Carolina Dazed
Season 11
Episode 16
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
Salley motivates the end of Charley and Craig’s non-relationship and puts her final stamp on the season.
Photo: Bravo
This was a great season of Southern Charm. Really, the best we’ve had in a while, and I think the reason is the women (feat. Rodrigo). Sure, Austen, Craig, Shep, and, to a lesser extent, Whitney are the core of the show, but this “cyclical argument” that Austen and Craig have been having since his advent on the show is wearing a little thin. Thank the Catholic Jesus that we had the gals. Each brought something unique: Molly her endearing weirdness, Charley her outrageous facial expressions, Venita her class and conflict aversion, and Madison her pregnancy story line, which ended so sweetly with her son Hudson holding her new baby, Teddi, and calling her “Booger.” No, I’m not crying. You’re crying.
But let’s be for real, for real: This season belonged to Salley and her extra E. Yes, she’s annoying. Yes, she’s a hypocrite. Yes, she makes me angrier than when you go out of your way to go to the good bakery, order banana bread, and then they give you the end slice. No one wants the heel! Cut that off and throw it in the trash with Emmy from Southern Hospitality. Don’t make me buy another piece so that I can get all that non-crusty inner goodness. Wait, what was I talking about? Salley. Yeah, she drives us all nuts, but she was the star of the episode and the star of the season. I’m glad we all love to hate her because I think we’re absolutely stuck with her, but stuck with her like you’re stuck with an annoying co-worker who you don’t want to be around, but you know is good at her job. Salley is good at her job. Fine. She can stay.
The episode starts wrapping up the Mexican healing journey that Shep is upset didn’t include even a mild hallucinogen. He orchestrates a little détente between Craig and Austen, where they decide to be nice to each other for a minute. Craig says in a confessional: “I love Austen, and I think he loves me, but we need to be strangers again. Our old friendship needs to be put to bed, and we need to start over and those predisposed notions — out the door.” But I don’t think life works that way. I get Craig’s point that they need to find a new way to be friends, and he’s right that relationships need to change and evolve. But that doesn’t mean that you need to forget the past; that doesn’t mean you need to recalibrate how you act toward each other. What they need to change is what they expect from each other. He’s right about the preconceived notions, but being strangers, well, that will never happen, and it’s for the best. What will make them great friends is the past; they just need to find a way to reconcile that with their changed present.
After a gentle exchange, Craig says, “Genuinely, this is how I treat people.” Oh really? Do we need to cobble together a montage from the past decade to prove to Craig that that is not how he always treats people, especially over the last couple of years? He says he had a blast the day before, while Salley, whose mascara is still running from all the crying she did the night before when Craig lost his mind on her, is sitting right next to him. She tells him that she was so sad the night before. Good for you, Salley. Stick up for yourself. Be the only person who will hold Craig accountable.
But she folds faster than a pizza box in the rain. Craig apologizes for calling her a loser and says he doesn’t think that at all. He ruffles his great head of hair, she smiles that LED lightbulb grin, he pats her on her knee, and she’s ready to forgive him and even offers that they both need to work on themselves. In confessional she says he has this way of turning on the charm and begging forgiveness, which is easily given, partially because his victims don’t want to go through the trauma of him yelling again. This is just what Andy was getting at on the last reunion when he asked who was scared of Craig, and they all raised their hands.
Back in the U.S., everyone goes to Miss Patricia’s Carolina Day party, which she thoroughly admits is just a reason for everyone to get drunk during the week. Craig calls Charley and asks her to go as his date, and she says she’s taking her friend Tyler. When Charley shows up at the party with Tyler, a mustache gay of the highest order (game recognizes game), he immediately runs into Rodrigo’s fiancé, Tyler. Sorry, boys, but there is only enough room for one gay Tyler on Bravo, on this show, and, honestly, in all of the universe. When one Supreme Gay Tyler rises, the old Supreme Gay Tyler must die.
Craig instead takes his old friend Kory Keefer. Okay … we need to talk about Kory’s outfit. When they’re in the car on the way to the event, it looks like Kory is wearing a white jacket with no shirt underneath and something resembling Christmas lights whose batteries have died as a necklace, while also sporting these tiny red sunglasses that make him look like the cat on the cover of a Blues Traveler album. When they get out of the car and into the party, we realize it is so much worse. The jacket is a white, satin double-breasted jacket, and it is tucked into a pair of extra-wide white pants that are also pinstriped. There is a wallet chain. Whitney Sudler-Smith, wit of the ages, says he looks both like Vanilla Ice and “2 Legit 2 Quit.” He is correct, and I would also add “Smooth Criminal” if he were a bride. I applaud gentlemen taking a sartorial swing, especially on this show, where the guys are either woefully underdressed or wearing the same boring khaki outfits that require no style or imagination. Still, this is too much style and far, far too much imagination. I mean, did he imagine himself as a refugee from the luxury space yacht in The Fifth Element?
Charley is conspicuously avoiding Craig at the party. Craig tells Salley that he and Charley were closer than she thought. They were FaceTiming when they were bored. They were FaceTiming at night. They were talking on the phone like they’re in eighth grade, just spending hours yammering about nothing, and then Charley’s dad would pick up the other phone and say, “Charley, finish your homework and stop talking to boys.” This spins Salley out all over again. Sister, this relationship is over. Charley is done with him. You won. Take the W and also a seat. (Also, you look amazing in your low-cut dress with the floral appliqués. No notes.)
Craig finally finds Charley. They go out on the porch for a chat, where Charley dumps Craig as politely as possible, telling him that a switch flipped in Mexico and she can only see them as friends now. Craig says that they’ll never be “just friends.” She hits him with, “We can try.”
It’s wild that the hardest conversation is with Salley. Charley is inside in front of the group, and Salley says she’s upset she didn’t know everything about Charley and Craig. Charley says she wanted to learn what was up with Craig from him and didn’t want everyone’s influence. Then Leva answers, “Fair unless your best friend liked him before. Then you can’t have the friendship anymore.” Oh, shut up, Leva. You haven’t been here all season. You don’t know what is going on. We all know that Salley is wrong for this, especially after how she treated Venita when Venita said not to date Craig.
When Charley takes Salley out on the porch to apologize, we find out that, over text, Salley told Charley she still had feelings for Craig and that Charley went out with him anyway. Okay. I can see how Salley is upset, but let’s look at the other evidence. Craig was never into Salley, so it’s not like that was a real thing. Salley immediately launched herself onto Austen and seems more interested in pursuing that than actually having Craig back. She’s mad that Charley wasn’t a good friend to her. Sure. But can’t Venita be mad about the same thing? I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy for Salley here. But Charley just buys it all, apologizes, and then has to hug and comfort her friend when she is just the one who had to dump a guy on television (and the next day on Peacock).
Inside, Craig and Austen sit down for a chat. Craig says that he constantly has to deal with people meddling in his business, and, as if to prove his point, there are two ladies in the window right behind him trying to get a better look at whatever scene is currently being filmed. Craig basically blames this breakup on Salley meddling in their business. Austen isn’t having it and says, “Craig, you say mean and nasty things to everyone who rubs you the wrong way — like shit that you can’t take back.” This is when we get into the cyclical argument. Craig says he’s working on himself, Austen says that he won’t take any accountability, Craig says he’s a work in progress, and Austen says that he needs to admit that he has an anger problem if he wants to move on.
I’m fully on Austen’s side of this argument. Craig keeps saying he wants to change and get better, but he’s not making any sort of improvement. He said he was an addict, but now he’s still drinking. He says he’s working on his emotions, but he’s still blowing up at the cast all the time. It looks like at the reunion, he’s going to be upset that everyone is piling on him. In the immortal words of Heather Dubrow, “When everyone says you’re dead, it’s time to lie down.” Maybe if Craig listened to them, actually did something about it, and changed the way that he treated his cast (or maybe just cut down on his drinking in group settings, which would probably quell the anger a bit), then everyone wouldn’t pile on him all the time.
Craig gets upset and leaves. Austen is not far behind him, but Salley is hot on his tail, yelling at him to come back into the party. It’s their rom-com moment. Salley is up on the stairs in the venue, and Austen is on the other side of the fence, yelling back at her. They could be Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks if their brains weren’t rotted by TikTok. She says she’s sorry for caring about him and liking him. He says that he thinks she’s wonderful, but not in the headspace to be in a relationship. She says she knows it’s reciprocated. He says he can’t answer. She says she knows that he wants it. He asks if he’s going to meet up with Whitney and Shep (and his shockingly age-appropriate date, who is also Venita’s tennis coach?), is she coming or not? Oh, she’s coming. Salley is definitely coming. She’s been waiting all season, edging and edging, and now it’s time to climax as she skips down those steps, waltzes into the car with Austen, dances through a night at the bar, thrusts through a night at his house, and schleps back home in the morning.
There she finds her three chickens, Cantaloupe, Popcorn, and Hubba Bubba Max Cherry Lemonade. They’re still there in the pen in her back yard, pecking at each other and stepping in their own mess. These are the products of a dream long dead, a mechanism to trap a man into her life, one who didn’t want her, one she almost ruined two friendships over. Now, here they are, held hostage — no, that’s not right. Holding her hostage with their needs and gripes and stench all in her backyard, a reminder that sometimes the path you need is the one you don’t want to take. She goes to their little enclosure and opens the door, waiting for them to swoop and swallow out, careen in a fog of feathers as they reach out into the morning sky for freedom, freedom, freedom. But they don’t. They just stay there, pecking at each other and stepping in their own mess, wondering why this giant lady next to the door is crying.
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