Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Emma Chance | TV | February 24, 2025
Reality television shows, especially those on Bravo, are not the safest places for relationships. Countless marriages have ended after their flaws were exposed to a viewing audience, and very few romances that start behind cameras go the distance. You only have to look as far as Scandoval to see how relationship drama can make or break a show.
But for shows like Summer House and Southern Charm, relationships are kind of the point. Summer House is just a big shared house in the Hamptons full of 20- and 30-somethings, most of them single, partying on summer weekends. Southern Charm is basically the same thing but in Charleston, and most of them are pushing 40 at this point, so, it’s sadder.
Last season on SH, we were overdue for a fun, will-they-won’t-they kind of situation after years of the Sturm and Drang that was Lindsay Hubbard’s and Carl Radke’s relationship. Newbie West Wilson was a welcome addition, and everyone was very excited when he took a liking to Ciara Miller, a fan favorite who tends to be unlucky in love. They bonded instantly and flirted and connected throughout the summer, but Ciara’s been hurt before, so she’s cautious when it comes to dating. She resisted having a physical relationship with West during filming because she feared that when she did, she’d become too attached, and it would hurt more when he left. In her experience, men tended to do that.
Unfortunately for Ciara, protecting her heart so fiercely did not protect her from heartbreak. Some of us knew that was coming. West ended up dumping her unceremoniously after filming wrapped, and come the reunion, he kinda-sorta said it was because he was about to get famous from the show and didn’t want to be tied down when the ladies came a-knockin’.
Ciara was uncharacteristically emotional at the reunion, struggling to hold back tears and articulate her feelings clearly. Though her relationship with West was brief, it was the first time in a long time that she’d opened herself up to someone, albeit cautiously. But hiding behind walls of strength and stubbornness isn’t sustainable; eventually, those walls begin to crack. We witnessed those cracks during Ciara’s recent time on Traitors when her brashness and penchant for profanity drew suspicion from her castmates, ultimately leading to her banishment. In a confessional, she speaks of her mother, who she says “didn’t raise a weak bitch,” yet it’s her fear of showing vulnerability that placed her in that situation. Pretending to be devoid of weakness or above showing it is just another way to distance oneself from others. People can sense that.
She’s still doing it on the new season of Summer House, where she and West are forced to live together and socialize again. Upon arrival, she embraced everyone else but batted West’s hand away when he went in for a hug. To her friends, she called him a “loser” and a “bitch boy.” At a communal dinner, she “put her dick on the table” and called speaking to the press a “beta ass move.”
It’s in her confessional that she finally puts down her sword. “In this article, you’re saying, ‘I just think the relationship ran its course, and we’re not each other’s people.’ Have you ever said that to me? No,” she reflects.
I’d like to consider myself an expert in heartbreak, and I’ve been Ciara—the person who lets her carefully constructed walls down for someone she thinks is different from all the others, only for them to emotionally ghost her as soon as she lets him in. In most cases, what’s hiding behind those walls is a bleeding heart begging for closeness. Being emotionally intimate with another person when you’re a Ciara is to exchange a deep bond, however brief. It’s particularly painful for that experience to be summed up as simply as “we’re not each other’s people.” Words like that are why we had our walls up in the first place.
When a producer asks Ciara if she hopes she and West can reconcile, she refuses to answer. “I will not play myself like that. Nope,” she says. She’s already rebuilt the walls. She’s not going to make the same mistake again.
The only other person she reveals herself to is her friend and summer roommate, Paige DeSorbo. “I would never say this to anyone else,” she whispers to Paige before going to sleep, “But now it’s like, ‘Let’s make out?’” She can’t answer if she wants to reconcile with West because she does, and she knows she shouldn’t.
Paige, of all people, gets it. She’s going through her own breakup right now, but she’s handling it very differently. More on that later.
New episodes of Summer House air Wednesday nights on Bravo, and next day on Peacock.
