“So tender...” croaks charter guest Steve Bradley, as he funnels a chunk of wagyu down his drunk gullet. The deck crew and interior are frantically trying to prepare an impromptu foam party, as Steve stumbles up from the dinner table. “Best meal I’ve ever had!” he proclaims - “time for foam party!”. He looks just like he sounds: bloated by surplus, charmingly sauced. He stumbles down to the most pathetic looking foam party in the history of foam parties, total attendance: two crew members. Within seconds of sliding through the ankle-deep bubbles, Steve has already canceled himself, lurching towards third stew, Rocky, “are you single?” he dribbles, as she just barely swoops out of his grasp. Just another regular day on the SS Excess that is Below Deck, but trust us when we say, it’s certainly not the worst.
It’s been five seasons of Below Deck, three seasons of the spinoff Below Deck Mediterranean, and one season of Below Deck: Sailing Yacht and the franchise is poised to knock Housewives off its pedestal. Though the show is essentially a derivative of it’s Bravo brethren, it has two distinct differentiators going for it: crud strumpets and trash heaps.
For the uninitiated, the program (pronounced ‘pro-grim’) is basically Upstairs, Downstairs but wet. They’re boaties, ocean trash, and wannabe mermaids trying to live their best life, if their best life was a Universal Studios Waterworld stunt performer that thrust their groin-operated jet-ski to freedom. In fact, the next logical conclusion for most of these sex-tools is growing gills, and turning fish tricks underwater before eventually turning to stone at a 5pm Mallorca beach rave. Combine that with a subconscious desire to run away from any long term commitments, throw in a camera crew at extremely close quarters and you have your acid, heat, salt, no fat.
Though the upstairs charter guests really are set-dressing, they still carry that distinct Real Housewives flavor of overabundance and ‘dreamers’ (drunk screamers). Eighty percent of the time these guests are exactly what you expect (porn influencers), and the other twenty percent are worse (porn yoga influencers). When a request for colored gumballs (no whites, because Yoga Prostitot thinks she is Van Halen - she is at best, Von Dutch) be flown in via helicopter you know you’re hitting that exuberant reality TV sweet spot. In fact, Below Deck seems to boil our nightmare patrons back to their basics: muscle toads and bubblehead waifs, a bygone era of 2005 reality trash. They ask for a pig to be shot out of a cannon on to a row of Go Daddy models asses, and we say “muy bueno”.
The crew are no saints though, and while for the most part, they’re young enough to be socially savvy, boy do they love resetting those gender tropes. Last season was a misogyny-fueled machismo boys club that made ‘Go Daddy Ass Wreckage 5’ look like Shakespeare. The post-airing apology tour was even worse. By their own accounts, these guys are really, really trying. No really, they’re good! You just misunderstood what they meant when they said ‘that expletive’ needs to get her some ‘expletive’ or I’ll ‘footage redacted’.
Then there are the chefs, who we haven’t even touched yet because no one should touch a chef. And yes, in this medium, a chef is a chef is a chef. Want to see a character archetype that hasn’t changed for thousands of years? Look no further! A narcissistic, egotistical man-child with crippling mommy issues? Check! An untethered rage and lack of communication skills? Double-check! Manipulative gaslighting tendencies and Peter Pan-esque laissez-faire life goals? We have a Weiner. Though it may seem harsh, these man-ratatouille’s stir up much of the ‘something-something heavy ladled soup pun’ drama. Some are more likable than others, but let it be known: they will always ruin everything. The slight edge is given to Below Deck OG Ben, whose accent just barely slides him into the category of ‘scamp’ over ‘scumbag’. Whereas Below Deck: Med vet and Sailing Yacht crossover Adam Glick manages to beguile with a much darker undercurrent. We don’t know what he’s hiding, but he’s for sure using his sexless brooding eye curses for evil instead of, well… sex.
Shoutouts to a few honorable mentions: charmingly foul-mouthed turd-loving feminist kiwi icon Aesha Scott. The charter guests that got kicked off in episode one for doing so many drugs immediately. Rocky the awful mermaid (slash anyone who wants to be a mermaid). And Brandy, the lifeless, limp drunken body who had to be dragged from a pebbled beach to a doctor before brunch.
If you’re looking to get into Below Deck, it’s recommended to use the same methodology you would any Bravo behemoth and start at the latest and work your way backward. Because it’s one thing to watch reality trash, it’s completely another to watch the same thing but with uglier phones.
