Next Gen NYC Recap: Slippery Slope

Next Gen NYC
You Windham, You Lose Some
Season 2 Episode 10
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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The gang is all headed to Windham for a ski trip, and not since Ramona Singer has there been this amount of drama caused by room assignments. Suddenly, as they start preparing for the vacation, it occurs to these notoriously spoiled kids to wonder how many rooms there are in the chalet, because none of them have any intention of sharing. Well, the bad news for them is that there are only five rooms, and the worse news is that they’re acting like sharing a room is the equivalent of being told they’re rooming in the shed. 

The behavior is very yuck … which brings us to Georgia’s cleaning-product venture, “Yuck!” They’re describing it as “our generation’s version of a cleaning product,” which is particularly fascinating since I had never considered cleaning to be generational. One update we get is that her friend Cooper, who she was working on the product with, is no longer involved after they had a falling out. “I can’t talk about it, but I can direct you to my attorney,” Georgia says, and I can’t help but be shocked that an actual fallout happened over something that simply cannot be an actual product. We haven’t seen much talk about formulas, with most of the conversation focusing on what’s on the outside of the bottle versus the inside. But even after seeing all the potential, chic logos for “Yuck!” — by the end of the episode we find out that it probably won’t even be called that anyway for legal reasons. I want Georgia to have a new and perplexing business venture every season that we see her work on (and by work on I mean design logos for), before it ultimately disappears into thin air, only to be replaced by an even more perplexing new idea. 

But Georgia isn’t the only one hard at work. Shai and Brooks find themselves having dueling photoshoots. Brooks recruits the girls to pose for his new collection just one day after Shai’s ill-fated shoot for his line, which ends up only featuring Charlie and Liam. Naturally, things are awkward between them, but at least we find out via confessional that Liam knows about Ariana going over to Charlie’s apartment because he has her location. Granted, that’s different than being told about it directly, but at least he’s aware and can pretend not to care. He brushes it off by saying that’s just where Ariana gets her weed, but I can’t help but point out that weed is legal here, so she can get it on any street corner. She could probably get it at Target at this point. 

Now, I know I normally give this cast a lot of shit for the way they complain about what they deem less-than-suitable conditions, but even I’ll admit that the way they’re forced to schlep up to Windham is crazy. They’re piled into SUVs six-to-a-vehicle like they’re in a clown car, for what at best would have been a three-hour ride. That many hours stuck in a middle seat with Charlie yapping away? I’d get carsick out of spite. 

Notably missing is Georgia, who, in true Georgia fashion, was late because she couldn’t find her snow gear in her boyfriend’s mail room. Either that, or she’s a mastermind who refused to ride in those hellish cars. In any case, things couldn’t have gone better for her, because she got to drive up solo and, in some kind of miracle, avoided all of the traffic that the rest of the cast hit and arrived at the house before anyone else. This is proof that God watches Next Gen NYC and is a Georgia McCann fan.

The long car ride gave Charlie plenty of time to reveal that Ariana came over late the other night, which he’s always purposefully vague about to suggest that more happened than did, and the revelation makes Ava’s ears perk up. Back at the house, she’s talking to Brooks and Gia about it, but neither of them really buy into Charlie’s antics. He’s just trying to spin the story into something it’s not, but nonetheless they agree that they’ll all have a conversation with Ariana about it to clear things up. 

The problem is, Gia is too anxious about having talked about it behind Ariana’s back at all, so she jumps the gun at dinner and whispers to Ariana about it rather than waiting for the planned group conversation. But don’t worry, a pissed-off Ariana makes it a group conversation instantly, announcing to the table that she simply went over to Charlie’s to smoke a joint. The rest of them are, in turn, pissed off at Gia for throwing them under the bus for gossiping, and try to defend their intentions to Ariana. 

Ariana says that if she had any desire to fuck Charlie, she could do it whenever she wants, but that she meant it when she said she wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. For Charlie’s part, he says that Liam can’t stop him from fucking Ariana. Yeah, we know … The person stopping you from fucking Ariana isn’t Liam; it’s Ariana, you idiot. 

Amidst all this hubbub, Georgia is looking for some clarity and asks for an official status update on Liam and Ariana’s relationship. But clarity isn’t what we get. Ariana quickly says that they’re not dating, which feels crazy because we’ve literally seen them dating on this very show. It turns out Ariana has a different definition of dating than the rest of the world. A normal person would say that if you’re actively going on dates with someone, you’re dating, but Ariana doesn’t seem to think you’re “dating” someone until they’re your boyfriend or girlfriend. Which she and Liam are not, but they are exclusive. Their order of operations is all wrong, but in any case, her adamantly denying dating Liam so strongly while she’s sitting right next to him can’t feel great for him.

In the car ride home, Charlie keeps doubling down and yelling about how Liam can’t stop him from fucking Ariana and that he’ll do whatever he wants. But as he’s on this rant, Kendall is sitting right behind him in the car and is shocked that he’s saying it in front of her, given that she’s Liam’s friend. First of all, as I’ve said before, I believe that Liam is the only person on the cast who can physically see Kendall. She is the Snuffleupagus to his Big Bird in that way. And even if they did have the ability to see and hear her, she shouldn’t be surprised that he’s saying this in front of her because he basically was saying the same exact thing right to Liam’s face at dinner. Couth and social grace are not necessarily things that Charlie concerns himself with. 

After all the buzz about them playing “Shady Secret Santa,” the game gets relegated to a flashback. We do get to see Rowan gift Brooks a ball gag as a funny reference to Gia being his mouthpiece — but because this group is either boring or lying, none of them really knows what a ball gag is. Naturally, Riley, as the daughter of sex-toy magnate Kandi Burruss of “Bedroom Kandi” fame, has to explain. In return, Rowan received a “My mom is the hot one” sweater from Charlie, but I need to know how big of duds the other “shady” gifts were if they didn’t even make it onto the show. 

Or maybe those scenes just got cut because of how much actual drama we have to cover. While the cameras might have gone down, that didn’t mean that the drama stopped. In fact, it turns out that some of the group ended up staying awake until 6:30. We find out that Liam went to bed at the reasonable hour of 2 a.m. Still, Ariana opted to stay up later, yukking it up with her pals (which unfortunately included Charlie), so Liam understandably didn’t get much sleep. When she finally joined him in bed at 5 a.m., he was up and said that they needed to have a chat. This is the stuff of nightmares. 

He felt like she didn’t really have his back at dinner, probably because she didn’t really have his back at dinner. But his reasonableness takes a turn when he then tells her that he loves her, which naturally leaves Ariana staring at a blank wall to process everything for the rest of the night. I understand his frustration over this cat-and-mouse game that she’s willingly playing into with Charlie, but maybe save professing your love for another time — like when it’s not 5 a.m. on the first night of a reality-show cast trip. Just a thought!