Southern Charm Recap: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

During this episode, Shephard Rose, a boat shoe that developed organs, goes to visit his cousin Marcie, and she grills him about when he’s going to settle down, a question that women are always asking on this show, and then men are shrugging at it as if to bounce the question into the roiling waters of the Atlantic. Wait. Where do I know Marcie from? Was she … on the show? I’ve recapped this show since season four (what am I doing with my life?), and I remember Danni and Chelsea and Cam and even Gizmo, Naomie’s cat, but there is just a black hole where Marcie should be. Was she on one of the COVID seasons? Science says we’re already losing our COVID memories, and maybe that’s where Marcie lives.

There were a bunch of other random scenes this week. Molly went to Whitney’s Stabbin’ Cabin just to give him a spite-flavored cupcake, and I loved every second of it. Whitner went to Craig and Austen’s restaurant, By the Way, and they didn’t even mention that it’s Craig and Austen’s restaurant. We got a brief glimpse of my ultimate Bravo crush, Craig’s business partner, Jerry, whom I want to show me an Excel spreadsheet and then smother me with his arms, like they’re two of Craig’s pillows. We met Charley’s sister, Davis Renee, whose first name is either a full sentence or the name of a skin-care line we can’t afford.

During this entire episode, there were only two scenes of consequence, and the first is the one where Venita and Salley meet for drinks to talk about Salley’s unrequited love for Craig. This was a heartbreaker of a scene because Salley arrives and tells Venita there is no way she is going to stop hanging out with Craig. Venita tells Salley all the right things, that Craig doesn’t care about her, that he will “hold you and walk you like a dog on a leash until he is done with you and he will let that leash go,” and that he will break her heart. Salley says that she needs to learn that on her own, but no, girl, you do not. Listen to your friend. Let her intervene. Take someone’s advice for one in your life.

The ultimate irony is that we know that Salley is totally ruining her friendship with Venita, fucking up her standing in the friend group, and putting everything in danger for a man who isn’t even that into her. He’d rather hang out with Charley! Venita’s best line of defense with Salley is to say that Salley wants to get married and have kids. If that is her endgame, then Craig is not the one. He’s on this here show confessing that he would take back Paige if she asked him, and she thinks that he is going to be the man to put a baby in her and then lead her to early retirement on his pillow fortune. He hasn’t even kissed her yet, and she’s riding this hard for Craig. I mean, he does have a great head of hair, but Craig? Do I need to italicize it again? Craig?

The other scene of consequence happens at Patricia’s annual Gentlemen’s Dinner and Chair Breaking Contest, where, once again, a chair is broken. This time it was by Stephen, a newcomer and English Nigerian doctor. Wait, why was this guy invited, and Rodrigo, who is actually a member of the cast, wasn’t? Is this a gay thing? Is this homophobia in action? Miss Pat needs a gay there to tell her that if chairs keep breaking, it’s either time to get more chairs or more Ozempic, one or the other.

Everyone is dressed well for this white-jacket dinner. No, wait. I take that back. Shep arrives wearing a pair of stained khakis, an orange-striped shirt he got from the Tommy Bahama outlet store, a gash on his forehead from a moving-related accident, and a white jacket on top. He looks like he’s going to his first fraternity formal, and his date is his cousin Marcie, whom no one remembers. Whitner also could have done better. He is all charm, but he’s wearing a white jacket over a black shirt and has a bow tie that looks like two ducks fucking. It’s like he’s dressed as a member of Mumford & Sons if they were playing a state funeral. It is a series of choices I don’t understand at all.

At the dinner, Patricia asks Austen when he and his girlfriend are going to get married, and he shrugs his shoulders. The question bounces off and tries to find the roiling waters of the Atlantic, but instead it settles for a storm drain by the curb and decides to fester there until Austen just breaks up with his girlfriend, which has already happened. There isn’t much in the way of dinner conversation because Austen is in a relationship, Craig is chatting about how he has Salley and Charley as options, but really only likes the blonde one, and we know nothing about Stephen. Things don’t really get interesting until Austen asks Craig to go outside for a chat.

Craig should be prepared for this chat because he’s been talking to his new therapist, ChatGPT. I am officially an old and while I’m not opposed to AI, I don’t have much use for it. I can Google and do my own research. I am a professional writer, so I can usually power through something faster than I could figure out the prompts to get AI to write it for me. I don’t need to come up with travel itineraries because I do all my travel planning by searching “[City I’m visiting] gay bar” and just going with that. Yeah, I don’t get AI, and I’m always wondering who these people who talk to it like it’s their friend or use it as their therapist are. Of course that person is Craig. This fact must be the mint because it makes all the sense. (I don’t need AI to tell me that joke would work better out loud.)

I want to say that ChatGPT should not be your therapist, but, honestly, it seems to be working for Craig. He reports that he cried while talking to his phone because it made him realize he needs to close the chapter on Paige and move on to sleeping with some of the baddies who are clogging his hot-tub drain with their extensions. But, then again, he also says that he would get back with Paige, so, I don’t know, maybe the realization isn’t as good as he thinks.

It also gets him to apologize to Austen for freaking out at him at Whitner’s literary party, which both he and Austen are still mad about. I don’t believe this apology at all because in his confessional, Craig says that Austen’s problem isn’t with him; it’s with himself for being in a bad relationship. That’s so like Craig to shirk responsibility like a woman just asked him when he and his girlfriend are getting married. Craig asks for some “grace” from Austen, and it strikes me that “grace” is the “gaslighting” of 2026, and I want it to crack in half like one of Miss Pat’s dining-room chairs. Craig does say he’s sorry, that he misses hanging out with Austen, and that he’s upset that his outburst created so much damage.

Austen accepts his apology, but he’s right to offer the caveat that he can’t deal with Craig and his instability anymore. He says he doesn’t know when Craig is going to laugh at one of his digs or if he’s going to flip his wig like a RuPaul’s Drag Race tour bus flying off a cliff. He says that they’re fine as long as Craig doesn’t snap at him again, but, come on, we don’t need a ChatGPT therapist to know that it’s inevitable. Craig is like a mousetrap, and the spring is cocked. It could sit there for hours, for days, for weeks, as rodents take little nibbles of the cheese without setting it off. But as sure as the waves crash on the shore, scattering questions about when bad men will get married, eventually that spring is going to pop, and someone’s neck is going to get snapped along with it.