Liza and Kelsey have a (new) problem: Those silent Chicago investors aren’t so silent anymore. They’re the ones who got rid of Millennial, and now they need to approve any spending over $250,000. This is an issue because Kelsey and Liza spent $400,000 on the Kai Manning “book,” and now Charles needs to head to Chicago to defend that choice but no one has yet to figure out what this book is actually going to be. Kelsey and Liza assure him they’ll have something ready ahead of his meeting, but even they are worried. It’s shades of Jade Winslow all over again, isn’t it? Well, at least Kai seems much nicer to work with than Jade. And Liza is headed to Montauk to find out just how nice.
Upon getting out of her car outside Kai’s beach house, she finds Kai coming in from surfing, getting out of his wet suit, and getting completely naked right there on the beach. He waves at Liza as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Liza needs to find something to lean on.
Everyone is fully clothed as Liza and Kai have a nice wine chat and she tries to figure out what exactly his book could be about. He talks about his nomadic surfing lifestyle and informs her that he has loads of journals from all of his surfing adventures. Those could be useful, but he won’t let her see them just yet. He also gets very surf-philosophical (is surfilosophical a thing?), talking about how the reason he loves to surf is exactly that it isn’t important; it’s just a thing he loves. He’s living in the present, and Liza should too. She, of course, is constantly in her head. He knows a way for her to get out of her head and be more in her body. It’s not yoga. It’s sex. He offers her the option in such a casual manner, mainly as a way to ease her stress. She declines and leaves for her hotel. For a moment, it seems like she may go back.
The next day, after the two surf together (Liza gets up on her board; she’s a natural, apparently) she explains that she just got out of a relationship with someone and doesn’t think she should “just jump back into bed with somebody.”
But she could jump into the shower with him.
Back in NYC, Quinn’s being a weirdo. Or a psycho. I haven’t decided yet. She’s trying to make nice with the “Empirigals,” but it isn’t working. She has one person on her side, though: Charles. He loves her new book, and the two have a flirty interaction about how he’s the publisher and can do whatever he wants.
When Charles and Quinn meet with Kelsey and Lauren to go over the manuscript, they are not-so-begrudgingly onboard too. The book is all about not being afraid to take risks, even if you might fail, and that’s an important, accessible lesson. Things are kicked up a notch when Charles gets a call from Quinn’s assistant, who tells him Quinn is supposed to be heading to her supersecret, very expensive surprise birthday party at the Rainbow Room. Charles needs to find a way to get her there, now.
When he offers a dinner meeting at the Rainbow Room to Quinn, Kelsey, and Lauren, he’s pretty much booed out of the room (the look he shoots Lauren after she shits all over his idea is perfect). Quinn has a better idea: She’s taking them all to Dave & Buster’s. Also, she totally knows about the party, but it will be torture so she begs for, like, one hour of fun. Plus, she gets to keep flirting with Charles, so happy birthday to her, I guess.
Kelsey and Quinn share a moment: Kelsey laments the fact that she backed out of her deal with Quinn to go back to Empirical. It was the safe choice, and she should have taken the risk. She regrets it every day. It sounds like this is going to be an important part of Kelsey’s season-seven arc, and I am ready for her to make some big moves.
Hey, speaking of: Charles drops Quinn off at her party, and she leaves him with a quick kiss. Charles is so smiley. This is going to be the worst, isn’t it?
Liza returns to the office the next morning, and the woman is glowing. It does not take long for Kelsey and Lauren to get Liza to admit that she had lots and lots of sex with Kai. At the moment, however, she’s more excited about the fact that he gave her a box full of his journals. She is partly convinced that, based on their conversations, they may be able to simply publish these and really give readers a way to get into Kai’s mind and understand his story.
Oh, friends, this twist SENDS ME. Because when the girls open the journals, all they find are pages and pages of doodles. Doodles of boobs. And dicks. And people having sex. Oceanscapes in which the clouds are shaped like penises and the sun is beaming down “rays of dicks.” At one point, Lauren says she found a drawing of “a surfboard with, like, a bubble butt.” But no, that’s a dick too. It’s a disaster.
And then Charles walks into the room, interested to learn what Liza got out of her time in Montauk, and Liza and Kelsey have a hilarious, ridiculous back-and-forth in which they try to cover by telling him Kai’s journals are full of “exclusive content” that’s “ballsy” and he really “bares a lot.” They’ll have a real pitch for him tomorrow. They are screwed. And not in the good way.
They have a brainstorming session at Maggie and Liza’s, and Maggie notices that Kai’s list of surfing terms — like rail bang — sound an awful lot like sex positions. Kelsey is inspired, sort of. What about a sex manual mixed with little aphorisms and life lessons? It’s the best idea they’ve got, so Maggie draws them some pictures and the next day Liza pitches The Kama Surf-tra, by Kai Manning. Charles is a little taken aback by how explicit it is, but Liza suggests it could be a Valentine’s Day release. “Or Arbor Day, with that big ol’ piece of wood,” Lauren chimes in. She is running the marketing department these days, after all. Charles takes it. He’ll present it to the Chicago investors. (What a sight that would be!) He makes sure to get a little dig in as he walks out of the room about Liza having a good time in Montauk.
Liza’s back at her desk assuming she has solved all of her problems for one day, but then Quinn walks in. Oh, isn’t she the sweetest; she just wants to make sure Liza and Charles are really done before she starts dating him. How considerate! Liza doesn’t take the bait at first, simply telling her that they are over and Charles can do as he pleases. But she can’t help herself: As Quinn is leaving, Liza adds, “I just never thought you’d be someone’s rebound.” That friendliness Quinn was putting on disappears and she turns around to remind Liza who typically gets the boot when an employee and the boss’s girlfriend don’t get along. Oh, okay, so this is going to be fun.
Footnotes
• Yup, Josh is officially hooking up with that music manager, K.T., and not only is she very loud in bed (Lauren: “K.T. seems loud — nope, I mean nice”), but her time spent with her super-needy client has completely turned her off to kids. I believe her exact words are “I never, ever want children” and “I run from babies.” So, uh, that’s not great for Josh.
• Lauren tries to channel Diana — excuse me, Diva — to get out of this Quinn–Dave & Buster’s situation but fails. No one can truly become the next Trout, okay?
• Speaking of Diana, could you imagine her trying to sell this Kama Surf-tra book? I’m laughing about it but also so, so sad. We were robbed!
• Lauren on Kelsey: “You are so much weirder than me, and no one knows that.”
