Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
After last week’s farcical pheasant dinner, tonight’s Southern Charm features some heavy subject matter. In a shocking turn of events, the cast learns that Olivia’s brother Conner has tragically passed away. It’s one of those sobering episodes of reality television that puts all of the cast’s minor grievances and somewhat manufactured bickering into perspective. That is, until next week’s episode when, according to a preview, everyone starts screaming at each other over nude photos and bro code again.
But before everyone’s hit with this gut-wrenching news, Craig and Paige are still reeling from Shep’s gathering, where Taylor tried to apologize to Olivia for lying about kissing Austen. (I think it’s fair to assume that Taylor and Austen are still lying about not sleeping together, but there’s a .0001 percent chance that I could be wrong.) Madison goes to Craig’s house for a next-morning gossip sesh. And we learn some information about that nude photo Taylor sent Whitney that’s pretty gross. It also reminded me why Bethenny Frankel, in her own messy, self-centered way, is currently doing God’s work with this “reality-TV reckoning” stuff.
Last week, I forgot to mention that Patricia actually saw the NSFW photo Taylor sent to her son and didn’t just hear about it from him. In this episode, Craig and Madison giggle over the fact that they’ve seen the photo, too. It goes without saying (but apparently not for this cast!) that sharing an explicit photo of someone without their consent is gross and wrong. It could also be considered revenge porn under the law. What’s especially concerning about this situation, though, is that Whitney is an executive producer and co-creator on Southern Charm.