This episode starts off with Kathryn going to visit Elizabeth and J.D.’s house and, as a new viewer to this show, I have no freaking clue who these people are. We’re well into the season and other than a whisper of them at the Sip and See last episode, I’ve never seen either of these humans before. They’re not really people as much as they are a physical embodiment of a Lowe’s ad. They’re like the most boring couple ever on Love It or List It and of course they love it because everyone always loves it because they are boring and that show should just be called Everyone Loves It Anyway So Who the Hell Cares.
Kathryn goes to visit them, and I could spend more time talking about the three minutes that she was onscreen than I can the entire rest of the episode because Kathryn is absolutely amazing. She started out this season showing up onscreen without her hair done or any makeup on like she was so depressed she couldn’t manage to get out of bed and step in front of a mirror before the cameramen showed up. Now I don’t know what to think because she looks like she has spent about 48 hours preparing a “casual” look to go over to J.D. and Elizabeth’s house. They look like they’re about to go pick up a giant shipment of mulch at Home Depot and Kathryn looks like she was dressed as the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling character Sally the Farmer’s Daughter, but if she was dressed as Kendall Jenner going to a Pimps and Kardashians party at ASU.
Seriously, what is going on with Kathryn’s whole look? Her hair looks overly done, but not like a real professional did it. She looks like she went to the Miss Trudell’s Beauty Academy and got one of the students to do it for free. It is like she has these two buns at the back of her head, but instead of normal buns they are Pillsbury Grands or something. Then her eyelashes look like a caterpillar that was dissected in biology class and stapled to her eyelids. They are seriously clumpy and gross. She looks like the before picture in a CoverGirl commercial. But what makes her look really crazy isn’t that she seems to pay such little attention to her appearance, but that she pays too much attention to it. Like she is so worried about being on camera she maniacally applied three whole tubes of eye makeup before she showed up.
I could barely hear what Kathryn was saying because I was paying attention to how she looked, which makes me an awful person. I am sorry. Hell will be wonderful. I think she said that Thomas texted her and that she wanted to work harder at being in her kids’ lives and at her relationship with Thomas. Then why didn’t she text him back? That seems like a logical move. I don’t know. This might seem easy, like lighting a candle, but then it turns out the candle is actually a stick of dynamite and it’s surgically attached to your hand and, welp, good-bye, right arm. Didn’t need you much anyway.
The other person I want to spend eternity talking about is Patricia, who is trying to come back in her next life as a Harajuku Girl married to a Saudi prince. Did you see that her iPhone case is a giant teddy bear? It’s like the biggest bear you could possibly buy at FAO Schwartz and it just grew a tumor that can call your friends, tell you the weather, and figure out how old Goldie Hawn is all at the same time. She’s lounging on her porch, wearing a caftan and drinking a bourbon slushie, but it wasn’t just any caftan, it was a caftan with a repeating pattern of pug heads. Who is this woman and how has she replaced every angel in heaven?
Now if she would only leave poor Landon alone and stop trying to set her up with Thomas. Seriously, this is a man who cannot go on a hunting trip because he is a felon and can’t be around guns. I mean, for real. Also, he has two children with someone who is a Biblical rain of toads wearing denim overalls and a tattoo choker. Landon does not need to be anywhere near that. If your town has a nuclear waste dump, you do not buy a house on top of it, you know what I mean? Sure, it might be a really nice house that you get for a good price, but after three months when your left leg is six inches longer than the right one, all of your hair falls out, and your boogers glow green and fly out of your face like lightning bugs, you are not going to care how cheap those granite countertops were.
The hunting trip is … well, it is dumb. I don’t like hunting, I don’t like guns, and I don’t like killing animals (even though I really do like eating them). I can’t even make fun of Craig for being an awful hunter and almost shooting a dog. My first thought when seeing how this hunt goes down was that, if I were present, I would for sure shoot a dog. I love dogs. I wouldn’t try to shoot a dog. I just probably would because I am unskilled and they’re literally shooting over the dogs’ heads to kill the birds.
The boys all look super silly when they are out there, trying to get some quail to eat later that night. Shep was dressed up like a camouflage Croc with a goofy hat. Whitney looked like the great big ball of teeming affectation that he always is. Craig somehow manages to look like one of those Styrofoam coolers you buy at 7-Eleven on your way to the beach, but if it also carried a gun too.
The one good thing to come out of the hunting trip is that Cameran and Shep get to talk about Chelsea. She asks Shep, “When you think about Chelsea naked, do you get a tingle in your britches?” Shep says yes, but come on. What doesn’t give Shep a tingle in his britches? He gets a tingle in his britches from the fake Nagel at his dry cleaners. He gets a tingle in his britches when he watches the weather report and they say the next few days are going to be “moist.” He gets a tingle in his britches from the Nike slogan “Just Do It” because it has “Do It” in there. He gets a tingle in his britches from eating a shrimp cocktail, buying yellow Gatorade, or putting on a pair of warm socks right out of the dryer. It’s not like this is some great kind of test.
Anyway, after seeing Austen and Chelsea together, Cameran finally gives up any hope that her friend Chelsea and Shep are going to get together. Good thing, too, because when Chelsea and Austen share a little bungalow on the hunting vacation, the two of them finally do the dirty — or at least the Southern Charm producers would like us to believe that. As they’re in bed the next morning (Chelsea with a full face of makeup still better than Kathryn’s), Chelsea tells Austen that she’s not really looking for anything serious anyway, so they might as well keep it casual. So, yes, Cameran was trying to force two people with no interest in a relationship together. No wonder she needed all of those stupid scary dolls to accomplish her mission.
Austen feels a little sad that Chelsea doesn’t want anything more permanent. Instead, he just lies with her there on his chest, playing it cool and trying to figure out a way that he can transition from bungalow stud to the love of her life. He sits there, with her warmth on his shoulder but a pit in his stomach as the cicadas outside bleat their rhythmic buzz, like it’s the echoing of his ache, intensifying with each buggy rattle until its beating is in time with his heart.
