The Joke’s on You
Season 10
Episode 6
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
The cast is having fun and getting flirty, but an ill-timed joke hits a little too close to home and sets Ben off.
Photo: Bravo
This episode seems like we have finally turned a corner this season. There is plenty of fun, drama, and almost nothing around the dissolution of Kymanda — mostly thanks to Kyle buying what I believe is a $9,000 watch for Amanda’s birthday. Way to pull it out, Kyle! As Amanda says, the gift is almost as much for him to get everyone to clap since he’s finally given Amanda a cheer-worthy gift rather than the non-gifts in the past. Also, Amanda even stays out until 3 a.m. on her birthday, so everyone gets what they want. Maybe Kyle should buy her expensive gifts more often.
Though Kyle and Amanda are the most peaceful we’ve seen them in years, most of the action of the episode comes from her birthday dinner. First, there is a difficult conversation between Jesse Solomon (always both names!), who invested in Soft Bar, and Kyle, who did not. Kyle says that he is on the advisory board, but that he had to write a $500,000 check to make payroll at Loverboy, so he was not in a position to invest, a situation which Carl supposedly knew. Jesse tells Kyle that Carl was upset more from an emotional standpoint than a financial one. Kyle resolves that he’ll talk to Carl about it, so it seems like an ongoing issue and maybe what leads to their fist fight later in the season that was teased in the trailer.
The other explosive moment is thanks to the newbies who have officially entered the chat. It is a black-tie dinner for Amanda, who looks gorgeous in a two-piece butter yellow gown. (Bonus points to Kyle for reusing one of his wedding outfits and looking like a Gentleman’s Warehouse model, and KJ, who hips up his tux with a durag, an open shirt, and a thick gold chain.) As everyone is seated in formalwear, Jesse decides that they should go around the table and say one nice thing about Amanda. Um, excuse me. Have we not learned by now that the only one of these games that works is “Who Around the Table Do You Trust the Least?” Jesse starts and says that she’s one of the funniest girls he knows. West says that Amanda has accomplished so much in the past few years. Mia says that many people are worried about fitting into a mold, and Amanda does not seem to care. Things all shift when we get to Ben, her Australian crush object. “I’m a big eyes and smile guy …” he starts.
Bailey interrupts and says, “Ben is definitely going to talk about how he wants to sleep with you.” Silence falls over the table. It is like a record scratch, an orchestra of crickets, the RuPaul’s Drag Race rattlesnakes, and an earthquake all at once. The room erupts in a chorus of WTFs, and Bailey says, “I know the story,” referring to the story about how they met skinny dipping at a wedding. Finally, Bailey shuts up, Ben finishes his sentence, and the game is dead before we can even get to Ciara, who definitely would have said something amazing that also would have thrown Kyle under the bus — maybe Bailey did us all a favor and kept the Kymanda dragon from rearing its ugly head.
After dinner, Amanda talks to the girls and says she isn’t upset. She knows it was a joke and thinks that Bailey is just nervous around Ben. Levi says that it’s a bad way to flirt (I think this is her one line all episode, and it’s well delivered). I do think it was a joke. As someone who has tried to be funny and taken things way too far, I know how awkward and embarrassing it is and how you just want to melt into the seat, hope no one notices, and beg for forgiveness later. Was it a bad joke? Yes. Is it worth getting too bent out of shape about? Nope.
The boys chill in the VIP room, and West and the other guys are still like WTF. Ben feels like it was awkward, and it’s not the first time that Bailey has said something like that. He says, “Everyone’s saying I want to fuck my mate’s missus,” and then all the boys start laughing at just how Aussie he sounds and leave the room. Oh, Ben. As an American in London, this is my life too. I can’t say the word “college” without all of my friends mocking my word choice and round Os by saying, “college, college, college” like a gaggle of drunken geese. Hang in there, mate.
While I’m sympathetic about people making fun of his accent, I don’t like how he goes upstairs and talks to Bailey about it. Well, I like that he went upstairs to talk about it. I think it’s good to squash these beefs before they become something bigger, but not how he handles it. He says in confessional, “If I’m doing something and everyone’s thinking it, I need to stop that today.” I hate to break it to you, but you kinda are. Bailey wasn’t wrong that there is a narrative about Ben being very attentive to Amanda. Maybe that’s because they were friends before, maybe it’s because she and Mia are the only women in relationships in the house. Bailey points out that Ben is there with a towel when Amanda gets out of the pool, he is making her coffee in the morning, and he picks her up and spins her around. So, yeah, it’s not that weird that Bailey got that impression and that she called attention to it. As Ben says, if it’s something he’s doing, then he should stop. Instead, he makes it Bailey’s problem.
Ben goes into Bailey’s room, which looks like someone just ransacked it, looking for a monster hiding under the bed that wasn’t there. Bailey explains that she thought it was a joke because of how they met. Ben says it was rude. She immediately apologizes for her bad joke, but he doesn’t leave it there, pressing her on whether or not it’s more than a joke. There is a way to have this confrontation, where Ben makes it clear that it wasn’t cool, but accepts that it was in the spirit of a joke. Where he makes it clear that they’re all friends and it’s all good, but also sets a boundary around these kinds of comments. It quickly becomes … not that. He tells her that he doesn’t think she’s trying to be funny. Dude, believe women. Just take her word for it. He keeps pressing her for an answer, and she keeps saying it was a joke, and he keeps getting more annoyed because she’s not giving him the answer he wants.
Then he turns into a right dick. When Bailey is giving him the explanation he was looking for, he stands up to leave and looks down. She tells him to look at her, that she’s talking to him, and he says that he’s stepping over her mess. Dude, it is not your job to make fun of Bailey’s room to her face; it is my job to do it behind her back like Jesus and St. Augustine of Hippo, the patron saint of criticism, intended. He again tells her that it wasn’t a joke and then, passive-aggressively, accepts her apology and leaves. As he leaves the door, Mia is standing outside on her phone. He says, “Stay out of it,” most likely to her, but also possibly to Bailey, and, well, this is the moment that I stopped liking Ben. Sorry, mate. Yes, he might have been embarrassed about that comment, but why not be honest about your feelings rather than being a jerk? It was a (bad, unfunny, ill-considered) joke; it doesn’t need to be this big of a deal.
As a result, Bailey stays home from the club. Levi cuddles up next to her, letting everyone else go out and rage until the wee hours. This is when we get our second great story line of the episode, and it is the potential reunification of Wiara (Cest?). After the club, they’re back in the VIP room, where all good things happen, and Ciara is lying on the floor, and West is sitting on top of her. She says she knows he only does this when he has a crush on a girl, and, of course, he still has a crush on Ciara. Jesse is out of the running and not so secretly seething inside as everyone notices that West and Ciara are vibing in the club. When talking about it, West has another of his perfect confessional moments. “It’s not a crush because we’re not friends during the day,” he says. “But you can fall in love in the club. There’s a song about it. Is it an after-hours crush, a p.m. crush, a late-night crush, a sunset crush, maybe. It’s not a breakfast crush or a lunch crush.” Whatever it is, when he’s talking to Kyle about it, he is cheesing about it so hard that all of the mice in the Hamptons are lined up in front of the broken door amid the Amazon packages.
West stumbles into the kitchen looking for some buffalo-chicken dip, wearing only a pair of shorts and a smile. I have never seen a man look more handsome, more cuddly, and more scrumdiddlyumptious than West in this moment. Who wants buffalo chicken dip when you can have some of Missouri’s finest? Ciara is in the kitchen, and he tells her that he doesn’t know how to talk to her. She says, “I feel like I designed it perfectly that way.” Exactly! Perfection. Amazing. Keep those boys always on their toes, keep them forever guessing, keep them eternally unsure so they have to fight for every crumb. This is why Ciara is a queen. What West means is he doesn’t know if he should talk to her on camera or not, but he makes it clear he wants to talk.
The next afternoon, they all go to a winery where there are a few cute moments. Kyle does a hilarious photoshoot with Ciara where he’s the world’s worst Instagram boyfriend. Ciara and Ben have a nice chat about getting to know each other and how he was seeing this girl until she said she loved him. (Is this the girlfriend he has now?) I might not like Ben anymore, but he’s bonding with the guys, bonding with the girls, and creating drama. It looks like, against all odds, he’s finally coming into his own.
He has another great moment when everyone is back at the house. After KJ gives an update that he and Dara are sleeping together and that he’s been texting and FaceTiming her all weekend, West lies on the sun loungers with Ben, who says that he thinks both West and Ciara are very special people and he wishes they could figure it out. West, clearly still longing for her, explains how things fell apart. Ben asks if he has regrets, and he admits he does. Ben asks if he misses her, and he says that he does but doesn’t know what to do. Then West rolls over, bringing his arms into his chest and hiding his face in the nook between Ben’s shapely arm and the sun lounger. He just wants to get somewhere dark, somewhere warm, somewhere he feels protected and loved and able to be himself. He wants some comfort, which Ciara won’t give him. He needs that comfort from Ben’s arm so that he can package it up, ball it together like a huge lump of sushi rice or some freshly fallen snow, and bring it to Ciara. He needs to give her that comfort, give her everything she needs, prove that he has finally chosen to be with her, and then they can proceed. Sadly, it seems unlikely, but it’s just the kind of warmth that all of us at home, with our hardened hearts and shriveled lives, are hoping these two munchkins can figure out.
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