All Hail the Return of Kristen Doute, Vanderpump Rules' Most Delightful Bad Guy

In Monday night’s episode of Vanderpump Rules, the cast, immune to growth and self-control, did the very thing that always gets them into trouble: they held a girls’ trip and a guys’ night separate from one another and appeared to be genuinely shocked when both events ended in disaster. For the guys, it was a night at the West Hollywood Mondrian with women they picked up at the hotel bar, most of whom looked directly into the camera and flirted so valiantly that even Jax Taylor thought it would be a good idea to call his fiancé Brittany Cartwright to let her know he was behaving himself. For the girls, it was Kristen Doute.

Lala Kent, appreciative that her party friends are also her real friends who were there for her when her dad passed, decided to reward her pals with a trip to Solvang, California, a Danish Village about three hours Northwest of WeHo. It was mostly fine until it wasn’t, with Doute chugging wine at a tasting and on one occasion, being so drunk she ate decorative flora adorning a highway and reassured her friends that it’s fine, “it is just lavender.” (It is not.) This would have been the point I’d bring my friend back to the hotel room to sleep it off before dinner, but this is Vanderpump Rules, so naturally they continued to drink and shop until Doute learned her enemy and ex James Kennedy got a job at PUMP, causing her to lose her shit. She went for a walk and reappeared hours later at dinner. This was just the tip of the iceberg—soon she was tripping over poorly placed, gold-accented furniture while brandishing her phone and screaming about text messages and boys’ nights and refusing help from her friends. It was incredible television.

When Doute scores screen-time on the show—lately she’s been more of a backseat driver, it’s nice to see her grab the wheel—it’s almost always a master class in how to be a hot mess. Consider some of her most memorable past offenses:

Lying to Tom and everyone else about sleeping with Jax

Unlike Jax, whose bad guy energy is reserved for infidelity and petty thievery, or James, whose villainy is just spewing vile after a few too many Pumptinis, Doute is calculated. She is the the stuff of telenovela dreams, something confirmed in Season 2 when she finally revealed to her best friend Stassi Schroeder that yes, she cheated on her longtime boyfriend with her BFF’s longtime boyfriend. Whoops?

Trying to break up Tom Sandoval and Ariana Maddix by proving Tom, her ex-boyfriend, cheated on Maddix

Kristen paid for a random woman on Instagram to fly to Los Angeles from Miami and confront Tom Sandoval because she believed they slept together, while Tom’s girlfriend Ariana Maddix was none the wiser. Also, Tom is her ex-boyfriend. It’s a revenge plot that crosses state lines.

Hanging out until like 8 a.m. in Mexico with James, her other ex-boyfriend and source of most anger

Kristen is an infamously terrible traveller—leaving her four-mile radius in L.A. sends her spiraling—so she spent much of the group’s vacation in Season 6 fucked up beyond repair. That also meant partying in a hot tub in Jax and Brittany’s hotel room until the wee morning hours with her ex, James. Everyone is confident they boned (mostly because of questionable pillow placement, which Jax confirms is used to make sure everyone is comfortable when taking a trip to bone town in a pool.) We never get an answer, but the soap opera-level gossip is juicy as hell.

Literally last night

Monday’s episode ended with Doute storming out of a bar and Stassi unleashing a barrage of insults directed at Kristen’s longtime boyfriend Brian Carter. Her working theory is that Doute goes too hard and gets mad at the world (and James Kennedy) because she’s in an unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend, who is mean to her and refuses to pay rent or bills. Carter sounds like a deadbeat, which tracks when considering how little he is involved with the show. When he makes an appearance, it’s typically just to enable Doute’s worst impulses. Let’s see how this one plays out, but my money is on… not well.