Is that muscle tension in your hamstring, or SEXUAL TENSION? It’s a question we hope that we’ll never be asked, but Binky is having to weigh it up while working out with weird, beardy Will, who can’t quite bring himself to ask her out yet, but is content to position himself between her legs so he can look up her sweaty shorts while she does her crunches. This does not stop Binky from fancying him, or from rushing to drinks with Louise and Alik wearing those selfsame sweaty shorts.
Alik is busying himself with his perfect boyfriend routine, picking up the handbag that Louise has, bizarrely, abandoned right in front of the bar, and then scooting off when little brother Sam announces he’s on his way over for some live action misinterpretation of hip hop tropes. ‘Whaddup!’ cries Sam. (OF COURSE he does.) ‘Not the best news. I heard from Jamie that Alik hooked up with some girl at a club,’ he reveals, as sympathetically as he knows how - which is in the manner of a ageing golf course stalwart telling a new member he’s got some dog shit on his plus fours. He may be lacking in feeling but Lou sees him and raises him. Alik got a weird text from a girl. It all fits. She’s a Muppet of pure emotion. Distress corrodes her face like hot tea on a Chocolate Hob Nob. Oh, dear.
Rosie, now racy, is posing in leathers and plotting the purchase of a Vespa. Proudlock is potentially interested in a ‘sick’ camo number, probably with a matching scrunchie, and talks about his wish to ‘move the bromance forward’ and get a ‘crib’ with Stevie. ‘Portabello Road, beaut roof terraces, new crib, new times,’ bleats Pruders. I suspect Stevie is about to find out what dub music is.
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The other bois are not feeling The Emancipation Of Stevie. ‘He’s still cruising around in boat shoes,’ bitches Andy, while Lucy reveals that he’s thinking of getting a Bowery Boys tattoo. ‘That’s like me getting the tube map on my back!’ howls Spencer, forgetting he will never visit 80 per cent of the places served by Transport For London. Lucy bangs on about her non relationship, and Biscuits, the incumbent housemate, is horrified by Proudlock’s plans. ‘I’m not going to be left alone, I can’t sleep with the light off let alone by myself in the house!’ he cries. Ladies and gentlemen, Jamie ‘Biscuits’ Laing, bachelor and businessman.
Mark Francis, presumably hoping he can turn Victoria into some sort of timeshare, has invited George the sexy polo man for dinner. Victoria and George list sports at each other. ‘What’s your modus operandi?’ she asks, coolly. ‘What’s a modusop?’ rejoins a baffled George. Oh, come on, Victoria! Intellectualism is overrated! Don’t explain that to George though, it might take a while.
That queasy threesome is followed by another, as Stevie is forced to chaperone Proudlock’s ping pong game with Lucy. ‘Are you going to hook up tonight?’ asks Stevie, who may well have brought his binoculars along. Proudlock admits he’d be jealous if Lucy slept with someone. Unless, we suspect, it was his apprentice, Stevie.
We discover that Alik pronounces Japan’s national beverage ‘sucky’ and he’s furious about the ‘horse shit’ cheating rumours. ‘The fact you think this happened is obnoxious to me.’ He soon wises up to the fact that shouting at Louise is not on, and he turns up at Candy Kittens to shout at Biscuits. Biscuits explains that he had to tell Sam, because Sam is his ‘pro-di-jay’ It’s prodigy, or protege, Biscuits. PICK ONE.
Will and Lonan are at golf, wearing weird t shirts that can’t be sold in shops, but I suspect are given to people who are able to prove that they’re really, really into surfing, and wolves. ‘Once you get in the friend zone I can’t help you [with Binky] because I’ve never been there,’ intones Lonan, his voice sounding like the vacuum that his personality exists in. Sorry Lonan, I have a weird medical condition where the phrase ‘friend zone’ triggers a reaction in which I attack the person who said it with a Cleveland Head driver. How unfortunate.
Lucy gets her hair did, red to match Rosie’s scooter gear, and bumps into Andy, who likes her highlights and tells her Proudlock is hooking up with other people - after Lucy hooked up with him on the Stevie date. Alik and Louise make it up, and move on - so it must be time for a pardy.
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Now to a hall in Hampshire, where Spenny is wearing a waistcoat and an orange hat, and looking like a character in a Werner Herzog film who has fallen upon hard times and been clothed by sympathetic villagers. Sophie calls him a pig, in German. ‘But I love pigs, in a very positive way.’ Binky does better - she looks fit as all get out in a beautiful blue maxi dress, and Will manages to ask her out, with all the grace and finesse of a man who is determined to force a poo because he hasn’t been in four days. Andy, having not done enough damage, confirms to Lucy that Proudlock doesn’t like her enough to be her boyfriend, and Lucy goes home.
Toff and Tiff bond over their weird voices, near identical names and lack of lines and screen time. Sam desperately tries to crack onto them both while wearing an outfit that makes him look like he’s plugging a Gay Exchange Christmas deal. Biscuits tells Louise he’s still not sure about Alik, Louise politely tells him to bog off, and then Biscuits goes to harangue Proudlock about the hooking up and house situations. ‘Are you actually kidding me?’ says Proudlock. We don’t mind. When he’s saying that, he’s not saying crib.
Hero of the week
Let’s give this to Lucy, who needs some serious cheering up over the Proudlock sitch. She’s being honest and unusually open, and she’s got lovely new hair. Lucy shows us all that there are good and bad bits about sleeping with your friends, and her adventures comfort us all. Living in a swank bit of London and owning a really great collection of fine gauge knitwear protects no-one from heartbreak.
Villain of the week
Proudlock is an example of that thinking I CBA to Google, where evil flourishes when good men do nothing. Being chill, letting things happen, and using the word ‘crib’ may make you a laid back dude. It also makes you romantically irresponsible, feckless with friendship and overly influential in matters of chest baring and head gear. Sometimes Proudlock makes me feel like the Beatles made high court judges feel in 1964.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.