Where to Stream: Terrace House: Opening New Doors

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Everyone in the cult of Terrace House: Opening New Doors knows that the Japanese import is the most soothing reality show on Netflix. It’s also without a doubt the most romantic show around. Even when the show went boob crazy in Part 3, it still maintained its way chill vibe. But there’s a flipside to the show’s soothing tone: when things get awkward, things get really awkward.

Interactions on the show are so civil that the slightest bit of tension smashes through the screen like a sledgehammer. We’ve seen some uncomfortable dates (Mayu’s attempt to wrangle Noah) and some disastrous dates (Amy running through Yuudai’s gauntlet of discomfort). Part 4, the most recent batch of Terrace House episodes, includes the most awkward event not only on Terrace House, but I’d say all of Netflix.

Brace yourselves. Also, spoiler alert if you haven’t finished Part 4. Also, sure, trigger warning because there’s a lot of nonconsensual kissing involved (not that the Terrace House hosts noticed)!

The journey up the Mt. Everest of awkward (Mt. Awkwardest?) began in the final episode of Part 3, the very appropriately titled “Kiss Out of Nowhere.” Perpetually teary-eyed musician Shohei and Terrace House veteran and Wine Mom Seina have gone on a couple of one-on-one hangouts before, but this one’s different. That’s because this is the date where Shohei forces a kiss on Seina. While they’re waiting for their ride, Shohei Mr. Fantastics his arm all the way around Seina’s head, pulling her noggin into the titular kiss out of nowhere. It’s really uncomfortable, the kind of kiss I would feel infinitely creepy were I to make a GIF of it. So I didn’t, but I did capture Seina’s immediate reaction, which was to pull away, awkwardly laugh and say…

Their ride shows up. Shohei asks if she still wants to go home (translation: “Do you want to make out elsewhere before we go back to the house with four other people in it?”). She wants to get in the car, so they do. They go back to the house and, woof, it’s rough. Seina and Shohei join the rest in the living space, dragging an eerie silence behind them. Shohei plops down on the couch, holding back giddiness. Seina huddles by the fireplace, as far away from Shohei as she can get, her back to him.

Remember how I called Seina the show’s Wine Mom? That’s because Seina is, without a doubt, the closest to an American-style reality personality on Opening New Doors. She’s usually direct, confident, and unashamed of her love for drinking. Everyone else treats her with a kind of reverence, partly because she’s been on previous seasons of the show, but partly because she just commands a room that way. To see her reduced to silence, shrunken in front of a fireplace, it’s tough. Seina peaces out early to take a bath.

The Terrace House hosts, however truly delightful they may be, do not pick up on this at all. Their commentary describes Seina’s haunted expression as a come hither stare, her way of silently seducing Shohei with her eyes while they’re surrounded by roommates. Here’s a side-by-side of what Seina actually looked like and how, apparently, the hosts saw her:

Apparently emotional trauma gets lost in translation.

That’s how Part 3 concludes, and we actually don’t pick up this thread for the first few episodes of Part 4. The show has to get through all the drama between Yui, Noah, and Mayu, and there is more than enough drama surrounding that trio to fill out two episodes. Seina is largely absent from those episodes, and Shohei gives a lot of brotherly advice to Yui that makes you almost forget that really creepy kiss.

The plot picks up in “On the Night of Camp…” when Shohei and Seina are left alone around a campfire. Both of them are in their element: Seina is super tipsy and Shohei is fresh off of crying about having a #7 song. The two (drunkenly) hold hands and Shohei tells her that he has something to confess when he’s sober. Then Seina compliments him, #7 song and all, and Shohei goes for it again. He’s too drunk to tell her he likes her, but he’s not too drunk to go in for another surprise kiss…! Again she pulls away and says…

“Why,” Shohei? Maybe you should spend less time deciphering the smooth rhythms of Hall & Oates and more time deciphering the body language of those around you! Sidenote: that “tell me what you want” song of Shohei’s is damn catchy. It deserved to hit #7!

The next episode, “Declaration of War,” is where this climb to the top of Mt. Awkwardest starts to get rough. Noah tells Shohei that he likes Seina too, and that he’s going to make a move. This makes Shohei’s plan to declare his definitely not reciprocated feelings for Seina even more urgent. Shohei does something that is definitely not a thing in the States and, as the hosts’ reactions indicates, also not a thing in Japan: he calls up and reserves a church so he can ask Seina to be his girlfriend!

For a guy whose hit single is “Tell Me What You Want,” you’d think he’d just ask Seina what she wants! I can guarantee that the answer is not “to be formally asked out inside of a fairytale church by a guy that won’t get a clue”!

With the church booked (a step that, mind you, never needs to be taken when you’re just trying to DTR!), Shohei confirms the date with Seina… by giving her a tiny scroll with the address on it. Seina eyes this scroll with the same level of skepticism you eye would a wrapped Christmas present from your crazy aunt that gave you, I dunno, an Ozzy Osbourne lunchbox last year.

Tell you what, I’d rather have that set of Osbournes lunchboxes than a scroll invitation from a pushy guy to a mystery address.

And that brings us to the summit of Mt. Awkwardest, “Confessing Love at the Chapel.” But actually, before we reach the summit, Shohei has one final moment that makes every viewer who can read all of Seina’s expressions totally cringe. He goes to a flower shop and buys roses. But not just a dozen roses, all the roses. Shohei is the Ron Swanson of pink roses (“I’m worried what you just heard was, ‘Give me a lot of pink roses.’ What I said was, ‘Give me all the pink roses you have.’ Do you understand?”).

The most awkward flower shop scene this side of Tommy Wiseau.

So, before we hit the summit, let’s just survey our surroundings: Shohei has initiated a bunch of kisses that Seina pulled away from and then expressed some level of bewilderment; Shohei then rented a church and bought presumably a church’s worth of pink roses; Seina responded to her vague invitation, written on a tiny scroll, with exasperation. Everything hurts, and it only gets worse when you see Seina realize that Shohei has invited her to a church.

The church might as well be Hill House. The horror doesn’t stop there, because this is what Seina sees when she reluctantly opens those church doors:

Netflix’s The Haunting of Terrace House: Opening Boo Doors.

Then it happens. Shohei confesses his feelings for Seina, asks her to be his girlfriend, and then bows and outstretches his hand. Then, bam, sledgehammer, summit reached, etc. as we get twenty-two seconds of this:

It’s so long that it has to be broken up by the opening credits!! OH MY GOD.

Obviously Seina’s answer after twenty-two seconds of silence was, put very politely, “No.” We knew she was going to say no, and we just spent the last few episodes watching Shohei tie the romance equivalent of his own noose. We all saw this coming, every viewer and definitely Seina. The fact that Shohei and the show’s hosts didn’t just made it even harder to watch.

The hosts are disappointed that she turned him down, and the male hosts act like they’ve never heard the “let’s just be friends” tactic of being let down easy. But, they all conclude, if Shohei’s kiss didn’t turn her on sexually, then there was no hope for him. And just to show how little Shohei turned Seina on, a few episodes later we get to see what Seina looks like when she is into a guy.

Seina goes out with Noah, tells him she likes him likes him, and then the two make out.

For 108 seconds.

Yeah, almost two minutes of just a full-on makeout session! It’s the most explicit scene in this normally conservative Terrace House season, and it even pushes the boundaries of what you see in any TV show. When was the last time you watched a show, any show, with a nearly two-minute long nonstop makeout scene?! When Seina likes a guy, she likes a guy!

So hopefully this is a lesson to everyone out there working up the nerve to get official with someone. Actually pay attention to their body language (pulling away from a kiss and saying “what?” is rarely a good sign!) and never, ever, rent a church.

Stream Terrace House: Opening New Doors on Netflix