Grand Hotel: 5 takeaways from Season 1, Episode 2

3. Jason knows Danny is looking into Sky.

Mrs. P doesn’t trust Danny. She enlists her son’s help in keeping an eye on him. Jason finds Danny leaving his mother’s office in the middle of El Rey’s fiery concert. To keep him from reporting back to his mom, Danny is forced to come clean about what his real agenda is for working at the Riveria Grand.

Luckily for Danny, Jason strikes me as a clean-cut guy. He seems like a genuinely good dude. For starters, Jason chooses not to rat Danny out to his mother when she asks him for an update. It looks like he might become Danny’s ally instead.

2. El Rey will be performing five nights a week at the hotel.

Despite El Rey’s douchebaggery, he is the best chance Santiago has at drumming up a quick half-million bucks. He rounds up Alicia and agrees to her plan of using El Rey as the hotel’s personal cash cow. Alicia gives up sleep for several nights to pull off a jaw-dropping concert just in time for the whole thing to go up in flames (hey I predicted that in my preview!).

El Rey gets a little over-excited on stage and blasts fireworks into the crowd, fireworks no one anticipated. He lights a tent on fire and all the guests are forced out. Gigi gives Alicia an extra snarky congratulations. Alicia’s folly winds up being the perfect stepping stone for Gigi, who is content to step on Alicia’s back to boost herself up.

Charming and confident in her business plan, Gigi excels at a press conference where she announces El Rey will perform exclusively at the Riveria Grand five nights a week. “More than 2,000 reservations have been made already!” she lies, but it works. The phones begin to ring off the hook.

1. Gigi is the new Vice President.

To express his gratitude and make amends for their earlier argument, Santiago decides to promote Gigi to Vice President of his staff, making Gigi the official boss of Alicia. Oh, this is going to be good.

I feel bad for Alicia, though. She works so hard and gets overlooked. Her father has made her so many unfulfilled promises over the years. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the drama that is sure to follow with Gigi and her evil twin daughters in charge.

Odds & Ends

• The twins need to become more involved in the central storylines. Right now, they feel peripheral.
• Someone (Danny?) leaves a box on Mateo’s desk with Sky’s nametag, it appears to be scorched.

A new episode of Grand Hotel titled “Curveball” will air on Monday, July 1st at 10/9c on ABC.