Parliament-smoking, mafia-bred guests have arrived to raise hell on the final charter of the season.
Photo: Bravo
After a lukewarm, if not straight-up boring, regurgitation of stale drama last week, we are regaled by the Bravo deities with some good ol’ yachting chaos in “Bubble Trouble.” Why is it that things always fall apart on the last charter? Some crew — Aesha, Josh, and especially Sandy — feel the pressure to end the season on a high note. Some others face their last two days of work with the jubilant indifference of a senior on the last day of school before summer break. The chicken nuggets debacle throws Cathy and Max off and affects their work. Uncharacteristically, Cathy is whiny; Max, characteristically whiny, decides that he can put himself down for a nap whenever the mood strikes him.
When we pick up this week, Max is stewing that Cathy walked off their What Are We talk to attend to the chicken nuggets problem. Cathy goes for a classic defense tactic: she decides to be annoyed that he is annoyed, thereby creating a stand-off that can only end in capitulation. She has a fearsome adversary in Max, a world-class grudge-holder who is still peeved at Nathan for not making him lead deckhand, a thing that happened 100 years ago. Though Cathy half attempts a truce the next morning — it’s only a half-attempt because she doesn’t try to see his side, preferring to dig her heels in — they spend most of the first day of the final charter fuming at each other from a distance. Max, being Max, tells her he needs emotional stability, i.e., someone who won’t go running after chicken nuggets in the middle of a big talk. As she tells Kizzi, Cathy hopes that Max will “be the bigger person” and take the initiative at reconciliation.
Given the V-Kizzi-Joe fiasco, the origins of Kizzi’s reign of boatmance terror are easily forgotten. Remember that, as soon as she broke up with the elusive Tommy, Kizzi made out with Max in the hot tub, much to Cathy’s annoyance? It sends a chill down this recapper’s spine to think what would have happened if Max and Kizzi had become more involved. Anyway, Max mopes around all day and takes at least one meditation break. He complains to Joe about the pitfalls of emotional entanglement, and later, the two of them have a conversation so insane that watching it rushed my body’s entire blood supply to my head. Max tells Joe that he actually doesn’t want Cathy to be his girlfriend anymore, and he should never have asked, because now he is in a position to hurt her feelings by retracting his offer. Joe — after fairly reminding Max that he is not exactly an authority on the subject — says that this is what “dating is for,” figuring out whether or not someone is right for you. For example, the more time he spent with V, the “less [he] actually wanted.” Has there ever been a more egregious example of two over-inflated male egos deluding themselves into believing they are wholly immune to rejection or recrimination, and actually, they never even meant it anyway?
At this point, it’s just annoying that Joe is completely unable to deal with the fallout from the V situation with anything approaching maturity or dignity. Yes, he is right — they weren’t exclusive. But if he would just admit that he shouldn’t have said a bunch of stuff he had no intention of following through on, and that maybe he was wrong to have kissed another girl while V was out sick and grieving her dead boyfriend ON HER BIRTHDAY, then we might’ve all forgotten and forgiven this whole shitshow. As it is, he keeps saying things like “it feels like I’m in prison.” Nathan is up to here with his antics. Over the course of his first season as a bosun, he feels like he has matured professionally and personally — and if he’s going to prove as much to Gael, he can’t be associating with infantile, selfish Joe. The change in their approach to relationships becomes glaring when Nathan tells Joe that Gael is going on a surfing trip with some guy friends. Joe warns that the trip will serve as a test of Gael’s faithfulness. Nathan is puzzled. One, they’re not even together; two, he’s not expecting to be screwed over. Three, and most importantly, are you serious?!
All of that would be chaos enough, but as it turns out, primary Jen DiLandro and her crew arrive ready to raise hell. These are Parliament-smoking, French-tip-wearing, lip-filled– and at least in one case, mafia-bred Italian women from New York, and they want what they want when they want it. An incoming storm is impeding the boat from leaving the dock? Change the weather, Captain! Sandy gets so annoyed at the guests’ insistence that they leave for anchor despite the weather that she instructs Nathan and V to take them out on the tender, so they can see for themselves how unpleasant it is to be out on rough waters. She even tells Nathan to purposefully smack into some waves, which demonstrates an admirable level of pettiness. The bumpy ride is not all bad, though: Nathan takes the opportunity to get V acquainted with the tender, which she appreciates. At this point, our girl will take all the consideration that she can get.
The back-and-forth with the guests puts Sandy on edge, and Josh ends up taking the brunt of her irritation. If you listened to your mother as a kid, you will remember that life isn’t fair. Sandy had already applied slight pressure on the chef before the guests arrived — since they weren’t leaving the dock, the meals needed to make up for an otherwise boring day. Now, after getting bitched at, she storms into the galley to ask why the guests were served a family-style lunch again. Obviously taken aback, Josh retorts that family-style lunch is the standard on every boat he has ever worked on. It makes the captain look bad to be so aggressive about this when lunch has been served this way all season long — it’s obvious that it has less to do with him than it does with her. By the way, why would Josh sacrifice the precious little time he has to make a multi-course plated dinner, per the captain’s specifications, to plate a handful of salads and sandwiches? This question will be asked again later in the charter, but for now, Aesha tries to talk the chef down.
Unfortunately, the pajama-party themed dinner makes things so much worse. Once again, it seems like some of these guests don’t know that the Bravado doesn’t employ a full kitchen staff but a single valiant man. When Marissa whines that she wants clams casino, primary Jen shuts her down: She can get clams casino in Staten Island or Brooklyn, but they’re on a damn yacht, and as such, they will enjoy their beetroot tartar with caviar and oysters, even if the oysters are not on the shell. Annalise, the most ill-natured guest to embark on the Bravado since the legendary Carlos, complains about the absence of truffles (not in season) on her pasta. To put the cherry on top, a great-looking tarte tatin fails to please even a single guest. Aesha passes on their complaints but shrugs her shoulders, encouraging Josh to brush it aside — they are obviously just being difficult. There is no bigger proof of that than when, before going to bed, Annalise stops by the galley to request king crab legs for tomorrow, though Josh has already used them all at dinner, and though, again, she is not the primary — funny how it’s never the primary who complains. Annalise’s friend looks embarrassed.
Besides, dinner service itself was kind of a mess. Actually, the mess starts before dinner, when Jen calls Aesha over to her bathroom to help with a bathtub emergency. It appears as though, in the company of other masterminds, she has emptied out a whole bottle of bath bubbles in the tub. There is foam everywhere. It’s so ridiculous that it cracks the stews up. They never even complain about the mess until they have to clean vile-looking streaks of spray tan off the tub. Then, in the middle of dinner service, as Josh is trying to focus, Cathy and other crewmembers goof off in the galley. Josh asks for silence, then later explains — in an exasperated tone — that the ruckus was distracting him. Cathy starts to argue, but Aesha shuts her down: “Don’t talk back,” she instructs.
If the rest of the crew was distracting Josh, it was at least in part because they were distracted themselves. Max and Cathy couldn’t find the right time to talk, and Kizzi and Joe are flirting everywhere. Earlier in the day, they made a “pact” to get married if they’re still single by a certain age, an agreement that V overhears Kizzi telling everyone about. Probably figuring she’s better off busying herself with work, V volunteers to help with turn-down, and the guests are generally so demanding that Captain Sandy asks the deck crew to stay up with interior for support. When Max asks Nathan to clock off as the guests are having dinner, Nathan is so tired of dealing with him that he’s like, okay, fine, go.
Kizzi, who spent all day in pain after stubbing her toe on a trash can, tosses and turns all night. Her toe swells to twice its size. What worries her the most is that she’ll miss the crew’s last night out together, and thus her last chance to make something happen with Joe (on TV). Sandy sends her out for an X-ray. In the meantime, Cathy and Max finally smooth things over. He apologizes for his big reaction and they hug it out, but it’s still unclear what that means for them as a couple. Are they still together, or …?
Josh wakes up at the butt-crack of dawn to start work. Thankfully, the boat is finally leaving the dock, and the guests are having a beach picnic lunch, which should mean that he’ll have plenty of time to work on dinner … right? When he tells Cathy she will need to dress the salad at the beach, she seems puzzled and nearly offended by his request, insisting that he should be there to make sure the job is done properly. I have never been a stew on a yacht, and I know it’s more stressful than it seems, but come on, dressing a salad isn’t hard. Go five minutes earlier? I mean, you just have to toss. My middle-child sense of injustice flares up hearing Cathy say that Josh has “given up” because it’s the end of the season. He’s doing his best! Despite serving it grudgingly, lunch is ultimately fine. Again, it’s sandwiches and salad; not exactly clams casino. Back on the boat, Cathy tells both Josh and Aesha that she was flustered by the dressing and serving, especially when she hasn’t had any rest because she has to pick up Kizzi’s work while she’s out. “I don’t get rest every day,” Josh replies. You tell ‘em, Josh.
While the guests are on the beach, Max decides to take a nap. V asks him if Nathan sent him down, but Max simply doesn’t care. When V tells Nathan this later, picking the crew up from the beach, the bosun is irritated. He’s even more irritated when Joe tells him that the fact that he and Kizzi are “not allowed” to hook up is only making him want to hook up with her more. This confession emerges after Kizzi texts him saying that she was worried they wouldn’t get a “last night together.” From the preview at the end of the episode, it’s obvious that Kizzi and Joe will let their worst instincts take charge. The finale’s whole cache of wholesomeness might just be resting on Sandy’s reunion with her wife, Leah, who is coming to visit for the final night.
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