Guys, there is something wrong with Craig. His freakout on the group’s trip to Colorado was just absolutely insane, and much worse than when he’s usually freaking out on everyone because it was rather unprovoked. Usually when he loses it like that it’s because Shep and the guys have been baiting him, but this outburst, much like his many fights with Naomie, seemed to come out of the blue.
Things with Craig started to go haywire a little bit earlier in the episode when Craig’s former roommate and frat brother, Jerry, shows up for a visit. Craig is so proud to show Jerry the house that he and his roommate, Lump (I can’t remember his name, so let’s just call him Lump), decorated. The problem is that they didn’t clean it up, so it still looks like a frat house with red Solo cups, cigarette ashes, and last night’s half-eaten Chinese takeout lying everywhere. Jerry, who is now a successful businessman who lives “up north” in Washington, D.C., is not impressed.
Even worse is when Craig explains his pillow business to his friend and says that he has, like, 100 orders that are just waiting on him because he can’t sew fast enough. Jerry and Lump have the same reaction as all of the viewers at home: “Dude, if you have all these orders, get your ass to sewing or hire some people who can get to sewing.” Craig is just never able to get out of his own way. Is he just bad at business? Is he just kind of stupid? Is he so racked with anxiety and depression that it ultimately paralyzes him?
I think it’s mostly the last one. He tells Jerry, “I could be doing more,” to which Jerry replies, “You could definitely be doing more.” Watching this at home I think I actually shouted out loud, “Ah doy!” to everyone involved in this scene, but especially to Lump, who skipped his shift working at a gas station so that he could comfort Craig on his pillow-deadened couch. This scene ends with Jerry offering to introduce Craig to his sister, who runs several successful online apparel companies, about establishing a production chain so that he can fulfill all of his orders, but only if Craig promises to give it his attention.
What I take from this is that Craig has always had a problem with follow-through, going back at least as far as college (and let’s be honest, he probably didn’t even finish the sand castle he started creating on the beach when he was 5). Craig can’t get things done. He can’t just put his head down and plow through and reach completion. (Now it totally makes sense why Naomie dumped him.) It’s so sad that this is a personality trait that everyone recognizes. It must hurt to be Craig when everyone just acknowledges that he’s deficient.
What must also hurt is that when Craig blows up, like he does in the Denver airport, no one takes him seriously. He’s trying to express himself and his anger and they’re all just laughing it off like he spilled a giant cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee down the front of his parka. When the whole crew arrives, Craig gets mad at Whitney because he complains that there is a four-hour car ride from Denver to Steamboat Springs, where they’re all staying. “If you’re going to bitch the whole time just get on a flight and go home. I just can’t take it anymore,” Craig yells as everyone titters behind his back.
Chelsea, in particular, tells Craig to chill out, and he tells her that he is literally never literally talking to her literally every again. Lit-erally. He goes out to the bus as everyone’s getting their luggage and continues his strop on the bus, mumbling to everyone, “What took you so long to get on the bus. It’s about time.” Finally Whitney gets on the bus and Craig starts up again and says, “This is what it’s like when you’re shipped off to boarding school when you’re 12 and don’t know how to get along with people. If you inherit $100 million you can just be a jerk to people.”
First of all, if Whitney is worth $100 million, he should definitely buy some glasses that don’t make him look like he’s the drummer from a mediocre ’90s band. Secondly, Craig actually might have a point. He seems to be raging about the assumed privilege of his castmates and how they can’t be happy with anything nice that happens in their life because they’re used to much fancier climes than this. However, he expresses this like a 3-year-old who can’t have ice cream for dinner. If he just checked his tone and tried to confront this without so much anger it might be more effective.
Chelsea then yells at him and tells him to shut up, which she totally should have, and she also stands up for herself when Craig tells her to “shut the fuck up.” She’s the only one to tell Craig that he needs to grow up. Unfortunately she does it in the problematic language of telling him to “check his pants for a vagina.” She then says she has a bigger dick than Craig, which, to be honest, I have never seen a person on television with Smaller Dick Energy than Craig Fitzgerald Whatever Craig’s Last Name Is. But yeah, Chelsea might not have used negative feelings about female anatomy and equating being a woman with being weak and whiney, but we can only get so progressive when we’re talking about the Southern Charm crew.
Seriously though, the subtext of this show is really about how all the guys are stupid idiots and all of the girls know better. Naomie was always way too smart for Craig (and maybe too smart for Mehtul, who is so up his own ass we should call him the Louisville Smugger). Cameran has to school Shep on why the marshy 3.5 acres he bought on James Island is an awful investment and he’ll never be able to build there. Madison is just fending off Austen’s lame advances like she’s Muhammad Ali floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
But Kathryn really wins this episode. She goes out to lunch (or, like, a juice-based snack) with Whitney and both of them are dressed like they live somewhere else, which is how both of them always dress. She tells him she’s upset that it came up that the two of them slept together that summer and he denied it to the boys. “I have a different interpretation of events,” he says to Kathryn. There is no way to interpret this. Either he stuck it in or he didn’t. Even if he didn’t necessarily stick it in, if they touched each other’s happy places, even if one of them just touched the other’s happy place, they did it. There is no way to interpret that. It’s like you’re either pregnant or you’re not. You’re a convict or you’re not. You’ve been banned from an Einstein’s Bagels or you haven’t. (Don’t ask. I had just one very bad Sunday morning.)
Kathryn gives Whitney the “come on, you know it happened” speech and he says, “I’m flattered,” which is the most annoying response he could have possibly given. He’s basically saying to Kathryn that she’s lying about having sex with him to make herself look better and also that he thinks it’s sweet that she appreciates his station in life so much that she would try to profit from it. Then we see that he tries to deny it to the producers of the show and walks off in a huff when they press the matter.
Here is my problem with Whitney: He has never really wanted to be on the show. Well, obviously he wanted to be on the show, which is why he produced it in the first place, but now that other people on the show have become the real stars, it’s like he’s constantly threatening to take his toys and go home. He won’t dress like the other people, he won’t be as involved in their lives, he won’t deign to go down to their level because he’s so much better than them. Girl, you’re still on the show! Now you’re just making yourself look like an asshole and honestly, he should be flattered that Kathryn, a gorgeous young woman, will publicly acknowledge their affair when she could obviously do so much better.
Based on the preview of next week’s show we’re going to see the guys continue to be jerks and the girls continue to laugh at them and pick up their messes. But will someone please check in on Craig? I’m seriously worried about him.
