Welcome to our Summer House Season 8, Episode 4 recap! In this week’s episode, titled “Runaway Bride,” it’s all Carl and Lindsay, all the time. Sadly, the engaged couple is just having the same fight over and over. Lindsay gets aggressive because she’s drinking and accuses Carl of being on drugs. And when they try to talk through their differences, it just ends up in another fight. Here are some of the highlights from Summer House Season 8, Episode 4.
Too much togetherness
Lindsay and Carl are the first to arrive at the house for the weekend. Lindsay makes a cup of tea and is chilling in the backyard when Carl comes out and says, “Come on, babe, hang out with me!”
“What do you want to do, man?” she responds.
Lindsay just needs a little time to herself. “Carl and I are like COVID times, right?” she says in a confessional. “Carl doesn’t have a nine-to-five job, and we’re on top of each other a lot. You need space to miss each other. You need time away from each other to, like, breathe. And then we share a house together on the weekends.”
Everybody goes out to dinner rather than cooking at home. At the table, Lindsay clinks her martini glass to make a toast. “Good vibes,” she says, “but on the real, I’m really enjoying, like, this camaraderie with the group. I think the boys bringing in boy energy is great.”
In response to her recognition, the guys jokingly begin to bark. Dogs in the House!
“Do you hear Carl’s bark?” West asks.
“I don’t want to hear Carl’s bark because I might give the ring back,” she snaps. Wow! That was a little harsh.
The rest of the group exchanges looks, a little stunned, and Kyle mutters, “What?!”
“I feel like hanging out and enjoying each other’s company,” Lindsay continues, oblivious to the crowd. “[I want to do] things together, like, I feel like we didn’t have last summer, especially us [to Danielle] … we’re doing great.”
“That is true,” Gabby agrees. “We are on a different path than last summer.”
“Let’s cheers,” Kyle adds.
Same fight, different day
After dinner, everybody except Amanda decides to go out to the club, but Carl and Lindsay return early. “Can you unzip me, please?” Lindsay asks.
“No, I can’t,” Carl snaps, moving away from her. Wow. He’s really angry.
“Should I sleep in another room?” she asks.
“That’s up to you,” he responds. “I’m not gonna be spoken to the way you are … You’re accusing me of doing drugs, again.”
In a confessional, Carl explains, “We were at dinner. It’s 11:30. I’m tired, and I’d like to go home. She comes with me. As soon as we get in the car, ‘What’s wrong? Something’s wrong with you.’ I’m like, ‘Lindsay, … I’m just tired.’ Not good enough. She won’t let it go, continues to keep going in on it, and then I say, ‘How many drinks have you had?’ And then she goes, ‘What are you on?’”
“I’m not on anything,” he tells her, but she says, “You’re a liar.”
“So infuriating,” Carl concludes. It must be so frustrating trying to maintain a sober life when your partner is drinking, and she was hitting the vodka martinis pretty hard at dinner.
“You can’t accuse me of doing drugs,” he tells Lindsay. “It’s so f*cked up.”
“Carl, do you smoke weed?” Lindsay asks.
“I do, but I didn’t smoke weed tonight,” he responds. That worries me. I know a lot of people who are in AA, and weed is a slippery slope when you’re working on your sobriety. Some people think it’s okay to be “California sober,” but that’s not really sober for most people. Just ask Lala Kent.
Next, she accuses Carl of picking a fight with her when she was the one who started it.
“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” Carl says. “Thanks so much for your support.”
Lindsay vents to Amanda
Lindsay corners Amanda in the kitchen, where she’s making a ramen snack.
“He’s literally, like, the biggest f*cking gaslighter I’ve ever met,” she tells Amanda.
“Lindsay, you’re more stressed than normal,” Amanda comments.
“Everyone wants to pin everything on me, Amanda,” Lindsay says. “He is a f*cking terrorist!”
She says that Carl was picking at her in the car on the way home. “And I’m like, ‘Why are you this aggressive with me?’ And then he’s, like, switching the narrative, and he’s, like, ‘Well, you’ve been drinking.’ If you’re gonna accuse me of drinking, then you’d better come clean.”
“Carl is the most amazing human being ever,” Lindsay says, “but he has a lot of demons. And those demons come out on me.” I think Lindsay’s got a few demons of her own, honestly. She gives as good as she takes.
“It’s a Jekyll and Hyde, smoke and mirrors situation. I’m not joking, and I’m the only human on earth who has ever seen his bad side. No one knows.”
Poor Lindsay. She’s such a victim. I really hope all those people who think Carl “blindsided” Lindsay are watching this season.
Jesse weighs in
The next morning Carl tells us in another confessional, “What happened in the car, happened. It’s unfortunate that it’s not on camera for you guys to watch, but it’s a reality. I was dead sober. I don’t care that Lindsay drinks, but I care how her behavior changes when she drinks. It’s a key difference. There’s plenty of people that can drink, and they do not turn into aggressive, volatile, detective crazy.”
Jesse asks, “What happened last night, dude? … Like, has she always been like this?”
“At times, yes,” Carl admits.
“So that’s what you’re signed up for,” Jesse shrugs. A lifetime of crazy, volatile behavior. Carl just thought it would get better “as we matured.” I don’t think it works that way, Carl.
“I’m not an expert on long-term relationships,” Jesse confesses. “I’ve never been engaged. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I can’t imagine this is how it’s supposed to go. Shouldn’t [being engaged] be fun? It sounds miserable.”
The housemates offer counsel
Amanda asks Lindsay, “What starts the arguments?”
“Anything could start it,” Lindsay says. “He’s always questioning my alcohol intake. So if you’re gonna [do that], I’m gonna start questioning your intake of what you do.”
“You do keep [accusing him of] doing drugs,” Amanda observes. “And we know how sensitive the word ‘drug’ is with him, given his past.”
“I find it hypocritical,” Lindsay says. “If you’re gonna judge me for drinking alcohol, then why can’t I also question you for smoking weed?”
Carl explains to the guys that last night in the car, Lindsay started asking him, “What are you on?”
He gets emotional when he says, “I’ve worked really hard to get to where I’m at, and now two weekends in a row, she’s accusing me of doing drugs or being on something. It’s just really unfair. It hurts.”
“She’s highly irrational,” Kyle adds. “She said point-blank to Gabby, she’s like, ‘Oh, it’s like the old Carl.’”
“It’s not the old Carl,” he responds. “I mean, if she really wants old Carl, I’ll f*cking burn this house down. I’ll drink 15 Loverboys, and we’ll have a real f*cking problem.”
In the car on the way to lunch, Jesse tells Gabby, “I’m Team Carl right now. My boy needs some support.”
When Gabby asks if Carl is okay, Jesse says, “No, he’s not … To work so hard on your sobriety and then to just have your significant other try to … accuse you of sh*t when you’re actually doing the right thing is just so offensive.”
Gabby confesses, “It’s … extremely sh*tty … to accuse someone who is sober that they could have compromised their sobriety. She’s gonna have to own up to that because that’s not okay.”
Making up is hard to do
Finally, Carl and Lindsay talk. “I just want to hear your perspective of last night,” she begins.
“I’m not doing drugs, Lindsay,” Carl says.
“I never accused you of doing drugs,” she claims. “I said you smoke weed.”
“You said, ‘Are you on something?’” he counters. Carl says he was tired and just didn’t feel like going out.
When she says he was aggressive, he responds that she was swearing, raising her voice, and saying he was “on something.”
“So you’re changing the narrative,” Lindsay says.
“I’m not changing the narrative, Lindsay,” Carl argues calmly. “Just take some responsibility.”
“So it’s okay for you to judge me for drinking,” Lindsay says, “ but it’s not okay for me to ask if you smoked weed?”
“I was sober,” he says. “And you called me a f*cking liar … You [accused me of] doing drugs. I will not allow that because that’s so hurtful, and if you don’t understand why, then we have a bigger problem.”
Lindsay says, “I knew … you were not ready for a conversation. I knew you were too angry.”
And with that, she gets up and walks away. How can you have any a relationship with someone who never takes responsibility?
Back at the house, Gabby tells Lindsay that she needs to take responsibility for her words and the way she communicates with Carl. But, of course, nothing is ever Lindsay’s fault. In a huff, she leaves the house and squeezes out the front gate. Is she going to walk back to New York?
TO BE CONTINUED…
Summer House continues Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF SUMMER HOUSE SEASON 8, EPISODE 4? DO YOU THINK LINDSAY WILL EVER SEE HOW HURTFUL IT IS TO ASK IF CARL’S “ON SOMETHING?”
