‘Million Dollar Listing New York’ season six finale recap

It's season six of Million Dollar Listing New York, where three brokers—Fredrik Eklund, Ryan Serhant, and new guy Steve Gold—show the world what it takes to sell high-priced New York City apartments. Check in each week for recaps.

Well, we’ve come to the end of the road: last night’s Million Dollar Listing New York was the season finale, and it wrapped up a few lingering threads from throughout the season. Fredrik finds peace after finding out he and Derek are going to be dads (to twins, no less!); Ryan figures out that he needs to take more risks to get out of his funk; and Steve is, well, Steve. (Steve didn’t really get too much of an arc this season, but that’s okay—he’s still the New Guy.)

This episode also finally brought some real tension, as Fredrik and Steve fought over the latter’s potential meeting with (and, in Freddy’s eyes, poaching of) developer Dan Hollander, who’s behind 75 Kenmare. Barbs were traded, but everything worked out in the end—but we’ll get to that.

And Luis Ortiz even makes an appearance, revealing that his grand experiment—moving to Paris on a whim—isn’t working out as he had hoped, and he wants to come back to New York. Does this mean he’ll be back for season seven? Guess we’ll have to wait and see—but for now, on to the recap.

Fredrik

Freddy is still working on 75 Kenmare, namely the launch party he’s planning in Paris—which just so happens to coincide with his 40th birthday. “There’s not going to be any celebration if I don’t get the sales I need,” he says. About 1,000 brokers RSVP’d for the event, and Fredrik is worried that it’s going to be too open—so he decides, at the last minute, to cancel the shindig and invite the “top, top, top” brokers who represent the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Dan the developer shows up and seems disappointed that there aren’t more people, but Fredrik tries to convince him that his plan will work. He’ll need to sell nine out of the building’s 38 apartments to meet Dan’s challenge—selling 25 percent of the units based on the Paris launch—so the heat is on. (Oh, and Steve is there, chatting up Dan … this can’t go well.)

After the event, Fredrik is setting up meetings with international brokers who all seem to have buyers who want in at 75 Kenmare. The problem: Nobody seems to want to pay the full asking price for these units. (Recall that the prices are pretty high for Nolita; a penthouse is asking $5,000/square foot.) In at least three cases, though, Fredrik’s strategy—play hard to get and refuse any discounts—works; alas, someone who was interested in the penthouse walks away.

But Fredrik’s not letting that get him down: he sells two more units, and meets up with Steve, who’s in Paris and has a potential buyer (a young finance guy—of course) for the apartment. He’ll put in a full ask offer, but wants the developer to pay the transfer taxes. Dan agrees to pay half, and while Steve waits to hear back, he drops a bomb: he and Dan are having lunch, potentially to discuss a project on the Upper West Side. Fredrik is pissed, and it’s drama time. The two brokers get into a fight—Fredrik calls Steve a scumbag, Steve calls Fredrik a whiner, Fredrik starts crying, Steve is kind of a dick about it, Fredrik storms out. Oh, but they have a deal on the apartment, so that’s something.

But later, Fredrik says “the tears weren’t really about” Steve. He’s been stressed about the call from Derek last week—you know, the one about the baby—and we cut the two of them discussing it on a bridge in Paris. And then, Derek drops the bomb: they’re going to have a baby—two, in fact! “We’re finally going to be daddies,” Fredrik says through tears. Awwwww.

Everything is coming up Fredrik by the end of the episode: He one of the 75 Kenmare penthouses for $10.5 million—its full asking price—and then has a birthday bash with Ryan and Emilia, his brother and sister-in-law, his pastor (?!?), Luis, and even Steve! But Fredrik decides to keep the news about his and Derek’s babies private … for the time being, anyway. (He obviously posted about it on Instagram as soon as the episode aired.)

Ryan

Ryan’s still working on the apartment on 47th Street, and it looks like he’s got an offer on the table: $2.25 million, the full asking price. But his seller, John, wanted over asking, so Ryan’s not sure what’s going to happen.

In the meantime, Fredrik calls Ryan up and invites him to Paris for his birthday party. “When people ask me to go to the Upper West Side for a birthday party I really have to think about it,” says Ryan. It may be one of the most relatable things he’s said on this show.

Okay, back to the real estate: He’s meeting up with John and presents the offer: not only is it for the full asking price, it’s also an all-cash deal. But as Ryan suspected, John’s not into it; he wants more than full ask. “Risk has its rewards,” he tells Ryan. “and I’m willing to take the risk.”

Ryan goes back to the potential buyer’s broker, letting him know that the deal is off the table because John wants closer to $2.4 million. Understandable, Dave, the buyer’s broker, is pissed—why list it at $2.25 million, then? “That’s fucking outrageous,” he tells Ryan before hanging up on him.

But John’s risk-taking has inspired Ryan: he realizes that part of why he’s felt so blah is that he doesn’t take his own risks anymore, now that he has, like, responsibilities and stuff. So he calls Dave back, and basically yells at him, telling him that his clients will be so pissed if they miss out in this apartment over a few hundred thousand dollars (lol). And then he hangs up on Dave.

Ryan is exhilarated, but also nervous—did he just jeopardize this whole deal? “Sometimes in life if you really want to feel better about the direction you’re going, screw it, and take a risk,” John tells him, though he doesn’t know that Ryan basically berated the dude. But in that moment, Dave calls him back—he talked to his clients, and they were willing to come up to $2.38 million, all cash. The deal is done, and Ryan is ecstatic. “I need to go for broke every single day,” he says.

Going for broke translates into a big life change: He wants to buy a brokerage in Brooklyn to expand his business there. He’s meeting with Emilia, and says it’s part of his larger plans—and one of the first steps he’d take to bringing the Serhant Team nationwide. “You’ve never been happy just doing what everybody else does,” says Emilia, who gives him her blessing. “And that’s part of the reason why i love you so much.” Awwww.

And by the end of the episode—and after some back-and-forth—we find out that the deal went through. Looks like everything’s coming up Ryan, too.

Steve

Steve and Fredrik have overlapping arcs this week, which means there’s not a whole lot happening for him that we haven’t already discussed—though from Steve’s perspective, the meeting with Dan was not a big deal, since New York is a cutthroat city, and brokers do this kind of stuff to each other all the time. (Which, you know, true!)

After their argument, Steve is walking around Paris, broodingly. “Fredrik kind of screwed up my whole trip to Paris,” he says. He hops on a call with his assistant Jessica to check in on his team back in NYC—he’s started expanding, and brought on not only Bradley Cooper, but also his friend Ian, who we’ve seen a lot this season. Steve is invited to Fredrik’s 40th birthday, because that’s how reality shows work, but he says he’s thinking about going back to New York instead…

…but then he shows up at Fredrik’s party anyway. (How could he not—that would like, totally ruin the arc of this episode.) And once he gets there, he tells Fredrik that he canceled the lunch date with Dan—their friendship is more important to him than getting a big project. “Sometimes you forget in all of this is that there’s more to life than real estate,” Steve tells him. Plus, “there’s lots of fish in New York,” so he’ll be just fine.

At the end of the episode, Steve talks about how blessed he feels to have been on this journey. “The only thing missing right now is someone to share it all with,” he says. Foreshadowing for the next season, maybe?