Below Deck Adventure
Abseiling Away Season 1 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next Episode Below Deck Adventure
Abseiling Away Season 1 Episode 10 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next EpisodeYou know how Donald Trump, back when he was running for president, would say that people around the world are laughing at Americans? He wasn’t wrong, but it was not for the reasons he thought. Lewis and the other guys on the crew are making fun of American football since the new charter is a group of (mostly) women on an LGBTIA+ flag-football team. Lewis does his impersonation of an American footballer by hunching over, holding a ball on the ground, and shouting out random numbers. He then stands up and shows the world that he has a concussion disorder, then he passes out on the field, and everyone is like, “Nothing to see here! No trouble at all!”
Another way the crew giggles at the Americans is in the preference sheet meeting, when Faye asks Jess if she can do yet another picnic basket (as Yogi Bear would say), and Jess is like, “You have got to be absolutely fooling me.” Jess shoots down a full lunch, so Faye asks for sandwiches, and Jess says, “With cold chips?” She means chips like we would mean fries, but Kerry steps right in and says, “They’re Americans. They like potato chips. Right out of the bag.” We do! We are uncouth, uncivilized, and unaccustomed to foods that aren’t processed more than the immigrants who once waited for days in the bureaucracy of Ellis Island.
The guests arrive, and this is the most lesbian thing I have ever seen in my life, and I once followed Dar Williams in concert for an entire summer. I’m surprised that they don’t fly Captain Sandy in just for this occasion like they did with the lesbian tennis cruise currently unfolding on Below Deck Original Recipe. The trouble really starts from the beginning. One of the guests, Mary Lou, finds a fly in her Champagne. Gross. But her name is Mary Lou. You should never believe a person named Mary Lou. I mean, look at the decades-long grift Mary Lou Retton played on the American populace. And don’t even get me started on Mary Lou Who, the Grinch’s No. 1 crush object and accomplice.
When the guests are getting a boat tour, Michael, the one male guest, asks if they need to wear swimming costumes in the hot tub. Thank you, fellow homosexual mustached American, because where I live, Fire Island Rules always apply. Those rules are: Never bring your sunglasses to tea, no high heels in the pool, and swimsuits are always optional. Faye tells him they don’t have to wear trunks, bikinis, Speedos, or anything. All right, sister. It’s on. I am officially requesting a charter.
One harrowing incident that has nothing to do with the guests or what they wear in the hot tub is when the boat is trying to anchor, Kerry has Lewis on the bridge to show him how to drive the boat. Nathan is below doing the anchor, and Lewis asks about the anchor line, something I know is important from watching 372 million hours of BD, but I still have no idea why. (Boat people, the comments are your friend.) Nathan responds and just kind of says, “Short, medium, long, extra large, 2XL, top, bottom, side, with extra cheese, hold the mayo, Animal Style, 12 drummers drumming, waking up in the morning thinking about so many things.”
Kerry snaps at him and tells him when he’s on the radio to keep things under four words. When Lewis requests another shackle (this always makes me think of Statler and Waldorf in A Muppets Christmas Carol), Nathan gives a full explanation. Kerry freaks out at him, opens the door to the bridge, and shouts to get off the radio in front of the whole boat, including the guests. Yeah, I get he’s mad, but this seems about as effective as telling a dog not to shit on the carpet by holding his head underwater. Is this really going to help Nathan learn? Kerry also throws Lewis out of the bridge, which is really the right move. He shouldn’t be mad at Nathan for not knowing how to radio; he should be mad at Lewis for never teaching him how.
That night, the guests request a drag party. Oh no. No, sir. This is not a drag party. This is a “Humiliate the Straight Boys on the Crew” party. Kasie puts Lewis (a.k.a. Lewisa), Seth (a.k.a. Spicy Seth), and Mike (a.k.a. Bubblegum, the only good drag name in the bunch) in cheap wigs and even worse makeup. Here is their first mistake. Cis women should not do drag-queen makeup because they will make the boys look like women. You don’t want drag queens to have real makeup; you want them to have insanely over-the-top makeup that gives you the idea of a woman, a clown, and that gender is a construct, and it’s all stupid, so who cares anyway.
When the guys get upstairs, they parade in front of the guests, who are not only not in drag but are barely dressed up. I swear one was just in a sleeping bag, jumping around the deck like Heidi Klum dressed as a worm for Halloween. There is no drag at all. There is not even a lip sync. Instead, there is a twerk-off, but for white guys, twerking is just doing several deadlifts without a barbell and hoping that someone gives you a dollar and a little bit of credit. This, right here, is why I hate not only the theme parties but making the crew be dancing monkeys for the guests’ amusement.
Things get dramatically worse at dinner when the primary’s fiancée gets a hair in her appetizer. Oriana takes it back to the kitchen. Jess plucks it out, says it’s not her hair, puts some more grated cheese on top of the dish, and sends it back ten seconds later. Everyone around the table says the thing that I always hear immediately after sex: “That was quick.” Of course, this is what would happen in any kitchen if you sent it back; I totally get it. But Oriana also has a point: If you’re going to do that, at least warm it up a bit, wait a few minutes, and then send it back out like it’s a fresh batch.
Later in the meal, someone else finds a hair in their dinner. It was probably Mary Lou, which was originally going to be the name for the M3gan doll. Once again, Jess says, “Well, it’s not my hair.” It’s still your food! You need to do something about it. Jess blames the servers for always having their hair down, but who knows where it came from? It could be one of those cheap-ass wigs the boys were wearing. It could be Jess or the servers or the diners themselves. It could have been one of Michael’s mustache hairs floating on the breeze. All that matters is that it doesn’t happen, and they fix it themselves. Also, for the next service, Faye and all the girls should wear hairnets as a bit. The only way to deal with it is to confront it head-on and turn it into a joke.
Oriana, being the perpetual worst, goes to the Captain and says, “The interior is on very thin ice, but I’ll let you talk to them.” Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no. Regardless of the matter, not telling Kerry makes his head go to the craziest places. He won’t think of two hairs; he’ll believe that Faye dropped the D-slur on these women because they didn’t like her drag show enough. Oriana and Seth should run their own boat somewhere and just be in charge and in love, and, hopefully, it sinks to the deepest depths of the ocean, and not even James Cameron can find the wreckage.
The next day, the guests go on their adventure, and it gets only two out of five Nopes from me. It’s called abseiling, and it’s like mountain climbing but just rappelling down the mountain. Hey, if there is one thing lesbians are good at, it’s going down. Hey-ya! I’m here all season. But seriously, this is the first one that looked fun, even though the harness you have to sit in looks like it would cut off the circulation to your genitals.
Jess is mad that she has to make sandwiches for this excursion and doesn’t want to make another dish, even though Faye pleads with her. How hard is it to throw together a potato salad, pasta salad, or corn? Something. Americans aren’t picky. Give us some Cheez Whiz, a Ritz cracker, and a mound of Tater Tots, and we’ll give you a Michelin star.
When she gets on-site, Faye goes through all the bags, and Oriana forgets the chips, despite looking through everything on the tender before they leave the boat. Maybe it’s because she was looking while snacking. Or maybe Mary Lou just took them out of the bag and ate them at the top of the mountain while waiting for her turn to rappel. I wouldn’t put it past a Mary Lou. Now Faye is pissed, Oriana is trying to get her to calm down, and the only lunch the guests have is a plate of cut-up sandwiches and some crudités that looks like it is blanching from someone’s silent but deadly. It’s like a sad corporate lunch you get when you have to go for sexual-harassment training at an accounting firm in Kansas City. Mary Lou, CPA, should know all about that.
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