Below Deck Recap: Texts Of Engagement
Is anyone else not feeling this season? Don't get me wrong I can feel things heating up but we are five episodes and I'm still waiting for this crew to reach their ratchet reality TV potential. These guys have given us about an eighth of what they're capable of and I'm ready for Ashton to almost die again if that means we're in store for some drama, because Chef Kunt and his ego complaining about service is getting older than Captain Lee.
Following the crew's wild night out (seriously Thailand nightclubs are the best nightclubs) everyone woke up hungover the next day ready to work: except for Abbi. The Merida from Brave doppelganger needs to learn how to pretend like she's doing work, without actually doing the work. Abbi, if you're reading this, all you have to do is get out of bed. It's the first and only thing you have to do. If you get up you can commiserate over your hangovers with the rest of the crew and skulk around the boat with a sponge pretending to wash stuff, it's all you need to do. However, sleeping in just makes everyone resent you for being the girl who thinks she's better than everyone else. Seriously, just get the fuck out of bed. Abbi was only 40 minutes late, however, when you are one of the people who wake up on time working through your raging hangover, another bitch taking her time and sleeping in for 40 minutes feels like 4 hours.
Being late to work was the least of Abbi's issues, it turns out she doesn't really give a fuck about her job description. Abbi's flowing hair is still out at all times, her radio's never on and now she's gotten to the point where she's openly venting about hating her job. Abbi's main problem is that she came from working on sailboats to a mega yacht and she doesn't know how to handle it. If this girl has never worked on a yacht in her life, why the fuck would she chose to start on a reality television show? That blows my mind. And why wouldn't the producers stick to hiring people who are solely yacht trained? I don't fucking understand. I like Abbi and she reminds me of a Season 6 Rhylee who has her anger in check but considering she's already bitching about her job, I don't see her staying around for long.
On top of all this "I hate my job" news, Abbi also happened to get "engaged" during this episode. Let's all let out a collective sigh of disgust because this one of the most idiotic millennial things I've ever seen. Abbi's on-again off-again boyfriend Patrick, who's she's in an open relationship with, texted her saying he loves her and wants to get married, which resulted in her running around the boat raving about her text message proposal. Patrick doesn't even have the energy or respect to pop the question in person and I've literally seen elementary school plays more elaborate than this "proposal." Patrick just wants a green card and the couple should really transition over onto 90 Day Fiance if they want to keep their sliver of reality TV fame going. Of course, the entire crew thought her "engagement" news was more stupid than Kevin's arrogant sense of entitlement and triggered Ashton in the process.
This was the episode where Ashton started exploding on his entire deck crew about tiny things that didn't really matter, but it's obvious his main concern isn't his employees slacking off, it's the fact that he's the only one not getting pussy. The girl he tried to snuggle with two nights prior is currently engaged and the other girl he's been trying to bang since the start of the show is now flirting with his second in command, which just caused the stripper turned bosun to walk around like someone was holding a constant turd under his nose. Someone needs to get Ashton some pussy fast or else he'll have no crew left. Ashton and Brian's "bru" fight was one of the most comical things I've ever seen and hearing South Africans have a disagreement is like being a bad acid trip. Who knew people could form words that way?
In the middle of all the deck crew drama, Tanner was slowly dying from unknown causes. I don't if he ate something or was just way too affected by the Thai vodka, but the sounds that came out of his bathroom can only be rivaled by the sounds of an eight-man orgy, and if you want to know what that sounds like, just ask Kelly Dodd. Brian is the hottest person on deck but Tanner has the best personality, even if he acts like a creepy uncle at a family wedding when he's drinking, however, he needs to stop calling Kate old. If this guy really wants to get into the chief stew's pants, he should know not to reference her age, not to call her a cougar or compare her to his friend's sexy aunt. These are all things you don't do if you want to get some pussy while onboard. However, I hope Kate lets him slide in because we haven't seen her hookup with someone onboard since her lesbian days. Ahh, good times.
This week's charter guests are my favorite type of charter guests: a group of drunk women constantly on the prowl for dick during their girl's weekend. These are the types of charters that never disappoint because they drunkenly talk to the crew, are always trying to mildly sexually harass the male workers and a fight always breaks out between them. Always. It's the ultimate reality TV recipe: put eight women on a boat in the middle of the ocean in humid weather, feed them alcohol and sit back to watch the shitshow begin. These girls didn't disappoint, they stampeded onto the boat, skulled their drinks and almost immediately got Ashton to give them a lap dance. All the girls were wetter than the Niagara Falls after seeing Ashton work his magic, however, I give him a B+. As a professional stripper, he could've given us more of a show than that, and the waxed, gay porn star chest just really isn't doing it for me.
Aside from the guests being hungrier for dick than for any form of food, the person who makes the food, Chef Kunt was busy feuding with Captain Lee. Last week Kevin was an arrogant prick to Lee, before serving him rabbit food for dinner and not seeming to give much of a fuck about it. However, after he received a passive-aggressive scolding, the cunty chef obsessed over trying to please his captain and cooked up a 10-course feast for the guests. I'd rather have 4 good portioned dishes than 10 tiny plates off food over the course of an hour, and I don't care how many little dishes you want to bring out if each one has the same microscopic fragment of food, it's not going to fill me up.
The only subject Kevin could talk about for the entire episode was Captain Lee hating in and I get it, having your boss think you're a piece of shit isn't the best feeling, but the kiwi needs to find a storyline that isn't brown-nosing the head of the boat. This is exactly why you don't cross Kate Chastain. Period. End of story. Kate is in Lee's ear like a baby in the womb and he will always take her side, so it just takes one time for her to whisper a few things in the captain's ear to make him hate you for the rest of your time onboard. Chefs always think they're the most important person on board, however, once you make an enemy out of Kate, there's no going back. I would feel bad for Kevin if he wasn't such a condescending asshole who thought he was God's gift to cooking, but if he's going to act like a cunt, I'm going to treat him like a cunt. I give it about three more episodes until he's back on his sister's doorstep in New Zealand looking for another job.
Captain Lee gave Kevin the reality check he needs, however, the egotistical control freak is way too self-important and narcissistic to actually take ownership of his own behavior. If Kevin just realized he sucks more than a whore on spring break than he would be able to move forward with the self-awareness to be a better chef and human being, but sadly Mr. Dobson doesn't have the tools to do so. If I have to hear this lifeless twit refer to himself as Mr. Dobson one more time, I'm going to move to Utah, join a cult, and disappear into the darkness. Mr. Dobson sounds like the TV character of a celebrity who got "canceled" for molesting young girls on set and hearing Kevin mutter it to himself over and over is just triggering. This guy is more anal than a colonic and I'm going to need him to take his OCD tendencies down to a five. Sorry, not sorry.
Below Deck airs Monday at 9/8c on Bravo. Stay tuned at Good Tea for our shady recaps and exclusive tea on the horny boat crew!