In the City Finale Recap: Friends Taking

In The City
Cider and Squabbles
Season 1 Episode 9
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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I have a bone to pick with In the City. Correct me if I’m wrong (I know I don’t have to tell you that because if I’m wrong, you’ll be in the comments section faster than Taylor Swift gets to a mediocre-floral-dress sale), we didn’t get three of the moments in the trailer I was most looking forward to. Two of those appear to have happened during the Friendsgiving trip the cast took to my home state of Connecticut. The first seems to be at the big Friendsgiving dinner, when Yvonne says to Lindsay, “You’re supposed to be my best friend, and you treat me like shit.” The second seems like it happened the night before, when they were making s’mores around the fire. (Hot take: S’mores are disgusting.) That’s when Kenny says to Gavin, “You’re the Bernie Madoff of fucking hospitality.” The final moment that’s missing is the biggest of all, when Amanda says to Kyle, “We don’t have a prenup, but if you come for me, I’ll come for you.”

Where did these moments go? It’s not that rare for a little snippet from the trailer to not make it to the big show as the episodes are recut but three things? And big things! In this final episode, Yvonne and Lindsay don’t seem to have any beef at all, but they’re not just having turkey at that big dinner. This puts the big conflict of the episode into a different sort of relief.

Yes, I’m talking about Whitney saying Lindsay used the “single mom card” to get her room and that she and Georgina shouldn’t even be that tired because they have nannies. She says, “Not everyone that is a single mom has help. They both need to check themselves in that perspective.” This is a losing argument. My girl Liza Treyger, a hilarious comedian and huge Bravo fan, does a bit where she says, “Have you ever told a mom you’re tired? Get a helmet. They’re pissed at you.” (Watch the whole clip. It’s all very related to the dynamic playing out here.)

Whitney’s comments get back to Lindsay and Georgina through Lexi, who only got to utter 55 words the entire season, but she made sure every one slapped, and it comes to a head when they all sit down after apple picking. (As a Connecticutian, I have to tell you that they left gorgeous, tony, scenic Washington to drive 50 minutes all the way across the Naugatuck Valley to Southington. Southington! I’m from Bristol, so I can hardly look down on Southington like I can at, say, Wolcott or Terryville, but I can certainly look down at the decision to drive 50 minutes in the complete wrong direction to a place that is basically a strip mall full of ESPN employees who want to be closer to I-84 to make it easier to escape to New Haven and other points south.) 

Lindsay leaves the fire because she says it’s cold, but Georgina says it’s because she’s pissed at Whitney for what she said. Georgina says, “To say she’s pulling the single-mom card is so disgusting to moms and single moms everywhere.” When Whitney and Kenny fight back, Georgina says, “I guess you two just don’t like women as a couple.” Everyone groans at this comment because, like Hailey Bieber in Pilates, it’s stretching so much it could snap. However, Whitney should have known that as soon as she criticized mothers, motherhood, or how these mothers operate their hoods, this is what she would be greeted with. This is just not something you do. It’s bad form. It’s a losing argument. No one hates moms (except for Lindsay), so you leave yourself without a line of defense. 

The problem is, and I hate to say it about our girl Lindsay, she is absolutely wrong in this situation. When they’re back at the house cooking, Lindsay explains to Whitney, “I said, ‘We’re just going to take this room because we’re two moms away from their kids for the first time on a trip’ … I never said, ‘I’m a single mom; I need this room.’” I’m sorry, but I see absolutely no semantic difference in those two sentences other than one says she needs it. Lindsay (and Georgina) wanted the best room, took the best room, refused to discuss it, and then came up with a convenient excuse that no one could argue against: that she deserved that room and that is because they are mothers. I’m sorry, but that is literally the “mom card.” Lindsay will never admit it, but she’s guilty. [Bangs gavel] Case dismissed.

Whitney’s real problem is that everyone always bows down to Lindsay and she gets whatever she wants because she’s the loudest (and most popular) in the group. She says as much after apple picking. This is what she should have focused on because it’s hard to refute, but because she let the “mom card” take over the whole debate, she’ll inevitably lose. When Kenny and Whitney bring up the fact that they thought it would be a nice gesture for Lindsay to give the room to Yvonne and Nick for ruining their wedding, she says, “When we had the original discussion about these dumb fucking rooms, I wasn’t thinking about Yvonne in the moment.” Yes! That’s it! That’s the point. You weren’t thinking about your best friend, whom you always treat like shit, after you (but really Gavin) ruined her big dinner. That’s why I’m surprised they left out Yvonne’s point at dinner. It seems like Yvonne still isn’t over it and it’s causing a bigger rift in the friendship than we would have seen otherwise, one exposed by Whitney and Kenny.

Speaking of Kenny, let’s get into his omission. While everyone is cooking Friendsgiving, Gavin and Kenny go outside for a chat, and Kenny brings up all the terrible things that Gavin has supposedly done to him this season, including saying that he doesn’t like dogs, used to be a fuckboy, and maybe wanted a bit more drama in his relationship. I mean, these all seem kind of weak to me, especially that he doesn’t like dogs. If Kenny hates animals and Whitney hates moms, what is next, someone hating s’mores? Kenny apologizes, they bro-hug it out, and all is forgiven. Gavin sheds a few tears that he won’t admit to, even though Lindsay saw them, and we’re moving on with these guys as brothers. 

What makes this harder to believe is that the night before, Gavin accused Kenny of lying to him for years, and Kenny likened him to Bernie Madoff. Now, of course, we don’t know the context of these snippets, and they could have been said in jest and taken out of context so they would do exactly what they’re supposed to do: get us to watch the TV show. (A trailer is sort of like what the D.A.R.E. program taught us drug dealers do: The first one is free, but then you have to start paying for it, and it’s never as good.) But if they really had an argument and Kenny lodged this complaint against Gavin in earnest, then he would have some audacity to be the one who is asking for an apology from Kenny. I know we can’t get every single moment of every single trip, but this all seems important. 

Why were these cut? Well, it seems like it might have been to make extra room for the sit-down that Kyle and Amanda had in April. For those keeping track of the timeline, this is after Amanda and West’s ChatGPT statement but before the Summer House reunion was filmed. Did we need this? After the reunion, the aftermath special, everything that’s happened in the press since then, did we need to see Kyle telling Amanda that she lied to him about West? I mean, didn’t we already know that? What new ground is being broken here? Amanda did say that the resurgence of Loverboy had nothing to do with Kyle and was more about how much people hate her, which just reconfirms the worst things about Amanda that people on the internet say. Oh, and Amanda joked that she and West should double date with Kyle, Salley from Southern Charm, and her extraneous e. Okay. Fine. Cute.

Honestly, I would have much rather had the scene of the two of them talking about their divorce, which I assume was filmed after the season wrapped and they put out their statement about breaking up but before the West stuff went down. That, of course, all got subsumed by the scandal. But aren’t we sick of the scandal? Well, it was a great scandal and gave us an excellent few months of reality television that we’ll never forget. But we’ve marinated in these breakups long enough. I’m ready to move on to the people on Summer House who I love, to have a little bit more hope, a little bit more love.

The episode leaves us in just that place. Yvonne and Nick announce that they’re going to have a boy in the only gender reveal that didn’t start a wildfire. Lexi and Andrea announce that they’re going to have a baby girl but do not have a gender-reveal party because they are banned in Italy. Danielle and Eoin also announce that they’re going to have a son, who was born quite prematurely and is still in the NICU. But it’s good. It’s all good. Danielle will get through this, and maybe she and Lindsay will drop all of their beef because they both realize that there’s something else to worry about: these new humans taking their first blinking glances at an enormous metropolis that they can’t possibly understand. They don’t get relationships, they don’t get friendship, they don’t even get pirate ships. They just get attention, warmth, food, love, a little rock to go to sleep, a little nudge to wake up, and the cooing that is all around them as their tiny pink hands stretch out for the first time to grab onto their mothers’ stray hairs and give them a yank. No mother would ever give it up or, no matter what they say, play a card because of it.