There comes a certain moment in everyone’s life when certain behavior just becomes undignified. That is exactly what is going on when Shep, Whitney, Thomas, and Austen are partying at a bar named Stars. It’s like a Tuesday night and they’re doing “buttery nipple” shots with a girl who just turned 21 and is wearing a hot-pink sash and a tiara to celebrate turning the legal drinking age. I think that nightlife is healthy and it’s fun to have a very active social life. However, that is just unseemly, and not just because they have brought along Walker, Shep’s friend who is essentially a mullet that grew a pair of legs.
The saddest thing about the whole scene, however, is when the girl asks, “Who is the old guy?” we don’t know which one of these guys she is talking about. Is it Shep, whose loose curls and hang-dog style aren’t nearly as cute since he’s approaching Botox age? Is it Whitney, who dresses like an Ultimate Frisbee player from a Midwestern university even though he seems like he’s old enough to get AARP magazine in the mail? Is it Thomas, who looks like a local news anchor who sued his affiliate because he was age-discriminated against and replaced by Joe “the Ninja Weatherman” Moravsky?
Their behavior with the women is completely reprehensible, too. Shep takes this super-drunk girl around the corner to make out with her in public because she wants to celebrate breaking up with her boyfriend of four years with an inappropriate sexscapade. When her friend pulls her away because there are “real men” at the bar, Shep leaves for the night and this girl then ends up in the lap of Thomas. He either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that he is currently putting the sloppy in “sloppy seconds.”
From this, we learn that Shep is somewhat territorial (or “proprietary,” as Whitney says) about the girls that he either has or wants to hook up with. This is very bad news for Austen, who is already putting the moves on Chelsea, Cameran’s friend she has been dangling in front of Shep’s nose like an inflatable doll filled with catnip and Coors Light. Austen corners her at Craig and Naomie’s fundraiser and chats her up with a combination of flirtatiousness, charm, and generosity. It doesn’t help that his smile looks like an orange slice in your lunch bag after a long game of intramural soccer, or that his hair is as perfect as the day you finally get to turn in your resignation to the boss who always spells your name wrong in emails.
Austen has everything on Shep, offering to take Chelsea out on a real date and letting her know that, while he broke up with his most recent girl some months ago, he’s open to seeing someone more seriously. Now let’s look at what she got with Shep? He met up with her and Cameran for drinks so that she would know that they were clearly not on a date. After Cameran left them alone, he took her home for an “overnight sleepover” and then told his friends that he slept with her.
Let us pause for a moment to consider Cameran and Chelsea’s meeting with her personal trainer Joe, who was voted Personal Trainer Most Likely to Be Made Out With by a Southern Charm Recapper by Brian Moylan Magazine. When Cameran finds out that Chelsea spent the night, she asks, “Where did you sleep?” What sort of Sharia law does Cameran think that we’re living under? She knows exactly where Chelsea slept and exactly what went down. What does she think Shep does with the drunk girls he takes back to his dirty, sock-strewn lair? Make snickerdoodles and talk about Stranger Things? Chelsea denies it and says that it was strictly PG, but come on. Seriously?
Then Cameran tells Chelsea that Shep is used to girls putting out, so the way to his heart is to make him work hard for it. Um, going to his house to spend the night in various states of undress after their first not-even-a-date sure isn’t making him work for it. I think that train has already left the station — and by “train” I mean Shep’s penis, and by “station” I mean Chelsea’s vagina, and by “left” I mean entered into.
Chelsea’s choices are Shep, who clearly has no interest whatsoever in a relationship of any sort and owns far too many pairs of flip-flops for a man who does not attend college in the states of California or Arizona, and Austen, a guy not remarkably much better but one who is at least offering to buy her dinner and maybe talk to her after they have sex. I mean, the choice is fairly obvious.
I don’t understand the choice that Naomie is making because she is quickly becoming my favorite person on the show. Not only is she pretty and speaks two languages, but she also seems to be like a real human being who is capable of a mature discussion. I loved the contrast of her telling Craig about the mature talk she and Shep had about their feelings with the immature conversation she was having with Craig about it. He was basically like, “I don’t care what you said, but you have to take my side always or else I’m taking my toys and going nowhere because I don’t have a job and you pay my rent.”
Naomie is great, talking shit in French with her parents (which is what I assume every French person is doing when I hear them chatting on the subway), but Craig is clearly an idiot. He can’t even get the term “step and repeat” correct and certainly can’t get one made without Landon’s help. He keeps calling it a “step and release” because he releases what it’s called from his brain every time someone corrects him. There’s even a moment when Naomie asks him about it and says, “Have you gotten the step and rel—repeat.” It’s like he said it wrong so many times, she didn’t even know what it was called anymore. It’s like he alternative-fact-ed her into saying the wrong thing.
Craig, bless his heart, is not a leader. He is a soldier. Just give him one assignment, like making a step and release (damn it!) and he will eventually barely get it done. But you can’t ask him to do multiple things. His attention cannot be divided, which is a huge failing. However, I am not going to make fun of him for not getting the wireless printer to work. Wireless printers, like plans to end world hunger, P90X, and Lindsay Lohan on a Wednesday, never ever work. It’s as if their job is just to collect dust and create annoyance so some Tesla battery can suck up all of that negative energy and use it to fuel Elon Musk’s Hyperloop.
Oh, we finally get some good Katheryn action in this episode, where she shows up completely unprepared for a meeting with a modeling agency in Charleston. First of all, any modeling agency whose headquarters is in Charleston has to be some sort of front for a Ponzi scheme. Secondly, Kathryn shows up with her hair all akimbo and not even a stitch of makeup. I hate people who use the word lip in the singular, but she couldn’t even give herself a lip before going in there to see this woman? Don’t you think looking good is part of the prerequisite to be a model?
Kathryn also doesn’t even have a portfolio, just a bunch of pictures on a laptop and all of her modeling photos are from like ten years and two children ago. Yeah, I mean, Kathryn is undeniably pretty, but this is not going to get her a CoverGirl contract, not at all. I sort of wish that Miss J from America’s Next Top Model were behind the desk so that I could use the GIF of her saying, “No. No. No. No. No. No. Kill it with fire. No.” every time someone asked me if I was willing to meet them before 10 a.m. The only thing worse than being asked, “Who is the old guy?” at the bar is being asked, “Who is the old woman?” at the modeling agency, unless it’s an ad for Centrum Silver. At this point, they should be sponsoring the entire cast.
