If hope is the ugliest word, then hopelessness must be the runner-up. Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 5 shows us just what hopelessness can drive people to do. 

Ella Purnell (Tess), Daniyar (Sasha), and Katerina Tannenbaum (The Hostess, Becky) had a big part in turning this episode into pure gold.

Their emotions, their pain, and their chaos were so wonderfully executed on-screen that they got a tear or two out of me. Exceptional work on an insanely good episode about an insane night.

However, you know what they say: there's a thin line between genius and insanity. 

Let's break down the episode together, shall we?

The first scene where Will yells at Tess for making everything about her seemed strange on multiple levels. We don't get much of Tess's personal thoughts unless she talks to someone else.

In actuality, Sweetbitter has been using Tess's eyes and creeper skills to reveal the other stories surrounding her because she doesn't have much of a personality to color her interactions herself. 

Nevertheless, Will has been the most perceptive character on the show since the premiere. So, the same way I use faith to blindly take his advice about Simone is the same way I'm tackling his comment.

In the beginning, if you all remember my review of Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 1, "Salt," Tess doesn't show much of her personality. Additionally, I said that makes sense because she's the new girl and, usually, you don't find out people's personalities until they get comfortable. 

Tess: What are those?
Ari: Treats. They make me human. Keep a hospitable smile on my face.
[...]
Tess: Hey Ari, do you think you got a spare treat for me?
Ari: Fine. Half for now. Half for later. Chew it if you want to feel it faster.
Tess: Wait, what is it?
Ari: A little too late to ask.

• Permalink: A little too late to ask.

Welp, folks, Tess has gotten comfortable, something that's signaled by her friendships with Sasha and Ari, and when you take into consideration Tess's behavior after she left Simone's -- she has had selfish moments.

Although Simone explains to Tess that she needs Jake to come with her to Cape Cod, Tess tells Jake to choose her and stay in New York.

When she's on drugs, she kisses Scott without consent. Then later, She leads Will on, knowing he still has feelings for her, and tells him that being with him was a mistake before stumbling away.

Tess: I have to go home, Sasha.
Sasha: It’s New York City, baby monster. You don’t have to do anything. It’s up to you.
Tess: No, I have my final trail tomorrow. I should.
Sasha: Then go.
Tess: But I don’t want to.
Sasha: What do you want to do?
Tess: Feel better.

• Permalink: Feel better.

Additionally, when we see Sasha torn into pieces after Howard rejects his application as a waiter, Tess keeps bringing the conversation back to Jake and his "betrayal," instead of trying to see the depths of Sasha's obvious pain.

I mean, Sasha literally and figurately gets naked and tries to bare his soul, but Tess turns everything back to Jake anyway.

Maybe a part of Tess is selfish. And maybe that's the first personality trait she's picked up since moving to New York because so is everyone else at that restaurant. 

In this way, we get the first acquired character trait Tess learns when she moves to New York that was sparked through the adversity of trying to acclimate to her surroundings.

Method 1 -- check.

Next, we get the seemingly random vendetta Manny has against Tess.

Although the inciting incident of Tess cashing Santos's check seems petty, I also see Manny's side of the situation. Tess is right to say that it's wrong to charge people for getting their own money simply because America has crappy immigration laws. 

Related: Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 2 Review: Now Your Tongue Is Coded

However, this is their norm and their system. At this restaurant, the kitchen boys go through Manny, and Tess stepped into that sphere without knowing these norms and completely overstepped. 

I know what you're thinking: how is there any method to this petty cat-fight?

Well, does this situation seem familiar?

Even though Santos has an understanding and a relationship, of sorts, with Manny, he still goes to Tess. Once Manny, the leader or head of the kitchen staff, realizes Tess oversteps and takes away his control, he attacks her in covert and overt ways. 

Related: Sweetbitter Official Trailer: Life Happens While You Wait

This situation compares Simone, Jake, and Tess's love triangle. 

On Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 4, "Simone's," Simone is surprised to find out that Jake has revealed things to Tess about his past and his relationship with her. 

Moreover, as Ari points out in that very episode, Simone and Jake have an unspoken but understood relationship that has its own type of norms.

Yet, when Simone warns Tess against Jake and realizes that Tess won't take her advice, Simone grows cold toward her, and Tess ends up the injured party when Jake leaves in spite of her request to stay because she tries to encroach on territories she doesn't understand.

Tess: I was trying to help.
Scott: Don’t.

• Permalink: I Was Trying to Help

Will Simone have the same response to Tess that Manny has toward her? It's hard to see Simone as outright violent, but covert pettiness, like hiding Tess's shoes in the trash (but maybe on a bigger scale), doesn't seem like that's out of her range.

This situation would also signal the shift in Simone and Tess's relationship that makes Will's warning come to fruition.

So, following this logic, the seemingly pointless and random incident with the kitchen boys may have been massive foreshadowing for the love triangle between Simone, Tess, and Jake.

Method 2 -- check.

And last, but far from the least, Tess's quickie with Will.

My, my, my. What an awkward situation turned insanely off-putting. And yet, their sex scene parallels so well the bar scene where she tells him she doesn't want to be with him; it's genius.

On Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 3, "Everyone is Soigné," Tess makes big connections between Will and her past. He's the usual guy she would have dated back home, and his quaint small-town vibe sits just a little too close to home for her. 

And yet, in their restroom scene, she goes up to him and dances with him after she sees a hallucination of Jake. 

This makes more sense if we also see Jake as representative of her future and New York. He gives off the same twisted and complex vibes, and if you all remember, she directly tells him to leave the past in the past.

I think that home is the past. Who wants to visit the past?

Tess

• Permalink: I think that home is the past. Who wants to visit the past?

Thus, Tess's bathroom sex with Will becomes indicative of her overarching thematic struggle to leave her old habits and life behind now that Jake's rejected her. 

That's why Tess stops midway and says it's a mistake. It's not just the fact that she shouldn't have kissed him; it's the fact that she shouldn't relapse to her old habits and her old way of life simply because she's come up against adversity. 

We spent the entirety of Sweebitter Season 1 Episode 3 watching Tess learn just that, and it seems she may have remembered, even while she was super high.

Method 3 -- check. Mic drop.

This show is so intriguing! 

Although it may be struggling to find pacing and to include the thousands of stories and possibilities each character could add to the narrative, this is a wonderful series. Sweetbitter touches on depression, immigrants, illegal immigrants, drugs, and more. 

However, because it only has six, 25-minute episodes, you have to read in-between the lines just a little bit more, but that's the fun, isn't it?

Related: Get Starz via Prime Video Channels for Captivating Original Series & Hit Movies!

Let Sweebitter be your mysterious and complicated Jake and/or Simone. Don't shy away from peeling back the layers, because you'll find that it'll be more than worth if you take the time.

What did you guys think of Sweetbitter Season 1 Episode 5, "Weird Night"? Were you confused at first by all the chaos? Which parts were your favorite? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Also, if you haven't caught up on this wonderful series, watch Sweetbitter online at TV Fanatic now!

Candice Horde was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in July 2018.