the ocean

After nearly a decade of refusing to watch Summer House, Ian and I finally broke down and have now completed season one. And, God help me, it's kind of amazing.

My initial resistance was based largely on an aversion to Kyle, who I though was a douchebag and not actually all that attractive. But when he appeared on The Traitors, I realized that he was a douchebag and not that attractive, but also kind of ridiculous and pathetic. So I figured I could live with him. I was also against the Wirkus twins, as in general I find it suspicious for people to resemble one another and moreover, I did sort of feel they looked like the white chicks from White Chicks. That also hasn't changed, but we really needed something light and ridiculous for a summer watch and, well, this checked those boxes.

Like many Bravo shows, Summer House is a meticulous examination of the toxic behavior of attractive straight men and the delusional self-sabotage of the women who surround them. Kyle spends the entire first season telling Amanda (to whom we know is he now married) that he wants to be single and indeed catalogues to her a roster of his (relatively unimpressive) summer conquests, but she doubles down on the relationship. Carl essentially wears a T-shirt that says "I'm not that interested in you, Lauren" and, in response, Lauren decides it is Cristina's fault that things "cooled off" with him and screams at her before getting back in bed with him. Lindsay engages in weekly screaming matches with a man who flees the house to sleep in a bed with five other people and then decides to move in with him. This is all a horrific mirror on society and yet unbelievably watchable.

Cristina herself is an incredibly distinctive character in that, despite being generally in the right about everything in the house, she is still somehow really unlikable. I don't even know why. Maybe its the incredibly lousy job she does of trying to act like a casual, chill girl when she's obviously drowning in insecurities. Maybe it's her truly inartful pot stirring. Or maybe it's just her face. But when everyone turned on her for essentially no reason and she left the house early, all I could think about was how lame her exit speech was. You're burning these bridges and you can't even articulate any of the at least three dozen insults for your fellow cast members that I've come up with in my head? Please.

Anyway, this is happening. Or, rather, it happened in 2017. But we're in it now. Be afraid.