Southern Charm Season-Premiere Recap: Showered Without Affection

If in this stupid world every Netflix show opens with a dead body, then nearly every Bravo show opens with a giant fight. It’s the exact same technique, show us the craziest thing that is going to happen this season — in this case, it’s a fight between Austen and Craig about how Austen feels about Craig’s claims of being an addict — and then work backwards from there. It worked with the original The Real Housewives of New Jersey, which opened with Teresa Giudice’s infamous table flip (which is more like a table shift, but whatever) and then rewound to show us how we got there. It does seem to have diminishing returns in the Bravoverse, however, especially because those who follow the gossip press already know what the dynamics will probably look like for the season. And this episode does a great job of setting up the storylines we’re going to be following for the next 15 episodes, plus two reunion specials. It looks like a great season. Did we really need a flash forward?

Before the season needed to skip two months ahead, it did need to drop a few months back, because a lot of things have changed for our Craig Conover, perhaps the best head of hair on television. It’s a testament to the power of our queen, Paige DeSorbo, that she is still driving the story on this show even after she left Southern Charm, Bravo, and reality television altogether. Madison, as pregnant as the pause after your MAGA uncle stops talking at Thanksgiving, stops by Craig’s house to talk about how he feels after the breakup. “I was betrayed by the person I trusted the most in this entire world. We had our whole future planned,” he tells her. To illustrate the betrayal, the editors sift through all the footage across the Bravoverse to show Paige talking about how she thought he was a liar, that he told her she shouldn’t break up with him before she saw the ring he bought her, and that she didn’t think that the ring ever existed because, well, see the previous point.

Then we get a bit of a reality-TV exposition dump, where Craig talks about how he started dating the first girl who showed him attention because “my ex” moved on and he was lonely. “She made me feel whole again, and it’s unfair for her, but when I was whole again, I knew I had more healing to do,” he says. So, yeah, Craig dumped her ass and now he’s single, hanging out with the boys, and asking for shots when he and Austen are chasing tail in Los Angeles.

Austen and Shep talk about this new Craig when they go shopping for a shower gift for Madison. Shep doesn’t want to spend $100 on a rocking horse or $350 on a giant teddy bear in honor of Madison’s daughter Teddy, named after her father and also her favorite podcaster and cancer survivor. What does Shep get her? A book. And not just any book. It’s a copy of There Are Mothers Worse Than You. I love how these two refuse to stop hating each other. She and Austen are so close that when he calls her, she answers the phone, “Hey girl!” But Shep is still in these streets giving her passive-aggressive gifts when he could be saving up to buy his next girlfriend another shark tooth necklace.

After they purchase gifts, Austen tells Shep that on a trip to Los Angeles just a few days before, they were at the bar and Craig was like, “Do you want a shot?” Austen was confused because Craig’s storyline last year was that he wasn’t hanging out with the guys as much because he didn’t want to be tempted to drink. On the beach during the cast trip, Craig told Austen he was an addict. He said this while sitting next to a half-drunk bottle of champagne, so that he’s still drinking shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise, but here we are, Austen and Shep not reading the signs. Shep says he doesn’t know what is going on with Craig because Paige was Craig’s only friend and confidante. “He put all his eggs in that basket and that basket fell,” which is as close to a Phaedra Parks read as any of the boys on this show are ever going to get.

We now must take a brief detour to Molly’s house, and I have to break out the handy-dandy “Molly, you in danger girl” GIF. She has just moved into a tiny (but adorable from the outside) house, and there is shit everywhere. There is her famous euphonium, a scooter that she doesn’t ride, and a collection of thousands of sharks’ teeth, which makes it a miracle that she and Shep didn’t work out after their hookups last season. If Rodrigo still had a mustache, I would think that we were the exact same gay, because he tells her that she needs to clean and organize this place. She has three cats (including one adorably named Robert Downey Jr. Jr.), a dog, and a newly-acquired snake and gecko. She also said she cleared lanes through the junk to the places she often goes. Rodrigo says it’s giving hoarder, and he’s right. I love Molly, but, sister, you need to snatch it together before the next reality show you’re on is Intervention.

Later, at Madison’s baby shower, Molly hits it off with Kory Keefer, the big lump of meat from Winter House and Summer House, who is Craig’s bestie. Wait, last we saw him, he was dating Sam Feher, the blond chatterbox from the Hamptons. What happened to that? Anyway, now Molly is loving his fuckboy energy. They’re flirting, and she told him that he could come over to her house and hold her snake. He said he would rather she held his. ZING! But all I was thinking was, Molly, do not bring that man home. He will never call you again. Instead, he will call the EPA for them to come clean up this superfund site.

At Madison’s shower, lovingly arranged to great expense by Miss Pat, there is another Paige-centric storyline, but this has to do with a feud between Craig and Venita. This is the kind of later-stage reality story about Venita’s interview on The Viall Files and Craig’s comments on Watch What Happens Live, and nothing the two said or did to each other IRL. Venita said on the podcast that she was on Paige’s side in the breakup, that she thought Craig was milking it for attention, and that Craig should have stopped the rumors that Paige was cheating on him when he knew she wasn’t. In light of those comments, Craig said that he didn’t want to associate with Venita. (The weird thing about all of this is that there is footage of Venita and the other Southern Charm girlies all watching that episode together. I can see why they might have a joint watch party, but why was someone filming their reactions?)

At the party, Venita doesn’t want to talk to Craig because she’s afraid of his temper and doesn’t want to be the one who instigates a fight on Madison’s big day. It was a gorgeous affair. Madison looked radiant, Miss Patricia was beaming with pride, and her husband Brett’s arms looked like two melons I wanted to sink my teeth right into. What? Just because she’s about to give birth to their first child doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the male form. He’s straight anyway. Guess I’ll have to settle for the equally hunky Rodrigo, and they’re not far off considering they arrived wearing the same shirt. Rod also gave Madison a very thoughtful gift and painted a picture for her. Craig is also thoughtful, making her a quilt after he spent a month in Missouri learning the art. When will someone just put Craig out of his misery and give him a Martha Stewart-style show on Netflix where he can show off his domestic skills. It can’t be any worse than With Love, Meghan.

Back to Craig and Venita, their feud is complicated by Venita’s newfound friendship with Salley and her extra E, which also stands for “Extra.” After Venita’s breakup with JT, a complete asshole who did us all a favor when he fucked off to Bali for good, Salley checked on her every day, and they have since become inseparable. Salley really wants Venita and Craig to get along because she also has a crush on Craig. Venita and Craig avoided each other the entire time until Salley strolls up and says to Venita, “We need you to talk to Craig.” We? Who is this we? Her and the producers? Venita says no and Salley replies, “I’m ready for you to…” and Venita fires back that she’s not ready. Exactly! Let Venita do this on her own time. Like she’s going to go to the afterparty in Whitney’s stabbin’ cabin and start a drunken conversation with Craig before she wants to talk to him? That’s crazy.

I wasn’t a huge Salley fan before this, but this is really turning me against her. Like Venita says, Salley is a girl’s girl until there’s a man involved. Salley says she’s not breaking the girl code, at least in her estimation. She says that if Venita and Craig start yelling, she’ll have Venita’s back, but until then, she can just flirt with Craig, and that’s okay. Logically this makes no sense. If a fight broke out and she had Venita’s back, it means she thinks Craig did something wrong. If Craig did something wrong, especially to her friend, why would she want to date him? It’s like he already has one strike against him. Instead, Salley stands there with her mouth agape and her eyes wide. Venita tries to leave, walking toward the greened-out gate at the end of the driveway. She can see through it, to the outside, to the evening sky, to the open, to freedom. She can almost feel it, the wave of calm that will wash over her, slowing her heartbeat and soothing her jitters, but it doesn’t come. “Open the gates,” she yells, but no one listens. “Open the gates,” she yells as the cages closes around her once again.