Howdy Good Vibe Tribe! I want to start out this recap by apologizing for being M.I.A. for last week’s season finale. I happened to be moving cross-country back to New York City to start test filming for Season 7 of Summer House. Jk. I wish. But I really was coming back to the city after two years and a pandemic spent in the West and time simply got away from me through two redeyes, a middle-of-the-night layover in Chicago, one lost suitcase and a flooded bathroom in my new apartment once I arrived.
The good news, however, is that nothing really happened in the finale. The summer ended. The roommates said goodbye to the Hamptons. Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula finally started planning their wedding in earnest with just weeks to spare. (Don’t worry, they found a last-minute florist.) Kyle and Amanda both got COVID. Had to quarantine and cry into their iPhone cameras. Kyle and Amanda recovered. Kyle and Amanda got married. With thankfully very little drama. After the “I do’s,” Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke finally admitted they were starting to develop feelings for each other. And there you pretty much have it.
The Season 6 reunion, on the other hand, is fraught with drama, conflict, resentments, questionable fashion choices and awkward seating arrangements. Basically everything you could possibly want from a reunion. The Summer House crew must be so difficult for Andy Cohen to wrangle when reunion time comes around. Because there are just so many of them. It’s almost a small miracle they found two couches long enough to fit all eleven (11!) roommates. And yes, before you ask, they even let Alex Wach attend, sticking on the end of the couch in the exact same suit jacket Carl is wearing. More inexplicably, Paige DeSorbo is seated in the hot seat next to Andy. Directly next to Lindsay. With…pretty much all of her friends and allies on the opposite couch. It doesn’t make much sense, but what it does make for is some grade-A passive-aggressive tension.
But before we dive into that, let’s start with a hot topic that had everyone talking all season long. Of course, that brings us to:
Reflections on a Hot Hubb Summer
The season started with Lindsay revealing she’d suffered a miscarriage after getting pregnant with her Winter House cast mate Jason Cameron‘s baby. And for the rest of the summer, we watched her make spontaneous decision after spontaneous decision and play the field to her heart’s content. There was the guy she almost went to Mexico with. The guy she brought home after staking claim on Austen Kroll. Oliver’s friend Ahmed. The list goes on, and that’s not even mentioning Austen or the fact that she ended the summer with Carl. All of which is well and good. You do you, girl. What the other roommates try to unsuccessfully get through to her on the couches is that some of those decisions came with strings attached and hurt people’s feelings in the process. Amanda points out that even Carl expressed concern for his bestie-turned-girlfriend during the group’s wine tasting outing.
Paige‘s use of the word “brothel” to describe Lindsay‘s series of trysts this summer gets brought up as a point of contention. But she insists it was in reference to how Lindsay completely disregarded Ciara Miller‘s feelings for Austen and getting all territorial over him, only to bring home another guy that very same night. So did she really have feelings for Austen like she claimed? Or was she just using him to get some sort of twisted payback on Ciara? But when Carl jumps into the conversation, he accuses Paige of “playing two games” and never putting her relationships on camera. Which…simply isn’t true. It wasn’t her fault Perry Rahbar didn’t want anything to do with filming. She shoots back asking what Carl did this summer. And honestly, I really hate seeing any hostility between these two because I’ve always loved the special bond they have.
The New and Improved Carl 6.0
Andy presses pause on the drama to turn the focus more fully onto Carl. What did he do this summer? Maintain his sobriety, that’s what. And we are all so incredibly proud of him for that. In fact, he tells Andy he’s now nearly 15 months sober. God, I adore Carl. Just maybe not quite as much when he’s dating Lindsay. Carl throws out at Paige that staying sober was his focus this season. And Paige is mortified that her ex-summer lover would ever think she would attack his sobriety.
But at this point, Andy can’t ignore the awkward vibes permeating between Paige and Lindsay any longer. Paige is basically physically recoiled away from Hurricane Hubbard and refuses to even make eye contact with her. She points out that the divide lays between some of the first-generation cast — namely Lindsay and Danielle Olivera — and the younger girls. (Note that across the couch, Mya Allen is nodding her head in agreement.) However, that hardly explains what’s happened between the end of summer and now…
More fun to address is Ciara‘s speculation this season about how big Carl‘s, ahem, package is. (Apparently it’s huge.) However, she explains that the pair never hooked up because she didn’t know how to navigate his sobriety while she continued imbibing. Less fun is hearing Carl tell Lindsay during the break that he wants to eat her legs like two pieces of corn of the cob. And now I can’t get the image of Lindsay gnawing on an invisible piece of corn out of my head, so thanks for that.
Let’s Act Like Adults
Whether it was Mya bouncing back from her broken five-year engagement or Danielle getting more serious with Robert Sieber, plenty of the housemates grew this season. Yes, Mya is still involved with Oliver. On a strictly friends with benefits level, though he did accompany her to Watch What Happens Live during the season. Also, she apparently has a 10,000-person waitlist for her fledgling cookie business?!? Meanwhile, Danielle and Robert didn’t move to Charleston. Instead, he took a different chef job in Aspen, which conveniently keeps the door open for Danielle to stay in the Hamptons for Season 7…
However, Ciara has to answer for why she was so certain Danielle and Robert wouldn’t get engaged during her own appearance on WWHL this season. And she reveals that, apparently, the most stable couple in the house broke up “multiple times” over the course of the summer. Danielle vehemently denies this, but even Mya pipes up to back Ciara’s story that Robert was actually prepared to leave the house in the middle of a weekend. Danielle chalks any drama up to drunken arguing. However, it leads to a back-and-forth about the fraught state of Danielle and Ciara’s friendship. But there’s way more to discuss about that in a bit.
Then there’s Andrea Denver, who’s stayed quiet this entire reunion. But now he opens up about how he won his current girlfriend, Lexi, back after pining (and crying) over her all season. She even came to the reunion to support him. And yes, in case you’re wondering, Andrea is constantly surrounded by women when he’s out in New York. He’ll even say so!
Quarterlife Crisis (Sponsored by Honda Civic)
There’s no denying Ciara had a bit of a rough season. But while she floundered in her professional life, most of her issues centered around Austen. The majority of the cast openly vote that Ciara was being hypocritical when she told the Charleston Charm-er he couldn’t sleep in Lindsay‘s bed. But Ciara thinks that expectation was reasonable considering where they left things off at the end of Winter House. And I can’t say I disagree. Yes, Austen’s clearly the most to blame. But I can’t wrap my head around Lindsay refusing to think she’s not accountable for any part of what happened when he came to the house. It’s just…delusional. The entire explanation she offers is also pure revisionist history. And further, I don’t understand how so many fans are siding with her, either, when she has to literally be coached through a simple apology for hurting Ciara’s feelings.
Kyle actually plays the voice of reason for a moment, pointing out that Ciara made her feelings very clear when Austen failed to show up for the weekend with Craig Conover. You’d think Lindsay would’ve known then that feelings were still involved between the two, no matter what line Austen was feeding her behind the scenes. But it was easier for her to sweep aside any consideration of Ciara in order to get what she wanted in the moment. Which was Austen’s attention and validation. (Side note: why Andy didn’t dissect Paige‘s bombshell that Carl called Austen and told him not to come to the house, I’ll never understand. Anyone with me?)
At least we can all agree that Austen‘s not worth fighting over. And hopefully all the females on Summer House, the Bravoverse and beyond can see that now. He also was apparently vile to Mya off camera, which gets him even more on my bad side. Don’t pick our sweet new girl! Lindsay argues that Austen was the one who pursued her — with Carl defending her — but I simply can’t talk about this anymore. Everything Ciara‘s saying on the couch is making sense. And that’s that. It shouldn’t take Danielle giving Lindsay a reality check. It wasn’t “subconscious” like she claims. She quite literally confessed her love to Austen just months prior in Vermont. Sorry, Lindsay knew exactly what she was doing.
Italian Fight Night
Finally, it’s time to talk about the chaos that was Andrea‘s Italian dinner. While the model missed the explosive fight, the fallout is still very real among his roommates. Most of that is between Danielle and Ciara given the thrown wine glass of it all. Though Paige also gets called out by Luke Gulbranson for getting her bestie riled up. And the fashionista unabashedly shoots back that she would do it all again if it meant Ciara had the opportunity to stand up for herself. However, all these months later, Danielle is still carrying a lot of anger towards Ciara over getting a wine glass to the chest. And Part 1 of the reunion ends with her in tears as she confesses she feels actual “hatred” for her roommate fueled by how the fight played out on air…
TELL US – WHO HAD YOUR FAVORITE REUNION LOOK? SHOULD LINDSAY TAKE MORE ACCOUNTABILITY? WHAT’S GOING ON BETWEEN PAIGE AND LINDSAY? IS AUSTEN THE WORST? IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR DANIELLE AND CIARA TO FORM A REAL FRIENDSHIP?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
