Key Notes: 'Siesta Key' Season 2, Episode 10

Hello, loyal readers.

Thanks for sticking with us. We know this TV show is so bad that it has been known to cause both physical and emotional pain from the minute you lay eyes (or ears — especially ears, actually, because this cast is nice to look at) on it, and we’re right there with you.

I wish I could say this week was less painful. But if I said that, I’d be lying to you, readers, and I would never do that to you.

Instead, let’s do an honest recap. This week’s fine piece of television begins with another Juliette narration that sounds like a valley girl with no acting experience auditioning for a bad commercial. Turns out it’s just our pal explaining what it’s like to be single now.

Juliette says she’s “trying not to wonder what he’s up to now that he’s single,” of course referring to Alex, and then says “the less I know, the better,” which is a beautiful foreshadow for another instance of Chloe oversharing other people’s personal information that comes about ten minutes later.

Let’s breeze through the next few scenes to avoid boring you:

*Brandon, Canvas and Kelsey drink red wine (which I find hilarious for some reason — mostly for Brandon because it seems so out of character) next to someone’s backyard pool and talk about his music career. He says “only time tells” when Kelsey mentions both he and Madisson are single right now.

*Alex and his dad have a weird scene where Gary is trying to connect with him for a minute but the second Alex implies he’s having a hard time focusing in school because he’s thinking about Juliette, Gary chastises him. The best part of this scene, however, is Alex saying he FEELS LIKE HE’S BEING BULLIED (I can’t even elaborate on how wrong this is) and then saying “good for I” because that’s totally proper English.

*Canvas and Jared play pool together at Livingston’s and she drops the news that Madisson is now single. Jared says “that’s why she needs to be with me, I would never do that” referring to Ben sexting Tawni, and for a moment my heart sinks because for some reason I suddenly want Canvas and Jared to be together.

*Cara tells Chloe while getting their hair done at Fresh Salon and Spa that she went to Alex’s but that “nothing happened,” she just “wanted someone to show support for him” because “nobody was on his side.” Chloe isn’t having it.

*Obviously Chloe tells Juliette about Cara and Alex’s (actually uneventful, but of course Juliette doesn’t know that) rendezvous and, shocker, she texts both Garrett to let him know and Cara to tell her that they need to talk.

*Pauly and his God-awful hair show up at Alex’s, where his (aka Grandma Bev’s) $80,000 Mercedes is taken away from him. Alex, in an uncharacteristically kind move, tells his cousin that Beth, Mrs. Kompothecras, might be able to get him a job moving furniture at her business, So Staged. Then Pauly has the audacity to say he’s “too good” for that kind of work. TOO GOOD. I KID YOU NOT, HE SAID THIS. And then he said something about how he should be seeing himself “on billboards.” I can’t even put my rage for this privileged white boy into words right now.

*Brandon talks to his mom about his tour and about Madisson being single, admitting he still has feelings for her, and his mom’s smile/nature is honestly adorable and makes the whole scene worth our time.

*My best friend Pauly Privileged Paul (yes, he maintains his entitled nature even without his trust fund money and that’s what pisses me off even more) shows up at So Staged to ask Beth for a job by saying “I’d hate to go fill out job applications, that’s the worst.”

Let’s break down this conversation for a second because this is the point in this series where Beth Kompothecras, mother of the worst cast member next to Pauly and wife of Gary Kompothecras, becomes the hero of this whole show.

When Pauly had the nerve to imply he wants a job without even having to apply, Beth slays us all and says jobs at her company require applications and that there are rules for employees to follow. He half jokingly says he’ll follow any rule as long as he can have the occasional smoke break — but not the cigarette kind — and she has the AMAZING line: “It’s called So Staged, not So Stoned, and we don’t tolerate that here.”

I have no idea if Beth was fed that line or if it was organic (probably the former) but honestly it doesn’t even matter because then she says he needs to “grow up” and she’s now my new favorite human on this show.

Anyway, back to the lighting round:

• Jared and Garrett play basketball together and Garrett shares that he has been offered the chance to be a traveling personal trainer but hasn’t told Cara yet, partially because he’s upset with her after hearing she went to Alex’s. The bros bond over their mutual distaste for Alex (#relatable) and then Jared yet again lets the world know he’s thirsty as hell and wants to show Madisson how he feels about her.
• Cara and Chloe meet because Cara’s mad at her for telling Juliette about the Alex rendezvous. Chloe’s defense is that she thought Juliette was going to freak out at Alex, not Cara, which for a second seems like a good point but on second thought, it’s not LOL.
• Garrett whoops Pauly’s butt into shape during a personal training session and whenever it gets hard Pauly keeps saying “do it for the car!” I can’t.

Now, let’s break down what is probably the best scene of the episode: the heated discussion between Cara and Juliette at what I think is Eloise Werlin Park.

First of all, their outfits are fire, and that just needs to be noted because they came dressed cute as hell for a potential fight and I respect that. Anyway, what ensues is a conversation that begins as a heated argument and ends up in a surprising truce and I couldn’t be more happy about it.

The highlights are the apologies, because of course they express their anger for each other (and Cara makes the great point of saying “I don’t owe you anything, you’ve never been nice to me and we’ve never been friends”) but it ends with them both admitting they did each other wrong (Juliette says sorry for texting Garrett about the rendezvous and Cara says sorry for going to Alex’s in the first place) and Cara takes me by surprise by saying she regrets her actions, she’s embarrassed she supported Alex, and that if she had to choose a side again she would have chosen Juliette’s. Dang.

I’m already feeling Cara at this point in the episode (who knew she would slowly become one of the most reasonable cast members in my eyes), so you can imagine how broken my heart is now that GARRETT BREAKS UP WITH HER IN THE END OF THE EPISODE.

This breakup at Art Ovation bothers me because the way she talks to Garrett before he ends it makes me feel like she genuinely is sorry and that she truly has strong feelings for him — I mean she said she doesn’t want to be without him — and yet he can’t handle it. For a minute he makes it sound like he just needs some time apart and then boom, he breaks our hearts ALL BECAUSE SHE JUST WENT OVER AND TALKED TO ALEX FOR 20 MINUTES THEN WENT HOME.

I know I’m standing up for a girl who’s made a mistake (actually several), but come on, are we truly meant to believe that she’s as bad of a person as Alex? Give this girl a damn break and stop equating her actions with a guy who’s cheated on and lied to every girl he’s ever had a relationship with.

Anyway we need to wrap this up and talk about the final scene of the episode (that happens after an uninteresting hangout with Madisson and Brandon at Bayfront Park where he says they should “be single together” because that makes sense LOL).

In the final shot we see Jared driving up to Madisson’s house with flowers on the passenger seat, but the second he’s about to pull up he sees Brandon leaving and hugging Madisson goodbye. He promptly turns around, drives away but STOPS TO THROW THE FLOWERS AWAY IN A GARBAGE CAN.

This shot is pure gold. Honestly I wish I had been there to hear a producer say “OK now chuck the flowers out the window!” Truly it’s all I ever wanted, a scene so dramatic that it’s purely bonkers we’re supposed to believe it wasn’t planned.

Well, that’s all they wrote, folks. We’ll catch you next week (and maybe one of us will be lucky enough to catch the chucked bouquet this time)!