Last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger. Well, it wasn’t so much a cliff as a curb, and we weren’t really hanging, we were just kind of loitering, waiting for the answer we knew was coming. That answer is “yes.” Austen did kiss Taylor when he was broken up with Olivia and she was broken up with Shep. Question answered. Can we move on now?
Nope, we sure can’t, because that is the only thing going on in the palm-lined burg of Charleston. Oh great, a whole ’nother episode of talking about this love rhombus (which sounds like the name of a String Cheese Incident album) with nothing else going on. Great.
As the conversation starts, Austen apologizes to Shep about it, and Shep says the thing that is always true about Austen and his motives, “You didn’t think about anyone else, man.” Yeah, man. For real. Just when you think that Shep is going to lose it, he says he doesn’t want to lose Austen as a friend, and they hug it out, quilted vest to quilted vest. This, exactly, is why there are no reality shows about groups of straight men. Your bestie kissed your ex-girlfriend and lied to you about it for months, and you’re like, “’S cool, broseph.” Meanwhile, Taylor and Olivia know how to make a meal out of this thing. And we don’t mean just a pheasant grill-up.
The next day, everyone is talking about the big revelation, except for Olivia, who is at lunch with Leva, a coaster the rest of the crew keeps around to put their drinks on. She tells Leva that she has to believe what Taylor said: that they didn’t hook up. She doesn’t know that Taylor lied to her not once, not twice, but, okay, it was twice. But I was trying to make it dramatic. She says she did it because Austen told her to stick to the script about how they didn’t make out to spare everyone’s feelings. Austen is such a dumb boy and has no idea how bad this play is until he tells it to Paige and her eyes bug out like she just saw an ad for 50 percent off a Sealy Posturepedic.
Austen heads to Taylor’s house with a six-pack and tells her he told Shep, and her initial response is, “Olivia’s reaction to this is not going to be good.” I mean, what is wrong with these people? Do they need lessons in emotional intelligence? Do they need to do a simple role-play where someone plays Taylor and someone plays Olivia, and Taylor realizes that she should never lie to her best lady friend, especially for the sake of a half-disassembled Chuck E. Cheese animatronic bass player? Austen tells her that he feels liberated now that the secret is out, but she says she feels like shit. Of course, she does. Now, she is going to look way worse than Austen and ruin her friendship with Taylor, and why? To make Austen happy. Oh God, why bother?
On the other side of town, Madison stops by to see Miss Patricia, the only good thing in this whole infested sewer of a town. As they’re talking about the sitch, Pat brings up that Taylor sent Whitney a nude picture, something she clearly was not supposed to bring up on-camera. Whitney starts dissembling quickly, saying it was just a flirty friend thing. Okay, I can buy that, but why did it say, “Come one, Come all” at the bottom of the picture? I will need a visual on this, not because I want to see Taylor’s bad tattoos (you know there is at least one), but because I need to see how “come” is spelled. Pat says, “She’s hawking Jesus and goodness and sending nude pictures and sleeping with everyone else’s boyfriends, I mean … sweet.” And for that one brief shining moment, everything was right in the world.
Then it’s time for Shep’s big pheasant party, where they will eat the meat he killed on a hunt. Wait, I thought that was still in Olivia’s freezer from the last episode? Why are they at the house of some random friend of Shep’s, and why do my future throuple mates Rodrigo and Tyler barely get any screen time at all? The only people I want to sit next to at this whole meal are Paige and Tyler. I might want to sit next to Shep, except he’s wearing a maroon printed blazer that looks like it was made from the vinyl-booth fabric of a Tommy Bahama restaurant in a suburban strip mall.
When Taylor shows up, she has a joyful reunion with Little Craig, the dog, and Shep’s eyes get all dewy. He says that he doesn’t miss the relationship with Taylor, but he misses the closeness they had. Well, Shepherd, why don’t you just do the right thing and marry this girl? If that is what you want and what brings you joy, then settle into the inevitable. I’m sorry, but there are no trips to Australia and new coochie that will make up for what you feel.
Paige has it totally pegged; she says that Shep still loves Taylor. Thank God Paige, the founder of the Bedsore Sisters, was around this week, because she’s the only one who sees what is happening and makes any sense. And we discover that her room at Craig’s house has a snack drawer. I want to pray the gay away just to marry this woman. See above about how she totally clocked how awful Austen was for telling Taylor to lie to Olivia. She then tells Austen to talk to Olivia and say, “You’re right, I’m wrong, I’m sorry.” When Olivia arrives, Austen doesn’t know what to do, and Paige says, “God, I hate being in charge of you two.” Paige, you are too good for this. Run back to the Hamptons immediately.
Apparently, Taylor tried to talk to Olivia about this big revelation earlier in the day, but Olivia shot her down. Now Olivia is walking into this party, and she is the only sitting duck among an entire buffet table of pheasants. That’s the thing; it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. If they had just told her it was a drunken thing when it happened, I’m sure she would have gotten her feathers ruffled, but I don’t think she would have broken a wing about it (fowl metaphors). Instead, she says, “It’s not even the kiss; it’s been months, and I’m walking into this like I’m an idiot.” Yes, this is the first time that Austen has screwed two women simultaneously since his infamous three-way that was caught on tape.
As they try to sort this out, Shep interrupts and tells them dinner is served. The only thing that would have made it more awkward is if he banged a gong like they do in Clue or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or any of the movies I watched obsessively as a teen.
Dinner is not so awkward as conversation bubbles around the table until Austen decides he wants to yell down the table at Olivia about what is going on with him and Taylor. They take it outside, and Austen follows Paige’s advice, but he still comes off even more dickish than he intended. Her whole argument boils down to this quote: “I realized long before that you didn’t give a fuck about me as a girlfriend, and now I know you don’t give a fuck about me as a friend, and I know you don’t give a fuck about me and Taylor’s friendship.”
Austen says, “That’s so untrue.” Is it, though? Is it? We have never seen Austen care about anything other than himself and his shitty IPA that they don’t even sell at Piggly Wiggly. Austen flirts with who he wants, kisses who he wants, fucks who he wants, and it doesn’t matter what their relationship to him is. I have a feeling that Austen would probably try to bang his stepmother if he had one. Olivia is right: Be done with this man, be done with this show, be done with this trifling, be done with these birds that have tiny little bones and shot in them, be done with this town, be done with the South, be done with everything. If I could tell Olivia one thing, it is to gather her gorgeous two-tone coat (you know Paige gagged) and stop hanging out with these undeserving … pheasants.
