Photo: Bravo
In the immortal words of the man played by both Austin Butler and Jacob Elordi in the past year, this show needs “A little less conversation, a little more action, please. All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me.” This entire episode was just talking about who in the house fancies who. Who has a crush on who. Who wants to fuck, marry, or kill everyone else in the house. Meanwhile, no one is actually doing anything about it. The only kissing we really got was Tom Schwartz cheating on his one true love with Kyle McGill Cooke.
Speaking of Schwartz, the episode starts with his arrival, and he talks about what being in the center of the #Scandoval maelstrom is like. I remember those heady days as well, all of us glued to TikTok and TMZ waiting for the latest developments, refreshing the Vanderpump Rules Reddit page hoping that someone had found more evidence of the affair, everyone review bombing Schwartz and Sandy’s. For all of us, it was entertainment, but for Schwartz, it was real life. Imagine how odd it must have been for a whole week of his life to be consumed by someone else’s fuck up, how all anyone wants to talk to you about are your best friend’s actions. It must be crazy. I’m so glad that we got to watch it all play out, but the emotional toll it must have taken on everyone can’t be overstated. This is the first time that I ever thought about any of the participants as actual people and not just the reality television characters we’ve been following for the better part of a decade.
That said, it was weird going back in time. When you watch a reality show, no matter how long ago it was filmed, there’s something about it that seems like the present. These shows are so immediate and voyeuristic that you don’t think about how what you’re watching happened almost a year ago. Well, I didn’t until now.
Things seem to be brewing between Tom and Katie, not his ex, but the stew from Below Deck Mediterranean. They have a cute shopping trip, and when Tom has to do the FMK thing, he chooses Katie as the one to marry, maybe because he already did it once and knows how it is going to end. (It will end badly with everyone thinking Tom’s dick doesn’t work.)
Things, so far, are going well for Schwartz. He has some girls to flirt with, some guys to drink with, and Alex as a roommate who warns him that he spends a lot of time in the nude. Oh, if we know anything about our Schwartzy, he won’t mind a hot, naked roommate at all, especially if she’s friends with Kristen Doute.
That night, the whole crew goes to dinner and drinks at a bar, but all the girls immediately strike out because all the dudes at the bar are taken. Also, the point of this show is not for singles to go off into the wild and hook up with randos. This is not Jersey Shore season one. The point is for them to meet other Bravolebrities so that they will marry other Bravolebrities, and they will have children that will go on to be the next generation of Bravolebrities.
To that end, we find out that Malia has been single for seven months, that Jordan has not been in a relationship in 10 years and has been “celibate” for the past 18 months, and that Kory says he is not in a relationship. They ask if he can see other people, and he says he doesn’t know. I’m sorry, but if you don’t know whether or not you should be faithful to someone, you are in a relationship. This is especially true of Kory since there are at least two people in this house who are close friends with the girl he is currently denying.
That night, when they all return home, Kyle is playing Real Life Fruit Ninja in the kitchen, where he throws watermelons up in the air and then slices them with an actual knife. It is an absolute shock that no one ended up in the emergency room that night. And this, right here, is why Amanda needs to be present. She can’t tame Kyle, but she can at least turn the down from an 11 to a 7. Okay, fine. An 8.8, but it’s better than 11. Poor Amanda has it “coming out of both ends” with the stomach flu and has to push her arrival by another day. Will Kyle survive? Probably not.
The next day, Kyle, Casey, and Malia all go skiing, and we learn a little bit more about Casey. She grew up skiing, was once ranked 10th in the nation in halfpipe, and got kicked out of school for roundhouse kicking a girl who slept with her boyfriend. That’s it! Sold! Get Casey to the Hamptons immediately this summer. She is absolutely my new favorite, especially since she hates hopeless romantics and is both entertaining Brian’s advances and shooting them down with her eyes at the same time.
While they’re skiing and Tom and Katie are going to market (and wishing they could squee, squee, squee, squee all the way home), Brian, Kory, Alex, and Danielle are riding bikes in the snow for some reason that probably has to do with production. This is when we learn a bit more about Alex, who was home-schooled through high school. I’m sorry, this is the biggest red flag I have ever heard. This is worse than getting a guy’s number and sending him a text only to discover the bubble is green. Alex says because of this, he’s always trying to be liked by everyone and does too much in every situation. Even Danielle is like, “If you did a lot less, I would like you more.”
That night, after the pirate party, Alex convinces her to get into the hot tub in their underwear, which is the most uncomfortable thing I could possibly think of. I know there are cameras around, but if you’ve gotten this far, then ditch the swimsuits. Danielle is finally vibing on Alex, but even then, he’s falling out of the hot tub trying to find a hair tie in his pants pocket. Danielle literally says, “I want to make out with you, but you’re not making it possible.” Alex’s lack of game is a little bit like his horrible back tattoos. You don’t see it coming, but once you know it’s there, it makes everything a little bit uncomfortable. Finally, he gets in the water and lays one on Danielle, the only real action that we get in the whole episode.
So Katie and Tom buy two entire grocery carts full of food. What is everyone having for dinner, then? Oh, don’t worry, they’re not cooking, they’re ordering Chinese food. Then what is all of that food for? So that Kyle can have more watermelons to waste when he’s wasted? The party is also pirate-themed for some reason. It’s not even a party, it’s not even a dinner, it’s just a bunch of hot, drunk straight people hanging around in costumes in the middle of the week for no reason. It’s like St. Patrick’s Day but pirate-themed.
The only one who looks really good in the pirate costume is Alex, who is giving Jack Sparrow realness. Tom Schwartz has on this curly blond wig, and he looks like the bassist from Warrant. Kyle Cooke has on a white wig with a tiny ponytail like he’s George Washington. I’m not going to lie, the Revolutionary War cosplay got me turned on a bit. The British are coming, the British are coming, indeed.
The group plays a fun game called Message in a Bottle, where they have to answer questions, and it seems like all of the ladies love Kory. You can see something brewing between him and Malia, especially since the night before he said he would swipe right on her on Hinge and complimented her ass. That would be so like Malia to ruin another woman’s life so that she could spend more time with the dude she likes. But Jordan also tells Malia about her crush on Kory, which seems like it’s going to cause tension between the two of them. Oh god, in the spirit of this show, why can’t they just have a three-way already?
Anyway, as Alex and Danielle were making out in the hot tub, the party finally fizzled, and everyone headed to their rooms. Tom was all alone since his roomie Alex was otherwise occupied. He’s was about to doze off when he heard the door open. He thought nothing of it. It was probably just Alex, dripping wet from the hot tub. But it got weird when someone got into his bed, cuddled up behind him, and tried to be the big spoon.
“Alex, don’t get in my bed all wet!” Tom yelled groggily.
“It’s not Alex,” Kyle said, nuzzling into Tom’s neck. “Remember when I said if I had enough Loverboy that I would make out with you? Well, I have had enough Loverboy.”
“What about Amanda?” Tom asked.
“She’s not here.”
“I know! But won’t she care?”
“No, she says as long as it’s dudes, it doesn’t count.”
“Well in that case,” Tom said as he rolled over, his face meeting Kyle’s face, his bulge meeting Kyle’s bulge, their muscular arms wrapping around each other as they both leaned in for a kiss that was so powerful the only way to describe it is masculine. As their making out became more and more passionate, Tom ran his hand through Kyle’s hair and tugged on the party side of his mullet. Kyle worked his hand down Tom’s back, slowly, seductively, and when he got to the elastic of his boxer briefs, he slipped his whole hand underneath and helped himself to a handful of Tom’s ass. They were not the white mounds he was planning to ride on this ski vacation, but Kyle had no doubt he would enjoy them just as much.
