To mask our bitterness about the cast of Made In Chelsea: Bali spending five weeks in Indonesian paradise for work, and E4 deciding to show it to us bang splat in the middle of a cold, harsh, expensive winter, we’re going to think of the spin-off as Christmas escapism. Despite travelling 8,000 miles away to film the show, their complicated love lives, expensive swimwear and passive aggressive catch ups have followed them, and we're here to watch it all unravel. You can take the cast out of Chelsea...
The first episode was full of all the drama we could have asked for, and the second didn’t disappoint either. It’s becoming the Christmas gift that keeps on giving, so what went down in episode two? Warning, spoilers ahead!
Sam Prince is at it again
In possibly the least shocking story line so far, the new cast member Arabella Overden has received flirty messages from someone on the show who's already in a relationship. That person is – brace yourselves – Sam Prince. 22-year-old graphic designer Arabella, who knows the group from her days as a promoter at Raffles nightclub in Chelsea, has joined them in Bali and managed to cause a stir before she'd even ordered a lychee martini. Joining as a good friend of Lily Ludovici Gray, Ruby Adler and Melissa Tattam, she confessed to having a crush on Sam and said that the pair have flirted on Instagram and have even had phone calls together.
It turns out Sam has been liking stories of her bikini pics (rather than her actual grid posts), thus leaving “no trace” for girlfriend Inga Valentiner to see – as Melissa was quick to point out. When the rumours eventually got addresed with the couple, Arabella warned Inga not to trust her boyfriend – as many a man and woman have done before her – and said she wanted Inga to know 'how sneaky he really is'. But, in true Sam style, he denied the whole thing and replied to a message from Arabella trying to ‘clear the air’, saying there is no air to be cleared with a wave emoji…
Talk about covering your tracks, Sam then filled a swimming pool with rose petals saying ‘baby’ and told his girlfriend that Arabella and Lily are just medalling and she has nothing to worry about. Talk about overdoing it...
Has the Harvey and Miles feud finally come to an end?
What we didn’t see coming was the day Miles Nazaire and Harvey Armstrong became friends. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but the former enemies seemed to make real headway after their heated argument about who did or didn't kiss Yasmine and Issy at the dinner table in episode one. In this episode, however, Harvey opened up to Miles about how he regrets what he did to ex Emily Blackwell 'every single day' and said how hard he finds it seeing her with another man. It’s almost as if he shouldn’t have cheated on her! Anyway, they both apologised after the heart to heart, and later in the episode they even fist pumped. It's a Christmas miracle!
The Yasmine-Harvey-Issy love triangle
In what’s become a messy old triangle, Yasmine Zweegers and Issy Francis-Baum managed to make up after Issy and Harvey kissed on the first night, despite Issy knowing her friend started to like him. Issy then went out of her way to convince Yasmine to give things another shot with Harvey, having told him nothing more could happen between them because of her friendship with Yasmine. Yes, it's all very confusing.
Harvey then spoke to his new bestie Emily and admitted he’s probably not that attracted to Yasmine and views their connection as more of a platonic one. Instead, he wants to keep ‘having fun’ with Issy while they’re all away together. When he told them both at the end of the episode, Yasmine took the rejection well and Issy seemed to do a 180º. We've seen this tale play out a few too many times, and it never seems to end well.
Emily and Harvey are besties now... but for how long?
The suspicious friendship blossoming between relatively recent exes, Emily and Harvey, has had us watching with one brow raised for a while. But in episode two, the pair discussed how happy they are to be able to put all the drama of the past behind them. Emily even gave Harvey more dating advice, and he asked if he’d be invited to ‘the wedding’, to which Emily responded that he should probably actually meet her new boyfriend Jordan Alexander first.
In a friendly chat that seemed almost too good to be true, Emily admitted that Harvey’s mum had texted her recently to say she found some of Emily’s things at their house and that her moving on is ‘mine and Harvey’s loss and Jordan’s gain’. However, in the preview for episode three, it seems that Harvey may have airbrushed the truth about his cheating a little too much and the truth has come back to haunt him – again. Emily doesn't seem too happy about it.
No luck for the Locke-Lockes
In one of the more emotional scenes of the episode, Gareth and Ollie Locke broke the news to Emily and Miles that their latest round of IVF had sadly failed again. Ollie admitted that he hadn’t even told his Dad yet as he wrongly felt emasculated by how hard they have found the whole process. He admitted that he knows it's wrong, but he feels that it's his fault things aren't going to plan for the couple.
Gareth then broke down in tears and the group talked about how nice it will be when it finally works out and they can tell their baby how desperately its parents wanted them. We hope their luck takes a positive turn in 2023.