Hello, 911? I would like to report a hostage situation. Luke got out his guitar and is forcing Jason and Rachel to listen to the song he wrote and help him think up lyrics. Yes, I know this is life-threatening and could cause a catastrophic ecological collapse. Please send help immediately.Â
Reader, let me tell you, help never arrives. This whole episode is really about people trying to get help, needing help, or not being able to help themselves. You know, the average episode with our lovable himbos and gorgeous gigglers.
The first altercation is between Jason and Lindsay but calling it an altercation isn’t true because Jason, the nicest man on Bravo, could find a way to turn a carjacking into a fireside chat. He tells her that when she announced the details of her miscarriage to the press, he was upset that he didn’t get more of a heads-up. He says he heard from friends and family who had no idea that she was pregnant or had lost the baby.
This is a very valid gripe. Of course, everything Lindsay went through — physically, emotionally, reality televisionally — was worse than what Jason went through, but if he’s part of the story, he should have at least gotten a text letting him know she had been talking about it. Well, she did tell him she would talk about it, but cluing him in when his DMs would start blowing up is the kind thing to do.
I am also on Lindsay’s side here. There is no handbook for this and she is doing the best she can. I don’t think Jason is calling her character into question like she imagines; I think he is just trying to create some space for his own feelings. Then, in the end, he says she was quoted in all of this press, and he wanted to be quoted too. Um, is he just mad that he didn’t get any clout off the back of Lindsay’s miscarriage? That doesn’t sound like our Jason, but maybe? Lindsay tells him that she has no control over who the press contacts. Really? Lindsay worked in PR for a long time; she would know how to get someone into a story if she wanted to.
Paige says that Lindsay is so good at PR that she changed the timeline of when she and Carl got together so she wouldn’t look bad when it came out that she and Austen “slept together†after Kyle and Amanda’s wedding. See, this is how false narratives spread. No one says they slept together; Austen says she tried by putting her hand on his dick. Touching a rod is the new finger-banging, by the way. I don’t know. I just learned that on Sniffies.
Speaking of touching poles, everyone went ice fishing so that Luke could once again show off what nontoxic masculinity looks like. JK. If non-toxic masculinity, vers bottoms, and the Easter Bunny were standing around a dollar bill, who would get it? No one because none of them exist. While Luke is showing up the guide and everyone is shivering on a lake and hating the whole experience, Jess, the metaverse realtor, is wondering just why the fish aren’t frozen.
It is not a good week for Jess. She’s getting really into Kory and explains to us that one day in the house is like two weeks in the real world, which means they have been dating for two months, so it’s totally right that she says she loves him. What? My husband didn’t say he loved me until our second Christmas together. This may be the fault of our own un-non-toxic masculinity, but to me, it seems like Jess is moving really fast. Kory is not making it any better. They’re lying in bed, and she says, “If you’re unsure if you want me or not, I don’t want to talk to you.†She’s being insecure about the relationship and tells Kory that she doesn’t want him to go back home, start texting all these girls, and then he’s not around for her anymore. He tells her that makes no sense, but ah doy!! of course this is exactly what he will do to her as soon as she gets home. We can all say that Jess is “crazy,†but she’s crazy like a fox tail mocktail.
As for the other new couple in the house, Jason and Rachel are moving along slowly but nicely. (They were at the Summer House panel at BravoCon together looking very cozy, so this might still be happening.) I have nothing to say except that I love them both (even though Rachel’s jaw tattoo always looks like she has a fake eyelash stuck on her face) and that their children will be gorgeous and excellent chefs.
Okay, now we need to talk about the whole Austen/Lindsay McDonald’s commercial that Andy Cohen is making bank off of because they must have said the brand ten times in 43 minutes (without commercials). So, Austen told Ciara, Paige, and Amanda that Lindsay put her hand on his dick at the wedding. That was the wrong move because all of these people sort of hate Lindsay and are going to use this information to try to houndswaggle her.
It is clear that nothing happened. Both say it didn’t happen. Carl seems to know that they hung out, and Lindsay either (1) told him about the dick touch and he doesn’t care, (2) she doesn’t remember that she touched the D at all, or (3) she is keeping it from him to protect him. That last one does not seem like the love that they share. They seem very enamored with each other, so enamored that Carl is beating off just thinking about Lindsay with her hair up and in a “Barbie doll outfit,†whatever that is. Almost too enamored. Are they hiding something? Is it Carl’s third ball?
When she’s drunk, Ciara starts talking to Luke and Austen about it. Luke thinks they’re in love, and Ciara says she thinks that’s odd. Then she forces Austen to tell Luke about the D touch. Yes, Austen is awful and stupid for telling anyone she did this, but we all knew that Austen is awful and stupid. But it’s Ciara who is keeping it going and ensuring it will reach Lindsay. Why? Cause she hates her! Okay, maybe not. She says, “We don’t have a relationship,†but where I come from, we call that hate.
Luke, of course, goes and immediately tells Lindsay, and now everyone in the house knows except Carl. The whole gang heads to a bar so cavernous that it has an indoor cornhole court. There is a cement floor and bad heating and the New England chill that went through my bones and then metastasized in my gooch could extinguish the sun. At the bar, Austen pulls Lindsay aside, not to tell her about spilling the pole touch but to apologize for last summer and humiliating her on Watch What Happens Live. She accepts his apology gracefully enough, but she already knows he blabbed. Now he’s apologizing for something and already broke the trust of the apology. Austen is like a computer born without Intel inside. I just have no idea how he processes anything because no matter what he does it always ends up being the wrong thing.
When the Scooby Squad finds out that they didn’t up where Lindsay’s rubber hits Austen’s road, then they say, “Well, now Carl is the only one who doesn’t know so now we have to tell Carl.†They’re asking for a blow up. They demand a blow up, but the new sober, deactivated Lindsay isn’t giving it to them. (Maybe Carl wasn’t finger banging her, he was just looking for the off switch for her anger.) I guess we’ll see next week when someone finally spills Carl’s beans. But until then, you know that Luke is tapping a tree somewhere still trying to dream up the lyrics to a song that only exists as a melting icicle.