Below Deck Recap: Boom, Boom, Focus

I’m not sure what we did to deserve Jared, but he’s an absolute gift.

This Barbie is vile. Or, at least, her attitude is, Fraser complains to Captain Kerry. But okay, fine, sure: It brings him no pleasure to acknowledge that she’s great at service, she has an eye for detail, and she’s otherwise a very good stewardess. In that case, Captain Kerry encourages him to “take a breath” and look for ways to let her shine.

Barbie, meanwhile, just can’t understand what’s keeping Fraser from telling her she’s doing a good job. That’s all she wants! Why can’t he be a little more like her dad, who “applauds [her] 24/7?” (I so appreciate how Barbie’s issues with her father — we will not be using the phrase d*ddy issues on my watch; we are grown women who have Issues With Our Fathers — are not subtext but straight-up, boldface text.)

Fortunately for Babrie, there are other crew members whose company she prefers to that of her boss. Ben is in a state of genuine disbelief when Barbie tells him she’s got her eye on Jared. (She’s attracted to “people’s souls,” she explains, which is why all her exes looked “pretty bad.” An incredible burn, and all the more so because I can tell she means it.) As always, I admire the immediacy with which gossip spreads on a yacht. Kyle, upon hearing that he isn’t polling in first, is undeterred. They have a “connection.” He’s willing to wait his turn, but in the meantime, he isn’t above requesting his crush to apply aloe vera to his sunburned back, thereby leaving him no choice but to pop off his shirt.

Sunny, still pissed, finally confronts Ben about his snitching on her via walkie. He says that his negative feedback was really directed at Jared, not at her — apparently failing to realize that her reputation could have been collateral damage. He offers what’s technically but only barely a “sorry,” with no real acknowledgment of her feelings beyond observing that she’s been “moody as fuck.” Okay!

For the guests’ vow renewal slash wedding ceremony by the side of a waterfall — why did I think that they’d be actually under the waterfall, with Captain Kerry officiating in a full wetsuit? — the crew sets up a lovely table, seemingly teetering directly over the edge of a cliff. (A metaphor?) Love, actually, is all around: Barbie proceeds to engage in a series of truly odd but not charming, courting displays for Jared’s benefit, which includes pretending to be a sheet ghost under decorative draping fabric and miming flashing him when he (sort of?) saves her from falling out of a chair. “Ha, HA, ha, HA,” Jared cackles over and over again. He is the only person I’ve ever heard laugh in iambic pentameter.

In case all of that was too subtle, Barbie tells him, “I like you.” He very much likes her back, he tells the camera, before seguing with no context into what seems to be … a freestyle rap? A song that exists only in his own mind?

When you see me by the beach
I’m sitting by the fire
I like it hot, I like it hot

Later, in another confessional, he catches a fly between his fingers. I’m not sure what we did to deserve Jared.

Back on the boat, Anthony slices what appears to be an entire cow’s worth of steak for the family meal, determined to never under-serve the crew again. “Boom, boom, focus. Alright, bro. Focus, bro. Goddammit. Focus, focus, focus,” he tells himself, leaving me waiting eagerly for an EDM track to sample this monologue. Anthony shares that he got married relatively young, at 26. But then his wife, a chief stew, found a job with his uncle, a captain, and proceeded to leave Anthony for him. Bro. Hold my earrings, please. “For the moment,” he says, “I’m literally in love with my cat.” I don’t know what we did to deserve Anthony, either.

At dinner, the newly married-for-the-first-time husband keeps joking about whether the wedding really counts, har har, and on behalf of his bride, I do not appreciate it. Cat is on service, which goes exactly as well as one would expect. Our very own Amelia Bedelia drops a utensil onto the primary and clumsily reaches over the captain to pour his wine, muttering panicked apologies. I am so vicariously flustered that I nearly fail to notice that one of tonight’s courses is something called “beets cappuccino.” Kerry clocks every single one of her mistakes, even going so far as to prompt her to clean up a guest’s placemat. Why did Fraser choose a rare night when the captain is dining with the guests to try putting Cat, who I am not 100 percent, bet-the-house confident knows which one is a fork and which one is a knife, on service? Cat isn’t walking the plank just yet, but the captain and Fraser both agree she’s in need of more “polishing.”

Look, I have to say it. The wedding cake is a little janky, with an objectively off-center cluster of blue-green (in a shade I don’t normally associate with food or nature) roses in the middle of a crowning layer of raspberries, some of which have visible frosting residue. The serving plate has not been wiped totally clean of smears. It is cute, and casually whipping up a wedding cake in the middle of the Caribbean must be no easy feat, but this thing has at least as much DNA in common with Nailed It as Bake Off. That said, I love you, Anthony. Don’t listen to me. You are perfect.

The docking sequence is edited like a thriller, scored with objectively frightening Hans Zimmer orchestral Inception booms. “Inside, I’m screaming fuck,” Jared recalls in a confessional. “But not like fuck — like fack, with an A.” Fortunately, he and the gang do a pretty good facking job.

Jared’s scheduled call with his three-year-old daughter is foiled by poor cell service, and it’s obvious how upset he is to miss out on time with her — the last thing he wants to be is a “deadbeat dad.” (By what telecommunications witchcraft is Captain Kerry constantly successfully video chatting with his fiancée? Let this poor man borrow your phone!)

At dinner out at a beach bar, Jared proceeds to get unceremoniously blasted, breaking a glass and then picking salt off the rim of his umpteenth tequila shot (worried about a “sodium overdose,” which I don’t think is the primary concern here). Alas, Jared’s sloppiness has given Barbie the ick — at one point, I’m pretty sure he makes a pspsps noise at her like she’s a cat. Barbie, rocking a Sue Ellen Mischke bra-as-shirt look tonight, wastes no time in publicly, unambiguously redirecting her affections onto Kyle, who she chases down to smoke a cigarette with. Poor Jared couldn’t catch this particular fly.

Ben and Sunny embark on what could, in theory, be a romantic little walk on the beach but, in practice, is a continuation of their not-quite-a-fight from earlier. She calls him a “dick,” but he disagrees: “I’m cheeky, I’m Aussie, it’s charismatic.” I am genuinely so tickled by someone just announcing that they are charismatic. Sunny, who says she has a difficult time trusting men based on some challenging past relationship experiences, accuses him of gaslighting her. Scratch off an “I’m sorry that that offended you” on your bad apology bingo card, but Ben does, at least, reassure her that she’s doing a great job and the captain loves her. They hug. “I know you’re okay with it,” he says, which is a fascinating way to manifest the end of an argument, but it seems to do the trick, so what do I know?

As always, there is a bonfire for the crew to dance in the vicinity of, as is required by international maritime law. But Cat comes down with a bad case of the drunk sads (a counterpoint to Jared’s sad drunks). Mascara running, she cries to Fraser about feeling insecure about both her lack of connection with her new coworkers and especially about her “bland” personality. To me, at least, this reads as something of a meta, fourth-wall-breaking conversation — I’m not convinced Cat is as worried about how being “bland” will affect her standing as a crew member on the St. David as she is about how it will affect her standing as a cast member of Below Deck.

Fraser is very sweet and supportive, hugging Cat and reassuring her that she is “beautiful,” “fun,” and “everything we need” (you is smart, you is kind, etc.). She is even, he tells her, his “most precious stew on the interior,” a title that is not to my knowledge associated with any specific number of stripes.

But in the aftermath of his comforting Cat, he encourages Barbie to be gentle with her. This sets off their argument cycle yet again, although at least they’re drunkenly holding hands this time. He, too, can be sassy, she informs him, to his dismay. Yes, duh, Barbie could be significantly more respectful and professional — but I do think even a little more explicit praise from Fraser would go a long way towards placating her. I see you, Barbie: I am also a words of affirmation girlie, with residual childhood trauma from being the one kid expected to pick up the slack and do the entire group project. Instead, he takes a different tack: “Fucking bring it or go home.”