Below Deck Recap: The Blame Game

Pier Pressure

Season 11

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

Below Deck
Pier Pressure

Season 11

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

Photo: Bravo

The charter guests are still stuck at dinner, where they’ve been seated for so long now that their stay on the St. David risks taking on a Shining quality: Why, you’ve always been the primary. At last, after nearly an hour’s delay, a beautiful cube of tomahawk steak garnished with flowers finally arrives. Digging in, one guest comments that she is (I think?) having an “aneurysm.”

“Did you say, ‘an orgasm’?” someone else pipes up, a leer in his voice.

“For the love of God, Todd,” she scolds him, as if these people don’t mention the concept of orgasms nearly every other sentence and as if announcing a blood vessel in her brain is bursting would be any less bizarre. (Justice for Todd.)

Fraser is aghast — aghast — at the sight of Cat bussing the table by stacking plates on top of one another. “This is not a Waffle House; this is a super-yacht,” he tells the camera. I’ve never been on a super-yacht, but I have been to a Waffle House, and I have to say — no complaints. (Also, while I have not been on a super yacht, I would have to imagine stacked plates would be lower on my list of concerns than norovirus outbreaks or pirate attacks, or, worst of all, a pirate attack during a norovirus outbreak.)

Anthony knows he needs to work on his time management but nevertheless considers this first dinner a success. “Woo, woo, woo,” he sings to himself as he plates his poached pears. “Bougie as fuck.”

After their friends go to bed, the primaries shoo away Barbie and proceed to bang in the hot tub. Actual, bodily sex and not just endless empty references to blow jobs? I didn’t know these crazy kids had it in them! The editors do the couple hilariously dirty by continuing to roll (PG-13) footage of their rendezvous in a split screen as Barbie and Kyle each offer their nonplussed commentary. Barbie says she promised her dad that she wouldn’t hook up on the St. David, and ma’am, why was that a topic of conversation with your father at all? Kyle, meanwhile, wants us to know about “one of the scariest times of [his] life” — namely when his apparently world-class cunnilingus skills gave a woman a seizure.

For the record, Barbie says she isn’t interested in hooking up with Kyle, though he wouldn’t mind her “jumping up and down on top of [him] in the bedroom speaking Spanish.” Barbie and her bunkmate Sunny agree that Ben is the cutest among the crew. No word yet as to whether Sunny or Ben have made any sex-related promises to their fathers, though.

The next morning, as Kyle deep-cleans the hot tub so intently I’m surprised he isn’t wearing a hazmat suit, Fraser rewards Xandi for her hard work by assigning her to join the guests on their kayak excursion. In reality, this is a punishment for Xandi, who — if the spooky royalty-free music they helpfully play in the background of her interviews didn’t remind you — very much does not care for the sun. She is wampyr.

Fraser gives Ben a pair of cooler bags to carry the guests’ refreshments. Ben dutifully fills the bags with ice and bottled water, brings them to the deck, points them out to Jared, and explains what they are and that they need to go with the kayaking crew. Lo and behold, when the guests set out, these bags are still onboard the St. David, right where Ben left them.

It isn’t long before Captain Kerry discovers the refreshments are MIA and dispatches Sunny back to the yacht to retrieve them. Kerry at first blames Xandi, given that drinks fall under the umbrella of the interior and she’s the only stew here (here against her will, but no matter). When Kerry brings this kerfuffle up to Fraser, our chief stew mentions that he gave the bags to Ben but ultimately takes responsibility himself. Less than thrilled that this is the first impression he’s made on his new captain, Fraser then confronts Ben. Ben, baffled as to how this oversight could have happened, confronts Jared. Virtually everyone on the boat is arguably a little to blame for the missing refreshments, if only for not double-checking they had them onboard — except Anthony, who is probably still finishing a forgotten final course from last night’s dinner, and Cat, who is otherwise occupied staring into an open fridge and dissociating — but it’s clear where the chain of custody broke.

And yet, when Ben asks Jared about the bags, he insists that, yes, they went with the guests. But, uh … Captain Kerry says they didn’t? “No, they did.” This cracks me up; I can’t help it. Manifest your dreams into reality, Jared. For what it’s worth, in a confessional, our bosun discusses having ADHD but not having found a medication that works for him.

Jared seems nice. What he does not seem is … good at his job? But then we abruptly cut to him kicking a balloon and saying, in a robot voice, to no one in particular, “Robot Jared.” (I have many questions, one of which is: Are robots known for kicking balls?) I’m sorry to the rest of the crew, and I sympathize with their frustrations, but thanks to moments like this, Jared’s presence remains an equivocal net positive for me.

Instead of serving the increasingly booze-thirsty guests who stayed behind on the boat, Cat hides in her bunk and eats a chocolate croissant. Before he leaves for the beach to serve the kayakers lunch, Fraser explains that she and Barbie need to make sure they check on the others. Cat interprets this conversation as Fraser officially bestowing her with a junior-deputy-sheriff badge and all its associated duties and powers, despite the fact that she herself has not yet figured out how to use her walkie. Barbie takes a break from her busy morning to chat with Kerry in the crew mess — she asks him to point out the Bermuda Triangle on a map. (I would commit terrible crimes, in international waters or elsewhere, if it meant we’d get a Below Deck: Bermuda Triangle.) Cat marches in to remind her fellow stew that they are, you know, supposed to be, you know, working? I would lose my mind, and it seems like Barbie is well on the way. In their respective confessionals, she and Cat suggest the other woman is acting like Regina George. I hate to break it to them, but I don’t think we have a single Cady Heron on our hands. Somebody has to be Gretchen Wieners.

Kyle’s version of setting up for an elegant post-kayaking beach lunch is laying random strips of cardboard down on blankets, which are themselves pinned down by approximately three times as many shells as would be reasonably necessary. By the time Fraser arrives and sets about completely redoing all of this, Kyle (who, to be fair, is out of his wheelhouse) is at least considerate enough to be shirtless and, for some reason, doing push-ups. Small victories.

Barbie has already complained to Fraser about how slow Cat is; now, while they put the finishing touches on the lunch mise-en-scène, it’s Cat’s turn to complain to the chief stew that Barbie isn’t showing her any respect. Ben, who heard a recap of this conversation from Fraser, gleefully brings word of Cat’s airing her grievances about Barbie back to Barbie, who in turn immediately airs her grievances about Cat’s grievances to Fraser, who in turn airs his grievances about the airing of the airing of those grievances back to Ben. Fraser asks him not to get involved in “interior drama,” a directive I very much hope Ben will ignore, because I would love to see him further cultivate his natural gossiping instincts for my entertainment.

For tonight’s Miami-themed birthday party, Barbie, Ms. 305 herself, assembles a balloon arch that is giving gender reveal as much as it is Miami, to be honest. But cute! Down in the galley, Anthony crouches in front of an un-iced cake. “C’mon, bro,” he says to himself, or possibly to the cake.

After claiming the award for charter’s worst sunburn (honorable mention goes to Kyle, whose sunburn somehow found its way inside his ass crack), Xandi is at last permitted to retire to her coffin, I mean to her bunk. She drifts off listening to, at least according to the editing, a true-crime podcast that I am almost certain does not exist. (Really? You’re going to cover “the most gruesome murders in the United States between 1950 and 1970” in one episode? Amateur hour.)

The next morning, as the boat approaches the dock, Jared is too busy Jared-ing to inform the captain how much clearance there is around the stern, because no one is there to report it. Kerry is met with frustrating and dangerous radio silence as Robot Jared and the deckhands (free band name) scramble, running around in front of the guests, talking over each other, and announcing numbers of meters seemingly at random. They figure it out, but woof.

Although Kerry remains “pretty fucking pissed off” about the baffling lack of communication during that docking, he still finds much to praise about their first charter and plenty of cause for optimism about the rest of the season. They’ve made a healthy $25,000 in tips. That’s $1,923 each, or, converting to the default currency units of Barbie’s brain, approximately 1.2 new Louis Vuitton bags.

Barbie and Cat come close to making peace twice but fall short both times. Cat apologizes for being irritable, only for Barbie to pointedly request that she complain to her rather than about her next time. Later, once the guests are gone, Fraser summons them both to the sundeck to clear the air. Cat explains she moved so slowly on night one because she was overwhelmed with dishes and yet kept getting assigned new tasks. Next time, Fraser encourages her, she should respond by telling her fellow stews to wait until she’s done with what she’s already working on. Reasonable enough! It seems like they’ve made progress until Cat can’t help herself but bring up how she saw Barbie just “hanging out” in the crew mess, and then Barbie has to bring up Cat’s condescending “we’re supposed to be working” tone, and … here we go again. If they can’t get along, Fraser warns, they’ll both be gone.

Below Deck Recap: The Blame Game