overnights

Below Deck Adventure Recap: O Captain! My Captain!

Below Deck Adventure

Zero Fjords Given
Season 1 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating 2 stars

Below Deck Adventure

Zero Fjords Given
Season 1 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating 2 stars
Photo: Vulture; Photo: Bravo

There are two unexplained mysteries in this episode that I have about 17 squillion questions about. The first comes when Lewis, Jess, Faye, and Captain Kerry are at a preference-sheet meeting. Lewis gives the ladies his phone to show them an area of Norway where the guests will be going. Jess starts swiping right and finds a photo of Lewis dressed up like a human shirtless pineapple with body paint, a pair of tight, metallic shorts, and a cape. Alright. I need to know exactly what was happening here, where this was taken and whether or not the James Corden of bosuns got laid that night.

Seriously, though. Was this Halloween? A “fancy dress” party, as the English call them? Was it a fruit-themed party? Was this just for fun? Did he do it for an ex’s birthday, and she was really into tropical fruits? I mean, we get to see the whole picture but no context whatsoever. Enquiring minds want to know, and my mind is so enquiring it was barred from ever attending a press conference again.

The second mystery is what the hell happened to the chips (or crisps, as Faye calls them). At the start of the episode, they’re still at the chip-less picnic, and Faye is seething. She says that her hair is so big because it is full of secrets, and we’re all like, “What does that even mean but also, we’ve all seen Mean Girls.” Faye and Oriana head back to the boat, leaving Mike and Seth to clean up. They decide that cleaning up means polishing off an entire platter of sandwiches.

When they’re back on the boat, Faye has a conversation with Jess, Oriana, and Kasie. She says that things keep getting forgotten, that there are hairs in the food, and that no one communicates. Oriana asks if they ever found the chips, and Faye says it doesn’t matter. She’s right. Where they were or who forgot them doesn’t really matter; what matters is that things aren’t running smoothly. But also, come on — we want to know how the story finishes.

The next day there is a bunch of stuff in the stew pantry, and Kasie tells Faye it is what came back from the picnic the day before. There they find the chips sitting in a “bin bag.” (Since English people call a trash can a “bin,” then a “bin bag” is a trash bag. A garbage man is a “bin man,” and the gross slurry of juices at the bottom of the can for which there is no American term is called “bin juice.” It’s an excellent expression.)

Okay, so we know the chips came back from the picnic, but how did they get there? Mike and Seth were putting everything in trash bags that they didn’t jam down their gullets, so did they put it there? Did whoever forgot them sneak them in the trash bag when they got back to the boat to be like, “See! I didn’t forget them.” Or did someone put them and a bunch of other stuff in a trash bag to bring to the site, and when they were looking all over for the chips, did not look in the trash because they thought there was no way they were there? But if that happened, did Faye not look in the trash bag just to make sure they weren’t there? This is not the satisfying ending I was promised. I need this shit tied up in a nice little bow like when you tie together the red plastic straps that keep a bin bag closed.

Faye has bigger problems on her hands, though, like Captain Kerry having dinner with the lesbian guests and them not mentioning that they had a hair in their food. They get through the whole Gay Pride dinner, and it never comes up. However, the next morning when the guests are headed back from whence they came, they tell everyone that they had a great time, except for the hair in the food.

At the tip meeting, Kerry says he’s not happy with how the charter went. He’s pissed not that there was hair in the food but that no one told him about it other than Oriana throwing her superiors under the bus because she is power-hungry and apparently learned how to operate by reading all about Camilla Parker-Bowles, queen consort, in Prince Harry’s new memoir. Kerry also says that the deck crew is “first league-ing it,” which I think means looking amateur.

Here’s the thing: I’m starting to think that Kerry is a bad captain. Yes, he is handsome and personable, but the crew has been a mess since the season started. I don’t think he got a whole dozen bad apples; I just think he can’t get them to communicate. I don’t love Captain Lee’s style, but you know he would not stand for that shit. And look at Captain Sandy in this current season of Below Deck. There she has staff members at war — much like Faye and Lewis are and particularly Faye and Jess are — and she sits them down, talks about their differences, and communicates to their manager how to handle it. What does Kerry do? Just giggling and stealing treats from the larder with Faye saying they needed to do a freshness test? The rot starts from the top, and I think Kerry needs to get off his firm ass and start delegating a bit less.

Kerry says he will help fix the deck by making Seth lead deck hand, a position that I am entirely convinced exists only on this show to cause drama. He says that Seth won’t be as nice to Nathan and Mike, will get them in shape, and then he can teach Lewis how to drive the boat. Wait, so you’re going to promote him past his incompetence? This is the Peter Principale in action.

The power immediately goes to Seth’s head. He takes Nathan and Mike aside and says that his and Lewis’s styles are very different, and when he says to do something, he expects them to do it. He’s basically like, “I’m your boss now, and I’m going to make you hate your life.” He’s not wrong, they need to know more and be motivated, but is this really going to be the way to do it?

Later, Seth, Nathan, and Mike are all eating in the crew mess that Kasie just deep-cleaned. She goes in and, as nicely as possible, tells them to clean up after themselves. “We don’t need a babysitter!” Seth yells at her as he starts to make a huge scene. For someone who demands a “Do what I say and just listen” level of respect, he sure doesn’t give even a modicum of respect in return to the crew. As Nathan said, less like a lead deckhand and more like a lead dickhead. This is a guy who gets into the hot tub wearing a pair of board shorts that go below his kneecaps like it is 2007. This is the guy you’re going to listen to? Nathan tells him to nod his head and clean up after himself. See, Nathan does know a thing or two about how to deal with having an asshole for a boss. Just nod your head and pretend it didn’t happen.

The real drama, though, is going on between Faye and Jess. It gets so bad that Jess has to take Kasie out for a coffee so that she can bitch about Faye. Their first clash starts early in the episode at breakfast. Jess gets mad at Faye that Faye didn’t tell her that the guests were seated for breakfast. Yeah, but Faye did, and Jess wasn’t listening to her radio. Then Faye asks Jess if she can take egg orders from the guests yet. Instead of just answering her question, Jess says, “Do I look like I’m ready for egg orders?” I mean, ask Nathan how to deal with it. You just nod your head and say, “Give me [X number of minutes].” Not hard.

Jess is always banging on (more Britishisms!) about how Faye is bad at communication, but it seems like she is as much of a problem. I’m not going to say that Faye is the best chief stew we’ve ever seen, but how can Faye communicate with her when she constantly disregards it? This is illustrated very plainly in the next charter. Faye tells the guests that they’ll have a snack when they get on board and then food after they go horseback riding. Jess ratifies this plan and says she doesn’t know what snacks means and, ugh, I just want to hit her upside her one braid on the side of her head.

Jess makes them a snack and brings it to them. While there, she asks them if they want pizzas, totally unprompted. When she returns to the galley, she tells Faye that she is making them pizzas now. “I’m not going to fuck around with a snack. That’s a silly idea.” Faye tells her that wasn’t the plan she just agreed on. Jess counters, “We did, but I just flow naturally. That’s yachting, baby.” Um, yeah, that is true, but if Faye were to do this to Jess, she would have had a conniption so big it wouldn’t even fit in Seth’s board shorts.

Based on what we’ve seen from the next episode, it looks like Jess might finally be so annoyed that she’s going to leave the boat. Good! I have never seen a chef who wanted to do her job less than Jess. And Kerry will probably just let her go because if there is one thing we have learned this season, it’s that Kerry isn’t really that interested in the professional development of his crew.

Below Deck Adventure Recap: O Captain! My Captain!