I hate this show for making me agree with Lindsay Hubbard, a category-five hurricane during an 8.5 earthquake. As everyone is sitting around the bonfire raging about what is going on with Luke and Hannah (a.k.a. Huke), she wants to scream at them to let the couple live their lives and figure out their own relationship, the ups and downs of which have been so destabilizing that they’ve given me seasickness.
That’s what is frustrating about this whole episode. Everyone, particularly Hannah’s BFFs Paige and Amanda, is bothered by what is going on with Hannah and Luke except for Hannah and Luke. There are all these fights about how Luke is treating Hannah but, well, Hannah is fine with it. At the start of the episode we find out that in between weekends Hannah took Luke out to dinner and told him that she thought they should just be friends. After a night of drinking and carousing and then a drunken trip to Taco Bell, Luke tried to get Hannah to come home with him. She said no. Duh, Luke! Who wants to have sex after you’ve stuffed your entrails with the greasy, cheesy delight of Taco Bell, which is sure to come oozing out the back door in short order?
Hannah breaks this news to the girls in the car and Luke tells the boys about it in the living room. All the genders are engaging in their various locker room talks. That is until Jules shares a car with the boys on the way to dinner and Kyle asks Luke when was the last time he had sex. Then he says, “And Jules, this is in the circle of trust.†But Jules stays silent. The Circle of Trust is not something that can be imposed on someone. It is something that must be agreed to. Much like Dibs, it does not hold up in a court of law as a verbal contract unless it is agreed to by all parties.
When Luke says it was a week and a half ago, Jules’s eyes bug out of her head like the first time Craig from Southern Charm took off her boxers in front of her. Since she was not in the Circle of Trust, she waits precisely 20 minutes to bring this up at dinner and cause a whole kerfuffle. Thank you, Jules. Thank you for doing your job.
While Hannah is initially surprised that Luke didn’t tell her, she is also not upset because they were both single and he was allowed to do what he wants to do. Paige and Amanda, however, can’t believe he would do that while flirting and carrying on with Hannah. But if Hannah’s not mad, how can they be so upset? Paige says, “I would not allow my friend to date you,†which seems pretty harsh, and Luke says, “Whatever, Paige, you’re usually just in your room trying on clothes.†That seems to be the big insult to everyone. Carl says, “Why are you coming at them like that?â€
First of all, Paige is usually in her room trying on clothes and texting her boyfriend. That is literally all she has done this season. I love Paige. She is beautiful, stylish, charming, fun, and charismatic. However, she has been asleep at the wheel since Memorial Day and if she wants to stay on the show she needs to wake her ass up. Secondly, that is a really weak insult. It’s like countering a slap to the face with a tickle of the ribs. I feel bad for Luke because he has done nothing wrong and everyone in the house is yelling at him. He said a few weeks ago he didn’t want to have sex with Hannah and then hurt her and have everyone come after him for it. Now that is happening and he didn’t even get to have sex with Hannah.
The next day, when he tries to apologize to Paige and Amanda, they are not having his apology. Amanda accuses him of lying and manipulating Hannah. I said Luke did nothing wrong, but I actually think he did a little wrong: He was not nearly as clear about his intentions or what was going on between the two of them as he thought he was. But it’s not like he’s out to hurt Hannah. He’s not manipulating her any more than any dude trying to sleep with a woman is. He is not a mastermind. He has not thought this thing out into the future. He is not separating her from her friends and grooming her. He’s not smart enough to be this diabolical figure that Amanda and Paige think he is. He’s just a kinda stupid dude doing what kinda stupid dudes do.
It’s clear that Amanda, in particular, just does not like Luke. I can’t tell why or what he did to her, but she despises him and is using his relationship with Hannah as a justification for her feelings. At the orchard, after the apology, Amanda starts hounding Luke about exactly when he had sex with this girl to make sure Hannah wasn’t sleeping in the same bed where he had sex with her, and it is gross and invasive and no one there likes it, but also no one can speak up against Amanda. No wonder Luke throws his Solo cup in the air and tries to walk away.
That night, he takes Hannah out to the tennis court in the sweltering darkness and tells her that he thought he needed time to himself, but he looks at her and smiles and just wants to spend time with her and he can’t help himself when he’s around her. She says she feels the connection too and they decide to kiss and not tell anyone because they don’t want to get yelled at. They then go upstairs where things get hot and heavy, so hot and so heavy that Luke puts a towel over the bedroom camera so we can’t see the action.
But, oh girl, did we hear it. “Don’t break my boob! Don’t break my boob!†Hannah yells between moans and “Oh my gods,†which, Jules accurately observes, sound just like her grunts on the tennis court. Luke is silent, possibly because his mouth is otherwise occupied? I don’t know. It sounds like they’re having a great time even though they’re keeping everyone in the house awake.
Amanda at first thinks it’s Carl and Jules having sex with the door open. Oh yes, Carl and Jules. Carl is sort of like an impediment on the threshold, something that every woman must trip on before entering the house. It is now Jules’ turn. Carl and Jules are taking time to get to know each other and I think it’s just what each of them needs. Carl needs the amorous attention of a woman after his failed attempts at courting Lindsay and Sarah. First he turned to his forever second choice Kirsten, the balm who soothed the burn of being rejected by Paige last summer, but then Jules is right there and interested. For Jules, getting with Carl is a way into the house, it’s another ally where there was none before.
So far everything has been PG, with them staying up all night talking about themselves, which is both of their favorite activity. We do hear about Carl’s “five-way†(anything more than four is an orgy, BTW) with him and four different girls. This sounds like some story Jordan would have told everyone. Also, it sounds like less of a “five-way†and more like Carl was the intruder on some sort of lesbian love-in.
The real couple of the weekend is Kyle and Amanda. I love them so much when they’re getting along, and this has been the rare month free of discord. There is nothing more hilariously charming than Kyle singing about Amanda’s FUPA to the Oompah Loompah song. Then, after a lobster dinner, he takes her out to a bench by the tennis court that no one has filmed on before. He tells her that, despite everything, he can be romantic. They have a kiss and a cuddle and listen to the crickets, and Amanda tells Kyle that is her favorite sound in the world and she loves listening to it with him and looking up at the stars, and it seems like, for a just a moment, the universe would open up and swallow them whole.