I am so ready for this Below Deck recap tonight. I slept in super late today and woke up to a financial mess that needed to be sorted out. So,I just got that straighten out and now I need to WOO SAH and get on this boat with Captain Lee and sail away from all the anxiety. I am guessing that we will start with Shane getting a ticket home from Captain Lee. Also, I am not through my emails yet today due to all the drama. But, I’m working on it! Well it looks like I have another hour to devote to emails. I never set my clocks back and have just been subtracting an hour, because lazy. lol. I thought it was nine and it’s only eight, so I guess I can find something to eat now too! #CovidBrain
The Axe Falls Quickly
I almost feel sorry for Shane. He’s been called to the principal’s office and the principal is Captain Lee. When Captain Lee says “we need to have a conversation,” it’s bad news. But, Captain Lee keeps it short and sweet. WAIT! WHAT IS HAPPENING ON MY TV? 36 hours later, Rachel is telling Captain Lee to go fuck himself? DID.THAT.REALLY.HAPPEN? How the hell did it get to that point? I guess we are about to find out. And Shane brought a surfboard on the boat? Rachel is the only one not to tell Shane goodbye.
Click Here For More Below Deck Recaps!
Elizabeth is probably the next to get the ax. What is going on with this season? Rachel is really missing her boyfriend. Francesca has a meeting with the stews. She praises Ashling and then talks to Elizabeth privately. I really don’t care about this. I need to know WTF is happening with Rachel and Captain Lee and why Eddie was in the room when it went down! Elizabeth is freaking out and worried she is going to get fired. Her anxiety is really kicking in. Anxiety sucks.
Shore Leave!
I love the crews nights out. The last one was very uneventful though. It’s time for a hookup! Covid is already a thing and the restaurants are still open and crowded. No one is wearing masks. Elizabeth is putting the moves on James. Rachel cries over her boyfriend. Is she really going to go home over her boyfriend? She’s a hot mess at dinner. They go home straight after dinner. Elizabeth is beyond drunk. Rachel is an angry drunk. She is yelling at Elizabeth to suck it up. She’s really aggressive toward Elizabeth. We are not getting enough shore leave time this season! 🙁
Click Here For More Below Deck Recaps!
Back on the boat, drunk Rachel grabs a bottle of tequila and goes to Eddie’s cabin. She want to change cabins. I guess to be in his cabin. She likes Francesca but there is too much drama in her department. Um, Eddie just fired someone so this cabin is pretty dramatic as well. Eddie says he is there for her. She seems to really like/need that. Is she flirting with Eddie? Eddie throws her out of his cabin. Drunk Elizabeth and James sort of bond on the deck.
No One Is Bright-eyed And Bushytailed The Next Morning
It seems as though Elizabeth is trying to kill everyone from her bleach mixture. She was told that if she was going to bleach a shirt, she needed to take it outside. But she just put the bucket in the laundry room. Now all the stews are dizzy. Allegedly. Meanwhile, Captain Lee is pissed of at James because he is rewashing things that Izzy already washed. It’s a big boat. Ain’t nobody got time for that. The chief engineer shows up to the crew mess. We only see the when there is an issue. He smells some sort of solvent. Rachel calls her boyfriend in Europe and asks him to fly to the Caribbean to see her. He says he can try but Covid has started shutting down the cities.
Click Here For More Below Deck Recaps!
Oh it’s only February 23rd. That’s why things were business as usual. Rachel can’t stop crying. The chief engineer discovers Elizabeth bleachy mixture that is killing everyone. He told Captain Lee and Francesca. Francesca comes down hard on Elizabeth who says she has done that on every boat she is on. However, Francesca specifically told her to take the bucket outside. Now Francesca has to talk to Captain Lee about the situation. Francesca is done with Elizabeth. She asks Captain Lee to replace her with someone more competent. Captain Lee says perhaps after the next charter, but not this close to the guests arriving. Captain Lee tells Elizabeth that she needs to get her ass in gear on the next charter if she wants to keep her job.
Eat My Cooter!?
Francesca is also on James’ ass about his dirty laundry. She is also mad at Rachel for telling Francesa to go talk to Captain Lee. Basically Francesca is mad at everyone. There is lots of tension at the meeting about the next charter guests. The preference sheets are extremely lengthy. The demands are insane. They want authentic New Orleans dinner one night. Another night they want an elaborate ten course dinner. They are very specific about their big breakfasts. I see now how Rachel loses her shit. I also think I heard her mumble that it is her special time of the month which explains her attitude and crying jags.
Click Here For More Below Deck Recaps!
At the end of the meeting Rachel busts out with the comment, “Eat my cooter.” Everyone is stunned. She goes on to basically quit and tells the charter guests to suck her dick. She isn’t getting paid enough for all of that. WOW. Then Captain Lee suggests they talk to them and find out if they are as ostentatious as they appear on paper. And then, Rachel says, “Go fuck yourself!” Was that to Captain Lee? Or the guests? Captain Lee says he would rather not do that. Rachel says she loves him. But she’s out on these charter guests. Captain Lee is furious.
Rachel just will not stop with the obscenities. She’s telling everyone to eat her cooter and to shove it up their fucking asses. It’s a long stream of obscenities! Captain Lee calls her to the bridge for a chat. He asks her to consider just doing lunch and dinner on day one. He needs time to get someone else there. She refuses. An alarm goes off on the boat. Rachel goes to pack. She cusses out production and flips them off. Rachel leaves at 8 pm the night before the guests arrive. I have a feeling Rachel will turn back up because Captain Lee and Rachel say positive things about each other. I’ll update WWHL with Kate and Chastain in comments because I need to eat and Banjo is going insane outside.
Craziest episode ever!
Oh! Kate says Rachel quits all the time and comes right back the next day. Kate said she had no idea about the bleach and soap. Neither did Francesca.
I sucked in science but I knew that combo made mustard gas don’t believe kate didn’t know this she’s a smart savvy girl.. francesca not so much
I didn’t know it. I think I’d heard about not mixing bleach with other cleaning products… but I don’t think if you polled a hundred people and asked them what you should not mix bleach with that more than 15 would know the answer.
I thought everyone knew that you do not mix bleach with ammonia. The soap must have had ammonia in it
Bleach and everyday household soap are not a problem. Bleach and ammonia is a totally different story combine their toxic mix. My guess is that she put ammonia into the bleach think they would help whiten whatever she was trying to whiten.
A lot of household soaps have ammonia in them as a degreaser. Although, I think most clothes detergents don’t, for this very reason.
If she used dish soap, it may have contained ammonia. She might have done this on a previous boat with no problem, if the soap on that boat didn’t contain ammonia.
Most cleaners have warning labels on them about this.
Wasn’t aware a lot of soap products had ammonia probably because I’ve never come across any, but would laundry detergents contain ammonia? I would think not since using bleach is a common laundry practice which would lead to possible issues, but I would think even if household cleaning soaps had ammonia in them there wouldn’t be enough to be a problem. Certainly nothing like adding pure ammonia to bleach.
When I was a kid cleaning a nasty bathroom I had the bright idea to mix bleach and ammonia, I mean if they’re both individually good they must be great together right; and let me just say it was about as bad as being gassed during combat training in the military, but saying it was mustard gas is one hell of an exaggeration.
If I were a betting man I would bet she combined pure ammonia with the bleach to whiten those clothes, but maybe there’s a possibility that she used some other soap that contained ammonia.
Lately, I’m finding that cleaning products and sprays do not have those warnings and the ingredients are in very small print, often with little contrast between the container and the print. I worry about this a lot – and end up using it as an excuse not to clean with any products. I am sensitive to the smells even when I just use one product.
Just buy the eco ones. Problem solved!
You can’t mix bleach with ammonia, so the soap must have had ammonia in it. I’ve known that since I was a child.
lol. Where you an indentured servant scrubbing boat decks as a child?
I don’t know that Lee would want her back. She was a total diva about quitting, really going overkill.
Thanks for recapping BD!
Oh he would want her back. She’s a fantastic chef. And they are all batshit crazy hot heads.
She is in my top two chefs for Below Deck. I really liked her, and really I’m glad she left, she may have used rough language on her way out but that’s a hell of a lot better than taking on that ridiculous task for a single chef and failing to provide a decent level of service as a result.
I have a feeling Rachel saw this preference sheet for what it was- production setting her up to fail. When she flipped off the camera crew and said something about calling off their hounds I knew it. Crazy episode!!!
Welp! I’m an idiot. I was so focused on the production stuff with the bleach, the thought never crossed my mind. Maybe because there are always weird and ridiculous meal requests (at the request of production) but you’re right she felt like they were going to do her like they did Kiko and she wasn’t going to play that game. I bet she asks for more money to come back.
Who asks for “authentic New Orleans food” in the Caribbean? Or a ten course meal with multiple things you can’t get in the Caribbean? Preference sheets in real like are things like No Pork, or Vegan, or no onions. etc. You are right, this was definitely production. Now all the calling off the hounds and even EAT MY COOTER comments make more sense.
Like you said last week, production probably hid the caviar she had as well. She called the supplier and they said it was definitely in the bag.
Didn’t consider that. It it sounds plausible.
If Rachel is the great chef she claims to be, it wouldn’t be a setup to fail. It would be an opportunity to shine even brighter.
Like, “Throw me a curveball and watch me hit it out of the park!”
There were countless ways that Rachel could have handled the situation that wouldn’t have involved screwing over all her co-workers, and would have shown herself to be a competent professional.
Instead, she chose to have a tantrum.
That’s on her, not production.
I disagree, I think she knows her limitations including time and space and supplies and she knows most of want they want and feeding the crew is not possible for one chef. She’s right she’s not getting paid enough for that. You can’t always rise above if it’s all stacked against her. I may not have quit in the fashion she did but I’m not going to allow production bullshit to make me look incompetent in my profession.
I think throwing up her hands, having an “I’m too good for these guests” tantrum, and leaving the Captain and her fellow crew in the lurch is what makes her look incompetent, not the inability to conjure up a 10-course French meal on 1 day notice.
Anybody with the experience she claims to have knows it’s all about managing expectations.
That’s what Captain Lee was angling towards when he called Rachel up to the bridge and suggested they call the primary.
If there are things you can’t do, you tell the guest “Unfortunately, we’re not able to do ____, but what we can do is____.” and you propose an alternative. It’s all in the way you sell it to the guest. Done correctly, the guest forgets all about their unreasonable demands and ends up thanking you for your great ideas.
That’s what a hospitality professional would do.
Rachel didn’t even need to do this herself. Francesca and Captain Lee are there to do things like that.
All she had to do was swallow her attitude for two seconds, read the preference sheets with a dispassionate eye, and then tell the others what her issues were.
If the deck’s stacked against you, you re-shuffle the deck. You don’t throw all the cards on the floor and quit the game.
Rachel was ready to go home & this was just her catalyst to do so. But from what I’ve read of this preference sheet, aside from the 3 meals, this idiot wanted specific food available almost 24 hrs a day and the crew available to them all day/night as well. Seems he thinks he’s some fucking king to order the peasants around. What an asshole.
I agree! Below Deck is so much more produced than when it first came out. We don’t need that. It was dramatic and funny enough at the beginning! Bravo always messes up their reality shows about 3 seasons in!
This makes SO much sense now! I thought her reaction was so bizarre. I can understand being pissed by the preference sheet normally, but the way she treated the camera men and all the extras, I thought it was just too much. Watching the preview for next wee, I really wont be shocked if she comes back to the boat. I would totally love to see one of the previous chefs, even Leon, bac though.
Dear lord jayzus not Leon, never ever ever Leon.
I had not considered that it might be production driven. But you know, if it was, then I’m even happier now that she left, then I was before when I thought it was just overbearing entitled guest with ridiculous demands.
I agree with Laura. I think she knows she was being set up to fail by oroduction. Also, Tamara, did you notice she was drinking outside before this ago went down? I don’t think that was some juice in her cup. We saw that same behavior the night before after drinking and she acted the same way at the provisions meeting. She was definitely a little liquored up.
I missed that drinking part…good catch.
I hate being three hours behind!
Poor li’l Sunshine… Production sucks giant bags of dicks for hiring these unqualified people. Why can’t they hire someone who is competent AND FUNNY? I have worked with so many FUNNY and SMART people. When I worked at the Nantucket in Crockett (Calif.), we had people come in just for the show (us)! Our customers would get right IN IT! It would be so much better than the same old under-qualified people every season!
I do laundry and add bleach to the laundry detergent when I was whites am I doing this wrong? I feel like braunwyn
No, laundry detergent is MADE to work with bleach. Now if she used dish soap it will have a reaction… She may have used the wrong soap.
Ammonia & Bleach make mustard gas. So, Possibly the soap had some ammonia in it. Or the ammonia was in the other tub. I use ammonia in my laundry to get rid of dog smells and I’ve accidentally mixed the 2 together- its BAD!!
In regard to the bleach fiasco…. The adding of laundry soap to bleach does not create “mustard gas” – unless the soap contains ammonia.
Ammonia + bleach = a white cloud of toxic fumes that causes immediate respiratory distress.
And the engineer said mustard gas was used in WWII. That is incorrect. Mustard gas was used in WWI. The Geneva Protocol in 1925 prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts.
right, I know you cant mix bleach and ammonia, but apparently other cleaning products, aside from laundry detergent, may have ammonia in them and that is what ends up being toxic.
The last few episodes have been quite boring so production must have taken matters into their hands. It was almost like they were seeing a new preference sheet like it had been changed. That’s what I think Rachel was reacting to. She already ordered provisions right? The preference sheet meeting for the cameras is just for show and this new one upset her.
I feel like production orders the provisions. Or maybe not. I’m not sure. But it does seem like she was set up. And clearly she is no Kiko, lol.
That was some VERY choppy editing during that preference sheet meeting.
Whatever the actual course of conversation was, it wasn’t shown on TV.
Regardless, there’s no upside for Rachel.
She’s shown herself to be tempermentally unsuited for the job. Somebody who bails on their teammates at the last minute instead of rising to a challenge can’t be an attractive candidate for future employers.
She will be fine. She’s a great chef. And they are all assholes. lol. I’m sure she will be back for the upcoming charter just in the nick of time.
Rachel is really good. I can see her coming back. More drama for the season. 🙂
OK, my guess is that, because of Italy being shit down, Rachel can’t go back there and comes back to the ship. She has been featured in earlier previews in scenes we haven’t seen & she & Eddie evidently get into it at some point. So we haven’t seen the last of her. And it’s probably correct that production was setting her up because that preference sheet was outrageous! I mean, come on. Wild boar! Was Louis The 14th coming on? But man, Rachel has a mouth on her.
Not sad to see Sunshine go. Need to see Elizabeth go soon. So tired of people complaining about having to do the job they were hired to do.
OH….you’re right. I forgot about clips of her in things we haven’t seen yet. She was just on WWHL with Sunshine too. Sunshine seemed as clueless as ever.
Well, I’m on a tear here. I am fed up with these “kids” getting jobs and complaining about having to work. How and who raised their sorry asses? Shane? Grow up and join the real world. Elizabeth? Stop acting like an idiot. Rachel lost it and there is no excuse to talk like that. Can you imagine any of us telling our bosses to go fuck themselves? You’d be fired on the spot. James rewashing and respraying clean areas? Are they all mentally ill or what. You take a job, you know what it entails and then either complain about having that job or are so stupid you can’t do it right. Shane needed his ass fired, Elizabeth and James need to get fired and Rachel (who will be back) with the derogatory comments about female anatomy sounds like something Trump would say and that makes me disgusted with her. Unless all this behavior is all producer driven. Then I retract my statements.
The election is over. Can you please move on from Trump bashing? I don’t care what he says or might say. Time to expand your vocabulary. Thanks.
I mean, let’s let Trump admit he lost first? I know the infiltration of politics is mostly my fault here. But we have COVID. We have Trump’s mental issues. We are going through a lot and while I did try not to allow it on the site for a while it was impossible. It’s everywhere. It’s especially on reality shows. Never in the history of the USA has a president behaved in such a fascist way. I don’t feel like it is over yet. I still fear for our country. He’s literally blocked vaccines, ignored scientist and we are dying. And other countries have things under control. What happened to America first? Trump has been a disaster. He holds super spreaders to keep the virus going. I have people here who have lost people due to “the Hoax.” I have one commenter here whose husband was severely ill and on a ventilater for a very long time and finally, thankfully came home. We are living in a pandemic with a president who didn’t do shit. Didn’t lead, and encouraged people not to wear masks and ignored science. While I’d love this to be everyone’s happy place. A lot of us and not happy and very anxious. So yeah, a lot of Trumpsters have left and I have suggested you just come back in the spring.
When did Trump block a vaccine? He helped get the vaccine available with operation warp speed. He provided NY with PPE’s, ventilators, a navy hospital ship and the javitz center was converted into a hospital for covid patients. I know he was wrong for the rally’s, but he did not block any vaccines.
Google is your friend. It’s been a top story for at least a week now. He declined the option to order 100 million more vaccines for January because it might have come on Joe Biden’s watch. And Bethenny Frankel sent more PPE to NYC than Trump did. And did it before he did. A. Real. Housewife.
Trump has never once mention the spread of the pandemic or made any sort of statement of condolence to the families who have lost live. Instead he hold huge rallies and doesn’t require masks, packs people into White House Christmas parties with no mask, and has manage to get a large percentage of his sycophants infected with the virus.
I was sucked into the Below Deck marathon vortex today after having only watched in recent years. I was super surprised to see how relatively unscripted the show was back then (pre-Kate). It made tonights show really seem very fake and produced. Captain Lee stretched out in the crew mess watching tv and counting the tip money right in front of them. The welcome and goodbye line up seemed a bit less forced as well.
Holy crap! I fell asleep last night early and didn’t see it, but your recap,TT, made this episode so real I could feel it (so thanks for that). Now will have to catch this on demand – it sounds like the excitement I was looking for (that I’m used to in BD) has definitely kicked in. 😊
Yes, this was the best episode in ages.
Great episode!
what a toxic environment, and I dont mean the bleach. I would go mad in there, not the work, but none of them even feel like allies. Going through 6 weeks away from your friends and family with no friends, no one to talk to, will be very difficult, especially with this young crew. I am not excusing, they should still work hard for money that is better than many of us with college degrees can get (only 1or 2, not 4, of course), but the interpersonal relationships really suck at this point. No one is hooking up, no bromances, nothing.
I thought the preference sheet was production too, when they show a pref sheet on the show I always pause it, and read them thoroughly. Most of them have some weirdness, but that was over the top. Wild boar? For a full time Dog Daddy? Cant wait to meet them, they suck. and if Rachel comes back she owes the crew a huge apology, storming off and leaving everyone is just messed up.
Back when this show first started I was one of the only people really recapping it. And the guests would email me and tell me their horror stories. It was the season where Captain Lee first said something about dragging his dick through broken guests rather than having those guests again. The guests that season all felt humiliated. They said they had to stay in their cabins so cameras could film flyovers of the boat. And then they watched the show and all the crew was trash talking them. They were all hurt and angry. Ever since then, I have that in the back of my head when the charter guests are horrible. Because we never get a cruise where everything is perfect because that would be “boring”.
I knew Shane was toast a couple of weeks ago, I’ll miss that pretty face and gorgeous head of hair. If he was taller he’d have a career as a model. When I was watching the debacle last night I never thought “Oh, it’s production” but that makes sense, especially after that first charter.
Careful there Mike b. Someone came for me in the Southern Charm recap when I said that Leva’s stunningly gorgeous friend needs to get into modeling instead of influencing, unless she is not tall enough. LOL. I go a whole lecture on models don’t have to be tall. Fun Fact. I did some brief modeling in my youth I doubt the height requirement has changed. I was tall and super thin. Ah the glory days when I was TRYING to put weight on. Now I am old and big as a barn. 🙂
It seems as though production always “casts” at least one incompetent yachtie, for both the deck crew and the stew crew, or, they “instruct” one each (deck crew and stew) to “act the part”. That’s obviously part of the “formula” for BD (that, along with cast hookups, etc.)
If they do actually cast people the people who end up with these horrendous work habits ( and production is not instructing them to act this way), then I’d love to know how casting knows ahead of time what these folks will be like – like- how they can pick the lousy workers so well and know ahead of time that they will be that way?
To me, Shane was a bit more pathetic (sad) than some of the others in the past who were a lot more arrogant, along with their incompetentence. In some scenes, Shane seemed like he was really trying to overcome something beyond more than perhaps a “coddled upbringing” (like when he was practicing knots, writing in his journal, etc.) Maybe it was an ADD issue or some kind of learning challenge, or maybe it was that combined with a lack of discipline growing up. Anyway, for some reason he didn’t piss me off quite as much as others in the past 😊
Interesting that this Boyfriend who was soooo important to Rachel & knew her so well, yada yada yada – broke up with her after this season.
I think Rachel is now quarantining with her boyfriend in Italy
This is just my speculation based on common sense, but they have the replacements already hired and on standby to replace the fired people. The whole “we may have to cancel a charter is bullshit” It would be real on a regular yacht. But this is a TV show and and they will always have a backup person for every position on standby. Or as they did on Below Deck Med, they had already had Kiko’s replacement on hand. Of course Kiko didn’t know about it. But Tom did. He was booked for the last few episodes before the first guests came on board.
So it is scripted, but the crew is generally unaware of the script. They knew Shane would suck and do the weird paper straw thing on a megayacht (which makes no sense).
On the subject of Rachel’s quitting I say good for her. She’s absolutely right if they want that level of service they need to pay more upfront for it and no, suggesting that they would tip for the added service doesn’t cut it they need to do both.
Kinda reminds me of how some people use the Uber and Lyft driver platforms they’re paying essentially under the drivers cost to perform the service and demand and expect chauffeur level service and then don’t tip for the excellent service they do provide. Some of the stories my friend tells me are closer to nightmares with entitled passengers
I’m happy for her for calling BS on that play for one chef alone. And I certainly hope she stays quit. She is one of my favorite chefs on these shows so far.
Am with you.
Have zero issue Rachel looking over preference sheet & saying hell NO.
I have done 2 charters with friends – both on sail boats.
We had a chef come on each trip for 2 of our 8 days sailing. We had our provisions delivered when we got on, booze included….girlfriend and I did a lot of cooking – but we splurged for 2 days of pampering. We just said cook what you want, just 1 had a shellfish allergy. That was it, had a blast, we went with same company again. There was no real interior crew but engineers, 1 stew – normal sailing staff. We were hands on, chef crew sat and ate/drank with us. Was 3 couples.
I love this show, but this is set up on steroids by production – it’s losing me.
The preference demands have gotten more insane.
I believe Rachel was drunk during the preference sheet meeting. Explains her foul mouth. I hope she does return because I love her. She’s hilarious.
Also, she probably wanted to leave because she wanted to be able to get into Italy before the shut down.
And as someone who had to clean the house at a very early age, I definitely knew you can’t mix ammonia and bleach and that it creates toxic fumes. But never heard it called mustard gas.
I love that on WWHL Kate said it was a bit of an oxymoron that Sunshine wanted to use his appearance on the show to promote sustainability while aboard a Motor Yacht. Yep. Read that sentence twice.
As soon as Shane started talking sustainability, I thought, dude, you are on a motor yacht, one of the most polluting things on the ocean
If the deck was painted in black and white squares it couldn’t be clearer Chess is the cause of the stalemate on board. She should be checked.