I feel like I might have done Olivia’s hurt at the end of the last episode a bit of a disservice. Since the episode picks right back up in the same place, why don’t we? Many people reacted to how upset she must have been after Taylor, in her Fraggle of a sweater, told her that she and Austen contemplated having a relationship. I agree. It must have been difficult for her and I think I was a little callous about the situation.
I was distracted by two things. One is that what seemed to upset Olivia was that Austen and Taylor talked to their siblings about the dynamic. Maybe it’s because I’m not from the South or because my brothers only talk to me to tell me to stop pooping on their lawns as a practical joke, but that just seemed so odd to me. Even when Shep is telling Craig about the conversation in this episode, Craig really freaks out when Shep brings up this detail. I guess I am just being culturally insensitive and should consider this a bigger deal.
The real thing that distracted me though was that I never thought Austen and Olivia were actually a couple. I felt the same way about Austen and Chelsea when they first joined the show. If Austen was going to be in a relationship faker than Marlo Hampton’s and that weird chef dude way back then, why wouldn’t he do it a second time with Olivia?
Even Taylor echoes this sentiment when describing the timeline of the conversation. She says it happened when she and Shep had been broken up for two months, and “Austen and Olivia, were they ever really together?†Exactly! I don’t think so. That’s why Austen put on a good face “in New York†(a.k.a. at the reunion) and made it look like he wanted to get back together so he would look good and faithful to the fans. A week later he changed his mind. Why? Hmmm. Probably because, much like Katie Holmes’s divorce, the contract was up.
But I’ve come around in this position. What upset Olivia wasn’t really about her and Austen, it wasn’t even about Austen and Taylor, it was about her and Taylor. She felt betrayed because her LYLAS thought that she might want to get with her ex-boyfriend and didn’t mention anything about this to her for a matter of months. What if they did get together? How was she going to call up Olivia and say, “You know how Austen’s tongue doesn’t fit in his mouth? It doesn’t fit in mine either. Oopsie!â€
According to Taylor’s timeline, however, everything was kosher. But Olivia feels the opposite. She thinks that the conversation happened when she and Austen were trying to work on things and that Taylor inserting herself into the situation might have scuppered whatever (fake) relationship they were building. So yeah, their facts are about as aligned as those two horrible ice luges at Taylor’s big party.
I can’t believe she didn’t have the party at JT’s event space. Ugh, Mini-a-Lago is just the worst. First of all, he’s multiplying the housing crisis with all of his Airbnbs. Second, he’s opening an event space that has “old world masculine vibes†and says it’s like Gerard Butler’s penthouse in Chelsea (the New York one). Girl, it is a direct ripoff. It is like a Shien version of Gerard Butler’s house. But of all the people, of all the houses, of all the aesthetics to rip off, of course, JT chose Gerard Butler’s NYC man cave.
Yes, Taylor is throwing a “Ski Après†party because she has no idea how anything in the world works. Everyone is coming except Austen, who decides to dip out at the last minute because he doesn’t want to confront either Olivia or Taylor about the mess he created. JT shows up looking just like Don Jr. about to go on a hunting trip where they tie the bears up for you and immobilize them so that you can’t miss. Craig arrives in a white faux-fur jacket with black spots. It’s amazing. If only he arrived with no shirt and guyliner like he’s Jared Leto for Gucci. Everyone else just looks kind of dumb.
But not Rodrigo, voted Most Handsome Charlestonian by Brian Moylan magazine for three years running. He and his studly boyfriend, Tyler, show up in ’90s-inspired ski gear, and I have never had such “We saw you across the bar and dig your vibe†vibes ever in my life. I want these two to meme me. I want them to meme me so hard that I walk home looking like Grumpy Cat. DMs are open, boys.
Meanwhile, Austen has decided to go to Whitney’s house to each chicken and get so drunk on good champagne that neither of them will survive the hangover. Well, Whitney will. He’s from rich people’s stock. Austen is telling him about the situation, and he says, “So what if Taylor and I made out,†and it sounds like, yes, indeed, he and Taylor made out. It’s not so much a hypothetical as much as it is a truth that he inadvertently divulged. Whitney asks him to clarify and he says they didn’t, but it’s giving very much O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer. It’s giving Bill Clinton “I did not sleep with that woman.â€
At the party, all anyone can talk about is Taylor and Olivia’s conversation. The party seemed wet and boring, but at least there was something to talk about. Olivia and Taylor have a little moment where Olivia tells her, “I only came here to support you.†Um, is that supposed to make Taylor feel better or worse? I don’t know.
Even crazier is the conversation that Shep has with Taylor as he’s on his way out with Craig and Madison (who eats BLTs where the T is also the bread) to hit up Whitney’s in-law apartment turned speakeasy and bordello behind Miss Pat’s house. Shep goes up to Taylor and says he heard about her chat with Olivia, and he thinks it’s a double standard that she got mad at him for sleeping with women after they broke up, but she was going to buy a bungalow with one of his best friends.
Taylor’s response is kind of perfect, “You’re right, but had I been cheating the entire relationship …†Sick burn. Also she’s right. But also maybe she’s wrong. When you break up what the other person does is none of your business, unless your ex is shagging one of your friends. At least Shep had the decency not only to leave the friend circle but to leave the state, sleeping with girls in Texas. Taylor is going right into Shep’s backyard. (Thank God she’s not in Craig’s backyard, or she would have fallen into that husk of a swimming pool and broken her neck.)
Shep then said to her what we’ve all been thinking. “We used to laugh about his behavior. You knew everything about him and you still thought ‘Should we give this a shot?’†Yes. Austen is horrible to women, and if she thought Shep was bad, wait until she gets a load of Austen’s collection of half-zip sweaters. Going from Shep to Austen is sort of like quitting crystal meth so that you can take up bath salts. Why would she even do that to herself?
As the party migrates to Whitney’s Shep and Austen finally have the chat we’ve been waiting for and Shep wants Austen to assure him that nothing happened. He asks, “Did you hook up with Taylor?â€
Austen’s response is, “Define ‘hooked up.’†Oh yes, he just donated $1 billion worth of phony money to the Clinton Foundation. If you’re having to parse these kinds of sentences, you’re basically saying, “I did not have sex with that woman,†and then trying to find a unique way to define sex. If you came anywhere within the realm that might be covered by “hooking up†— and that includes kissing — then this friendship should be over, and they both overstepped their bounds. We don’t know if Taylor and Austen had sex with each other and we won’t find out until the next episode. But one thing is for sure. One way or another, Austen is getting screwed.