Hello and welcome to the first annual Giving Us Nothing Awards. I am your host, Dame Brian Moylan. We have a lot of trophies to get to this evening, so why don’t we get started? All right, the award for giving us nothing on Summer House is … it’s a tie! Gabby, come get your award. Paige, this trophy is for you. Mya? Is Mya here? Of course she isn’t. Ciara, this is for you, since you haven’t even given us a messy room this year. Chris, you have also won even though you have a chest so beautiful I want to rest both my head and a mango White Claw on it. Oh, I see Sam’s name written down here, but it’s crossed off because she’s giving us Kory romance and the second appearance of her jeans that are not pants or shorts but like the ragged remnants she pulled off a corpse that was gored at Jurassic Park. Finally, and this one hurts, Kyle Cooke, you had an early season blowup, but now you are here holding a Giving Us Nothing Award.
That’s it, that’s all the awards for this ceremony. Amanda is giving us fertility-journey even though it is the teeniest, tiniest speck of something. Carl is giving us Lindsay-defense and Danielle-antagonism, which is the most we’ve seen from Carlito in two seasons. (It’s probably the short-lived horseshoe mustache riling him up.) Lindsay and Danielle are the only two not even nominated for the Giving Us Nothing Awards. Lindsay was born under a bad star and her curse is that she is always giving something. Lindsay will always be interesting, always activated, and always in a fight. That is why she is excellent at her job and can afford a $ 13,000-a-month apartment, and the rest of us had to move to Philadelphia, the sixth borough, like 20 years ago. Danielle is giving us something for the first time ever, and it’s a nice look for her, but I’m not sure that I like what she’s giving.
Speaking of the Giving Nothing Awards, I think we need to give one to the suits at Bravo. These “To Be Continued…” endings are now a sure sign that the next episode will be nominated for one of these prestigious and completely invented awards. When we got it amid the Danielle and Lindsay fight from the last episode, I didn’t think, Oh next week is going to be good! Instead, I thought, Oh, next week has nothing, so they didn’t want to give us a really boring preview. And, of course, how did the episode start? With Lindsay and Danielle making up, saying they love each other, and having a hug. They gave us, you guessed it, nothing.
That’s also the end of the party when everyone jumps into the pool in their underwear, swimsuits, or less. This is also when Sam and Kory start making out in the pool. It’s not much, but it’s something. Their relationship fascinates me because they both know that they’re bad at them but are still doing it anyway. The one thing Sam says about him — other than acknowledging he is hotter than a Skinny Italian Pizza Oven on the sun — is that she loves the way he ignores her. Yes, this is the Kory that we met in the last season of Winter House, who likes to play like he doesn’t care about a girl, so they come screaming for him. It works once again. The next weekend, when Sam invites Kory back to the house (without checking with any of her housemates first!), she tells everyone she knows he’s going to be awful in a relationship, but she’s going to stick around anyway and see where it goes. I love that these two are just like hot and lusty for each other but know that they are both such fuckpeople (that is the gender-neutral form of fuckboi), so this will probably end in mind-blowing sex and then tears, but hey, at least get that boom chicka wow wow!
It seems like we’re going to learn a whole lot more about Amanda’s fertility issues next week when she, Paige, and Ciara get the tests back from the at-home fertility tests they do, so I don’t want to get too into it now. However, I love when Paige says that these tests are what the girls do now when they get together. Yup. If you are taking fertility tests of any kind, you probably don’t belong on a show about 20-somethings partying in the Hamptons. Heck, if you are taking a pregnancy test and not praying to the Long Island Jesus that it comes up negative, this is not the show for you.
Everyone gets together in the city and we find out that Carl and Lindsay’s two bedroom in an undisclosed neighborhood rents for $13,000 a month. What? For that place? My husband lived in a place on the LES that was twice as big and half as much. What is going on here? Also, how are they affording that? If you should only be spending a third of your income on rent, that means that Carl and Lindsay together are taking home upwards of $500,000 a year. Sure, this show must cut them a healthy check, but how much do sponsored posts for Marshalls really bring in? Also, a walk-in closet is nice (a balcony, in my opinion, not so much) but 13 large nice? No thanks.
The décor is the sort of bland CB2 vibe that I would expect from these two, but we have to shout out to the faux neon “Rad House” sign that is pretty cute. Less cute is the framed “More Life” poster in the hallway. This was Carl’s slogan in season two when he was dicking around one of those Wirkuses, had just gotten fired from his job, and had to tell the world that he has three nuts and had a three-way with a dude. This is the era we want to memorialize?
At the party, Carl takes Kyle into the office so that he can show off the enormous rock he bought for Lindsay while Lindsay and Danielle have another conversation about their friendship on the balcony. Lindsay tells Danielle that she doesn’t feel like she is supportive of her and Carl. Danielle says she thinks that the two of them are spending a lot on this apartment and moving “insanely fast” and that she and Carl’s dating is “weird.” Lindsay says she doesn’t need Danielle’s “blessing” to date someone.
This is a sticky situation. I agree with Danielle; as a friend, you need to check in on your bestie’s decisions. But I also agree with Lindsay that it is her decision, and Danielle should be supportive. I also think that Danielle questioning and saying it’s “weird” doesn’t mean that she disapproves of them, she just wants to make sure they’re doing the right thing.
This reminds me of when my brother started dating a friend to whom I introduced him. Was I happy for them? Yes. Was it weird? Yes! Two people I had independent relationships with now have a relationship of their own, one stronger than I had with either of them. Did I want them to break up? No. Did it take some time to get used to it? Yes. Quite some time. When the two of them got engaged, I asked them tough questions about topics I knew they disagreed on and ensured they had fully considered the decision they were making. I think all of this is acceptable. And when they said they had talked about it and were happy to be engaged, I backed off and did nothing but support them. (They’re still married and have a kid. I’m a great matchmaker.)
Danielle’s problem is that she isn’t butting out now that she has asked the question and Lindsay and Carl say they’re doing great. She won’t take “yes” for an answer. Lindsay’s problem is she sees Danielle asking questions as criticism when I don’t think that it is. I mean, it’s something next door to criticism, but she has never even insinuated that they should break up. Are they moving fast? If I was Carl’s friend, I’d ask about the timeline too. But, again, and this is the key, once you get an answer, you need to respect that or show yourself the door. Those are really Danielle’s only options.
This comes up the next weekend when Carl asks Danielle to talk about what is going on in one of those cursed little rooms with two chairs that used to be Andrea’s bedroom. (Oh, Andrea. He gave us nothing but did it with abs, honey!) Carl asks Danielle if she supports them as a couple, something Lindsay has also asked repeatedly, and Danielle says yes, but she is worried about how fast they’re getting engaged. Again, this is a valid concern, but when Carl says it’s working, Danielle has to respect that.
Their talk happens when half the crew stays home and makes pizza and the other half goes out to dinner. Lindsay joins Kory, Sam, and the rest of the crew, and while Carl and Danielle are having a chat, Lindsay is having a multiple-makeout situation with Ciara right at the dinner table. It really is her curse; she can’t help but give it all to us every single time.
