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Like an anchor of the pocket, this week’s episode is a race to the bottom for three crew members. Who is the worst? Is it Jess who can’t seem to work with anyone and wants to complain because she hates Faye? Is it Seth who can’t be nice to anyone he doesn’t want to sleep with and thinks no one works hard enough but falls asleep on the job? Or is it Capt Kerry who can’t find a way to manage these other two and is probably responsible for the entirely toxic working environment on the boat?
When the episode starts off, we’re still in the middle of the fight that started last episode, where Jess wants to make pizzas for the guests and not feed them after their horse-riding excursion, and Faye wants her to make some snacks for the end of their journey. Jess just flat-out refuses to listen to Jess and goes around her back, changing the plan they had just organized. She then says that you have to go with the flow in yachting. She tells Faye, “You do what you have to do. I’ll do what I have to do.” You both have to please the guests and they will be a lot more pleased if you can just coordinate those efforts and forget your egos. (But not your Eggos. Guests love waffles.)
When the crew gets to their adventure, they’re not riding real horses; they’re riding these pygmy ponies that look like something Lisa Vanderpump would have in a pen in her backyard and name Baccarat and Louboutin. They also do this weird Icelandic trot where they look like they’re walking like people and it is the scariest thing I have ever seen. We’re all at home worried about M3gan, meanwhile, we should be worried about the Horse Corps trying to take over humanity. While they’re halfway through their journey, one of the guides says, “You all look like Vikings.” Um, no they do not. If big hairy Vikings with their metal helmets, battle axes, and beards as long as the end credits of Avatar: James Cameron Loves Water rode tiny little horses that pranced — nay, minced — their way into battle no one would be scared of them. They don’t look like Vikings; they look like cake-drunk kids at a petting zoo.
Meanwhile, Jess is back on board cooking lunch, and no one is there to eat it. She’s pissed at Faye for not getting the guests there. Um, they were late because of riding. What happened to going with the flow, Jess? She then gives the lunch to the crew because she cooked an entire meal when no one was on the dang boat. After the ride, the guests are starving, as Faye knew they would be. One of the guests is like, “I guess we’re on a diet now,” because Faye could only pull together a cheese plate and some crudité because Jess wouldn’t help her. They’re asking for more food, and Faye can’t say, “Well, Jess refused to cook because she hates me, so now you can only have this half-melted brie and some limp celery.”
When Jess checks in with Faye when they return, Faye tells her the guests were unimpressed with their lunch and Jess goes into a huff. “It’s not that there wasn’t lunch. There was a fuck up. I cooked everything for lunch,” she says. Yeah, you cooked everything when there wasn’t going to be anyone there, and they had no plan of returning. All this so Jess doesn’t have to cook off-site, which she loathes. She says that Faye planned it badly. No, Faye planned it perfectly; Jess’s impetuousness and lack of flexibility screwed it all up.
Not only can Jess not take responsibility, she then rats Faye out to Captain Kerry, who has taken his head out of Field and Stream to do his job for a day. He calls Faye into the bridge to talk to her but doesn’t even get her side of the story. He just tells her to “Figure it out.” This is a perfect illustration of why Kerry sucks. Imagine if you were in college and you got a zombie for a roommate. The zombie complains about you to the RA. They don’t ask about your health or safety or your side of the story; they just tell you to work it out. Well, sorry, but there is no working it out with a zombie. That motherfucker is going to try to eat your brains until the RA either gives it another room or kills it. Meanwhile, you’re stuck trying to make it work with someone who wants to destroy you.
Kerry can’t kill the zombie; he says he’s going to supervise in the galley. That night Jess and Faye make it work because he’s supervising. I’m sorry, standing over everyone watching them work is not a solution. Then he has to be down there every time a meal is served. He needs to figure out the problem, who is wrong (it’s pretty consistently Jess, even though Faye is no angel), and help them get over their issues. He is doing none of that.
Meanwhile, there is our other contender for Employee of the Never, Seth. Ugh, this guy. He freaks out on Nathan for coming into their shared room and not being as quiet as Seth wants him to be. For a guy who keeps crowing about his experience in the industry, he should know how to share a bunk. “You have no fucking respect for your roommate,” he tells Nathan. Um, and how is this respectful? Couldn’t he go and explain this quietly to Nathan later? God, this guy is a jerk.
Nathan goes out and complains to the rest of the crew about it, and Matt is talking to Kasie about how he wishes that Seth wasn’t made lead deckhand, a position, like the Hot Carl, that does not exist in the real, actual universe. He then gets all mad that Matt asks why he wants to be in a leadership position. Duh, I know why. It’s because he’s an insecure asshole and likes to pump up his ego by being mean to inferiors. Duh!
It’s even worse later when Kasie catches him taking a nap in the crew mess and sends a picture of it to his boss. Um, that’s a truth you can’t dispute, my friend. He tells Lewis that he was just “resting his eyes” like he’s your grandmother, and she just fell asleep at the Thanksgiving table. He then complains to Lewis about how bad his late-night shift is. This is the guy who says, “When I tell you to do something, you do it, and you don’t complain.” Here he is not doing it and complaining about it.
That’s what I hate the most about Seth and Jess — the hypocrisy. It’s demanding people do things that they themselves refuse to do. It’s painting others out to look like bad employees when they are no better. These are traps that they set for themselves. If they kept their heads down and did their jobs, no one would mind.
After the horse-riding charter guests, Seth can’t figure out where to put the fenders because he sucks, and then the boat picks up their next guests, a group from Singapore, including wannabe fashion designer Carol Chen. Now, the episode is called “Crazy Rich Charter Guests.” I would say that everyone who can afford this boat is crazy rich, but it seems clear the episode is trying to make a Crazy Rich Asians joke. Of course, it’s great to see diversity in the charter guests, but it feels like this kind of exposure is leaving behind one set of stereotypes of Asians for a whole new set.
Dinner is supposed to be at eight, but the women are in their rooms getting ready until 9:50, so dinner is two hours late, and Jess is angrier than George Santos when his mother (didn’t) die on 9/11. The guests wants dinner to be family-style, which Jess doesn’t like. When she presents the meal, she says, “I usually do it plated, but family style was requested. So tomorrow night, we’ll have lots of dishes of fabulous food.” So she just told the guests, to their faces, that what they want is wrong, that it is better her way, and that they’re getting what she thinks is best the next night. Again, where is this going with the flow?
As dinner is served, Kerry comes into the kitchen and tells Jess to stop complaining. Um, dude. The last charter is a hell of a time to take a stand. Where were you a month ago when you could have put the season on a different course? He calls her into the bridge the next day and tells her that what she is doing in the galley is borderline intimidation and that she needs to cut it out. Kerry, my man. You should have been paying attention to your crew enough that you would know how bad she was in the kitchen, how her relationship with Faye (who is not blameless!) had deteriorated, and how this impacted the guest’s experience. That’s the thing about being a leader Seth is just now learning — it all comes down to you. Sorry, Kerry. Guess that makes you the worst. Okay, maybe second to Jess.
