SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 10 finale of “Summer House,” streaming on Peacock as of May 20.
Much like the pall #Scandoval cast over Season 10 of “Vanderpump Rules,” transmogrifying its fan base into a pack of wild hounds sniffing out any hints of indiscretion on the part of the offending parties, “Scamanda,” as it’s come to be known, has dominated the discussion surrounding the 10th season of its Bravo counterpart, “Summer House.”
For the uninitiated, “Scamanda” refers to a recent situationship involving “Summer House” cast members Amanda Batula, 34, and Westling “West” Wilson, 31. Amanda is the former creative director of Loverboy, her (now estranged) husband’s canned cocktail company that is perpetually on the verge of collapse; West is a content creator at Complex, podcast co-host, and for the most part a professional hypebeast.
Their coupling has captured the public’s imagination for a number of reasons:
- Amanda and Kyle Cooke publicly announced their separation in January after four years of marriage (and ten long, arduous years together, all documented on “Summer House”); in late March, two months later, Amanda and West released a rather mealy-mouthed joint statement on their Instagram Stories that sounded like it was written by ChatGPT essentially coming out as a sorta couple.
- Amanda is best friends with the angelic Ciara Miller, who’d previously sorta dated West three years ago, got played, and still has strong feelings for him. The 10th season of “Summer House” sees West coming on to her all summer and acting contrite, culminating in the two canoodling on a couch and drunkenly smooching (more on that later).
- Season 10 of “Summer House” also sees West act as a shoulder to cry on for Amanda while her marriage to Kyle falls apart, giving deep hugs and pawing on her; Amanda, meanwhile, acts protective over Ciara and expresses concern for her and West rekindling things.
- West also acts as a sounding board for Kyle throughout the season, checking him when he’s nasty toward Amanda and even, at one point, prodding him about their sex life, a la Raquel/Rachel and Ariana in VPR.
- Amanda and West’s aforementioned joint statement publicly announcing themselves as a couple reportedly came after weeks of online speculation that they were dating, with the couple purportedly hiding the relationship from Kyle, Ciara, and the rest of the “Summer House” cast, as well as a rumored video of Amanda and West in a compromising position.
- There has been rampant (unsubstantiated) online speculation that Amanda and West had crossed a line before she’d split from Kyle.
- A series of audio clips leaked from the upcoming three-part “Summer House” reunion, which kicks off May 26, saw Amanda and West acting defiant and unapologetic in the face of criticism.
So about that finale episode… Titled “Ski Ya Later,” we are treated to the continuation of the gang’s “winter in summer” party. Everyone appears to be in good spirits — except for Kyle, who’s rightfully still receiving the cold shoulder from Amanda after he cursed her out at the dinner table in front of the entire house, threw one of his temper-tantrums, and almost fought his best pal Carl Radke — and Amanda, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, can be spotted grinding up on West during the party (yeesh). As true “Summer House” fans know, the party sequences are usually the least engrossing parts of the show, and the real drama happens on their margins. In this case, it is Lindsay Hubbard pulling her ex-fiancé Carl over to an igloo for a chat about ending their engagement on national television. “That was shattering. How can my best friend of eight years treat me like this?” Lindsay tells him.
Carl, in the most touching moment of the season, receives everything Lindsay says and treats her with grace, sincerely apologizing for his actions: “I can totally understand… and when you really look at it like that, it’s fucking fucked up. And I’m really sorry,” Carl tells her. “I’ve said to Kyle a couple of times this summer, being able to laugh a little bit with you and just think about some old times… we’ve had a lot of good memories together. I just didn’t handle any of that situation well, at all. And it’s the last person that I ever should have been like that to.”
Carl tears up, adding, “You’ve helped me in a lot of ways in my life, and I probably wouldn’t be where I am today without how you were with me and just pushing me and guiding me through a really difficult time in my life. You made me a better person, and I’m forever grateful for that.”
The look of acknowledgment — of being seen — on Lindsay’s face is a beautiful sight. She’s gotten the closure she needed.
It’s here we must pay tribute to the growth of Carl Radke. Can you imagine literally any other guy on Bravo showing this level of vulnerability and maturity? Carl is far and away the most enlightened man in the Bravoverse, and the heart and soul of “Summer House.”
The other side chat involves Amanda, Ciara, and Mia Calabrese. It’s a painful bit of foreshadowing where Amanda, through tears, confesses to her gals, “I just fear that I’m not enough for anyone else.” Ciara and Mia, always kind and supportive friends, gas her up, with Ciara all but telling her to leave Kyle: “You are in charge of your life. You have to stop letting life happen to you.”
This is the nudge that Amanda, who is prone to anxiety-induced inertia and has battled depression, needs.
Now, about that moment by the fire between West and Ciara, which I will discuss briefly before going to the doctor from “Eternal Sunshine” and having that cursed image erased from my memory.
The gang goes out after the party, and when they return back to the house, Ben and Sabrina — who’ve been pushing West and Ciara to get back together and inviting them on double-dates, seemingly for increased camera time — are cozied up on one couch by the fire, while West and Ciara are on the other. West begins nuzzling her, and the two kiss. Moments later, West attempts to guide Ciara toward his bed, with Jesse Solomon still in the room. It thankfully goes no further.
The next morning, Ciara confides in Mia that she kissed West, prompting Mia to try to talk some sense into her friend: “Ciara, I remember what it was like for you when you and West broke up,” she offers. “I remember you coming over, and you crying, and you just being, like, a shell of yourself.” Can Mia please be a permanent addition to the cast? She is a much-needed breath of fresh air. Of realness. Ciara replies, “Rarely have I made the same mistake twice. So, I hear you.”
But Ciara has made this mistake before. We all saw it because it happened on three different Bravo shows: “Summer House,” “Winter House,” and “Southern Charm.” I’m talking about her tryst with Austen Kroll, who, like West, befriended and bewitched her till she let her guard down, and then cruelly discarded her (in Austen’s case, by hooking up with Lindsay in front of her).
We all have an enormous amount of sympathy for Ciara. She has a big heart — previously working as an ICU nurse during the COVID pandemic — and dates with intention. She desires a serious partner and wants to feel safe. So it sucks watching clowns with Peter Pan syndrome, unearned levels of confidence, and wandering eyes run game on her, and her fall for it. She deserves so much better, and I hope she gets it.
The episode concludes with Amanda and Kyle talking on the front steps of the house as the rest of the gang drives off. “I really felt like things were moving in the right direction, and then just, like, seeing you snap like that on Saturday night — and, like, the way you just looked at me and said, ‘Fuck you,’ and almost fought Carl, that’s the shit that scares me,” says Amanda. “And I just feel like it pushes me back to, like, square one, where it’s like, is this what, you know, forever is going to look like for us?”
“I just feel like I’ve just, like, let everybody down,” Kyle replies.
“Listen, we’ve spent so much time together in our summers in the Hamptons. Literally, the past ten years of our lives have been here,” Amanda continues. “We’ve had some of the best memories but also some of the absolute fucking worst. And I feel like leaving here this weekend I want to close that chapter and start over, whatever that looks like for us.”
Amanda says they’ll be taking time apart, and that she’ll be spending the next few days in a hotel. That the scene is set to the same ivory-twinkling score as the one after Ariana yelled at Sandoval in the Season 10 finale of “Vanderpump Rules” is a little on the nose.
It’s worth noting that what Amanda did to Ciara does not erase the torment that Kyle put her through — the yelling, the name-calling, the belittling, the tantrums, the numerous cheating allegations, the mid-life crisis DJ career, all of it. Kyle has treated Amanda, who suffered as his side chick for years before being elevated to main chick, terribly. I have sympathy for her as well, and so should you.
Following their breakup-y chat, Amanda gets in her car — solo — and, channeling Lauren Conrad in “The Hills” intro, drives into Manhattan and the “Summer House” spinoff “In the City.” I couldn’t help but wonder what this transition would have felt like pre-“Scamanda,” with Amanda driving off into her new life. Sadly, we’ll never know.
