Key Notes: ‘Siesta Key’ Episode 13 Recap

Ah, my favorite way to end a long Monday: watching young, privileged locals make poor decisions for the sake of reality television.

This was the perfect follow-up to last week’s episode. There were no tight shots of bikini bottoms, no over dramatic pool parties (just a moderately dramatic pool party), no potential fist fights … but don’t worry, we still have plenty to talk about.

Here we go.

The episode opens where the last one left off, and we see that Juliette is indeed very, very confused about what 1) she wants and 2) what is an acceptable way to go about getting it. She gets off Alex’s boat after somehow managing to make out with his broken face and proceeds to demand a ride home from Garrett.

Garrett, being the nice guy he is, takes her home and calmly explains that he doesn’t trust Alex. Juliette essentially says it’s no big deal because at least she wasn’t sleeping at his house like Kelsey was last week.

Whatever. I don’t know if Garrett did anything with Kelsey but for some reason Garrett is the down-to-Earth underdog that I can’t help but root for on this show, so in the deepest crevice of my heart I truly feel that he didn’t cheat on Juliette.

However, she just uttered that response after cheating on Garrett, so again, whatever, Juliette.

Moving on.

In the next scene Paige, Madisson and Kelsey are recapping the night and trying to figure out what the hell got into Juliette. This conversation is pretty boring except for my two favorite moments. 1) When Paige (still the voice of reason on this show, bless her) says that Alex and Juliette “deserve each other” and 2) When Brandon strolls in out of Madisson’s room and offers to make them pancakes, then proceeds to measure the mix in a drinking cup rather than a measuring cup.

Katie and I agreed that sadly, in that moment, we could truly relate to Brandon’s inability to cook even the simplest of breakfast foods. Maybe someday we’ll become “real” adults.

In the next scene we meet Juliette’s mom for the first time, which is interesting because on press day back in July, Juliette told me her mom was not supportive of her coming on the show originally.

Somehow they convinced her to get on screen, and thank God she did because her accent is entrancing. It’s too exotic to place but I’m into it, and it was the best part of this otherwise stupid scene that ends with Juliette crying while she packs to go back to school.

There was actually one refreshing moment in this scene, however, and it was incredibly simple. The conversation starts with Juliette telling her mom she’s taking 12 credit hours because she doesn’t want to “overload” herself, and I was praising the reality TV gods for giving some concrete evidence that she’s a student for once.

Apparently being in college isn’t cool or dramatic enough for the “Siesta Key” cast to chat about, so that’s all we get. Even when the camera crew makes the hike up to Tallahassee to catch Alex crashing Hannah’s birthday party at FSU, the only sign that they’re actually on a college campus is the b-roll they caught of students walking to class and the final scene in which Juliette is one-strapping her backpack en route to class.

The rest of the scenes at FSU are heavy drinking related and could have easily been filmed on Siesta Key, so I had to remind myself that these people are getting college credit in between takes of this God forsaken show.

Anyway, back to the island.

Carson and Kelsey go on a skimboarding date and I don’t remember most of the conversation because I was too distracted by Carson’s Greek-god physique and angelic face, but I do remember that he got super real at the end and told her he was put into foster care during his parent’s messy divorce.

I’m interested to see if they follow up with this storyline because they have otherwise made Carson out to be nothing but a boy toy on this show, but there’s clearly a story there.

OK now we’re finally to the stupid FSU scenes, and I’m going to bullet point them because they annoy me.

• We see Juliette’s college apartment kitchen is bigger than my college graduate bedroom and bathroom combined, so that’s cool.
• Juliette and her friends open a scene by talking about fake eyelashes and it’s dumb (talking about beauty products doesn’t make girls dumb, I’d like to point out, but this scene is set up to make them look like blonde — and one brunette — bimbos and that’s why I hate it).
• Hannah is not the least bit surprised or pleased when Juliette tells her she kissed Alex, and then she proceeds to tell Juliette Alex is “gross,” and in that moment, she became my favorite character.
• Alex crashes Hannah’s bday party and proceeds to utter the worst sentence ever said on this show: “Bro needs to get laid.” I’m so disgusted by this that I’m still recovering, but all I have to say is that if you need to drive more than four hours to get laid, bro, you should probably renounce your throne as “King of Siesta Key.”
• Hannah’s boyfriend Andrew (who I love maybe even more than Carson), essentially says Alex doesn’t deserve Juliette and in doing so gets in a stupid verbal sparring match with Alex. The best part is the end of the fight when Hannah yells “WE’RE HAVING FUN!” to break it up and remind everyone that the producers told them this was supposed to be another totally casual birthday party that wasn’t meant to be dramatic at all (LOL).

Back on our favorite barrier island, the rest of the squad is partying masquerade style (because they’re chic Siesta Key kids so they theme their parties as they please) and in an incredible, sweeping moment, Tarik gives Madisson (and Brandon, he points out) a dildo for a housewarming gift.

The party is relatively drama free, surprisingly (ahem because Alex and Juliette aren’t there ahem), but we do see some quality flirting between Carson and Kelsey and a nice friendly chat between Garrett and Kelsey, followed by some quality slow-motion dance moves on G-Baby’s behalf (Brandon actually called him G- Baby in this episode and part of me died inside, side note). The party ends with Garrett stepping out to call Juliette but she’s too busy with her not-so-new beau Alex to answer.

Next we have a wonderful scene in which Kelsey, Madisson and Chloe are all hungover and recapping the party, which mostly consists of them discussing their shock that Garrett chose to attend their party rather than drive to Tallahassee for Hannah’s.

The rest of the scenes with Juliette and Alex are stupid and not worth more than a couple sentences, so I’ll just say that essentially before he leaves FSU he tells her he wants to be with her but she isn’t sure what she wants and tells him she has to go to class without giving him a real answer.

Other important scenes include Chloe telling Garrett that Alex is visiting Juliette and cozying up to her (which results in a lot of tight shots of him clenching in his gym clothes) and a touching (no sarcasm intended for once) conversation between Tarik and Chloe. Tarik tells her his soulmate was killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. This show just got a lot more personal.

Perhaps the second most “real” moment of the epsidoe is towards the end when Kelsey tells her Mom she’s going to New York to meet with a model management company. Her mom is ecstatic until they begin to talk about how she might have to lose weight to get back into the business (WHAT?) and she not-so-casually brings up how Kelsey used to eat three Cheerios a day when she was modeling.

Kelsey gets emotional because she’s not confident that she can get back into that, but she seems to have made her decision by the end when she tells Madisson she’s going to NYC and Madisson offers to go with her because she’s reached out to some engineering contacts there and is hoping to do a few interviews.

What follows is perhaps the most empowering scene of the whole TV series yet: two good friends who are vowing to support each other’s career aspirations. It made my heart happy, especially after all the producer’s attempts at making the FSU girls look like ditzes.

Girl power!

— Niki Kottmann