Photo: Bravo
Okay, this season is getting more overstuffed than Dolly Parton’s bra. I only make this joke about the one person we can truly call a National Treasure because, in this episode, Rodrigo and Tyler threw their 13-year-old dog Bella a “Doggy Parton” themed party, so it’s fitting. But also, who are all these new characters? What is even going on anymore? Is anyone on this show full-time other than the boys? We’re seeing Venita and Leva, Whitney and Paige, and all of these other people who are just sprinkling little storylines around, but are they getting paid in something other than free dog biscuits from the party? Also, they’ve all slept with each other? At least Venita brought some glam, showing up in pink chaps with sequin hotpants underneath, which is the only logical outfit for a Doggy Parton-themed dog birthday party thrown by gay dog dads.
Into this whole mess walks Molly’s friend Salley, who apparently trains people how to use surgical robots. I really want to like her because that is the coolest job, other than being an ice cream taste tester. Salley and her unnecessary E hooked up with Shep once and sent him packing at 2 a.m. in an Uber against his wishes which I freakin’ love. How many times has Shep pulled that trick and sent home girls in a random Nissan driven by a law student named Jeremy in the middle of the night so that he and Little Craig could marinate in their own farts all night? It’s nice for Salley to be both sex-positive and Shep-negative.
Salley got me on her side pretty quickly, but she lost me just as fast. She said that she also dated Taylor’s now boyfriend Gaston, who may or may not be on the show; I’m not sure. She says, “We dated for three months. I thought he was my person, and I thought I was his, but he was cheating the whole time.” First of all, I will never forgive The Bachelor for giving us the phrase “my person.” Please stop with this. It’s so dumb and reductive, and there are so many people in everyone’s lifetimes. Can we just axe this syrupy nonsense already? “My person” aside, she also decided this after three months. You can’t even tell if you want to make a lifelong commitment to a mattress after three months; nonetheless, a human being named after the hunkiest of Disney villains. And while we’re on the subject, please sing it with me: “No one meets like Gaston, no one cheats like Gaston, no one gets the ladies in the sheets like Gaston.”
The other thing that bugs me about Salley is that she is blonde in the scenes but brunette in the confessionals. Are we sure it’s the same person? Are we sure that the producers of Southern Charm aren’t being Parent Trap-ed? And has Salley never learned of continuity?
Who else do we meet this episode? There’s Sienna, Shep’s new girlfriend who lives in the Bahamas but came up for a visit. Shep fantasizes about moving to the Bahamas, marrying this native, having a bunch of children with her, and just fishing and hanging out for the rest of his life. Oh, so you mean Shep wants to be a colonizer? Just like his ancestors? Got it. Okay. Is he going to go so far as to open a plantation?
We also get to meet Audrey, who is Austen’s new girlfriend, though she just breezes by the camera quickly and she barely gets to speak to anyone. Audrey has the easiest job of all because Austen’s only ex on the cast is Madison, and she’s too busy wearing matching outfits with Paige (they have the same Amazon Shop page) and talking about her husband’s cancer to care about what is going on with Audrey. Salley seems like she wants to make some kind of beef happen with Taylor, who wants nothing to do with it. Taylor is too busy trying to get over the awkwardness of meeting Sienna for the first time when she tells Leva she thinks that she is only “number one on the roster.” Also, can we not with Taylor? There has never been anyone on reality television I’m less interested in learning more about, and that includes half of the dogs at the puppy party.
Everyone mixes and mingles at the party except for JT and the hot gay newbies Ryan and Dr. Eddie, who weren’t invited. JT being excluded makes sense, but do Rodrigo and Tyler have beef with the other hot Charleston gays? Is there some kind of gay drama that we don’t know about? And if there is gay drama, why don’t we know about it? There ain’t no drama like a gay boy drama because a gay boy drama don’t stop. And while it seems like the party might have been explosive, it was mostly a wash, probably because everyone was tripping all over their favorite little critters.
The only drama of the episode is thanks to JT, who is trying to repair things with both Miss Patricia and Madison. He decides that, like his mother, he’s going to write her an apology note, which seems like a good idea. That’s until he starts writing on a note card on the side with his embossed initial right in the middle of the page. Dude, that is the back! Then he starts scribbling in his sad, millennial, TikyToky-addicted scrawl that doesn’t make any sense. “My intent was meant…” he writes before pausing, realizing that what he’s writing makes absolutely no sense. If it’s that hard, just type it in Notes App like a celebrity apology first and copy it from the phone. Maybe then you could even space it out a bit so “Warmest Regards” isn’t squished at the bottom like Salley trying to jam her way into this season’s overstuffed cast photo.
He delivers this envelope to Miss Pat’s door in a navy blue envelope that he’s written on in black pen. How can JT do the right thing but then do it so wrong it ends up becoming even worse than what he did in the first place? Patricia receives the note and says that no one should make her feel like an invalid because she can still do handstands and cartwheels. All due respect to Miss Patricia, who I love and is a wonderful woman, but I am considerably younger but I can’t even do handstands and cartwheels. Yes, she’s still spry and sprightly, but cartwheels? Patricia says she doesn’t want a friendship with him, but she will be cordial when she sees him.
At least Whitney is being realistic about whether or not JT called her a “bitch,” a word JT says he never uses because he called his mother once, and she cut six inches off the bottom of his legs. That’s why he stands at the height he does today. (Sorry, I have tall-man privilege.) Whitney also recalls that Craig sometimes has a loose grasp of the truth which, yeah, we all know that he’s better skimming his pool and hot tub than he is faithfully recounting events.
JT’s other big bust-up comes when Madison summons him to coffee to basically tell him never to talk to him again. She arrives at their date looking gorgeous in a tiny neutral dress and sunglasses so good I immediately ordered them off both her and Paige’s Amazon Shop pages. I love Madison like Rodrigo loves arms day at the gym, but I think she might have gone a little too hard on JT. She didn’t need to resort to talking about his looks when putting him in his place. The issue at hand is not that he isn’t hot enough (which we all know he isn’t), but why would he think that her husband would think that Madison is cheating? What’s at issue is him spreading crackpot theories before talking to her.
If he was close with Madison and he got that weird FaceTime, he should have just said, “Hey, when you guys called me, it was kinda strange. Are we good?” And she would have given him the very reasonable explanation that she gave to viewers. She said she calls Brett every night, and one night in Jamaica, she didn’t call him, and he was a bit concerned. He just wanted to make sure that she wasn’t staying up all night in bed with Austen, eating Mcdonald’s and drinking red wine. (For the record, anytime Madison wants to drink red wine and eat McDonald’s in bed, I am there, and I promise Brett I won’t lay a hand on her except to braid her hair.) Of course, Brett is more worried about her f-boi ex who she’s on a trip with than JT. I mean, duh. After she makes her case, she gets up and walks away, shaking it a little bit more, turning just a little bit sharper, showing JT just what he’ll never have. After all, in a season this full of people, you need to do something to stand out.
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