Breaker High, Episode 15: Kissin' Cousins

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 15: “Kissin’ Cousins.”

Ooh, this episode is getting under my skin already. Ashley is taking a magazine personality quiz about how good a friend she is, and clearly has no self-awareness as she marks down that she’s a great listener while at the same time is totally brushing Tamira off. Though when the words out of Tamira’s mouth are “I just don’t understand how Cassidy could just steal Max from right under my nose,” I as the viewer don’t exactly want to empathize either - Max has agency of his own and can make choices too.

Jimmy walks up and invites the girls to come with him to visit some Irish relatives when they dock in Dublin the next day. Ashley declines, but Tamira agrees, though she’s clearly concerned when the other people coming are revealed to be Sean and Cassidy, and even further heartbroken when she sees Max giving Cassidy a piggy-back ride in the distance, all smiles and goofing off. So instead, she offers to help Ashley find relatives of her own by going to the historical society.

After the theme song, we’re off-ship in Ireland, and we find Jimmy, Sean and Cassidy being walked through a castle by housekeeper Minnie, who introduces them to Lord Liam, Jimmy’s cousin. Elsewhere, Max, Alex and Denise come across a salesman who literally calls himself Gregory O’Grifter, and Alex is still willing to buy a video game knickknack (at least Denise and Max look skeptical).

Back on-ship, Tamira lugs in a box of photocopied records - Ashley had to wait for her pedicure to dry so stayed back, but she faxed her dad who faxed a genealogist who faxed her a family tree, effectively nullifying all the work Tamira did for her.

While playing with swords and pieces of armor they were already asked to leave alone, Jimmy, Sean and Cassidy knock into a bookshelf and accidentally open up a secret room that they call and does look like a medieval torture chamber. Jimmy gets closed in a sarcophagus and Cassidy tries out the stocks, quipping that she’d like to get Tamira in there for an hour or a week. Sean asks what their deal is, and while I don’t necessarily disagree with Cassidy’s assessment of “Tamira thinks her kiddie crush on Max puts him off the market; she’s selfish, immature, and it’s totally not my problem,” Sean does, replying, “It’s a good thing you’re not best friends or anything, right?” and Cassidy acknowledges that the possibility of them getting back there is becoming less and less likely.

In the ship’s coffeehouse, now Max and Alex both have the video game devices, as does literally everyone else in the room, and Denise is horrified.

Ashley and Tamira also wind up at a castle (this feels foreboding) to meet Ashley’s relatives, and while Ashley is thrilled, Tamira is less so - she’s drenched because she fell in the moat and Ashley didn’t help her out. Lo and behold, it is Jimmy who answers the door! Ashley is definitely less excited now, and Tamira and Cassidy aren’t happy to see each other either, even getting into it at afternoon tea and stomping off in separate directions.

As usual, Sean can’t help but meddle - he comes up with a plan and inserts himself in the middle of the drama. He follows Cassidy to get her side of the story:

C: I didn’t know that she liked Max and I didn’t know that Max liked me. I only know that I like Max and now Tamira doesn’t like me.

S: Careful, you’re starting to sound like her.

C: We used to be such good friends, I just miss her.

S: Why don’t you tell her that? I bet you she feels the same way.

C: No way, she started it!

S: ‘She started it’? What are you, like, three?

We can see the lightbulb click in Sean’s brain when he tells Cassidy to meet him in the torture chamber after dinner, pretending they’re going to test the rack out on Jimmy.

At dinner, a burping contest breaks out, in which everyone except Ashley but including Lord Liam participates. Ashley is mortified, so when Minnie asks if she can show the teen some photos, Ashley brushes her off, just as she treated her like a servant earlier in the day at teatime. Lord Liam then has to break it to her that she’s not related to him but to Minnie instead. Ashley might not like that she’s descended from servants instead of nobility, but she is very grateful to not be related to Jimmy.

Back on the ship, Denise has somehow gotten access to a megaphone and is begging her classmates to “Please step away from the video games; they are a form of mind control!” As might be expected, no one listens to her.

Just as I suspected, in the torture chamber, Tamira enters looking for Sean, comes upon Cassidy in the stocks instead, and has closed the door so whoops they’re stuck. FINALLY, Tamira has the realization that “It’s not your fault if Max likes you better than me - it’s not like you’re gorgeous and fun and funny on purpose or