Hemophobics and white couch owners beware: You’ll be triggered the first half of this episode. It’s 11:30 p.m. and Davide’s blood is all over the couch after Gary drunkenly hit him in the face with a lollipop. Danni calls Daisy over, but the chief stew can’t — or maybe more accurately, won’t — deal with it in her own drunken, eerily serene state. They spray some stain remover on it and naïvely hope it’ll come out overnight. Gary blames Davide for the stain, while everyone else blames Gary.
A pariah, Gary calls it a night while everyone else hits the hot tub. They’re ignoring the stain for such fun and wild games as Danni’s “Something you love about me, something you hate about me, go.†Daisy answers honestly: her energy and openness / naïveté and defensiveness. For once, Danni takes criticism okay, but this in no way seems fun. Of course, when it’s Keith’s turn, she’s eager to turn the roast onto him. Diana calls him a bad flirter, and he says to be a good flirter you have to want it. Danni takes offense, interpreting that he didn’t want her. In the corner of the tub, Diana looks absolutely miserable for bringing it up.
At 6 a.m., Daisy wakes up, haunted by the blood stains, which are still there in full force. She tries to get them out, actually rubbing and using heavier-duty supplies this time, but tells Glenn they may need a pro upholstery cleaner. Glenn asks why it wasn’t cleaned immediately, and Daisy implies the honest answer — they were all too drunk to take it seriously. The captain finds this all super disrespectful and wakes everyone up for a meeting: “Everyone up in the f - - -ing saloon.†I’ve never heard Glenn swear as much as he does this episode.
Furious, Glenn reprimands the crew for going to bed with a destroyed couch. He says if they weren’t capable of taking care of the boat, they should’ve woken him up. It feels like they’re a high-school sports team getting in trouble for partying, which is pretty embarrassing for a group of adults. Their day off is canceled. Glenn is (adorably) going on the cave tour alone and leaving them to clean up the boat. The stews get to work on the couch, and it does improve. Daisy regrets not taking it more seriously, but they’re united in being mad at Gary and Davide. Sober, Gary apologizes to everyone. Daisy drops a bar: He’s good at apologizing, not at changing.
Meanwhile, Glenn laps up the cave facts. As he marvels at 100,000-year-old geology: “These guys are really missing out.†His love for caves comes from living in one in Crete, Greece, in the ’80s “for like a month.†Before Glenn can morph into the Grinch, he amiably has a beer with his tour guide. Except for probably Cloyce, the crew would’ve been way more into the beer than the cave.
They may not be that mad about missing spelunking, but Danni’s especially sad about not getting to go to the club Anthony works at. There’s hope the second half of the day off could be re-earned, though. By the time Glenn returns, the couch’s rehab is a miracle. No blood in sight, it looks wet, and maybe a little pink/grayish, but I’m in awe. I have some white shirts I’d love the stews to tackle. Glenn’s still playing hard-ass and deems it not perfect. He does an inspection of the boat, then calls a new all-team meeting to drop the wisdom: “If you can’t handle your alcohol, then f- - -ing don’t drink.†The crew seems to have learned their lesson, or at least put on their most remorseful faces. Glenn specifically calls out Gary; he expects better from a department head. But, we assume the O Beach contracts have been signed and the producers want more content to round out the episode, so they’re allowed to go to the club.
As punishment, the girls give Gary a birthday tiara and pink sash to wear at the club, although this is more like a reward for an attention seeker like himself. People buy birthday girls drinks! Anyway, he’s not even wearing it at the club. There, Daisy and Keith connect further. In an interview, Keith says he’d be punching up, which is quite the sassy callback to him saying Danni was punching up with Anthony. Speaking of, Diana and Danni are on the prowl for hot guys. Diana’s not finding success because she’s an overthinker and relying on Danni as a wingwoman.
Anthony’s technically doing his job as a host by flirting with Danni. I’m not sure what the rules are for him or if this is even a real shift, because the boundaries magically disappear once he takes off his uniform. The two go for a swim in the ocean and kiss. As the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time Danni made out with a guy in the water, I’d only have two, but it’s kinda weird it happened twice. And the first guy, Gary, isn’t too happy about it. Anthony comes back with Danni to the boat, and Gary winds up in the car with them. He tries to warn Anthony about Danni, which is uncool because he’s the one who called it off with her. Whether intentional or not, Danni mirrors the hook-up with Gary further by jumping over the side of the boat with Anthony. Now I have three nickels.
Downstairs, Daisy goes to bed in her top bunk, and Keith goes to talk to her. Gary interrupts them yet again, but Daisy’s favor is clearly with Keith. She doesn’t want him to leave, and he gets in some awkward petting as he stands below her. Meanwhile, Diana cries in her bed and Glenn watches Predator in his.
Later, Danni takes Anthony to the primary for the sex she’s been craving all season. In the morning, she manages to sneak him out without Glenn seeing and considers it a win. When Diana asks how it was, it looks like Danni holds up her hands to imply a penis size, which is such immature behavior. Danni tells Daisy about Gary’s comments in the car, and Daisy confronts him about it. She suggests he try not drinking at all, and we get a montage of Gary drinking in past seasons. He realizes it’s a problem but doesn’t know why he keeps doing it. While Gary’s having this existential crisis, Daisy checks her face in the mirror, which shows she’s heard this too many times.
Overall, the couch affair and group punishment seems to have been a unifying moment for the crew. Everyone’s in good spirits and getting along. It’d be sooo bad if someone new were to come along and ruin the dynamic …
Glenn tells Gary and Daisy the new deckhand is someone they’ve worked with before. A preview teases a description of him as tall with tattoos, and Jean-Luc is my first thought. Then I think, Wait, did the boob-obsessed guy last season have tattoos? What was his name again? Oh right, Chase. A refresher: The Southern boy was great at the job, terrible at flirting, didn’t respect Gary, and slightly improved his people skills over the course of last season. Hearing the news, Gary says he hates Chase, but at least he’s a good worker. Daisy’s also not excited; his puppy-dog energy annoys her. She won’t share a cabin with him and rules out sharing with Cloyce (similarly annoying) or Keith (doesn’t want to complicate their budding flirtation). Daisy also doesn’t want to split up the junior stews, so somehow the best solution is for Daisy and Gary to room together. This is obviously a terrible idea and I look forward to the chaos it brings.
Danni tells Keith she’s surprised he didn’t move rooms since he’s the chillest of the guys. How interesting, now that she’s gotten laid, she’s able to be nice to him. Over texts, Danni and Anthony both express a desire to hang out again, but Danni’s not monogamous just yet. She and Diana are both thrilled by Chase’s arrival. Either they haven’t seen last season yet or they’re that thirsty.
Chase says he plans to do things Gary’s way when he’s looking and “the right way†when he’s not. We learn that Chase bought his own boat between seasons, so his focus is to just do the job to make money to afford maintenance for his boat. He isn’t looking for a boatmance, unbeknownst to the stews. Diana thinks it’s her turn for a fling, but Danni doesn’t plan on stepping aside. From the preview, it looks like the second half of the season could finally reach the levels of messy we’ve come to expect from Sailing Yacht, or deliver at least one hot-tub make-out as a holiday gift to look forward to.