Someone needs to tell Naomie to take a deep breath, eat a huge stack of pancakes, and chill the hell out. She is not doing herself any favors by blowing up at Peyton like that. I mean, Peyton looks like a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper that someone left at the bottom of a locker for about ten years. How are you going to just flat-out attack her at a Halloween party that she’s hosting? That’s not helping her friends, that’s just making Naomie look like an evil screech monster that, in Craig’s words, feeds on human souls.
The whole altercation starts earlier with Austen, Shep, Chelsea, and Naomie meet for what would normally be considered comically large mugs of beer. Chelsea cut Craig’s hair and he says he met Peyton and she was the first girl he could consider being with since Naomie. In her fragile, post-breakup state, Naomie takes that to mean that Peyton, who previously dated Shep and may or may not have hooked up with Austen, is “thirsty” for any man in their “group.” If that is what Naomie is getting mad about, then maybe she should consider Kathryn, who has hooked up with almost as many of the guys as this Peyton person has attempted to.
Ever since that mention, Naomie has been ready for a fight. It finally happens when Austen quite innocently introduces Naomie to Peyton at the Halloween party he is co-hosting with her. “Why are you here?” Naomie starts with, the animosity as palpable as the Jell-O shot residue in Shep’s refrigerator. “Because Charleston is a hub for dog boutiques?” Naomie, coming in hotter than all the actors in Black Panther combined, continues. “Just be honest with me. I’m really a girl’s girl … I know when a thirsty girl comes around.”
The thing is, she never even gave Peyton a chance. She didn’t even wait for an answer before she jumped to the conclusion that she was guilty of the horrible crime of “social climbing.” Of course Peyton is social climbing. She’s a young woman new to town and wants to meet some people. So far, she’s shown that she might be doing that by hooking up rather than “using” one of Naomie’s friends. Let her go ahead and do that. It’s a big town. It’s big enough for everyone.
She and Craig really just need to let it go. Craig is so sad when he talks to Naomie and says that he liked Peyton just because it felt so good to be with a woman who was nice to him. It was just like Laura the life coach with her sad softball-league-player-of-the-year haircut and her vague compliments towards Craig. He’s just thirsty for anyone, including Cathy who works at the fabric store, to have a cute nickname for him. Craig is like a tree that has been pruned repeatedly by Naomie’s harsh words: Every smile from a woman is like a little bit of water to help him grow back.
The whole idea for the Halloween party is a mess, though. You could totally see the different ways that boys and girls do Halloween just based on when Austen shows up on the ship where they are having the party and meets Peyton. She’s dressed herself up as a blue unicorn with a horn and a tail and a sexy outfit. Austen is dressed as a “chick magnet,” meaning he just cut out some yellow paper in the shape of chicks and a magnet and pasted them on a $6.99 Marshall’s sweater he already owned.
When it comes to Halloween, girls (and gays other than Naomie’s) go all out, get a costume weeks in advance, hire a professional makeup artist and someone to style a wig. Craig searches “Best Lazy Halloween Costumes” on Google, finds a BuzzFeed list, picks the easiest one, and makes it on the afternoon before the party, yet almost no one calls him out for it. At least the guys of Charleston who had the unoriginal idea to order a pirate costume from Amazon three days before think that is too lazy. But if Craig is so into sewing, why didn’t he make the damn thing? Shep, Thomas, and Craig all dressed up like pirates because God forbid they coordinate. JD showed up as Donald Trump because sometimes the funniest joke is also the most obvious thing in the whole damn world.
There is one thing about the party Kathryn is right about, though, and that’s Peyton’s makeup. If you’re meeting everyone for the first time with a blue face, how are they going to recognize you in the future? Maybe just keep it kinda neutral, especially if the point is meeting friends slash social climbing.
Kathryn has been right about so many things this whole season, I can’t even keep up with it anymore. When she talks to Thomas as the party and he says, “Ashley wanted me to invite you to go trick-or-treating,” she replies, “I would love to do that in the future, but it’s too soon.” Who is this mature person and what did she do with the rage beast we once knew? When she and Craig are at the fabric store and he’s talking about how he wants to do things to impress Naomie, Kathryn says, “Prove your worth to yourself, not someone else.” I know she learned that in rehab, but damn if it is not the perfect advice for this situation. Kathryn better dial it up a few notches or Naomie is going to put her out of a job.
Of all of the awful things that happen on Southern Charm on a regular basis, I would like to thank Patricia for pointing out the one that makes my skin crawl the most: when Thomas speaks French. He is so bad at it. He just speaks French with a Southern American accent and it sounds like someone trying to read a bowl of Alpha-Bits. She calls it Pepe Le Pew French. I would call it Flintstones French, but it’s the same thing.
She says this at dinner with Thomas and Whitney when she tells the boys that men aren’t marrying women anymore. “Why should they?” Thomas asks. “I get the milk for free.” He and Whitney laugh a hardy, cigar-scented laugh and every vulva in the entire planet clamps shut at once. These two can’t even be creative or original about their misogyny, they’re just laughing at jokes more tired than Betty White after a 5K fun run. If Naomie says she wants to end the “good old boys” networks, why isn’t she using her screaming powers for good against these two, rather than for evil against poor Peyton?
