The Valley Recap: Big Bear It All
Can you imagine how tiring, how soul-crushingly, hair-curlingly, taint-spasmingly exhausting it must be to be married to Jax Freakin’ Taylor? This is a man so inanely and quotidianly awful that even Maya Angelou would put that cackling canary back in its cage and tell it never to sing again. That is true of almost all of these men, though, with the exception of my favorite jungle gym, Jason, the only man in the group who actually knows what a Napoleon complex is. This was really an hour that made me ask if men are okay. I say this as a man who knows he’s not okay. (I mean, nothing that a nap and a Malibu Mango smoothie from Erehwon won’t fix, but not okay nonetheless.)
Before we can get to Jax being an absolute asshole to his wife, we have to tie up the loose end from last week, which was Michelle admitting that she texts all sorts of other men, including celebrities. She says Jesse knows all about it, that it’s only for work purposes, and that Kristen saying she is texting them sexy pictures of herself is as crazy as ordering tiramisu at a Mexican restaurant. Michelle says she’ll talk to Jesse about it and goes upstairs to broach the subject. As soon as she says Jax told her something, Jesse bellows for him to come upstairs even though Michelle is patiently trying to talk to him. What if she just wants a personal chat with her husband? I guess that’s too much to ask. Anyway, Jesse says he knows about it and doesn’t care, and the bombshell from the last episode feels both less bomby and less shelly.
The guys convene outside by the fire pit, and it is just a bunch of dumb bitches telling each other “exactly.” Danny is still upset that Jesse wanted to engage in some light horseplay with him, and that devolves into him saying how unappreciated he is because he’s not sleeping because all he does is put babies on boobs. Yes, I’m sure that’s exhausting, but what about the person who owns the boobs that the babies are sucking on, biting to raw nubs, and then vomiting all over? How do you think that person feels? But no, all the bros grunt “Exactly, exactly, exactly” at each other like they’re Tim the Tool Man Taylor. Then Jesse says he thinks it’s over between him and Michelle, and they all cry and sob, and Jason is like, “Um, I invited you here to tell me how awesome being a dad is going to be, and now it feels like a divorce support group at a sad furnished condo in Marina Del Rey.”
When Janet comes out to use the grill, Jesse shouts at her, “No, back inside.” Can you imagine talking to anyone like that? Especially a woman? Especially a woman who is not your wife? Especially a woman who is not your wife who is pregnant? Especially a woman who is not your wife who is pregnant who is trying to cook you dinner? Especially a woman who is not your wife, who is pregnant, who is trying to cook you dinner while you sit around and complain about how hard your lives are? It could not be me.
Janet is prone to freakouts, but this one is absolutely justified, and Jesse was being a giant asshole. Now, if we’re talking about the one she has when Zack posts on his Instagram story just a black screen with the location tag saying “Big Bear,” then that one is completely irrational. She says she couldn’t sleep all night because she was worried that Zack and Kristen were going to pop out from a tree, ruin her holiday, and cause her cervix to dilate 1 million centimeters and cause the premature birth of her baby or something. What was she so worried was going to happen? So what if they crash? Is that the end of the world? Also, Janet is as absolutely petty as they come. She can’t spot a base-level troll like this? It’s easier to spot than the 19-pound turquoise watch that Zack is brandishing on his wrist all episode.
All evening, Jax is intoning that the reason Brittany’s feeling sick, staying in bed, and intermittently throwing up is because she’s drunker than all the bachelorettes in Nashville. He says, “Everyone else is normal. Why can’t you be?” So is he upset that she’s drunk, upset that she can’t handle her liquor, or upset that she’s not normal? Whatever it is, how about holding onto being upset until your wife is feeling slightly better?
After dinner, he starts this up again, and the women say she’s not drunk. She’s car sick. Jax says, “I’m going to ask one time. Answer the damn question. How much was she drinking on the boat?” The women in unison shout, “Zero!” and this is enough to wake Brittney from her restless slumber.
“You’re trying to make me look like a bad person,” Brittany says. “You think I wanna be in here not feeling good? Fuck you.” She couldn’t throw in a “rawt in hell” for old time’s sake? Now this thing is a full-blown fight, and Jax tries to spin everything he’s been saying. He tells Brittany he was asking the girls how much she was drinking because he didn’t know what was wrong with her, but when they said she wasn’t drinking, he thought she must be sick. This is such a retcon to what he was actually doing, accusing her of being wasted before he even asked what is going on with Brittany.
There are a lot of things that are true here all at once. I do believe that Jax is frustrated with Brittany and her drinking and that this is something he’s been dealing with for years. I do believe that, like he says, he’s tried to talk to her calmly, he’s tried to talk to her mother and their friends about it, but Brittany isn’t ready to give up drinking or have a conversation about it. He also says that if drinking makes her feel this awful, then maybe she shouldn’t drink, which seems logical. It’s also true that Jax is overreacting, making his wife look like a bad person, and being needlessly cruel to someone who is quite obviously going through it. It’s all conflicting, but it’s all true.
The problem is that Jax thinks she’s getting hammered because she misses “fun Brittany” and doesn’t want to be “mom Brittany.” He sees her as some unruly alcoholic when everything we’ve seen about Brittany over the years indicates she’s nothing of the sort. The only time she’s gotten really hammered all season was at the girls’ night in Malibu and that was the point of that whole evening and Jax gave her a temporary dispensation to get as wasted as she wanted. Jax also seems to be alluding to the idea that Brittany’s drinking makes her a bad or inattentive mother somehow. He even said part of the reason they can’t have a second child is because of her drinking.
Jax says, “You’re one of ten girls drinking, and you’re the only one who gets this sick.” He sees this as a cause for anger, and I see this as a cause for concern. There seems to be something wrong with the way Brittany’s body metabolizes liquor. Remember at the Benihana night, she had one sip of sake and had to go home because she was so ill? Also, she claims to have only had two drinks all day, and she’s laid up for the rest of the night puking. Yes, Brittany has a problem with alcohol but I don’t think it’s in the way that Jax thinks it is.
Later, he says, “There’s something wrong that she needs to drink this much that she needs to throw up.” No, the problem is that she drinks so little and throws up. Jax is right that Brittany should stop drinking, but it’s not that she’s some lush with wine in her Stanley mug driving Cruz to play dates. There seems to be something medically wrong with her stomach or digestive tract, and instead of yelling at her about being a bad mother, maybe Jax should try to see it as a health issue. He shouldn’t be mad. He should be worried. If he could take the moralizing out of it, he might be able to save her.
In the morning they wake up and talk about it calmly and Jax apologizes and says he’ll never do it again, but he says it in a way that we know he doesn’t mean. How many times in his life has Jax said something would never happen again just for it to happen all over again? Remember when he ended up in bed with Faith and some old lady? I bet he said cheating would never happen again, and, well, I’m sure it has.
The boys go off on a fishing trip together while the girls stay back at the house to get ready for Janet’s surprise baby shower. What starts as a conversation about Jesse and Michelle’s doomed union is quickly usurped by the black hole of need that is Jax Taylor’s ego. He says that Brittany wears the pants in the family, which leads Jesse to an astute observation. “She tries to put the pants on, and you yank them down,” he says. “I think you’re a fighter, you’ve always been fighting, and you’ve been fighting to prove yourself for a long time, and you don’t need to prove yourself to your wife.” Exactly! Jax is always robbing Brittany of any ideas or agency that she has by taking control and fighting with her over things. Jax is so insecure that he constantly needs to prove he is right and in control when that is the thing that will tear them apart.
When talking about it, Jax says to Jesse, “My marriage is on the fence, too.” But then he takes it back. “My marriage is far from on the fence. My wife and I love each other to death and we don’t believe in divorce,” he says. “We don’t believe in separation. We don’t believe in any of that. My wife is going to have to bury me in the backyard. I will never go anywhere, and she will never leave.” Sure, you may not believe in divorce, but what if divorce believes in you? This also illustrates a problem that Brittany was discussing earlier, that Jax thinks she’ll never leave him so he treats her like shit because there will be no repercussions other than more of Brittany’s permanent frown.
We also already know this is not true. We know that whether or not they believe in separation, they are currently separated. We also know that Jax is just the right kind of idiot whose insistence that he will never get divorced is just what will do his relationship in. We know he will never change, we know that Brittany won’t take it forever, and, as sure as we know there are corpses at the bottom of that lake, we know that before this even airs, they’ll already be separated. And after this was the first time I believed that these two might have busted up for real, not for a publicity stunt to get people to tune into their new show.