It breaks my heart to say this, but I think it might be time for Lindsay and Carl to leave Summer House. I know, I know, Carl is one of the hottest dudes to ever fuck-boy all over Andy Cohen’s corner of the cable dial, and Lindsay is a nonstop fountain of activation, but it just doesn’t seem like their hearts are in it anymore. Carl was already on the cusp after last season. I’m not saying you can’t be sober and be in the house or even on a reality show — some of the Housewives greats like Jill Zarin and Margaret Josephs also don’t drink — but Carl has gotten boring. There are no more silly fights and cute hookups in the pantry. It’s just him looking like he just spent the better part of the day in his bedroom brooding.
Carl’s heart just isn’t in it anymore. This all comes down to his sobriety, and, know what, his sobriety is more important than this dumb show. When he visits his mother, he tells her that the house, the site of so many of his alcohol-fueled antics, is triggering. Know what? Don’t go, Carl. This is not the life for you. I know it has given you so much — fame, money, a job, a girlfriend, several hundred thousand gay dudes following you on Instagram waiting for the bathing-suit pictures — but from here on, it’s nothing but diminished returns.
Carl’s real problem isn’t that he’s boring; it’s that he doesn’t want to engage. The episode starts in the middle of the fight that Danielle kicked off when she said she didn’t trust Amanda. Now Lindsay has gotten into the fray, shouting about Amanda; Kyle is running around making fun of Carl and calling him awful names; and Danielle is shouting at Carl to stick up for his girlfriend. What does Carl do? He goes upstairs and separates himself from the situation.
As Lindsay says, he’s still trying to figure out the best way to handle his anger and emotions while sober, so this was the right decision on a personal level. Was this the right decision on a reality-television level? Hell, no! He should have gotten right up in Kyle’s face if he wanted to earn his paycheck. Carl tells us later that his initial response was to fight him, but that’s “old Carl,†and he doesn’t want to live like that anymore. Nor should he! But I don’t think New Carl, much like New Coke, deserves to be out in public so much.
At one point during this whole fight that concluded the slumber party, Ciara was comforting Amanda in bed, Mya was interrupting Danielle at the bedroom door so she couldn’t talk to Amanda, and Gabby was in the backyard trying to get Kyle to stop “screaming into the abyss†because no one could really hear what she was saying. The summer house officially turned into the Democratic Party, where a bunch of smart Black women had to get together and do the right thing because a bunch of white people shouting at each other wasn’t accomplishing anything.
In the morning, Carl and Lindsay do the reasonable thing; they pack up and depart at first light without really saying anything to anyone. This is the first real-world thing to ever happen with this crew. If I was in a screaming match with my bestie and his partner the night before, I would be in that Kia Telluride with my bags packed before the nearest coffee shop was even open. What they did is, objectively, the right thing. But Bravo was not made on the right thing. It was made on women unreasonably yelling at each other and sometimes drinks (and fake legs) being tossed. But this isn’t real life. This is a reality show, and they’re shirking their duties a bit here.
Lindsay isn’t any better and seems equally checked out. When Gabby tells her that she’s exhausted after three weeks, Lindsay laughs, “How about seven years!†Lindsay is at a weird place with the show. She closed her PR company and is now a professional influencer–reality star. She needs to be there to make money, but why should she be? There have never been good feelings between her and the Bed Sore Sisters, and neither side seems interested in making friends. She used to be down with Kyle, but since her relationship with Carl, they’re at loggerheads too. (Wait, isn’t loggerhead when you blow a lumberjack?) We all know that her relationship with Danielle is about to sour. Why would Lindsay even want to stay here if for anything other than the paycheck and the exposure?
I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t love Lindsay and Carl, a.k.a. “Larl.†We’ve seen Lindsay be with lots of guys and in many horrible relationships. How she cares about what is best for Carl and his sobriety is the most we’ve ever seen Lindsay think about someone other than herself. Carl seems calm, peaceful, and happy, even if he is struggling a little bit in the wake of his brother’s death and his sobriety. They are great, and they seem great for each other. I want them to be on TV forever, maybe not just on this particular television about kids in their 20s and 30s partying and hooking up.
Danielle even spots it when they do go out to Southampton Social. The crew is in one spot, and Larl is off by themselves, PDA-ing like it’s 1998 and they’re a Palm Pilot. They want to be alone in their own love bubble, going to Barry’s or whatever workout class that they drag everyone to at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. And that’s cool. I want that for them, but that’s not the assignment. Larl is trying to pass Home Economics, and we’re over here in Party 101, trying to figure out how to throw an entire disco party with no plans.
Yes, Gabby wants to have a Studio 50 Forrest party, where they turn the woods behind their house into a disco or something? I don’t know. All I know is that she is lying in bed going through Taskrabbit, wondering who is going to come hang up all of these disco balls when she doesn’t have any string, scissors, or disco balls that shouldn’t be floating in the hot tub. It’s the morning of the party, and Danielle is like, “We have no vodka, we have no tequila, we have nothing.†Mya asks what the food situation is going to be like. Gabby says it is not a food party, which, honey, we are in the age of Ozempic. You don’t have to tell me twice. But there is a reason I hang out with bears (the hairy gay kind, not the cocaine-addict ones you find in the woods). I know one thing is for sure: Bears are always going to have food at any shindig.
We get a lot of Gabby in this episode, and it is a little bit weird. We meet her sister, the Other Danielle, who has an amazing tennis shot and, for some reason, giant gold stars stuck to her face. What is she? A fifth-grade spelling test? I can only assume that they were meant to cover up blemishes of some sort, but calling that much attention to them was probably the wrong strategy.
We also learn that Gabby is a Taurus, just like me. When the whole crew is sitting around talking about who they’re dating, Gabby says, “I went on a date with a guy, and he was a Taurus, and nah.†First of all, my husband is also a bull, and we have a wonderful relationship. Neither of us will ever admit that we’re wrong, we don’t leave the house, and the tempers are massive, but it’s working just fine. I think? Maybe ask him. When she tells the group this, Danielle asks why her door is so closed. Gabby says it isn’t, but she’s dissing guys left and right for no reason. Look what she did to Chris’s friend, the hot Cancer? That door isn’t just closed; it is glued shut, painted over, a whole building erected next to it, and then the whole lot is shot into the sun, and the door is destroyed, so, alas, it can never be opened. That’s where Gabby is.
The conversation can’t stay on Gabby, though. Instead, it has to come back to Larl, the two people who don’t want to be there but have to be there. Ciara thinks that the relationship is going too fast, and Danielle agrees. She thinks that the first year is living a fairy tale, and I think that’s right for their relationship and Carl’s sobriety. They should be moving much more gingerly than they have so far in both respects. Carl just letting himself be subsumed by Lindsay’s bosom so that he can stay on the wagon is not going to work long term, nor is Lindasy wanting to drink but feeling like she can’t because of her partner. Wow, there is still a lot of season left and we’re already kicking people out. What will happen by Labor Day?