Last week, we left poor Lyle somewhere between stages one and two of grief — shock and denial, and pain and guilt — over the alleged infidelity of his fiancée, Santana (not to mention, the brawl between Santana and Lyle’s housemates).
Moving into this week, though, it appears Lyle is progressing nicely into the anger and bargaining phase of his emotions. This change in perception is quite possibly spurred by a call from Santana informing him she’s headed to Cowboys, a bar they agreed she wouldn’t frequent without him.
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But first, let’s talk about Miss Mattie’s promising new gentleman caller, DJ. And by gentleman caller, I clearly mean that guy she scored with two weeks back who may or may not have stood her up at the club.
Only, he didn’t. Despite the fact Mattie accidentally hung up on him at the close of last week’s episode, persistence paid off (on her part… our girl loves a redial button) — the two were able to, ahem, reconnect.
Alas, in the harsh light of day, Mattie realizes softspoken DJ isn’t really her type outside of the sack. To think, the guy even endured a rather paternal talking to from Daddy in which he promised to “haunt” DJ if he hurt Mattie.
Hmm, Daddy as a ghost… what would that look like, you think? Ebenezer Booze? The Ghost of Funnels Past?
Ultimately, Mattie picks up the cheeseburger phone and calls DJ a cab, ’cause she’s a lady, y’all. But she is admittedly grateful for the brief time they spent together, because it showed her “there are some nice guys out there.”
Explains Sally Ann Salsano, 495 Productions president, and founder and creator/executive producer of Party Down South, “Mattie was in no rush to get into a relationship. And, listen, the boys like to have fun, so why can’t the girls and not catch flak for it? She liked DJ, but Mattie is no fool. The track record will show you — dating in the Party Down South house usually doesn’t work for anyone.”
Who doesn’t love them some Mattie this season? Anyway, as they say, on to the next one!
Now, back to poor Lyle. After his first phone call with Santana, Boudreaux heads straight for the porch — where a funnel is waiting. He relays the conversation to Murray, Daddy and Walt, who all agree that things aren’t looking so hot for Miss Santana. They’re officially switching teams.
At that point, Lyle knows he needs to press Santana for the truth. He calls her back and straight up accuses her of cheating on him and “playing the f***” out of him. All he wants is for her to be real. Because, real talk, homegirl has had plenty of opportunities to come clean.
But still no dice. Santana is sticking to her story and Lyle is D-O-N-E.
“Lyle wasn’t sleeping at all. I mean, at all,” Salsano reveals of Lyle’s abrupt change of heart. “Maybe 20 minutes here and there. You could see it was really, truly hurting him, and we really just wanted to see him get a full night’s rest. So if going home was going to be able to help him get peace of mind, get some rest and come back as the wild Lyle we all love, we figured it was for the best. We were afraid he may not come back, but not working it all out was eating away at him.”
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Hott Dogg invited her man, Cody, to come visit, and she is adorably over-the-moon excited to see him when the doorbell rings — even more so when he reveals he brought along their fur baby, Haven. And now that Cody’s in the house, everyone is ready to get lit. Well, everyone except Mattie, who is still recovering from her late-night sexcapades with DJ. She volunteers to puppy-sit.
Before they head out, Lyle tells the gang that he will probably be flying out the next morning to gather his belongings from Santana’s house. They’re shocked, but obviously hella pumped about the new development.
In fact, they even predict wild Lyle will make an appearance tonight. Or, in the sage words of Daddy, “The best way for Boudreaux to get over some girl is for him to get under another.” They should put that pearl of wisdom in fortune cookies or something.
Wild Lyle’s a little rusty, though, and he seems unsure of himself at the bar. Meanwhile, Hott Dogg and Cody are dangerously close to pretzeling right in the middle of the joint, much to Tiffany’s dismay. Fortunately, they decide to move their major PDA sesh to (where else?) the bathroom stall.
As steamy as it got, Salsano says she wasn’t about to run interference. “I’ve seen worse! Back in Biloxi, Daddy and Hott Dogg would act like that all the time, and the roomies would tell them to knock it off,” Salsano says. “Who am I to ruin someone’s good time?”
Daddy is faring pretty well, too. After doin’ a bit of dirty dancing with a girl named Tara, he invites her back to the house. More on that in a minute.
As for Lyle, he winds up reeling in not one, but two chicks. Mission accomplished, eh? So the entire crew loads up in cabs for the ride back to the house. On the way, Lyle spills the beans about his very recent breakup.
For some reason, this sparks an intense debate between Daddy’s tequila-swiggin’ chick, Tara, and Lyle’s two ladies, whose names I’ve since forgotten. Tequila must make Tara feisty, because she cannot stop talking shit. Since Daddy is worried that might ruin Lyle’s chances to score with his girl(s?), he takes one for the team and sends Tara packing.
Then, in a twist no one saw coming, Lyle’s dates reveal that they are, uh, witches.
Tiff is totally into this whole concept, so she asks Ava (I think?) to read their palms. Ava says Lyle’s palm reveals he has a long lifeline — but that his loveline is broken around the age of 30 and never recovers.
Afterward, because this night needed to get even creepier apparently, Ava the witch tells Daddy his palm reveals he’s going to die soon.
Yikes. Lyle is definitely not digging “the wicked witch of the South” and he sends both ladies home in a cab. For good reason, too. According to Salsano, it was a surreal experience.
“It was as bizarre as it felt [to watch]. We all looked at each other and asked, ‘Is this really happening?’ And, frankly, with what we see all the time, if you can get that reaction out of us behind the scenes… you might be bizarre,” she says.
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The next morning, Lyle books his flight home. As he is waiting for his cab to show up, Santana’s spidey senses kick in and she calls. Mattie intercepts the call, and she is not amused when Santana restates her same tired story.
Mattie tells her, “There’s a point you can sit there and be a woman and say, ‘I f***ed up, but I love you enough to ‘fess up and take the consequences.”
Once again, Mattie FTW.
When Santana still sticks to her story, Mattie gets Lyle. In a Hail Mary, Santana begs her fiancé not to give up on them, insisting “you have to be a man; you have to take care of me.”
It’s safe to say no one envies Lyle in this moment, and everyone wants to see the carefree, duck-call-blowin’ Lyle of seasons past. So if Salsano could have stepped in and given Lyle some advice at that point, what would it have been?
“This is a tough one,” she says. “I believe people need to make their own choices and live with them. Otherwise you can’t learn. We all make choices in life that we look back on and say, ‘What the hell was I thinking?!’ I’ve dated people that when I look back I should have never been with, but it’s made me who I am. At the end of the day, some people don’t need or can’t hear advice — they just have to work through it on their own to get to the other side.”
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