This week begins some group sex regret, or, as I call it, ‘rem-orgy-orse’. Alex, wearing a hat that cleverly transforms his head into a shape that visually represents the crude slang term for genitalia that suits him best, walks smack bang into Spencer and tells him that he’s 'pretty fucked off, mate'. Alex, that’s what happens at an orgy. It’s no good wielding your receipt like a croquet mallet and telling Spencer that you’re setting the obudsman on him because you were expecting less sex, and more in the way of cocktail size sausage rolls.
Spencer is, predictably, remorseless. 'Given we had so much fun together…' he says, meaningfully, as if Alex is at fault for ruining his beautiful memory, and he’s a Dad who is heartbroken to discover his grown up children hated their annual trip to the pantomime and not a man so committed to sleazy displays of eroticism that he once allegedly recruited a gang of lady sex partners from the Canadian embassy.
Binky’s tears are at DEFCON 2 level, party promoted by Alex’s own. 'He left a voicemail of him crying!' she wails to Lucy, Louise and Rosie. 'It’s just words,' replies Lucy sternly, confirming what we all suspected - she doesn’t know how to weep. Not even for Jamie Biscuits, who has gone to the gym in order to reveal he is incapable of growing an adult amount of body hair, and he can’t even lift, bro. 'I’m blind!' he wails to Proudlock, after two and a half reps. Proudlock’s expression suggests this tends to happen whenever he goes to the gym with Biscuits. 'So, Stevie’s party!' says Biscuits, valiantly. 'It was good man!' replies Proudlock, distractedly. 'It was NOT a happy occasion!' admonishes Biscuits, desperately trying to keep his friend on message while wondering whether they changed the script. Biscuits isn’t keen to talk about Orgygate - he’d prefer to discuss the likelihood of his stealing Riley from Stevie. 'She’s basically an intern for me, in a sense,' he muses. Weirdly, it’s entirely legal to sleep with your consenting interns if you don’t pay ‘em.
After another creepy interlude in which Sam complains to Riley that Spencer stole Christiane, who, lest we forget, showed less interest in sleeping with Sam than she might demonstrate in speaking to a caller who uses an unknown number to tell her about potential PPI refunds, Riley and Stevie have an ominous discussion about their hopes for the future. No-one has a conversation this contrived unless something very bad is about to happen. Especially when it ends in Stevie blowing her a kiss, as if he’s afraid to actually touch his own girlfriend.
Toff turns up to surprise Stephanie, who is sat in a swanky salon having her nails painted in a shade called ‘Kelly Hoppen’s knicker drawer’. Stephanie is disillusioned with the idea of the romantic Brit. 'English men are all ‘furry tail, furry tail, furry tail’ she wails. OK, she didn’t actually say that, but in her accent it sounded like a pithy comment about male evolutionary failure in SW6. And Toff does speak like a woodland creature…
Stephanie shows off her new nails with a strange, buttoned pleather vest, and decides that she wants to see Stevie’s furry tale. After all, Stevie is 'not a bullund!' she exclaims, having confused ‘doing an English accent at the group’s behest’ with ‘ventriloquism’. Neither Louise nor Andy, who are present, say anything sensible like 'Oi! What about Riley!' In fact, Andy claims that Stephanie’s desire for a city guide is an erotic request. “Do you want to take me on a tour of London?’ That’s like "Do you want to have sex with me?"!' No, Andy, usually it’s like ‘Do you know which theatre Wicked is on at?’ Good job you’re not supplementing your singer/songwriter income with a sideline in Duck Tours.
'My last conversation with Riley was about keeping it casual,' muses Stevie. MATE, I DON’T THINK IT WAS.
On a much more cheerful note, now we have Mark Francis stroking and smelling some cars. Obviously, he’s not going to drive them - 'As if I’m going to be around London HONKING MY HORN and SWEATING around the streets of Chelsea.' Dammit, I would pay top dollar to see that. But can Mark drive? 'I learned to drive in a 1950s Rolls Royce Corniche, and then I drove if off a bridge. I’ve been making do with a Mercedes ever since… It just angers me to think that no-one seems to think I would be competent driver!' he cries, as he speeds off with Rosie, who immediately loses her chapeau. I say 'hats off' to Mark Francis’ motor skills.
Toff turns up to see Sam, who complains, 'It’s quite early for house calls,' and then has to deal with Toff’s bitchy bad news bearing dressed up as faux concern while eating the world’s worst boiled egg. Toff can’t believe Spencer and Christiane are dating. I can’t believe no-one is saying to Sam 'Stop this wallowing! Christiane does not like you.' She doesn’t even seem to like Spencer much. She shuts down his pervy attempt to sound urbane. “How does it feel to date an older man?” he growls, lecherousness dripping from him like the mucus of a creepy cold. 'Aren’t you, like, 24?' drawls a bored Christiane. Apparently everyone thinks Spencer is 'at least 30,' but one suspects this is because spending your life standing next to the embryonic Biscuits is going to age a man by about 700 years. Spencer knows the date is bothering Sam, 'but it went in one ear and out the other'. Dude, if that’s your new sexual technique I hope you’re supplying everyone with cotton buds.
Biscuits crashes a meeting with Riley and Lucy, attempts to sit on Riley’s lap, shouts down the vocal observers of this for 'creeping [Riley] out' and just goes short of drawing Stephanie an instructional diagram to demonstrate how she can have sex with Stevie in order to clear a path to the intern of his dreams. Charming. 'I’ll call you!' he tells a departing Riley. 'You don’t have my number!' she shouts over my shoulder. 'I can find it!' he replies. At the moment, the Venn Diagram ‘flirt’ and ‘sex pest’ sections are one solid circle.
Binky finds flowers from Alex, and goes to meet him by the river because that is where all West London relationships must die. 'I was sucked into it, I was sucked into it, I was sucked into it,' keens a weeping Alex, presumably referring to the range of vortex like vaginas which tiled the tunnel of his unwilling infidelity. 'We’re fucking soul mates.' No, Alex, you’re fucking soul mates, which means you’ve ruined this forever. 'You are an amazing…liar. I can’t trust you any more,' cries Binky, while every viewer in the world shouts 'RUN! RUN NOW! GO GO GO!' Even the ones watching News at 10. It works. She leaves the flowers.
Stevie takes Stephanie for a look at the London Eye ('It’s amazing!' says Stephanie, who clearly doesn’t know it costs thirty quid and moves at half a mile an hour) and then they snog, which I can’t bear to describe or talk about. BOOO, Stephanie and Stevie. BOOOOOOOOO! Louise ambushes Spencer in the pub where he had been expecting to speak to Sam and shouts at him about how he has become a soulless, friendless, sexually incontinent leather jacket holder. Spencer barely looks out of his hoodie, and he’s clearly desperate for her to leave so he can get back to planning the next orgy.
The rest of the bois have gone bowling, and it’s a good job the balls are supplied because collectively, they have none of their own. Spencer shows up, everyone reiterates what Louise just said, and he is unmoved. Biscuits offers to cheer Sam up by inviting him to something. Please don’t let it be an orgy, that won’t end well. Oh, 'it’s like one big picnic with tables and food.' A picnic with tables, Biscuits? That sounds crazy! Crazier than the very phrase ‘picnic table’.
To be fair, the tables are decked with candelabras, and the centerpiece of the picnic is something that, at first, appears to be a giant Fererro Rocher tower. Oh, it’s just some macaroons. Will the horrors of this episode never end? Biscuits shows of his leisure skills by playing cricket, holding the flat part of the bat with his hand. Even Mark Francis knows that isn’t done. 'I don’t play many sports, I’m going to get a drink,' he hisses, after emphatically refusing to throw a horse shoe at a small pole.
We’re starting to feel slightly sorry for Sam, when he finds Riley and Aurelie and announces 'it’s nice to have my girls back, because you’re such good mates, I heard that Stevie went on a date with Stephanie Pratt and they kissed! Riley, are you OK?' Mark Francis, go back, fetch that horse shoe, throw it at Sam and tell him 'This is what happens to immature vindictive idiots with a baseless sense of entitlement!'
Binky is keen to deliver some home truths. 'Do you not feel a bit sick about how rank you’re being to everyone?' she asks Spencer, who has just rolled up with Christiane and is looking like the Slimer of sex and macaroons. 'You’ve been a shit friend.' Spencer reckons it was Alex’s place to tell Binky about the orgy 'if anyone’s'. Well, Spencer, Binky’s doctor might well have eventually wanted a word…
Stephanie is cooing that she’s 'Never had champagne at a country picnic,' as she licks Stevie’s face. Ah, but have you had someone else’s boyfriend before, love? Stevie has broken the bad news to Riley, badly, and late. 'It’s so nice that you did that,' trills Stephanie. I am rapidly losing patience with every single person in the park. Biscuits is the only person telling Riley that Stevie is a dick. But he wants a date, in exchange. 'I’m free a lot!' he reveals, shocking no-one. Biscuits, there is not enough free Candy Kitten merch in the world. Maybe you could ‘poach’ Riley by giving her a proper job and promising her a workspace free of sexual harassment. Just a thought.
Hero of the week
We might be a little nervous of her motivation (which is mainly avoiding the wrath of Lucy, let’s face it), but it has to be Binky for finally getting it together and throwing the flowers in Alex’s face. We wish she’d thrown him in the river, but maybe we’ll get that on the Christmas DVD extras. Binky also gets points for calling Spencer out on his rankness. As an 'older man', his brain might not be quick enough to pick up the message, but hopefully he’ll be able to decode it before the last episode and really think about what she did.
Villain of the week
It’s tempting to just copy and paste the episode cast credits for this bit, but at the moment the worst of a bad lot is clearly Stevie, who, whatever he likes to tell himself, wasn’t single, knew how badly he was about to hurt Riley and essentially behaved with the considered integrity of one of Sam’s used Kleenexes. The only excuse I will accept from Stevie for this is severe concussion, and I’m going to need to see three separate doctors’ notes and an MRI scan print out.
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.