Below Deck Recap: All Caroline Needs Is Love!

This season of Below Deck is going to boil down to a game of who can make Caroline Bedol crack first. It’s Kerplunk Caroline Of The High Seas Edition! Available now at Shop Bravo.

Everyone with eyes, ears, and a pulse has noticed that Caroline is hot under her dress white for Chandler Brooks. Well everyone except Chandler has noticed this. He’s preoccupied with not upsetting the barrel of crazy that is Miss Alaska Mental Patient Rhylee Gerber.

After the excursion with Ross Inia to the cliff diving where Rhylee had the mistaken impression that she was captaining her own Alaskan sea vessel, Ross can’t take her constant drama so he bypasses Chandler completely and goes straight to the high command: Captain Lee Rosbach. I was totally prepared to watch Lee take Ross down for tattling and going outside of the chain of command, but Lee commended him for his even-keeled approach and for keeping him informed of Chandler’s ineptitude. This tells me Lee is already aware that Chandler is one life preserver short of steering the dinghy and is eying Ross as the natural bosun.

Chandler is finding himself in a hotbed of trouble, isn’t he? Because right after Ross ratted him out to Captain Lee, Caroline pulls Kate Chastain aside to complain that last night Chandler refused to participate in DISHES AT DAWN with her and therefore she was up till 4:45 am. Kate is annoyed because as bosun it’s not actually Chandler’s job to shammy a serving platter dry – that’s for Rhylee. Except Caroline doesn’t want Rhylee in close and intimate (and damp!) quarters – she wants Chandler! Bad. Oh so bad.

After learning from Kate that Chandler had no business assisting the stews, Caroline decides to apologize for her misunderstanding of what a bosun does. She tries radioing, but Chandler is asleep so she goes and knocks on his door until he wakes up. “She is obsessed with Chandler!” observes Kate. Chandler is so up his own ass and then into his own head that has no idea who Caroline even is, let alone what she’s talking about.  At this point the only redhead he has evil eyes for is Rhylee! Don’t despair Caroline – that will soon change.

Caroline is so twitchy. Like a bunny or something. Does she have sinus issue? Just as Caroline feels rejected by literally everyone on board, Kate bestows Josiah Carter the honor of “my favorite stew I’ve ever had in all my seasons.” Immediately the shady ass producers cut to a shot of Caroline bending over.

The plan for the evening is a beach luau which means uprooting nearly ever available item aboard the Seanna, but what the guests want the guests get – unless it’s good weather. Kate elects to take Caroline with her as the assistant stew, because she doesn’t want to punish her sweet Josiah-child with all that sweat-breaking work, and also because she wants to harass Caroline about her Chandler love. Like what if they had babies. Which they conceive aboard the yacht. Without Lee finding out. They could call it Seanna Kate. Caroline has secretly already thought of this plan and stated a baby registry for My Seanna at Pottery Barn kids, with monogrammed pink and white anchor sheets.

Spending hours loading lawn chairs and coolers onto a tender for gave Ross time to ruminate and think – and apparently regret his decision to tattle to Lee about Rhylee’s misbehavior. I thought Ross seemed so sane and normal – now I wonder what he really has up his sleeves! He’s obviously a sleeper trickster, because he pulls Rhylee aside to preemptively apologize to her for mentioning her name in his talk with the Captain. Ross actually pretended the purpose of their conversation was to complain about Chandler’s lack of cohesive leadership. Luckily Rhylee has no idea why anyone would be annoyed with her perfect-self, so she doesn’t doubt Ross’ explanation at all. This crew is a hot mess of steaming nonsense.

Of course the luau is amazing. Everything worked out perfectly: The food is delicious, Lee is impressed, there were no hiccups, and Kate and Josiah nearly made Caroline cry by icing her out of their fake Destiny’s Child dance dance revolution reunion. If Destiny’s Child choreography was being taught in a retirement home as low-impact cardio to improve flexibility and mobility. Caroline is sent back to the boat early simply because her existence is a punishment to Katsiah, but she finds herself alone with Chandler who is bright-eyed and chatty after taking a nap break. His second that day while the rest of the crew worked round the clock. I love his Breakfast At Tiffany’s sleeping mask! Nice touch to beat the puffy eye bloat.

With everyone else hard at work Chandler and Caroline wind up flirty-talking on the prowl of the boat and bonding over how much Caroline loves, admires, and adores Chandler who is “so so cute!” I mean Caroline has to find someone to be her friend since Kate and Josiah won’t let her play with them! Caroline is so wrapped up in thinking Kate and Josiah don’t like her she actually begs Kate for affirmation that she’s cool enough to be washing linens next to them. “You’re the perfect third stew,” Kate reassures her as Caroline chokes back tears into her dish gloves. THIRD stew = third wheel! Also I finally figured out who Caroline reminds me of: Gretchen Weiners from Mean Girls.

After the luau wraps, Chandler goes to sleep again, this time leaving Rhylee all alone to clean up everything! Who does he think she is – Caroline? For once I agree with Ryhlee’s frustrations. Even if she is lowest servant on the totem pole a good leader would stay behind to help. It seems like Chandler is passive-aggressively punishing her for previous infractions.

The next morning charter guests Alan and Danyele depart with a gushing review over how thrilled they are with the service and the food. Especially the food. So kudos to Adrian Martin (whom the guest actually want to take home with them like a little dog who performs amazing food tricks)! They’re so enthralled that Alan hands over a tip in two envelopes! Alan and Danyele’s recognition made Caroline tear up because they are her deep and personal friends, practically family, now and they will always take care of her with their love. Noticing how close Caroline is to the edge of sanity Kate warns Josiah that they have to be nicer to her, however it has the opposite of intents. Caroline’s needy drama is in the way of Josiah’s platonic love affair with Kate, and for that she must be destroyed. Or maybe Josiah like all ferret-y animals senses weakness?

Like how Josiah casually mentions to Chandler that Caroline is hot in her loins for him. This is news to Chandler who shares that his type is “normal”. AKA not crazy redheads with tears spurting from their eyes every time a moth buzzes too close to the flame, or a Cheeto goes stale. Be like Kate – embrace the stale Cheetos, relish in them for their unique quality, and accept that it its core processed cheese powder will never truly be rancid then share this revelation with frienemies and unloved ones!

You know, I think Caroline is a sweet soul going through a lot of personal stuff and I really wish people in that mindset would have the wherewithal to avoid reality TV. As she’s said she’s very over-sensitive and has been dealing with her mom’s health to the detriment of self-care. Honey – you will not find anything positive sailing the Bravo seas.

Meanwhile Rhylee confesses to Ross that she doesn’t trust Chandler and is tired of the way he mistreats her. Ross is suddenly neutral and responds by calling Rhylee “love” and praising her work, but not saying anything at all – nothing at all – about Chandler.

Finally after divvying up the tip, Lee pulls Chandler aside to figure out what the heck is going on with the deck crew. According to Chandler what’s wrong starts with an R and ends with ee and that’s it, so he wants to fire her. Does Chandler not get that the rest of the crew is unhappy with his leadership, his disorganized scheduling, and his poor direction? Yes, Rhylee is a hot mess and a handful, but handle it! Which is exactly what Captain Lee tells him. “She’s doing her job, she’s just hard to get along with and he wants to get rid of her,” surmises Captain Lee, “And I’m not willing to do that.” So yah – a victory for the underdog?

It also suddenly dawns on Chandler that someone is telling tales to Captain Lee to make him look bad…

By the time the crew leaves for their night out, there’s a bit of  a powder keg brewing. Just in case Ashton Pineaar puts out a query about what time everyone would like to get back to the boat – to give himself a time limit to get in some unsuspecting woman’s pants. Or at least Rhylee’s if no one else is available. During dinner Josiah and Kate watch on, cringing and critiquing, as Caroline tries to flirt with Chandler by gushing about how much she loves sleeping and canceling out the judgey harsh world with gives her the sads.

The real relationship I’m interested in is the bromance between Ross and Ashton. They are too cute with their selfies and pec comparing, and I just adore them. Why am I so wooed by a bromance?!

Back on the boat, Rhylee confronts Caroline about her top secret crush on Chandler (Rhylee’s “arch-nemesis”!) which is just so like not real you guys cause, like, Kate is just trying to make things up! Until Chandler comes over and lets Caroline feed him cake. You know what – they’re cute together. Kate and Josiah can shut it and accept their role as god parents to a dolphin baby with a bad attitude who probably wears tube socks, and is undoubtedly named Seanna Katesiah.

All in all it was a pretty tame night until Kate and Josiah had that one extra drink – ramen noodles – back on board. While Caroline is wandering around in her notorious muppet sweater she overhears them cackling in their room to Josiah telling Kate if he could fire anyone it would be Caroline. Upon hearing her name, Caroline creeps closer to the door and literally presses her ear against it to hear Kate say, “I do love Caroline. But we have a problem with her. We just can’t go through another charter with her talking talking talking talking talking.” Of course their chat is interrupted by Caroline knocking on the door to ask WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME.

Kate is exasperated because Caroline won’t relax and accept that she and Josiah like her without creating problems in her mind about how she’s excluded and ostracized. Of course Caroline is upset that she was “mean girled” by the Supremes cover band and will now have to form a group with Chandler. Everyone was probably drunk here and they should just let it go, but they won’t. This will go on and on and on; talking talking talking talking talking in circles.

But in Caroline’s defense Kate totally said she’d fire Rhylee! Maybe just let their whole cabin float out to sea. Rhylee’s a boat captain in Alaska so they should be fine. And Caroline’s frantic energy while screaming CHANDLER would totally keep all the sharks away.

TELLS US – WAS CAROLINE OUT OF LINE EAVESDROPPING? OR ARE KATE AND JOSIAHA BEING “MEAN GIRLS”?

[Photo Credits: Bravo]

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