Key Notes: 'Siesta Key' Recap Season 2, Episode 4

Hello, loyal readers.

It’s that time again. That time of the week when we offer a sassy, somewhat sarcastic recap of the mind-numbing show we all know and love (or just have an unhealthy addiction with) as “Siesta Key.”

This week’s episode, like most this season, started off with the kind of drama only our beloved Juliette Porter can dish out. It was a continuation of the Julex fight (yes, I just made a celebrity couple name for them and yes, I googled it and it happens to also be the name of an investment service in Wellesley, Mass.) at White Buffalo Saloon that the producers so rudely yet unsurprisingly left unresolved at the end of last week's episode.

Quick review: Alex called Juliette a “brat” and then said she was “stupid.” So basically it was a super mature, adult fight.

Anyway, Chloe consoles Juliette, Amanda utters one of her best lines yet — “Chloe has a way of knowing things” — and then Juliette thanks Chloe and says she’s going to go “fix her face,” because we all know girls aren’t allowed to show emotion in public AND mess up their makeup in the same night. That would simply be unladylike.

The camera flashes to Kelsey, who weirdly asks Jared who he likes and doesn’t like in the friend group, and it’s not long before we switch back to Chloe and Juliette, who are looking at a photo of Kelsey and Jared’s PG-13 beach escapade from the previous episode. Scaaaaaandalous.

This will be a novel if I don’t move this along, so here’s some bullet points of what happened next:

• Garrett and Cara play frisbee on the beach and he tells her this second date of theirs is better than any he had with Juliette, which is shocking because I so totally thought Juliette and Garrett were a match made in heaven.
• We learn Cara recently applied for graduate school and is interested in becoming an elementary school teacher. She says she’s good with kids, which I don’t believe because she doesn’t get along with Juliette.
• Cara and Garrett go to grab a frisbee at the same time and have the most awkward almost-kiss in “Siesta Key” history.
• Juliette helps Alex pack for their big Miami trip and they both say they never want to fight again. Good luck with that.
• Cara tells Chloe she’s going to miss Garrett when he’s in Miami but then admits half the fun of being around him is that usually Juliette is around and she loves getting a reaction out of her. I’m so glad she likes being around Garrett for such genuine reasons.
• Canvas speaks her first full sentence of the season (four episodes in? Come on, MTV, let someone other than a cisgender straight white kid speak) and lets us know that she is interested in her coworker, Tawni. I ship it.
• Madisson says she obviously wants Ben to commit, and I wonder how Ben has not gotten the hint yet.
• I don’t know what was happening because I was distracted by his godly smile but Carson is freaking adorable while packing or something with Brandon.
• The cast drives to Miami in .2 seconds for Juliette’s trip and we see her and Alex share a really half-assed girl-jumps-onto-guy-and-wraps-legs-around-him-while-he-holds-her-and-shows-off-his-masculinity make-out session.
• Madisson tells Ben she doesn’t want to share a room with him in Miami because he hasn’t committed to her yet and girls around the world started clapping at their TVs.
• Tawni and Canvas go on a date and the sexual tension runs high. The conversation quickly gets deep and Canvas shares that her dad abandoned her and her mom moved to Australia when she was 16. The mood then switches back to flirty and the girls get into a steamy dance floor make-out sesh. I sort of got emotional whiplash but it was also like a queer version of a date from “The Bachelor,” and I’m here for it.
• Carson tells Ben that Madisson basically owes it to him “as a man” to sleep in the same bed as him, and in that moment, I took back everything I said/felt/fantasized about Carson.
• Copious amounts of alcohol are consumed by the Miami crew (which includes everyone but Canvas, Tawni, Kelsey, Jared and Cara) and drama, of course, ensues.
• Garrett misses Cara so he invites her to Miami via Facetime — even though she was most definitely not invited, which Chloe makes clear — and lies to her, saying “yes” when she asks if “everyone is cool with” her going.

Cara then shows up and the trip goes to shit because of course Juliette can’t stop hating this girl’s guts even though she barely knows her.

I’m not going to go into details about all the fights Cara’s presence causes over the next 30 minutes because frankly it would bore you all to death (can you tell I’m over this plotline?) but the point is Cara is really good at not fighting back/acting like Juliette doesn’t bother her and it drives Juliette up a freaking wall.

What’s more interesting is what happens back on the Key. Aka not on Siesta Key at all, but on Casey Key, the location of the infamous tiki bar where Canvas (and previously Kelsey and Chloe) works.

Jared and Canvas chat about Kelsey before she shows up, and they’re acting like they’re best friends. They keep saying “well, you know me...” Uh, no, I don’t think you do, because you both supposedly just met three episodes ago.

Anyway, Kelsey comes in hot and asks to talk to him as if this wasn’t already planned. She’s mad because everyone saw his posts of them on the beach last episode, and she’s afraid her long-distance boyfriend is going to find out.

Jared gets gets mad at her for acting like it’s his fault (and honestly I’m weirdly on his side in that moment), and they argue about how it went down. Kelsey claims HE kissed HER and that she pushed him off of her and then left. Jared says he did initiate the kiss and she did leave after they kissed, but she didn’t push him off. She did look like she was kissing back last episode, but what do I know LOL.

Regardless, we all know she cheated on her boyfriend — unless they secretly have an open relationship, which is very possible and of course they would keep that on the DL.

Kelsey tells Jared they’re never going to be anything more than friends and that her boyfriend is coming to visit so essentially he needs to keep his mouth shut. That doesn’t go over well and they both leave huffing and puffing.

Garrett and Cara finally make out and it’s pretty hot, but then the next morning there’s a super bizarre conversation during which Chloe tells Madisson Cara said “nothing happened” but that Garrett “went down on her” … so it sure sounds like something happened.

Ben FINALLY asks Madisson to be his girlfriend, which is the best part of the episode, but instead of ending on that happy note we watch a weird conversation between Cara and Alex during which she tells him she misses him and it’s “just hard” (what, we’ll never know) and then she touches his hand.  Garrett asks “if they’re good,” and of course Juliette is watching on the sidelines freaking out.

Sigh.

The last scene of the episode, however, did not disappoint. Garrett and Juliette have a painfully awkward conversation while sitting six feet apart on separate benches and Juliette tells him he lets girls walk all over him. He asks if that includes her, seeing as they briefly dated, and she says yes, and I yelled at my TV.

That’s all, folks. Tune in next week for another recap of this Godforsaken show we can’t turn away from.