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Summer House<\/a><\/p>\n Reunion Part 3<\/p>\n \n Season 10<\/p>\n Episode 19\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Even after a three-part interrogation, we never fully understand what West and Amanda were thinking, let alone the truth of what happened. My favorite moment of the final part of a tumultuous reunion is, unsurprisingly, thanks to Lindsay Dale Hubbard in full Cruella de Vil mode. She returns from a break right before the very end and says, \u201cAndy, I haven\u2019t learned anything. I just feel like there is not a lot of clarity.\u201d Lindsay is eternally clocking in to do her job, to make sure that the sponge of this show has been so thoroughly wrung that there is not even a droplet of drama left inside. Andy Cohen, wearily, responds that they\u2019ll start over, picks up a stack of cards as big as Carl\u2019s new veneers, and facetiously rewelcomes everyone to the reunion.<\/p>\n But she\u2019s right. We get plenty of revelations in this hour, probably more than the previous<\/a> two parts<\/a>, but I\u2019m still scratching my head, still wondering what it all adds up to. Maybe that\u2019s because West and Amanda can\u2019t answer the biggest question of all: \u201cWhy?\u201d Everyone sort of pokes and prods at it, asks all these questions around it, but I don\u2019t think that West and Amanda even know the answer. So everyone on those couches and at home is going to be more frustrated than trying to put together some Ikea furniture when all the Allen wrenches in the world have disappeared.<\/p>\n The episode starts with Bailey telling Amanda that she worries about her, but that West is going to embarrass her. Amanda says, \u201cMaybe this will be a huge mistake, and one day I will wake up and realize it, but it\u2019s hard to sit on the stage and try to explain myself when no one will listen.\u201d They\u2019re listening, they\u2019re just not buying any of it. It seems like Amanda is partly waking up to the fact that it was a huge mistake on this stage as Andy and the Summer Housers try to get a definitive timeline. West says that he is the one who made the first move, saying that he thought there might be something there, and Amanda says that all of her emotions flooded in during that moment. They say nothing was happening the previous summer, and when Kyle asks, very explicitly, if it goes back to 2025, they both say no, which I believe.<\/p>\n The thing I\u2019m having a hard time with is that West and Amanda say that they started their \u201cconnection\u201d in February or March, just shortly before the announcement. They say that nothing was happening at the Super Bowl, which Bailey handily reminds us was February 8, but Dave Portnoy seems to have shot down that timeline<\/a>, saying he knew they were a thing at the Super Bowl. (Ugh, get your boy sports out of my girl sports!) That is also a week before Valentine\u2019s Day, when West sent his \u201cgirlfriend,\u201d Meija, flowers. That means that West was potentially seeing Amanda, having sleepovers with Ciara, and sending flowers to Meija all at the same time, and none of them were aware of it.<\/p>\n West cops to the fact that he has been very unclear with the \u201cjillions\u201d of women he\u2019s dated in the past, including Meija, but as more comes out about their entanglement, the worse it looks for West. Jesse says that he met Meija previously when West flew her out to Montana so that they could go to a football game with his dad. I don\u2019t know, that sounds like boyfriend-girlfriend behavior to me. West says that he wasn\u2019t exclusive with Meija but eventually admits that she thought they were in an exclusive relationship. So West was cheating on her all of last summer, including the \u201cear stuff\u201d he was doing with Ciara in the summer house. Jesse, getting progressively teary-eyed, says, \u201cWhat it feels like now is that you probably told her that this was all for a show.\u201d Yup, West was lying to everyone about all of this stuff, including telling Jesse that Meija knew that they weren\u2019t exclusive when that wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n When Andy asks if they\u2019ve been monogamous, West says yes, since the announcement, but not since they started exploring their feelings. Wait, so he asked Amanda to put her whole life on the line, and he was still sleeping with other people? Ciara makes the obvious point that if he hadn\u2019t been, the internet would have gone into a frenzy. He and Amanda say that they\u2019re falling in love, that it\u2019s real, that they want to be together, but at this point, does West have any choice? Aren\u2019t the particular circumstances of this very public partnering forcing him into monogamy? Andy asks if that\u2019s the case, and West basically says he doesn\u2019t want the pressure of this public relationship to be why it works, but it seems like that\u2019s working so far.<\/p>\n After West says they\u2019re exclusive despite everything we just learned about how he treats women, Carl, of all people, doesn\u2019t believe it and has some words for Amanda. \u201cAnd you still want to be with him, after all this shit, Amanda? You see this behavior. He\u2019s hooking up with four different girls and your best friend. That\u2019s fucking crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Amanda, very quietly says, \u201cI hear you.\u201d But I don\u2019t think she hears him. Amanda constantly apologizes, and so does West. As Jesse is crying about how he feels like he has \u201clost a brother\u201d in West and that \u201cthe sanctity of this friend group feels broken,\u201d West is sitting there stone-faced. Andy finally asks the question we were wondering: If Amanda or West is on anything because they\u2019re placid, resigned. West says he took some beta blockers, but did he take all the beta blockers? He has no beta left, but that has not made him an alpha. It\u2019s made him an omega. It\u2019s made him the last-place finisher.<\/p>\n I think what everyone in the audience and everyone in that room is having a hard time handling is the friction between what they\u2019re saying and how they\u2019re acting, and I don\u2019t just mean the beta blockers, but how they\u2019re acting in continuing to pursue this. Amanda says to Ciara, \u201cThere were times I lost sleep, wouldn\u2019t eat, thinking about what this was going to do to our friendship, even the fact that these feelings existed. I fucked up, and I am deeply sorry for betraying your trust, and it kills me to know that I caused you this pain.\u201d<\/p>\n Ciara\u2019s answer is simple, \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t, Amanda.\u201d She\u2019s right! If even the existence of these feelings felt fucked up, then what about acting on them? Wouldn\u2019t she know that would make her feel even more fucked up? And what about acting on them and lying about them? Would that make it worse? Lindsay asks Amanda, \u201cWhat did you think was going to happen? Knowing Ciara, how did you not know what this would do to this friendship, and you were willing to say \u2018fuck it\u2019?\u201d This is exactly the point. It\u2019s not that Amanda didn\u2019t know what would happen; it\u2019s that West asked her to choose him over Ciara, and she said yes. This is not an accident; this is not a slip-up. This is clearly Amanda and West choosing themselves over the feelings of everyone else around them. Ciara says that West is dating Amanda to get revenge on her. I don\u2019t think his mind is shrewd enough to think that. I don\u2019t think West sat in his apartment rubbing his fingers together thinking, \u201cI know what will screw her \u2014 fucking Amanda!\u201d No, but the blatant disregard for her emotions is the same kind of revenge without even thinking about it.<\/p>\n Kyle also makes an excellent point to West about Amanda, saying that he found Amanda at her most vulnerable and asked her to make an impossible choice. He says, \u201cDeciding to pursue these feelings, you have completely isolated her. She is alone on an island.\u201d He\u2019s right. She\u2019s lost her husband, all of her close (show) friends, and now all she has is West, a man who, by his own admission, can\u2019t commit. Kyle completes his thought by asking West what his plan is for Amanda, and right now, it seems like the plan is happily ever after \u2014 the fact that they are spitting into each other\u2019s mouths<\/a> in Italy proves that\u2019s what they\u2019re going for.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s at the exclusion of everything else. Lindsay comes in with a great soliloquy at the end of the episode. \u201cI\u2019m just so confused how such a big decision that is so high-risk, and you\u2019re saying you weighed all these options before making this decision, but you didn\u2019t,\u201d she says, laying in. \u201cAll of these guys are a mess, and if you weighted all of these decisions, surely you would have thought about how this will affect more than just the four of you. And I\u2019m looking at you, West, because you\u2019re the manipulator here. You are not thinking through in a bigger-picture way. This affects the future of our friend group. This affects people\u2019s livelihoods, careers, and today is the day that you just thought about that? It\u2019s very shortsighted for a fucking hookup, for a fling \u2026 All we want to talk about is to get clarity, and you guys came to the table with, \u2018We have a lot to think about after today.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Do not, for all that is good and holy, get between Lindsay Hubbard and her paycheck. She has an infant daughter to feed, and she will destroy anyone who messes with that. And she\u2019s right to. I think that Andy does a great job asking questions, facilitating conversations, and letting the cast question each other as they all processed this one big decision. And that\u2019s what it was, despite how West and Amanda want to frame it \u2014 a choice, and an exceedingly selfish one, at that. I think Amanda has shouldered a lot of the blame for what she did to Ciara, and that is a blame she should carry. But I think for West, it\u2019s even worse. He is the one who made the move, he is the one who acted on these feelings while already in various romantic entanglements, he is the one who put her in a position to have to betray her best friend, and he is the one who put the timeline of her previous relationship into question. I don\u2019t know that West is a mastermind, but he\u2019s certainly the architect, and this is the Frankenstein creation he will best be remembered for. Next week\u2019s bonus episode that takes place three weeks after the reunion should shed more light on timelines and motivations, but for now, everything is still inconclusive.<\/p>\n While the episode goes out on everyone eating Girl Scout cookies, what I will remember is something that happened just before the final segment, when they go on a break, and Kyle goes to hug a preternaturally calm Amanda and starts to tear up. He hates that their relationship gets talked about like it was 100 percent bad, just as Andy hates that this scandal has overshadowed the most fun season (and the most-watched season, even before the scandal) of the show. We all want clarity. We want this thing put together in a shiny box with a perfect bow on top. But nothing in life is like that. Nothing is 100 percent. We\u2019ll never know everything. Just as we will remember Kyle screaming at Amanda and calling her a \u201cbitch,\u201d or we\u2019ll remember Amanda calling him 80 times in a row when he wouldn\u2019t come home from the club. The difference, dare I say the beauty, is in the things that we will never see, the laughs in the kitchen when Kyle almost tripped on the dishwasher, Amanda\u2019s feet rubbing on Kyle\u2019s for warmth when they were in a ski lodge. Kyle helping Amanda back from the hospital after some terribly mundane ailment, her spending a bit extra time ironing the pants that he loves. A relationship is like the show: It\u2019s all the things that lie just below the surface that get lost in the edit. The meals together, the drunken Ubers home where they sing along to their own music, the sneaky cigs behind the garage where production lives, the sunrises, the cool breezes, the cicadas finally retiring their fiddles after a long night, them with their arms around each other, the only people who will fully understand just what this experience is like, the millisecond where the light streaming through the Sag Harbor trees twists a little bit on its axis and everyone who can see it knows that fall is officially here.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Housewives Institute Bulletin<\/p>\n Dame Brian Moylan breaks down all the gossip and drama, on- and off-screen, for dedicated students of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Jocelyn Prescod\/Bravo\n <\/p>\n