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Photo: Fred Jagueneau/Bravo
The deck team’s struggle to keep their heads above water is starting to look like an endurance challenge. Who will tap out first? Nathan, who has no recourse other than to pray and hope that Christian and Tessa will listen to what he’s saying for once? Will it be Tessa, who walks around the deck like that John Travolta meme, confused at all times? Will it be Christian, who has decided that things are fine, actually, and it’s all just a matter of perspective? Will it be Max, who hopes he can huff and puff some sense into Tessa and Christian? Come to think of it — will it be Captain Sandy, speechless at such ungovernable chaos?
When we pick up this week, Christian is floating away on the Jet Ski with the fuel tank on empty. Tessa forgot to refuel it despite the fact that Nathan explicitly told her it was the most important item on the job list; which, truth be told, might as well not even exist anymore. These people need a different system. Checking items off a list, one of the most tried-and-true methods of efficiency since the dawn of humanity — I imagine this is how the cavemen delegated their responsibilities: kill Saber-tooth Tiger, check — is not working. Maybe Nathan can jump out of a hidden corner every few hours to scare them into activity?
Max spins Schadenfreude circles around Christian before towing him back to the boat with another Jet Ski. Tessa apologizes to Nathan about the mix-up, then, amazingly, tells him the team “feels weak.” This is a refrain she will keep for the rest of the episode, complaining to hell and high water about Nathan’s leadership and the state of the deck team without once adjusting her own approach to the job. Nathan’s main insight about her performance is not about her skill level as much as it is about her lacking sense of urgency: She’s like that DMV sloth in Zootopia. By the end of the charter, Nathan is not convinced Tessa has even worked on a charter boat before.
One person who has worked charter boats before — what’s more, one-day charters, which means dexterity with the lines from docking and undocking every day — is V, who is killing it in interior. The first time Sandy realizes this is when she’s looking over CVs, trying to figure out where she went wrong, as Tessa and Christian struggle on the stern. In a confessional, V tells us that her decision to pursue a career as a stew rather than as a deckhand had to do with the fact that being on deck reminded her too much of her late boyfriend, Beau, who died in the ocean. Even Aesha — who nearly feels guilty about how well her own team is doing — jokes that V should be on deck, where she’s needed.
V’s deck experience comes up again the next morning, in a conversation between Aesha, V, and Sandy — who seems impressed. Either we’re setting up for a lateral move whereby V will be switched to deck and another (potentially worse?) stew will be brought onto the interior team, or production wants to hammer in the fact that as a fellow novice, V is leagues above Tessa and Christian. This last point is stressed through Kizzi’s simmering competitiveness. V’s quick progress endears her to Aesha, which annoys Kizzi, who wants to be number one. But I’m not buying this side of Kizzi. Though she puts on a tough armor for the confessionals, she seems to be a sweetie-pie at heart.
Kizzi’s fate, drama-wise, is not in butting heads with people in her team, but in boatmance. After keeping her loyalty to Tommy on their night off, this week, Kizzi is back to flirting with everyone, everywhere. She laughs at herself in a confessional: “I think I have a deep seated fear of being alone.” She doesn’t tell Tommy “I love you” or “I miss you” on FaceTime; being on the Bravado is giving her second thoughts about her two-month-long relationship. Kizzi is messy when it comes to boys, but she always pulls through on her job, which unfortunately involves dealing with primary Jack.
I wrote last week that Jack was hyperspecific about his requests, but overall polite. I’d like to retract that statement. Jack sucks. Ordering caviar bumps: okay. Ordering two milkshakes in the middle of the day: I get it. Ordering this damn Szechuan chicken — this again?! — after eight courses over which poor Josh has sweated for hours: completely vile. The first indication that Jack is evil is that he asks for the Spanish-themed eight-course menu to start at 9:30 p.m. Still, Josh takes it in stride: “If a dish is like a song, an eight-course menu is a concert,” he says, pumping himself up. It must be said that as good as everything looks, the dishes get less and less “Spanish” with every passing bite, moving from ajo blanco to tempura and ending in creme brulee. Still, it’s an amazing feat that goes underappreciated by a primary who has consumed 200 martinis.
Jack hasn’t been able to finish dessert by the time he orders the chicken. It’s such a foul request that his friends try to dissuade him from it after assuring the crew they are plenty full. The whole thing is so … cringe. Jack is obviously only acting this way because he’s on TV, following the perverse logic of the obnoxious that attention is attention, no matter what kind. Aesha, who knows that Josh has been up for 20 hours and is dangerously close to jumping offboard, swoops in: Jack can order something, as long as it will take 10 minutes or less to make. They settle on truffle Parmesan fries. By the time they’re ready, of course, Jack isn’t hungry anymore and lets them get cold and soggy by the hot tub.
In fact, at that point, Jack is ready to create problems for other departments. The deck team is already on edge, not just from their usual frazzled state but from bringing up the tender with the crane while the guests had dinner. Max was in the tender while Christian and Tessa worked the connecting lines according to Nathan’s careful instructions. Max quickly lost his patience and started cursing when they had to reset. It only infuriated him further that Nathan told him to take five minutes to breathe and recompose — it’s important for everyone to have their wits about them when they’re working with the crane, which is dangerous equipment. I thought this was good leadership from Nathan: While validating Max’s frustration, Nathan also demonstrated that they are still a team, and they need to have each other’s backs.
Ultimately, it all works out. Nathan pulls Max aside to say that he knows it’s unfair that he has to pick up Christian and Tessa’s slack, but he needs to be able to rely on him to get through the charter. Max can’t really see this for the compliment that it is, and Nathan promises that if things don’t improve, he will “make changes.” It’s in this environment that Christian emerges to be on shift for the rest of the night. Before going to bed, Nathan explicitly tells him not to let the completely drunk guests swim in the ocean.
The first thing Jack asks Kizzi once most of the crew has gone to bed is whether they can go in the ocean. Kizzi tells him no, then radios Nathan to double check and tells them no again. Perhaps sensing that Christian will be easier to break, Jack asks the deckhand if they can go swimming. Christian says no; Jack insists, so Christian suggests they just dip their toes in the water. Agreeing to this condition, Jack has the same look on his face as when he ordered the chicken — he knows what he’s doing (being evil) and why (attention). The fact that this is all happening right after the chicken thing only serves to highlight Christian’s limitations compared to the rest of the crew — Aesha, Josh and Kizzi were all firm with Jack while still making him feel like he was getting what he wanted. Christian might have aimed for that with the “dip your toes” thing, but it backfires disastrously.
Nathan goes to get water from the crew mess just in time to see Jack fall in the water through the monitor. (What could possibly have convinced Christian that someone that drunk would keep their balance on a water platform?) He runs to stern to pull Jack away from the water and remind Christian it’s a hard no on drunk guests being in the ocean. In a confessional, Christian can’t understand what’s so bad about the primary getting what he wanted, especially when no one got hurt. Nathan, meanwhile, is exasperated that things went from being “generally incompetent” to “genuinely dangerous.” At this point, Jack’s friends look like they are embarrassed to be alive, let alone associated with this guy. In the morning, they lament that “poor Christian is going to be in so much trouble.”
That, he certainly is. On the bow, Nathan tells Max what happened, which I think is a miscalculation — dishing with Max about Christian only makes the tension between the two of them worse. Later, after he has had to wake Tessa up to be on time for docking, he speaks to Sandy about the night. She tells him for now they need to focus on docking the boat, and then they’ll figure out what to do. Meanwhile, V spends two hours packing Jack’s suitcases.
Nathan goes over the docking plan with his team. Since Tessa struggled with throwing the lines last time, he sets up heaving lines, which are lighter and easier to throw. Not that Tessa appreciates it, but this is Nathan trying to ensure her success. Alas, despite Nathan’s warning that the heaving lines have to be tied tight to the crossing lines, Tessa fails to tighten them enough: the knot comes undone in the water immediately. For their part, Max and Christian fight before docking and exchange some F-bombs on the bow just for good measure.
The guests finally leave. At the tip meeting, Sandy congratulates the interior team and, in so many gentle words, tells the deck team to do better. Jack and his friends left $20,000 in tips, which comes out to a decent $1,818 each, though 1 million wouldn’t be enough. (Max and Kizzi are flirty at the beginning of the tip meeting, after Kizzi has flirted with Nathan in the cabins.) Afterwards, Sandy calls Nathan to the bridge and tells him it’s time to replace either Tessa or Christian, and that it will be up to him to make the call. I’m going to place my bets on Christian being fired: Tessa may be slow, but beyond lacking skill, Christian has the added disadvantage of having an issue with a teammate, which impacts everyone’s morale. That said, Tessa doesn’t seem to be aware she is doing anything wrong at all, which is maybe worse. Either way, it’s looking like we’ll end up with a new deckhand and potentially, a new stew.
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Rafaela Bassili
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