I didn’t understand Ariana’s actions until last night’s episode.

Been a VPR fan since day 1. To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Ariana. I agreed with the criticism that she tried too hard to be a cool girl and I found her to often be petty and immature. I didn’t hate the girl by any means, she just wasn’t my cup of tea. I DID however always respect how hard she rode for Sandoval. That level of loyalty she had to him, is unmatched and even though she backed up some problematic stuff, I do think her loyalty is an amazingly admirable trait.

That said, her staunch “I will not be around people who want to be friends with Tom” stance puzzled me a bit. I’ll admit that I tend to look at life in millions of shades of grey, so people who are SO black and white have always confounded me. I didn’t necessarily think she was wrong but I did think that she could soften to her friends a bit (until Scheana went off the deep end and called Ariana her backup dancer; that was it for me with her).

After last night’s episode and Ariana’s conversation with Lala, it made SO much sense to me. You don’t have to agree with her to understand that she needs to make decisions for herself and place safeguards around her for her own well-being. For the first time I actually thought Ariana was extremely reasonable. Also her confessional made me tear up; when she said that she knew everyone would get closer to Tom and that he’d eventually ice Ariana out I was like “THAT! That’s it!”. It made SO much sense that she would feel that way and I hope we see her express those worries with the cast because they are SO valid.

I know she’s been saying some variation of the same things before this episode, but it always came across differently than the way it hit last night.

Also I’ve always said that Scheana is thirsty but she has a good heart; I don’t know that that’s true anymore and it’s pretty disappointing.

Anyway….let me know what you all thought! This was my favourite episode so far and gives me hope for the rest of the season.