We’re only a few episodes from the end of the season, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any more insane, Barbie comes on board as the new stew, replacing Mike. In season 11 of Below Deck, Barbie clashed with chief stew Fraser and was involved with deckhand Kyle. She presented herself as a rich daddy’s girl, used to getting what she wants. On the last night of the season, she drunkenly stormed off the boat. Despite that questionable track record, Barbie is really good at her job, and her bratty attitude and brazen honesty can be winning, in a mean-girl-in-a-movie kind of way. I always thought she was hilarious, but she’s just about the least stable, conciliatory person who could walk on board. This crew does not need another chaos agent.
What’s more, she and Ellie are friends. At this point, Ellie is well established as the season’s villain, and she’s lacking in allies. Talking about how excited she is for Barbie’s arrival in a confessional, Ellie says that she’s been “needing a friend” because the crew is “so gossipy.” It’s an amazing thing to say, given that Ellie herself has started many of the unreliable rumors now circulating on the boat. When we pick up this week, she tells Ben that Daisy “attacked” her. She’s referring to the exchange in the crew mess, a few moments earlier, when Daisy said she didn’t appreciate being booted off the galley during service. Ben hears Ellie out, but he’s skeptical: If anyone has a reputation for outbursts, it’s Ellie. He promises to speak to Daisy but reminds Ellie that they should avoid being “at war” with the interior department, since their success depends on the stews.
Meanwhile, Daisy goes over Ellie’s gaslighting tactics with Jenna and Alesia. Jenna tried to eavesdrop on Ellie’s conversation with Ben in the galley, but Betul, still blissfully unaware of any issue that doesn’t involve a fender or a line, was trying to talk to her about something else. The women all agree that Ellie is trying to make Daisy seem insane about their shrimp skirmish, while also setting out to disrupt the interior department by spreading rumors about Jenna and pitting Alesia against her colleagues. In their first night sharing a cabin, João tells Daisy that Ellie has made it so uncomfortable for him in the galley that he hardly ever goes in there anymore.
At least this disaster gives Ben something to talk to Eddy about on their first awkward night as roommates. Ben knows that Daisy can be an intimidating presence in the galley, but he also knows that Ellie is… intense, so in the morning, he gets Daisy’s side of the story while Vinod gets a tour of the bridge from Jason. Daisy tells Ben that she would’ve let the shrimp incident slide if Ellie hadn’t confronted her in the presence of other crew members. Though Ben promises Daisy that he won’t let Ellie create a problem between them, he mostly placates Ellie. He doesn’t sit her down to go over the situation, only tells her that they’ve learned from it when, later, she asks if he spoke to Daisy. When Ellie protests that she has no lessons to learn, Ben corrects himself: Daisy learned not to touch the food. He advises Ellie, again, to “pick her battles wisely.” The interior team is in a position to make the galley’s life difficult, so it would be in both of their interests to have Daisy on their side.
It’s his way of telling Ellie not to be so hostile towards Daisy without prompting a reaction, but I’m not sure it’s wise. By siding with her and acting as if she did nothing wrong, he’s only encouraging Ellie’s inflated ego and widening the rift between the stews and the galley. Presenting as a united front with Daisy would be a step toward shaking Ellie out of her delusional trance. Instead, she is emboldened; during dinner service that night, Ellie gives Daisy serving instructions (she reiterates the orientation of the lamb shank bone, and Daisy retorts: “The way we’ve done it this whole time?”). It appears that Ben is still too scared of Ellie to manage her. He only calls her out when her shenanigans directly affect him via the Jenna-João-hot-tub rumor, which Jenna vehemently denies. Confused about who to believe, Ben asks Ellie if João and Jenna were actually “all over each other.” He feels silly for making a thing out of it if it’s not true. This is making me feel insane. Didn’t he go up to the hot tub to scope out the situation himself? Why can’t he draw his own conclusions? They were literally just talking!
Eddy picks Barbie up from the dock while the guests are on a fishing trip with Alesia, who is relieved to be among “normal, wholesome” people. Barbie immediately piques Eddy’s interest. In a confessional, she tells us she has reflected a lot since her last season, and this time, she’s “not going to be the problem.” As she’s waiting for Barbie to arrive, Daisy texts with Fraser, who warns her that Barbie is a “good worker” but “stubborn,” and “not [his] favorite employee.” Jenna worries that Barbie won’t respect her rank because she’s close with Ellie. Still, Daisy asks Jenna to unite forces with her to bring positivity into the department. There has been a lot of negativity floating around, some of it coming from Daisy herself, but this is an opportunity to reset and start anew.
It seems, at least at first, that Barbie’s mindset is aligned with Daisy’s: Her goal is to redeem herself from a bad dynamic with Fraser by making good friends with the chief stew. That’s bad news for Ellie, who’s counting on Barbie’s combativeness as an asset in the fight against the interior department. And, as Jenna points out, it’s a relief to have a stew who actually knows what she’s doing. Barbie is fast, proactive, and reliable. But that she’s a good professional doesn’t mean she’ll pass up the opportunity to be involved in drama. She immediately identifies an issue with Jenna, especially after she asks her for the rundown of the boatmance landscape. Clearly threatened, Jenna tells Barbie the truth, which is that basically, she is the center of it. She’s had “a thing” with Eddy and Ben, and now there’s a rumor circulating about her and João. That only firms up Barbie’s impression that Jenna is conceited, and later, she relays that impression to Ellie. “João and Jenna: two biggest snakes,” Ellie explains, using her favorite expression. She tells Barbie that she “put [João] in his place a couple of charters ago” –– lady, you were broken up with –– and since then, he’s been “on a mission to get” to her. Barbie decides that Jenna is not “humble” enough, so she’ll flirt with Eddy to take her down a notch.
But before all of that can happen, this messy crew has to get through dinner service. The guests brought back massive fish from their expedition, and Ben cuts them up for dinner. The theme is “Around the World,” so each course pays homage to a different country. Barbie takes over the tablescape, which Jenna doesn’t mind. Meanwhile, in the crew mess, João massages Daisy’s shoulders, which Ellie interprets as a targeted attack. She closes the door that separates the kitchen from the crew mess. After dinner, she thanks João for “toning it down” during service, as they were being “really distracting.” João deadpans: “We didn’t tone it down; the door was closed.” Ellie’s repeated attempts to engage with João aside, that she speaks to him condescendingly is another instance of her power trip. It’s like she has lost perspective on the boat’s chain of command.
In their cabin later that evening, Daisy talks to João about the Ellie Problem, but his mind is somewhere else. He asks if Daisy was offended by his sitting with Jenna in the hot tub. Daisy is so far from offended, it worries João — does that mean she’s not thinking of him in romantic terms? “João, we’ve cuddled once,” Daisy laughs. She’s treading carefully: his reputation precedes him, and the last thing she needs is to escalate the tension with Ellie. The next night, when they’re out at the club, João tries to have a “what are we” talk with Daisy. She basically tells him that a fling is not a priority for her right now. Her team is falling apart! With the season inching towards its end, I’m finding it ever more unlikely that anything will happen between these two — Daisy’s hands are too full, and her eyes are on the ball.
On drop-off day, João has Betul call in the docking for the first time. She is excited, but also a little overwhelmed. She worries that her nerves will make her stutter, even more so because she has to work through them in English. But she takes her time, relies on João’s guidance when needed, and knocks it out of the park. Afterwards, both Jason and João congratulate her on a job well done. In fact, even though their personal relationships were imploding throughout, the charter is an unqualified success. Brenna, Sujay, and his sweet, sweet parents leave elated with their experience — they rate it six stars on their feedback cards. At the tip meeting, Jason singles out Betul and Barbie for praise, commanding the former for docking and the latter for transitioning with ease. The tip is $22,000 ($1,692 each), and no one gets the helmet. It’s what the crew needed to get their morale back up.
During the charter, Eddy couldn’t help but flirt with Jenna here and there. He told João that it hurt his feelings to see her flirting with Ben and to hear about the hot tub thing. As it happens, Barbie’s arrival makes Jenna more inclined to indulge Eddy. The sight of Barbie drinking a Michelada with Ben in the galley is enough to send Jenna looking for Eddy, to whom she sends a bad, bad text that reads, “Can’t stop looking at you. Like I miss you way more than I’m supposed to.” Understandably confused, Eddy decides to put his cards on the table with Ben. He says that he wouldn’t be upset with Ben for pursuing things with Jenna, only with her for leading him on. Ben tells him that Jenna came to him when she realized things wouldn’t work out with Eddy. A flashback to the day Jenna and Eddy went on their fateful date reminds us it was only a week ago, though it feels like we’ve been going over this issue since the last Obama administration. Eddy shows Ben the text Jenna sent him, and Ben worries he’s getting played.
At first, it seemed that Eddy, lover-boy that he is, would come crawling back to Jenna. But he feels a little scorned and a little vengeful, and when Barbie starts flirting with him at dinner, he reciprocates. Jenna throws daggers across the table with her eyes. She is so mad, it makes the whole dinner awkward. “You can’t almost have everyone,” João tells Jenna, using the wary tone of an older brother. But she only gets more incensed when, at the club, both Ben and Eddy seem to be having a great time with Barbie. When she makes a face at Eddy after he refuses one of her shots, Ellie interjects, “Oh my God,” as if Jenna is crazy. It boggles the mind.
Even Betul, who up until here had never uttered a word about her colleagues, notices that “Jenna is kind of killing the vibe.” Ben sits Jenna down to say maybe they should just be friends; it’s all too much drama for him. The more he talks, the more riled up he gets. Jenna barely gets a word in — it’s like we’re seeing his train of thought develop in real time. He starts the conversation calmly enough, but by the time he gets to the text Jenna sent Eddy, in which she “regrets” breaking up with him, Ben is livid. Jenna tries to fight him on the wording, but she knows her defense is weak — that was, more or less, what the text said. Ben walks away before she can explain herself. From the looks of next week’s preview, things will only go down from here. Was it just me, or did that hug between Eddy and Jason give “I’m quitting” vibes…?
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