House of Stassi S1E4

Kia ora, hello and welcome to Anyway! The blog where I unpack the chaos of reality TV. Today we’re watching a staycation descent into madness. Let’s get into House of Stassi Episode 4.

Stassi tells us they’re halfway through filming, but she’s unimpressed by the drama these people are bringing to her show. Stassi knows good TV, and sweeping shit under the rug ain’t gonna cut it. She tells us she’s going to do the right thing to get the show back on track and lock them all in a house for the weekend and ply them with rosé. It’s the only way to resolve drama on reality TV. DUH.

Cut to a scene of Beau and Stassi trying to feed their children dinner. Hartford doesn’t want dinner. She wants candy. They’re all, ‘candy is not a dinner food,’ and Hartford cries and says, ‘you never give me candy.’ Which I feel we can safely say is not true. I love the way that kids never remember anything. The short term memory loss of a child is astounding. You could’ve given them buckets of candy the day before and the next day? It never happened. IT NEVER HAPPENED MUM, WHY DO YOU HATE ME? Give. me. Candy. Anyway, Messer tells them all that he sees people. He sees people in the park. And because Stassi has an inclination to all things spooky, she’s all, ‘DO DO DO DOOO DOO DO DOOOO DOOOO’ in her head. Turns out he just sees seagulls and she can’t understand him. He’s got a look on his face that’s like, ‘wow mum, first the candy, now this? What are we doing here?’

Stassi is now trying to gaslight us into thinking that reality TV has made her relationship better. She says, ‘I believe reality TV solves more problems than it creates.’ I guess I can’t really say for sure that’s not true, considering I’ve never been on it myself. Buuuuut given how much of it I’ve consumed, I’d like to say that statement is unequivocally wrong. Stassi stands strong in her sentiment saying, ‘fuck your therapists.’ She will choose messy TV drama over therapy, THANK YOU.

Beau is telling Georgia that the food they cooked for the dinner party was really good. He says, ‘I really appreciated it, but then when I got the receipt, $684.’ If the $684 was just for the food, that is a lot. It did look good though, and Georgi did make an excessive amount of charcuterie boards. But these people seem like they drink a fair bit, no judgment, so maybe that included booze? Although if it was $684 for food AND booze for like 10 people, that actually doesn’t seem like much at all. I don’t know. Who cares?

We find out that Georgi is at lesbian night. She’s probably telling some poor lady about how Stassi ripped off her Barbies’ heads and ate them when they were children. Beau wonders why Georgia isn’t at lesbian night. She’s all, ‘uhhhh I’m into dudes?’ Beau rightly points out, ‘that’s exactly what Taylor thought and look at her now.’ And it’s at this point that I think, ‘maybe we’re all late in life lesbians who just haven’t found our Teddy yet?’ Who knows, you know? Anyway, over at lesbian night, the smell of fresh lesbian love is in the air and Taylor can’t get enough of it. Georgi tells us that she’s not new to being bi, but she is new to LA. She wants to meet girls who are not judgemental, not mean and not her sister. A phrase which I feel like Freud would have a field day with. How about just don’t bring up your sister in a potential romantic setting? Kiiiiinda weird.

Taylor tells Teddy and Georgi that Katie has been talking shit about them being on Stassi’s payroll, which, let’s be honest, they are. Taylor is pissed and about ready to fly off the handle at Katie. Katie is oblivious to this. She thinks everything is sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. She’s all, ‘there’s been zero drama and honestly this show is going to be boring AF.’ Katie arrives at lesbian night with her podcast co-host Dayna. Pretty much as soon as Katie arrives, Taylor runs up to her and instead of flying off the handle, she’s like, ‘OMG hiiiiiiii,’ like they’re best friends who haven’t seen each other for weeks. Way to stick to your guns, Taylor. Taylor can’t resist Katie’s puppy dog eyes and wonders whether she’s sending her the wrong message. Uhhh yeah, I would say yes.

Katie tells us that Georgi needs to expand her horizons by expanding her friend group. She needs to make friends so that she’s not constantly focused on Stassi. I couldn’t agree more. Katie wants her to spread her wings, and her legs. Georgi talks to a woman named Blair, the tall one with the septum piercing, that she wants to climb like a tree. And I have to go on a little tangent about the name Blair. Because in New Zealand, we say Blair, like rhymes with flair. But when I see them saying it on McBee Dynasty, they say it like ‘blerghhh’. Almost like they’re dry wrenching ‘BLEERRGGHHHH’.

I’d also like to point out that I’m not a fan of the McBee’s. I actually can not stand the fact that they are still on Bravo, yet the Ladies of London has been put on pause. Which is a conversation for another day. I guess you could say I hate watch McBee Dynasty. I hate watch it and I’m rooting for Gylina, Steve McBee Sr’s scorned ex girlfriend, to burn the whole place down. Anywho, all of that to say that it’s a pretty unfortunate pronunciation of someone’s name. Poor little Blair is going to grow up thinking everyone calling out to her is on the verge of vomiting.

Taylor confronts Katie about the payroll situation. Katie basically says she’s been misquoted. She did not say all Stassi’s friends are on her payroll. From memory, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what she said. She said something like, ‘everyone around you has either come out of you, is married to you or is on your payroll.’ But to be completely honest, even if she did say ‘all your friends are on your payroll’, where’s the lie? Katie included, because you’re all now on a show that Stassi is the Executive Producer of. Sooooooo, facts are facts. Katie is kind of bamboozled as to why Taylor and Kristina feel some type of way about her. Taylor says, ‘it feels like you’re trying to take my spot,’ which is kind of gross and also a bit desperate. Katie is correct in saying Taylor saying these things to her and questioning her motives now, in turn, makes Katie question Taylor’s motives. What spot is Taylor referring to, being Stassi’s best friend? I’m a little confused myself. And I’m annoyed that Katie now doesn’t want to be on the show because without her, I fear I will be subjected to more of Georgi’s thoughts and feelings regarding Stassi. We need Katie for the greater good.

Anyway, moving on. Stassi is meeting with Chrishell from Selling Sunset. Chrishell is here to show Stassi the mansion that they will be renting for their staycation weekend, AKA the house she wants to lock everyone in while she stirs the pot, so they will have more interesting drama for the show. They sit down and discuss how much a shit show it is to be on Reality TV. Stassi compares it to a tornado and likens it to the 1996 movie Twister, with her being Helen Hunt. She says, ‘they look so beautiful and majestic, but the wind is out of control.’ She also tells Chrishell that though she enjoyed her time on Vanderpump Rules, it was hell, even though she basically just told us that Reality TV is improving her relationship and solves problems overall. Ultimately, I get the vibe that Stassi sees being on a reality show as a double edged sword. You need to be in a constant state of drama to entertain the people, but it’s financially rewarding and you get to re-live good times in your life.

Over at Stassi’s house, Beau and Georgia are making Limoncino, which I can only assume is the same as Limoncello. I fucking love Limoncello. Like, an alcoholic drink that tastes like lemon curd? Yes please, sign me up. Beau wants to wash the chemicals off the lemons with… more chemicals. He’s fully reminding me of Adrienne Maloof, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, when she went to wash a chicken with soap, when Lisa Vanderpump was teaching her how to roast a chicken. A scene I think about way too often.

Also, roasting a chicken is one of the most basic things you could cook. Is there any real learning involved there? You turn the oven on, season the chicken, preferably not with soap, stick it in a bag and chuck it in. If you’ve made it to the age of 50 and you don’t know how to roast a chicken, I would say, just don’t even bother at that point. Clearly you’re doing well enough that you can just get your fancy ass, professional private chef to cook for you. Remember when Lisa had beef with Adrienne’s chef? Something about him leaking stories to the media about Lisa. His job must not have been that demanding if he had all that time on his hands to make up stories about a real housewife. What a wild time to be alive that was.

Anyway, this isn’t House of Maloof. Where were we? Oh yeah, Beau and Georgia are making Limoncino. Limoncello if you’re nasty. They’re discussing the state of Beau and Stassi’s relationship. He feels connected but fears the worst about their impending staycation trip. Beau is wearing one of those designer T-shirts that has a funny saying on it or whatever. It’s a Gucci rip off that says Gnocchi. And I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

We see Stassi meeting up with Katie at a bar. They’re discussing the reason for the staycation. Stassi says she wants to do her thing, drink what she wants, eat what she wants and say what she wants. I don’t think she needs a staycation to do any of those things, but I’m totally here for it. She continues: filming has been tough on everyone and… she needs a break from her kids. Katie says, ‘you know what? fuck those kids.’ Stassi reiterates, ‘fuck those kids!’ Stassi tells us that she regrets saying that to this day. She probably wakes up at 3am in a cold sweat thinking about it because she said it on camera and they’ll probably see it one day. But you know what? Sometimes, fuck those kids. We all deserve time to ourselves to recharge and remember who the hell we are without a tiny human hanging off of us.

They move on to discussing lesbian night. Stassi wants to know if she can say ‘lesbo night’. In her testimonial, she calls Taylor to ask whether straight girls can say ‘lesbo’. I wasn’t aware Taylor was the be all and end all of everything lesbian, but here we are. Katie tells Stassi about Taylor confronting her about the payroll situation. Stassi says that she did not anticipate any fallout or drama coming from her telling Kristina, who in turn told Taylor, who then bitched out Katie. Given we’ve seen Stassi try to conjure up drama for the past 3 episodes, I would say that she did indeed have an inkling that this could happen. Katie wants to know why Kristina is even involving herself, because to Katie’s knowledge, her and Kristina are still cool, I guess? Probably because the only reason Kristina is upset with Katie is because she wouldn’t shut the hell up about Rob in Italy, which again, is a piss poor excuse to be upset with someone. Katie is upset because she feels like no one wants her on the show. Stassi tells her she is wanted. She wouldn’t have asked you to be here otherwise, Katie! Stassi wants Katie to suck it the fuck up and clear the air with Kristina. Katie says to Stassi it’s not her problem, and Stassi basically responds with, ‘well, now you’re on my show, and my payroll. I’m telling you to clear the air with Kristina.’ Touché Stassi.

Later on we see Stassi and Beau arrive at the staycation mansion. Beau is trying to manifest good times. He’s invoking the book from the early 2000s called The Secret, which is all about the pseudo-scientific law of attraction. He’s saying it all out loud and waiting for it to happen. There’s a part where he says, ‘what was that thing that Oprah did?’ Which makes me wonder, does Beau think that Oprah wrote The Secret? I guess we’ll never know. Clearly she did not. I don’t know who did write The Secret. I’ve never read it. I’m not really into the culty vibes of manifestation. I do believe positive affirmations and a positive mindset ultimately brings about good things. Positivity begets positivity and all that. But I’m not really into the ‘Amanda Frances school to get rich quick scheme’ of it all. Maybe I would be if it actually worked and people didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars they don’t have trying to get there. Maybe that’s my problem. I’m just not thinking positively to the point of delusion.

Anyway, everyone else is arriving. Annnnd everyone up under this roof thinks that Rob and Georgi are fucking. Taylor is trying to get three big ass suitcases up the stairs to the front door. She’s not letting Teddy help because obviously she’s pregnant. What the hell do they have in those suitcases for only two nights? I remember packing for a trip when my daughter was about 2 months old. That was just over the hill, about two hours away. The amount of things we took on that short trip was astronomical because when you have a new baby, you need a lot of shit. But never do I remember packing anywhere near the same amount when I was pregnant. I don’t know. Maybe lesbians need more stuff than the average person when staying in a big fuck off mansion, not that far from where they actually live. Who knows! Taylor also shows us that she has incredible timing because when she’s trying to carry these huge suitcases up to the house via the garden path, the sprinklers come on. Everyone is figuring out their room situation. Stassi tells Georgi that she still has to share with Georgia and not to get too excited.

While I am definitely not on Georgi’s side, I would like to point out that it’s pretty fucked up Georgi has to share with Georgia. Meanwhile, Rob basically has the entire ground level to himself. He likens it to an apartment, which is probably what he lives in every day. If anything, why doesn’t he have to share? Again, it probably comes down to a matter of who paid for the accommodation. But I would assume it was production. I know Stassi implied earlier that she had paid for it, but I kind of doubt that’s the case, considering Chrishell came on the show to walk her around it. Am I making sense?

Stassi and Beau are discussing the Georgi and Rob banging situation. Stassi tells him that everyone gets the sense that they for sure are. I also get that sense, given Rob said it on camera, although I’m still unsure whether that was a joke or not. The problem is, we’re watching a show where people are actively manufacturing drama. Therefore it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake. Beau is disengaging from the dialogue. He doesn’t want to think about them fucking, which is fair enough. He’s planning on settling down with a nice glass of montepulciano and reading The Secret. You know what they say, Beau, when we make plans, God laughs, and I’m sure your wife does too. Stassi decides she will confront them at dinner, and in her testimonial, while discussing the matter, all the lights cut out, which seems like a bad omen. Kristina Kelly shows up sans suitcases. I guess she doesn’t follow the mantra of ‘fuck those kids’ because it would seem she’s not staying. She’s not staying and she’s going to avoid Katie like the plague. Katie tells us that she’s waiting for Kristina to come and talk to her about the situation. Soooo I guess we won’t be seeing that conversation anytime soon, even though their boss has made it a requirement for them to complete before the season is through.

The people sit down for dinner. The first meal up is goat cheese balls. Stassi tells us that the infamous goat cheese balls from SUR are crap now. They’ve changed the recipe, I guess, and Stassi wants to tell everyone tagging her in their social media about the balls that they can shut the fuck up because they are not the balls she remembers! And now I’m thinking about Danny Pellegrino talking about how horrific the spicy salmon nachos look on SUR’s Instagram. I have to say, I went and looked at the photo and they do look fucking disgusting. I’ve also never in my life heard of salmon nachos. It would seem the food is less than appealing, but I’m sure that’s not why people visit SUR. They go to smoke cigs out the back by the purple wall and dumpster. OBVIOUSLY.

Anyway, Stassi wants to talk about the baby moon that’s happening tomorrow. She says there will be a caviar and chicken nugget bar. Can pregnant women eat caviar? I have no idea. Seems like an expensive food item to have if one of the main guests can’t eat it. Taylor and Teddy will also be getting their very own man-servant. Taylor is wondering where the hell this man-servant was when she was lugging the bags up while being doused with sprinkler water. Stassi also wants to get on the Ouija board to find out the baby’s name. Is that how Ouija boards work? Can they predict the future? Here I was thinking all they did was enable demons to possess teenage girls and make their heads spin around and vomit everywhere. Veeeeery interesting.

Kristina Kelly tells Beau she hasn’t seen the 1996 movie The Birdcage starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Calista Flockhart. Beau is completely outraged by this, and I would say rightly so. The Birdcage is an amazing movie. Does it surprise me that Kristina Kelly has not seen it? No, not one bit. But it should be required viewing for everyone, honestly. Also, 1996, what a time for movies, huh? Twister, The Birdcage, Independence Day, Mars Attacks! Scream!!! I mean, hello! I’m feelin’ a little woozy here.

I digress. Kristina is talking about her kid and Rob says, ‘I love kids.’ She asks whether he wants to have them. He says, ‘yeah, hopefully soon. I thought I was having them a couple of months ago.’ Which is a record scratch for everyone around the table. He delves into a story about a girlfriend he had for a few months and they thought she was pregnant. Stassi is all, ‘wait, what the fuck are you talking about?’ Beau is also perplexed about the situation. But if we’re to believe what we’ve been told on this show, Beau and Rob haven’t spoken in 9 months. So I’m not sure how he would know anything about it. Apparently Rob bought a book about parenting in preparation for this baby. Annnd her parents were excited about it? This was all before it was actually confirmed that the girlfriend was pregnant, which is kind of crazy. Rob says her family had a history of pregnancy tests showing up negative and then low and behold, when they went to the doctor they were. To which I say, book a doctor’s appointment. It’s actually pretty easy to find out if you are indeed pregnant or not. Everyone thinks Rob is lying.

Everyone except Georgi, because Georgi has heard this story and has been keeping it a secret. Stassi thinks it’s wild how Georgi can keep Rob’s secrets but not hers. She now wants to get everything out on the dinner table and asks Rob and Georgi if they have ever hooked up. They’re all, ‘never, no, no way, not ever in our lives have we ever never thought about it.’ They get pretty defensive, and Georgi wants to know why Stassi would even think that. Cut to a montage of them flirty etc on camera. Perhaps it’s a showmance situation? Georgi wants to know why Stassi cares so much. Just when I start to feel myself aligning with Georgi’s thinking, like, why does Stassi care and it really is none of her business, Stassi tells us that she’s always cleaning up Georgi’s messes. She’s fed up with the BS. While I understand Stassi’s frustration with her sister, she doesn’t need to insert herself into Georgi’s BS. She could let her clean up her own messes, right? And if she’s doing it to try and help her sister out and be kind, would she really be bringing it up all the time? Something to consider.

Stassi thinks that Georgi and Rob talk shit about her and Beau and then bang it out, which would be weird and gross, but also I could see them doing that. Much like any good reality TV dinner, this one descends into complete chaos. It ends up with two grown men fighting like children over spicy rigatoni, and honestly, it seems extremely performative. Once again Beau is calling Rob a manchild, and Rob is annoyed that Beau thinks he’s an adult because he has a wife and children. I agree with Beau. This is a stupid fucking conversation, and I’m finding it hard to invest my time into it because they’re big old babies. 50 year old babies. Giant man toddlers. The women around the table are all looking at each other and trying not to laugh because they’re fighting about a 50 year old man dating 22 year old girls, which I’m sure is more common than not in LA.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

Thanks for reading!
See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.