Steph J

Now Sandoval's going to re-write history regarding his friendship with James? You don't shell out that kind of money for someone who isn't really a friend... unless, of course, you were really spending the money for Rachel. Was this thing going on last season, too? Lol, you know Sandoval would rather set himself on fire than take accountability for anything.

Worm with white nails. Why is the white nail polish the thing he can commit to?

Rachel is "hoping for the best"? What would "the best" even look like in this situation? 'Cause everyone's not going to just shrug and say "You do you, girl."

Yes, but what Dex has that Spencer doesn't is the plot armor accorded to the Carlys and those they favor. As long as he's Carly-adjacent, he'll always come out on top and humiliate his enemies.

God, Carly is such an irredeemable hosebeast. Her rationalization that her engaging in insider trading shouldn't count because she lost money is basically Sideshow Bob's "Attempted murder? Now, honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?" I like Sonny and Nina, I can't help it. It's amazing how breaking up Sonny and Carly and pairing him with Nina has made him 10x more likeable, while pairing her with Drew has taken Drew from "Oh, Cameron Mathison is on GH now? Okay, I guess" to "Get him off my screen, get him off now!" The show very much needs to take a break from Carly as a character. Her dramatic purpose has long since been exhausted and all she does now is go around town being a bitch to people just for the sake of it - and not in a fun way like Tracy does. Send her away on one of those six month vacations that Anthony Geary always used to get and let the show breathe a little in her absence.

He left Brenda at the altar in 1997, which was his exit story when Maurice Benard decided to leave the show. It would have been a great ending for the character, who from 1993-97 played out a solid three act arc that saw him rise to power, have power, and then lose everything that mattered because his power made him a target. He was gone for about 15 months and then returned and started consuming the show.

Michael: Dex can just go to Canada and start a new life. On behalf of Canadians everywhere, please don't send us your trash, Michael.

It also doesn't help Arianna. Sandoval used his and Arianna's shared asset (the house) to fund the bar. If the bar fails before it even gets off the ground, then Arianna is just as screwed as Sandoval because all they'll have to split is debt. I think the fact that word broke just as the season got underway is why this became such a big deal. The timing made the audience watch the show with detectives' eyes and now we've all seen how the sausage is made in terms of how the Toms operate. It's one thing to believe that they're manipulative; it's another to watch it unfold a piece at a time week after week.

It's your prerogative if you want to feel bad for Schwartz, but bear in mind that he already knew about the affair when he went on Rachel's birthday trip and made a joke to Arianna's face that she'd better watch out for Rachel because she likes men who are taken. I imagine Arianna must feel especially hurt and humiliated when she looks back on moments like that and realizes that the trio weren't laughing with her about the absurdity of the statement but laughing at her because she didn't know the truth and they were getting away with it. It wasn't on Schwartz to tell her, but he could have at least had enough respect for her not to make jokes about it at her expense.

Sandoval cheated because Arianna emasculated him? Give me a break. Sandoval cheated because that's what he does - his history demonstrates that. When he got caught and people tried to hold him accountable, he tried to DARVO because that's what he does - his history demonstrates that. Arianna told him what she needed for them to resume physical intimacy. Sandoval didn't want to do the work to fix that aspect of their relationship, and maybe that's because he already knew that he wanted out of the relationship so it seemed pointless, but he didn't do the work to end the relationship, either. Arianna's got flaws of her own. The relationship was never as strong as the way they presented themselves publicly. There were problems aside from the cheating. All of that can be true and none of it matters because at the end of the day, the reason that they're in the emotionally volatile situation they're in right now is because Sandoval is the kind of selfish person who would rather risk hurting someone than risk his own comfort by committing himself to do something difficult (break up). I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out that Sandoval "forgot" to delete the video (which is apparently his normal practice, per his talking head) in the hopes that Arianna would find it and do the work of ending the relationship so that he didn't have to.

Congrats, Sandy, you've done it. After years of never agreeing with Scheana "Always on the wrong side of history" Shay, I've now finally seen a scene where I'm with her all the way.

Schwartz: "Me, me, me, me, me." Ain't no one feel bad for you right now, bitch.

Schwartz seriously texted Arianna and: 1. Immediately tried to distance himself from the blowback by claiming that he told Sandoval he needed to come clean 2. Claims that Sandoval was going to tell her, but she found out the truth first 3. Has the gall to say "hope you don't have too much ill will" 4. Complains about the amount of backlash he's getting and the anxiety that it's giving him. You know what that text doesn't say at any point? I'm sorry. The word sorry does not appear anywhere in that block of text.

Imagine not having the willpower to resist Tom Sandoval. With that moustache. With that white-out looking nail polish. With that "let me insert myself into this conversation just so I can scream at a woman" energy.

"I'm not complicit in this," says guy who knew about the affair months before Arianna and spent the season trying to help Sandoval set up his exit from the relationship narrative. Scumbags, both of them.

Sandoval is basically the personification of the narcissist's prayer: That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.

Table for two, please. Sandoval: "I didn't want to hurt you." Translation: I didn't want to deal with your justified anger at me.

In real life, sure, but she'd be on the soap opera accelerated learning program where you decide that you want to be a doctor and then 20 episodes later you're in med school and then a year after that you're starting your internship, and then two years after that you're in the running to become chief of staff. Which is especially galling when you remember that all those years when Robert and Anna were thought to be dead and Robin was still a child at home, needing to be taken care of, Robert was roaming around the world doing WSB stuff. But, yeah, the pearl clutching from Robert was a bit much considering the many decades during which both he and Anna have taken wild risks with their lives. Identity Fraud, a crime so totally real and not at all made up that I'm surprised they didn't tack on a misdemeanor bitchery charge for good measure.

Sorry, 75 minutes. I must have still been drunk on rage from the episode when I was doing the math.

Really? I watch on Slice and got the whole thing - I watched it live, though, and it looked like the listing had it only running 60 minutes instead of 85 for some reason.

I very much hope that when the show ends, it goes out with the rest of the characters waking up from this fever dream, realizing that they've been worshiping at the altar of criminals, and banding together to run the Carlys out of town. Or, better yet, the show can kill them off one by one Loving murders style - if the show is cancelled, you've got nothing left to lose anyway. Drew can die any time. When CM first joined the show, I didn't think I was still suffering from Ryan Lavery PTSD, but today's episode proved that I am. I can't with this bitch.

Rachel, here's a tip: leaving Katie alone is always an option. All you had to do was nothing. All you had to say was nothing. You could've just hung out with Schwartz on the other side of the ficus. If an entire bottle of wine had "accidentally" spilled all over her white outfit, it would have been the least she deserved. I'm not even going to get started on Schwartz because my negative thoughts on him could fill an encyclopedia.

The Scandoval's got the producers saying "We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

WOW, this exchange between Arianna and Rachel. Rachel is a straight up psychopath - Sandoval better sleep with one eye open.

If I didn't feel so bad for Arianna, I'd find it almost hilarious that we keep getting these scenes of Sandoval and Schwartz trying to preemptively create a narrative of Arianna being some uncaring shrew followed by scenes of Sandoval and Arianna in which she's reassuring him that she likes him, that she doesn't think he's dumb, that she's not mad at him for various shitty things that he's done, and trying to meet him half way when he brings up his "concerns" about the relationship while he flounders because she's not reacting in a way that will let him slide into that victim role he so desperately wants. Sorry, Sandy, you suck too much to pull this off and Arianna isn't Katie - she's not going to blow up at you so that you can deflect the way Schwartz successfully managed to do for so long. But it's an investment.