Two episodes into the season, the deck team finds itself in a chicken-or-egg situation: What came first, the deckhands’ inability to do their jobs or Nathan’s poor, clumsy leadership? He seems to have lost track of what his job even is. At one point, he tells Aesha that he wishes he had last season’s crew because Gael and Joe “took initiative.” To Sandy, somewhat amazingly, he says that he “doesn’t have time” to train his crew. Was Nathan clear on the responsibilities of a head of department before taking the job? Yes, he’s supposed to make the schedules and delegate tasks; yes, he calls the distances and doesn’t have to drive the tender for beach excursions. But he’s also supposed to lead a team — and that has as much to do with communication as it does with ropes and checklists.

Aesha, an excellent leader, knows that. In a confessional, she puts it like this: “You’re only as good as your worst person.” On her first-ever boat, she was berated by a misogynistic captain to the point of swearing back at him and walking off. She vowed never to be like that and has made good on the promise. She is firm with V when showing her how to clean out the dryer filters before loading them again, but she also jumps with joy and offers congratulations when V sets the breakfast table perfectly, including mini jam jars.

In general, the interior department is getting along like a house on fire. Kizzi is efficient, and while showing V the ropes boosts her ego, she does so kindly and with a sense of humor. V, who grew up in an immigrant household with hard-working parents, has a rock-solid work ethic. She learns fast, keeps her head down, and seems completely capable of getting better as the season progresses. The only thing threatening to throw the interior off balance is if Kizzi gets messy with the boys. By her own admission, being single makes her feel dangerously free. She flirts indiscriminately across departments while the mysterious Tommy texts her nonstop. Cheekily, she admits that she likes it when people are obsessed with her and give her the “princess treatment.” So far, Max, Nathan, and Josh have all reciprocated her advances. There’s a slight diabolical tone to her voice when she promises her friend on the phone that “drama is going to happen.”

Boatmance shenanigans will have to wait, though; right now, drama is concentrated exclusively on the deck team. We pick up this week with Nathan smashing the Jet Ski into the deck lights in front of the guests. Sandy is patient when she pulls him aside to talk about what went wrong, but this is only one of a couple of talks she’ll have with him this week. Granted, by the time the Jet Skis are swinging crazily in the air, Nathan has only been onboard for a few hours. I needed that reminder: It felt like it’d been months already. Sandy has plenty of faith that Nathan will do a great job … eventually.

In the crew mess, Max and Christian talk about how the first day was “shit” and “disgusting.” Although at first it seems like they’ll bond over their discombobulation, it only exasperates Max to learn that Christian doesn’t know how many Seabobs they have. In fact, the tranquility of the rocking waves, or maybe the transient, ineffable quality of the water, seems to have lodged in Christian’s brain. He goes about his work as if he has all the time in the world. Sandy and Nathan put Tessa on watch from 12 a.m. to 3 a.m., at which point she switches with Christian. Nathan left a list of jobs for them to do during their night shift; Tessa checks them all off, and Christian just … doesn’t. He does everything but look at the list: He naps, watches charter guest Davinci’s online videos about crypto, holds his head in his hands …

Max is irritated when he wakes up to the unkept boat. He is determined to “put a fire into” Christian’s ass, so he tells Nathan what happened. Together, they check the list and see that Tessa checked off all of her tasks while Christian didn’t. Nathan grumbles under his breath that he is “so fed up,” but doesn’t bother to talk to Christian. His inability to communicate with him and Tessa is so bad that, when he calls them on the radio to put out the water toys, the two deckhands don’t even have their radios nearby, forcing Nathan to look for them. “I just need more urgency,” he manages to say to Christian, weakly.

Meanwhile, Josh handles breakfast. Josh may be quirky — he leaves notes to himself that include such encouragements as “Breathe! Push Yaself! You are just cooking, so just cook!” — but he knows what he’s doing. The first dinner of the charter goes splendidly; even when Davinci throws him a curveball by declaring that he “can’t stand tiramisu,” a declaration no sane person has ever made, Josh is prepared. He pulls out an “option B” dessert, a sumptuous-looking raspberry-and-chocolate mousse. The next morning, he’s up and at ’em before 6 a.m., preparing muffins, parfaits, and the like. When he tells the guests that the special is poached eggs with avocado and bacon, they each order something different instead: ham-and-cheese omelet, hard-boiled eggs with caviar (?), a sunny-side-up egg with nuts (??). Josh takes it in stride. He tells us a bit about his sobriety and newfound appreciation for life and nails the custom orders. All the fussiness makes him a little nervous for dinner later that night, but he kills it yet again — the guests rate his food a 12 out of ten.

While Nathan runs around pulling his hair and Josh finds a way to plate nuts with eggs, Max tries to amuse himself and Aesha by playing with a jellyfish. He touches one then puts his finger in his eye, which immediately begins to sting “like Tabasco.” I have to say, I love Max. I don’t think I would feel this way if I had to work with him — too much know-it-all-ness for someone who only started taking his job seriously after soul-searching in Bali — but he is hilarious. Even Sandy laughs when he can’t say what compelled him to touch a jellyfish in the first place. He runs his eye under fresh water, applies some ointment, and is ready to take the guests on a town excursion with Aesha in no time.

Nathan puts Christian in charge of driving them in the tender because “he’s done it before” and feels confident doing it again. Cut to: The tender is approaching shore, and Max and Christian are arguing about how far in they should go. They debate a bit in quiet tones, and Max gets behind the wheel after asking to beach the tender himself. Christian tells us that experiencing bullying in school has made him aggressive; he gets angry when he feels demeaned. And Max will not stop demeaning him.

I want to root for Christian, but it’s hard. Max and Aesha take the guests out to the cute old town, which disappoints with its lack of Gucci stores and meager offering of “local handmade shirts.” At 5:35 p.m., Aesha radios Christian to come pick them up. It takes him over 15 minutes to get the tender untied and started. Aesha and Max keep calling his name over the radio while Nathan supposedly listens without checking on the delay. By the time it’s 6:15 p.m., Christian is still not there. On the beach, Max and Aesha dish about Christian’s lack of urgency, the number one most important thing in yachting, according to the chief stew. She speculates that Christian’s unreliability will drive Nathan crazy, but it seems not to register with the bosun: he doesn’t address it at all. One of Josh’s reminders would serve him well: “You’re leading, so lead!”

Tessa — who is described by both Nathan and Sandy as a ghostlike, mute presence who “doesn’t speak and doesn’t work” — watches as the tension between Max and Christian escalates. Hearing about it from her, Nathan promises to keep an eye on it the next day. Instead, in the morning, he only makes things worse. Rather than talking to Christian about his various mistakes, he bitches to Tessa and Max about them, thereby making Max feel like he has leverage over Christian. The fact that Christian didn’t pull the lines and fenders at night makes for an actual problem in the morning, which Christian doesn’t even realize until much later, after the guests have left. Clueless, he tells Nathan about the Davinci videos he watched while on late-night duty. It’s only then that Nathan mentions that he was supposed to be working and shows him the job list, which Christian never even knew existed. Just typing this out is making me sweat.

Before that happens, though, they have to dock the boat, which is a disaster. Max and Christian chat on the bow while Nathan calls the distances, which irritates Sandy so much she calls them out over the radio. Then, Nathan can’t get it together; he fumbles with the distances and directions, making Sandy feel like she’s docking blind. Tessa, who boasts about her superior knowledge of how a boat is supposed to be run, doesn’t know how to use the Bravado’s controls and doesn’t feel capable of throwing a line to the dock, so she asks Nathan to do it for her instead. I can barely drive a car; I’d never be able to work on a boat. But I feel like if I had to, the job I’d be most capable of doing would be to throw a rope a couple of yards, right? How hard can it be?

Despite the stress, the boat is docked with no further damage except for the deck team’s morale. Sandy, annoyed that they look like amateurs, warns Max and Christian that she won’t tell them to shut up during docking again and gives Nathan pointers on where he can improve. At least the guests are happy with their charter; they say it was the best they’ve ever had. Max thanks the primary Carl for everything he does “for the crypto environment.” A strange way to put it, but thanks are in order: The guests leave 30,000 euros in tips. That’s over $2,800 each! Sandy congratulates both Josh and the interior department and spares some words of encouragement for the deck team.

Being richer by a few thousand dollars is not enough to dissipate the growing tension between Max and Christian. As they turn over the boat, Max asks Christian to do a few things — move a hose, put covers on some stuff — while he finishes wiping surfaces. But Christian doesn’t like that Max is giving him directions, particularly not when it’s chop-chop. They start arguing, and the editing makes it seem like Nathan can hear them from the other side of the boat. Christian tells Max that he is pushing his buttons while Max seemingly dares Christian to hit him (obviously, he won’t; we know all of Below Deck’s tricks by now). From the preview, it looks like Nathan will consider firing Christian next week. It’s true that he sucks at his job, but it’d be a cop out for Nathan to fire him without ever showing him what to do. He doesn’t even know there’s a job list! 

 The tensions between Max and Christian are already becoming untenable, and we’re only one charter into the season.