Photo: Bravo
All season, I’ve been joking that Jesse Solomon (always both names!) and West Wilson (just this one time, both names!) have no boundaries with each other. They’re chatting when they poop, they’re in the shower together, they’re bro-ing out non-stop. But in this episode, it seems like they’re on a whole different level. It starts in the first opening moments when Jesse pulls up to pick up West and gets a kiss on the cheek. It continues at the house when Jesse is doing a handstand, and West is holding his legs to take a pic. As they fall over, West’s face gets perilously close to, how can I say this, Jesse’s Solomon. At the gym, West straddles Jesse to “spot” him, joking about how he “can’t get it up.” Oh, and when they return from the bar all drunken, Jesse pushes their beds together and West jokes that the weekend is about him and Jesse “renewing our vows and seeing what transpires.” Oh, I can see what transpires, and there is not a single eggplant emoji on my keyboard, so I can’t really type it out.
Are these two legit banging? Are they actually in love? Are they doing this just so I’m nice to them in the weekly recaps? Quite possibly, but probably not at all. It seems that Jesse is the reason they have bad boundaries. Just look at what is up with him and Ciara. Jesse flirts with her like he flirts with most of the other women in the house — did you see him put Gabby’s full head into his shirt? — but he flirts with her the hardest because he’s probably the closest to her. Before the big pirate party, Jesse is on a pool float with Ciara, and she puts her leg on his, and he jokes about how “this is kind of turning me on.” He then rolls over and goes into full body-on-body contact with her. This might have been a gag because he just got out of the pool and was getting her all wet, but this seems like my favorite Jim J Bullock sitcom, Too Close for Comfort. (If you got that joke, congratulations, you are now eligible for Social Security while it still exists.)
There are two reasons Jesse shouldn’t be doing this. One is that West confided in him that he’s still not making much headway with Ciara being nice to him in the house. West says, in confessional, that his phone is “always juicy,” but he’s prioritizing his relationship with Ciara in the house this summer, which is a very sweet sentiment. I applaud Jesse for trying to mend the relationship between his two friends, but the full-fire house of flirting might not be the right move, especially based on what Ciara says in her confessional: “Me and Jesse definitely flirt, but I don’t have any intentions behind it. I definitely think that if the opportunity presented itself, I have 90 percent on he would probably take it.”
This is exactly the problem. When Jesse flirts with Amanda or “gasses her up” on Instagram, it’s cute harmless fun. She’s married and not going to do anything, and he knows that. I love flirting. Go for it. But he clearly thinks Ciara is hot (because he is a human being with eyes), and she’s right; he would go for it. That’s not only awkward between him and West but also between him and Lexi, who is also in the house all summer. Yes, she’s absent this weekend, but if she and Jesse are still dating (please don’t let it be true), she’s gonna be pissed when she sees the way he was behaving with another single woman he is attracted to while she was away. This is awkward all around.
Speaking of awkward all around, let’s talk about Carl, who is throwing perhaps the best, most on-theme party that Summer House has ever thrown. This man got the entire set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales in the backyard. He has a blue tarp covered in a little island, palm trees, shark fins, and a raft that Paige thinks looks enough like a bed that she’ll actually hang in it. I thought it was all going to look cheesy, but like Imrul’s shirt the moment he gets in the club, Carl really pulled it off.
As for how it’s going to go with Lil, the woman he invited to the party and has been chatting with, it’s unclear. Did you clock how they met? Amanda — winner of the best costume of the night for her parrot impersonation — tells the other girls that Carl went to a soccer game alone and met her parents. They somehow introduced them on social media, and she slid into the DMs. Okay, I’m sorry, but if my parents said to me, “We met a guy who is really great. You should date him. He was sitting alone at a soccer game,” I would tell them to put that troll back in his box and return him to his bridge.
Carl seems to be doing okay with Lil at the party, though. She’s complimenting his eyeliner and saying he looks like a lemur, which is good because she likes lemurs. But it’s when Jesse comes in that things really heat up. Jesse asks her what she does, and she says she’s a dancer and yoga instructor. Carl says he wants to go on a date with her before doing hot yoga together. Good on you, Carl, moving slowly and making your romantic intentions clear in a sweet and non-threatening way. However, that is not what Lil seems like she is after. Jesse just flat-out asks, “Are you staying over?” Then Lil looks at Carl and asks, “Am I staying over?” And then Carl looks at her and says, “You could stay over.” Bam! Done! Deal sealed! Consider this a date and go do hot yoga in the morning, my man. You can thank Jesse later.
Also super awkward is whatever is happening with Kyle and Craig, who are still beefing over Craig and his alcohol investment that may or may not have happened. It’s still hard to really say because there was more talk about the talk and when to talk and how to talk and where to talk and what to wear to talk and “all you do to me is talk talk, talk talk talk talk” like in the song “Talk Talk” by the band Talk Talk. I don’t know what the merits of the actual talk will be, but Kyle wins the talk about the talk. He says he texted Craig before the weekend to see if they could squash the beef, and Craig texted him back, but they didn’t talk. Kyle was right to get it out of the way, especially on Friday night after the rather tame (and by tame, I mean sober) birthday party they threw for Amanda. Craig insists that they talk the next day because he isn’t ready for it, and Kyle has to go into the backyard to wander around and mumble, which is apparently the only way he can deal with his anger other than getting totally wasted.
At dinner, Kyle dropped it because Amanda asked him to, but Kyle knew just what was going to happen: Craig was going to wait until the next day when there is a theme party planned, and then they have to have their talk talk while absolutely wasted and wearing costumes, which is not a dignified way to talk about business at all. At least Kyle has his priorities straight now that he’s calmed down about Craig. He says that he wants to try to preserve their friendship, mostly so that things between Paige and Amanda can stay copacetic.
Craig does not have this concern. He says that Kyle doesn’t even deserve a talk, so if he is going to talk, then it’s on his terms. I’m sorry, but no matter what Craig thinks about the merits of this feud, Kyle deserves a talk, if only because Paige and Amanda are besties. While Craig may not be ready to forgive Kyle, he needs to preserve the peace in the house and one of his girlfriend’s close friendships. Paige says as much, saying that she’s mad at Craig for reasons having to do with their own relationship, but she’s also upset at him with how he’s dealing with Kyle, and then she’s doubly mad that Craig can’t see that she is mad or why she might be mad.
The real revelation about these CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs, however, comes when Paige and Amanda are chatting about it. Where is their chat? It’s in a bed, so you know Paige is at the height of her powers and telling the truth. Both ladies agree that Kyle and Craig are the sorts of dudes who need to be right, but not only that, they need the other person to relent to their rightness before they can move on. That’s why this talk is going to go horribly, and I, for one, can’t wait to watch it all go wrong in the next episode.
Paige also doesn’t tee Craig up to have a productive conversation because the episode ends with the two of them sitting in an inflatable raft talking about their relationship. It’s a continuation of the conversation from last week, which left a bad taste in Paige’s mouth that wasn’t from the kangaroo kebabs. Craig wants to feel like he’s still a priority to Paige even though she’s gotten really busy with her career, but he also admits that she hasn’t actually made him feel like he isn’t a priority yet … he’s just worried that he’s going to feel like that. We’re all responsible for our partner’s feelings, but if we’re also responsible for any potential feelings, then we would never stop arguing long enough to enjoy whatever relationship we’re having.
Pagie has been very open that her life and career are very different from when they started dating. Her priorities and her lifestyle have changed, and she should not be apologizing for that, period. Yes, to continue a partnership, they’re going to have to make room for each other among their busy schedules, but if Craig is more worried about how he might feel about her success, then he isn’t really supporting her in that success, and it makes absolute sense why they would break up over this issue.
As they were not rowing a raft across the party, Jesse told West they needed to go into the kitchen and try to find a bottle opener. West dug through the drawers, rattling around random cutlery, spatulas, slotted spoons, and a random juicer as Jesse, in his Captain Jason from Below Deck Down Under costume, looked on with a smile. “Dude, I can’t find it,” West says.
“I didn’t ask you in here for a bottle opener,” Jesse said, standing right next to West. He took three steps toward the counter, backing West up so his ass, as juicy as his phone, hit against it. West, a little nervous, let out one of his signature giggles. Jesse placed a hand on West’s shoulder and slowly rubbed his way down his bare bicep. “I just wanted to tell you that you make a really handsome pirate,” Jesse said. His eyes were locked on West’s, which were locked on Jesse’s. They were in a tunnel of their own longing, the energy sluicing back and forth between them, as Jesse put his index finger under West’s chin, slowly propping it up so that Jesse could put his lips right on West’s. The kiss lasted a little bit longer than it should have. Jesse put all his weight on West, leaning both of them against the counter, and a certain stiffening happened in both of their pants. Finally, Jesse broke it, and his eyes went back to West’s. After a pause, he said, “Damn. Don’t lose that mustache.”
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