overnights

Selling Sunset Recap: Mind, Set, Match

Selling Sunset

The Beginning of the End
Season 4 Episode 9
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

Selling Sunset

The Beginning of the End
Season 4 Episode 9
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: PATRICK WYMORE/NETFLIX

It’s finally time for Davina to sell the house owned by Amanda that has a neon sign reading “Vibes” over the antique mirrored wall. It gives me so much second-hand embarrassment that I have had to grow a third, fourth, and fifth hand. To make it even worse, there are also pink neon signs that say “Money” and “Queen” in script, one hanging right over the other. Unless these are to celebrate the release of a new Suze Orman book, I want no part of them. Davina tells people coming to the open house that it comes fully furnished. Can I put a stipulation in the contract that all neon signs must be removed and ritualistically destroyed before I move into the property? To make it even worse, Amanda is there the whole time while people are milling about her house, unable to speak freely. Being there at your open house is the worst. It’s like going on a first date where all the person does is talk about their ex.

Christine also shows up at the open house in another of her countless pairs of Lolita-inspired sunglasses, and Davina takes her out back to talk on the little patio by the pool and while we’re putting things in the contract, can we have this thing razed, too? Davina tells Christine about how she was talking to Emma and Mary last episode and they say there is no way that this mysterious ex that may or may not exist proposed to Christine. Davina says she told them that she didn’t know Christine back when this engagement supposedly happened, and she supposedly told Davina.

“Why did you say that?” Christine says, her features turning as brittle as a glass vase just out of the microwave. “You shouldn’t have admitted it. You shouldn’t have given them the credit.” Davina says she was put in a bad position, forced to defend something she knew wasn’t true, but that is just what Christine wants. “You either defend me and have my back … or you don’t say anything at all,” Christine says. What Mary said a few episodes back is accurate; Christine doesn’t want friends, she wants minions to do exactly what she says. And now that Davina is trying to preserve her relationship with the rest of the team over Christine, she’s not going to be one of the banana-eating, meme-spouting, yellow-skinned cyclops that are all over kids’ lunchboxes.

Mary and Romaine have a date night where they talk about how they want to buy a house, but Romaine doesn’t feel comfortable until he can pay for exactly half of the house with Mary. Oh, shut up and put on your big-boy panties, Romaine. It’s all going to work out in the end. As Amanza points out later in the episode, Romaine is now a contractor, and he can contribute by renovating a shitty house rather than putting money toward a down payment. Wait, he’s a contractor now? I thought he was a pastry chef? Get you a man who can do both, I guess, or maybe he’s just doing all of these projects for Jason and they’re building gingerbread houses.

Maybe that is the big announcement that Jason tells all the brokers at a team meeting he will announce at a big, fancy party. Oh, a party where everyone has to dress up just in time for the last episode. Hmmm. I wonder what that’s all about? Now that all of the ladies are done getting married, they have to move on to fake announcement parties.

Vanessa says she thinks Christine can be saved; what Christine really needs is an afternoon chatting with Vanessa’s “mindset coach.” What in all of the California bullshit is this? A mindset coach? Is that like a life coach with even fewer qualifications? What about a clockset coach who helps you through daylight saving time? What about a deskset coach who helps you organize your workflow? How about a flying coach who doesn’t teach you how to be a pilot but how to mix with the rabble? None of these is a better idea than the other.

Vanessa brings Christine to this woman Laura and she says she closes the gap between where people are and where they want to be. Christine says she wants the women at the firm to stop being so mean to her. She wants to move forward and doesn’t know how when they keep accusing her of lying. I think I have a solution for this. How about Christine stops lying? Congratulations, Brian James Moylan. You have been awarded an official certificate as a mindset coach. You now owe the California State Board of Mindset Coaches $19.95 for this certification.

Vanessa tells Christine that she needs to defend herself, and Christine says she can’t because that is what got her in this trouble in the first place. Um, no. Lying to people, treating them like shit, being dismissive, and not accepting blame for your actions is what got you here. Maybe Christine needs to use Waze. Then she’d know how she arrived here. Christine then says it’s disrespectful to her husband to keep bringing up this relationship that is over. Okay. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Didn’t Christine bring it up first? Isn’t she the one who made up the lie about being proposed to? Isn’t she the one who still cares about this more than just about anyone else? I can’t with Christine.

Just as I’m about to excuse this mindset coach, she says to Christine, “When you look at someone else and think that the problem is them, you’re handing over the keys to your own power.” Wait. That is truly insightful and smart. This is applicable in so many reality-TV contexts. Do I have to take back everything I said about this mindset coach? Ugh. No. Sorry. Being mean is easier, so I’m just going to stick with that. Christine then breaks down about how awful her life was growing up, and we don’t know “and we’ll never know,” but maybe if we did, Christine wouldn’t be a cartoonish villain. Laura tells her that she keeps getting drawn in by people who are living in the past and therefore recreating the pain of her past. Until she acknowledges the ghosts that still haunt her, people are going to hate her forever. At least that’s what I heard, but my mind might not have been set to the right channel.

While Jason has this team meeting about his big announcement party, we see Christine on a totally casual, totally pedestrian stroll with her husband and baby where she’s wearing a pink, Chanel-inspired suit and a pair of gold heels so high they could be at French Montana’s house. It is then we find out that Christian is as delusional as Christine. He tells her the reason all of her coworkers hate her is because of jealousy. “They see you’re happily married, and they see our weekend trips are better than anything they’ll ever do,” he says.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: If people hate you, the reason is never jealousy. The reason people hate you has nothing to do with what you have and usually has to do with how you act. Christine has lied to these women, been mean to their faces, not accepted their gifts, not invited them to parties, and has acted horribly in all sorts of ways. The reason they don’t like her doesn’t have to do with the fact that she goes on great trips; it’s because she makes them feel like shit.

Christine tells him that people don’t realize how hard it is to walk into a room where people hate you. I bet it’s about as hard as walking into a room where one of the women is making up lies about you or is shoving your divorce in your face or pretending that she likes you even though she’s saying behind your back what an awful person you are. If Christine wants a cure for this, how about she, I don’t know, stop behaving like an overdressed Skeletor for 13 seconds and maybe try to get people to like her.

“They’re holding on to grudges, and I think it’s not good for them,” she says. Emphasis mine because Jesus Christ, that is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Christine wants forgiveness, not for herself but because she is thinking altruistically about them. She wants them to be better for not having grudges so they can just get over it already. “I would like to move on, and I wish they would too,” she says. No duh she would like to move on; she is the one who got caught lying.

The other women won’t ever be able to move on until Christine admits that what she did was wrong, that she actually did something wrong, and maybe show a little bit of remorse for it. She is more likely to wear a skirt that covers her knees, and we know that she has joints that are prone to suffocations. Well, at least that’s what she said when she explained why they always must be bared. At the end of the episode, Christine says she doesn’t need these women for camaraderie because she is just a businesswoman who wants to sell houses. Well, she needs these women to forgive her if she even wants to have this job selling properties, so maybe she should focus on it a little bit more. Or maybe just run off with her rich husband on another great weekend trip. Either way, the faster she is off my TV at this point, the better.

Selling Sunset Recap: Mind, Set, Match