It starts with a spot of social climbing, as Biscuits brags to the bois about introducing Frankie to the family while scaling an indoor activity wall. He’s less like a sherpa, more like a St Bernard with a tendency to drink the tiny barrel of brandy on his collar before he has rescued anyone. ‘They say she’s sweet, pretty - the nicest one yet!’ he beams! (Is it me, or is it impossible to imagine Mummy and Daddy Biscuits as anyone other than Steph and Dom from *Gogglebox, *filling Frankie with white wine and forcing her to dance with their dog?)
Mummy Thompson takes Sam and Louise out for afternoon tea, and while Louise has some news - after St Barts, she’s called time on her relationship with Alik - Sam has a massive bombshell to drop. He has new glasses. ‘I feel like a new person!’ he grins, after establishing that he’s only going to wear them for driving and gaming, and he only plays games while Tiffany is ‘watching the Kardashians’. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with people in reality shows talking about other reality shows, it could cause a rip in the space time continuum. What happens when MTV shows a repeat of *The Hills? *Does Stephanie turn to dust and shadow?
It’s happening already - she’s becoming so paranoid about sugar bowls in cafes that she’s going to start carrying my own. Presumably she’s just laying the groundwork for next year’s Coachella so that when she’s pictured with pinhole camera eyes at the Vita Coco Orgiastic Yoga Party, she can wave her bag in the air and say ‘Nothing to see here! Just my personal supply of sugar!’
Ollie is planning to cheer her up with a big gay night out, and Steph is so excited about being at a gay bar with gay men that you’d think she was temporarily possessed by Kenneth Halliwell and he was writing all her lines. Fraser and his boyfriend Tom turn up - only *MIC *could wait until the 11th series to introduce a gay couple, and have that couple look like they modelled for brochures advertising Tory fundraising balls - and she invites them on the gay night, because they’re gay, and, see, *gay! *They back away from her as though they wouldn’t touch her if they found her on the toilet floor at Joiners’ (God rest its soul.)
Alik Skypes Sam to see if anyone can help him save their love, and those of us at home wonder whether LouLik might have gone the distance if only Alik had contained his strange and distracting collection of clothes within a wardrobe, instead of making Louise sleep in a room that looks like a chapter meeting for Compulsive Dry Cleaners Anonymous. Stephanie, knowing that about three people in Chelsea are still speaking to her, alienates a sizeable percentage by forcing Jess to come shopping and slagging off all her clothes. It’s a relief when Richard turns up - for the first time in his life, he makes things less awkward. ‘I gave Toff a fair shot!’ he protests, when Jess tells him that you don’t dump someone less than 12 hours after ordering them personalised sushi. Perhaps Richard’s brain is so binary that unless poor Toff managed to turn her sushi into…kinetic energy? A catalytic converter? A split atom? Some sort of a science, anyway - she’s failed her beta testing phase. Stupid Richard.
Fraser tells Lucy that he’s not going to be gay at the gay club with Steph, and Watson crows ‘She’d only take SELFIES with you and put them ONLINE,’ another piece for the mounting evidence pile which suggests that Lucy is really played by an 87 year old woman who is trying to showcase her knowledge of youth culture. Over dinner, Fraser and Tom are joined by Matt, who is new and out to impress with his many casual, not at all clunky references to ‘shoots’ and ‘castings’ and ‘nipple icing and torso oilings’ (we might have made the last one up). Perhaps he’s not a model. Perhaps he’s a murderer who goes around killing people and then recreates their bodies using their own skin and Plaster of Paris.
And so to the biggest night of gay fun in London - a Soho basement around the corner from the Rainforest cafe, which appears to contain one gay man (Ollie), four extras in J Crew button down shirts and the rest of the cast of the show. Steph texts Tom, possibly because she wishes to make the experience more authentically homosexual than because of any real desire for his company. ‘Urgh, who texts at 9.30 when they’re out. We’re having *dinner,’ *he hisses. Steph, we could have told you that the aubergine emoji was a mistake.
As Louise tells Binky and Rosie (who, if her jumper is anything to go by must have spent the afternoon in a ball pit) that it’s all over with Alik, Alik is being told by his cigar puffing father that he must go to Louise in London. Also, that he (Daddy Mitch) never loved Alik’s mother. That’s a nice thing for you to think about on the plane, Alik! Binky and JP decide that they need to bring everyone together by organising a country ‘shingding’ and head to Surrey, not knowing that Biscuits is on the brink of telling Frankie that he’s been secretly skiing and snogging, that Stephanie and Fraser are going to make life difficult for each other and that Alik is en route with an overnight bag.
Smart Sam tries to head Alik off at the past, telling him that Louise was ‘brave’ to break up with him and that she probably doesn’t want to do it all over again. Sam is really growing on me, Tiff is an excellent influence. Alik says ‘but love!’ which is a white man’s way of saying ‘But I WANT! I always get what I WANT!’
Biscuits tells Frankie that someone else has been sucking on his chocolate finger, and gratifyingly, her response isn’t one of heartbreak, but more along the lines of ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that a pigeon flew into the kitchen and shat on the breadboard just before I made a sandwich! I thought that was mayonnaise!’ Back in Chelsea, Richard interrupts Toff’s martini to say that he doesn’t want people to be ‘awkward’ around them, which is more white man code for ‘Your friends hate me. I am not going to apologise for what I did, but you have to make them stop saying nasty things about me.’ And Louise tells Alik that he can’t have what he wants, mult-eye million dollar company or no mult-eye-million dollar company. It’s hell for the leather man.
Hero of the week
This goes to Sam for knowing his sister well enough to stand up for her and for being mature enough to know that in 2016, love stories never end with a shouty man yelling ‘I come to claim my woman!’ unless there’s a chance that it might end with you saving someone from a wolf. Well done Sam.
Villain of the week
Maybe ‘bellend of the week’ would be more accurate - Jamie Biscuits, if you meet a girl and really, really like her, all you have to do is *not kiss other girls you quite like. *It’s *one job. *A single item on the to do list. You don’t need picnics or gestures or big declarations. Just don’t get it out unless you’re going to the toilet. Bloody hell.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.