Kiss and Tell
Season 11
Episode 13
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
The crew gets incredibly drunk, leading to a Craig tantrum that involves standing up in a moving van.
Photo: Bravo
The episode begins in medias res, which is Spanish for “with Craig yelling at someone.” In fact, when this show airs in Mexico, it’s actually called In Medias Res, just like Rugrats was called Aventuras en Pañales or, in English, Diaper Adventures. It all started last episode when Shep decided to play a game that was not “Who At This Table Do You Trust the Least?” and encouraged everyone to give improvements for their castmates. Venita told Austen that he should stand up for himself more, which Craig took to be about him, which it was, even though Venita had plausible deniability because she didn’t use his name.
Craig continues yelling by calling Venita a bully. This is why Craig would have made a terrible lawyer. It’s one thing to lob a charge at someone, but where is the evidence? Please put even one instance of Venita being a bully into a plastic bag and hold it up in front of a jury and say, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Whitner, to his credit, tells Craig to tone the language down, but he doesn’t, and Venita, for the first time all season, shows up for a fight and yells at Craig down the table. After the editors treat us to a montage of why Craig and Venita hate each other, they keep yelling at each other, and Craig says that Venita’s abuse is “incessant.” First of all, does Craig know what that word means? We have barely seen him and Venita interact all season long. How is her “bullying” incessant?
Finally, Salley puts on her extra E and shouts, “We’re not going to fucking attack Venita. Me and Venita, we have our differences, but that’s my girl.” That response is a Katy Perry song because it is so hot and so cold that it is tepid. Salley is saying, “Don’t yell at Venita. She’s wrong, but don’t yell.” That’s not the defense Salley thinks it is. Once Craig gets up to get some air, Venita thanks Whitner for being the only person at the table to have her back — and she’ll be salty at Rodrigo and Austen for the whole next day — but he says that they’re both kind of wrong. I applaud Whitner for the honesty. He’s totally right. They’re both a little wrong, but in every situation, Craig is always the most wrong.
As the gang leaves the restaurant, Salley and Austen are lagging behind everyone. She shoves him into the men’s restroom and then has a little make out sesh with him right there next to the urinal cakes. Now, I can’t say I have never made out with someone in the gents’, but at least there were two gents. A woman having heterosexual contact in a gendered restroom? This is the future that liberals want.
The next day, Rod sneaks into Austen’s bed so that they can snuggle and he can hear about how fun it is to make out with Salley, a fact that I refuse to believe. As everyone is going off to either surf or ride ATVs, Charley is taking a whole rolley suitcase with her. Shep says, “Who are you? Diana Ross?” Who is Shep with that reference? A 60-year-old homosexual who lives in Palm Springs?
Most of the boys and Salley go to ride ATVs, so you know that Salley and Austen are flirting harder than Whitney in a Les Paul showroom. Austen talks to Craig on the beach about how he had fun kissing Salley and that he went along with it because he respected her move. He says he is going to do a lot more making out now that he’s single. Um, sorry, bro. You made out with Salley. She has already called your mother and sent out save-the-dates for your wedding. You are trapped now. That’s what you get for men’s room make-outs. Craig tells Austen that he made out with Charley and that he likes her but Salley makes it weird whenever they’re around the group.
Over on the surfing beach, Shep and Whitner are hanging out with Molly, Charley, and Venita. Molly asks Charley if she feels “gross” about Craig after she saw him freak out at Venita. Charley says, “It’s not a good look, but also I’m not his keeper. I don’t want people looking at me like ‘Really? Really?’ He’s his own person.” That is true, but isn’t your dating someone like that an implicit endorsement? Based on what Paige said on Summer House, this was part of the reason behind their breakup. She didn’t like the way Craig would behave (her beef was specifically about his lying), and that she would then have to back him up even if she thought it was wrong. He’s now putting Charley in the same position, and Charley is also putting herself in the same position. It’s a bad position. Abolish positions!
After their individual hangs, everyone gathers at some tequila shack in the middle of nowhere and drinks their faces off, and then someone comes and collects all of their faces as they lie there in the dust drying out. It was probably Arya Stark, and now she has all of their faces set up in poles in her basement. Only two things of importance happen at the lunch: Austen tells Salley that Craig and Charley made out, and then Austen tells the group that he really loves porn movies where a woman gets stuck. A boy who likes porn for the plot. How wholesome!
The gang then moves on, not to dinner, not to snacks, not to little nibbles at a bar; they move right on to shots of tequila in a nightlife district with only stringy quesadillas as nourishment. These people have already drunk their faces off. What is next? Their necks? Their asses? Their elbows? What they apparently drink off is their sense because Salley absolutely loses all of hers. First, Austen says, “Who wants to do body shots,” and her hand goes up faster than Ariana Grande signing up for “Don’t Rain on My Parade (Glee Version)” at karaoke. I’m sorry, but body shots are dumb. It’s something that high schoolers do to seem cool, and if you are over the age of 30 and either the shooter or the body, then, honestly, you should be shot. They don’t know where to pour the things, they don’t know how to keep the liquid from dribbling over Salley’s (admittedly impressive) midsection. It’s all just gross and sticky. They have a 60-minute car ride ahead of them. Someone get this girl a Wet Wipe.
It’s after this that Salley really loses her mind. She tells Charley that she knows that she made out with Craig. Salley says, “My first thought was that it sucks that she couldn’t call me and tell me right after it happened.” Um, that is a problem of your own devising! Ugh, Salley infuriates me more than people who stop at the top of the subway stairs to check their phone. But just as they’re in everyone’s way, Salley is in her own way. This is a problem of her own devising. She did this entirely to herself by talking so much shit about Craig. Now she’s mad that she’s missing relationship milestones? Be serious for even a second. Or be cereal for even a second so I can eat you up, shit you out, and never have to listen to this again.
Though Charley assures her that their friendship is fine, Salley says that their friendship is not fine and that she’s being lied to. Lied to? Lied to? Who is telling lies? Yes, there are lies of omission, but if Charley brought it up to Salley, then she would have talked again about how Charley is making a huge mistake by dating Craig. But when Charley doesn’t bring it up now, she’s a liar. Salley is putting her friend in an impossible situation. That doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me. Salley says what she’s mad about is that there was a shift in their friendship. YES! One you caused. I mean, I know that she has drunk her face, her neck, her elbows, and her sense off, but just think about this for even one second. At least Charley seems to be as frustrated with this as the rest of us are.
Charley tells Craig how Salley makes everything worse for them, and Craig is also faceless, neckless, elbowless, and senseless. They are piling into vans for their long ride home, and Craig disappears so that he can go buy tequila, beers, and cigarettes in a bodega. (Sorry, but that’s both sweetly considerate and messy as hell.) When he piles in the van with Salley, Shep, and Charley, Craig takes off his hat, and his hair looks as messy as his behavior. Salley tells him that he looks insane.
This prompts Craig to freak the fuck out. “The next time you tell me I look crazy, we’re done,” he says. He starts screaming and shouting, and somehow stands up in a van that is rumbling down the Mexican roads. It’s the best surfing we’ve seen anyone do all day. Salley gets one good dig in and says that Craig never owns up to his shit, and that’s the only correct thing that Salley has ever said on television. Craig won’t take it. He tells her he’s removing her from his life. He shouts, “You keep getting involved in shit that has nothing to do with you.” He’s clearly mad about the Charley stuff, but he’s not saying that. He’s just mumbling, “Fucking loser. Fucking loser,” over and over, like it’s the tides on the beach, like the rocks kicking up from the ATVs, like it’s the agave plants stretching out toward the sun, like it’s tequila going down their gullets, just forward motion, repetition. He can’t stop, it’s like a curse. “Fucking loser. Fucking loser.” Once for each star in the sky, for each fish in the ocean, for each sunburned tourist at their resort. “Fucking loser. Fucking loser.” He won’t stop as the night closes in around them, the van quiets to a pant, and Craig realizes that all this time he was talking to himself.
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