Bravo is a cathedral to many and a sanctuary for the world’s most sordid souls. And no one inhabits more raw evil per capita than Jax Taylor, TV’s biggest villain.
Fresh off a series where he caused a woman to relapse by dumping her at an AA meeting, cheated on his girlfriend with her co-star and best friend, forced a boob job upon his fan-turned-girlfriend, lied, cheated some more, and lied again, Jax entered The Valley ready to prove his version of “adulting” is just learning new paths to sociopathy.
That’s already come to a head in the second episode of Season 2, where an enraged Jax crashes out in the most disturbed way possible. It starts with Kristen Doute—the newly minted voice of reason—sitting him down for some tough love. Immediately, Jax justifies throwing chairs at and around Brittany by saying, “No, I’m not justifying it, but I didn’t just do it for nothing!”
He then says he hasn’t been happy since his son was born, and “I would kill to be happy.” He probably has, for what it’s worth. Just off-screen is a body buried in that backyard. All alleged.
It’s a conversation that shows the inauthenticity of Jax’s healing journey. He denies calling Brittany ugly and fat—something Kristen immediately refutes—and excuses his abusive behavior, all while donning merch for his little bar. He’s completely deluded by his life in his TV bubble, to the point he thinks he just has to say and do “all the right things” and he’ll magically be forgiven, healed, and back to a place of neutrality with the audience, and therefore himself.
Lucky for us, Jax’s delusion runs most rampant in his moments of self-awareness. He’s simply too unhinged to be calculated, proudly nailing himself to the cross all on his own.
Jax’s last scene before checking into rehab is an absolute shocker, one of the rawest moments Bravo has aired in recent history. Immediately, Jax goes into a rampage, accusing Brittany of having his ex-best-friend/her alleged lover over, then he tells her, “You ruined my life.”
Venom comes out of all ends as Jax “spirals out of control” (in his own words), launching into a tirade of pure hatred. He threatens Brittany with documented “proof” of her promiscuous behavior and violation of their rules with their son, lambasting her for hooking up with one man while, in the same breath, justifying letting a woman into their shared home the night before.
Things go from ugly to nasty when Brittany finally says the unspoken truth: Jax is addicted to cocaine. It’s not quite a shock—unless you watch this show with your ears plugged and eyes closed—but it is a big step forward for the Bravo-verse, one where accusations of cheating and alcohol abuse run rampant, but the C-word is rarely uttered.
“Give me a drug test right now. I will pass! Will you?” Brittany shoots at Jax. Maybe the most surprising thing of all is how Brittany stays so strong in the face of the fight, having long been the queen of deflecting all Jax’s wrongdoings to display a thinly veiled facade of perfection.
With Jax off to rehab, Brittany—an imperfect victim, in so many ways—has become an unlikely lead, someone who you don’t need to like, but you can’t help but sympathize with. He’s gone down in flames (surely to rise ten times as evil), but this time feels different. Finally, the hierarchy of power has shifted.
The Vanderpump Rules universe has always been a hotbed for misogyny—it runs at the core of the entire show’s ethos, from its beginning as a home for wayward men to its post-Scandoval “girl power” era that was more focused on telling a woman to f— herself with a cheese grater than any meaningful retribution.
The Valley doesn’t just excel at diving head-on into the disturbed energy stuck in the suburbs. It excels by doing what Vanderpump Rules could never: holding men to account for their nefarious behavior, and reveling in the complex nature of a woman scorned, from Janet to Michelle and everyone’s favorite comeback story, Kristen.
Jax is off to rehab for 30 days—which could be anywhere from half an episode to half a season, knowing Bravo—and the woman who infiltrated “his show” calls the shots now.
