“The Valley” was Jax Taylor’s chance to redeem himself after years of cheating on girlfriends and talking down to Brittany Cartwright. At first glance, he seemed like a changed man when he told the cameras, “I’m at a point in my life where I’ve recharged my batteries, I’ve reassessed my life a little bit. I do it all — I’m an influencer, I’m a father — that’s a job!” Then we saw a glimpse of Taylor’s old self when Cartwright reminded him it had been over a week since she got lipo under her chin. “I just don’t have full control over my jaw,” she told him. “I have to remember that. Nighttime activities,” he joked. (Let us remind you that this is the same man who told Cartwright to get bigger breast implants because he was paying for them.)
Taylor also seemed to have an unexplained dislike of Kristin Doute’s boyfriend, Luke Broderick, which put a strain on Cartwright’s relationship with her BFF. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of all that crap between, like, Jax, Kristin, Luke situation,” Cartwright confided to Nia Booko and Michelle Lally. She further explained that Taylor was so dismissive of Broderick during Scheana Shay’s wedding in Mexico that she broke out in hives from the stress. Taylor’s love-hate relationship with Doute was understandable given their cheating scandal, but his obsession with her wanting to have kids with Broderick had him spinning — and it was obviously a huge deflection of his own marital problems.
