Below Deck Recap: Blame Game
Maybe it’s a surge of compatriotic empathy, but I’m feeling bad for Caio. Does he suck at his job? Yes. Has he learned anything from Kerry’s repeated warnings? No. Does he embody that famous definition of insanity that posits doing the same thing and expecting different results is the tell-tale sign of having lost your mind? Perhaps. But if, after an exhausting five-day charter — for which the crew was robbed of a decent tip; Kerry calls Skyy’s $19,900 tip “pathetic,” to which I would add insulting — the image of him sadly strumming his guitar like a seaborne Llewyn Davis while the rest of the crew sucked face in the hot tub didn’t make you feel a little sad, maybe you’ve been desensitized by the Bravo network.
Still, I only felt for Caio after spending most of the episode frustrated with him. We pick up this week where we left off, with Caio getting chewed out by Kerry. His first misstep is to gather his department and make the conversation with Kerry a team problem rather than an individual one. He tells them that Kerry asked him whether they were all up for the job, which is a misrepresentation of the talk, and resentment immediately sparks among the deck crew. Their reaction leads Caio to later ask Jess whether the boys are on his side. Jess reassures him that they all have his back, and it’s a new job — they’ll get through it together. Jess is easily the most level-headed and normal person on this boat. I love her.
The rest of the deck crew doesn’t feel quite so confident, least of all Kerry. After putting pressure on Caio, he decides to take some off and lead the evening kayak excursion so Caio can go process his rough day. It’s a nice thing to do, but obviously self-serving: Kerry is scared that any more issues will make him look like a fool in front of the guests, his biggest fear. The excursion looks fun as hell: the kayaks are decked out with neon lights, so they illuminate the water as the guests paddle. They see turtles, some fish, maybe a shark.
Kyle and Damo are more vocal about their dissatisfaction with the bosun over the next couple of days. Setting up for lunch at the nudist beach with Fraser, Damo tells him that working with Caio has been “challenging.” As if on cue and without prior warning, Caio radios that he’s approaching with the guests. Fraser asks him to go around the bay until the beach crew is ready. When they make it there, the guests immediately strip out of their clothes. As expected, Kyle, with Damo’s help, does a disturbingly good job sculpting a massive penis out of sand, and everyone has a great time.
Though it doesn’t result in anything worse than minor inconveniences, Caio’s slapshod communication style threatens to throw off the balance of the excursion. He brings Anthony back to the St. David from the beach without warning anyone. Or rather, he might have tried to warn them, but the radio came out staticky. It’s still his mistake, though — even I, who have never operated a walkie-talkie except for one traumatic weekend on a student film set when I was in college, know that the point of a radio is that you’re supposed to say “go” and “copy.” Not satisfied, he then brings back the guests without warning, a disaster which is only averted because a frustrated Kerry is closely watching out for them. The captain takes it upon himself to pick up Fraser, Damo, and Kyle from the beach.
As one of the guests rinses off, Caio mentions to Kyle and Damo that putting stuff away won’t be so hard and that they are welcome to help themselves to food in the crew mess if they’re hungry. Kyle reframes this as Caio “shouting about food” in front of the guests, which isn’t entirely fair, though his point is taken. Later, Kyle tells Kerry that Caio’s leadership could be more personable since his approach is more focused on the engineering part of the job than guest experience, a crucial part of Below Deck. By the time it’s the last day of the charter, Caio whimpers: “I just want to go to bed and play my guitar.” What an annoying and also sad thing to say. Caio seems confused about the demands of the job, both as a bosun and as a reality TV personality. There’s a melancholy to him that I find touching as if he believes he should simply know better. The man seems more downtrodden about his performance than anyone else.
One couldn’t say the same for Solène or, frankly, for Fraser, who is dangerously checked out of his own department. Solène tells Kerry that she’s “getting better” as a stew, which only shows how delusional she is. Not moments later, at the bar, Rainbeau reminds her where some cups go, even though she has been shown this three or four times. I understand that she’s new to yachting — though she tells us she has experience in hospitality, having worked at a 5-star hotel in the French Riviera as a bartender and a beautician — but it’s annoying that she acts like everyone knows the boat better than she does. They’ve all been on the St. David the same amount of time, except for Fraser, who hasn’t once been on the receiving end of her dumb questions. Rainbeau, who gets caught picking up the slack, had never stepped foot on the boat before Solène did, so how come she knows where the cups go and Solène doesn’t?
Rainbeau’s misadventures with Solène start on the second night of the charter, when, hoping to avoid the problem she ran into the previous night — having to finish the tasks Solène didn’t get to in her shift — she lays out specific directions for Solène. At first, it seems like it works: Before going to bed, Solène tells her that she finished the main salon and the bar. Rainbeau showers her with praise for doing the absolute bare minimum and hugs her tight. But when she goes to inspect the main salon, everything is still out, including all of the penis paraphernalia from dinner. By this point, it’s after 2 a.m., and the next day, Rainbeau is still up and working before Solène.
Fraser goes on the nudist beach excursion with the guests and leaves Rainbeau in charge of delegating tasks and breaks. While Bárbara randomly opens up to the captain about having been cheated on, Rainbeau asks “Celeste” — meaning, Solène, a mistake post-production got a kick out of — to drop what she’s doing in the pantry and jump into cabins, since they need to be done by the time the guests come back. In a confessional, Bárbara says that Rainbeau doesn’t know how to ask for things nicely, as if she’d forgotten that she ran into the same issue with Solène — that is, her need to be coddled — on the first day of work. Later, though, she lets Rainbeau in on her trick: “Treat her like a big kid.”
Things come to a head when Rainbeau sends Solène on break, even though she still hasn’t finished the pantry. Solène wants to finish the task, but Rainbeau explains — admittedly, in an irritated tone — that she needs to take a break before the guests come back so the whole team can be there when they arrive. Confused about the concept of task priority, Solène calls Rainbeau “cuckoo,” which makes Rainbeau cry (it’s a little bit funny that “cuckoo” sends her over the edge). Jess, who watches from the crew mess, tells her to take a deep breath — there’s nothing she can do, at least nothing she hasn’t already done.
But I can think of something she could do: She could speak up! As they’re setting up the table for the “S&M Venetian private club” themed dinner that night, Rainbeau downplays the “incident” to Fraser: She only says that Solène defied her authority. I understand that she wants to be a team player and doesn’t want to get Solène in trouble, but the longer this goes on, the worse it will be for the department. It’s evident that Rainbeau has struggled to manage her anxiety; when she calls a friend to vent about her panic attack, we learn that she’s been having those since college, though she’s yet to speak to someone about it. Here’s hoping that watching the show back will inspire her to seek a professional and ask for help when she needs it.
More alarming, though, is the fact that Fraser doesn’t pursue Rainbeau’s complaint at all. He asks zero follow-up questions, or at least, whatever questions he asked were deemed unimportant enough to be left out of the edit. Rainbeau takes matters into her own hands and hugs it out with Solène. When will Fraser address the Solène Question? Will disaster have to strike? Instead, he dedicates most of his time to making sure the St. David looks like the Eyes Wide Shut mansion and that every crew member looks like they’re in the sex cult. He gets way too into character and even instructs the chef to talk down to the guests in a kinky way. Though Fraser has a lot of fun with it, the whole thing made me cringe; it seems to fall flat with the guests. At least Anthony nails the food.
The chef approaches every dinner on charter as if it were his “Superbowl,” as he puts it; a stressful tactic, surely, but it’s working. Except for one oversight on the second night, when he forgot about guest Marcel’s shellfish allergy and sent him a shrimp tempura, his food is a consistent hit with the guests. Fraser is quick to put the blame for the shrimp mistake on the chef, though it’s also part of his job to make sure the preference sheet specifications are being followed. The rest of the charter goes by without a hitch. It’s so long that the fourth day is compressed into a montage, so there can be room for other happenings, namely, some making out in the hot tub.
Throughout the charter, Kyle puts the moves on Solène — he asks her out for a drink on their afternoon off — while Fraser flirts with Damo, boyfriend be damned. Though they are technically monogamous, Fraser expresses surprise that his boyfriend is not okay with him making out with other people — they’re both in yachting, so they only manage to see each other a few days out of the year. Ultimately, Fraser doesn’t seem very concerned about hurting his boyfriend’s feelings on national television because later that night, he makes out with Damo — who is touchingly open about his sexuality — in the hot tub. After everyone else goes to bed, Solène and Kyle make out, too. She’s slightly worried that “the Scottish,” as she calls him, will like her too much — and we know that Kyle falls hard and fast — and she’ll hurt his feelings since she’s not looking for a relationship. It’s just what Solène needs to get better at her job: a doomed boatmance. God help us, or Rainbeau and Bárbara, anyway.