Next Gen NYC Season-Finale Recap: When Life Gives You Lemons

Next Gen NYC
Lady and the Train
Season 2 Episode 12
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
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The only way to process what I watched play out across this season of television is to see it as some kind of Jury Duty–esque prank show on Liam in which everyone around him is a hired actor meant to fool and gaslight him. It’s the sole explanation for the insanity this poor boy has fallen victim to on this show, and even at the beginning of this finale, it feels like he’s starting to catch on. We see him get lunch with his mother, and he tells her he’s worried because the situation he’s going through with Ariana is starting to remind him of what he went through with his ex. To make matters worse, his short film didn’t get into Sundance, but his mom doesn’t seem to be surprised by that. “It’s a good movie. It’s not breaking any molds; it’s not Blair Witch,” she says, invoking a perplexing rubric.

Meanwhile, Riley visits her mom, Kandi, who is in town because she’s in the middle of a Broadway run in & Juliet, so she gives her daughter a tour of the stage while wearing what Kenya Moore would refer to as a Mama Joyce wig. And speaking of Mama Joyce, who hated Kandi’s ex, they chat a little about the divorce, which Kandi says she didn’t expect people to be so invested in. But I’m surprised that she’s surprised because after meeting and marrying him on reality television, which chronicled just about their entire relationship, of course people are invested. If they weren’t invested, you’d be a bad reality star.

And speaking of defunct reality couples, Gia’s dad, Juicy Joe, calls her up, and she tells him her boyfriend, Christian, has been filming a little bit and he reminds her of him. Now, I know what she means, but maybe that’s not the best comparison to make because what first jumps to mind is Joe calling his wife the C-word and getting her sent to prison. Plus, Joe was and is much more entertaining than Christian has been. I mean, on this call alone, he goes on a digression about dog saliva being poison. He’s reality gold! 

While we don’t get another appearance from Brooke Shields to round out this parental parade, we do get to see the little dog she’s fostering. “Mom, you’re not Demi Moore,” Rowan says at the thought of the little dog being an accessory. But the thing is, she basically is Demi Moore — she’s Brooke Shields. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, if you ask me. We also find out Rowan got a job as a booking producer, and the concept of someone on this show having a real job is completely shocking to me. Something I’ve also been thinking about with regard to Rowan’s journalism career is that she does work for Good Morning America, despite Brooke being a loyal Today Show devotee and regular fill-in — so I have questions about these conflicting loyalties. Are the morning-show wars tearing this family apart?

Speaking of dogs, Hudson is back in town. I have to give this show credit for letting its cast organically breeze in and out rather than forcing filming that wouldn’t make sense. There are so many people in the cast that they can just point the camera wherever drama naturally emerges rather than holding every person on the payroll accountable to hit their story-line quota. As a result, the camera is usually pointed at Ariana, whose cup runneth over with story lines. She takes the dogs to see Hudson, and it’s clear he’s still in love with her, so the whole thing is very awkward, but she invites him to the party she’s throwing later that night. 

On the way to said party, Liam’s friends Jackson and Kendall are having a come-to-Jesus moment with him about the Ariana situation, which is looking worse and worse by the minute. He tells them to let him know if he’s not playing it cool enough or if he’s too clingy at the party — especially since both Hudson and Charlie will be there, leaving Ariana in a Mamma Mia!–esque love quadrilateral.

But the signal that eventually comes is better than I ever could have dreamed or imagined. At the party, as Liam and Ariana discuss the state of their relationship and how the timing isn’t perfect because she’s clearly not at the place he would like her to be, a lemon going no less than 60 miles per hour flies from out of frame and hits Liam in the side of the head. “What the fuck? Why did you throw a lemon at my face?” he shouts at Jackson, who is standing there like he didn’t just do something insane and even looks confused as to why Liam is upset. He seems to have thought he was simply following orders to signal, but Liam said nothing about flying citrus. 

After the run-by fruiting, Hudson arrives, which sends the entire party into a tizzy, and he has two awkward conversations with his ex’s two suitors. He half-heartedly scolds Liam for disregarding the conversation they had at the beginning of the season about not pursuing Ariana, but Liam correctly says that she’s his ex, so it is what it is. Charlie, meanwhile, comes clean to Hudson about the flirtation between them, but Hudson brushes that one off, not convinced it’s actually mutual. 

Everybody else had a far less dramatic party. Georgia and Riley came to a peace treaty of sorts on the ski trip, so things are good there. Ava and Shai are still being cutesy after their kiss, which she told her dad about, which led to a conversation about herpes. Good news, Shai doesn’t have it. Let’s celebrate that! We also get to meet Rowan’s sister, Grier, who needs a full-time contract immediately. When Shai tells them they look alike, Grier turns to Rowan and says, “Does that make you feel good?” 

After the party, everyone plans to move to a second location except Ariana and Charlie, who hang back so they can talk before meeting everybody else. From the jump, the optics of this aren’t great, but I thought, Okay, whatever, production just needed a one-on-one scene between them to close the loop and they didn’t get to it at the party. But then they start talking and Charlie asks outright if she wants them to just be friends or more, to which Ariana says, “I don’t want to set that boundary with you, necessarily.” I feel like I’m watching a horror movie, screaming at the screen for her to run because a killer is around the corner. Charlie then leans in and kisses her, and she doesn’t just kiss back, but the pair starts making out right there in the streets of New York. Classless. I couldn’t even see what happened next because I was too busy cleaning the vomit off my floor.

Now, granted, Ariana and Liam are notably bad at describing what the terms of their relationship actually are — but last we heard, exclusive was a word being thrown around. So by any account, this is not aboveboard. And it seems that Liam knows something is afoot because as they all move to the next location, Brooks and Gia are left to console Liam. Well, maybe console isn’t the right term. We do get Gia at her best, though, when she bluntly tells Liam he’s starting to look like an idiot. But let me clarify, he’s being made to look like an idiot.

After saying she’s a horrible person (and she is), Ariana and Charlie decide to go meet her boyfriend at the bar, and she signals to Charlie not to bring up the kiss there. But there’s no point in telling him to keep the secret because as soon as they get there, an evilly giddy Ariana spills the beans to basically everybody. And this is the part when I really start feeling like maybe I’m the crazy one because instead of reacting with shock or disgust, everybody is borderline supportive. Ava revels in it, saying Ariana is “a girl after her own heart,” and Riley texts, “Period,” upon hearing the news. What is wrong with you all? This is bad! 

The only reasonable person in the mix is Gia, whose darting eyes can tell that something is up, and she recoils in horror at the reveal. “Fuck off,” she says, having just had to talk down poor Liam on their walk over. At least someone cares about Liam because Ariana doesn’t seem to give him another thought. In her confessional, a producer asks if that was her first time kissing Charlie, and she cheekily smiles and says, “Next.” Not since early Vanderpump Rules have we been so blessed by morally bankrupt individuals being so willing to televise their cheating (key word being willing).

The ten-foot pole between Ariana and Charlie kept shrinking, Gia explains in her confessional, until they finally kissed — much like Lady and the Tramp with the spaghetti. Or, as Gia calls it, Lady and the Train. She really is Teresa’s daughter — or “dorter.”

Three months later, Ariana is back in her confessional chair with an update. “I don’t want to be around Charlie. I want nothing to do with that horrible human being. I was so naive because he manipulated me with Jesus.” Pause for laughter. “He said his ideal woman is a Christian girl, and I was like, Wait, you believe in Jesus?” Pause for laughter. “He said, Of course I believe in Jesus. He got a tattoo a few weeks later that said, ‘Only God can judge me.’” Pause for laughter and to acknowledge that he went to Jax Taylor University and majored in Manipulative Tattoos. She goes on to say she thought God put Charlie in her life to “save” him but now sees what he was doing, adding that he doesn’t deserve her in his life. “I can’t wait to fucking eat him up, chew him up, and spit him out at this reunion.” Charlie being a bad person? Oh my goodness! If only anybody could have seen that coming!