Andy Cohen isn’t playing favorites when it comes to the “Vanderpump Rules” Season 11 finale — even if the audience remains firmly on Ariana Madix’s side of things.
After a season that seemed to be Tom Sandoval’s attempt at a redemption tour, Madix removed herself from the final scene of Tuesday’s episode when her cheating ex-boyfriend tried to confront her at a party in San Francisco.
The “Love Island” host, “Dancing With the Stars” finalist and “Chicago” Broadway actress refused to give the Tom Sandoval and the Most Extras frontman the time of day when he ambushed her while she was talking to best frenemy Scheana Shay. Madix proceeded to tell her producer that she was leaving while still on camera, prompting costars Shay, Lala Kent and Tom Schwartz to gather around Sandoval, seemingly turning their backs on Madix in anger and/or envy.
“That’s what makes this so interesting. By the way, the best kind of issues or arguments or whatever on these shows are when everybody is a little bit right and this seems to be one where everybody is a little bit right,” Cohen said on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live” on Wednesday. “I thought Scheana and Lala’s reactions were really interesting because Scheana, who’s been the ride or die for Ariana, she was not ride or die there in that last moment. She was making points.”
“If you’ve seen the ‘Vanderpump Rules’ trailer, none of them saw the ending of that episode,” he continued. “We showed it all to them at the reunion and that inspired a very emotional reaction and debate and I think everyone seeing it together really shifted the platelets in that universe because it was almost like they were seeing … I don’t know if some of those people thought that what aired would air and that we would bust open the fourth wall in such an intense way.”
Cohen concluded, “I thought it was really interesting. They kind of turned the show inside out.”
The “Watch What Happens Live” host’s comments came after Tuesday night’s episode closed out the show with a very series finale-esque montage of the Bravo staple’s most iconic moments since its premiere in 2013, as well as apparent final words from the main cast opposite their first-ever confessionals.
In fact, the penultimate line of the episode was a producer off-camera reacting to Madix’s exit, saying, “That’s the end,” to which Schwartz added, “Plot twist.” (Of course, the final words were uttered by Sandoval: “I love it. It’s good for me.”)
Regardless of whether this is truly the end of the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” spin-off, Lisa Vanderpump, Katie Maloney, James Kennedy, Ally Lewber, Jo Wenberg, Brock Davies, Shay, Kent, Schwartz, Sandoval and Madix are still set to sit down for a three-part reunion before month’s end. Watch a teaser for the reunion above:
“Vanderpump Rules” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. EST on Bravo followed by “The Valley,” with new episodes then available to stream on Peacock.
