If you ever see a house in a tony small town that is overtaken by hordes of seasonal tourists and there is a Jenga stack of Amazon boxes on the front porch, run. Run for your life. I’m not just talking about a few shipments, I am talking about a whole Mortville of boxes. I am talking so much cardboard that the trees surrounding whichever suburban idyll in which this house is situated are weeping for their fallen comrades. If you see such a thing, then get out of there because it means that the arrival of the Summer House/Winter House crew is imminent and no can of Bud Light will go un-punctured and un-shotgunned. No outfit that has sleeves with the gloves attached will go unworn. No middle-aged man reliving his fraternity dreams will go un-yelled at by his wife/girlfriend/partner. Or, actually, maybe you should stick around because things are about to get good.
This winter the crew is back in Stowe, Vermont, right near the birthplace of national treasure and my imaginary husband Kyle J. Cooke. (Oh wait, I can no longer call him that because we learned this episode that his middle name is actually McGill, who was the crime dog after McGruff got fired for workplace bullying.) Kyle brings along Amanda, who is now his wife. They both say that married life has mellowed and matured Kyle. I know from personal experience that this is a true phenomenon. When you finally convince a commitment-phobe to get married, their worst fear has been realized. But once they’re married and it’s not so bad, well then you have removed their greatest fear. Then they end up being loving and supporting partners. When asked what the next step in their relationship is, Kyle says, “Orgies.†Hello. Call me. I will happily join. My number is 867-5309.
Along with Kyle and Amanda, there is another new couple in the house, since Craig and Paige have been dating for five months. (This was filmed shortly after the season of Southern Charm that just aired wrapped.) Paige says that this is the longest amount of time that the long-distance couple will have spent together. She says she’s more worried about being with him around other people because he can be loud and obnoxious, something that Amanda, from bitter experience, can identify with.
Returning from last year is Luke, who Craig doesn’t like for a reason that he doesn’t state. He says their personalities don’t mesh. Later we hear that Luke had Craig and Austen out to his lake house in Minnesota. Craig says they were staying in a shed and Luke says it is his “guest cabin.†Luke says he was storing a box of fireworks in the guest cabin. I don’t know, broseph. If you’re using it to store things it sounds more like a shed. Anyway, when Craig and Austen started setting off the fireworks, Luke was pissed that they might hit his boat and set it on fire. Really, dude? Aren’t all the fireworks in Manhattan set off from dot dot dog barges?
I’m a little over Luke. He seems to have gone from loveable himbo to punchable fuckboi when I wasn’t even looking. (And by “looking,†I mean “ogling.â€) Maybe my distaste is because Jason, who was a rookie on last season of Winter House, shows up with a woman named Jessica who looks exactly like Lindsay Hubbard. Though Jason has some designs on her after sliding into her DMs, Luke wastes no time cozying up to her and eventually gets her alone in the hot tub. That is when he decides to ask her what is up with her and Jason. You have her alone in a hot tub, an invention that was created only for the purposes of hooking up or time travel and I don’t see you taking her back to 1969. Oh, wait … Maybe …
Speaking of Luke, he is described as “Hockey Coach/Entrepreneur.†Craig is a “Lawyer/Entrepreneur†even though he’s practiced the law about as recently as Michelle Obama. Kyle is also an “Entrepreneur.†This is like the “gaslighting†of job titles, overused to the point of meaninglessness. Actually, it’s not meaningless. It’s usually reserved for people like, oh, Joe Giudice who entrepreneur-ed himself all the way to prison. The one that takes the cake though is newbie Jessica who is a “Real Estate Agent / Metaverse Entrepreneur.†Can you even have a made-up job title in a made-up world?
When Luke is first hitting on her in the kitchen after everyone arrives he tells her that he is “producing a movie†that he is also acting in. Um, your cameo in the first episode of The Flight Attendant does not make you an actor. Later when flirting she says that she is in crypto which made me want to turn this entire car around pretending like I was driving home but really running my minivan right into the nearest ravine. Luke replies that he’s in crypto too. Yeah, I’m sure Luke is in crypto. He bought like $1,000 worth of ethereum and some kind of NFT of like beluga whales dressed up as pirates and thinks he’s in crypto. When they’re in the hot tub together, Jessica tells him that maple syrup is her favorite thing. Um, the one business Luke actually has is a maple-syrup company and that’s the only venture that doesn’t tell her about.
Jessica isn’t the only newbie in the house. We also get to meet Rachel, who was Kyle and Amanda’s florist at their wedding who got a strange amount of camera time. Wait, was this all planned? Was the florist a … plant? (I have dad jokes and the bod to match.) There is also Kory who was Craig’s little brother in their fraternity and is a gym owner in Greenville, South Carolina. I think that tells you everything you need to know about Kory. He shows up with ripped muscles and a tight fade looking like he just got out of the military but is also wearing a string of pearls. What kind of Harry Styles gay-baiting is this? He does not have nearly enough shirtless pics on his Instagram for the Bravo Girlies (and by girlies I mean homosexuals).
Kory is hitting it off with Ciara, who says that she is totally over Austen but we’re going to have to wait for Austen to show up to really test that theory. He’s been delayed somewhere or maybe Krist*n Cav*llari has him chained in the basement or something. All I know is that any day that I don’t have to see that Big Mouth Billy Bass singing on my television screen is a little bit of a victory.
Naturally the first drama of any group trip is the selecting of the rooms and Paige is unhappy that the primary bedroom no longer has the weird walk-in closet in a gable that she enjoyed last year. She says it has been replaced by a wall. I think they did some Cask of Amontillado cosplay with Julia from last season, since she has never been heard from again. The biggest fight of last season might have been when Kyle didn’t get the room he wanted, so this year Craig, who arrived first with Paige, came prepared and that preparation required at least two stops at an ATM over two days. He got out $1,000 in hundreds and tells Kyle that he will give him $500 to shut up about the room and will give Amanda another $500.
Kyle says this makes Craig look like an asshole and he’s really just doing it to prove that his crab-and-lighthouse printed pillow company is making money like the only stripper in a mining town. Kyle McGill Cooke III still takes the money and doesn’t say anything when Amanda only gets $300 because Luke took two Benjos to vacate the room upstairs so Kyle and Amanda can have it. Craig says that money solves all problems and I do think it’s kind of gauche, but it’s an elegant solution and it kept us from having to hear about room selection for the next six to eight episodes.
After a night of get-to-know-you partying, the ceremonial hanging of streamers, and the inaugural game of beer bong at adjacent tables, the next day everyone goes snowmobiling. It is entirely unremarkable. Well, Jessica does tell us that she has been skydiving in seven different countries and that girls don’t usually get along with her, so we know who she is. She is the cool girl. She stays up late with the dudes. She’s into crypto. She loves a hot tub. Oh Em Gee, she really is Lindsay’s long-lost twin sister.
That night it’s Amanda’s turn to host the party and it’s a “double trouble†night. Everyone has to pick a costume out of one of the legion of Amazon boxes. Whoever gets the corresponding costume is their buddy for the night and they have to play all these games together. This is actually a really cute idea, so someone please give the new Winter House producer who just came from RuPaul’s Drag Race a gold star because they earned it.
The night is marked by one deep conversation between Amanda and Paige. Amanda says that she went off birth control right after the wedding (which was in September and it is now February-ish) not because they were trying to have a baby but because she wanted to give her cycle a chance to normalize. She hasn’t had her period since then and the doctor told her if it doesn’t come back by May she might have some fertility issues. She tells Paige that health class scared her into thinking that the moment she stopped taking the pill she would get knocked up with a brood of children like the Octomom and that didn’t happen. That has got to be awful. Women are taught to assume the worst when it comes to their own bodies and behave accordingly only to find out, later on, that what we told them to fear wasn’t even going to happen. Paige is wonderfully supportive and tells Amanda she will have a baby once her body sorts itself out. Sadly, no one tells Amanda that it is in her Bravo contract that as soon as she and Kyle have a little one at home they are no longer on the shows. I don’t make these rules, I am just happy to enforce them.
Speaking of forcing things, it seems like the romantic angle for these kids is being pushed harder than Luke in a hot tub. Is Rachael feeling anyone? (No.) Is Ciara going to choose Kory over Austen? (No.) Is Jason going to get with Jessica? (No no no no no no no no.) It doesn’t seem like we have enough single boys and girls for this to really be the angle of the show, but then what are we left with to fill up all of the empty Amazon boxes that are now collecting dust in the garage like so many pandemic Pelotons? I guess we’re left with Craig, stomping on tables and screaming at Amanda for no good reason. We’re stuck with him in the kitchen punching a piñata held by his friend Kory for no good reason. We’re stuck with the candy skittering all over the floor attracting any ants that haven’t saved up enough for the winter and crunching under the snow boots of whoever is unlucky enough to wake up the next morning and trying to turn a blind eye to the shameful mess of a complete stranger.