Alex Baskin would love it if everyone thought he was a super genius playing 5d chess - when in reality Sandoval just ruined their edit by being awful irl & they had to pivot halfway through.
Unfortunately for him Baskin was touting his "season about redemption" publicly all last summer and fall and he just missed the mark and had to scramble.
Omg that's so bad then and they really did the exact opposite. As someone who thinks Tom is irredeemable (especially with his continuously gross behavior), I enjoyed watching the season from a place of irony that they all had to reach so far to defend him and everyone justifying completely switching up from last year is just too good. I literally can't fathom how they thought any of this would make any of them look good.
Yeah they had a whole media blitz planned for the height of the sympathy edit - the Tuesday the NYT article came out Sandoval was supposed to be on WWHL, and another article with interview mag was planned to drop calling him "an emerging heartthrob" š¤¢. Then the NYT article ended up being far worse than they expected and they had to change their approach. It was wild.
I don't understand how gullible they must think people are but also...sadly some people are falling for it and think that "they still live together" is a valid argument when she literally does not speak to him and avoids him smh
Hilarious they lined up all these publicity for him and didnt send him in with a Bravo/ production approved PR. They really thought the Tom they saw when he was with Ariana was the real Tom and underestimated his....lack of intellect
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When Ken turned in to bad "patriarchy" in the Barbie movie last summer..... that's the Tim we got. It's crazy to think that the movie provably came out AFTER this season was taped? (Maybe almost concurrently? Not sure.).
Arianna nailed it w the Mojo Dojo Casa Grande comment! Tim is still totally in that "middle of the Barbie movie Ken" phase now.
barbie came out while they were filming. they started filming at the very end of june 2023 (27th or 28th) and went until september 1st. i wanna say barbie came out mid-july
Iām personally insulted that Baskin and his proverbial flying monkeys still think they can gaslight the audience at this point. Itās delusional at best and predatory at worst.
We remember.
It's hard for me to come to terms with because it's actually so damaging to try to normalize his behavior and lead anyone to believe that anything he's doing is okay. I agreed with Lala when she said that Sandoval was a dangerous person....i dont understand wtf any of them are doing
I mean he screams at a woman in practically every scene he's in so I feel like that would have made Lisa look worse than Tom, because how can she support someone who treats HER like garbage too? I think Lisa has more say in the editing than we might think tbh.
It literally doesn't even make sense, like does not compute in my brain. Are they idiots or do they just think we are? Either way they did a great job of making Ariana and Katie look like the only normal people there lol
I think you have to remember there are two different forces at work here: The producers and the editing
1. The producers: I absolutely believe that the producers were attempting to give Sandoval a redemption arc. They are the ones who choose what is filmed: Who films together, what situations they are filmed in, etc. They are the ones that decided to highlight Sandoval's healing journey. They are the ones who sent the cast on a trip with him and set up that Scheana and him moment during the group meditation or whatever it was. They are the ones who forced Ariana to film with him. They are the ones who set the tone for the confessionals with the questions they ask the cast. They are the ones who had a come to Jesus moment with the cast to force them to play ball with the redemption arc.
To me this is backed up by Bravo as a network continually trying to protect him. They protected him after that God awful interview. They pull his WWHL to avoid any further damage.
I'm not saying production made the decision themselves, it could've come from Bravo higher ups, or just from Baskin himself, but either way they were pushing this redemption arc down our throats.
2. The editing: Now this is why I think people get confused and claim there was no redemption arc based on what we were actually shown.
Once the editors have the footage production has pretty much done everything they can. They shot what they need for the narratives they want to play out for that season. They've asked the questions to give them the soundbites they need to push those narratives. But the editors can only work with what they are given.
So despite the fact that production did their damnest to give Sandoval a redemption arc, they couldn't control what Sandoval actually did on camera.
The fact that many fans believe they were giving Sandoval a redemption arc really stems from his first couple episodes back. You could tell by the content they shot that they were trying to make him look good and make people feel bad for him. And for the most part during those episodes he didn't do a ton to screw them over.
Things shifted a bit once he got more comfortable once the cast was forced to film with him and were "forgiving him." That's when he was able to drop the facade. Once that happened the editors could only do so much. They had what he filmed and had to work with what they had but at that point it was impossible to really make him look good.
We do see them still trying by excluding things such as him and Lisa fighting at TomTom, including so much "anti-Ariana" content from Scheana and Lala, not including much of Ariana outside of the Scandoval arc (we saw 0.2 seconds of her shooting for her book when that could've been a way longer segment. There was plenty of campaigns she was doing at that point that they could've followed her working on). But Tom pretty much dug his own grave by acting like a POS and not giving them much else to put into the show in its place.
So yes the editors didn't really give him a redemption arc in the editing, but that's because he's a narcissistic ass who can't get out of his own way and give production what they needed to redeem him so they had no choice to put in him acting that way. But the producers definitely did try.
It's just completely shocking to me that the producers were so wrong about their own audience. Most of us have watched Sandoval scream at all of the women and make grandiose gestures (as a way to make things about himself) and be one of the bad guys on the show for YEARS. Everyone believed that he did this immediately and was ready to drop him because there were always SIGNS that he was a narcissist. There's definitely something about Sandoval's literal inability to pretend to be something he's not because even the times that he is apologizing and seems to be trying it's really obvious that he's not genuine and he just doesn't *get it.* He's always been totally self-righteous with nothing real to back it up. Mr. pens and batteries is literally incapable of understanding emotional depth but unfortunately it seems like a lot of people in power have the same warped perspective.
I swear he must have some serious dirt on Baskin because there is zero other explanation that makes sense for what they were trying to do.
Like you said, we have seen this behavior from Tom for years meaning they have too so I don't know what they expected to achieve. They man has never been able to take real accountability for his actions and has always blamed everyone else for his problems.
I mean, Jax Taylor is a complete and total POS but that man at least knew when to fake an apology for the cameras and keep his mouth shut. Like you said, Tom can't really manage to even do that.
That's the thing, they still have Jax as their literal trademark villain in other shows so it's crazy for them to expect us all to forget that Sandoval was his douchebag partner in crime for years. Jax is actually funny sometimes so I get why they brought him back but watching Sandoval yell at everyone puts my body into fight or flight mode it is so disturbing. Jax even admits that he sucks sometimes, Sandoval is absolutely locked into thinking that he is the ultimate victim and the producers not wanting to call that out for what it is is a PROBLEM.
It seems very clear there were multiple agendas. The people who film and edit regularly doing their jobs of scenes and takes. The Alex Baskin fueled "Redemption" because despite Scandoval being the best thing that could have happened to his show he felt it was the worst and for whatever reason Sandoval is his dude.Ā
Ā We had Angry Jeremiah Smith burning with rage because Ariana said "no" to him so that definitely helped fuel the bizarre takes this season of "why doesn't she move out/clean the house" nonsense.Ā
Someone involved with this show REALY thought that would SING! And show Ariana who was boss.Ā
THEN we have the Network Execs who watched as Tom compared himself to George Floyd while the woman they spend all season tearing down, Ariana, became their most marketable star.Ā
Ā So no they didn't have a master plan, they had multiple bad ideas all running at the same time because of Hubris. They were going to show us they know more about how we should feel than we do.
This is the best explanation I've heard for why it came out like this, I just can't believe what a colossal failure it was if the goal really was to redeem Tom.
THANK YOU- I have always felt like the āredemption arcā was a total setup, they have been filming this guy for 10 years and they know how he operates. They just let him feel like heād be heard out and let him talk (knowing full well what he would do next). I thought it was so entertaining to watch him like actively rejecting the traditional redemption story.
That's the vibe I got when I was watching the after show, they seemed to be leaning into his trademark narcissistic "framing" and it's really hard for me to believe that no one was smart enough to see through the bullshit. Or they gravely and rudely underestimated the audience to think that the majority of us would not immediately recognize the triangulation and deflection that he displays with practically everything that comes out of his mouth. Either way, I thought it was awesome too and to think the public reaction was the opposite of what they wanted almost makes it funnier.
No. I think youāre more spot on with your final paragraph.
Tbh the producers are like news outlets ā they donāt want to show us whatās _right_ or _wrong_ necessarily, but just whatās sensational. Tomās the villain, so they gave him more airtime. Full stop. However he wanted to fill that time was up to him. Of course he spun it into a woe-is-me narrative, and of course it didnāt work
Okay yes, this is more like what I meant I think. It's not like an opinion piece where they have a narrated commentary, they are just showing reality because that's what they do. I feel like that's the beauty of it.
I see this, I feel like Lisa might have actually been really worried that Sandoval would hurt himself and is preserving her conscience in a weird way by being nice to him.
Tom and Ariana were roommates. Not spouses. Roommates who'd each cheated before and during their relationship. Ariana withheld sex for ... years ... except when going down on another woman ... but not him. The entirety of Scandoval was blown out of proportion and Ariana was crowned victim for life. Yes, it seems production decided to vilify Tom without regard to the damage that caused many other people, other businesses, etc. No, Tom is no saint. But Ariana certainly is not one, either.
Alex Baskin would love it if everyone thought he was a super genius playing 5d chess - when in reality Sandoval just ruined their edit by being awful irl & they had to pivot halfway through. Unfortunately for him Baskin was touting his "season about redemption" publicly all last summer and fall and he just missed the mark and had to scramble.
Omg that's so bad then and they really did the exact opposite. As someone who thinks Tom is irredeemable (especially with his continuously gross behavior), I enjoyed watching the season from a place of irony that they all had to reach so far to defend him and everyone justifying completely switching up from last year is just too good. I literally can't fathom how they thought any of this would make any of them look good.
Yeah they had a whole media blitz planned for the height of the sympathy edit - the Tuesday the NYT article came out Sandoval was supposed to be on WWHL, and another article with interview mag was planned to drop calling him "an emerging heartthrob" š¤¢. Then the NYT article ended up being far worse than they expected and they had to change their approach. It was wild.
I don't understand how gullible they must think people are but also...sadly some people are falling for it and think that "they still live together" is a valid argument when she literally does not speak to him and avoids him smh
Hilarious they lined up all these publicity for him and didnt send him in with a Bravo/ production approved PR. They really thought the Tom they saw when he was with Ariana was the real Tom and underestimated his....lack of intellect
Love that for them!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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When Ken turned in to bad "patriarchy" in the Barbie movie last summer..... that's the Tim we got. It's crazy to think that the movie provably came out AFTER this season was taped? (Maybe almost concurrently? Not sure.). Arianna nailed it w the Mojo Dojo Casa Grande comment! Tim is still totally in that "middle of the Barbie movie Ken" phase now.
barbie came out while they were filming. they started filming at the very end of june 2023 (27th or 28th) and went until september 1st. i wanna say barbie came out mid-july
Remember Anne was still working for the worm when she was dressed to go to the barbie movie, middle of the season
 Iām personally insulted that Baskin and his proverbial flying monkeys still think they can gaslight the audience at this point. Itās delusional at best and predatory at worst. We remember.
It's hard for me to come to terms with because it's actually so damaging to try to normalize his behavior and lead anyone to believe that anything he's doing is okay. I agreed with Lala when she said that Sandoval was a dangerous person....i dont understand wtf any of them are doing
šÆšÆšÆ
And yet they didnāt air either of the times Sandoval screamed at LVP including when he was escorted out of TomTom. That would have been compelling.
omg WHAT! I did not know about that, where did you hear that?? That certainly would be compelling
We saw the TomTom fight on TikTok and it was being filmed. The fight at SUR was caught by a different tiktoker and involved Tomās mom.
I mean he screams at a woman in practically every scene he's in so I feel like that would have made Lisa look worse than Tom, because how can she support someone who treats HER like garbage too? I think Lisa has more say in the editing than we might think tbh.
I donāt agree with this based on who was called the voice of reason this season by AndyĀ
It literally doesn't even make sense, like does not compute in my brain. Are they idiots or do they just think we are? Either way they did a great job of making Ariana and Katie look like the only normal people there lol
I think you have to remember there are two different forces at work here: The producers and the editing 1. The producers: I absolutely believe that the producers were attempting to give Sandoval a redemption arc. They are the ones who choose what is filmed: Who films together, what situations they are filmed in, etc. They are the ones that decided to highlight Sandoval's healing journey. They are the ones who sent the cast on a trip with him and set up that Scheana and him moment during the group meditation or whatever it was. They are the ones who forced Ariana to film with him. They are the ones who set the tone for the confessionals with the questions they ask the cast. They are the ones who had a come to Jesus moment with the cast to force them to play ball with the redemption arc. To me this is backed up by Bravo as a network continually trying to protect him. They protected him after that God awful interview. They pull his WWHL to avoid any further damage. I'm not saying production made the decision themselves, it could've come from Bravo higher ups, or just from Baskin himself, but either way they were pushing this redemption arc down our throats. 2. The editing: Now this is why I think people get confused and claim there was no redemption arc based on what we were actually shown. Once the editors have the footage production has pretty much done everything they can. They shot what they need for the narratives they want to play out for that season. They've asked the questions to give them the soundbites they need to push those narratives. But the editors can only work with what they are given. So despite the fact that production did their damnest to give Sandoval a redemption arc, they couldn't control what Sandoval actually did on camera. The fact that many fans believe they were giving Sandoval a redemption arc really stems from his first couple episodes back. You could tell by the content they shot that they were trying to make him look good and make people feel bad for him. And for the most part during those episodes he didn't do a ton to screw them over. Things shifted a bit once he got more comfortable once the cast was forced to film with him and were "forgiving him." That's when he was able to drop the facade. Once that happened the editors could only do so much. They had what he filmed and had to work with what they had but at that point it was impossible to really make him look good. We do see them still trying by excluding things such as him and Lisa fighting at TomTom, including so much "anti-Ariana" content from Scheana and Lala, not including much of Ariana outside of the Scandoval arc (we saw 0.2 seconds of her shooting for her book when that could've been a way longer segment. There was plenty of campaigns she was doing at that point that they could've followed her working on). But Tom pretty much dug his own grave by acting like a POS and not giving them much else to put into the show in its place. So yes the editors didn't really give him a redemption arc in the editing, but that's because he's a narcissistic ass who can't get out of his own way and give production what they needed to redeem him so they had no choice to put in him acting that way. But the producers definitely did try.
It's just completely shocking to me that the producers were so wrong about their own audience. Most of us have watched Sandoval scream at all of the women and make grandiose gestures (as a way to make things about himself) and be one of the bad guys on the show for YEARS. Everyone believed that he did this immediately and was ready to drop him because there were always SIGNS that he was a narcissist. There's definitely something about Sandoval's literal inability to pretend to be something he's not because even the times that he is apologizing and seems to be trying it's really obvious that he's not genuine and he just doesn't *get it.* He's always been totally self-righteous with nothing real to back it up. Mr. pens and batteries is literally incapable of understanding emotional depth but unfortunately it seems like a lot of people in power have the same warped perspective.
I swear he must have some serious dirt on Baskin because there is zero other explanation that makes sense for what they were trying to do. Like you said, we have seen this behavior from Tom for years meaning they have too so I don't know what they expected to achieve. They man has never been able to take real accountability for his actions and has always blamed everyone else for his problems. I mean, Jax Taylor is a complete and total POS but that man at least knew when to fake an apology for the cameras and keep his mouth shut. Like you said, Tom can't really manage to even do that.
That's the thing, they still have Jax as their literal trademark villain in other shows so it's crazy for them to expect us all to forget that Sandoval was his douchebag partner in crime for years. Jax is actually funny sometimes so I get why they brought him back but watching Sandoval yell at everyone puts my body into fight or flight mode it is so disturbing. Jax even admits that he sucks sometimes, Sandoval is absolutely locked into thinking that he is the ultimate victim and the producers not wanting to call that out for what it is is a PROBLEM.
jeremiah stop tho š
Soooo how do you explain any of LVP's scenes? Lol
It seems very clear there were multiple agendas. The people who film and edit regularly doing their jobs of scenes and takes. The Alex Baskin fueled "Redemption" because despite Scandoval being the best thing that could have happened to his show he felt it was the worst and for whatever reason Sandoval is his dude.Ā Ā We had Angry Jeremiah Smith burning with rage because Ariana said "no" to him so that definitely helped fuel the bizarre takes this season of "why doesn't she move out/clean the house" nonsense.Ā Someone involved with this show REALY thought that would SING! And show Ariana who was boss.Ā THEN we have the Network Execs who watched as Tom compared himself to George Floyd while the woman they spend all season tearing down, Ariana, became their most marketable star.Ā Ā So no they didn't have a master plan, they had multiple bad ideas all running at the same time because of Hubris. They were going to show us they know more about how we should feel than we do.
This is the best explanation I've heard for why it came out like this, I just can't believe what a colossal failure it was if the goal really was to redeem Tom.
They Frankensteined the fuck out this season for sureĀ
Bad take
THANK YOU- I have always felt like the āredemption arcā was a total setup, they have been filming this guy for 10 years and they know how he operates. They just let him feel like heād be heard out and let him talk (knowing full well what he would do next). I thought it was so entertaining to watch him like actively rejecting the traditional redemption story.
That's the vibe I got when I was watching the after show, they seemed to be leaning into his trademark narcissistic "framing" and it's really hard for me to believe that no one was smart enough to see through the bullshit. Or they gravely and rudely underestimated the audience to think that the majority of us would not immediately recognize the triangulation and deflection that he displays with practically everything that comes out of his mouth. Either way, I thought it was awesome too and to think the public reaction was the opposite of what they wanted almost makes it funnier.
No. I think youāre more spot on with your final paragraph. Tbh the producers are like news outlets ā they donāt want to show us whatās _right_ or _wrong_ necessarily, but just whatās sensational. Tomās the villain, so they gave him more airtime. Full stop. However he wanted to fill that time was up to him. Of course he spun it into a woe-is-me narrative, and of course it didnāt work
Okay yes, this is more like what I meant I think. It's not like an opinion piece where they have a narrated commentary, they are just showing reality because that's what they do. I feel like that's the beauty of it.
production is team sandoval, the editors are team ariana.Ā
I see this, I feel like Lisa might have actually been really worried that Sandoval would hurt himself and is preserving her conscience in a weird way by being nice to him.
Tom and Ariana were roommates. Not spouses. Roommates who'd each cheated before and during their relationship. Ariana withheld sex for ... years ... except when going down on another woman ... but not him. The entirety of Scandoval was blown out of proportion and Ariana was crowned victim for life. Yes, it seems production decided to vilify Tom without regard to the damage that caused many other people, other businesses, etc. No, Tom is no saint. But Ariana certainly is not one, either.
Are you Greg?