The competition is on for the Asshole Employee of the Century, and, boy, are there some front-runners. The nominees include Eric, who strips down and grinds on a guest at Chateau Rosabelle even though it’s about as unprofessional as giving every Chipotle customer free guac; Marciano, who dives into the pool in his underwear in front of a bunch of guests who would much rather be relaxing and getting manicures than re-creating a pool party at the MGM Grand; Telly, a woman who tells her boss to “fuck off†and to “get away from her†when he points out that she’s 10 minutes late to her shift, when she lives less than 100 feet away from her workplace. And the winner is … no one! Thank you for playing; please scribble on the comment card on your way out.
Yeah, they’re all terrible. Almost every single person that LVP hired is a horrible, horrible person who has no idea what it is like to work in the real world. The one who really gets my goat, however, is Telly. At the very top of the episode, Eric does a shot straight from the bottle even though he’s off his shift and partying with the guests. “Be for real. Be fucking for real,†Telly says when she witnesses this. Wait, wasn’t she doing the exact same thing just a few days ago while she was still technically on shift? Maybe she should be for real.
The next morning, after Lisa shows off the knit beret that she is definitely throwing into the nearest landfill as soon as the cameras turn off, the guests get the comment card. This whole thing is totally contrived and kind of wack, but so is this whole show, right down to the fake hedges that sit in the front of the hotel to give the guests a nice whiff of plastic as soon as they roll up to the joint. Anyway, they say that Eric was excellent, but that’s probably because he gave the guest of honor, Harlan, a striptease and carried her around the room in his big, beautiful man arms.
Telly hates this and says that Lisa pointing out how well Eric did just condones his behavior. Yeah, it should. The guests liked it; they singled him out. Apparently, he should keep doing what he was doing. Did she ever think, for even a second, that she might not be the one who knows how to handle herself in this situation? Her attitude toward Eric, who is her boss, is terrible. She walks into the bar area and says, “Eric, those chairs don’t even go there, babe.†Um, dismissively calling your boss “babe†is not the move. Then he asks where she wants them, and she says, “You’re the manager.†Okay, so she won’t tell him where to put them, but she will tell him that they’re in the wrong place without helping to rectify the situation. Got it. Also, he’s the boss. If he decides the chairs go there, then the chairs go there now. She doesn’t need to like it, she can tell every one of her co-workers that Eric sucks, but she still must deal with the fact that he’s in charge and she has to listen to him.
Next between them is the incident when Telly is 10 minutes late to work, and Eric calls her out. I’m surprised he noticed since he was playing pranks with the sheep on the premises, but whatever. When he tells her she’s late, she says she doesn’t care. In her confessional, she says that Eric doesn’t listen to her and makes her job harder. Um, what are you doing to Eric? If she wants Eric to listen to her and make her job easier, why doesn’t she start by, I don’t know, listening to Eric and making his job (whatever that may be) easier? This rule is golden for a reason, young lady.
Telly goes outside to complain to Lisa that Eric keeps “poking and poking and poking†her. How? By asking her to do her job? That’s not poking, that’s management. If she doesn’t like that, well, then she better start her own company, because there will be people “poking†her at every single job she ever has. Finally, Lisa tells her if she wants to leave, then she can leave, but Telly doesn’t want to leave because then she can’t be miserable anymore, and if she isn’t miserable, then she can’t tell everyone else how right she is about everything while failing at her job.
That’s not to say that Eric is necessarily good, but he is the manager and so they all have to deal with his silly antics. He and Marciano take it upon themselves to be the party starters during this bachelorette party because they think there is only one way to bachelorette, and that’s by going to see Magic Mike Live, doing a bunch of shots, and giving your bra to a stranger with bad tattoos. This doesn’t seem like that kind of group. The bride brought her fiancé, for criminy’s sake. Do you think there will be any funny business on this trip? Maybe her best gay, Brett, who is as toxic as a million remixes of Britney Spears’s best song, might hook up with Stephen, but everyone else seems to want to chill.
Regardless, Eric and Marciano are at their first dinner, pouring shots into everyone’s mouths, and you can almost see them all cringe as they oblige. Anthony, the chef, hates this and says that his food is too sophisticated to be eaten while such antics are going on. “This is not a nightclub,†he says in a French accent so bad it could be from Ratatouille. While what Eric did was silly, he’s right in that Anthony has to be a little bit less rigid about what is going to happen at the villa. Just like Amy Poehler in Mean Girls is not a real mom, she’s a fun mom; this is not a real hotel, it’s a fun hotel. But, come on, trying to get a French person less rigid is a losing battle. They believe there is only one way to do everything, including skinning a cat, making a croissant, and pronouncing mille-feuille.
Eric and Marciano interrupt the chill pool day to pop bottles and force people to do shots again, including the poor woman who was getting her massage right then. Anyone who has ever been on a cruise will tell you that there is nothing worse than someone forcing you to have fun. Then, at dinner, they worry that the party is getting boring again and they start with the shots. Don’t they have any better ideas than just pouring shots into people’s mouths.
Outside, Brett, the messy gay who thinks that the bride should spend more time with him and less with her fiancé, has a basket with questions for the staff. It was entirely provided by the producers. They start asking questions about who is secretly the kinkiest and who doesn’t deserve to be there. Marciano gets the latter question and says the chef because every chef he knows works 16 hours a day and this chef could do more. What? Logically that makes no sense and, thankfully, Caroline, the sous chef who I think is in love with Anthony based on nothing, comes to his defense. She tells him if the chef should be working 16 hours a day, why shouldn’t Marciano? Why isn’t Marciano helping the chef? Great points, all.
But it’s Grace, our lady with the strawberry tattoo, who really goes off on Marciano. They’re inside by the bar and Marciano says something about not getting yelled at. Grace tells him it’s too late for that. He asks what he’s going to get yelled at for, and she says, “For being a piece of shit.†That’s it. Grace for President 2024! She wins everything. “I think you’re arrogant, I think you’re an asshole, I think your comment about the chefs was disgusting,†she continues, and not a single lie is detected. I’m still not sure who wins the Worst Employee award, but Grace wins being the best. Though security has to keep them apart so they don’t whale on each other, I can’t wait to see this little girl eviscerate him even further next week.