Well, we’ve veered away from the increasingly heartbreaking real-life problems of our aging friends and right into a double boys-and-girls-trip episode, thank God! The girls are still in Solvang (Lala loves the movie Sideways), and the boys are staying at a hotel that has, I assume, supplied them with an enormous free room in exchange for Jax saying “the Mondrian” 4,000 times throughout the episode. Yay!
We’re introduced to one of the episode’s central themes right away: Peter is desperate to have sex with someone, anyone, please! Peter — who seems like a worse and worse dude ever since he dismissed the girls’ issues with James in that meeting — remember? — and who definitely seems like a guy who’s probably said something like, “The #MeToo stuff is getting out of control” — has to have sex! When the boys arrive at [Jax voice] “the Mondrian,” Peter anoints Sandoval as his wingman. James, who was allowed to join the boys as long as he promised not to sleep over (Jax’s rule), decides to also be a wingman. James is still not drinking, despite the fact that his friends are constantly offering him drinks in a way that makes me upset. I’m proud of him. He is much more lovable when he is being regular annoying and not annoying in a way that you know is going to destroy his life eventually. I love you, James!
Speaking of destroying lives, uh-oh, Peter and his wingmen found some women to bring back to the room. Oh no! Women in the room? But, but, but — Jax can’t have sex with them! This presents a major problem for Jax (and a smaller problem for Stassi’s boyfriend Beau, who is very charming and I love him). Jax is extremely nervous that he’s going to accidentally have sex with one of these women. (He’s right to be nervous about this.) Even if he manages to not have sex with one of the women, he’s worried about the optics of the situation. What will the girls think? He and Beau decide together that they need to tell their girlfriends that there are girls in the room, and they do so on FaceTime. The girls take it medium-bad but seem fine, and it was, indeed, they agree, good of the boys to tell them. They have their own issue to worry about, anyway.
Back in Solvang, Kristen is still being “Crazy Kristen.” Her craziness is set off when she overhears Jax tell Brittany that James is going to DJ a party at Pump. Why does Lisa keep giving James so many chances, she wonders, when she won’t give her another chance? It is difficult. Lisa just does not like you, Kristen. That’s the facts, baby. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you. Hearing this about James — and, later, hearing that James had been invited to boys night — throws her into an increasingly drunken tailspin.
Kristen storms out of a toy store where the girls were having a wine tasting (?) and later — after a group-dinner situation that I don’t particularly feel the need to get into (just know that Scheana was like, “Why won’t Katie braid my hair”) — she storms out of the lobby of the girls’ hotel. This is when she trips over the bench in a very funny way, which you might remember from this season’s trailer. Katie yells at her, repeatedly, “YOU’RE A MESS, GO TO BED,” which I believe would be a very handsome tattoo (in the Scheana style).
Once she’s gone the girls get down to discussing what they believe to be Kristen’s real issue: the dreaded Carter. Stassi explains that Carter, Kristen’s boyfriend, is a freeloading jerk. He lives with Kristen and doesn’t pay rent, he doesn’t pay for food, or utilities, and on top of that he is mean to Kristen. And he’s not even hot! (The last one is my personal opinion.) The girls are relieved to finally get what seems to have been an elephant-in-the-room opinion about this terrible dude out into the open. They believe Kristen’s anger about Carter is being misdirected at James. They’ve convinced me, certainly.
Back at [Jax voice] “the Mondrian,” Tom Schwartz is doing a billion shots while, he says, trying not to black out, and Tom Sandoval is making the girls cocktails and showing them the hotel room’s pretty view. Will they have sex with the girls? It seems we’ll have to wait until next week to find out.
Also Peter had sex with one of the girls in the bathroom.
