Famous people #66: Summer House S1E6, Kyle has a birthday
Lizzie: We’re back in the car on a Friday night and everyone is drunk. Then Carl and Jaclyn are in the pool and Jaclyn is saying, “I like hard hands.” At least I think that’s what she said—it’s hard to tell from my notes, which autocorrected to “I like hard hards.” But even for Jaclyn, that’s a bit much.
Stephen is in the kitchen on the phone with his “high-profile” Transatlantic lover, but all is not well with Prince William. “You can’t live off text messages alone,” Stephen tells us.
The next morning Carl wakes up on the couch, which Everett says is the “dumbest thing he’s ever heard.” I can’t elaborate or explain because I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then Kyle shows up. Honestly I didn’t even realize that he wasn’t in the house the night before, but he wasn’t, because he was at his annual family reunion. It’s his birthday!!! One of the major holidays of every Summer House season. He’s 34.
Everett is fisting a tall boy of Twisted Tea and tells us he’s taking Kyle to a game of “model volleyball,” which is an event where models play volleyball. Model volleyball provides an opportunity to recap where everyone stands: Carl and Lauren have been hooking up, but Carl and Jaclyn have been flirting, and Christina has dutifully been keeping everyone in the loop about who’s doing what, or, as the rest of the cast calls it, “meddling.”
Back at the house we celebrate one of the most subdued Kyle Cooke birthday parties in Summer House canon. It’s an intimate affair with only the core cast, mullet wigs, and some cake. In the middle of the hang, Lindsay and Everett go upstairs to “change” (make out) and what happens next really made me feel like I was losing it. Mid-makeout Everett says to Lindsay, “you’re a geek,” and then she gets mad at him. When this happened, I was like, “wait, is this the episode Kaitlyn already watched?” because it felt really familiar. Like oh gosh I’ve just wasted 30 minutes on an episode we already recapped. Then I went back to read her recap from last week, command-F’d “geek” and found out that this exact same scene basically already happened last week, except they were in a car, instead of on a bed. But it was a different scene, in a different episode. This is actually bonkers! Why does Everett keep affectionately calling Lindsay a geek if it makes her so mad? And why does it make her so mad? Like, really mad. This actually turns into a big fight out of almost nowhere and Everett storms out. Oh I also forgot that Lindsay is turning 30 next week and she’s mad that Everett hasn’t mentioned it yet.
Ashley goes to check on Lindsay and Lindsay says “Can I even trust you?” or something seemingly unrelated like that. Then Ashley loses it. As she puts it in her talking head, “I snapped.” I know this is probably coming off as lacking in context, but these are all the details I was given by the editors at Bravo. Now Everett is back somehow, legit squaring up for a fight with Ashley and insulting her husband’s choice of job location with jabs like, “Move back to San Diego!”
Eventually Kyle steps in to break things up and everyone disperses. Everett leaves the house, Lindsay stares forlornly after his Uber, and the twins go to bed. Kyle says “Uh, wha — we’re not going out then?” to no one in particular, since no one’s around. He spends the rest of his birthday night alone, wearing a wig and Swiffering the floor. But he seems happy.
Unfortunately his happiness doesn’t last long. He wakes up the next morning with a text from Amanda saying Christina told her that he made out with their NYC roommate Katie. As Everett would say, “Reporter Gibson from News2 strikes again!” Christina tells Kyle she was “just making conversation” with Amanda and that actually, this information was meant to be reassuring. Kyle tells Christina that he feels like sometimes he needs to hold her hand and show her how to do things. This is the weird thing about Christina. I really can’t tell if she has no idea how people will react to things or if she’s just obsessed with gossip or if she gets really bad edits or if nothing she ever says translates well on TV. To the camera she says, “Every time I try to be a good friend it backfires.”
Can’t believe things are still happening here! Everett spent the previous night on someone named Nate’s floor, according to Everett. Carl and Stephen meet Ashley and Lauren’s parents. Stephen goes on an excruciating date back in the city with some guy he met in LA. What’s that text like? “Hey, can Bravo film us eating? You pick the place, but it has to be near the Uniqlo in the World Financial Center!”
Sorry to jerk us around but there are two more key scenes we should talk about with no real good transitions for getting there. First, a phone call between Carl and his mom. Carl’s parents are in the middle of a divorce and Carl says he feels an obligation to make enough money to support her. He says the men who raised him are “pieces of shit” (a “shitty dad,” a “weird uncle,” and a “brother with a heroin problem”). It’s hard not to feel for our boy Carl in this scene. He also tells us that sometimes he “screws up on purpose” in his dating life because he’s angry. This is foreshadowing.
Unfortunately we end with the world’s least subtle couple, Lindsay and Everett, at Handcraft Kitchen & Cocktails in Murray Hill. Everett says he feels trapped by their relationship and Lindsay says things are just bad right now because she’s stressed about about work and money. Everett counters by saying she’s going to be stressed about work “in perpetuity” so that means things will always be bad. “Lately this has been a drain on me,” Everett says. We all nod along, agreeing for once!
KEY FACTS & FIGURES
Is Carl still employed?
Yes, and he’s winning new hearts every day.
Does Kyle wear a wig?
Everyone wears a wig for Kyle! And Kyle wears a wig.
Drink of choice?
“Usually I drink a cucumber martini,” Lindsay tells a server at Handcraft Kitchen & Cocktails without looking at a menu.
Summer Fun levels:
This one was kind of a slog. 34/infinity years for Kyle Cooke.