Alright, just gotta say that somebody at BravoTV needs to put the kibosh on the sexual harassment of the crew by charter guests on “Below Deck.” They’re making it look like women have to tolerate that behavior if they’re working for rich people on yachts. That’s not true.
I’ve worked in tourism and the service industry for eight years and I’ve seen and experienced a lot of really inappropriate behavior from drunk wedding guests. You don’t actually have to tolerate it. Captain Lee should have taken Steve the a**hole aside and had a professional word with him.
It turns out that none of the guests except Steve’s girlfriend are actually his friends. The production company, 51 Minds, cobbled together a random group of people and pretended that they knew each other. Some of the guests actually backed out rather than appear on television with the Mexican Mansion dude. But these fake charter guests are a whole other blog. Maybe even a video rant.
Sadly, “Below Deck” is getting farther and farther away from “reality” TV with each new season.
Tonight’s episode was pretty good. And while I’m still not a Kate fan, I didn’t want to slap her tonight until she started bitching about her $1,100 share of a $12,000 tip for a few days of work. How much did they tip her when she was entertaining her guests as a cocktail waitress in Melbourne Beach?
With that said, she and Eddie are both managing a bunch of morons this season. Can’t even decide who I dislike the most. Rocky, Don, or Leon.
The episode picks up with Rocky and Emile playing up by the radar on top of the boat. And getting caught.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this ever, that’s how stupid it is,” Kate says.
“We’re in trouble,” Rocky jokes to Emile after Captain Lee orders them to get down.
“This is really, really stupid,” Eddie says. Apparently, the radio waves are so intense they can fry your brain and sterilize you. With that said, Rocky should have stayed up there awhile longer. She does not need to procreate. We have enough stupid people in the world already.
“If I hear this happens again, you’re gone,” Eddie tells Emile, who seems to be a good guy – just immature.
“I’m not blaming Rocky, but if she wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have gone up,” Emile claims.
“This is really one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen,” the captain is displeased. But doesn’t have the balls to fire them. Or production and the network won’t let him.
“I have medals in climbing up a ladder and being at a high level over the water, I’m at home right there,” Rocky whines as if being a diver maker her impervious to radiation. Seriously. I think IF she actually has yachting experience, she has been hanging out on the radar for too long. Would explain how dumb she is.
“I don’t feel bad for you right now, so please go make a Bloody Mary,” Kate tells Rocky. Which is more professional than killing her. And that would have been justified under the circumstances.
“Did we kill anyone? No… so get over it,” Rocky bitches. So professional.
Kate puts her ass to work, something Rocky isn’t familiar with having to do. Waaah!
“Climbing on the radar, I can’t just let that slide. I feel like she’s a spoiled brat and she needs a little discipline,” Kate says. I agree.
“She punished me like…she punished me,” Rocky whines, sounding shocked. Does anybody else feel like somebody did not get enough spankings as a child?
Kate makes Rocky fill the ice makers and Amy is laughing her ass off.
“Am I overreacting? They were on the radar,” Kate says to Amy. Amy’s just enjoying not being Kate’s target this season.
Poor Kate. She and her new roomie Chef Leon are not getting along.
“How are you feeling with me?” Leon asks Kate.
“It’s too early to tell… it’s too early to tell how much you annoy me,” Kate says in interview.
Leon has the nerve to ask her to squeegee their shared shower when she’s finished using it. She informs him that she spends all day cleaning and isn’t going to do it. Ballsy. I bet she’s one big mess in that bathroom. That hair would be everywhere.
She tells Eddie she wants to switch rooms with him and he agrees – Kate is actually staying in a guest cabin which is much bigger and nicer than the crew’s quarters. Lee gives her permission – like he gives a f**k who sleeps where, obviously – and Leon is not upset to have her move out at the end of the charter.
It’s a good move because now she can bonk Don without having to go down the hall. She brags that “he’ll do whatever I want” when they decide to dress him up as “Aerosmith” for the charter guests.
Would somebody please tell them Aerosmith is the name of the band and not any of the band members? Ugh. Like nails on a chalkboard every time. Can you tell I do not suffer fools well?
But I don’t like Leon. He’s got an ego bigger than his skillset. Or skillet, in this case.
“Guests want paella on the beach,” he bitches and proceeds to explain why that is impossible. I would have to fire him. Our caterer’s chefs make paella over the fire on the beach all the time for wedding groups. Leon is a p***y. He has to make it all on the boat and bring it ashore. Bet that rice was goopy.
And then he served angel hair pasta on Mexican night. The guests did rave about his food, but consider the source. They’re pure trash. But smarter than Leon. And from Mexico. At least that’s what BravoTV wants us to believe. But now we know that’s not true.
“This is not Mexican at all, but it’s great,” one guy says. Bingo! Sombreros, margaritas and angel hair pasta. Yeah, read that again. ‘Nuff said.
So there’s a beach party and we all know how much Kate loves those. But she doesn’t have to go to this one so she’s good with it.
“I am so excited about this beach party because finally I can put Rocky to work on an island, off the boat,” Kate jokes.
Rocky uses the time away from Kate to try to build anti-Kate support, but she chooses the wrong person.
“Can I ask you a question – you knew Kate? You guys are friends?” Rocky asks Connie, the female deckhand. Connie and Kate grew up in the same town and have socialized.
“A boss is a boss,” Connie doesn’t want to go there with Rocky. Smells like trouble and she’s got enough stress.
The night before, her father died. And she goes an entire day without telling anybody. Her father was a drunk, a drug addict, and sexually abusive towards his daughter. Sounds like a real charmer. She’s not mourning his death, but she’s upset she isn’t there to support her brother.
“I just want to work and not think about anything,” Connie says. But when she starts to get concerned she may need to leave the yacht to go be with her brother, she tells Lee and Eddie what’s up.
“I don’t’ have a relationship with him, but my dad died last night,” Connie explains her situation in as few words as possible. Good. She’s entitled to her privacy.
Somebody needs to explain that to her roomie, Emile.
“You heard that your father died today, and it’s just nothing?” Emile is out of line. He knows nothing about her.
“I think I came out pretty awesome for not having a dad,” Connie says in interview.
But back to the beach party where, as Amy says, “Steve’s liver is earning overtime.”
Steve is sexually harassing Rocky and wants to kiss her with his girlfriend right there. Rocky is clearly uncomfortable. Bet she’d be fine with it if he wasn’t so skeevy. Even though I do not care for Rocky, nobody should be sexually harassed at work. Which is why she needs to back off of Eddie and Emile. But I was talking about the guests sexually harassing the crew so let’s stick with that topic.
That night, after Mexican pasta (read that twice), the guests keep trying to make Amy kiss a female guest. Poor Amy just wants to do her bartending shift and escape. These people push really hard and don’t let it drop easily. I was glad it was Amy because she knows how to handle herself.
“It can get dicey late night with charter guests who like to drink a lot,” Amy says.
When Eddie delivers something to a guest room late night, they try to drag him in to play. Did they hire hookers to pretend to be charter guests? I am so baffled.
“I can’t blame them for trying with all of us. But I don’t want to be part of their ménage a trois,” Eddie tells his crewmates. I can’t blame them. It’s icky.
Eddie’s having a rough cruise so far. Emile’s not real bright, except when he turns down Rocky for the hot tub.
“Don’t s**t where you eat,” Emile isn’t interested anymore. She almost got him fired with the radar stunt.
But Emile is nothing compared to Don. Don is an old friend of Kate’s and he thinks he is God’s gift to the world. Bulls**t he drinks cups of raw eggs for breakfast. That was totally for the cameras. Barf.
Don will not listen to Eddie, who is his boss when they’re on deck. That’s dangerous on a yacht, and he almost caused them to tear up another dock. They did that last season but it was caused by a mechanical problem then, not an egotistical moron.
“I don’t know what Don’s doing but he’s about to make a very expensive mistake,” Lee says. “If Don doesn’t slack that bow line, we stand a good chance of ripping that piling right off.”
He would know.
“When Captain Lee is giving you an order, you don’t argue about it,” Eddie tells him.
Lee calls the deck crew to the wheelhouse for a lecture about the s**t show going on.
“All the things that are going wrong, even though I haven’t had 100 percent control of it, it’s still my fault,” Eddie takes the blame for his staff.
“Make me do something that is actually hard,” Don says. Okay, Don. Don’t break the boat. Or the dock.
When Eddie is giving Emile and Connie directions, Don is behind Eddie making fun of him and humping walls.
“The way Don interacts with Eddie is completely wrong. He’s digging his own grave,” Emile is young but not stupid. He actually tells Don to cut it out afterwards, and Don gets mad at him. Class act.
“How much does he really know about boats?” Don bitches about Emile. Not enough to not cook his family jewels, but enough not to ignore Captain Lee’s orders.
Poor Eddie. Even when things aren’t a mess up above, he has to watch his back below deck.
Rocky won’t stop hitting on Eddie who has made it clear he has a serious girlfriend. He even makes a point to talk about how hard yachting is for their significant others.
Rocky is so inappropriate. She’s just a slut and her crewmates are not impressed.
“I’m all about the bone… bones in!” Rocky cheers as she gnaws on a piece of meat at the dinner table.
Rocky challenges the boys to arm wrestle. She actually comes off as soooo desperate which doesn’t make sense. She’s pretty. But every time she opens her mouth, she get a little less attractive. Maybe it’s different when she’s on her knees. #sorrynotsorry
“This is like a boat of horny people making jokes left and right,” Connie complains.
Kate’s doing better with her team, continuing to torture Rocky. That’s fun to watch.
“It’s a new day. Am I gonna get the good Kate, the gnarly Kate, the scary Kate?” Rocky complains in interview. Her attitude sucks and Kate’s giving her s**t for it.
Rocky would prefer Kate give her a “to do” list and leave her alone. But since she has no clue what she’s doing, Kate couldn’t do that even if she wanted to.
“You know what that really means – I don’t like being told what to do,” Kate explains.
I enjoy watching Rocky be miserable.
“This is the exact way I learned,” Kate says. “Can you stop hating what you’re doing?”
Rocky’s upset she’s not feeling “love” from Kate. That’s hilarious for two reasons. One, Rocky is totally unlovable for the people who have to supervise her. Two, Kate only loves herself.
“I am so miserable. I hate her!” Rocky says. “I’m losing my mind. Losing it.”
The charter guests leave with Steve wearing a crown. He says it was the “best experience of his life.” That’s sad. Money doesn’t buy class. And in this case, it apparently doesn’t buy happiness either.
After the guests have left, the captain calls them together to split up a very generous tip.
“We pulled it off in spite of some hiccups that we did have,” Captain Lee says. “Everybody getting along?” The silence in the crew mess is deafening. I guess he got his answer there.
And yet, the crew goes out together that night for dinner. Why do they do that when they hate each other? Gotta be production. I’d go out with the people I actually liked in my off hours if it were me.
Don wears a wool cap out to dinner in the tropics and looks like a f**king moron! He’s such a loser. Rocky’s acting like an idiot again. Shocker. She is trying to get laid. And I hate her giggle.
“You get a lot of attention. You need more attention?” Amy says about her antics.
Next week, it looks like all hell will break loose on the yacht. Kate drives Rocky over the edge – a short trip.
“I don’t give two f**ks anymore” Rocky is shown crying hysterically in her bathroom. “I don’t wanna do this.”
And Kate and Leon get into a fight. And Don gets into Eddie’s face. And then Don gets in trouble with the captain over following a charter guest into the water and making a comment about her “butt cheeks.”
SPOILER ALERT!!! Don will get FIRED for that incident within the next couple of episodes. I have that on pretty good authority.
Do you get why I’m hating on Rocky, Leon and Don yet? Time for Lee to hand out plane tickets with the tips.