Summer House
Ski Ya Later
Season 10
Episode 16
Editor’s Rating
It’s the bittersweet end of an era of Summer House.
Photo: Bravo
Of all the sad scenes we’ve witnessed since reality television took over the airwaves 26 years ago, none are sadder than Amanda getting the whole house together to hold hands and jump in the pool together at the end of their ski-themed Labor Day party. I can see why they would want to get into the pool; they all must have been sweltering in their sun-dried furs, anoraks, and ski suits, but her insistence that this is the last thing that they do as a house, that it is her one wish, her one bit of tradition as her world falls apart, made me want to weep. It is something about the forced happiness of them standing on the edge of the pool, its waters in the evening light looking green like it was infested, a fetid swamp, a stagnant pool rife with disease, pests, and enough mosquitoes to empty a whole tube of Benadryl cream.
They all jump in, most in their underwear, some in their swimsuits. This is the tenth time for some of them, like Kyle, Amanda, Carl, and Lindsay; the first time for some, like KJ, Dara, Mia, and Bailey; and hopefully the only time for some, like Levi, Ben, and (ugh) Sabrina. It was meant to feel like the ending to something — to the summer, the season — but it felt like something different. It felt like trying to grasp at strings of the past, like going back to visit your favorite teacher in high school after you’ve graduated. No. Not like that. Like something else. Like the start of something new you don’t know is coming, like the concert you went to a week before the COVID lockdowns, like the swing dance the day before Pearl Harbor, like dinner out at the Olive Garden with your father three days before he died. It’s a transition, but not from then to now or even from good to bad. It’s transitioning from bad to worse, it’s the anxiety of ignorance, it’s the slow drowning of hope. I have never felt sadder as people splashed, kissed, stripped, and romped around a backyard ruined with Loverboy empties and crushed dreams.
The party wasn’t a total waste. There were some good conversations, which were kicked off with a very real tête-à-tête between Kyle and Ciara. He tells her that he’s having a hard time processing what she told him the day before on the beach, suggesting that he and Amanda separate, and says that he’s worried about the future. She tells him directly that his problem is that he doesn’t know how to express his emotions, particularly his anger. “Are you going to lash out and go after your best friend and then say ‘Fuck you’ to people?” she says. “You create irreparable damage in the process of this because your words do hold weight and a lot of people get caught in your crossfire, i.e., Carl, of what you’re actually mad about, and it makes it hard to be your friend.” This is why people love Ciara: It’s an astute, direct, and unflinching critique, but said with the kind of love and understanding most of us can only dream about getting when you’re having a conversation about your absolute worst behavior.
Speaking of Carl, Lindsay drags him to the igloo that he and Kyle built the day before to have a chat, and the whole house is sort of peeking in, wondering exactly what is going on with these two and why this whole igloo hasn’t defied physics and erupted into a fireball. Lindsay wants to talk about her interaction with Carl’s mother, Sharon, at the Soft Bar launch party and all the feelings it brought up. She said she hadn’t talked to Sharon since she and Carl partied in Mexico on the weekend that would have been their wedding. An Us Weekly headline flashes onscreen, and, of course, Scheana Shay was also there. How does Scheana end up a tertiary party to every single drama that happens in the Bravosphere? Is she the one who leaked the Summer House audio?
What Lindsay is really upset about is how they never autopsied their relationship after it ended, which seems like an unlikely thing for regular people to do. These are not regular people. They’re on a TV show, and there probably should have been some discussion of what went wrong and how to move forward. The show also plays into it when Lindsay says she thought their friendship was greater than TV, that she deserved more from him in the aftermath. Carl apologizes and takes full ownership. Even more, he thanks her for all the summers, all the good times, all the friendship. He thanks her for seeing him through some of the hardest times in his life, including his fight with Kyle the night before. “You made me a better person, and I am forever grateful for that,” he says. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
One of the most honest conversations happens between West and Ben because of Ben’s choker-loving girlfriend, Sabrina, “You Don’t Even Go Here” Won’t Bother to Learn Your Last Name. West says, “If Ciara and I are together and Sabrina is there, tell her to try not to make us date each other in the moment. We are so many steps away from that point that I just want to chill for a second.” Exactly! Why is Sabrina all up in the mix like she’s Carl, who was also dying to be in the mix? Why is she telling Ciara about how Ben said he loves her? Why is she acting like she is best friends with these people when she met them three weeks ago? Stop it, Sabrina. She’s like an air freshener that is so strong you can taste it in the back of your throat.
This isn’t really about Sabrina, though; it’s about West and Ciara. (Wiara? Cest?) He says that last time he tried to date her casually, it blew up in his face, ruined his life for two years, and left her heartbroken. Then he finally says the thing that we’ve all known was true about West. “I am not trying to portray that I am a boyfriend. That is not what I’m doing,” he says. Finally! There it is. He just wants to be a player, but he says that he can’t do that with Ciara because they’re always so flirty, he loves spending time with her, and he just wants to act on their sexual tension. Then he says, “The biggest problem, I couldn’t say that two years ago, and I should have. I made a thousand excuses why I didn’t want to be with her, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t there.”
He’s still not there, however, but nothing about this environment is helping. After the party and going out, he’s in the backyard hanging out with Ben and Sabrina, and he and Ciara start making out. Of course Sabrina was there! It continues in his room in front of Jesse Solomon, of all people. West is trying to lure her into his bed, but she knows better and goes to keep Mia warm in their freezing, air-conditioned room. Wiara is behaving like they’re back. In the morning, before everyone leaves, Lindsay gives a little speech and includes them in the couples that got together this summer, and everyone cheers. When West gives a good-bye hug to Mia, who also begrudgingly admits she likes West, she says, “Take care of my girl,” like she’s leaving their engagement party. Obviously, we all know this changed, and not only is he not with Ciara, but he’s trying to be a boyfriend to someone else, the exact role he says he didn’t want to be in. West tells Ben, “The last thing I want is her fucking heartbroken, you know.” It might be the last thing he wants, but it’s the first thing he gets.
We can’t spend too much time talking about Wiara (Cest?) because we have to talk about Amanda and Ciara. (Amandra? Cianda?) Amanda is hanging out in a makeshift bed with Ciara and Mia, thanking them for being her friends and seeing her through all of the Kyle stuff. Amanda says through her tears, “I fear that I’m not enough for anyone else,” but at the same time tells them that she’s sick of them consoling her.
Ciara also snaps into action. “Respectfully, shut up,” she says. She then gives Amanda a whole pep talk about how, if she wasn’t handling her with kid gloves, she would have already told her to pack up and leave Kyle, and that she would be the one to figure out all the logistics. This is the friend Amanda’s ditching for a man? Please. “Bitch, we’re not going to cry about it and not do anything about it,” Ciara says. “You are in charge of your own life, and you need to stop letting life happen to you. You need to let this motherfucker know that you are serious. If you treat me this way, if you say ‘Fuck you’ to me, then I’m leaving.” Exactly. Amanda needs to fully snatch herself together and stop lollygagging around like Kleenex’s biggest customer.
Just as this rizz-up is going down, Kyle is looking for Amanda, who has been avoiding him the entire party. Sabrina tells him that she is his woman, and if he wants to talk to her, he should go get her. Again, this is terrible advice. Again, why is Sabrina there? Is she the new Scheana Shay? Please, sweet Catholic Jesus, don’t let her be the new Scheana Shay. Sabrina’s advice is terrible, and Kyle walks over at just the wrong minute, makes it all awkward and only annoys Amanda more. She swerves him and says she only wants to jump in the pool, which we’ve already covered.
The next morning, everyone packs up and says good-bye to the summer. The gang is all in front of the house, and you can feel the pall of the overcast sky, feel the drizzle on the windshields as everyone hugs as if they know something is about to rupture. We know what the rupture is, and it’s not Kyle and Amanda breaking up; it’s the betrayal that will happen after. In the final moments of the episode before it trundles over to In the City, we get a tacked-on bit of filming from April when Amanda returns to the apartment she shared with Kyle. He says, watching the season back, it seemed like she gave up a long time ago. “I was done to an extent, but I was tired and had nothing left in me to fight, but I was still trying to give it everything I had,” she says. Kyle accuses her of being “thoughtless and reckless” and having an emotional affair with West. She tells him that there is a video of him making out with a woman when they were married. But this doesn’t really move us forward. This is just a sop until we can get to the reunion next week, a little amuse-bouche to keep our bouches agog while we wait for our full helping in seven days. (And, yes, Daddy Moneybags Vulture III threw a bunch of cash at me to make sure the reunions will be recapped. He’s ready to sound off in the comments himself.)
This final chat wasn’t nearly as devastating as the one on the front steps of the titular house. Sixteen years ago, we watched Tamra Barney ask her husband, Simon, for a divorce in the back of a limo. No, not ask, demand. It was all hatred and bile, barely contained rage, and it was fascinating to watch. This is also fascinating, but very different and tremendously sad. Kyle says that his behavior that weekend gave Amanda every excuse she needed to leave, and he’s right; that’s exactly what she says when they sit down. She says this is not how she wants forever to look. She says after this weekend, she’s moving into a hotel, and she wants to see what the next chapter looks like for them. Kyle says he’s going to be sick to his stomach, he’s afraid of what his life will look like without her, he’s afraid of everything falling apart, as if it hasn’t already and he’s not currently wading through the pieces.
Amanda goes through everything they’ve experienced in the past decade, and we get a flashback to her, fresh-faced with the stupid bun right on the top of her head. It’s been great, with their engagement, fake wedding, real wedding, friends, parties, and countless costumes that are keeping at least one Amazon warehouse in business. But it’s also been terrible with the fights, cheating rumors, infidelity, 18-page email, whatever was going on with Hannah that one season that she seems to have recovered from, all of those terrible dudes that were so boring they only lasted one season, and Danielle. (I kid. I love Danielle.) But that’s a life, isn’t it? That’s a relationship. “Black sable one day, the next it goes into hock,” and you’re still here. But there is a verge, a cliff, an inevitable breaking off where it’s better to have those ups and downs alone, when they’re not as hard, not as erratic as with someone else. They’re at that abyss now; they’ve been staring into it for months.
They have one long hug and one kiss in front of the house before Kyle puts Amanda into an Uber. (A big one, so you know production is paying.) He still has to pack his belongings and his emotions. He tries to reenter the house, but the door, as always, is stuck. “One day, I’m going to get some WD-40 on that thing,” Kyle mumbles. No, Kyle. Not one day. Now. Do it now. Get into this summer’s BMW and drive to the nearest hardware store and fix that door. Tomorrow never happens. It’s a broken promise. If we’ve learned one thing this episode, it’s to do it. Do it now. Have that conversation with your ex to set it all straight. Admit that maybe you don’t want the relationship that everyone wants for you. Apologize to your wife, tell her you love her, quit your job, become a DJ, get into therapy, console your friends, start a swim line even if you see it fail, have a kid, meet a boy, tell Levi to talk more. Taking action is hard, but it’s all we have.
The problems come when you stop moving, when you stagnate, just like that pool water. The problems come when you keep living in your body the way that it has always lived. It’s easy, because it just happens, like when the bacon, egg, and cheese arrive to soak up the hangover. But someone ordered those. (It was Carl.) Someone has to do it. We all have to do it. Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it, as the sneaker conglomerate says. Everything else is just tears on the bed, tattering friendships, promises ruined. Everything else is just the echo of packing in an empty foyer, everyone gone, the bodies of your youth floating in the pool unattended, and the door, as it always was, is still broken.
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