Southern Charm Recap: The Mod Squad

What do you call it when all four sides of a Love Rhombus fall apart simultaneously, crashing down with a million skittering snaps like the end of a game of Jenga on a hostel coffee table? Is that just a regular square? Is it four little lines just separate and free-floating in space? Is it one line? Is it an arc? Do I need sine, cosine, or tangent? I don’t know, sister. The last time I took Geometry was 1992, and I was too busy thinking about Gavin Rossdale’s low-waisted trousers than disappearing polygons.

This is the episode where it all ended. Taylor and Shep are dunzo, as are Austen and Olivia. Austen and Taylor seem like it was never a thing except when Taylor needs something to goad her intractable man baby of an ex with. Olivia and Taylor don’t even greet each other at the big finale party. Austen and Shep will probably be fine because they are men and they push those feelings down so hard that it makes their taints sag. But, yeah, still a little bit broken.

The only thing that happens in this episode is Whitney’s party to christen the “cottage” in Miss Pat’s backyard. He says it’s part pub part office. Part office? I mean, I guess in that everywhere that Whitney doesn’t work is part office: the barber shop, the strip club, an underground bar in London where they make the waitresses dress like mythological creatures. Any and all of these are Whitney’s offices.

Since it’s his party, he gets to set the theme, and Whitney chooses Russ Meyer slash Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! slash Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. If you have never seen one of Meyer’s schlockfests, they’re terribly horny and wonderfully campy, much like our very own Whitney. A moderately strong edible and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the only film Roger Ebert ever wrote, is quite a pleasant evening. And, no, just because you watch it doesn’t mean that Miss Pat will show up at your house and try to force you into marrying Whitney.

When he’s doing party prep, Miss Pat wants him to bring up Peaches, her favorite Pomeranian, even though there are about six other dogs in the house. Do you think they all know Peaches is the favorite? Do you think they all secretly hate Peaches and torture her when Miss Pat isn’t around? Are they like ralphing in her food and tinkling on her leg when they’re all outside in the garden? Since Whitney can’t wrangle Peaches, instead he gives her Roy. Look at Roy! He is a sonuvabitch if I ever saw one in my life. That dude is gonna shank Peaches in her sleep.

Anyway, Patricia tells her so that no one is going to understand this theme and I think that’s the point. Whitney just wants to make they do something stupid none of them will understand because, unlike the rest of these lamb lollipops, Whitney actually gets to leave Charleston and breathe the sweet air of the rest of the world. Most everyone misses the assignment. Taylor comes close, in a blue dress, big hair bow, and disco ball earrings, but she’s wearing makeup like she’s about to compete in Little Miss Tractor Pasture 2024. Rod is in a blue shirt and plaid pants like he’s replicating the outfit his mother forced him to wear on picture day in the second grade. Venita is just in pink fur and matching glasses, and all she does at the party is fall down the stairs. Olivia is just wearing a pop-art dress. Leva shows up in a fur, and how is she even going to be at the reunion next week? We saw more of JT’s mother than we saw of this lady.

There are only two who really show up with the outfits. One is, sadly, Mini-A-Lago himself in a leather vest, paisley shirt, and pants so tight you can tell that JT is either Jewish or American. The other, duh, is Paige. She’s in a green mini dress, a white coat, white go-go boots, a white hairband, and her hair done in a miraculous flip that she preserves by hogging the umbrella and leaving Craig out in the rain. She looks like a brunette Daphne from Scooby-Doo, and it is absolutely perfect.

The first conversation of consequence at the party is between JT and Olivia. He pulls her aside and talks about how much fun they have together, and then he tells her that he loves her and he would marry her right now. She puts her drink down on the table next to them and slowly walks away, maintaining eye contact the whole time, and then, after ten paces, just bolts for the door. Okay, well, not literally but figuratively.

I feel like JT was set up by the producers (and Rod) with this one. I think they hyped him up; they got him to talk about his feelings, and they kept asking questions about Taylor. Then, right before the party they juiced him up, “You have to tell her how you feel. If you don’t do it now, you’ll never have a chance. Are you going to let assholes like Austen get all the girls? No! You deserve it. You do it!” Then, we all just laughed as he melted into a puddle of sadness.

Then, we get cross-cuts between two conversations. The first, and shorter, is the one between Austen and Olivia. Austen says that Olivia is inconsistent with him, sometimes fighting and laughing other times. She agrees, but as the conversation starts to heat up, Olivia says that Austen gets off on girls fighting over him. Uh, duh! Everyone’s talking about how Austen is so horrible, selfish, and narcissistic. Uh, duh! Have they not been watching this here reality television program, with all episodes now streaming on Peacock? Of course, he is. That is literally him.

Need him to prove it? He sat down, thinking that Olivia was going to apologize to him for losing control of her emotions in Jamaica. Give me about 23 minutes to stop laughing. She even says incredulously, “You thought I was going to apologize to you?” That’s essentially the end of the conversation, bar a bit more shouting and deserved recriminations from Olivia. She barges out into the rain; that’s how badly she wanted to get away.

In the other room, Shep is talking to Taylor, who is clearly still in love with this dude. He tells her that he’s glad they can be friends after the breakup and that they made a lot of “cool steps.” “Cool steps?” “Cool steps?” What does that even mean? What kind of way is that to talk about a friendship? Anyway, Taylor says she wishes that a “cool step” would be for them to get back together. Shep doesn’t want this. He wants them to be cool and for her to be able to come to a party like this with a date. “What if I wanted to date Austen?” she asks, because Taylor is not only a one-trick pony, she’s the YouTube Tutorial that teaches the pony its one trick, and she just keeps playing it on repeat, hoping that this time it will actually work.

Taylor tells Shep that she cares about “us,” but he tells her that “us” is over. She asks if that’s true, then why are they there? Shep responds, “Because we’re on a reality show and the convention is that we have to be friends now while we watch each other look for mates for the amusement of bored people who want something to listen to while they drink wine and scroll Instagram.” No, he didn’t, but he essentially did.

With the Love Rhombus entirely disassembled, one more fight must be had. As everyone is gathered in the Stabbin’ Cabin, JT is kneeling on a stool, pissed and heartbroken that Austen always gets the girl and he doesn’t. He got to kiss Taylor, he got to refuse Taylor, and JT had to stand there in a silly costume looking like a too-short Sonny Bono and get rejected.

Austen really starts it, though, when he comes over and says, “You’re finally on eye level with me.” I have never seen someone act like a cartoon bully in my life until that instant. With his huge tongue and his blonde hair, he looked like every ‘80s movie villain that I ever had a crush on. (What can I say? I like blondes. Billy Zabka, my DMs and legs are open.)

JT calls Austen a snake and a coward, which is totally accurate. He tells Austen that everyone says he is an arm’s length friend and that he can’t be trusted around any woman. Again, the accuracy has me dying. Then he asks Austen just how many girls he has hurt in this town, and finally, the accuracy has me deceased.

I don’t like JT. I find him sniveling, arrogant, self-righteous, and try-hard. However, he makes very good points. We’ve heard all of these things from women on the show in the past, including from Olivia, who has stood up to Austen more and better than just about any other woman he’s crossed paths with (and crossed) on the show. But we’ve never heard it from a man before. Yes, JT may be jealous of Austen, but JT read all of Austen’s insecurities, and hearing them out loud makes him snap.

He pushes JT off the stoll, where he lands on his feet both miraculously and gracefully. Did I get it all wrong? Did I think that he is a small human, but he is actually a large house cat? JT starts chest-thumping him, telling him to do it again. Do it again. You can say a lot about JT, but he is not afraid of a fight.

Austen, however, is a sniveling coward. He says that JT hit him first; he headbutted him. I don’t know. I rewound that footage like it’s the Henry Cavill bathtub scene in The Witcher, and I didn’t seen any evidence of a headbutt. That’s so like Austen. To misbehave wildly and then to blame someone else for it. To do something rash and then try to weasel out of it with some half-assed half-lie. Austen says, “Ten years never physical contact, and then you come in.” What is he talking about? The show has only been on nine years and Austen missed the first, what, four? Is he saying that he hasn’t hit anyone in ten years and JT finally made him do it?

Whatever he means, Austen finally snapped and physically assaulted a cast member. (Is this a fireable offense because it sure was for Monique Samuels?) Whitney is with Austen in the bushes, their heads close together, whispering in each other’s ears. The sound Whitney is making is whiskey-soaked and sounds like the rain hitting a distant roof. Like the wind with its swooshes and stinging droplets, beer bottles clanking in a trash can off in the cabin. It sounds like sense, like a reckoning. For a second, it sounds like everything is coming to life, but then, in the next second, it sounds just like closing shut.