Ben and Sunny’s relationship bums me out, y’all. How is she the one who ends up apologizing? At least we have a palate cleanser in the form of the cutie little shoulder-rubbing, bunk-sharing more-than-a-friendship budding between Barbie and Kyle. Having been burned by cheaters in the past, Sunny says she has a jealous alter ego named Sabrina who comes out after a few drinks. She apologizes to Xandi and hugs her — sort of by force, but whatever — in the morning. We also learn that, after the end of her last relationship, our divorced queen Xan took a “pledge of celibacy.” This is none of my business, of course, but I do hope it was a formal pledge with a script and a special accompanying hand sign, like the Girl Scout Promise.
Before we continue any further, we must review several discoveries we make about Dylan, our new deckhand, in this episode:
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
On this next charter, the deck is stacked against Anthony, who’s already struggling with organization and time management. The guests’ combined allergies and sensitivities include dairy, egg, gluten, wheat, hazelnut, and banana — and that’s not even all of them; I just couldn’t type fast enough. The primary is a vegetarian who’s starting to eat fish but won’t do lobster or raw seafood. Her husband dislikes meat and fish, someone else doesn’t like vegetables, and someone is straight-up vegan. This feels like a logic puzzle or a very specific stress dream that Anthony specifically would wake up from screaming.
The primary, a cruise director named Melinda, has requested both a normal birthday cake and a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free birthday cake. “So, just dust or air,” Fraser summarizes. But don’t worry, none of these allergies are that serious — no one’s going into anaphylactic shock, the primary’s pickleball pal Jill Zarin assures Anthony.
Oh. Did I forget to tell you that former Real Housewife of New York City Jill Zarin is here? (So is her boyfriend Gary, but pretty much all he does this episode is get his penis sucked into the hole of the sea bob he’s riding. “My penis got sucked into the hole,” he explains). Jill Zarin doesn’t need to get into the hot tub to know the temperature is set too high. Jill Zarin wants a Diet Coke because Jill Zarin always wants a Diet Coke. But Jill Zarin needs her Diet Cokes stored in the freezer. And Jill Zarin doesn’t like this ice. Is there any other ice? Fetch Jill Zarin better ice, please. Jill Zarin needs to be shown where to find the electrical outlet in the bathroom, which is the perfect opportunity for her to lecture Barbie on how yachts — she’s been on a lot of them, you see — should have their bathroom drawers fully stocked with toiletries. They’re already down a stew, and, as Barbie says, Jill Zarin would ideally have a full human being assigned just to deal with her. She is captain now.
Anthony shares that his dyslexia contributes to his difficulties with focusing, which isn’t making his job any easier. Fraser has to remind him that it’s probably not the best idea to serve lobster when the primary doesn’t like lobster. And yet, against all odds, he pulls off the first dinner with flying colors, accommodating everyone’s needs with scallops, tofu that look like scallops, a raspberry shortcake, and a vegan pina colada flan. But the next morning, at breakfast, the crew commits the mortal sin of not being available the moment the guests decide they could use some hot sauce. Worry not! Jill Zarin has a solution. Jill Zarin summons Fraser to suggest the St. David staff install a doorbell that would allow the guests to ring the kitchen directly whenever they like. That’s what Jill Zarin had on Jill Zarin’s yacht! “They’re sticky, and you get them on Amazon,” she says as if she’s genuinely doing Fraser a favor and not, in fact, as he puts it, crawling into his brain and eating away at his soul.
Lunch is doomed before it even leaves the galley. The main dish is burgers, which sounds simple until you realize that with these guests, there will be far too many possible permutations of regular burger vs. vegan patty, cheese vs. no cheese, bun vs. lettuce wrap. Barbie tries and fails to keep track of all their orders, and it takes forever to sort out. Anthony smiles wanly, admitting defeat. “Goddammit.”
And so, may God have mercy on us all: Jill Zarin’s burger is served cold. “Anybody else?” she prompts the group. “Tell the truth. They don’t mind.” (That last sentence gets a true literal lol from me.) Having decided she must now know every detail of dinner in advance, lest disaster strikes again, Jill Zarin — whose chyron, hilariously, reads NOT THE PRIMARY — demands sushi as an appetizer at the bar, despite the fact that she herself does not eat sushi, as well as some crudités. What could go wrong?
The guests play pickleball and then meditate together on the beach. I hate to judge a book by its cover, but my guess that the yoga teacher among the guests would turn out to be the vegan lady with blonde and purple dreadlocks proves to be correct. Also, it feels important that I tell you Jill Zarin is wearing truly deranged Dior x Robocop wraparound sunglasses. They come back to the boat and drink something called a mimosa shot, which sounds to me like a shortcut to an orange juice and bile-flavored burp.
The overwhelmed interior desperately needs a new stew (it’s too bad they can’t somehow recruit Sabrina), causing more tension between Barbie and Xandi. Barbie is quite literally running around the entire boat like she’s on Supermarket Sweep. Xandi is offended when Barbie asks her to iron a napkin and snidely tells her to do it herself. But it’s Anthony who steps into the biggest pile of professional poop by the end of the episode. In consenting to Jill, he makes a fatal mistake: The primary doesn’t eat raw fish, but they never discussed (and so he didn’t make) a vegetable sushi option, only crudités. And Jill Zarin may be Jill Zarin, but the primary is still the primary.
Captain Kerry takes notice. Captain Kerry is not happy.
By Molly Fitzpatrick , 2024-04-02 03:17:21
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