The crew survives the charter, despite some disappearing acts, only for their relationships to implode once they leave the Katina.
Photo: Bravo

When we open this week’s episode, Eddy is overwhelmed. Having started the season in the role of nice guy, filling in for Harry van Vliet, he got himself twisted in this love triangle with Jenna and Alesia and is fumbling for the right response. On the way back to the Katina after the beach picnic, Mike, who cannot let this subject go, asks Jenna how her “chat” with Eddy went. She laughs it off, saying they’re just friends. As day turns into night with endless water toys, floats, towels, and chairs piled up on deck, Eddy is beset by this mess of his own making. It only makes him feel worse that he can’t finish his talk with Jenna, because they are so inundated with work.

Eddy takes out his frustration on Mike, who continues to move between the interior and exterior according to his gonzo instincts. Noticing Eddy’s irritation, Daisy asks if she should send for Mike’s help, and Eddy blurts out that he’s been needing Mike all day. After encouraging Eddy to speak up when he needs help, Daisy talks to Mike, advising him to stay on deck until being asked back in. Eddy passes the information along to João, who asks Eddy to clear things with him before going to Daisy. In the end, who talked to whom hardly matters, because Mike is still under the impression that it’s other people’s jobs to keep track of him. When he asks João to let him know when he can go back inside, João tells him he’s been trying, but Mike keeps “running away.”

Mike’s disappearing act will become a problem in the evening, but for now everyone needs to focus on dinner. It’s set for 7:30 p.m., inside, and Mecca has asked Daisy to set the best table of her life. Ben is as frazzled as ever, especially with one oven down, but he’s leading with a good attitude: He puts every other gadget in the galley to use. The pressure on the chef is doubled after the scary talk with Mecca the previous day and the fact that Jason is coming to dinner. The captain has already been subject to one underperformance from Ben, so with this six-course menu, he’s looking to redeem himself.

Jenna sets a gorgeous table after Alesia asks her to switch tasks, since she doesn’t feel confident executing a “sexy, elegant” theme. Ben and Ellie send up some charcuterie and caviar for “cocktail hour” before dinner, though Ben and the guests have different ideas of what that concept means — the ladies ask to be seated after 20 minutes grazing on cheese, while Ben thinks cocktail hour should go longer. While Daisy and Ben bicker about this, the guests happily seat themselves, showing Ben just who is calling the shots. Daisy — always reasonable and practical — knows not to engage with Ben’s explosiveness or to take it personally; if they’re going to have a functional relationship, she needs to pick her battles. Ultimately the courses come out evenly paced, and, save for one octopus dish that not everyone loves, the food is a hit with the guests. Some ambiguous comments are made about Ben’s apple-pie take, which he serves as a calzone with vanilla custard, but I was right about the fake out. Mecca calls Ben up and nearly gives him a heart attack when she asks him if that was the best he could do. When he says “yes,” they all cheer: It was a great meal. You can almost see the bead of sweat rolling down the side of Jason’s face. The dinner’s success made me happy for Ben, who was in desperate need of an ego boost.

It’s not enough to plan, make, and serve six courses plus cocktail bites, though: The guests ask for some “caviar pizza” to enjoy in the hot tub. Meanwhile, in the cabins, after Jenna gives him pointers on how to improve his bed-making skills, Mike asks her again about Eddy. He’s nosy, but he’s also starting to regret “stirring the pot” since it’s become clear that Jenna has no intention of giving Eddy “a second chance.” It’s only now occurring to Mike that he made his friend look bad, and he feels guiltier about this than he does about going to bed after Jenna asks him to clean the main saloon before clocking off. Daisy overhears and signs off on the instruction. Mike ignores it and goes to bed instead.

Unaware of Mike’s desertion, Daisy goes over the evening’s to-do list with Alesia, explicitly asking her to clean off the melted wax from the dining table. Mecca, who gets a real kick out of faking out the crew after some champagne, asks Alesia to warm up her sheets in the dryer. Sike! When the guests finally go to bed, Alesia is overwhelmed by the work to be done as well as by the fact that her boyfriend, whose messages she’s been ignoring all day, is blowing up her phone. At 3 a.m., she goes to bed without cleaning the back of the bar, the melted wax off the table, or the leftover champagne and “caviar pizza” (I know Ben was tired, but at best, that’s a dry piece of bread with a little cheese on it). Suffice it to say, she did not “clean bar/main saloon SPOTLESS!!!” per her instructions.

In the morning, Jason is the first person to notice the mess left in the main saloon, followed by Jenna, who is immediately annoyed. In the crew mess, she asks Mike what time he went to bed. A person who has done wrong will always tell on themselves; this simple question sets him off on a defensive rant that he only got one hour-long break the day before, the same amount of downtime Jenna herself had. When Daisy gets up, Jenna catches her up to speed. Daisy instructs Mike to finish the work he left behind. Mike barks that he’s “not a child” who needs to be scolded, but Daisy, who has been mothering him this entire time, just tells him to do his job. Alesia has a different reaction when Daisy asks her why she left such a mess: She cries. Daisy hugs her and tells her to take a breath. In a confessional, Daisy mentions the importance of having different approaches to varying sensibilities: Mike is combative, whereas Alesia is sensitive. But Alesia is starting to seem manipulative, like she can get away with murder as long as people feel bad for her. Even if she was freaking out and couldn’t finish her work, it would’ve been a courteous move to leave a note explaining herself to Jenna and Daisy, for example, rather than assuming other people will gladly cover for her.

At least it’s the last day of the charter. Ben makes duck for breakfast. Docking is smooth like butter, and the new oven is ready for pickup. Mecca, finally showing some emotion after three days of enigmatic expression, tells the crew at drop-off that the vacation was one of the best she has ever had. Her feedback card reflects this sentiment: She rates dining and overall experience five stars. Her only suggestion for improvement is that Alesia should “smile more.” If only that were the problem! At the tip meeting, Jason points out the melted wax on the table and leftover food in the main saloon and commends Ben for a good performance. They each get $2,100 from a generous $28,000 tip, and Alesia gets the helmet for messing up on her night shift.

By 3:30 p.m., most everyone is done with turning the boat around, except for Ellie, who is still cleaning the galley after Ben has asked her to take over while he has a nice glass of wine and a bath. It annoys Ellie to see him parading in his robe while she’s elbow-deep in grease, and, in her cabin, she vents to Daisy that she feels exploited, “close to being pushed over the edge.” It makes sense that Ben should be so tired, but he could’ve still had his bath if he’d shared the work with Ellie. In fact, they would have finished it faster. In any case, he needs to get his beauty rest so that he can “lay it on thick” with Jenna at dinner.

Meanwhile, in their cabin, Alesia tells Jenna that she flirts because she loves attention, though she knows she owes it to her boyfriend, Harrison, to have an “uncomfortable conversation” with him about her flirtationship with Eddy. So, she calls him right then, on speaker phone, in front of Jenna, who listens as Alesia tells Harrison that while she is flirty, she would never “do anything.” Harrison wonders what she is really saying, but Alesia assures him it’s nothing, then hangs up. What did this conversation accomplish, besides probably making poor Harrison extremely paranoid?

At dinner, Eddy puts in an effort with Jenna, though he doesn’t try to resume their aborted conversation about the texting incident. At first, Jenna gives him the cold shoulder, but she gradually softens toward him. Seeing them get along, Alesia can’t stop herself from interjecting, which turns Jenna cold again. After several cocktails, all three involved parties — Alesia, Eddy, and Jenna — are way too sensitive about the whole thing, though I admire Jenna’s self-respect: She will simply not be second choice. Instead, she takes a seat by Ben, who fawns over her all night. Eddy pouts at the other end of the table. Jason shows up unannounced to put the helmet on Alesia, who left it on the Katina, which is against the helmet’s rules. She’s just so comfortable ruling this boat …

At the club, Ben and Jenna dance together. Daisy and João do, too, though they are both being careful about getting involved. Mike tries to kiss Ellie, and when she rejects him, he asks her, “Please,” which was so, so hard to watch. Ellie, who so far has been surprisingly chill and reasonable, confronts João about their imaginary dock date earlier in the episode, during the charter. João doesn’t know what to say except that he was trying to be nice, another stupidly hard moment to watch. In the vans home from the club, Jenna is clear with Eddy: She’s done with him. He burned the bridge with her at the first opportunity, and he can’t get away with lying that he didn’t say he would “drop her like it’s hot” because she read the messages between him and Alesia herself. As Lucille Bluth would say, Good for her! 

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