SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Part 3 of the Season 10 “Summer House” reunion, streaming on Peacock as of June 10.
“I think it’ll get a little bit easier.”
Those were the famous last words uttered by Westling “West” Wilson when we last left him in Part 2 of the “Summer House” Season 10 reunion. That it was spliced with footage of his secret ex-girlfriend, Meija Moreno, confessing to Ciara Miller and Kyle Cooke via FaceTime that West had lied like crazy about their relationship status portended certain doom.
Part 3 — and yes, reader, I, too, am exhausted at this point — began with 10 minutes straight of denials from Amanda Batula and West that anything physical has transpired between them prior to her split from Kyle, though West does acknowledge that an emotional connection had formed over the summer during his white knight campaign, and that the situationshippers had gaslit all their friends into thinking the online rumors surrounding their coupling was fake news.
Mia Calabrese, thankfully, takes a sledgehammer to the monotony with a pressing question:
“Amanda and West: Did you honestly just come forward because there was so much speculation, or were you guys going to continue to lie to us?”
Amanda admits the two came forward “because of the speculation,” and because “there were a lot of things that I was still trying to understand and figure out, including the Meija situation,” not because of the damage she’d caused to her friendship with Ciara. And West, after plenty of his typical waffling and BS denials, finally confesses that he was seeing a number of women during the summer, even though Meija “thought we were in an exclusive relationship.”
The revelation earns him a stunned look from Amanda.
While there was no big bombshell in Part 3 of the reunion a la Season 10 of “Vanderpump Rules,” it did provide some catharsis for Ciara, who was able to express to Amanda just how much she’d cared for her and the damage she’d caused by caving to West’s advances.
Addressing Amanda, Ciara — through tears — recalls how hurt she was by Amanda’s lack of transparency.
“You fucking texted me 24 hours before your fucking statement was going to come out finally admitting the truth of it. Meanwhile, I’m calling Kyle like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ When I have done nothing but be there for you?” she exclaims. “And Lindsay has to come and pick me up off the bathroom floor so I can go and do my fucking job, OK? Because I couldn’t fathom that I would be sitting right here today pissed that you’re fucking my ex.”
Ciara goes on to accuse West of pursuing Amanda to get back at her:
“If anything you would [think], he wants revenge against her because he resents her so fucking much. But that never even crossed your mind because he wants to embarrass me, he wants to get his last little word. This is his last little word, and I hope it works because he’s with you to spite me. So, have fun.”
Tears stream down the face of poor Jesse Solomon throughout Part 3 (“I feel like I’m losing a brother,” he mutters), and Kyle cries out of sympathy for his former wife on several occasions, even embracing her with a deep hug during a break. But Amanda continues to show very little emotion or register the amount of pain that she has caused to not just Ciara, but Kyle and the entire friend group, merely reciting unconvincing lines of apology (“I did a really shitty thing,” “it kills me to know that I have caused you this pain,” etc.). Host Andy Cohen repeatedly presses her throughout Part 3 about the heavy toll of her actions, and Amanda can’t seem to muster an ounce of genuine contrition.
And still, Ciara, a true ride or die, has no regrets about pushing her former bestie to break up with Kyle, because it was the best thing for her at the time, even invoking her own mother.
“At the time my friend was unhappy, and I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted her to feel a sense of relief,” she says. “I wanted her to be able to think about herself, and what she wants in this life. That made me sad to see a woman not believe in herself and not think she was worth anything, or not think that she was worthy of something so great or that her value equated to the man that she was dating, or that she completely obliterated her own dreams in order to fall in line with a guy that she’s married to. I’ve never seen that type of relationship in my life, but I’ve also never seen a healthy marriage in my life. I’ve seen a woman that had to fight tooth-and-nail to support two kids.”
The question of West’s (and Amanda’s?) lack of emotion throughout the reunion is finally answered toward the end of Part 3, when a frustrated Cohen finally asks West: “No offense, but are you on a bunch of beta blockers or what?” and West replies, “I did take a beta blocker… I apologize that I don’t read emotional enough.”
West apologizing that he doesn’t “read” emotional enough is telling. This is a man who is always performing — for women, the “Summer House” audience, you name it — and is mostly concerned with how his portrayal comes across, not the way his actions impact others or even himself. And that is a big reason why, when Mia says, “We did this for 10 hours [and] I still have no clarity” during a break, she’s illustrating the frustrations of the audience as well. You can’t get clarity from someone who can’t see clearly — or the vulnerable woman under his spell.
I’ll leave Ciara with the final word on the reunion: “I think in some ways, it was cathartic. It’s nice to be able to move on with my life.”
Amen.
Leave a Reply