Girl Dinner

Nina overhears a fraught conversation between Fawn and Alex. Alex strongly objects to Caroline, the former House member who now runs The Country Wife on VidStar, but Fawn counters that Caroline has every right to run whatever kind of account she wants. She adds that Alex is just their chapter advisor, that she doesn’t get to determine what kind of life and career choices the girls make post-college. 

After the exchange is over, Fawn finds Nina and asks if she’d like to get a drink. Fawn knows that Nina overheard and voices her frustration at Alex. She doesn’t support Caroline or The Country Wife, but she respects Caroline’s right to do as she pleases with her life and she acknowledges that building a social media profile with millions of followers is an accomplishment, even if the page itself is problematic. She then apologizes for voicing her frustrations about The House to a pledge, and Nina immediately assures her that everything is fine and that she is always available to be Fawn’s sounding board.

Later, after class, she flirts with Dr. Villanueva. During their exchange she realizes that she can sense his attraction to her. She feels powerful, magnetic. The House, she is sure, is beginning to reshape her campus persona. 

In addition to her newfound sense of empowerment, Nina feels bolstered by The House’s spirit of community and sisterhood. She admires Tess’s brash, unwavering personality and commitment both to her own personal ethics and social justice. Tess is a business major and, like Nina, she plans to use The House to further her career. Tess, as a bi-racial woman, is using The House’s vast social network to her advantage in the same way that Nina, as a brown woman, is. In spite of what her sister thinks of this kind of “selling out,” Nina sees it as a viable path. She also feels comfortable with Dalil and Fawn. These girls have become her sisters.

Sloane worries that Isla no longer loves her because each day when she drops Isla at daycare, Isla pushes her away. She tries to communicate her worries to Max, but he is too distracted with an email to give her a real response. 

Later, she and Alex again talk about work-life balance, and Alex shares how irked she is with Fawn. The two have consistently clashed over a variety of House-related topics, and Alex wonders if Fawn truly has an established set of beliefs or if she just enjoys arguing. Alex tries to teach the girls that patriarchy is at the root of all of their problems, but that it is possible to reclaim power within patriarchal structures. The more they talk about power, patriarchy, and feminism, the surer Sloane is that she wants to write a book about feminism, gender roles, and social media even if it means producing scholarship that will not get her tenure. 

She asks Alex about the possibility of interviewing some House alumnae, and Alex agrees to set up a few meetings. Sloane doesn’t share yet what the topic of her book will be, unsure how Alex would respond if she knew how much Sloane wants to write about The Country Wife.

Initiation night arrives. Jasleen has subjected Nina to a steady stream of criticism of the “cult-like” atmosphere of The House, and on initiation night Nina privately admits to herself that Jasleen’s criticism is not unfounded. 

Nina is thrilled to have reached initiation day, but she is also more attuned to The House’s politics: There is tension between Alex and Fawn, and even Tess characterizes Alex as “basic,” as someone who never moved on from her college years. Nina wonders how this kind of conflict will shape her time at The House in the years to come, but she puts it out of her mind when the initiation begins. 

The girls wear white to the ceremony and are told not to put on makeup or jewelry. Tess is Nina’s “Big,” her older sister in the House, and Fawn is Dalil’s Big. The ceremony itself strikes Nina as part baptism, part wedding. The House is eerily silent and then somehow possessed by a kind of low humming as the girls begin to pledge allegiance to their sisters and The House’s core beliefs. Nina and Dalil vow to put their sisters first, to eschew envy and value friendship and generosity above all else. Nina feels reborn and knows that she will remember this moment forever.

Isla is sick again, and Max does not do his share of the caretaking. Sloane contemplates buying a humidifier for Isla but realizes that if she does, she will have to be the one to clean it. The last thing she needs is another task, so she decides against the purchase. 

She begins interviewing the House’s various alumnae for her new project, starting with Britt. Britt has prepared a gourmet rack of lamb which she insists was “easy,” and Sloane is once again struck by how effortless household work seems to her. When asked what drew her to The House, Britt admits to being ambitious and notes that the all-girl atmosphere of The House nurtured her through her college years in a way that academics did not. Priscilla shared a similar story: She too saw The House as a kind of incubator and credits it for helping her, not a natural communicator, to learn to better connect with people.

Later, Sloane reflects on the women she’s interviewed. They all seem to have taken to heart the idea of being a “girl boss,” but they are all also domestic goddesses, capable of culinary feats and aesthetic choices that remain out of reach for Sloane. Priscilla has already shared with Sloane that she thinks her imprint would be a great fit for Sloane’s project, but Sloane still isn’t sure what shape her book will take. She wonders what she can say about The House that will turn into a broader argument about sisterhood and feminism. After running her ideas by Arya, she realizes that she has to talk to The Country Wife next.

Nina, Tess, Dalil, and Fawn are taken into a room together. The rest of the pledge class has been divided into larger groups, and Nina is happy to be sharing her initiation only with the girls who matter the most to her. She has terrible cramps but does her best to ignore them on what feels like the most important night of her life.

Sloane arrives at The Country Wife’s homestead. The homestead is quietly beautiful, and Caroline opens the door looking dewy and fresh in a linen dress. Sloane is happy to be there, having argued with Max on the way out. He was resentful that she was leaving him home with Isla and had made a nasty comment about her squandering the job that he got for her. She realized that he didn’t care about her research beyond its appeal to the University, and that he saw his time as inherently more valuable than hers. She now understands that all of her years of compromise and of shouldering more than her share of the household burden has resulted in a markedly unequal division of labor in their marriage. Max is not, she admits, the feminist she once thought him.

Caroline’s home provides a contrast to her own. It is placid, chicly decorated, and calm. She has prepared the same, seemingly effortless spread of appetizers that her fellow House members did each time Sloane visited one of them. Sloane tries to be polite, but Caroline quickly asks if Alex knows that Sloane is interviewing her and asserts that neither Alex nor Sloane respects her work. Realizing that the “gloves are off,” Sloane adjusts her affect (201). She wonders if Caroline considers her audience, the damage that her misinformation and her generally anti-feminist aesthetic poses to young women. Caroline correctly guesses that Sloane would not want her own daughter watching her content.

Caroline then notes that she turned a $10,000 inheritance into a multi-million-dollar business and questions the notion that she isn’t successful and shouldn’t be a role model for young women wanting to succeed in a man’s world. She adds that because she is a good cook and household manager, she sees no problem monetizing those skills. She divides the world up into people who use the tools available to them to make money, and those who do not. She has taken advantage of her own abilities and the feminized space of wellness content to achieve personal success. Furthermore, Caroline wonders if allowing her husband to be the only beneficiary of her culinary prowess could truly be considered a feminist act, as refusing to monetize those skills would be a self-sacrifice. 

When questioned about her own politics, Caroline admits that she isn’t conservative but that she’s long since stopped caring about anyone’s political leanings. The Country Wife is about money, period. When she serves the steak she’d been cooking, Sloane is shocked by how tough and gamey it is. She asks what kind of meat it is, and Caroline tells her that it’s heart. When pressed about what kind of heart she was just served, Caroline remains silent.

Nina’s menstrual cramps intensify during the end of the ritual. Each girl is told to drink from a cup, and Nina is shocked to realize that she is drinking blood.