Below Deck 13’s crew show off their skills

“You all bring such great energy to your jobs,” Below Deck season 13’s first primary charter guest said to the crew as she and her husband departed. Then she added: “It’s clear you’ve never worked together before.”

No shit! Even if someone had no idea what this show was, or that the crew was assembled not based upon their skills but their ability to deliver as television characters, that’d be obvious from the fumbling around that happened during the first charter.

I will never defend rich, entitled assholes who come aboard Below Deck’s discounted yacht and treat the crew like shit. But based upon the edited version of this group’s trip, they were remarkably kind and polite! They asked for chips, never got them, and then, well, just decided to wait for dinner. They asked for green juice, didn’t get it for more almost 45 minutes, and when asked, just said they were waiting on it.

“What the fuck was that about?” chief stew Fraser Olender asked on the dock, and then, in an interview, had the gall to call her “a shady bitch.”

No, Fraser, not even close. But I do have an example of a shady bitch for you!

Picture a really bad team leader—for this hypothetical, let’s call him Hazer Olestra—who’s told by one member of his team who breaks down and fells “patronized” by a supervisor.

And then that team leader goes to his number-two—let’s call her Anderbeau—while she’s in the middle of something and squirts out gossip as if it he’d just eaten a whole case of Olestra chips.

“We’ve got sensitive girls on board,” Hazer says, and adds, “We just need to be a little calmer with our words and our requests. I’ve had a crier today.” Ah, yes, talking in the third person and demeaning a team member’s emotional disclosure to you, her boss.

Anderbeau receives Hazer’s words as her team member “talking shit behind my back,” which of course is what Hazer was doing, so she runs to the team member—let’s call her Rosa, because that’s her name and I don’t have a funny one—”Did I do something to piss you off today?”

Heck of a story, huh, Fraser? Those are some shady crew members right there. Rosa noted that Rainbeau’s power is right under Fraser’s, and she’s not wrong: that’s because Fraser dumped his entire workload on her day one, and basically told her she’s responsible for the whole boat.

In a surprise twist, the remarkable part is that, somehow, Rainbeau’s question led to an adult, co-worker conversation with Rosa.

Rosa asked to be trusted; Rainbeau explained what Rosa didn’t know, which is that last year the producers paired her with someone who wanted to be on Love Island and she has PTSD from that experience. And then Rainbeau agreed to trust Rosa more and yay, conflict averted! Well, until the crew’s night off.

The work is always rough on Below Deck, but this episode was an interesting combination. The editing gave us a lot of the crew’s work around the boat, but in flashes that became almost disorienting for me, like a kind of supersized montage.

Maybe I was just delirious from watching Matt, the deckhand who thinks he can do his boss’s job, snort a condom up his nose and pull it out of his mouth. Every time I use my sinus rinse bottle, I’m aware that my nasal passages connect to my throat. But snorting a rubber barrier into your airway seems like a really bad idea.

So does calling that “cabaret.” No one tell Countess Luann de Lesseps that Below Deck referred to that, and Rainbeau yodeling as “cabaret.”

That said, Rainbeau’s performance, which sounded like choking to death on a condom snorted up a nose, was something I’ll never forget.

Nor will I forget laughing at Matt:

• sharing with us that “last year, I lost $80,000 trading cryptocurrencies. I was so flipping upset and depressed, I think I smoked weed for like two weeks just to distract myself.”
• telling Moe “I’m liking Katie’s vibe,” and then the editors showing us Katie and a chyron with her name, crossing out Katie, and replacing it with her actual name, Kaylee. He’s so hot for her he doesn’t even know her name! “You don’t even talk to me,” she said later.

What I’m hot for are crew members who know their limits. Kaylee admitted she has no experience but is hoping being a people-pleaser will help her. Jessenia helped James with the anchor and said, “I am not prepared to do this procedure at all.”

To be fair, no one should be. The procedure to pull up the anchor involves climbing down into a locker—a tiny space that is for both trash and the deadly anchor chain. Jessenia described it as “half a square foot of room to work with.”

Oh, and to make this even more fun, they were in a hurry because the super yacht the producers rented for this season “doesn’t have incredible horsepower to overcome these things,” Captain Kerry said. And by things, he meant whirlpools, low tide, waves, the ocean, floating, and carrying people on board.

Kerry got angry at bosun Alex and later lectured him because Alex had one of two breaks on and didn’t know that on this boat they have “a common shaft.” Does Kerry really expect a reality TV bosun to understand this old rickety boat on day three?

That seems like Kerry is annoyed with production but has to take it out on the crew. The one bit of leadership that I liked from Kerry this episode was warning Alex about Matt. “If you’re not careful, Matt’s going to run away with the crew,” he said, suggesting Alex be more assertive with Matt. Grab him by the balls? Flirt with Kaylee?

Before the drunk part of the crew night out, they all went to Wat Khao Rang temple, a Buddhist temple that is not related to Survivor: Kaôh Rōng, because that’s spelled differently and in a different country.

There, they met Mama Ying. “Captain Kerry assigned me to be the person to show you the Big Buddha,” she said. When Moe couldn’t believe they’d have to climb steps, and joked about asking for an escalator, she said, “If Mama make it, you can make it.”

Can we please get her a job on the boat? At the very least, I need to see more of her, because when they got to the Buddha, she suggested the crew “make a wish” and offered apt examples: “You may make a wish for a new job, a better job.”

Other things that barely fit in the trash/anchor locker:

• The hook-ups have begun, as Matt kissed Kaylee on the street; Rosa fumed about not-single Rainbeau flirting with James; James and Rosa have so much chemistry they just sat in silence in their tuk tuk while everyone else made out; Alex resisted flirting with Jessenia because he’s her boss but then still kissed her. I’m exhausted already.
• Kaylee asked to use the VIP room with Matt, and Fraser instructed her to “put a sheet on there.” Did he get to see rough cuts of what happened on Below Deck Med?
• I spelled Moe’s name as “Mo” last week because his name is Moises and I assumed that would be without an E, but the chyrons have an E so that’s the spelling! Anyway, Moe is such a delight as a chef, dancing in the galley and matchmaking everyone?!
• Kerry joined the charter guests for dinner, and the co-primary gave him a floral shirt so he could match all of them. The captain looked at the shirt like it was a piece of the Whitechapel Fatberg.
• The charter guests’ parents were in Phuket with their kids. So that’s how rich they are, if you’re curious.
• “I think Satan would have a hard time sailing in Thailand,” Kerry said. Not very nice of you to call Captain Jason that. I kid! He meant because it’s so hot everyone is melting all the time. (This show does not make me eager to visit Thailand; I’m content observing the beauty from afar.)
• James lived in Phuket and had a Thai girlfriend and now has a whole back full of tattoos.
• Kaylee served the guests on chargers instead of plates. They’re the plates you put plates on, which is so ridiculous it made me think of Cartman describing appetizers as “This is what you eat before you eat, to make you more hungry.”

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