Key Notes: 'Siesta Key' Episode 3 Recap

The third episode of MTV's local reality series featured an uneventful booze cruise, a shockingly civil reconciliation and a teary bayside talk between the formerly sole stable couple on the show.

By Niki Kottmann & Cassidy Alexander
| 10:00 a.m. August 15, 2017

Arts + Entertainment
Reviews

This week, not a lot happened on “Siesta Key” — or did it?

With the multitude of commercial breaks and the swiftness of its scenes that don’t even last the full duration of one of the sugary pop songs playing in the background, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with “Siesta Key.”

I found myself looking down at my phone at 10:30 p.m. and then again at 10:59 p.m., and both times I was surprised by how much time had passed — had it really been 30 minutes since I last wished Alex Kompothecras would permanently lose speaking privileges? (Just kidding — that’s every time he speaks.)

This episode managed to pack in a lot of new and/or developed plot points without the probably fake drama that made us roll our eyes the first two episodes, so let’s review the highlights:

Cassidy’s Hottake: Even I can’t identify with these people and I am (kind of) them

I am a 22-year-old girl who graduated college in April. I spent a month looking for jobs before coming to work at the Observer, and now I’m learning about things like health insurance plans and how to haggle with customer service reps without giving the phone to my mom. I am, in all aspects of the phrase, a young adult. In theory, this show is about people just like me, trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives, and how to make it happen. But even as Madisson has a tough job interview and Alex gets disappointing news from grad school, I can’t bring myself to empathize with them. Madisson applied for a job she wasn’t really qualified for and was devastated when it didn’t work out, but why would she think it would? And Alex’s first response to getting wait-listed from a law school with a good reputation is that everyone else is dumber than he is. They may be behaving rationally, but everything else I know about their lifestyles and personalities sets me up to not root for them. Maybe MTV should have considered that a few million dollars in income is too much of a divide for the audience to relate to the cast of a show that’s supposed to represent reality.

-Cassidy Alexander

— Kelsey and Chloe make fun of Garrett’s adorably romantic six-month anniversary picnic and present and Chloe foreshadows the inevitable wave of jealousy that will soon wash over Garrett and his abs when he watches Alex hit on his girlfriend.

— Through Kelsey’s painfully unnatural narration, we learn that Alex has been “low-key texting and flirting” with her behind Garrett’s back (shocker).

—Alex has another awkward Facetime (can we all please imagine the scheduling that went behind that? “Okay, Alex, make sure you’re sitting on your bed and only wearing swim trunks at X time so you can make amends with one of your four love interests”) but this time it’s with former beau Madisson, who tells him she felt disrespected at Brandon’s bonfire because of his comments about their former sex life (cue slow claps because finally, a girl who demands a tiny amount of respect from boys on this show). Alex, to our surprise, acknowledges his mistake and apologizes — probably because he misses said sex life.

—Chloe explodes at her mom and storms out of the restaurant they’re eating at — Social Eatery & Bar, we think — when she tells Chloe she thinks she has an anger problem and that it might have something to do with the absence of Chloe’s dad from their life.

—We watch the kind of the classically orchestrated and alcohol-fueled “Siesta Key” party scene that we’ve come to know and love — only this time on a boat! — and it’s most notable not for what occurs but for who isn’t present. The Kompo vessel hosts a more intimate posse for this soiree, including Mr. Seaman Alex, Amanda, Brandon (in his only scene of the whole episode — poor Brandon, apparently all you’re good for is grabbing Amanda’s butt), Kelsey, Garrett, and a couple more unidentified blondes. As Oracle Chloe predicted, Alex flirts with Kelsey in front of Garrett, and in true Alex style, it’s done by fake-teaching her how to steer a boat that’s probably driving in circles. Garrett watches from afar, looking like a sad toy poodle swaddled in a pink tank top.

—Madisson’s dad comforts her before her engineering job interview, which is for a job that’s outside her emphasis area in the field (but Alex’s dad got her the interview...so she’s got some pull). She later attends said interview and looks terrified, eventually telling Alex during a quasi-date “where they met” (AKA on a seaside boulder, so you know, where young love usually begins) that it was a flop.

Niki’s Hottake: “The Hills” Girls v. “Siesta Key” Ladies

Let me begin by saying that my level of adoration for early ‘00s-era Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port was borderline unhealthy in late junior high/early high school when I first began watching “The Hills.” There was something about those girls — they were just so enchanting to a young teenage heart. They gushed about boys over brunch, they went to Paris for work (*cough* at least one of them made the right decision), they went to posh LA nightclubs and had the most killer birthday parties I’d ever seen — they were so glamorous, and I was every antonym possible for “glamorous” at that point in my awkward teenage life. I looked up to those girls (not so much Audrina or — sigh — Heidi, but Lauren and Whitney in particular), but I don’t see much role model potential in the ladies, or men for that matter, of “Siesta Key.”

Don’t get me wrong, the cast of “The Hills” definitely knew how to party hard and make small disagreements into seemingly endless grudges just like our Sarasota stars, but at least Whitney and Lauren were (usually) nice girls who cared about their friends and family and worked hard at their impossibly chic jobs at “Teen Vogue.” They had values and ambition. The girls of “Siesta Key,” on the other hand, spend all of their screen time either bashing each other or pining after boys who aren’t worth their time. The only girl who has shown any career ambition so far is Madisson, and on this episode, I saw a glimmer of hope. I’ve seen many articles floating around about how Madisson is the new LC, and at first I was furious. “NO ONE WILL EVER REPLACE LC!” I recently yelled at a coworker in the middle of our newsroom in the most unwarranted display of affection for a human I don’t know personally (fun fact: I was going to say “for whom I’ve never met” but I actually HAVE met her at a book signing in my hometown of Naperville, Illinois in 2009. She autographed a copy of her terrible book for me. It’s okay to be jealous).

Now, my feelings are mixed. Even though the interview was a flop and she appears to have mainly got it because of her connections to the Kompothecras family, it still speaks volumes that MTV is showing one of these girls making moves towards following her career goals. I don’t love that Madisson seems clueless during said interview, but then again, nobody crushes their first professional job interview. At least she tried, unlike her female co-stars who have made no reference to a future that didn’t have anything to do with a vapid male co-star.

-Niki Kottmann

—Alex opens his letter from Stetson University, which appears to be the only law school he applied to because he thought getting accepted would be a “walk in the park,” only to learn that he was waitlisted. His dad rushes to comfort him by casually dropping the fact that Alex has dyslexia.

—Chloe goes to a therapist to “work on” herself, and it’s revealed that she’s never met her dad — who’s been in and out of jail several times — because her mom left him when she was pregnant with Chloe.

—Garrett hints on a date with Kelsey that he was jealous of Alex during the boat party, which upsets Kelsey, who later tells now-identified-blonde-friend Judy that she needs him to trust her.

—Juliette gets her wisdom teeth pulled and proves it to Alex by opening her mouth in perhaps the least romantic oral movement possible.

—Garrett and his brother Tanner talk about Kelsey — who “could be the one” — but we’re too distracted to remember anything else besides the wonderfully dramatic slow-motion shot of him walking his dog while chatting.

—Chloe ends a phone call with Alex by calling him “babe,” and he by calling her “hun” and it’s so wrong that it’s right (clearly this is the couple that should have been).

—Juliette plays third wheel on a coffee shop armistice that she planned for Amanda and Chloe, who make up after a surprisingly civil discussion of their feelings. Kudos to Chloe for being the mature one here — she somehow is going to remain friends with a girl who punched her in the face.

—Kelsey and Garrett have a serious life chat at Bayfront Park that ends in Garrett’s statuesque hands wiping tears from Kelsey’s eyes after what might have been the most confusing conversation on this show yet. It appears that Kelsey thinks they want different things, and this whole jealousy thing has made her realize that maybe Garrett won’t trust her if she starts modeling internationally again? We think this scene was hard to follow because there was no problem to be fixed in the first place.

—Finally, the climax comes in the last 10 or so seconds when Pauly reveals to Chloe that Amanda and Alex slept together...dun dun DUNNN. We hope the “King of Siesta Key” ends up sticking to one Siesta sweetheart who can get him through this Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission investigation.

-Niki Kottmann