PicoBlog

I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for my absence re: the two penultimate episodes of this grizzly eighth season of Summer House. Like The Last Airbender, when you needed me the most, to shine a pitch-perfect spotlight of words on Carl’s quiet rage as he drove off leaving Lindsay’s massive suitcase to fit in Cacio e Pepe, I vanished. To be fair I’d been tasked with typing up quite a storm for my day job that required me to flash my badge as a card-carrying member of the HubbHouse apologists club on more than one occasion. That, plus bad internet, plus my out of town celebrations for the Memorial Day Holiday (if I have to thank the troops for my freedom then it's going to specifically be the freedom to believe that Kyle Cooke and The Town Crier’s wife should be put in jail) dragged me away from my God given duty to serve my troops: the Bravo community.  Specifically, the members who know Paige Desorbo can make a few good points without us pretending she’s as smart as she thinks she is. 

So I humbly come to you, hat in hand, to say sorry for the delay and get back to motherfuckin business before it’s too late. In the words of Timbaland (who I swear better not be outed as a sociopathic predator): it’s been a long time. I shouldn’t have left you. Without a dope beat to step to. Without further ado, let’s pop lock and drop it to a totally uncensored rundown of the gagworthy season finale episode of Summer House ahead of the reunion. There will be serious psychoanalysis of the male psyche, a girls’ girl ranking in which Danielle is shockingly not last, AND…most importantly of all…West bashing!!! Building them up to break them down isn’t a threat in this house. It’s simply a reality.

The Hans Zimmer scored season recap, has me coming into this episode ready for battle. How much money did Bravo give West for this party?! And why won’t they acknowledge the theme is based on a movie (Mad Max) when they shout out copyrighted Hollywood pop culture references on Housewives all the time!?!

Anyway, hearing that Carl needs huggies and kissies when his partner talks with him about the future makes me turn to stone below the waist faster than Medusa. Poor baby just wants his wifey 4 lifey to tenderly hold his hands through filling out a W4. What’s wrong with that? Well, nothing is wrong with intimacy and affection, but why does it have to be traded for doing your basic job as an adult human being? Lindsay is not one to suffer fools (sorry Shep can’t ruin that phrase for me) and Carl stuttering over his words about a kinda sorta job offer from Kyle Cooke after a year without a “real” job (by his own standards since the woman-dominated field of influencing is thereby inferior) is cringeworthy to watch and I’m sure a major turn off to be marrying into. He’s been begging Lindsay to believe in him all summer but did he ever consider she’s the type of girl that needs to see the proof to believe? Boy is not Santa Claus.

As much as she tries to downplay it, Ciara wants commitment from West. She rightly points out in her confessional that a relationship shouldn’t equal a feeling of dread or being a neutered animal, despite the two current examples we have on this show. The fact that West is so terrified to face the daunting potential reality of being stuck with only Ciara as the lady in his life, as if some Godsent angel better than she is going to arrive on his Murray Hill doorstep via Amazon Prime, is the baffling problematic reality with men in our generation. The thing about relationships is they are voluntary — if he did try with Ciara, and it didn’t work out, he wouldn’t be tarred and feathered for letting the alleged dream girls in his DMs give it a try next.

Carl talks more shit about Lindsay after the lights go down, his favorite post-party activity. She apparently not only doesn’t care about how she makes Carl feel, but other people in her life, and Kyle knows “exactly” what that means. It doesn’t even matter if that’s true at this point. It’s just strongly indicative of a guns-blazing hate campaign that Carl has initiated ahead of a breakup he refuses to go ahead and take ownership of. It’s not that Lindsay doesn’t complain about him too. There’s just something so obviously calculated about the way he plants these bombshells about her solely behind her back that she would never expect her fiance was saying about her.

Later in bed, West tries to equate saying ‘I love you’ to Ciara as the same thing as if he said it to Kyle. If it’s true, then what’s wrong with that? The problem is West wants Ciara to feel like the most special girl in the world. Just without giving her what she obviously wants to feel comfortable being his girl. His little vision of Ciara being on one side and his best friend on the other while watching the Chiefs isn’t wholesome to me. It’s making me think that he thinks adult relationships are Friends where he’s Joey instead of something more appropriate to aspire to, like SATC where he’s Steve. 

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Let’s just be honest about this too. I think West is concerned with more than the ability to pack his bags at the drop of a hat and voyage to Italy on his sports marketing salary. West is also worried as the weeks go on about his image as the new good boy of Bravo. His reveling in this title donned by the effing New York Times is a warning sign to me. It’s not that Bravolebs don’t deserve their moment in the sun. It’s just all a little soon for him to be our new king, openly polishing his own crown. West is feeling himself and the reunion seems to show that he’s hip to the fact that dating Ciara means if he does something wrong he’s gonna have to hop down from the throne (because I don’t care what that pulse-off-the-thumb profile says, he is absolutely shorter the 5’10”).

Praise the producers for not subjecting us to Ballon Guy spicy content part II, for our sake and Danielle’s.

Carl’s “worst time he’s ever had” at a party is because Lindsay made him anxious? I’m calling bullshit as someone who didn’t have a substance problem but would have to lay myself to rest if I saw footage of myself acting up at a random college party that I have now blessedly forgotten about in my thirties. In their MILLIONTH not-fight about what Carl needs to get to work, he does make a good point. He is telling her what he needs, but neither of them can accept that she simply isn’t the person to give it. He then quickly loses his credence by suggesting the words “yes babe you’re a rockstar!!!!” would come from Lindsay Hubbard’s mouth let alone any woman that is not an AI-generated doll who was programmed to love Smash Mouth.

Here’s the kicker of this scene: Lindsay asks Carl point blank if he wants to call off the wedding. And he says he isn’t, but their lack of conflict resolution makes him have second thoughts. Is having second thoughts NOT wanting to call off or at least postpone the first thought AKA the wedding??? Yeah it would be awkward to break it off around the kitchen island, but why didn’t he just say yes, and save them both the trouble of picking back up the cameras? Lindsay tosses it out because she thinks it's a crazy deflection that will deescalate the situation because it's surely not what he wants in her mind. But since Carl knows at this point it is, why not run with it? Instead, when the door is opened he runs from it and promises that he’s committed to working on things. For some unclear reason, she definitely is too. Even after he asks for a hug with repeated commands to go “harder” and “squeeze him.”  After I heard “Do you still like my hugs?” I’d have floated in the pool until the sun turned me into a raisin and the male species was just a distant memory of the past. Otherwise put, EW.

I’ll just get this out of the way now: I will never think Lindsay is lying about feeling blindsided. But I need her to put in the work on herself so that accepting a relationship like this doesn’t feel like a viable option in the future.

Kyle and Carl's sit-down is the only evidence I need to prove that Carl initiated the on-camera breakup. Just own it baby. The scaaaaary rattling water bottle story is exactly what I’m talking about when I say this man is so clearly painting a vision of this door-slamming villain so that when he backs out he won’t get in trouble with the powers that be when all he really needs to say to justify leaving with the audience is nothing because we’ve seen the damage done and don’t co-sign. He’s so worried about telling people about this summer which is a hilarious thing to be afraid of when you filmed a TV show. The only person Carl was having issues with in the house this summer was Lindsay? Considering he has virtually zero genuine relationships with anyone other than Kyle (who he beefed with last summer to the tune of lines on laptops) that isn’t too surprising. Carl’s “revelation” that Lindsay is who she is and isn’t changing making me launch a thousand Loverboys into the sun. It led me to the revelation that men are just two Little Rascals hiding in a trench coat when it comes to possessing EQ. Lindsay can move past extremely hurtful things like taking off an engagement ring (or accusing him of being on drugs). Me personally…probably couldn’t, as the doer or received. But I would tell my partner they’ve broken the terms of conditions of me loving them, quickly, and first, instead of everyone else. But as we all know, Carl is *FINALLY* about to do just that. LFG.

“You’re not an actor / what do you mean you want to do that” — we should’ve spent 25 minutes on that point of their conversation alone. Carl has a laundry list of potential careers like a fifth grader at the career fair, and he doesn’t understand why Lindsay couldn’t cheer him along every step of the way. It seems like everything about her is rude and wrong for him, so I respect her asking the obvious question of why he even proposed. The fact that he didn’t have an answer means they should’ve ended that day. Why did Carl think marrying Lindsay would work? Why would signing up to be a side character on the TV show of a professional victim be an option for him? My best guess is he didn’t actually consider the reality of it. Maybe becoming sober made him want to put together the pieces of a perfect life, and marrying Lindsay fit that goal. In a different way, I think she thought the same. He was her best friend turned love story come true, and they had a good first year, which she thought they could get back to after the stress of wedding-planning (famously hard) and Carl-job planning (famously cigars) was over. 

I have never been more stunned watching Summer House than when Carl says he thinks Lindsays wants him to relapse on his sobriety so she can control him. If you feel that way, which it seems he genuinely does, why in the WORLD are you even having a long conversation that he still insists isn’t officially a breakup? His final sentence “I’m hurt. I’m really unhappy. I don’t think our communication is going to improve.” needed to be said, and a long time ago. I don’t know what fifteen things Lindsay had to improve the relationship, but he is wholly right that planning on lifelong couples therapy isn’t normal. To her credit, the things he’s so upset at Lindsay for being aren’t new personality traits. I guess clocking her for who she is is just a part of his Kylie Jenner year of realizing things. 

Carl then reads himself down boots from Lindsay’s POV as an insecure, overly sensitive, unmanly, jobless flop. He takes no ownership of any of the flaws he says she is identifying in him because he doesn’t think they’re true. And you shouldn’t have to be with someone who perceives you as some horrible person you believe you are not. But he could have started and ended this conversation by presenting a firm decision that their relationship was, in fact, at long last over (which ironically would’ve finally proven her wrong that he was capable of being the man she doubted he could step up to be). 

Lindsay rants to her dad whose “oh boy” reaction tells me at least he wasn’t exactly blindsided. Carl and his veneers run to production to lament that he loves Lindsay and wanted this to work but she unfortunately is too much a gaslighting noise-compliant-obtaining bully who tried to ruin his life for that to happen now. Lindsay’s raging about her future being taken from her while Carl is worried about being canceled. Maybe it would comfort him to hear the mantra I stole from one of my favorite podcasters: you can’t get canceled if you’ve never really been greenlit. Let it free you, Carl! 

Danielle got prosecco for the final scene because this is lowkey the best day of her life, though I deeply appreciate her respectful efforts to hide it. Paige, on the other hand, wants Lindsay to STFU with her “fake tears” while Amanda has the gall to defend Carl to hardcore Lindsay’s face. How bizarrely cruel to be at the bitches’ bitch sesh but refuse to refrain from parroting your man-child’s opinions when all your so-called friend needs 48 hours after an epic breakup is a GD pat on the back. But it makes sense Amanda is riding for Carl’s brave departure from a toxic relationship because it’s “something she could never do.” Yes girl, we know…. 

But most of us aren’t going to applaud Carl for doing what needed to be done regardless of “how it happened” because how you handle things in your lowest moments is the biggest sign of character. Pretty sure that’s what Carl was trying to say to Lindsay about needing her support through his anxiety-inducing job search. You can end a relationship of any kind with care even if you have every right in the world to not want to be in it anymore. You also don’t have to want to protect them anymore if they’ve fucked you over. You just can’t have it both ways.

Final notes: after seeing Ciara and Paige’s painfully two-faced after-party scene I don’t understand why they just didn’t come. They don’t just play both sides and make sure to also advocate for their “friend” Carl (whom they literally have not engaged with on camera for years now). They go as far as to bash Linday’s entire credibility as a human being, finding it impossible for her to do an act as simple as cry. Even worse they call Gabby Lindsay’s puppet for pointing out that Carl could’ve been more forthright about his feelings, a sentiment much of the continental US has been saying for weeks. Paige claims to be a tough baddie who doesn’t bare all the emotions Craig wants from her on her sleeve. But the real ice-cold bitches with hearts of gold know that though we have a shell-like exterior it takes specialty tools to crack open, it doesn’t mean there aren’t real feelings underneath. Sure this girl group is better than VPR. But it doesn’t make them any more real.

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