‘Vanderpump Rules’: The Chilling Season 11 Finale Seemingly Exposes Tom Sandoval’s Manipulation As Ariana Madix Refuses To Be Part Of His “Redemption” Arc

Armando Tinoco
·4-min read

Spoiler Alert: This post contains details of the Vanderpump Rules Season 11 finale, Episode 15 titled “Plot Twist.”

Vanderpump Rules Season 11 wrapped on Bravo and the finale offers a grim future about the friend group ever able to move forward.

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This season started filming merely weeks after Ariana Madix discovered her long-time boyfriend, Tom Sandoval, was having an affair with their best friend, Rachel Leviss. The cheating scandal made headlines and became a pop culture moment.

Without much time to process their new reality, the cast started filming again to capture the raw emotions over how the group could co-exist.

Madix set boundaries with her friends and Sandoval, although she remained living with him under the same roof and communicated with each other only through a personal assistant.

For Katie Maloney, it was an easy task as she stuck by Madix as she did not have a great relationship with Sandoval over the years.

However, other cast members like Scheana Shay, struggled to pick a side as she wanted to remain friends with Madix but couldn’t forget the friendship she and Sandoval had.

This brings us to the finale episode, which aired tonight on Bravo. The group is in San Francisco for an event thrown by Sandoval’s friend. For the event, Sandoval hires someone to assist Shay with her performance, which she is grateful for and reminds her what a loyal friend he has been over the years.

Lala Kent, who has been making slight digs at Madix throughout the season for not moving past her rage against Sandoval despite her endorsement deals and increasing job opportunities, explodes in the finale.

After Shay’s performance, Madix takes time to talk to and congratulate her. Shay’s intentions is to have Madix and Sandoval talk so he can apologize to her. However, when Sandoval approaches the two, Madix walks away as she doesn’t want to aid her ex in his redemption tour and the fourth wall breaks into a million little pieces.

“It’s about a performance for the audience,” Madix is heard saying to a show producer. “He wants 30 seconds with the audience.”

Madix reiterates this idea in her confessional, saying, “Whatever it is that Tom is trying to get from me is not for me, it’s for him. I am the final boss in his video game of redemption, and because he can’t get to the final boss, he’s f***ing pissed.”

Madix leaves the party with her new boyfriend, opting not to film with her boyfriend.

Sandoval calls Madix a “lazy a**” for not wanting to film with him. He then goes over to his co-stars, Shay and Kent, to tell them Madix “doesn’t f*** with you guys” and alleges “she f***ing talks sh** about all you.”

Kent jumps in and acknowledges that Sandoval cheated on Madix but “he didn’t kill anybody” and should be offered some grace.

“I have never in my life experienced someone who gets cheated on and suddenly she becomes God,” Kent says about Madix’s growing fame after the scandal.

In a confessional interview, Kent adds, “For Ariana to walk out this way, is just such a slap in the face.”

Kent conveys the idea that Madix is running away from uncomfortable situations, which is not fair to the rest of the cast, who have put their lives out there in front of cameras.

“I don’t feel that Tom and Ariana were ever honest about their relationship until Tom was caught cheating,” Kent adds. “And you think that you get to be honest for one moment, and then you get to pack it all away, and all is good. F*** that!”

The episode gets emotional as moments from the cast’s past confessional interviews are shown.

Maloney says, “Sometimes you have to stick to your f***ing boundaries if your peace is more important than that, then f***ing stand your ground.”

Madix points out that Sandoval has “never tried to talk to me off camera. He could’ve written something in a f***ing letter and left it on the kitchen counter, and I could’ve read it at my leisure. But if you would only do it on camera, to me, you just showed your true colors.”

As Madix and her boyfriend leave the party, a hot mic moment catches a producer saying, “That’s the end.”

Tom Schwartz then adds, “That was a f***ing plot twist.”

Sandoval laughs and says, “I love it. It’s good for me.”

That moment seemingly exposes Sandoval for being the manipulative person Madix says he is and only doing things on camera to make himself look good following the backlash from the cheating scandal.

The future of Vanderpump Rules is not entirely certain as production for Season 12 is reportedly on pause and the cast is on an extended hiatus for now.

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