Selling Sunset
Too Far Gone / One Less Agent, One New Boyfriend
Season 9
Episodes 3 – 4
Editor’s Rating
Photo: Netflix
Chrishell has won. Sort of. Nicole has been fired and replaced with a puppy named Jet, who thinks he’s a cat. This is fine for a TikTok hype house, but this is a reality-television show with ten episodes to fill. We need conflict! Luckily, we now have Blake, Emma’s former client turned former boyfriend turned current boyfriend. His father “was part of inventing microwave popcorn” — I don’t know which part, maybe the bag? — and also made some great real-estate investments. “Blake is very rich. I’m pretty sure he’s very, very rich, actually,” Chelsea informs us. She also describes him as “a joker” and “pleasant,” which seems unlikely since Chrishell hates this man so much that Emma is afraid to tell her they’re back together. Personally, I’d much rather scream at Nicole over dinner than deal with a failson in sweatpants dating my best friend, but we’ll get to Blake in a moment.
The fallout from Girlsgiving is that Chrishell announces she will no longer be in the same room as Nicole. She has said that before, but this time, I guess, she really means it. She says it to Amanza in the house with the secret door made of frozen walnut, she says it to Jason while he’s dressed like a 1920s gangster, and she is firmly decided. Now, the supposed owners of this company must decide: Chrishell or Nicole. Gee, I wonder who they will pick.
Mary, who claims Nicole is one of her “oldest and dearest friends,” meets up with her at Queen Violet and attempts … something. It’s not clear what Mary’s goal is here, since Nicole still doesn’t really believe she’s done anything meaner than what Chrishell has done to her. This whole thing feels like too-little-too-late on Mary’s part. There may never have been a chance to save this woman from her ultimate fate, but does it strike anyone else as odd that this is Mary’s second bestie to be booted from the show for being mean to Chrishell and Emma? First Christine, now Nicole. This is also the second time Mary has claimed to be completely surprised by a close friend’s behavior, something even Nicole seems confused about just before she decides to leave, with a full plate of egg rolls untouched (sad!). Either Mary doesn’t actually know any of her friends very well at all or she’s playing dumb. As time wears on, I’m more inclined to believe the latter.
I found it interesting that, during the tennis scene with Bre and Jess, Mary fully misquotes what Nicole said at Girlsgiving. If you play the tape back, what Nicole said was “You’re confusing me with your parents, you seem to be obsessed with drugs.” This is important because later, when defending herself, she insists she was trying to make a point that had nothing to do with Chrishell’s parents being alive or dead. (Nicole has the compartmentalization skills of a serial killer.) Mary, however, recounts the comment to Bre as “I think you’re confusing me with your DEAD parents,” somehow making an already callous comment sound even nastier. Maybe it was a mistake, but again, Mary is quoting the woman who officiated at her wedding. Doesn’t that mean … anything?
With Nicole out, we now have room for some different problems, none of which have to do with selling houses, thank heavens. Emma hosts a party at Mel’s Drive-In to celebrate her vegan empanadas being added to the menu, and almost everyone is there. Nicole doesn’t come, obviously, and Bre is apparently exempt from this whole “everyone has to learn to be in the same room” mandate. But Chelsea arrives and promptly snubs Mary, reigniting their beef over last season’s pants-gate. Ultimately, Mary is far too excited about roller-skating to start a fight there and then. (Full disclosure: Emma invited me to this event when I interviewed her last year, and if I had known Chelsea would be there with her boobs out, asking Jason, “What are you dressed as, the Hobbit?” I would’ve maxed out my credit card on a flight to Los Angeles for it.) Anyway, it’s nice Emma’s professional life is going so well, because her love life is a mess.
Now, let’s talk about Blake. First of all, I hope Blake’s parents are so embarrassed (unless they have passed on, in which case let’s pretend I didn’t mention them and may they rest in blessed peace). If you think I’m being harsh, let me lay this out for you: Emma has admitted to Chrishell that she is seeing Blake again. Chrishell has agreed to give him a second chance. Chrishell, Chelsea, and Emma meet at a chic rooftop eatery for an event that Emma refers to in her talking head as Blake “stopping in for drinks with us,” but in the actual scene at the table, Chelsea says, “If he makes it past this dinner, I guess he’s got the seal of approval.” (Emphasis mine.) They even joke about how they plan to load up the bill since he ought to be paying, and later, Chelsea is shown eating with a fork. All the evidence suggests that this was meant to be a full dinner with Blake, and Emma is trying to cover for him in her talking head after the fact.
The only way to describe Blake is by asking you to imagine a man who has spent his entire life locked in a room with an Xbox, being fed macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers through a hose. He shows up late, he is wearing sweatpants, and, dear reader, when they ask if he’d like to order something to eat since Emma has been waiting for him to order, he announces that he has already eaten Taco Bell. He adds that he’s never eaten a fruit or vegetable in his life, and that when he first met Emma (by sliding into her Instagram DMs repeatedly over the course of a year), he offered to take her to Boston on his private plane because he thought it was on the way to Atlanta. Next time someone tries to insinuate that the “very, very rich” in America work hard or are smarter than the rest of us, think of Blake: a barely literate man who surely has scurvy and yet is wealthier than all of us.
The coup de grâce on all this is that Blake then leaves early, sticking the ladies with the check. He may as well have actually shit his pants. As much as I enjoyed screaming my way through this scene, it also made me deeply sad. Emma has historically had terrible taste in men, and it’s heartbreaking to think this is what she believes she deserves. The one comfort I have is knowing that Chrishell will not stand for this. She got rid of Nicole — one of Jason and Mary’s oldest friends and a successful Realtor — in less than three seasons. Blake will be short work indeed.
• When Nicole does her final walk out of the massive hedge surrounding the office, she just happens to run into a man who asks if she’s on the show. “I was,” she responds. “You’re my wife’s favorite!” replies the man, whom I must assume is lying.
• Jason and Brett already owned those fedoras, right? That has to be what happened here. What really got me were Jason’s fake wire-rimmed glasses. Does he associate wearing glasses with the ’50s?
• C-list Celebrity Sightings: Chrishell shows JoJo Siwa a house where JoJo Siwa should absolutely live; Bre shows Lavar Arrington and his beautiful wife, Trish, the listing she shares with Sweeney (not a barber but surely a demon) on Tanager Way; and Chelsea shows a super-secure mansion to Tyrese Gibson and his gorgeous family, complete with a bulletproof-glass-door panic room for when the revolution comes.
• I have a weird theory that Taylor Swift got early access to these screeners and that this is why she thought it was normal to use the word savage in her lyrics on The Life of a Showgirl. That or she’s secretly friends with Nicole, which does not seem entirely implausible.
• Chelsea tells her weed-magnate client, Asa, “If Steve Jobs had an office, I feel like it would look like this.” Babe, what? Steve Jobs definitely had an office. Are you saying he doesn’t now because he’s dead?
• Alanna Watch: She wore a cute dress to Emma’s party, and that’s about it.
VULTURE NEWSLETTER
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
