Selling Sunset Recap: Cassandra Seems Nice

The politics of womanhood are fraught, folks! You have to be nice but not too nice. You want to be fun but not too fun. You’ve gotta be tough but not too tough. (For more on this, check out a little film called Barbie, by Greta Gerwig.) This tension gives the eighth and ninth episodes of this season their fire — women caught between how they actually feel and how they want to be perceived by the general public. We knew this trip to Cabo would be rocky, with Nicole’s refusal to apologize to Chrishell bringing that feud some fresh heat, but how it all managed to go off the rails caught me off guard.

First, there’s Cassandra, a perfectly nice-seeming lady who used to work in bottle service with Bre. She now works at a little brokerage called Christie’s (ever heard of it?), popping up at the group’s first open house in Cabo. Big mistake! Huge! The only person Bre likes less than Chelsea is anyone from her past saying “hello” to her at a party. I want to understand what’s wrong here, but it really just seems like Bre is being mean. Going up to someone you know from Instagram at a party to say “hello” is a completely fine and normal thing to do — especially when you work in sales, for God’s sake. And she helped promote Bre’s fitness app! Do you know how fast I would dodge an acquaintance in my DMs asking me to promote their fitness app? This lady seems nice!

Both Bre and Amanza are in full agreement that there’s something off about Cassandra because she replies to Bre’s Instagram Stories all the time. I want to take a moment here to point out that responding to someone’s Instagram Story is the easiest thing in the world to do — the text box is literally right by my thumb! — so that isn’t necessarily that big a deal. I, personally, assume people like getting responses to the things they post online. Otherwise, what’s the point? Chrishell seems equally flummoxed by how firm these two are in their condemnation of this woman’s behavior — negatively likening her to Chelsea — and I do think this moment has a big effect on what’s to come.

Later that night, Chelsea and Bre cement a temporary truce the traditional way: by rolling around together on a sofa at a nightclub. But when Cassandra shows up again — Chelsea invited her! — a line is redrawn. Bre has made it clear she cannot party with people she doesn’t trust and that she doesn’t believe people are nice. And, like, we get it: You live in L.A. To me, this is starting to read like maybe Bre just isn’t nice and wants to normalize that so she never has to feel bad about it. This is in contrast to Chrishell, who has become all but allergic to situations that have the potential to make her look less than angelic.

When the ladies all head to the beach the next day, they’re surprised and dismayed to see Marie-Lou is there. Now, it’s Chrishell’s turn to look mean as she holds court just feet away from this poor child, clearly talking about her. Nicole takes this opportunity to lure the sweet little Marie-Lou right to her gingerbread house in the woods, telling her that Chrishell’s problem is that, unlike Mary and Nicole, Chrishell wants to control Jason. This says so much about the O Group mind-set. Setting boundaries with Jason is a form of control, but Jason trying to get all his ex-girlfriends to work for and vacation with him forever and ever isn’t? Nicole spent a whole day angrily arranging vases and mirrors in Chrishell’s Queens Road listing just because Jason asked her to. Who is being controlled here?

The show is developing a real Chrishell problem, to be honest. I completely understand the boundaries she’s drawing, and if she were a normal person, they would make perfect sense. But this is a reality-TV show, one where women have whole miscarriages on television. She cannot skip big dinners just to avoid seeing Nicole or Marie-Lou, if only because this group has nothing else to talk about if she’s not there to participate in that tension. Amanza can’t handle the letdown of Chrishell and Emma skipping dinner and decides the best way to deal with it is to send her an unhinged video calling her out in front of everyone. She laments to Mary privately that Chrishell has “changed,” which is probably true! Since this show started, Chrishell has lost both her parents, gone through a divorce, broken up with her boss, and come out of the closet. She most certainly has changed, and whether the life she’s living now is still compatible with being in a constant fight with Nicole over nothing remains to be seen.

Chrishell is furious about the video, and she even fires Amanza from her job redesigning G’s studio. That’s a little rough, but also, if I was dating Chrishell and you made her mad, you don’t even want to know how quickly I would refuse to let you design my studio. Also, I sense that witnessing how fast Amanza was ready to talk shit about Cassandra with Bre — not to mention just her general “flip-flopping” — is recontextualizing how Chrishell receives this kind of criticism from her. I honestly wouldn’t have expected to see Amanza of all people on her heels like this, but she’s been testing boundaries all season, getting away with playing both sides of every feud — not to mention her habit of muttering nasty things about people during group dinners. It was bound to blow up in her face eventually, and now she’s on the outs with Chrishell of all people.

It’s a big problem because Amanza is the glue that holds them all together emotionally, and now Chrishell is unstuck. “I’m an independent contractor at a real-estate company,” she tells Mary in a moment of clarity about what she actually owes Jason. Chrishell doesn’t want the public to see the side of her that comes out during a drunken fight at dinner any more than Bre wants her old bottle-service cohorts showing up, even if it’s good for Jason, even if it’s good for the show. These women may live in a world of extreme wealth, but they do not have the luxury of making a mistake.

Unlisted Observations

• Chelsea refers to Jason as “probably one of the smartest people I know” just minutes after we watched him accidentally eat raw meat. Gold.

• Speaking of Jason, when Mary says Chrishell is “his girl forever,” ew! EW! Ew.

• “Did I make out with any of the girls?” Cassandra asks at her Villains Lunch with Nicole and Chelsea. She knows how to win me over.

• Bre sold two houses: her $5 million penalty listing and we see her put an offer in for someone on this.

• One of the houses Bre sold, in my opinion, was actually much prettier before the renovation. If ultramodern architecture has one hater, it’s me. If ultramodern architecture has no haters, I am dead.

• These women keep bringing each other huge baskets with blankets in them, and now I’m mad that no one has ever brought me a huge basket with a blanket inside. I’m cold!

• Emma: “Does anyone want to eat my taco?” At least she’s not trying to get herself killed.

• “What is your client willing to come up to?” Is such a great sales tactic. Chelsea is so good at her job, and I love it.