‘Southern Charm’ recap: Not enough bourbon for The Craig Gatsby

Well, things weren’t looking so good in West Egg on Monday night, were they?

(That was a “Great Gatsby” reference, by the way. Shame on you if you pinned 47 “Gatsby”-themed wedding ideas on Pinterest last year, but didn’t know the fictional town where the book takes place.)

Without a foothold in the bootlegging business, how ever can The Craig Gatsby — see what I’m doing here? Craig Conover is pretty much living la vida F. Scott Fitzgerald right now, right? — earn enough money to buy the love of his life all the “shiny things” she’s requested of him?

This latest episode of “Southern Charm” started off very promising for Craig — #NewCraig with a #NewJob.

He gave the out-of-his-league love of his life, Naomie, that art-deco ring Cameran helped him pick out.

She was pleased.

Then he subjected us to his love talk: They’re apparently going to get mawwied and live together fowever.

#NewCraig was so happy, though, he was seconds away from hopping out of that bed and doing a celebratory Charleston.

(The dance. Not the city. We’re doing this Roaring ‘20s thing right now.)

By the time the episode ended, though, The Gatz appeared to be perilously close to meeting the same tragic ending of his literary twin: Who else thought Craig looked like he had just been shot when J.D. told him he wasn’t fit for the bourbon business?

Which is interesting because J.D., all red-faced and wearing a white cowboy hat, looked a little too “Who shot J.R.?” to be taken seriously at all.

Sorry, I’m getting mixing pop-culture metaphors again.

Anyway, how awful did you feel for Craig when Naomie went all Daisy Buchanan and said “I’m about to cry” in response to Craig not getting the promotion.

This doesn’t bode well.

Goodbye, Shiny Things … and probably also Craig. (I mean … right?)

Winners in this latest episode of “Charm” were:

— The Viewers: Guess we’re going to North Carolina next week, y’all. Hilton Head Island native Shep Rose offered his parents’ mountain home for a healing weekend, where Kathryn Dennis can prove that she’s “copacetic” to no one because apparently no one wants to go if she’s there. Seriously, this is the iciest ice-out ever on Bravo.

— Lockhart Steele: I, um, didn’t realize that this was a real person — or a high-profile, successful blah-blah-blah editor in New York — so I will now change the name of the main character in the secret romance book I wrote called “Heart of Steele” so as not to embarrass the man. Though it still could work. “He looked up and met her sad rich-girl eyes. Daddy cut her off. She was there to pitch him a new publication, one that sounded a lot like Vogue and Elle and Town and Country and Garden and Gun. He reached out his hand to her, ‘My name is Lockhart,” he said. “Lockhart Steele … And your idea is garbage!’” (Lockhart was like “Bloop bloop, Landon. I don’t like you either.”)

— Shep’s after-shower morning hair: Was that not the most “Revenge of the Nerds”-looking hair situation you have ever seen? Literally that is what they do to the actors in every dork-based movie around. Slicked down, crooked parted on the right, cowlicks and untamed curly loops at end.

— Whitney’s tongue: If ever there was a time when I wanted Whitney to dump all over something, it was during J.D.’s Gentry Bourbon tasting. Not because I don’t like J.D. in general. I just thought he was a real jackass in this episode. So smug. So looking like he smells of oil, dollar bills and not his wife. I could not have been happier when Whitney sipped that bourbon and started gagging as if someone had just fed him Kathryn’s placenta.

— Elizabeth and J.D.’s curious son: When he asked Kathryn how she got a baby in her belly, Elizabeth responded, “We’ll talk about that later, buddy.” So I assume he’s learning all about how when a man and a woman love themselves and no one else, and the man is rich and has a TV show, and the woman is beautiful and 20, they will drink too much of some magic potions, then engage in a special hug that includes hitting and screaming. Nine months later, well, there you go kid. Btws, Kathryn sure did cycle through her Rolodex to finally get to Elizabeth, didn’t she? No one else signed up for her Apology Screen Time Tour, so she had no choice but to deal with T-Rav’s best friend’s wife, ahem, who is also the backup godmother to her daughter, Kensington.

And the losers on the latest episode of “Southern Charm” were:

— Just Landon.

She flew to New York to pitch her dumb idea for a magazine and face-planted. It was hard to watch. Lockhart Steele — “his name was Lockhart, Lockhart Steele” — gave her some feedback and told her to come up with a prototype. Landon was all, “Yeahhhhhhhh, a prototypeeeeeee.”

Between Landon wanting to be handed a magazine and Craig thinking he deserves to lead J.D.’s family business after a month on the job, it was a night of, as Shep put it to the delight of his lady fans, great hubris.

“I love it when he uses fancy words,” they tweeted.

Finally, here’s a collection of Landon hate. Enjoy your last season, gurl. The fans think you’re too cruel for school:

This story was originally published May 9, 2016 at 11:52 PM with the headline "‘Southern Charm’ recap: Not enough bourbon for The Craig Gatsby."