We need to tweak Kyle Cooke’s most famous quote: “Summer House should be fun. Kyle and Amanda? Not fun!” For the second episode in a row, the dissolution of Kymanda has been a drain on them, a drain on the house, and a drain on how much fun it is watching the episode. I mean, these two are over each other. Like Labubus in 2026 over. Like post-MAGA Nicki Minaj over. Like six-seven over. Like over over.
It was just one hit after another this whole episode. Kyle is freaking out about Amanda getting in the pool naked, even though there is a long history of them skinny-dipping as a house. Kyle is taking shit about Amanda to the boys right in front of her. Amanda ignores Kyle when he asks where she’s going. Amanda refuses to talk to Kyle about their issues until he brings them up. Kyle brings it up in front of the house, and Amanda gives him crazy looks for it, ignoring his previous apology. Everything is just bad and horrible, and I don’t want to watch it. Bailey, of all people, has the correct read on the situation. She says that they’re in a space where neither can do anything right, and they’re both so frustrated with each other that anything the other does, they get mad about it. “Someone has to concede here,” she says, but no one is conceding; everyone is just sticking to their guns and going down fighting.
As the world’s No. 1 Kyle Cooke defender, it’s hard for me to watch this, but it’s my official stance that there’s damage on both sides of this equation. Is Kyle more at fault? Probably. We’ve seen him misbehave for the better part of a decade now, and when we hear Amanda talk about how he went out and got wasted and passed out at a fan’s house until 6 a.m., it certainly doesn’t make it any better. In Kyle’s meager defense, it’s not like he’s changed. He’s been doing this their whole relationship, and, as Amanda says, she’s been putting up with it. That is clearly done, and justifiably.
There does seem to be a power shift between the two. In the early years, it seemed like Amanda was always trying to cling to her man, a fuckboy who wouldn’t commit, and was willing to make concessions so that she could hang onto her man. That’s why Kyle never took it seriously when Amanda would tell him to drink less and stay at home more, because she always caved. But now she’s more confident, more comfortable with herself, and realizes that she doesn’t want to live this life anymore. She’s also stopped sending him 57 million text messages when he wouldn’t come home at night, which also shows signs of maturity. Now the tables have turned, it’s Kyle who is trying to make concessions and win Amanda back, and she is less interested than a vegan at a steakhouse.
It does seem like Kyle is trying to get his side of the story out, either to explain himself or for a bit of damage control. After the big party on July 4, everyone goes out to Southhampton Social, and Kyle starts talking to the boys about some of his issues with Amanda. According to Kyle, she gets stoned every night, which means they’ve stopped having sex almost entirely. She’s also a slob, and he needed to get his mother-in-law to come into the city and help clean the apartment out. Later, when he goes over to talk to Carl, he also says that Loverboy was in a bit of trouble, he stopped paying himself a salary, and he was doing the DJ gigs (which my reporting says he gets about $10,000 a pop) to help pay the rent, not just to party.
The biggest problem here seems to be that they can’t figure out how to communicate with each other. As Kyle is venting to the boys, Amanda comes over to spy, and everyone shuts up except for KJ, who shakes Kyle’s hand and says, “We’re here for you, man.” Seriously? Right in front of my salad? Amanda immediately knows that something is up and asks Kyle to tell her, but he deflects, and instead of telling her the exact issues, he talks about how she doesn’t seem interested in hanging out with him. Still, he won’t tell her how he really feels or what they were really talking about.
They’re both talking to their friends about the problems in their relationship, but not to each other. Kyle goes to Carl and offloads all the business stuff, and Carl says they’re not on the same page about anything but wants them to get back together. Amanda has lunch with Ciara and Lindsay, and Lindsay shares that Kyle called her and said he felt defeated and alone in their relationship. That’s when Amanda tells them the 6 a.m. pass-out story that we’ve been gagged by since the trailer release. But there’s no resolution and, according to Amanda, they didn’t even talk about what happened the first weekend in the house.
The shift in dynamics is not only about power, but also about how they both feel. How many weekends did we see Amanda say that Kyle ignored her, and she was totally right? Now it’s Kyle who’s saying he’s being ignored, and he’s also right. Who started it? Who is right? Who is wrong? I don’t know that we’ll ever know. I mean, it’s probably Kyle, but we’re not in their relationship, we have no idea truly. It’s all of these things, everything at once, but even when Kyle fucked up before, he never gave up on their relationship. As he tells Carl, he still loves her. But now Amanda has given up. She walked away from the tug of war that was their marriage, and Kyle is lying on his face in the mud pulling on a string that is attached to no one.
It’s affecting everyone else in the house, too, as they’re just trying to have some fun. We’re seeing some little progress on those fronts. Ciara brings her friend Mia, who is gorgeous, tall, and used to work at the Box, where Riley Burruss dropped $14,000 on one night out (that’s almost one and a half Kyle Cooke DJ gigs!) on Next Gen NYC. Bailey is really into Ben, our hot Aussie, but she and Levi both say that he’s confusing because he’s so nice and makes such great eye contact, they can’t tell if he’s flirting or if he’s just like that. Ciara had a great conversation with KJ about how their parents had to keep them safe as Black children in predominantly white areas and how their families are different as children who survived divorce. Ciara is thawing towards West, and getting goats for the party helped, even though one stomped all over Levi’s face.
Ciara, as Amanda’s bestie, is also all up in the Kyle and Amanda drama. When Ciara is late to arrive, Amanda says she misses her. Bailey and Levi say she can hang out with them. She says it’s not the same, they have each other and she’s alone. Kyle is like, “Um. Yo. I’m right here!” But Ciara is approaching Kymanda as if they’re already broken up, as if nothing Kyle can do is good enough, as if it’s beyond saving. We’re not sure what Lindsay said to Kyle, but we do see Carl say that he hopes things can be fixed. Ciara has not gotten that particular memo.
At the end of the episode, everyone sits down to dinner, and Kyle makes a toast and wants to apologize to everyone for dragging them into his drama with Amanda. Ciara makes a comment across the table to Amanda saying, “Is this fucking toast about you?” Yes, it is, and as fucked up as Ciara may think Kyle is or how badly he treats Amanda, couldn’t she wait until he was done trying to do something nice for her to make fun of him? Amanda also starts making a crazy face at poor Kyle and says that he should have apologized to her personally before saying something to the group. He says that he had, but it escalates from there, with Kyle feeling humiliated, like there’s no hope, like no one in the house trusts or understands him. He goes into the house, slamming the door so hard that a painting falls to the ground and takes a potted plant and some pottery along with it. The rest of the night, everyone will be walking around in the kitchen like West says he was last season, on tiptoes. They just don’t know when they’re going to step in it, when they’re going to cut themselves on the shards scattered on the kitchen floor or when they might set off another land mine.
