The RHOSLC ladies are officially driving the Below Deck team to the brink.
Photo: Bravo
When the cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City boarded the Katina, I expected the charter to lead to one of two outcomes: The challenge would make the crew strong to the point of indestructibility, or it would drive everybody so insane they’d all end up jumping overboard. For the most part, the interior and deck teams gave us a master class in dependability, working in perfect harmony to overcome the obstacles presented by the nastiest guests possible. Not so for the galley: By the end of this week’s episode, Alesia is ready to jump ship.
When we pick up on the first dinner of the charter, the Housewives are still at one another’s throats, meanwhile Mary and Angie enjoy their food peacefully in their cabin. The ladies love the food, not that we would know from anything they said directly to the chef. Over dinner, almost every crew member comes up to the sundeck for one reason or another — to get feedback, to clear a plate or shattered glass, or, in Jason’s case, to eat dessert with the guests, per their invitation — and backs up inside, frightened by what they have seen. Jason’s dessert with the guests threatens to cause more fighting in the galley since Alesia forgets to tell Ben until the very last moment that the captain is supposed to join them.
Between lunch and dinner, something possessed Ben to feel bad about being too harsh on his sous. Maybe it was the prospect of a long season ahead. He reassures Alesia that giving her a hard time is a “sign of endearment”; Ben is what we in the United States call a ballbuster. Besides, let’s be honest: He is a great chef, but this dessert is total bull. A “deconstructed cheesecake” with chocolate sauce from the bottle is hardly an appropriate follow-up to the elegant fish and potatoes he made for the main course.
Bronwyn sleeps outside for no reason that the regular human mind can comprehend. She’s still there when Eddy and Betul start their shift in the morning. While Ben shows Alesia how to cut up fruit for breakfast, the deck team gears up for a “hectic day.” They will leave anchor to take the Housewives to Tobago Cays, an Edenic bay brimming with sea life, which Jason hopes will inspire the women to be more pleasant. Betul and João run into some trouble hauling up the anchor — it keeps piling up — which puts them about an hour behind schedule. The anchor issue doesn’t seem to be anyone’s fault, and Betul and João display excellent communication working through it. Still, the hang-up throws a wrench into the rhythms of the whole day.
By the time they get to the beach, the crew has to set up in front of the guests, an embarrassment Daisy likens to farting in front of a hot hookup. She hopes to distract the ladies enough that they won’t pay too much attention to what they’re doing, but, really, it’s not as if they would anyway. These women are too busy bitching at one another. Mary Cosby is telling Meredith that she is boring. Angie, suddenly feeling better, is recovering from arguing with Britani about real estate at breakfast. In general, it’s clear they are not noticing anything that doesn’t directly concern them. Jenna has been studying their behavior closely. In a confessional, she tells us that she is manifesting being each one of these ladies, holding on to the hope that yachting will be her way into the lifestyle of the Rich and Crazy. Despite her questionable judgment, I like Jenna so far. She’s funny and works hard, the two best traits you can have as a cast member on this show.
Still, I feel as though we haven’t really gotten to know the crew so far — a lot will become clearer once they have their first night out. Jenna is slightly flirtatious with Ben, as is Alesia with Eddy (I’ll spare us all from reliving the cringey lines the Housewives throw at Captain Jason). But with every passing minute, it seems less likely that Alesia will make it long enough to take her flirtation with Eddy past the point of suggestion. While the guests are out on the beach, she calls her mother to vent about the situation in the galley. Unhelpful as ever, her mom says, “Poor Ben. He’s having to carry you, isn’t he?” Maybe he wouldn’t have to if she had gone to culinary school as planned!
We get to know quite a bit about the crew’s parents this week. Eddy tells us his father died when he was only 5 years old and that he’d be happy to know Eddy was out in the world, traveling and swimming with turtles. Betul, on the other hand, tells us that her father was so adamant that women were not made for “a man’s world” that he nearly stopped her from going to school. That’s how she became determined that “if you want something, you have to fight for it.” Queen!
Alas, heartening stories of courage and perseverance do not a Below Deck episode make. A Below Deck episode is made of rich people acting insanely, as demonstrated by Heather over lunch. First, she asks Daisy to switch from the sundeck to the saloon after Jenna has already set the table. Then, ten minutes before they are supposed to eat, she informs Daisy she wants to have “a chill lunch” with Whitney, Angie, and Mary and relegate the rest of her guests to their rooms. “Is that bitchy?” Heather asks Whitney. Is it bitchy? Not only does that request make Jenna and Daisy scramble, but it also creates a problem for Ben, who was planning to serve lunch family style. Ben, of course, is famous for taking last-minute changes super-well.
The chef debates whether to serve the cabins or the saloon first. To Daisy, this is hardly a question: The primary eats first. When she came down to the galley to let Ben know about the change in plans, they agreed he would plate all the meals, which would then be divided between the cabins and the saloon. But Ben wasn’t happy with how the plating was coming out — salad, shrimp cocktail, and wings are not exactly platable fare — so he decided to plate only the cabin meals. Not unreasonable, except that decision got caught in the cross wires, and by the time Ben brings up the family-style platters to the saloon, there are no plates at the table. It’s all confusing; I’m confused just typing this out. It doesn’t help that they have to deal with this while listening to Whitney whine that she’s hungry.
More confusing still is that everyone expects to eat again three and a half hours from then, but never mind. The main attraction at the zombie-themed dinner is a shirtless Mike. We learn that he works as a stripper in between seasons after Lisa — who was at Heather’s throat merely 12 hours ago — asks Mike to give Heather some extra attention. Britani further requests a lap dance from João, which makes him uncomfortable. Mike gives the bosun pointers, and they generally laugh through it, but it’s always icky that the boys are put in this position. Some of them, like Mike, seem to enjoy it, but I’d rather not have to sit through João being so unsure what to do with Britani that he gives her a kiss on the cheek.
That’s later, though, after Angie manages to jam her finger in the door while wearing an inflatable seahorse costume and the whole crew somehow finds the time to get ready in really elaborate zombie makeup. The sundeck and the galley go through the same vibe trajectory over dinner: It’s a nice-enough start until people are screaming at one another. Mike lies to Daisy, for no reason, that there wasn’t a lipstick stain on a glass Mary sent back — red flag. The Housewives behave enough for Jason to join them for dessert, but when they start roping him into their drama, Daisy rescues him by making up an excuse, which earns her Brownie points with the captain. In the galley, Ben and Alesia are getting along fine until dessert. Inexplicably, he asks her to assemble the pistachio-ice-cream zombie heads. Ice cream is obviously finicky to work with — knowing that Alesia has zero culinary skill, Ben puts her through this “test” to assess her abilities. What could the result tell him that he didn’t already know? It only ends up creating more work for Ben since he has to fix all the desserts before they go out. In the rush, he forgets to add one of the cooked elements. He set them both up for failure.
In the morning, Alesia fails another — more reasonable — test. This time, she has only herself to blame. When Ben clocks in at the galley, she’s on a good stride, anticipating some of his needs. But things fall apart when he checks on the muffins. Alesia overfilled the pans, which means the muffins look atrocious. Since they don’t have any other tins, he throws them away in order to bake another, better batch. Alesia is offended that he wouldn’t let them cook all the way through and give them to the crew, but this only shows how little she understands about how the kitchen works. If the muffins are too big, they will take forever to bake and then the guests will be left with muffins that are less than ideal for the sake of the crew. All Alesia can feel, though, is a blow to her self-esteem. Again, I am begging her to Google anything.
Instead, she takes five in her cabin and calls Bri, the stew from last season, to vent. Bri reminds her that she can leave if she wants. Alesia laments that she left her awesome life in Canada to be berated by a mean chef. Of course it was more fun to ski all day than to sweat in a hot kitchen while being yelled at, but unfortunately everyone has to work. The episode ends with Alesia talking to Jason about potentially leaving. She tells him that they’d be better off finding someone more skilled and better trained. Jason tells her he’d like her to stay since (a) they have been short-staffed from day one and (b) the plan was to train her on the job. At this point, though, I’m not sure it would benefit anyone for Alesia to stay. Her heart is obviously not in it — it doesn’t seem as though she even wants to be a professional chef — and it’s creating more work for Ben to yell at her and fix her mistakes than it’s worth the extra hands. He could leave her clearer instructions. Would that be annoying? Yes, but it’d be better than this. Maybe she can jump into cabins instead. They look horrific, literally, stained with fake blood and makeup everywhere.
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