Flipping Out Finale Recap: The House That Jeff Built

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Well, we’ve come to the end of our OCD journey. For now. To wrap up the short 8-episode season of Flipping Out, Jeff Lewis‘s design business takes a back seat to Jeff Lewis’s personal life – and household strife. Tensions rise to their boiling point with Zoila Chavez and her long time nemesis, Gage Edward. And it’s Jeff’s job to mediate between the two for life

Before we get into the thick of the drama, we begin – where else? – in the car, of course! Where Jeff basically lives. The important task of thinking about dinner is underway, because it’s not just any dinner! It’s a dinner meeting between Jeff, Gage and their potential surrogate, who they haven’t met yet. Jeff says they haven’t chosen an egg donor yet. But he does want to choose his dinner from an online menu before arriving at the restaurant, thus maximizing his time talking about serious matters when they dine. Jenni Pulos asks Jeff if he realizes that having a baby means you don’t have control over every bit of minutiae in your world? Jeff’s response: to read off more menu items in detail. Jeff admits he’s nervous about the meeting, worried that the surrogate won’t like him. He confesses, “I need her more than she needs me.” 

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Jenni, Jeff, and Gage are seated at a table, all looking as if they got called into the principal’s office for spray painting a fence, when Alexandra, the surrogate walks in. She comes bearing gifts from her parents’ organic farm! And she’s blonde and Midewesterny in the most wholesome sense of the word. (No shade! I say that as I type this very blog from the farm fresh goodness of the Midwest myself.) After pleasantries are exchanged, Alexandra reports that she’s has two biological children, one 6-months old and one 3-years old, but doesn’t want anymore so she’s getting into the surrogacy…business? Is that even the right word? Anyway, Jeff quips that the doctor told him she has a “beautiful uterus,” to which Alexandra replies, “Thanks, I grew it myself.” Jenni adds, “It’s organic!” Snort!

Alexandra asks if Gage and Jeff are planning on getting married, which Gage deflects to Jeff. Jeff then deflects by feeding Alexadra some line like “We know we’re going there…so yeah.” Interestingly, Jenni doesn’t poke that bear (although I am willing her to through the screen!), so Jeff gets away with that safe and terrible answer. As dinner winds down, Jeff tells Alexandra that she’s surpassed all of his expectations. Then, true to form, he gets inappropriate, asking her if she’ll have sex when she’s pregnant with his baby. And will the baby see her husband’s penis? “Nothing too kinky,” instructs Jeff. 

In the car the next day, Jeff and Gage are listening to a voicemail from Judi Freedman, a former client of Jeff’s who wants to work with them on her house in Palm Desert. She is headstrong (read: Cray-Zee) and butted heads with Jeff frequently on the remodel of her home. But now she wants Jeff’s help staging her house for her gated community’s upcoming “Design Tour” which gives the neighbors a chance to one-up each other. I’ll just be over here eating a bag of crushed glass instead of ever doing something like that. Mmmkay? Torture. For Jeff, it’s a great networking business opportunity, so he’s in.

At lunch, Zoila mentions going to the store because they need “douches” for Gage. Shots fired, yo! Jeff says Gage and Zoila push each other’s buttons, fighting with each other at least three times a day. Gage reports that as soon as he started dating Jeff, Zoila took issue with him, but 6.5 years later, she still basically hates his Barbie B*tch guts.       

Later on, Jeff discusses the gut-remodel he’s planning for Hollywood. After he gets it ready to flip, he wants to do at least one to two more flips while he can (i.e., while his kid is little enough to move around). Despite his success in the design world, Jeff admits that the flipping is what really excites him. He wants to move on up into the higher priced neighborhoods too, which takes a few flips to break into. 

As Zoila shuffles around the pantry, Gage pages her repeatedly through the intercom system. Zoila’s channeling her inner Kenya Moore as she thinks, “Don’t come for me unless I send for you!” But the pagin’ Gagin’ is relentless. Not responding to Gage pushes his buttons, which is the intended end game of all of this, isn’t it?

Elsewhere in LA, Jenni is living her entertainment dream: rapping in furry costumes for kids. Her latest venture is creating a video for her track “Poo in the Potty” off of her kids’ album “Old School Kids Beats.” Groan. This is actually going to happen. Well, Jenni: you do you, I guess! The video is Jenni’s baby, and she wants a big baby. Not a brokedown green-screen with 5 kids dancing. More on this later.

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Another day, another lunch. Gage and Zoila get into it again, but this time Zoila is not letting it go. Jenni admits that Jeff is beside himself about the tension between them, but he doesn’t do anything about it. Their bickering at lunch turns into direct insults – well, for Zoila at least. She repeatedly calls Gage a b*tch, stomps off, and crabs that if Gage doesn’t want her there, that’s fine. But would Zoila actually quit Jeff’s employment? Hell to the no. She’s like family at this point and, in Gage’s case, fills the role of the bitter mother in law quite perfectly. It’s just a shame that Jeff can’t be mature enough to put an end to it.

Jenni tries to comfort Zoila after lunch, but Zoila is not having it. She says she’s ready to leave because of Gage “always attacking” her. He thinks he’s the king (or queen), but Zoila works for Jeff, not Gage, and she can’t take his nastiness anymore. She feels like Gage doesn’t want her as the “third wheel” in Jeff’s relationship and she’s sick of being in the middle. 

The next day, Jeff takes Zoila aside to have a heart to heart. Jeff assures Zoila that Gage actually really likes her, but his delivery does seem condescending at times. He wants Zoila to stay with him forever, and even Zoila admits she feels like Jeff is her son. “I take care of my son,” says Zoila. Awwww. “You are one of my most favorite people in the world,” Jeff tells her. “We want you here,” he assures her. The plan for Zoila is to be the nanny to Jeff and Gage’s child, but Jeff thinks that as Gage gets more involved in the business (and as Zoila slows down with age), she gets insecure about her place within the “family.” Now all that’s left is for Jeff to accept that he’s Zoila’s third favorite person, after her daughter and mother. But he’s not there yet.

It’s the day of Judi’s Design Tour prep. Jeff warns his team that Judi is vetty, vetty stubborn. Her house is gorgeous, but Jeff’s opinion is that the house isn’t completely finished. It needs pillows and books and accessories to warm it up. Judi don’t play dat, though. “Too much crap!” she wails. “It looks so decorator-y!” Jeff barrels right through her remonstrances, however, and does what he wants anyway. So she shuts herself in her room, crying. After he checks on her and she yells “It doesn’t even look like my house anymore!” he’s able to coax her back out, slowly going through each vase and book choice step by torturous step. As the tourists comes through (Judi refuses to call them “guests”), Judi sort of perks up and acts semi-appropriately, even whilst sporting a side pony and a scowl.

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On the set of Jenni’s Poo in the Potty video, she approves the potty props, psychedelic costumes, and weird synchronized dancers ala’ 1993. Everything is going along swimmingly until the massive toddler meltdown occurs which, of course it does. Duh. Jenni doesn’t quite know what she’s gotten herself into here. 

At the fertility clinic, Jeff and Gage talk to the “egg hunter.” They feel like they’ve finally agreed on an egg donor, and she’ll be ready to donate on a shorter timeline then they even anticipated. Woo hoo! The egg hunter believes that the process will be moving very quickly for them once all of the pieces are in place, and from the hints Jeff’s given on WWHL with Andy Cohen lately, it sounds like Gage and Jeff might have a baby – or at least a viable pregnancy – pretty soon here, if not already.

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Ermergerd. Back to Poo in the Potty we go. As the toddlers attempt a semi-organized prison break from the scary green screen set, Jenni tries to find her happy place by picking up her cutie-patootie daughter, Alianna, and finally listening to the director. He advises her to cut the cast in half, then focus on the kids 1-on-1. The rest of the video finds its painful way to completion, and Jenni is still livin’ the rapper’s dream. She hopes one day to actually create a kids program that delivers good messages, as opposed to starring in a reality show with an aggressively confrontational boss who rules via intimidation and sarcasm. (Love you, Jeff! But let’s keep it real.)

As night falls on Hollywood, Zoila’s getting liquored up so she can make up with Gage. Temporarily. Since Gage is not being called a Barbie B*tch at the moment, he keeps the good vibes flowing by pouring shots for the two of them. Jenni says there’s a lot of love there, and they are a family – no matter how weird and twisted the package is. Gage understands that he needs to stop pushing Zoila’s buttons, and he even interviews that he loves Zoila. But he’ll never tell her that.

Jenni thinks the addition of a baby will only bring more fortune, success, and love into all of their lives. I agree. 

TELL US: WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS SEASON OF FLIPPING OUT? WILL THE TRUCE BETWEEN GAGE AND ZOILA LAST? WILL A BABY CHANGE EVERYTHING FOR JEFF AND GAGE? 

Photo Credit: Bravo

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