley, we need to take it. From there, we’re just two years away from Seth Rogen and his wife joining the cast.

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