ET video chatted with Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo to get answers to season 4's lingering questions ahead of finale night.
Hannah Berner doesn't feel so, like, betrayed anymore.
The Summer House star and her BFF/co-star Paige DeSorbo quickly patched things up after their blowout fight on season 4's penultimate episode. Their argument was the result of a summer-long strain on their friendship due to Hannah’s interest in housemate Luke Gulbranson.
"I think, deep down, we both knew that we're fighting because we cared so much about each other, and I want the best for her," Paige tells ET on a joint video call with Hannah. "She felt like I wasn't really hearing what she was saying. So, I feel like we definitely hit a new level in our friendship and I think the way we bounce back is actually more telling about our friendship than any fight we could ever have."
"Am I in politics?" she then asks with a laugh.
Hannah and Luke spent nearly three months in a "will they or won’t they?" cycle that confused their castmates, as both seemingly wanted different things out of a relationship and/or friend with benefits. Hannah confided her feelings about Luke in Paige, both good and bad and, well, confusing. Ultimately, Paige felt like Hannah was making bad decisions and choosing Luke over her, even though Paige had given up a summer with her own boyfriend, Perry Rahbar, in order to spend time with her best friend.
"Obviously, I get myself in a lot of sticky situations," Hannah admits. "[But] I was proud of myself. I think, when I was young, if I were to have met a guy like Luke and been so, like, into him and so lustful, I would've fallen in love with him and he would've ruined my life, ‘cause he was not in a good emotional space to date anyone. He would've cheated on me immediately. But, because I was 28, I really was like, I know what I'm dealing with right now."
Luke came into the summer share on the heels of a bad breakup, while Hannah was actually seeing someone else.
"I think my friends, because we've been really hurt by the wrong guys in the past, were looking out for me, but I learned that I can be strong and I can kind of be a big girl," she says. "And me and Luke actually have a good thing going."
That "thing" isn't what Summer House fans might think, though.
"We've never had sex," Hannah confesses, adding that even she’s "still processing" that fact. Despite appearances on the show -- and some bedroom commotion that sounded a lot like Hannah’s grunts on the tennis court -- the Berning in Hell host is adamant that she and Luke have never rounded the bases. And they don't have a label for what they are.
"Ever since the day I met him, I've spoken to him every single day," Hannah shares, "which is kind of wild. Like, even Paige and I take a break every now and then."
"We've gotten to this place where it's just this kind of weird -- we're friends and we respect each other, but we also have this, like, attraction to each other," she says. "We're both not in the place to date each other. … But he's one of those people in my life, like, I don't know what he is to me, but he's definitely a special person and we both really do care not to hurt each other."
Hannah says she wasn't surprised to "actually find someone who became kind of a big part of my life" on Summer House, but adds that she finds her relationship with Luke, whatever it is, to be "really complicated and pretty annoying."
Hannah says she and Luke would likely revisit the state of whatever they are on season 5 of Summer House, if they're able to film it at all. The coronavirus pandemic has put the future of Bravo's sleeper hit in temporary limbo, as it's unclear if stay-at-home orders and government guidelines for dealing with the health crisis will lift, change or accommodate filming the next season of the reality show on its usual schedule. Cameras usually go up sometime in June and film through early September.
The series' ratings have grown over the course of season 4, which has largely aired amid the near-worldwide shutdown, so fans are hungry for more Summer House. Thankfully, the cast was able to film a virtual reunion to fill in some of the gaps of the season; it airs directly after the season finale as a special episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen and, according to Paige and Hannah, sets up even more drama for the cast. Hannah says she was surprised to see "how angry some people still are at each other."
"I think our group chat was pretty silent for, like, the next three days," Paige reveals of the reunion aftermath.
"I don't know if it's 'cause the show's more popular, and because we've been getting more backlash on social media, but, like, there are a bunch of relationships that are just like a little bit in rough waters right now," Hannah teases. "And the reunion, you definitely see a lot of the tension."
One of those “tense” relationships is actually Hannah and Luke. Hannah confesses that she and the 36-year-old hockey coach got into a “big fight right before the reunion,” both coming in hot, which Paige calls "great entertainment."
Paige, apparently, provides some reunion entertainment of her own, going head to head with Lindsay Hubbard. The twosome didn't exactly see eye to eye over the course of the season, with tensions reaching a boiling point during the most recent episode’s house "roast." Paige slammed Lindsay as being fake and called her out for starting drama just to insert herself into Paige and Hannah’s friendship.
"From the end of filming this summer, we had things we wanted to say and I think we really unleashed them all at the reunion," Paige admits. "But I will say that Lindsay and I had a conversation after the reunion and are totally fine."
"The thing I always say about when Lindsay and I fight is, it's actually because we have a very similar personality, where if we feel a certain way, we just can't hold it in," she notes. "And sometimes it's just a little bit messy when it comes out but... it feels good to get it off my chest."
On top of that, Paige promises an "unexpected fight" between Luke and fellow season 4 newbie Jules Daoud at the reunion, though she admits she’s not entirely sure why things got so heated between the two. If anything, Paige and Hannah were expecting Amanda Batula and Luke to go at it at the reunion; in the season finale, Amanda reaches what appears to be her breaking point with Luke, running away from him, into the kitchen to cry and destroy things.
"I think you'll see everyone was a little confused by what was going on," Paige admits. "To this day, I actually still don't know what really happened."
"I think it's still a little hazy," she adds, even after the reunion.
As for what’s next, the "Giggly Squad," as Hannah and Paige have dubbed themselves after Kyle Cooke shamed them for giggling during a dinner on the season 4 premiere, are hopeful about another season, which is likely to include one or two fresh faces. Hannah would like “a strong girl” who could help bridge the gap between the trio of Hannah, Paige and Amanda and Lindsay, as well as "as many hot men as possible."
"I love our group right now, but I would never say no to, like, a new 6'4" hot guy coming in the house, you know?" Paige remarks, before noting that her boyfriend of over a year doesn’t need to know about that. That boyfriend, Perry, only appeared via self-shot footage in season 4 -- and don’t hold your breath for him to join the cast in season 5.
"Perry is 37 and he's just kind of past this stage of getting a share house and, like, getting drunk until 3 a.m. and, like, eating snacks, and I certainly am not past that stage in my life -- I actually thrive in it," Paige notes, before clarifying that her “37 and … past this stage” line isn’t a dig at co-star Kyle, who is also 37.
"I was very torn all summer," she goes on to admit. "I don't think it was until I took [a] weekend off to spend with him that I was, like, wait, I love this pack of psychos and I really miss them and I wanna come back."
"Like we're crazy," she adds. "Part of me was like, good. Don't come. We'll end up breaking up or, like, getting engaged, and I didn't want either of those."
Summer House's season finale airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo, followed immediately by the cast reunion on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. Hannah and Paige also go live on Instagram nightly at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT to talk about the show and their lives in quarantine.
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