Winter House Recap: It’s About Tom(s)

I thought there wasn’t anything on this show that I could possibly hate more than I hate Austen Kroll, a bootleg Swingers DVD where all the footage was filmed in the theater in human form. Well, I’m sad to say that I was surprised to find out that there is something I hate more, and it’s Tom Sandoval’s mustache. Sandoval and facial hair are not a good match. It’s either some unsightly ’90s-throwback goatee or it’s the kind of mustache that some old Hollywood legend who was exonerated of multiple rape charges would wear as a pirate. Tom should not be trusted at all around accessories (e.g., his confessional bolo tie that looks like it was made from the skull of the last person to play the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and his kilt over the snowsuit that he can’t figure out how to pee over), and it seems like those accessories include the ones that sprout from the overeager follicles on his face hole.

But back to Austen — the show opens with him asking for absolution for his sins and then he makes everyone go around the table and apologize for something that they have done to someone else in the group. Jessica apologizes for always calling Kory “Craig.” Rachel apologizes for ripping Kory’s shirt, but she really wanted it to be a half-shirt so she could see those eight-minute abs. Craig is sorry that he yelled at his “buddy Luke.” BEEEEEPPPPP. That is the Winter House lie detector, and it just went off. Sorry, Craigy. Paige then tries to get Craig to apologize for something, anything, and he can’t think of one thing. Craig then tells us that Paige is “classy and elegant on the streets, but my freak in the sheets.” Um, Paige better be excellent in bed. After all, it’s where she spends practically all of her time.

After the saints-and-sinners dinner, Austen, still in his pope outfit like he’s about to consecrate a new Capri Room at a Buca di Beppo in Montpelier, sits down to talk to Ciara about everything that happened the past summer. He tells her about how he went to the Hamptons last summer “drunk and single” and he’s sorry about what happened. BEEEPPP. Oh, sorry, Austen. Someone forgot to switch off the Winter House lie detector. Austen says about his time this summer, “That is not the person I am.” BEEEPPP. “That’s not the person I want to be.” BEEEEEEEEPPP. “That’s not the person I need to be to this group of friends.” BEEEEEEPPPP. Ciara then says that Austen isn’t the asshole that people think he is, which is contrasted beautifully with a shot of him pissing out the back door of the house into the snow. Oh, sorry. No beep. The Winter House lie detector has been worked to death.

The next morning everyone wakes up, and the house is in quite a state. It’s worse than Ciara’s bed dressed up as the Pacific Garbage Patch for Halloween. There are empty Loverboy cans everywhere. The sink is literally clogged with dishes. There are so many plates and half-eaten sandwiches just left lying around the house, it’s like the Rapture hit mid-meal. And this is what it looks like when the Toms Schwartz and Sandoval arrive. Can you imagine this is your first impression not only of a house but also of a group of people? I would walk through that front door, survey the wreckage, say, “Uh-uh,” and turn around and get right back in the Uber I rode in on.

The first thing the new arrivals do — well, the second thing, after Sandoval both strums a guitar and plays James Madison’s crystal bugle — is play some backyard Olympic drinking games that the guys have dubbed “ARTIC GAMES,” and you know this because they used all the soot from Luke’s latest fire to spell it out in the middle of the backyard so that even the drones could get footage of it.

This is the kind of shit that I really love on one of these shows. It’s our favorite drunken goofballs putting all of their differences aside and just having a blast. They do their version of biathlon where they have to chug a beer (or Loverboy), run down a hill, and then hit a pail hanging from a tree with a snowball. Then they have to sled down a hill to a table full of drinks, chug one of the drinks, and then do a flip cup on the table. The problem is, Paige headbutts the folding table and sends all of the drinks skittering like the load of change in Craig’s pocket whenever he takes off his too-tight jeans. The final game is some kind of capture the flag. I can’t tell what’s happening because Craig falls on a “rock” and hurts his knee and everyone is like, “Stop being a baby,” including an actual baby who lives next door.

When they get back inside, Sandoval decides to start cleaning, hoping it will inspire others to clean, and the plan seems to work. Look, everyone is cleaning. Oh, not Craig. Oh, not Paige. Oh, not Ciara. Oh, not Amanda, who is like, “Tomorrow can we hire someone to clean the house while we’re out?” You think a professional can take this on in an afternoon? Oh, honey. This place needs to be power-washed, disinfected, saged, exorcized, and then fumigated. That is going to take weeks.

So the losing team in the Artic Games is supposed to do naked snow angels in the backyard, but only the boys do it and they’re not naked; they’re in their boxers. Then all of the boys decide to strip down and get into the hot tub to reverse the shrinkage. Why does this look exactly like every summer I spent in Fire Island? There is even one dude with decorative muscles wearing pearls talking about the three-ways he’s had. Then Austen and Craig say they turned down group sex because they didn’t want to see each other hooking up, and, well, they are all making this way too easy for me, and also, I have had this exact same conversation in the exact same setting, which means all of these boys are now middle-age homosexuals. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

When the crew goes out that night, we start to see two relationships crumbling and two relationships possibly flourishing. The first crumble is a continuation of what we’ve seen happen in slow motion for the past few episodes. As much as Paige says she loves spending time with Craig, she’s also really frustrated because he’s acting like such an asshole and Paige doesn’t want to be associated with it. She feels shame when he gets into his fights and scrapes, but he gets over it way faster than she does. She is saying this all to Amanda, who is savoring this like it is the last Dum-Dum in her Halloween candy sack. Amanda is thinking, Bitch, I told you. I told you and you didn’t listen. Paige says it’s so bad she wants to go home, but I think she is just hung-over and needs some D — that is, if Craig can keep his blood-alcohol level low enough to function by the time they hit the sack.

The other couple we hear about is Tom Schwartz and Katie Just Malone Now, Thank You Very Much. If you’re wondering about the timeline, the show flashes March 3 on the screen for the date of the Tom’s arrival. The pair announced their split less than two weeks later. Tom isn’t telling anyone what is going on with them but saying that he has been very stressed-out and wasn’t the partner to her that he should have been. He tells us in confessional that Katie already sat him down and told him it was over, so now he’s lumbering around New England keeping this awful secret. Um, Tom. Just tell them all you broke up and avail yourself of some of the single ladies in this house already. Nothing will help you get over the meanest person on television like getting underneath another mean person on television.

The relationship that is forming is between Jason and Rachel, and I love it to the very, very depths of my soul. Rachel says that she is feeling attracted to Jason, who is not only caring and considerate but also has a set of abs that will do all the laundry for you, but she doesn’t know if she’s settling. Um, for the highest-quality man in this house? No, sister, you are not settling. She says she wishes he were a bit more aggressive, since all the girls in the house tell her that he likes her. When they return from the bar, they’re sitting in front of the fireplace and Jason has his arm around her and is kissing her head. She says, “I’m going to bed,” grabs his face, plants a kiss on him, and then retires to her room. That, ladies and gentlegays, is how you get a man interested in you.

Meanwhile, the exact opposite thing is happening with Kory and Jessica. Kory says that he grew up with all sisters and female cousins and he knows the way to get women is to do the opposite of what Luke and Jason are doing. Yes, that means not letting on at all that he likes someone. Okay, I would like to clarify this stance. That only works if you look like Kory. I have a friend with a ten-inch wonder and washboard abs and he’s always telling me, “Yeah, when you ignore guys on Grindr, they want you more.” Then I show up with a bad bod and an eggplant that permanently looks like I just did a naked snow angel and when I ignore all the boys … it’s just crickets. Yeah, if you’re hot the girls might come, but dumpy people just waiting around for sexy folks to notice them, well, that’s how we end up with incels.

Anyway, the strategy is working on Jess, who is not used to guys not wanting her and isn’t quite sure how to operate around Kory. They’re snuggling on the couch and she tells him that they have to wait to fuck. “I don’t want to fuck you,” he says, just obliterating her worldview and also negging her right into his bed. It would be absolutely disgusting if it weren’t so effective. Ugh, why do guys like that always get the girls? I want sweet, sweet Jason to be just as happy by doing things the nice, romantic way.

And nothing is as nice and romantic as Amanda always telling Kyle about her poops and wiping her boogers on his sleeve in bed. Also super-romantic is Kory telling the boys he denied Jess sex the next day. He spreads this gossip while they’re all skiing at a place called Smugglers’ Notch, which is what the founders of the American colonies used to call the taint, just FYI.

But the real romance, as always, was happening between Tom and Tom, who are sharing a bed in the basement in the same room as Luke. After a long day of partying and playing games in the snow, they got under their rust-colored comforter and Sandoval put on an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic so that they could fall asleep to it. As soon as they started to hear Luke snoring contentedly, Sandoval closed the laptop suggestively, put it on the floor next to the bed, and then rolled back over to put his hand squarely in the warm spot between Schwartz’s thighs. They brought their bodies closer and started kissing, their hands still under the covers, fumbling with undergarments but mostly happy at rest, happy to be together, happy to be enjoying the enduring hardness before whatever might happen in this bed together.

“It’s finally happening, everything we wanted,” Sandoval said as he embraced his lover closer and moaned in his ear. Schwartz was nervous, not sure if he was ready to share this with everyone quite yet, like he wanted to protect it from the world so that only they can admire it, like a beautiful bird still sitting on its perch even after the cage door has been opened. As they continued to grind their bodies against each other, Luke stirred to consciousness.

“You guys all right over there?” he asked as he rolled over in their direction. Schwartz thought for a minute about asking him if he wanted to get in on this, but then he remembered their chat in the hot tub. “Yeah. We’re good. Everything’s fine just the way we are.”