Oh Kat, you were doing so well this season! I actually thought you had learned a little bit of professionalism and decorum on Season One of Bravo’s “Below Deck.” But I was wrong.
Between the audio porn show you and Ben put on for most of the crew and the white spot the two of you left on a decorative pillow, it’s obviously you have not matured.
So the episode opens with the crew getting a night off (Captain Lee haven’t you figured out that nothing good happens when you give them time off?) and everyone except Kat and Ben leaving the yacht to go blow off steam at a bar.
Ben wows us with his professionalism because he needs to stay behind and prep for the charter guests arriving the next day, but then Kat wakes up from her nap and the two of them decide to celebrate Mardi Gras, masks and all. Now let’s not forget that this season, they’re both in “committed” relationships. But they’re also rooming together. Righhhht.
“It’s really hard being on a yacht away from your boyfriend. It can get sexually frustrating,” Kat says. “I don’t really have that much temptation…” Tell it to your shrink, honey.
“Do you want to go skinny dipping?” Ms. Not-Tempted asks Ben.
“No, I do not want to go skinny dipping, Kat,” he replies. He’d much rather get drunk with her and then have very loud, raucous sex in a guest cabin and leave his mark – in the form of spooge – on the decorative seahorse pillow on the bed. Nope, not kidding. Thing is that Kat didn’t notice their leftovers when she made up the bed for the charter guests, so it’s the guests who find the dried-up goo. YUCK!
I can only imagine what sounds the crew was hearing when Bravo had to “bleep” some of the noises coming from that cabin while Ben and Kat were getting it on. We heard the howling sounds – that was flipping hilarious.
“Boat romances always happen, whether they’re secret or open,” Amy says, but this is a little much for everyone within earshot. “On these boats there is no privacy, so people need to be aware that we hear everything – that’s all I’m saying.”
It’s okay, Amy, we heard it too.
The next morning Ben asks Kat how she’s feeling – and we could take that sooo many ways. But it was her response that made me groan.
“I feel like death,” Kat is definitely back to her old self being in crap shape the day new guests are arriving for a charter. She looks rode hard and put away wet. Oh wait, no. That was the seahorse.
The new charter guests are repeats – the same lesbian named Beverly who brought all her girls on board for a trip last season. That trip was supposed to have been for her sister who had just survived cancer, but a family emergency prevented her sister from coming so she brought her friends instead. It was the famous episode where Adrienne Gang let down her hair and partied with the guests, prompting her bitchy staff to label her a lesbian. She’s not. She’s actually engaged to a hot guy. Not that it matters.
So anyway, this year, Beverly is back with her sister and her sister’s family to celebrate beating cancer and to make up for the trip they missed last year. Since they were great guests last season, the captain and Ben and Kate are excited about them. The only thing weird on their prefs is the dog’s food – but that should make life easy for Ben. It’s clear they’d like bar service to be reliable and plentiful.
Eddie remembers them not as fondly, and jokes about the “no people food” rule for the dog.
“I’m going to feed this dog everything,” Eddie says. “Last time Beverly was on the boat, I had to make the dog go poopoo and that is not going to happen again.” Would have been a great job for Andrew Sturby (one he’s qualified for) but I suppose it will technically fall to Jennice now. Enjoy delegation, Eddie!
The group sounds like they plan to party, joking, “Mom, look! They got you a stripper pole.” Then one of the sons suggests Amy take a spin on it and she handles it with grace and tact. It reminded me a lot of how we teach our staff and interns to successfully escape the dance floor from an admiring guest at a wedding. Smile, twirl once and spin right out of there. Go Amy.
So things have started off well, and that’s when one of the guests comes to tell Kate about the strange stain on his bed.
“There’s something on the … pillows or something,” he says. Oh yes, there definitely is. There’s some Ben on there. Kate goes to check it out because she didn’t make up that room and is clueless as to what he’s talking about.
“How do you not notice a pillow like that?” Kate looks horrified. It’s obviously a spooge stain.
“There’s not really such a thing as a good stain,” Kate is telling Kat about it and Ben is in the galley laughing as he’s overhearing the conversation. She makes the excellent point that “personal body fluid” on a throw pillow is something you find at a seedy hotel, not on a charter yacht.
“The seahorse … fertile little guy,” Kate jokes. It’s funny, but it’s not. And she gets that. She’s not happy.
“A white milky stain is one of the worst stains ever,” Amy agrees. Then Kat is listening in as Amy tells Kate all about everyone listening to her and Ben the night before in the cabin with the fertile seahorse – lot of spying on each other going on with this crew.
“Don’t touch it – you might be pregnant now,” Kate tells Amy. At least she didn’t sniff it. Ew. Ick. I just grossed myself out.
Things just start sinking for this charter from that point on. Nothing goes right at dinner. For some reason Kat has a scheduled (and sanctioned by Kate) nap during dinner service and Amy is turning down beds (and checking for other missed spots?) while Kate is the only one running food and making drinks. I don’t really understand all the whys and wherefores, but Ben blames her for not staffing properly and she blames him for taking years to make their dinner.
Fair enough, the guests are seriously annoyed it’s taking hours for dinner. And nobody’s filling their drinks.
“None of us have drinks,” one of the guests complains. And he’s right. Every glass on the table is empty.
“Please tell me before you clear and then it’s not 10-15 min between courses,” Ben snarks at Kate. This would make sense if it wasn’t almost 11 pm and they’re still waiting to finish their dinner. Eventually, the main charter guest goes down to the galley to complain.
“My family says it’s like the slowest service ever,” Beverly says. She’s not rude. She’s justified. Not even one single person at the table has a buzz because nobody’s filling up their glasses. Sounds like a very bad expensive party.
“I’m pissed off because I look bad,” Ben says. But that doesn’t seem to improve the speed of food or beverage service. Instead of moving faster, he’s picking a fight with Kate.
“This is all we have to do is get a great service and someone’s sleeping,” Ben fumes. Maybe he shouldn’t have kept Kat up all night howling.
“A lot of these people should be fired,” a guest says. This is a GREAT first dinner on the yacht for these folks. Beverly must be really embarrassed considering the trip is a big gift to her sister and her family and she’d raved about her trip last year.
One of the other guests (a nephew?) goes down to talk to Kate and complain and she tells him to go find Kat, who is finally up and apparently handling the bar service. And he tells her, rather professionally, that it is her job to listen to him. Wisely, she agrees. He’s not being rude. He’s being direct. She listens.
Finally, she says “You’re right.” And it shuts him up. Although teasers show this group a little out of hand next week, I didn’t feel they were rude at all tonight. They were just really, really annoyed. Probably jet lagged and not expecting to be up til 3 am their own time to finish dinner on the first night. And still not thrilled to sleep in a room that wasn’t cleaned properly. I wonder what that guy from last season who ran the bed bug company would have said. Bahahaha!
Kate and Ben do not end the evening on a friendly note.
“The guests are not very happy with the service,” Ben tells Kate at 11:45 pm. She ignores him.
“I’m not going to turn a blind eye to this cuz you made me look like an idiot,” Ben says but keeps ignoring him completely and works on bedtime notes to put on blankets shaped like hearts. He’s not letting it go.
“If I see something that plain as day is wrong, I’m going to jump on it,” Ben tells her. I’m guessing that’s why he jumped on Kat – because she is sooo wrong. But I digress. Kate has had enough.
“I’m not the one who left a questionable stain on a decorative pillow,” Kate shoots back at Ben.
“Alright, you’re s**t at what you do,” Ben replies as he leaves the galley. Nice. Great teamwork. Perhaps the chef should be in charge of the laundry tomorrow? Only seems fair.
I was hoping this episode would be a good one for Jennice and Kelley because we’ve been watching that build up week by week, but it was sadly disappointing. On the night they all went ashore, he was feeling bitchy because Jennice was flirting with random boys at the bar. After the men of the crew left, some of the bar guys got rude and nasty with the ladies when they decided to leave (Jennice was into them a little, Kate and Amy were being good wing-women).
Amy tells Eddie about the guys at the bar but says not to tell her brother. So, of course, Eddie tells Kelley. And Kelley, of course, runs back to the bar to what… beat them up? It was bizarre. He reacted like a teenager. I get that it was his sister they cursed at, but to get off the boat and run down the dock back to the restaurant to confront them was a bit much. Military-bearing, righteous indignation, brotherly love or whatever, it didn’t work in his favor because the whole thing was a massive turnoff for Jennice.
And that’s exactly what she tells him when they FINALLY have a heart-to-heart conversation about their non-relationship. Jennice tells him she doesn’t like his temper and she has a boyfriend (not new news). Kelley is really hurt and needs to be left alone but Jennice just keeps going when she should stop.
“I’m good… I don’t want this to affect our work relationship. So I know where you stand, I know where I stand, we’re good. Just leave it at that,” Kelley takes off, clearly hurt.
“I think I waited too long to draw a line with Kelley,” Jennice says afterwards. Yep, probably.
Kelley tells Amy all about it and his sister cries for him having his heart broken. He’s really torn up about this and I was a little surprised about how emotional they both got. Doesn’t really make sense. We’re talking about somebody you’ve known for like two weeks, dude. You can do better. Lots of pretty single girls out there. And don’t you have a girlfriend back home too? She’s gonna love this episode.
But Kelley’s not boohooing later on when Kat confronts him to get the skinny and he finds out the entire boat knows what’s going on with him and Jennice. Kelley’s embarrassed.
“Our business is our business, not everybody else’s,” Kelley tells Jennice. Of course, he told Amy everything so is that really fair? Kelley moves out of their room and into Andrew’s old bunk, something he probably should have done awhile ago. Lucky Jennice has her own cabin – that’s gotta be rare. #UnintendedPerks
Ben is still talking about the pillow as he prepares breakfast the next day. Why would he bring it up like he’s curious about it? He can see that any time.
“That was really weird … that there was all that stuff on that pillow,” Ben says to Kat as he’s chopping away in full earshot of a bunch of them.
“The **** pillow will remain a mystery for the ages,” Kat says. No, Kat. It’s not a mystery to anyone but you. But apparently you forget a lot of things that you do when you’re drunk and some of it is about to come back to haunt you. Via your former boss who you describe as “the devil,” Adrienne Gang.
Seems that Beverly, the main charter guest, has invited Adrienne to be her guest on the Ohana and nobody on the crew knew about it. Kat’s reaction upon seeing her on shore was classic. Eddie flat out turned around and made a run for it.
“The crowd kind of split and there’s f**king Adrienne… striking fear into the soul of every man’s heart,” Eddie says. I wonder why Eddie hates her so much. I never saw them fight on the last season.
“Alcohol. Kat. Adrienne. On a beach together – DANGER,” Eddie actually dives into the water and swims back to the dingy. I almost wet my pants laughing. Had to back it up and watch it a few times.
We didn’t get to see a whole lot of Adrienne’s return on tonight’s episode, but the teasers were unbelievable. The cat’s out of the bag now about why Amy hates Kat (pun intended). Apparently, Amy caught her crewmate carrying out a sex act on her boyfriend one night. And when they all get back aboard, all hell breaks loose.
We see Kat slamming doors shut in Amy’s face. And Kat telling Kate that Amy “has some issues with her” and she doesn’t want to deal with her. The Kate turns on Amy in the meanest-sounding way.
“I already tried to be nice to you and I don’t feel like it anymore because I’ve got lots to do,” Kate says to Amy. Wow, don’t know the context of that conversation yet but it doesn’t wreak of professionalism or leadership. I wonder what brought that on. Amy’s actually the nice one in this group. And Kate makes her cry. #MeanGirls
The crew was already sinking before Adrienne Gang became a bona fide guest on the yacht, and it’s clear they’re even more off their game once she appears. No way in hell I’m missing next week. What more could possibly go wrong?
Please, Bravo, don’t let Kat and Ben have sex in the galley anywhere near the table linens.