We’re only two episodes into Wihan’s downfall, and I already feel like I’m going to rip every hair from my scalp. Besides living in an alternate reality where only his immediate desires are of any consequence, he is being treated as if he looks like Marlon Brando, which only deranges him further. I fear we might be entering Anthony territory with his dominance; the season is at risk of becoming monotonous if all we have to hold on to is whose heart Wihan plans on breaking. Compared to the past couple of weeks’ intriguing, plot-thick episodes, “The Captain’s Lounge” is a little boring.
We open on the Jet Ski incident with swirling GoPro footage that went on for so long that I wondered if Bravo had suddenly decided to go experimental. Thankfully (and anticlimactically), Johnny and India land in standing depths. The problem isn’t really the capsizing itself — Johnny makes India feel safe, and the scratch she gets on her leg is so minor she doesn’t even need a Band-Aid — but the aftermath. As Johnny will later tell Wihan, the Jet Ski tipped because of the leak that had been filling it up with water. The more time goes by, the more water the Jet Ski takes in, to the point that it’s too heavy to be lifted onto the Katina by a crane. It takes four 200-pound men to pull the thing, which Jason estimates costs nearly $20,000, onto a floating platform, from which it can get towed along.
Throughout the whole thing, Wihan seems amused. He tells Adair that they will “laugh about this moment for years to come” while Johnny fends off a mental breakdown in his cabin. For her part, Adair had already mentioned to Harry that she didn’t want to say “I told you so” but that she and Johnny did tell him so. I was tempted to speculate that the Jet Ski incident would turn Adair off Wihan preemptively, since incompetence is not very attractive, but that was before Adair’s C’s-get-degrees attitude during dinner service that night.
As the hubbub winds down, Wihan stalks down to the galley, where Tzarina greets her “favorite man in the whole wide boat,” whom she loves, with another bear hug. Not now, Tzarina! Wihan is summoned by an exasperated captain to the bridge. When Jason seems confused by the fact that the Jet Ski tipped by itself, Wihan clarifies that there was a leak in it. Jason warns him not to try to cover up his mistakes; a leaky Jet Ski shouldn’t have gone in the water. Given the way that conversation went, it’s bizarre that the next day, Jason awards Johnny with the disco helmet. Everything that happened was Wihan’s fault, and Johnny went above and beyond to make India feel taken care of, which even Jason admits. Is Jason playing favorites with Wihan or what? What did he do to earn such confidence, besides making 500 mistakes in, like, three days?
If you care even a little bit about what you do, such an eventful afternoon might put you in a rut, but not so for Wihan. He takes Harry aside to whine about his romantic entanglements. No one seems more committed to showing just how much Wihan sucks at his job than the show’s editors, who constantly cut to images of him doing anything — taking photos of the sunset, eating a snack, huffing and puffing, having a random laughing fit at Adair’s pair of rubber boots — but working. I’m not saying anyone has to love work, but the lack of professionalism Wihan brings to a leadership position is so astounding that it might be genius. A determined person might even argue that his unwillingness is praxis.
But I’m sick of talking about Wihan; let’s move on to dinner. For local cuisine night, Tzarina has made … curry! How unexpected. The guests, who are oblivious to the fact that Tzarina has been making curry nightly ever since stepping foot on the Katina, love the curry (which they requested, to be fair to the chef). But service is chaotic; though these guests are nice and fun, they are incredibly messy. Marina calls Adair for backup, and this is where Adair proves to have at least one thing in common with Wihan: She will settle for the bare minimum.
Adair turns down the beds and then disappears. Her exact words are “I ain’t doing the bathrooms.” It’s a bad attitude, but no one seems to be really directing Adair or telling her what to do. She gets confused directions from the bosun, who is more worried about making a move on her than supervising her, and the chief stew, who seems never to think about her at all until she’s suddenly needed. She could definitely put a little more effort in, but the next day, Jason reminds Lara and Wihan that it’s their job to communicate and delegate tasks.
The guests requested a bar-hopping night, but since nightlife in the Seychelles is slow going, Lara and Jason come up with a way to make the Katina into the islands’ hottest club. After dinner, Lara takes the guests down to the exclusive “Captain’s Lounge,” where Jason awaits wearing nothing but his skimpy kimono. The guests shriek at the sight of the half-naked captain and even more at Wihan’s lap-dance performance. How many times do we need to see Wihan’s bare, pasty “derrière,” as Britney Spears might put it? Enough! While he dances, Marina delusionally talks about their nice date, though he’s been ignoring her ever since. Adair seems mildly icked. I can’t wait to watch her big expressive eyes when she learns that this whole time, Wihan has been pining after her.
Meanwhile, Bri and Harry’s relationship gradually floats toward rocky waters. Bri wants him to take more initiative; he supposedly hears her saying so to Tzarina when he happens to listen in on their conversation in the galley. But Harry has elected to act dumb, so he decides that things are not just good between him and Bri, they are excellent. Bri, meanwhile, wants assurance that their relationship is progressing.
The sun rises on the last day of the charter, and while making beds, Marina runs Adair through the cabin checklist so she knows what to do the next time. It’s a nice moment: Adair apologizes for giving Marina an attitude and Marina tells her how much she appreciates the help. If this sudden show of affection and goodwill was spurred by Wihan or Lara’s intervention, it got edited out, so we have to assume it came from the goodness of Adair’s heart. While Adair is trying to be a better worker and teammate, Wihan is again hounding his co-workers for ideas on how to tell Adair that he likes her. Johnny, who could not possibly care less about Wihan’s dilemma, tells us that he’s more likely to dye his hair pink than have a boatmance. Aisha and Gai are happy with their experience aboard and tip $15,000, which comes out to $1,250 each.
With the guests gone, the crew starts getting ready for their night out. They all dress in matching gold for reasons that remain mysterious to us. Like a nautical Sisyphus, Lara tries to talk some sense into Tzarina. “Don’t be so desperate,” she pleads. “You deserve someone who actually likes you!” A for effort, Lara, but you can tell Tzarina is the kind of person to whom it’s impossible to say anything. Her determination to bag Wihan would be commendable if it weren’t so hard to watch. Shortly before they head out, the new sous-chef arrives, a 25-year-old from London named Alesia. She seems nice — she jells with the other girls right away — but I am disturbed by her nonchalance in admitting that she thought the Seychelles were in Jamaica. She has the energy of someone who meant to walk onto the Love Island set and ended up on Below Deck instead.
What follows is a night so filled with secondhand embarrassment I half expected The Office’s theme song to start playing from my speakers. Lara and Bri, having given up on Tzarina’s rational faculties, give her pointers on how to conquer Wihan in the bathroom. Her strategy is to pull Wihan’s face into her chest. Wihan, who looked pretty comfortable in Tzarina’s bosom, decides to finally tell Marina and Tzarina the exact same thing: He has feelings for the (as yet completely oblivious) Adair. It’s becoming bizarre to me that every single person on this crew knows about Wihan’s crush on Adair except for the woman herself. The game of telephone that made last week’s episode is kaput. That or Adair is really checked out.
Johnny should have to dye his hair pink, because not a day into Alesia’s arrival, he tries to kiss her. She rejects his advance, but not the idea of him altogether; it’s simply too soon to start something when she has been in the Seychelles, a place she did not even know existed, for all of two hours. Across the dance floor, Tzarina continues to make increasingly uncomfortable moves on Wihan. The big difference between Tzarina’s insistence and Laura’s pushiness toward Adam last season is that Wihan obviously can’t make up his mind whether or not to fully reject her. When they get back on the Katina, Wihan makes out with her, then does a little “I can’t” act and goes to bed. Even if things did turn out the way Tzarina wants, who would want a boyfriend that had to be pressured into liking you? In what world is this remotely desirable?
Even then, Tzarina is not the only person blind to what’s happening right in front of her. The miscommunication between Bri and Harry reaches new heights when Bri takes him into a guest cabin to “show him the sand” left behind by the guests, which Harry sees and acknowledges before taking himself back to his own cabin. Honestly, Harry. I’m still rooting for them, but Harry needs to step up. While I understand Bri’s short patience for his “I’m just a dumb boy” attitude, she could also express herself better and tell Harry what’s been bothering her, or she could fully commit to the fourth-grade vibes of their romance and ask one of the other girls to say something to him. Either way, someone is going to have to do something for this pseudo-relationship to survive another night out.