In the City Recap: Homes Wrecked

In The City
Trolley off the Tracks
Season 1 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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Because of the Champagne Supernova that is the Amanda Batula–West Wilson non-affair, In the City is getting a lot more attention than it would have gotten otherwise. It’s almost certain the reason it got a reunion when The Valley, Next Gen NYC, Ladies of London: The New Reign, and The Valley: Persian Style did not is because fans want to see Amanda, Kyle, and the rest of the cast address things after we all know what we now know. I’m glad it’s getting all this heat, because it’s turning into a solid show, and I have hope for its long-term success. Why? One person: Kenny.

Lindsay and Kyle are both made for this medium and have been excelling at it for the better part of a decade. But it’s the new characters that are going to be the ones to hook us into investing in a whole new hour of Bravo every week. Kenny is the kind of character who doesn’t just shine in group dynamics and fights but also brings a personal story line. We’re watching Lindsay and Danielle get back together, Kyle and Amanda fall apart, and Danielle and Amanda get in a screaming match on a trolley, and still the best moments of the episode are from Kenny when no one else is around (except for Whitney, a melatonin capsule that was a Bachelor contestant).

After he and Whitney pretend to run for two blocks, he takes a call from a private investigator because he’s trying to find his father. I was thinking that with Google and social media, how hard is it to track someone down? Well, his name is Larry Martin. When you Google, the first person who comes up is a dead paleontologist, followed by a dead actor, followed by an Instagram account of a very young person with excellent braids. Okay. Yes, professional help is required. 

The way Kenny tells the story is that his father moved to England when he was young and had another family. Kenny would visit every summer, but began to resent the trip and his father’s second family. One year, his mother said he didn’t have to go if he didn’t want to, and he decided to stay home and play Nintendo at his mom’s. Communication ceased for 28 years, which is so long that their silence is now constitutionally eligible to be in the House of Representatives. He gets some help from the PI, who gives him two numbers for his father and his new wife, Debbie, where they live in Tampa. Neither of the numbers works, so Whitney has the bright idea to look for her on Facebook. “A 65-year-old female? Facebook is like their Bible,” Whitney says, using accurately clocked stereotypes to solve the problem. And they find it, they find her, then they find him. After a little bit more internet sleuthing (that you know Whitney learned from tracking down exes and pranking their current girlfriends), Kenny is on the phone with Debbie, and she says, “We’ve been looking for you.” What a moment. Goose bumps! It was like a movie. Our future is safe with Kenny. 

I also love Georgina when she’s in her confessionals and solo scenes, talking about her son Robert, who wanted to put back on his poopy diaper, so she filled it full of chocolate so he would put it on. But isn’t Robert obsessed with green? He only wants to wear green everything. Does that mean his … poop is green? Is that a thing? Can that happen? What I haven’t seen from Georgina yet is her really bringing it to the group, but not just drama. She’s not turning up the fun; she’s not being the life of the party. I just need her to shine a bit more in those contexts. She’s just in the office giving the rich gays scrotox so that their scrotums are smooth. Ew. Gross. Who wants that? Some things — Shar Peis, linen pants, prunes — are just supposed to have wrinkles. 

The main group event that Georgina misses is Kyle getting everyone wasted on a trolley while they go around Manhattan trying to get Loverboy into bars and liquor stores. Kyle giving Lindsay a piggyback while also trying to take a sip of Loverboy is why these two will always be famous. The pyrotechnics, however, come from Amanda and Danielle, who get in one of those stupid fights that are only possible after a full day of drinking in a retro vehicle. Danielle is upset that someone posted a “blog” about Danielle being a home-wrecker because her boyfriend, Eoin, isn’t fully divorced yet. Now we know Amanda can’t really think she’s a home-wrecker, considering [flails hand at your TikTok algo]. In the group chat are Kyle, Amanda, Amanda’s bestie Katie Deluca, who is also besties with Danielle, and Katie’s husband, Matt. Okay, but who showed Danielle the group chat? That is the real perpetrator here. What we say about our friends in group chats they are not in is none of their business, and whoever discloses not only what is said in those group chats but their very existence is a traitor and should be punished by having each of their toenails pulled out by Clavicular after he’s had 18 BuzzBallz.

Danielle says that they were “perpetuating a rumor in the group chat,” but the very nature of a group chat is to be private. They’re not perpetuating the rumor, they’re not even saying it’s true, they’re just acknowledging its existence. The very unique friendships these people have that are both private and public mean that they’re reading gossip about each other all the time. I bet the four of them were sharing it, not to say, “Holy shit, Danielle is wrecking a home,” but rather, “Holy shit, can you believe what the internet is saying about our friend?” I bet each of them reached out to Danielle after and was like, “Is this true? What is going on?” And she was like, “No girl. Did you see where it’s from?” And they were like, “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t think so. People will just post anything.” 

Danielle is getting upset over nothing, possibly some jealousy over Amanda and Katie’s longtime relationship. Wait. I take that back. She’s not upset over nothing. She’s upset that this post exists, but that isn’t Amanda’s fault, nor Kyle’s, nor anyone in the chat. I can see how Amanda is getting extra shouty in this instance (this is the first time I remember her raising her voice at someone other than Kyle) because she feels she was always dismissed by Kyle, and we have some handy-dandy flashbacks that adequately prove her point. 

The conversation then turns, and Amanda brings up how Danielle has talked to “blogs” about their friends, particularly a post about why Craig Conover, then dating Paige DeSorbo, was kicked out of Kyle and Amanda’s ill-fated wedding. Danielle denies this allegation, and Amanda says, “But it’s true, though.” However, Danielle thinks that Amanda is saying that her being a homewrecker is true, which, if Amanda believes that, she is going to get more scorched at the reunion than eating all the Hot Ones wings at once. Danielle brings this up to Lindsay when they wait in line for L’Industrie pizza. When did living in New York become all about waiting in lines? I haven’t lived in Manhattan for a while, but back in the day, the only time you would wait was for Shake Shack, and there was only one. Now you have to wait for pizza, you have to wait for bagels, you have to wait for boba, you have to wait for pancakes. Girl, you live in the best city in the world. There are plenty of places with worthy slices where there are no lines. What are you even doing? And while we’re at it, kids, get off my lawn!

The final scene is a bit of a doozy, featuring Amanda finally moving out of the home in her attempt to save their marriage. But come on, we all know she’s slow peddling divorce. She gets upset that Kyle went out the night before, came home, went out again, and then brought people home afterwards. Alright, I get it. If I were asleep and my man brought people over, that is a capital offense, and I would be exonerated for his murder. The only way this is acceptable is if he came home and said, “Tom Holland, Michael B Jordan, and Kyle Cooke are downstairs, and they’re ready for an orgy.” Unless that is the case, dead. 

Amanda wanted Kyle to spend their last night in the house together, but Kyle points out that she spent all weekend getting stoned on the couch. It’s like they’re both stuck between two extremes: Kyle wanting to party for the New York marathon (not an excuse to party, but whatevs) and Amanda wants to snuggle on the couch, getting stoned and watching Interior Motives clips on the big TV. Neither of these things is wrong, but they’re not compatible.

Speaking of balance, the one thing I will take away from this scene is a dirty trick that the cameramen, the editors, and the producers all played on Amanda. Since Summer House takes place in the Hamptons, we’ve never seen the inside of Kymanda’s place, which Kyle always complained about being too messy. Amanda is about to move out; she is all packed up, and still, we get a shot of a pile of clothing so precariously placed on a chair that it was more death-defying than the game of Jenga that Yvonne and Danielle played earlier in the episode. What the champagne supernova has taught us is that this isn’t all Kyle’s fault, this isn’t all because of his partying and DJ-ing and mullet (please don’t bring it back). It always takes two, two to fight, two to make up, two to hoist that pile into about 17 boxes to be moved to an unfurnished apartment. Let’s see who thrives and who struggles now that these two have become ones.