Unusually, this episode starts with some rowing - not the argument kind we’ve come to expect, but the one that the Winklevoss twins do when they’re not going head to head with Mark Zuckerberg or adding to their bitcoin fortune. ‘It’s the smallest boat I’ve ever been on,’ boasts Victoria, who is demonstrably not breaking a sweat. She obviously has spent many holidays travelling on P&O ferries. Oh, the glamour! Olivia is talking about how she started fancying Boulle the very nanosecond it hit her that Toff liked him too. Elsewhere, Boulle is skateboarding his way to Toff while wearing a shirt that has been tailored so strangely and severely, it might have been made in a prison workshop. Toff makes the face of a woman attempting to reconcile her romantic ambitions with the fact that her suitor still dreams of being cast in a remake of BMX Bandit.
He has brought her a single red rose, and he is going to draw her. ‘I feel like we’re in that Titanic film!’ exclaims Toff. Which one, love? Are you thinking of 1958’s A Night To Remember, or The Unsinkable Molly Brown? She starts asking him various questions about Ghana, and whether there’s a direct flight from Heathrow. Boulle is clearly picturing the hole that he’s planning to hide in.
Ollie shocks Jess with his full frontal sunbathing, but we’re most shocked by his austere choice of pool float. No swan? No giant rideable flamingo? #fail, Ollie! He’s still floating on air after his fate with Yacine, telling Jess ‘It was passionate, it was handy, it was…really nice!’ Let’s hope he includes this description when he’s reviewing Yacine on TripAdvisor. Alik has come to see Louise AND HIS EARS DID NOT POP ON THE PLANE. There is no doubt about how pleased he is to see Jamie and Sam, because he is showing them with loudness! He’s seen Louise with Ryan on social media and he is very, very cross. ‘It would be cool if you were more invested in this,’ he barks at Sam, telling him that he spend forty thousand bucks on an engagement ring for Louise. Now, Alik, was that before or after Brexit? Because if you dropped dollar after the referendum, we’ll be seriously impressed Can we have it, and buy somewhere to live? His words wear the bois down. ‘Just go and see her,’ sighs Jamie, who has no interest in tedious relationship chat unless it is about his own tedious relationship.
Louise is not talking like a woman who is hoping her ex boyfriend has spent more than a normal person’s annual salary on serious commitment jewellery - she feels a bit pukey. The nicest thing she can say about Alik is that she wouldn’t throw him overboard on the tiny rowing boat and watch him drown.
Boulle complains about Toff, and Binky points out that he’s giving out some seriously mixed messages if all he wanted was an artist’s model. Victoria, surprising us all with her strange embrace of athleisure, is simultaneously telling Toff that there is nothing adorable about Boulle pitching up with a rose, as they’re available to anyone who has a five euro note in their pocket, an inability to say no and is in the proximity of a restaurant. Ollie does his best on his second date with Yacine, saying ‘Basketball is my top sport of the day!’ Alik confronts Louise by saying sane things that doesn’t make him sound as though he’s trying to recruit her to be in a cult, like ‘I looked into your eyes and I could feel your love.’ Later, triumphant about triggering tears, he tells Sam ‘If she was just lying to make me feel good, she wouldn’t be crying!’ For once, Sam says what we’re all thinking. ‘Is there any chance that you could be in denial?’ He continues in this vein on their big bois night out, texting Louise when she doesn’t want to be texted as Sam starts to contemplate the single life, and their new friend Lukas appears to wear a shirt that has been embellished with dried macaroni. Binky and Olivia have a summit about ‘Operation Snatch’, as it were, which ends with Boulle literally sliding into Liv’s real life DMs and onto her lips! This will have repercussions.
Alik heads home to have it out again with Louise, who is wearing an excellent chiffon dress and tells him that she wants to be his best friend. He turns into a furious Gremlin, reacting to truth bombs instead of water and turning douchey instead of destructive. ‘Despite your flaws, you’ve still got a guy in front of you who wants to marry you!’ he huffs. Louise, are you still sure you wouldn’t push him overboard? ‘I’ve got love to offer and someone’s got to receive it.’ Alik, why don’t you think really, really hard about what that might mean, and how it could be a bad thing to say.
It’s polo time! Apparently you can’t have horses without heartbreak, because Yacine is already dumping Ollie, having suddenly remembered that he actually lives in London! Yacine is very classy, saying ‘You won’t have any trouble finding someone, they’d be lucky to have you.’ Too right. Sam suddenly decides to tell Tiff that he’s dreaming of the bachelor life, and understandably Tiff reacts as though Sam has just told her that he thinks he saw a rat where she keeps her bras. Then Boulle tells Toff that she’s not being honest about not wanting a relationship, and Toff tells him that he hasn’t been honest about keeping his face away from Olivia’s face. Brilliantly, Boulle leaves, then realises he has gone in the wrong direction and has to walk around Toff again. Ha!
She tells Victoria that her conversation with Boulle was ‘upsetting but informative’, and happily she soon comes across Olivia and can call her a snake to her face. We know that Olivia realises she’s in the wrong, because she’s talking so quickly that Russia would suspect that she was on speaking enhancing drugs and ban her from their Olympics team. ‘At least he likes me more than you,’ says Olivia, bravely, to the prevailing wind as she turns from Toff. Don’t they deserve each other! Olivia, I hope you like digging holes in Ghana! Finally, Alik ‘rebrands’ his break up with Louise. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ he insists. Alik, we can make no promises. But buy us a nice bit of jewellery, and we’ll give it a go.
Hero of the week
Controversially I would like to award this to Louise, for not buckling in the face of Alik shaped adversity and holding her nerve. With a special mention for Toff, who escaped L’espirit D’escalier and said all of the things to Olivia that we would still be struggling to articulate weeks afterwards.
Villain of the week
Boulle, you knew what you were doing with Toff - she’s too sweet a soul to lead on like that, and we deem your conduct ungentlemanly. We’re not saying Boulle, we’re saying BOO!
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.