Last summer I visited Tom Tom on the night after the bar’s opening night party. (I’m bragging.) In the timeline of this show, this was right before the cast headed off to Mexico for five days. While at Tom Tom, I asked the Toms if Lisa had ever cashed their $50,000 checks that, when cashed, would make them 5 percent stakeholders in Tom Tom. “Not yet, but —” Sandoval said. Schwartz cut him off: “That money’s as good as gone. Technically, we set up separate business accounts for that, and, yes, technically it’s not cashed. But mentally. Emotionally that money is gone.”
On this week’s Vanderpump Rules we learned that while the Toms were in Mexico, a few days after that conversation, Lisa attempted to cash their checks. Oh no!!!!!! Sandoval’s went through. Schwartz’s, however, did not.
But let’s back up. The episode begins in Mexico, where Beau has an eczema breakout because of stress related to fighting with Stassi, and Lala is having frequent panic attacks for reasons she believes are related to the death of her father. I love vacation. Many people within the group are not totally sold on the validity of Lala’s panic attacks, including Sandoval, who suggests she is staging them for attention. (When she feels one coming on, she requests various members of the group put their hands on her to stave it off, which I admit does require a lot of attention.)
While everyone packs up their suitcases to head to the airport (Lala admits that another factor in her anxiety is that she has to fly commercial), Brittany asks Jax for the list of people he wants to invite to their engagement party. It is unclear why she is doing this in Mexico right before they have to get in a cab to the airport, but she needs his list, and, well, I guess you have to find time for these things where you can. He tells her, basically, not Billie Lee. And ah, it is now clear why she is completing this task right at that moment: because the next scene takes place at SUR, and the news that Billie Lee was not going to be invited to Brittany and Jax’s engagement party had to get to Billie Lee.
So yes, back at SUR, Billie Lee is mad at Lisa because Lisa won’t let her hire James Kennedy to DJ the “white party” she is planning on throwing during her weekly “Brunch With Billie Lee” brunch party at SUR. (The “white party” is, I assume, an all-white clothing brunch party rather than all-white people brunch party, though I’m not sure it won’t be both.) Lisa doesn’t want to let James Kennedy DJ because, as James recently told her, James is not sober. She explains that she does not want to give him work until he commits to sobriety. Billie Lee does not seem to understand that being a cast member on Vanderpump Rules necessitates not cursing at Lisa, so she curses at Lisa and storms away. Lisa catches up to her, tells her not to curse at her (particularly while she is at work in her restaurant), and says, “Have some manners and put a smile on your face,” which would do well as a Scheana tattoo.
Speaking of Scheana, Brittany confides in Scheana about how Jax doesn’t think they should invite Billie Lee to their engagement party, because it’s going to be $70 a plate (it’s not at a Vanderpump property), and Billie Lee has gotten into several fights with a few of their other friends, and they don’t want drama. Scheana immediately finds Billie Lee to tell her. Heh. There wasn’t a reason given for why Scheana would do this, particularly, but after she tells her she covers her mouth and says, “I probably shouldn’t have said that.” Billie Lee yells at Scheana about how Scheana should stick up for her in situations about this, and then confronts Brittany about it. Brittany did not cave, however — Billie Lee is still, at least for now, not invited to the engagement party.
She’s invited to James and Raquel’s “Puppy Shower,” however, so at least she has that. Raquel — on a mission to invite the people who she thinks potentially might not hate her to a baby shower for her semi-new puppy named Graham who has lived with them for a few months by now — shows up at SUR to invite Brittany and Jax. They politely decline. Then, she heads down the street to Tom Tom where she invites Stassi who declines less politely. “Doesn’t a baby shower happen before the baby is born?” she asks. “I’d rather light one of my arms on fire than go to something as boring as a puppy shower,” she explains in a talking head. Fair enough.
Raquel, dejected, heads out to meet James Kennedy where she shares the news that neither Brittany, nor Jax, nor Stassi will attend their puppy party. “Did you sell the idea to them?” James asks. “Like balloons and games and drinks and food?” She did. Alas.
Back to the Toms. First, Tom Sandoval was bartending at SUR and Lisa Vanderpump had to tell him to stop bartending at SUR and go over to do his new job at Tom Tom. (“I was on the schedule!” he explained.) Then she sprang the news that she’d cashed their checks, and Schwartz’s had bounced.
Sweating and nervous, Schwartz explained he’d recently “closed that account.” He has the money, he said … he can get it to her tomorrow! (We see in the preview for next week that he does, in fact, I guess, have the money.) It is an obvious credit to Lisa Vanderpump’s ability to create drama that she waited one year to cash $50,000 checks from Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz and then cashed them without any warning. I’m proud of Sandoval for still having the money.
Next week: If the preview is to be believed, Tom Schwartz brings Lisa Vanderpump $50,000 of cash in a suitcase.
