Just as things are looking cordial between Ciara and West, Amanda and Kyle’s marriage starts to disintegrate even faster.
Photo: Bravo
I always say that everything is better when it happens on a boat. This usually isn’t true on Bravo, considering we have a Boat Ride From Hell, a Gondola Ride From Hell, and a Below Deck Crossover From Hell. But not on Summer House. Everything that happened on the boat was entirely fine, even joyous. It’s what happened before the boat ride that has everyone at home shook like a protein shake on the bumper cars. As the cast is leaving, Kyle is in the car and wonders if the talk that West and Ciara were having was about rekindling feelings. Mia says they need to establish a friendship first, but based on everyone’s reactions, including West’s and Ciara’s, it’s like they simultaneously went steady, made love for the first time, got engaged, conceived, and bought their first house together that’s a bit of a stretch but if they do a few more Jimmy John’s sponsored posts they can probably make it work. Jesse’s in the car and asks if they’re going to hold hands and then lift them aloft when they pull up. When the car gets there, that’s exactly what they do, like a politician and her husband declaring a hard-won victory.
On the boat, Ciara is talking to Mia about what happened and said, “I feel like he’s my person.” First of all, that has aged about as well as seafood salad left out in the sun. Second of all, I hate “my person” culture. When did we start saying this and when did we all agree this was a thing? I’m actually asking, though I do have a feeling it started with The Bachelor. On the boat Wiara (Cest?) isn’t too crazy or affectionate, but when they’re back on land, he goes to her room and gives her a hug that lasts longer than the last three times I had intercourse, as they just clasp each other tightly in what would have been a very sweet moment just six weeks ago and now makes me cringe like my pubes just got caught in a car door.
Later in the evening, Ciara is in bed with Ben, talking to Sabrina on FaceTime about their conversation because Sabrina can’t go 17 seconds without calling Ben and trying to insert herself into the show. Ugh, Sabrina. Even through FaceTime, I can tell that she’s wearing a terrible outfit. She tells Ciara that West has a crush on her, which Ben told her in confidence, but she blurts out on the phone because of course she does. She’s more exhausting than an ultramarathon following a Phish concert.
The other big couple story of the season continues as we watch Kymanda disintegrate before our very eyes. Amanda skipped the weekend, and Kyle let us know that their text thread is super-depressing because she never responds. What made her respond? When West said in the group chat (named Bummer House S10, as if a psychic told them what would happen once the summer was over) that it was the best night of his life, Amanda got upset that she wasn’t there for it. As Kyle pointed out, it was West having a good time that finally gave her FOMO. Someone get that chat-naming psychic on the phone and find out if she’s talked to Deux Moi.
Kyle tells the boys on the boat that he feels weird that he can have fun and be himself because his wife isn’t around this weekend, which is sad. Jesse Solomon gossips about the situation in bed with Ciara and Mia, and he says that Kyle and Amanda haven’t had sex in years. Ciara asks him how he knows, and he puts on this adorable little rascal voice and says, “The rumor millllllllllll.” Ciara asks who told him, and he uses the same voice to say, “Carllllllllll,” and they all giggle because they know the intel is good. Ciara points out that Messy Jesse didn’t even take any pressure to spill these particular beans, and that is why he is an excellent practitioner of the reality-television arts and sciences. Two years is too long for that, at least for a closed relationship. If these two aren’t banging out and seemingly not hanging out, then this was doomed way before the summer started.
Back in the city, Amanda and Ciara go for a walk so that Amanda can hear all about the makeup with West and then tell Ciara the very sad tale of her love story as it was related to their couple’s therapist. Amanda basically says that he sucked and cheated, they got married, he continued to have cheating rumors, and now they can’t stand each other. Well, when you put it like that, it makes you wonder why she didn’t dump Kyle after seeing him say that Stassi looked like Steve Jobs in her mock-turtleneck bikini. Amanda did say that she is still mad about things that happened prewedding, and he’s pissed about things that happened post-wedding, so they’re just in different places, even about what to be mad about.
The rest of the episode is consumed with Carl’s soft opening for Soft Bar, the alcohol-free social environment that exists solely to spite Lindsay Hubbard. It’s also a soft launch for In the City, the new spin-off show featuring Kyle, Amanda, and Lindsay, as well as Georgina, the friend Lindsay brings to the party; Andrea and Lexi, who show up to support Carl; and Danielle and her boyfriend, Eoin (which is how Irish people spell “Owen”), talking about how she and Lindsay aren’t currently on speaking terms because Lindsay is pissed off at Danielle’s confessionals from last season. Also at the party is Luke, whom we haven’t seen in ages. He was probably there fundraising for his political campaign.
It is big of Lindsay to show up at the party, but it also highlights the difference between Lindsay and Carl in their post-Larl era. Carl showed up at Lindsay’s housewarming with a thoughtful gift for Lindsay and her daughter. Lindsay shows up at Carl’s with a teddy bear, which is some kind of backhanded compliment or a snarky callback to how Carl wanted more hugs and someone softer than Lindsay. Then, in confessional, Lindsay makes fun of the concept of an alcohol-free bar all over again. The worst, however, is how she treats Sharon, Carl’s mother. Lindsay says the last she heard from her was when she sent her a “weird” text post breakup that said, and I paraphrase, “I still care about you, and I hope you’re doing well.” That’s not weird, that’s, I don’t know, kind of sweet. Then again, my mother-in-law still vacations with my husband’s ex, so maybe my boundaries are all screwy.
Sharon goes over to greet Lindsay, which I think is very magnanimous of her, and Sharon asks how Lindsay is, how her daughter is, a few standard questions, and Lindsay meets her with reticence and one-word answers. When Sharon asks about Gemma, Lindsay says, “Slightly mean, just like me, right?” I get it. The situation is awkward, and it’s not nice to hear your ex’s mother say you’re slightly mean on television. But this bullet has been dodged. This is Carl’s event, and this is Carl’s mom. I love Lindsay. I get the situation is weird, and I’ve already forgiven her, but she can’t be nice to a sweet old lady?
The even worse one is Sabrina, who shows up in a choker of her own design and an outfit that looks like the losing lewk in a Drag Race challenge where all the queens were tasked to make a gown out of a bunch of used coffee filters. It was giving LaLaRi bag dress the house down boots. She and Ben are talking to KJ, and she’s like, “Tell him about Christmas!” And then Ben has to say that he invited Sabrina to Australia to meet his family at Christmas. Then she says, “Tell him what you told your mother!” And then Ben has to say he told his mother that the next person he brings home is going to be someone special. It’s like she was announcing her engagement at someone else’s wedding or a sober-bar soft opening, as the case may be. There was nothing left for anyone to drink at Soft Bar after Sabrina arrived because her insatiable thirst sucked up all the moisture within a ten-block radius. Even the houseplants in the apartment across the street are dead.
It’s just all too much, it’s all too much! Sabrina says she’s excited about “afterwards” because she invited Ciara and West out for dinner with the two of them on a “double date,” even though they’ve just rekindled their friendship. As West says in confessional, it’s like she’s already picked out their wedding venue when they’ve been friends again for like three days. Even Amanda is worried because this sounds too much like a date, and she doesn’t think that Ciara is ready to be anything more than friends with West. Why? Because she already has designs on West? Maybe!
Sabrina is already texting Jesse about this “date” as well. Stop it! We don’t know you! You don’t even go here! But she’s getting in everyone’s business and forcing so many things to happen that Sabrina is getting even more screen time than Levi. (That said, the hot guy with the mustache standing behind Kyle at the bar opening got more screen time than Levi, and if he sees this, I’m @BrianJMoylan on Instagram and my DMs are open and my husband doesn’t mind as long as he can watch.) But the note the episode ends on, just like how it opens, is one of dramatic irony. It’s us knowing how all of this is going to end and the characters playing it out: West’s hope at his friendship with Ciara, Amanda concerned about her friend and how West will treat her, Ciara excited that she has “her person back again.” We all know that it’s terrible, like a million thunder strikes, like a global pandemic, like being thrown into a beehive covered in Coke Zero, like a ship with a hole in the bottom that is getting bigger and bigger, taking on water, sucking everything onboard into the dark, salty depths.
