Whatever In The City was supposed to be, the Summer House scandal forces it to be a show about Kyle and Amanda’s breakup.
Photo: Bravo
It’s funny to think about what this show could have been, or would have been, if not for the Summer House scandal that has consumed all of media (if the only media you consume is TikTok, Instagram, or any other algorithmically-based platform and you are a woman or homosexual of a certain age with a predilection toward reality TV mess). It’s funny to think about what this show could have been, or would have been, if not for the dissolution of Kymanda before the scandal even happened. It seems like what producers were going for is something like The Valley, with a bunch of couples and 40-somethings who still like to party but are also concerned about their careers, relationships, and children. Instead, what we got, at least in this first episode, is a breakup show.
It’s natural to focus mostly on Lindsay Hubbard, Kyle Cooke, and Amanda Batula, the three figures the audience knows well from Summer House and around whom the show is built. But considering we just spent 16 episodes watching Kyle and Amanda implode, and the season finale of Summer House already seemed like the nail in their coffin, some of this is just a retread. Even worse, it’s a retread but also more toxic, more desperate, and more cringey considering we all know exactly where this is headed.
Before we get to the other people, let’s dispense with the Kymanda business first. Amanda starts by telling Lindsay that, after the Hamptons, she moved into a hotel for a few days to get some space from Kyle and try to rebuild their dynamic. She says that their therapist commented on them, saying, “Oh, you two hate each other.” It’s clear this therapist has seen Summer House. It could have been playing on mute once while she was on an elliptical at her local Equinox, and she could have come to this conclusion.
The next time we see them, it is after therapy, and Amanda emerges from the subway sweating and complains a little bit about it. Kyle tells her that she shouldn’t be wearing a raincoat in the summer, and she shouts, “It’s not a raincoat!” Yes, Kyle. It’s fashion! Look it up! She’s really upset that he doesn’t seem to be taking therapy seriously and that he had a DJ gig the night before and was out until 4 a.m. the day before their session. “Here I am in therapy trying to make things work because I don’t want to call it quits, and you’re not giving me any hope,” she says. This is the prevailing sentiment of the episode: that she is trying to move forward, Kyle is not progressing, he’s getting frustrated that everything is being blamed on him, and they’re stuck in the same whirlpool of recriminations that we’ve seen the past two (at least) summers. After this fight, Kyle goes off to drinks with the entire cast, which Amanda skips because she doesn’t want to put on a brave face. Kyle makes his excuses for her, but his friend, Kenny, who we’ll meet in a second, says her absences are noted.
They get back together in the episode’s final minutes for drinks on their fourth wedding anniversary. The traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper, the second is cotton, the third is leather, and the fourth, apparently, is keys, as in getting your spouse keys to their own apartment. Amanda, who was not pleased that Kyle asked her to pay $177,000 in back rent that she owed him, decided she’s getting her own place for a month so that they can still hang out, but it can be more special. She wants date nights and movie nights; she wants to find a way to bring the spark back. I don’t know if dates are going to be what reignites this thing. Surviving marriage isn’t just about dates and sparks; it’s about how to deal with the insane drudgery of living with another person. It’s about coordinating calendars, tolerating the smells of each other’s farts, spending 20 minutes trying to decide on a single show to watch together and then neither being happy about the result. Sure, without a spark, all of that becomes even more difficult, but the business of marriage is more admin than it is romance, and if you can’t even handle the logistics (including the financial logistics) of cohabitation, then they should just start calling moving companies.
With that out of the way, let’s meet the new people. First up is Yvonne Najor, who spent the last party of the summer with Lindsay in the Hamptons. They’re besties, and Yvonne seems like the kind of no-nonsense friend that Lindsay might actually listen to. She’s married to Nick Barber, who we don’t learn much about, but he seems sort of like an oblivious goofball. Yvonne is ready to have kids and thought that Nick agreed with her, but as the time to conceive approaches, he gets more and more scared, like he’s ratcheting up the first hill of a roller coaster. Yvonne also says that she once went on a trip and didn’t tell Nick, and he didn’t notice for several days that she was gone. Really? What kind of relationship is this? Didn’t he see that there weren’t more dishes in the sink, more clothes in the laundry, more empty cans of Spindrift in the recycling? How do you not even notice your partner is gone for half a week? I’m sorry, but that is insane.
We also meet Georgina Ferzli, a dermatologist in TriBeCa, which we hear is an up-and-coming neighborhood. She has two kids, and her ex-husband left her when she was pregnant with the second. There is a story there, and I will be tuning in every single week to hear. She’s single, ready to mingle, and still keeps party outfits in her office just in case a last-minute invitation to hit the town arrives while she’s at work, which happens when Lindsay and Yvonne pop in and drive her to rooftop drinks somewhere in Midtown. Georgina seems bonkers (extremely complimentary), and I can’t wait to get to know her better.
Through Kyle, we get to meet Kenny Martin, who is from Michigan but worked on Wall Street for many years. He was an early investor in Loverboy and has a lunch with Kyle to talk about his business woes, which don’t seem like they’re evaporating any time soon. Kenny started dating Whitney Fransway about six months ago, and she recently moved to New York to be with him (and maybe be on the show). Apparently, she was a contestant on The Bachelor, and the dating show to Bravo pipeline continues apace. (That is not one of my fandoms, so Bachelor Nation, please spout off in the comments.)
When they all meet for drinks, Lindsay is part of a group asking Kenny all about his relationship with Whitney, and she says it’s a big deal for a woman to move across the country without a ring or a promise of a commitment. Kenny says, “I’m getting ‘I hate men’ vibes,” to Lindsay, whom he doesn’t know that well. Oh Kenny. Kenny, Kenny, Kenny, Kenny, Kenny. This is your first foray into the reality television arts and sciences, and you’re going to take on an omega-level practitioner like Lindsay Dale Hubbard? Oh honey. Hoooonnnnneeeeeeeyyyyy. You are out of your depth. You are way out of your depth, particularly when you turn out to be a total player and don’t give Whitney enough attention, and Lindsay was right about the whole thing.
The group cocktail hour is held at The Garrett, a speakeasy over a Five Guys owned by Gavin Moseley, and I’m surprised that Lindsay didn’t bring up being triggered by the name, considering that was the name of her boyfriend in the very first season of Summer House. No, he was named Garrett, not Five Guys, silly. Five Guys was the name of my last hookup. (Hey-yo!) We don’t learn much about Gavin, but I will say, I have a bit of a crush on him. Don’t tell my imaginary husband, Kyle Cooke. There’s still one cast member we haven’t met yet, Katie Arundel, Amanda’s childhood best friend, but since Amanda isn’t showing up to shit, I guess neither is Katie.
We also get to check in on some old friends, including Andrea Denver and his wife, Lexi Sundin. Andrea was always an excellent and extremely handsome presence on Summer House, but he didn’t really do much. Lexi seems lovely, but a little quiet, and I’m curious how they’re going to fit in with this group of personalities so large that not only won’t they fit in the overhead compartment, they won’t fit on an entire plane.
Finally, we have one of the more divisive figures in the Bravosphere, Danielle Olivera, who was Lindsay’s ride or die for years, but now Lindsay would rather die than ride anywhere with her. At group drinks, Lindsay is actively avoiding Danielle just like she did at the Soft Bar opening. Lindsay is crouching down talking to Kyle, and Danielle comes over, awkwardly interrupts, and asks Lindsay if they can get coffee or a drink together. Lindsay says, “Can I think about it?” That is the nicest we have ever seen Lindsay say no to anything, and I can’t believe Danielle is still standing after that.
In a confessional, a producer asks Lindsay about her issues with Danielle, and Lindsay is like, “Do I need to get out my phone?” In it, she has a whole Notes file of things that Danielle has done to her over the years, and it’s not listed by date; it’s listed by season, as if Lindsay just rewatched every reunion and noted her slights. (As if Lindsay ever needs to be reminded of her slights.) They include that Danielle bugged out when she wasn’t told about Lindsay’s engagement, was mean to Lindsay when she announced her pregnancy, and that she gave Carl a hand job in the back of a car the week after he broke up with Lindsay for the first time. (I’m with Kyle, hand jobs are garbage.) Lindsay isn’t wrong about any of these, and I can see how this is going to fuel a whole season of these two hating each other.
Lindsay isn’t even going to have to work that hard. When she has rooftop drinks with the gals, Amanda tells them that Katie confirmed a gossip item that Danielle’s new boyfriend, Eoin Heavey, an Irish tennis player whose name is pronounced “Owen,” is still married to his ex-wife even though he just moved in with Danielle (and she just announced her pregnancy this week). Amanda should tread lightly with this news because she is probably going to say that she and Kyle are separated, so it doesn’t matter what she does with West, which is a line of defense that Eoin and Danielle will most certainly use as well. But Lindsay doesn’t care. She needs the ammo. As she hears the news, Lindsay lets out an enormous laugh; it echoes among the ladies, it echoes in the bar over the clanking of glasses and the after-work chatter, it echoes out of the rooftop bar, over the city, blending with the cab horns and the cries of desperation from every studio apartment. It is a laugh that everyone in Manhattan hears, and it is just that laugh that we tuned in to see in the first place.
In the City Season-Premiere Recap: A Couple of Things
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