Well My advice would be, don't read too much into it. Sage is entitled to her own opinion on who wants to jump MC's DIK, and Maya is entitled to her own decision of whether she wants strings attached or not.
I don't think the relationship is mutually political motivated. I might be wrong at reading scenarios (as some of the esteemed forum members pointed out a few times), but in the flashback of Ep 5, Sage seems to be all over Chad. I am hesitant to use Tybalt as an example as he may be political motivated as well, in addition to being desperate. Difference between them is that Sage managed to find an FB while Tybalt managed to find a watermelon. Sage is now slowly letting go when MC mentioned about them and she's actually giving it a thought.
Now against my earlier advice of not reading into it too much, I am now leaning towards Mel and Sarah know who the side-bitch is and they are just trying to just help Sage and also push forward the breakup event. Reason why Mel asks if Sarah has her back is because what she plans to do goes against the HOT code and she wants Sarah to back her action. They feel that it's time to do it since Sage has MC and it will make it
easier for Sage, especially when she's going to be furious at Chad, Mel and Sarah.
You beat me to it.