It’s crazy to me that these yahoos spend two whole months in the Hamptons every summer, and they only ever go to the beach once. That’s like having a condo in one of those creepy Disney villages but never going on Space Mountain. You mean Paige, Amanda, and Ciara would rather hang out in a bed than feel the sand between their toes? Of course the answer is yes! Well, in this episode, they finally made it to the beach, and, other than all the sand that got into Kyle’s hi-fi stereo system, everything went pretty smoothly.
Before they get to the beach, however, not so much. We’re still in the middle of the Carl and Lindsay fight that capped off the last episode. We see Kyle taking Carl outside for a man-chat, and thank god that these two are bro-ing down. Kyle tells Carl in no uncertain terms that the way Lindsay was treating him the night before was unacceptable. You can see, at this point, Carl is still trying to hold onto the relationship like he’s trying to grip a bottle of poppers with lube-y hands in a gay bathhouse. He says he doesn’t want to blame Lindsay, and Kyle is like, “Girl, it’s her fault.â€
Kyle also makes the excellent point that the way he deals with Lindsay is just falling on his sword and letting her be right all the time, but that is no way to live a life. How will Carl be able to cope with someone who will always blame everything on him? I know how. He’s not! Bullet dodged.
Lindsay is telling an entirely different story to Danielle in the morning, and I can’t believe they’re both sitting in this kitchen where they ended their friendship a year ago and now just kibitzing over Entenmann’s chocolate donuts. Anyway, Lindsay says that Carl was getting really defensive and cutting her off. Yeah, because she was spreading lies about him and his sobriety. What did you think? Was he just going to take it and nod his head like your grandma while she dozed off watching Wheel of Fortune?
At the beach, Carl finally pulls Lindsay aside and he apologizes for brushing her off and not listening to her feelings. She tells him that she still has PTSD from “old Carl†and that when he gets aggressive, rude, and mean to her. I don’t know; we haven’t seen any evidence of More Life Carl in years. If anything, he’s been too measured and too boring for reality TV. I wish he would be rude and mean to her. I would love nothing more than Carl and Lindsay rending each other limb from limb next to the barbecue grill, but that is not happening. Also, you have no idea what Lindsay means by rude and aggressive. If you are standing behind Lindsay in the bank and you breathe on her shoulder, she’ll probably turn around and call you rude and aggressive. I’m totally on Carl’s side in this one. In the end, they kiss it out, and we’ll just have to wait for next week to see what kind of fight they get into in the next seven days.
The other problem centers around Carl’s career. We see him and Danielle, old friends and lovers, throwing the old pig skin around on the beach, something that has never happened once in the Fire Island Pines except when the Cherry Grove lesbians sometimes get lost. He says he’s not quite sure what to do with his life. Lindsay is leaning into influencing, which is kind of like the idiot version of studying for the bar exam.
At the end of the episode at Hekate, Manhattan’s only sober bar, Carl says that he wants to open a sober sports bar. This is a terrible idea. No one wants that and this business is doomed to fail. The sober bar they go to looks like it has about a dozen seats. That’s why it can stay open. You’re going to try to make enough money to afford Manhattan rent without any booze sales? I’m sorry, but that is not going to happen unless you start charging $50 for tater tots so people can see the Rayven Sox (is that a team?) lose to the Yankmes (that’s def a team). While you can say that Lindsay is not being very supportive of Carl taking his time to figure out his (non-reality) professional life, shooting this down is the best thing she ever did for Carl.
There are some other couples, romantic and otherwise, that we need to talk about. I am most excited about West and Ciara, which I’m already calling Wiara. I have never shipped a TV couple more than when I wanted Nina to break up with the Pinta so she could date her true love, Santa Maria. That’s how hard I ship West and Ciara. I like that they’re taking it slow and haven’t even made out (on camera) yet. I like that he took her out to a proper (filmed) dinner and that they were both nervous. I like that they actually seem to be falling for each other and that they are both wildly attractive.
Kyle and Amanda don’t have blow-ups in this episode, but Kyle does try to lose one of their adorable puppies when he stays home to watch the dogs, and she goes out with the rest of the group. Kyle, you had one job, and Paige did most of it for you. Kyle manages to annoy Amanda by turning on the music at 2 a.m., which she knew she would do. What sort of torture is that, knowing that your partner is just going to drive you insane every weekend and not being able to stop them? The kind of torture that would lead to a slow and painful poisoning over a number of years, that’s what.
There’s also a Jesse Solomon (always both names!) and Paige situation brewing because he seems to be laying it on quite thick with her at the moment. She says at the club, he leaned over her and put his hand on her thigh, and she was a little uncomfortable. Amanda says the gesture makes her uncomfortable, and Paige corrects her. She’s mostly uncomfortable for Jesse, who is embarrassing himself by flirting with her so hard.
The strangest couple of the whole night, however, is Paige and Lindsay, who hated each other even before Lindsay admitted to stealing Paige’s job of doing Amazon lives and forcing people to buy Fashion Nova. For dinner, half of the crew went out to eat, and half stayed home. Paige is physically incapable of being more than 300 meters from her bed, or else she will lose all of her power and wilt like a Bonzai left out in a blizzard, so she stays at home. So does Lindz. They’re sitting in the kitchen with Gabby, who is asking Lindsay who she is getting along with these days. She then asks about Paige and Lindsay.
Lindsay’s answer is surprising. She says that she and Paige are fine, but Paige thinks that Lindsay did some things she didn’t do. Last year at the reunion, Paige said that Lindsay planted an article saying that Craig was so drunk at Kyle and Amanda’s wedding that he got thrown out. Lindsay said then she didn’t plant it and repeats it now, adding that it was Danielle who planted it. My jaw dropped like it was a pair of panties in the vicinity of Maluma.
This is excellent tea, and I have to give Paige enormous credit for not texting all the girls in the house that very minute to tell them about it and then confront a wasted Danielle as soon as she got back. But why is Lindsay doing this? She and Danielle had a great conversation on the beach, where Danielle accepted Lindsay’s wedding invitation, and Lindsay reiterated she really wanted her there. They seem well on the road to recovery. Why is Lindsay going to sabotage that to try to get closer to Paige, who has been rebuffed by Lindsay so many times she stopped trying to be friends with her? This is absolutely nuts and also the only storyline I want to follow until next summer when Wiara is getting engaged.