Famous People #64: Summer House S1E4, Carl's on antibiotics
^^^^^^^^hahahahahahaha ^^^^^^^^^^
Lizzie: In the world of Summer House, time moves however you want it to move, and so we begin this episode at the exact moment we left off last week: Lauren being mean to Stephen for no reason and Kyle saying, “I don’t know what’s going on. I just wanted to have a fun weekend.” It’s not even necessary to exaggerate the degree to which Kyle prizes fun above all else. It’s all he really talks about.
Speaking of Kyle having fun, you may recall a moment from last week’s episode when Kyle and Amanda decide not to hook up anymore. I mean, Kyle needs to focus on his job of figuring out what an entrepreneur does. But like he has done countless times before, he loses all willpower by Saturday night, caves, calls Amanda, and they make out in the hot tub. The next morning, he sheepishly asks the rest of the women in the house if any of them have a shirt Amanda can borrow since she only has her “really low-V” top from last night. Jaclyn lends her one, and then we barely see Jaclyn for the rest of the episode, which we are fine with. Ashley reminds us that as the married one, she can confidently say that this is not how successful relationships work.
Now we head into a scene manufactured to help us feel closer to Stephen, who really only gets any screen time when he’s telling Carl how to act around Lauren. Stephen stands on the side of the pool and leads a water aerobics class for the rest of the cast. He tells us he was a 16-year-old lifeguard who used to teach water aerobics to “arthritis people” and so it will always be an exercise close to his heart. Everyone happily participates except, of course, Everett, who stands in the pool and shakes his sternly parted head of hair. “That’s not a workout,” he says. “A workout is running ten miles in the blah blah blah” and then I stopped paying attention. Why is Everett like this? Why didn’t Everett go on some physical challenge reality show instead? Feel like his aggression would’ve really thrived.
Now we finally get into one of the two low-stakes dramas of this episode. Back in NYC, Christina tells a taxi driver she’s “in a rush” and then tells us that she used to be the Director of Communications for a “transportation startup” but that she recently quit to get back into freelancing. I googled her to see what’s she’s up to now, and I have a question: Did Christina Gibson go to Fyre Festival? This is what they call in the entertainment reporting biz “a scoop.” (MIA is, I believe, Miami International Airport). Maybe she’s kidding though. Summer House doesn’t show off her jocular side so it’s hard to tell.
Anyway Lindsay is also going through a career transition because she just dissolved her previous PR company (?) and is starting a new PR company. Her big issue is that she has 10 interns and nowhere to put them. It’s not easy having 10 interns, she tells us, in the same way someone might tell you it’s not easy having 10 houses. I know I’ve really been making you wait for it, but the big drama here is that Lindsay asks Christina if the interns can work from their apartment “so they don’t feel displaced” (gentle creatures!) and Christina says they can go to the Starbucks downstairs to work.
Lindsay is obviously not okay with this suggestion and thinks Christina has committed the cardinal sin of reality show friendship, which is not “supporting” her. Personally I think it’s reasonable to tell your roommate that you don’t want her to commit a labor law violation in your apartment.
Now we move on to the other low-stakes drama in this ep: Carl lying to Lauren about bringing a date to the wedding. On the drive back to Montauk on Friday, Carl and Stephen decide Carl should “play it cool” with Lauren, like Jason Bourne. They also decide to hide the fact that they drove up together, for reasons that aren’t exactly clear. “If anyone asks, you picked me up in East Hampton,” Stephen tells Carl. The Stephen/Carl relationship only gets more mysterious from here.
Despite claiming that he could talk his way out of anything due to his success in dental sales, Carl first tries to avoid any heat from Lauren by saying he “doesn’t recall” telling her he wasn’t bringing a date to the wedding. Then he pivots by saying he was scared of how she would react, giving us this: “I know I’m 31 but I’m still kind of a boy.”
I should mention that Carl is on antibiotics this weekend for an apparently years-long tonsil issue and so will not be drinking. This decision does not play well for him at the St. Barts party the next day, a big event where Christina says there will be a lot of “brands” looking for “coverage.” Normally, this is Carl’s kind of thing — extraordinary amounts of drinking starting early in the day and everyone wearing white pants. Instead, Carl is really put out by having to even pretend to care about the St. Barts party — he does NOT want to be here and he does NOT want to try and make things less uncomfortable for everyone else. Kyle says sober Carl is “a buzzkill…like a dying bee.” Carl says he’s unhappy because he’s “sweating and on antibiotics” but he’s also really, really sunburned. That can’t help, and no one brings it up.
Honestly Carl is so grumpy it gets kind of hard to watch. When Ashley teases Lauren about her crush on Carl he says, “I don’t get the crush. What are we, in 4th grade?” And he meant it to sting! Then, as if to solidify his anti-crush stance, he turns and says to a random woman standing close to him, “You have a great dress.” The woman walks away, appalled by his sunburn and antibiotics vibe, and Lindsay says, “She had a terrible dress.”
The episode closes out with us unfortunately returning to the first drama about Lindsay’s 10 interns. Christina asks Lindsay and Everett if they want to leave the party and go get food somewhere and Everett makes a seagull noise and says, “I don’t give a shit.” Okay Everett, what else is new? Carl is sad angry but Everett is scary angry. He hates Christina now, because of the intern thing. His new purpose is finding a safe habitat for the interns. Lindsay tells Christina she had to make her interns work from home TWO DAYS IN A ROW, something Christina would never understand because she got fired from her job, she didn’t quit, and everyone knows it. This is meant to be a big reveal.
Well guess what? In Christina’s industry, reputation is everything and she can’t just go about having her reputation destroyed by the troubled characters on Summer House. “You can say what you want about me,” she says, “but you can’t say a lie about my career in public.”
KEY FACTS & FIGURES
Is Carl still employed?
For now, but maybe not once they see his sales pitch to Lauren.
Does Kyle wear a wig?
No, but he does hold a Speedo up to his crotch and tell us he’s a “UK size 9.”
Drink of choice?
Everett makes some kind of abstract cocktail with “two rums in it.”
Summer Fun levels:
-3 for Carl, +10 for everyone else. Everett’s not on the board. (Note to self: Should this be a fantasy league?)