Below Deck Recap: Beached Brandy

Never trust a woman named after liquor. When Brandy stumbled her way onto the boat and passed out during the initial tour, I knew we were in for a shit show. It’s one thing to be a drunk mess after you’ve put your clothes away, in fact, it’s expected, but it’s another thing to be wasted before you even shake the captain’s hand.

I love alcohol more than Luann de Lesseps loves herself, however, even I know not to get too wasted before stepping aboard a boat. These people paid thousands of dollars to spend a couple of days at sea, so you would think Brandy would at least want to remember and/or enjoy her time onboard. One of the main joys of this show is seeing the drunk charter guests mildly sexually assault the crew, have pointless intoxicated fights and give us their funny one-liners while under the influence, but it’s not fun seeing someone struggle to breathe because they downed too many Bloody Mary’s on the car ride over.

The Housewives franchise is built off sloppy, drunk moments but Brandy’s behavior was too uncomfortable and embarrassing for me to even enjoy. Brandy officially reached Kim Richards level and that’s when you know someone’s drunk antics have crossed over from a funny party gag to being a serious problem. She spent her first day aboard the boat hyperventilating, drunkenly berating the crew, almost drowning at sea and passing out in her bed by 8 pm. Does that sound like a fun day to you? The next morning, she woke up, downed everyone’s mimosas on an empty stomach and then spent the whole day continuing to be a drunk mess. I know from personal experience, it’s not fun being the sloppy, drunk, vomiting mess everyone has to take care of and after a while, nobody is going to invite her on anymore all expenses paid vacations.

How is it humanly possible to be mumbling before breakfast is even over? Obviously, everyone wants to have a few drinks and let their hair down on vacation, but if you’re already dedicated to getting drunk before 10 am there’s a bigger problem at hand. The alcoholic charter guest somehow managed to find her way to dry land to attend the group’s lunch and flopped around on the floor like a dying fish. Let it be a cautionary tale, being drunk and dehydrated in the humid Thai heat will turn you into Nemo after someone takes him out of the fish tank, and they should really start playing a clip of Brandy on ads to scare teens from underage drinking.

While everyone was enjoying their Italian sandwiches, raisin salads and prosciutto on rye, Brandy had to be lifted off the beach by two deckhands on a kayak so she could be near a working air conditioner. The only thing I’ve seen that was more dramatic than Brandy’s drunken exit from the beach was Princess Diana’s 50-foot train. Seriously, you would’ve thought she was Cleopatra being carried to her throne or Lady Gaga being transported in an egg to the 2000 and whatever Grammy awards.

Aside from the liquor named charter guest’s drunk behavior, all the other paying customers aboard the yacht were pretty great. Tony Soprano managed to say four words for the entire episode, Morticia Addams was still trying to fuck the chef, one other guest passed out on the deck, as you do, and two of the other ladies molested Captain Lee as he was trying to do his job. I appreciate a group of charter guests who can give us great TV moments and we need this click to come back every single season. Can we talk about the primary’s “occupation?”

I don’t know his name and I don’t care about his name because he’ll always be Tony Soprano to me. Tony has an undisclosed profession, an Italian background, a bald spot, an abundant amount of chest hair and manages to pay $30K to charter a boat for three days every year. Are we really supposed to believe he isn’t laundering money and shaking people down for their rent every week? I think not. It also explains why his wife wants to fuck anything that moves, because he obviously has a girlfriend in every port and cheats on her like a Housewife gets a botox, so she looks for male attention in any way she can, because her husband has the emotional capacity of a slow fourth grader. Yeah, that’s right, I’ve watched The Sopranos and I know a dysfunctional mafia marriage when I see when.

Back to the crew, Abbi still doesn’t know what a radio is and fucked up the entire system by keying it. Basically, it’s just a fancy yachting term for pushing the microphone in and even though everybody acted as if the rookie had run over their cousin, Captain Lee couldn’t have been nicer about it. Although I don’t love Lee as much as my inspiration and idol Captain Sandy, he is a great guy and is the authority figure you never want to disappoint. I’d rather have rough sex with Chef Kevin and his Prince William bald spot than ever let down Captain Lee, and that really says something.

Abbi also had to tie up her curly red hair in case it got caught in something and that’s not a bitchy, unnecessary request it’s just a safety hazard and the only person complaining when it gets caught in a chain is going to Abbi. The deckhand is literally a real-life version of that Disney Princess from Brave and her hair has more volume than a heavy metal concert. This is her first time working on a yacht so she’s still working all the kinks out, but I am so confused, why does Bravo always find a bunch of inexperienced crew members who have spent their careers working on sailboats but not a 150-foot yacht? Does that make sense to anyone? The producers are literally setting these people up to fail, but fucking up your radio and not tying your hair up are only rookie mistakes everyone is focusing on because there’s not a lot else happening.

The only other real point of contention on this show is Chef Cunt. Why does every chef ever suck? What is it about being a chef on a boat that makes people such assholes? I understand it’s the worst job in the world, you have to work twice as hard as everyone else in a sweaty kitchen cooking food for asshole rich people, but surely Kevin is experienced enough to not act like an entitled prick all the time. We get it, he has OCD and wants everything done a certain way but his job is to cook the food, nothing more nothing less.

Prince William has no place telling Kate Chastain how to do her job and him trying to take control of the way they do service is like a stray dog trying to mark its territory. Kevin is trying to assert the little power he has by arguing with the stews over every little thing, but he needs to take a seat, shut the fuck up and realize his main priority is not overcooking the fish. Also, Kate Chastain is in Captain Lee’s ear like a Ray J’s dick was in Kim Kardashian’s 2007 vagina, so there is no Kevin will win this battle because the captain will always side with the resident font queen.

The guests requested a seafood extravaganza and instead of delivering a tower of clams, mussels, oysters, crabs, lobsters, fish and whatever else Ariel plays with under the sea, Chef Cunt forgot to order any actual seafood. This is a man who wants to tell everyone else how to do their job, but can’t even do his own. If you look at the menu for the charter and see “seafood extravaganza” wouldn’t your first thought be to order seafood? Also, you’re in fucking Thailand, so you would think that even if he failed to order seafood for the extravaganza that he would have enough leftover seafood in the back to make up for his mistake. Yeah, Kev didn’t manage to do that either.

How can Kevin look at himself in the mirror and still try to take control of Kate’s job description when he doesn’t even know the definition of a fucking extravaganza. Of course, the guests failed to catch any seafood on their outing because nobody ever catches anything when they go fishing, so Kevin threw together a few shrimp, some leftover fish, and a dozen crab cakes for the seafood extravaganza and in his self absorbed, narcissistic mind he genuinely thought he pulled it off. The charter guests were so drunk they would’ve eaten his cum if he served it to them and although the food was good enough to satisfy them, it was the bare minimum and if he really is the amazing chef he believes he is, then he should’ve gone above and beyond to give the guests a memorable seafood extravaganza, not just a few fried crab cakes.

For breakfast the next morning, Chef Kev spent the entire time berating and belittling Simone for not dropping to her knees and rushing his bacon out as soon as it came off the grill. Admittedly, Simone was being a little ditzy and giving food to a guest to take to the table wasn’t her best move, however, she was the ONLY stew on service in the morning having to prepare 12 drinks at once, carry out fruit platters and set the table, so an OCD Kevin rushing her, making her feel stupid and being a complete and utter asshole was not what she needed. At all. And what Kate didn’t need was to be woken up early by an aggressive, disgruntled, paranoid chef for no reason at all. None.

There was more than enough crew up to help Simone run a few plates, however, after years of watching this franchise, even I know there should always be two stews up for the breakfast shift. Even though Kate should’ve been awake and Simone was having bouts of amnesia, Kevin made the situation 100 times worse by insulting her and rushing the entire breakfast process just because he wanted to feed his ego. If he really wanted to fix the situation, Kevin would’ve helped Simone and been supportive, not berate her in front of her coworkers. It’s annoying, it’s embarrassing, it’s rude and I am sick of Kevin’s frazzled attitude ruining everyone else’s day, especially Kate’s which started with no shower and a snarky apology from the chef. In case you haven’t caught on, Kevin can choke.

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!