The affair between Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss was exposed to the public back on March 1.
But current episodes of Vanderpump Rules were filmed during the summer of 2022.
So for a while, it looked as though we wouldn’t get any mention of the Scandoval until a few weeks from now, via scenes that were shot much later and were tacked onto the end of Vanderpump Season 10.
But then we learned that Detective Katie Maloney was on the case much, much sooner than anyone realized.
During last week’s episode of Vanderpump, we witnessed the moment when Tom and Raquel’s affair was first detected.
Newcomer Ally Lewber revealed to James Kennedy that she saw Tom and Raquel dancing together at a club at 1 am.
James was quick to dismiss the information, believing — as everyone did at that point — that Raquel was only interested in Tom Schwartz.
But it seems that the sighting raised some serious red flags for Katie.
Bravo has released the first seven minutes of this Sunday’s Vanderpump, and the footage reveals that Maloney was on the verge of cracking the case way back in August of last year.
“I don’t wanna say that Sandoval would ever cheat on Ariana, because I would have to kill him,” Katie says to Lala Kent.
“But, what grabbed my attention the most was just that Tom and Raquel were alone. I’ve been friends with Sandoval for years and I’ve never gone out with home alone dancing at 1:00 AM.”
Elsewhere in the preview clip, we see Schwartz bemoaning his lack of attraction to Raquel.
“I don’t know why I’m not more attracted to her. There’s no like sexual chemistry,” Tom complains, adding:
“I have this gut feeling that she kind of has a crush on someone.”
And in case that wasn’t enough of a set-up for the conflict to come, we also get a snippet of Tom Sandoval predicting the end of his relationship with Ariana.
“It hurts my feelings because the person I love thinks I’m dumb or annoying,” Sandoval complains in a confessional.
“It definitely pulls into question whether Ariana and I are right for each other.”
Of course, we now know that when he spoke those words, Sandoval was already romantically involved with Raquel — which might explain Schwartz’s suspicion that she had “a crush on someone.”
And the fact that it was Schwartz’s ex-wife who put it all together is almost too perfect.
We’d say it seems scripted, but we don’t think any screenwriter currently working in Hollywood could whip up such a masterfully twisty plot!