I called it<\/a>! \u2014\u00a0she tells Joe, also on the late shift, that she tends to attract needy men. \u201cThat\u2019s me,\u201d Joe replies. \u201cYou got wifed up, you idiot,\u201d is Kizzi\u2019s comeback. It\u2019s here that they recognize something dark in each other\u2019s eyes. Having seen it, they can\u2019t unsee it, and they spend the rest of the episode acknowledging and reveling in it.<\/p>\nThe last day of the charter goes by smoothly. With only three more charters left in the season, the crew has a good rhythm; a momentum that Max, butt-hurt about not being lead deckhand, intends to interrupt. The Bravado has to relocate to a new, narrower marina because of the America\u2019s Cup, so Sandy expects the team to be alert during docking. Despite the chaos with the bow thruster last week, Sandy decides to back into her even smaller spot again. After supervising Max as he hauls the anchor \u2014 in one of two amazing language slips this week, Max calls \u201ctwo a.m.\u201d on the radio rather than \u201ctwo o\u2019clock\u201d; later, he will ask Cathy: \u201cAre you robbing to plan a bank?\u201d \u2014 Nathan tells him that, during docking, Sandy wants him to use his hands to call distances.<\/p>\n
As they approach the marina, Max decides to be as difficult as possible. He\u2019s sitting down; Sandy tells him to stand up. She asks him to speak on the radio; he is silent. Nathan reinforces the request and he talks back: \u201cShe\u2019s on the bow with me, Nathan, relax.\u201d He starts calling the distances through the radio when Sandy wants him to show her with his hands. The boat is docked with no major disaster, but his high jinks make the whole process \u201cmore difficult than it has to be,\u201d per Sandy. It drives Nathan up a wall. Max tries to clear the air with him later, but Nathan is not interested in hearing his half-baked excuses; he moves Max from bow to stern for the rest of the season. It\u2019s a good leadership moment from Nathan: He is authoritative without being rude. Despite being committed to defending him all season, I have to admit that Max is in the wrong. He can\u2019t just do whatever he wants! Yet any irritation he might\u2019ve caused in this viewer is immediately forgiven when, in a confessional, he tells us that his grandfather was in the French Resistance during World War II, which is why he has a problem with authority.<\/p>\n
Kizzi and Joe flirt blatantly at the tip meeting, while V, sitting next to them, looks like she\u2019s about to melt into the couch. They get a heartening tip \u2014\u00a0$1,682 each from a $20,000 total \u2014 and their spirits are only raised higher when Sandy tells them they\u2019ll visit the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Headquarters on their day off, which sounds like the title for a video game but is really a training facility. V leaves right after, and Kizzi is in the middle of telling Cathy that she wouldn\u2019t do anything with Joe when V walks in to say good-bye. Cathy tells Kizzi that she\u2019s not \u201creally thinking about\u201d her thing with Max, the hopeless romantic; she\u2019s just vibing.<\/p>\n
At dinner, Aesha cries about how much she misses her fianc\u00e9, Scott, and talks a little about how yachting might not ultimately be compatible with their plan to start a family. Meanwhile, everyone notices Kizzi and Joe\u2019s flirtation. Nathan, Aesha, and Josh are disappointed by their behavior. After worrying about V, Nathan expresses reasonable concern for the integrity of his deck team: If things fall apart between V and Joe, that would create tension on deck again, this close to the season being over. In the vans back to the Bravado, Nathan tells Joe he can\u2019t hook up with Kizzi. But by the time they\u2019re all in the hot tub, Nathan and Aesha can tell the two of them are past the point of warning.<\/p>\n
Kizzi and Joe are the last ones to leave the hot tub, agreeing that they should go to bed before anything worse happens. But they keep drinking and hanging out, apparently getting off on the illicitness of what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s obviously a kink for both of them. \u201cVictoria doesn\u2019t deserve disrespect,\u201d Joe says after a whole night of disrespecting her. Finally, they head downstairs to their cabins. The editing shows a camera that is perfectly placed to capture them, but \u2014 wink, wink! \u2014\u00a0they move just beyond it into a blind spot. \u201cDon\u2019t kiss me,\u201d Kizzi says. \u201cI can\u2019t lie.\u201d The next thing we hear is kissing sounds. The camera holds on the reflective surfaces of the boat, and we see the tops of their heads very close together:\u00a0In other words, there is zero doubt that they kissed. Joe tries to move the camera, thinking that it caught them, as soon as he sees it. A disgruntled cameraman runs downstairs, but they\u2019ve already separated when he arrives at the scene of the crime.<\/p>\n
Immediately, Kizzi and Joe agree never to speak a word of this to anyone. (Similarly, Max and Cathy decide not to tell the whole boat that they had sex. I don\u2019t like it when they show sex on reality TV because it is none of my business, but it is hilarious that Max says oh la la in bed.) In the morning, when Josh asks Kizzi for the gossip, she insists there isn\u2019t any. Joe decides to take a different route, pretending that he doesn\u2019t remember anything from the night before. I simply don\u2019t believe that to be true. He really didn\u2019t seem that drunk, but it\u2019s one way to sell his regretful act, and an \u201cexcuse,\u201d if he needs it, that he wasn\u2019t in full control of his actions. You almost have to applaud his audacity. Kizzi is more honest in her confessionals: \u201cDeny, deny, deny\u201d is her strategy. She reasons that if no one knows about the kiss, no one can tell V, apparently forgetting that the whole thing is on camera. Even if V doesn\u2019t find out right away, she\u2019ll know eventually, and it\u2019s probably worse to have this kind of bomb drop off camera, when there is no incentive to patch things up than when shooting.<\/p>\n
In fact, throughout the episode, Kizzi pushes the form of the confessional interview. It\u2019s almost as if she has bought the notion that the confessional is a diary of sorts, a way to process the experience of shooting the show, and that it will remain private \u2014 or, at least, between her and the producers. Earlier, she play-acted being a therapist, concluding that she\u2019s \u201chappy living in self-denial.\u201d Now, confessing to the kiss, she almost sounds like she believes anything at all that happens on a reality-television set can remain a secret. The next day, on the way back from the Alinghi headquarters, Joe doubles down on his act. Maintaining that he doesn\u2019t remember, he asks Kizzi what happened the night before. She tells him it was just a peck, not a full-on make-out. In a confessional, she admits that she doesn\u2019t regret kissing Joe \u2014 she only feels bad for doing it when she did it, when V is sick and sad. Back on the Bravado, Joe calls his mom to talk about his mistake. She cries with him, tells him V is not even his girlfriend, and, in general, acts like he can do no wrong. Ding, ding, ding! A lot about this guy just started making sense.<\/p>\n
But more wholesome things happen at the Alinghi training facility. At the end of their tour, Scott surprises Aesha. Seeing him makes her sob. I have to be honest: I cried, too. Scott set up the visit with Sandy and stayed for the rest of the night, even going out with the crew. Their affection and respect for each other inspire everyone to be a little better. Max wants what they have, though he\u2019s not sure he\u2019ll find it with Cathy. She\u2019s taught him \u201cnot to care,\u201d but to be fair, at dinner, she tells him how much she appreciates his effort to make her feel like she\u2019s the only person in the room. Nathan, meanwhile, can only think of Gael: They go out to dinner at a place he went to with her the previous summer. Going back to the Bravado, he tells the boys that he wants to make things work with her after the season. He seems excited about the prospect. Seeing love thrive was the push he needed to do what he needed to do to get his girl.<\/p>\n
Nathan will be put to the test sooner than he thinks. While the crew is out at the flamenco place \u2014\u00a0a source of inspiration for our unproblematic fave, Josh \u2014 Sandy is coordinating a sub for V for the next charter. Even before Sandy tells Nathan the next day, we know that it\u2019ll be Gael. Nathan can\u2019t quite believe his luck, for good or bad. He literally laughs to himself in disbelief, officially checking out of the Joe-and-Kizzi disaster to worry about himself. Joe, for his part, is not as thrilled; he and Gael butted heads last season. Besides, he\u2019s feeling worse and worse as V texts him things like \u201cI miss you\u201d and reaches out to Kizzi to ask how things on the boat are going. In Kizzi\u2019s cabin, they both insist they feel bad with a smile on their faces. When Joe says that he\u2019s going to tell V about their kiss and Kizzi screeches a curse, it makes him laugh. It\u2019s all a joke to him! You can\u2019t convince me otherwise. It would be legendary if V now took it upon herself to sabotage him for the rest of the season, John Tucker style. Unfortunately, not everyone can be as levelheaded as Aesha and Scott, so here we are, stuck with high-school-level romantic drama in the middle of the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
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