“Southern Charm” Summary: Sally’s “Fowl Play”

southern charm

bird play

Season 11 Episode 7

Editor’s rating 3 stars ***

Sally finally realizes that Craig isn’t interested in dating her, sending ripples throughout her friend group Photo: Bravo

In this episode, we meet Madison’s dog, Karen. Karen? For dogs? what is she going to do? If I don’t give you a snack, will you call the police? Then there are Austin’s two new cats. One is named Martini (the cat’s name) and the other is Piper (the human’s name). What exactly happens to people with human names and their pets? Shep’s dog is famously named Craig, and Benita has a dog named Charles. Luckily, we have Whitners who know how to name dogs. Bacchus is a very good boy, naturally named after a god. But there’s Sally, who has a dog named Jeff. Jeff! That’s not a dog, that’s a guy hogging pretzels at a dive bar. What does Sally plan to name the chickens? Niki or Donna? (If you get that combination, you’re gay and middle-aged. Hey, Rodrigo.)

Ah, Sally and the chickens. That’s everything that’s wrong with Sally. The man she’s chasing says he thinks she should get chickens, and he’s building a flatpack coop overnight and assembling it in his backyard like a collaboration between Cracker Barrel and Ikea. At the exact moment she is doing so, Craig brings his assistant Jack (who wants Charlie dead to keep Craig to himself) to Charlie’s gallery, throws a small party, and invites her on a date for an afternoon of oysters. Sally tries the hardest, thinking she needs to seduce a man or make some grand gesture to get his attention. If you’re as interested as Charlie, you’ll do your best.

I think the reason I’m so hard on Sally about this is because I’ve been Sally for so long. I never thought I was good enough. I always had to convince men to like me and show them that I was interested, that I would be a good partner, and that I was into all the same things they were into even when I wasn’t. Despite all my efforts, they all still fell in love with my friend Mark. They asked about Mark and tried to spend time with both of us to get closer to Mark, and during that time I thought I had a chance. I thought if I just liked video games, if I bought all the Kylie Minogue records, if I just kept chickens, they’d forget all about Mark and fall in love with me. Tell both Sally and her extra E that it never worked out. (For the record, Mark is currently married, so please don’t ask me about him.)

Things quickly get awkward when Sally and Craig go to pick up Sally’s chickens, Linda and Naomi. Sally said, “I’m just saying I like you. It’s like I could go on a date with you.”

I appreciate Sally going after what she wants, but Craig tells her what we already know. “I don’t know. We’re just friends.” Sally asked why he was in the hot tub until 4 a.m. if she didn’t see him heading down that road. Craig says he thought it might go somewhere, but it didn’t. Hmm. Does it have something to do with when a certain blonde appeared on the scene? I also agree with Craig. I think Sally started fantasizing about a future with him that he didn’t necessarily want, and was building their relationship and affair into something that everyone knew wasn’t going to happen. When Venita, Molly, Rodrigo, and Reva (she wasn’t in the kitchen so I didn’t notice) met and talked about the situation, they all agreed that Craig wasn’t going to go along with it. We also know that Sally was doing this. Because, hello, I was once in Sally and a guy greeted me at a gay bar. And I had already chosen a pattern for China and had him sized for a custom cock ring.

But Craig didn’t get off scot-free. He says he doesn’t think he was leading her. That’s right, when she said she had feelings, he said they were just friends. But everything before that is questionable. Sally is right. His text message telling her he should have stayed the night is totally an invitation to sleep with her. Sally isn’t wrong to think that Craig was sending her positive signals, even if she was reading a little too much into it.

We also have to talk about how Craig and Sally’s rift is affecting the other members and how it seems to be having too much of an impact on the group. While out on boys’ night, Rod tells Craig that Sally thought something was going to happen and that the only reason he was dating Sally was to spend time with Charlie. He thinks that Charlie can’t be herself in front of him, which is why he asked her out on a date. Whenever they try to talk one-on-one, Sally always interrupts. That’s right, Craig. That’s because Sally wants you. Madison says Craig is ignorant, but she’s sorry, but ignorance is no excuse for being insensitive to other people’s feelings.

Craig has a slight dislike for Sally when they talk about her at the bar and she has at least one orange crush. (It’s also the name of the REM song I Lost My Virginity to, which was one of Mark’s ex-boyfriends.) Austin says that Craig disrespects his friendship with Sally, and I think Austin is sensitive to that because he thinks Craig always disrespects their friendship. Craig says Sally’s problem is that she’s confused by the tornado. He’s not wrong. And it seems like that may have caused him to move on from her to Charlie, which is a completely legitimate reaction. When Austin wasn’t excited about Craig and Charlie’s date, Craig left, saying he needed to celebrate his “win” with his friends. Hey, that’s a date that can’t even be called a date. Is it a victory?

While this is happening, the girls are at Madison’s house for a slumber party, and things go bad between Benita and Sally as well. When Madison urges Sally to tell the group about her conversation with Craig, Ventia dances around the group wearing an “I Told You So” hat, blows a whistle, releases small confetti cannons like the ones you buy at Party City, lights a sparkler attached to a champagne bottle, and parades around Madison’s empty living room. But she’s also angry that Sally didn’t call to tell her about it. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. She tells Sally not to call Craig when he dumped her, and furthermore, she can’t be mad at Craig for not calling her when he dumped her.

But Venita says she’s not mad about it, and Sally tells Venita there’s no reason to be mad. In her confessional, Venita states that Sally did not care about her feelings, chose men over herself, and did not listen to her speak. I think this is all accurate. Just like the fight between Craig and Austin isn’t really about Sally, the fight between Benita and Sally isn’t really about Craig either. This is a story about how Sally treats Venita in their friendship, and I think Venita wisely realizes the fact that they’re not as close as she thought, or at least their friendship is a little more conditional than she imagined. Venita then storms off rather than talk to or confront Sally. Poor Benita, no matter what she does, her friends always seem to leave her alone. Why can’t she relax with Whitner?

The most directly affected is Charlie, who dates Craig. I’m worried about how Sally will react when she finds out, because she’s a good person and a good friend, but everyone tells her to stop caring so much about other people, and I think this is good advice. I mean, Mark never cared about how I felt when dating other people. He is now happily married and living in Portugal with his wealthy husband, but still looks 33 years old. Damn Mark.

The way everyone knows isn’t that great. After Craig flies out, Austin, Whitner, and Rodrigo head to Madison’s for the “Pants Raid.” This phrase feels like when people say they don’t like the word “wet,” or when they say they threw up a little in their mouth. Austin tells Sally that Craig called her a tornado that leaves nothing but destruction. I think Austin misunderstands both Craig’s words and their intensity. He’s totally messing with Craig in this moment, so he shouldn’t have let anger and Orange Crush cloud his judgment like that. Sally is of course furious and wants to slap Craig in the face, a tornado that leaves nothing but destruction in her path. Hey, Craig wasn’t wrong. Austin was wrong to repeat.

As Austin talks about Craig and Charlie, Rodrigo says, “Charlie’s about to go on a date, so don’t scare him.” The problem is that no one knows about it yet, and Charlie then has to counter and explain that although he said he didn’t want to date Craig, he changed his mind. Sally said, “Craig has been manipulating both of us, he’s been all summer, and I finally realized it. It will take longer for her to realize it, but she will realize it.” The problem is, he’s not manipulating Charlie. He asks her out because he likes her and she’s going too. That doesn’t seem all that manipulative to me. But I can see how poor it is that Sally feels that way. She sits across Madison’s shoes and blanket and takes a sip of wine. She wisely thinks that once again she is not chosen, that the man who has done everything for her is ignoring her, that no one will ever love her, that people don’t appreciate everything she does, that they just think she’s too much, too chaotic, too tornado-like. She feels the pain of being in second place and just wants someone to put her in the top spot for a change. That’s what she thinks as she looks across the room at her friend and competitor, loving Mark and planning his death at the same time…at Charlie.