No, This Isn’t the End of Vanderpump Rules

I’m on this week’s episode of Bitch Sesh, and during recording, co-host Casey Wilson said something I’ve been hearing from a lot of fans lately: That Vanderpump Rules is going the way of landlines and civility in our legislative chambers. I told her she is out of her damn mind. Respectfully.

I have it on very good authority that Vanderpump Rules is going to return, but I totally understand thinking that it might be over after the season finale ended with Ariana walking off into the night while the rest of the cast shit-talked her. Then Bravo announced that it was putting a pause on filming the upcoming 12th season, breaking a long tradition for a show whose production schedule is so synonymous with the summer that saying “last summer” is the equivalent of saying “last season.” This change probably has to do with Ariana Madix’s new role as host of Love Island, which films over the summer in Fiji, and her return to Chicago on Broadway for August, but the fact that Ariana is in such high demand elsewhere just adds to the suspicion that what we just saw very well could be a series finale.

I can easily see how Casey and the rest of the fandom are foreseeing the VPR end-times, but trust me, there’s no way that Bravo would let this show go. Just look at the ratings. Season nine had an average of 678,000 viewers an hour. Thanks to Scandoval, season ten nearly doubled that number to 1.1 million, and season 11 is on track to average 990,000 — down from last season, of course, but still considerably better than season nine. If they didn’t cancel the show at its ratings and creative nadir, then there’s no way they’re going to pack it in now. I don’t know how familiar you are with TV ratings these days, but any program more than a decade old that is gaining viewers is an anomaly that the suits will protect at all costs.

What fans are alighting on, though, is the realization that the show can’t continue down the road it went in season 11, with breakout star Ariana refusing to interact with her cheating ex Tom Sandoval and deteriorating relationships among several of the cast members. It shares these challenges with a couple of other Bravo shows that have recently been plagued by factions that refuse to make up and that are beginning to suffer the same ill effects. On the currently airing season of RHONJ, Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice refuse to interact, and Melissa won’t even answer questions about her sister-in-law. And on the last season of RHOP, an impasse between Candiace Dillard-Bassett, Wendy Osefo, Gizelle Bryant, and Robyn Dixon gave us one of the worst seasons of all time, not just of Potomac but of all the Housewives ever. As I’ve said before, the name of the game with these shows is conflict and conflict resolution: The cast needs to be able to fight but also able to get over it enough to keep making an entertaining product together. Andy Cohen himself acknowledges the problem, calling the RHONJ situation “unsustainable” on his radio show, adding, “I think you see that with Potomac this season and why a lot of viewers, including me, were frustrated with it.”

The key to fixing any reality show lies in casting, and Bravo is well underway rejiggering RHOP. After firing Robyn and letting Candiace go (I can imagine it was a “You can’t fire me, I quit” scenario), the new season is now filming, and let’s hope that new relationships are flourishing and old ones recovering. It’s unclear what will happen with RHONJ since its current season is still airing and it won’t start filming again for months, but in my ideal world, both Melissa and Teresa would get the ax and we would be free to explore the imploding dynamics of another family.

Recasting isn’t so simple a solution for Pump Rules, however. While it started as a workplace drama, at its core it’s an interconnected group of friends who, unlike most of the Housewives, actually spend time with each other in the off-season and are intimately involved in each other’s lives. Because of that, the show is seemingly impervious to new cast members that don’t come in through dating one of the main cast. Lala Kent was the last successful transplant, way back in season four, and the price she paid was the Witches of WeHo torturing her for it until about 15 minutes ago. So while the clean-slate approach may seem like the most straightforward, it’s also the most likely to snuff out whatever embers of life remain on this show.

But while VPR’s producers can’t just recast it like they would the Housewives, there are still a few available options. First off, there is a chance that after the filming pause, the ship will right itself; given time to get over the dissolution of their relationship, Tom and Ariana might be able to co-habitate on the show like they did in their shared house for months. That solution only works if Ariana actually wants to stay, though. She remains booked and busy and might decide now is the time to pursue some other ventures outside of the one that still involves her toxic ex-boyfriend. In this scenario, Sandoval gets custody of the show and the cast could remain pretty much the same, but it would be a huge loss for viewers.

The more appealing solution to me is one where the Toms get dropped and the female cast members carry on the show. I think Ariana, Scheana Shay, Katie Maloney Schwartz Maloney, and Lala would make a great ensemble of squabbling frenemies. You could add Ally Lewber to the mix, mostly to keep DJ James Kennedy in their orbit, and maybe add Dayna Kathan, who was a flop when she joined the doomed eighth season but remains IRL close with both Ariana and Katie. I also wouldn’t mind if Charli Burnett came back from beyond the grave. (Where Lisa Vanderpump fits into all of this, who knows. “What Is Going On With Lisa Vanderpump and Bravo” will definitely be a headline in a future newsletter.) In this all-ladies scenario, the Toms get a spinoff, or maybe they just disappear. Would we miss them? Unclear.

The one scenario fans keep suggesting that I really don’t want to see is shuffling Scheana and Lala off to The Valley. I’m not in the habit of agreeing with Jax Taylor, but he was totally right on his podcast. “I personally don’t think we need to bring anyone from Vanderpump Rules over,” he said. “This is The Valley; this is not an extension of Vanderpump Rules. I’m really proud of our show, and I think it isn’t fair for our cast members, after they worked so hard, to just bring people over.”

Yes! This idea of combining the two shows is baffling. First of all, The Valley seems to be on its way to being a hit; this is not the time to change the fundamentals of a show that’s just getting off the ground. Also, it’s not the Vanderpump Rules JV squad; Jesse and Michelle Lally, Janet Caperna, and Zack Wickham are all stars in their own right. They don’t need to be dimmed by Scheana and Lala coming in and yelling over everyone to assert their dominance. Also, if Bravo has a chance of having two hit shows, why would it try to fold one into the other?

In fact, the success of The Valley suggests that the answer to Vanderpump Rules’ casting woes may lie in more spinoffs. In addition to the aforementioned Toms offshoot, there’s the Vanderpump Vegas idea, centered on the staff of Lisa’s Sin City establishments. Get James Kennedy a residency at Caesars and move him and Ally out there. Convince Stassi Schroeder that she needs her very own show about being a busy mommy. What’s going on with the current staff at SUR? Can lightning strike twice with that idea? No, not only is Vanderpump Rules not ending, if they keep finding talent like they did with The Valley, it might end up being the new Below Deck, with the VPR Extended Universe pumping out new shows all year long.