This was supposed to be Jax Taylor's season of redemption on Vanderpump Rules.
Much has been made of Jax's "changed man" narrative, and fans hoped that his fairytale wedding to Brittany Cartwright would finalize his transition into a loyal spouse and sane, sober(-ish) adult.
You know homemade skin flicks are becoming commonplace when there's a sex tape controversy on a reality show, and it's not even the biggest storyline of the episode.
That was the case on Tuesday night's episode of Vanderpump Rules, in which Kristen Doute's amateur p0rn was overshadowed by Jax Taylor undergoing one of the most severe midlife crises ever caught on camera.
Jax Taylor says a lot of idiotic things.
In fact, aside from compulsively lying, cheating on his wife, and screwing over his friends, saying dumb stuff is kind of his number one schtick.
When they're not trying to sell us on the idea of becoming interested in the boring lives of a bunch of generic, twentysomething newcomers, the recent episodes of Vanderpump Rules have focused almost entirely on the wedding of Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright.
Looks like we're on the verge of some big news from the world of Pumptinis and See You Next Tuesday celebrations!
From the moment Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright got married back in July, there have been rumors that the couple is secretly expecting their first child.
Maybe it's because we're just weeks away from a new season of Vanderpump Rules, or perhaps it's because he remains a massive douche, and some people are fascinated by that.
But whatever the case, Jax Taylor has been in the news a lot lately.
Remember when Jax Taylor claimed to be a changed man who had left behind the horrible, sociopathic behavior that defined the first 40 years of his life?
Well, you may want to sit down for this one -- it turns out the lifelong pathological liar was once again completely full of sh-t!
A lot of people were mighty skeptical when Jax Taylor proposed to Brittany Cartwright -- and rightfully so.
After all, Jax had been caught cheating on Brittany just months before he popped the question.
Vanderpump Rules is entering its eighth season, and its senior cast member just turned 40.
But if you were concerned that the show was in danger of losing the drunken, chaotic energy that's long made it one of the most consistently entertaining series on the reality TV landscape, fear not.
It's been less than a month since Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright tied the knot in front of friends, family, and a full camera crew.
But now, to the surprise of absolutely no one, it seems the Vanderpump Rules couple is already experiencing trouble in paradise.
Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright has officially completed their journey.
They've gone from nightmare couple ... to cantakerous exes ... to sort of stable couple ... and now all the way to the altar.
Earlier today, we reported on the sad news that Lisa Vanderpump's mother has passed away at the age of 84.
The death of Jean Vanderpump comes just one year after Lisa's brother, Mark Vanderpump, committed suicide.
The fateful wedding between Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright is nearly upon us, and the controversy has been all over Twitter.
This goes beyond people's issues with Jax. It turns out that the Kentucky pastor Jax and Brittany chose has said a lot of hateful things.
Reunion episodes are often as boring and superfluous as those recap talk shows that used to follow cultish TV dramas like The Walking Dead.
Fortunately, as several of them creep up on 40, the cast members of Vanderpump Rules remain so violently angry and pathologically narcissistic that they create an interesting hour of television just by rehashing old beefs and making Andy Cohen question his life decisions.
For the first six seasons of the show's run, Jax Taylor was Vanderpump Rules' resident troublemaker.
He wasn't always the show's biggest villain -- that title often belonged to James Kennedy -- but no one stirred the pot quite as effectively as Jax.
At times, the current season of Vanderpump Rules has felt like the final episodes of a long-running high school drama.
The characters we've watched party, cheat, fight, and generate endless drama for the past several years now appear much too old for such shenanigans, and the realization that it's time for a change is bittersweet.
For seven seasons now, Jax Taylor has persistently confounded and baffled Vanderpump Rules viewers.
Sure, Jax might seem like an open book at first -- it's hard to drink that much and hold on to many secrets -- but it's important to bear in mind that Taylor is also a compulsive and unrepentant liar.
The most consistent complaint about the current season of Vanderpump Rules is that the show has reached the point at which the cast members' lives are simply too settled to be consistently entertaining.
While we still believe Vanderpump has plenty of life in it -- if nothing else, it remains arguably the funniest reality shows on television -- it's not hard to see why viewers might be growing frustrated with a group that seems more concerned with promoting side projects (ranging from beer cheese to horror flicks) than stirring up drama.
On Tuesday, Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club premiered on MTV, reminding the world that Lindsay Lohan is still out there and still trying to rebuild her decimated career.
Lindsay would likely be the first to admit that she's made quite a few mistakes over the years.
While Vanderpump Rules fans wait with bated breath for Jax Taylor to finally kick James Kennedy's ass, James is causing more trouble.
Specifically, James is picking fights and feuding with his co-stars on Twitter. It's getting out of hand.
Vanderpump Rules fans have watched Brittany Cartwright tolerate an astonishing amount of mistreatment over the years.
Mostly at the hands of her fiance, Jax Taylor, of course.
Sadly, Vanderpump Rules appears to have entered that stage in the life cycle of every popular reality show in which the cast is too relatively rich and famous to engage in the sort of petty squabbles and public outbursts that made them relatively rich and famous in the first place.
We can safely say this about Vanderpump Rules Season 7 Episode 1:
It did not lack for drama.
