BDSY S1:E13 Awkward Recap

Welcome back to Below Deck Sailing Yacht, where we’re got a new deckhand and an extremely awkward couple fight. I’m surprised, these guests are selling lifestyle blogging, nobody’s looking for advice on how to embarrass your smokeshow of a boyfriend on national TV while talking into your chin. They keep that shite over on TLC. Let’s roll into BDSY S1:E13 after the break and see if Lyndi Kennedy locks it up or not.

You know Primary Charter Guest Lyndi Kennedy’s real name is something like Rhonda Phelps, right? Ten bucks says there are hearts for dots over the i. ANYWAY, people can reinvent themselves, go for it, Rhonda!

Extremely conventionally pretty Primary Lyndi from OC is embroiled in an argument with her super hawt boyfriend Non-Primary Jesse Thompkins while friends Missy Ulmer, Jonathan Pettibone, Evelyne Marks and Cathy Cordas try really hard not to watch or listen.

I’d like to say it’s because Primary Lyndi has been all over chef Adam Glick since coming on board, buttttt there’s also the whole she’s Primary and he’s NOT thing along with the fact that he said he loved her and she did not respond in kind. This is clearly a couple already in a touchy state, I’m sure being on TV surrounded by alcohol will not exacerbate their relationship troubles, whatever they are.

Jesse pleads his case while Primary Lyndi looks uncomfortable and her friends start drinking more. Even more awkward is the fact that they’re being served dinner by chief steward Jenna MacGillivray who is dating Adam, the catalyst for this couple fight.

But then! The truth comes up, he wasn’t there for her on Mother’s Day!

Almost by default, second steward Georgia Grobler has been flirting with adorable new deckhand Chris Miller from England (definitely southern England), who is going to make a move!

I can’t even tell if Georgia likes him or not, but her boss Jenna kept insisting she would flirt with him before they saw each other and now here we are with Jenna giving Chris tips and saying it would help everyone if he would just lock that up.

I find myself concerned about Chris’s dating style and his knowledge of women/people in general.

Somehow the guests get through this awkward and interminable dinner, retiring to bed super early for being on a superyacht. First Primary Lyndi and Missy take a tipsy swing through the galley to gawk at Adam some more.

I just…don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I am totally chopped liver. An aged overweight ex-housewife with more freckles than past good choices, so it’s not like I think I’m better than him. He’s just so creepy, with his lip-licking and overbright eyes and controlling and unreasonably angry behaviour. Hard pass.

ALSO: how understanding would Adam be if a guest was all over Jenna?

Adam chats with the ladies while Lyndi’s boyfriend Jesse looks for her, yikes. Honestly. Whatever Primary Lyndi is doing, it’s shitty to involve the crew in her drama. But some people are sharers, I guess.

Chris is on the late anchor watch, so he creeps out of bed so as not to wake Adam at 4 am. He just misses third steward Madison Stalker who is on late shift by herself. She’s really missing former deckhand Parker McCown (she’s the only one), whom she used to be able to hang out with in the middle of the night while finishing her cleaning.

Chris relieves deckhand Ciara Duggan from anchor watch and cleans the boat for funsies because he’s AWESOME. Suddenly it’s 7 am, croissants are going in the oven and the guests want fitness cereal!

Oddly enough, it’s 10:00am before they eat and the wasps make it there first. Charter guest Evelyne can’t even with the wasps on the bacon, she’s being attacked by bees!

I don’t know why Jenna didn’t throw up some netting or something or move the meal inside, even with Primary Lyndi’s insistence on eating there. Nobody can get at the food and now it has wasp germs. Much high-pitched shrieking ensues, followed by hiding (yes, actual hiding) and finally two guests choosing a table away from the infestation.

First mate Paget Berry and his girlfriend Ciara argue on deck because of course they do while Jenna and Adam snog in the galley.

And Georgia and Chris flirt in laundry. Madison is starting to feel really left out of this couple-y environment. Chris tells us of his dating past; he worked with an ex on Eric Clapton’s boat (nice namedrop, groupie) but couldn’t work on deck with her. He doesn’t know how Paget and Ciara pull it off, but Paget again compares Ciara to his mum when explaining.

DUDE.

We’re saillinnnggggg!!

Jenna asks Paget to get ready to play music with Georgia, so we have to dive into that storyline once more. Georgia likes to say inappropriate things to Paget, who generally enjoys not being screamed at by his girlfriend. They’ve not even come close to doing anything but every single time they’re together, we getta watch Ciara’s non-reaction. Paget is literally sleeping with Ciara every night, she’s not even pretending to be worried.

This bothers Jenna, because if you’re not overtly claiming your mate with some kind of histrionics or hooting/interpretive dance mating ritual warning off all others, are you even dating?

Primary Lyndi and her friends discuss the kitchen raid the night before in front of Jenna, who feels compelled to tell them about dating Adam.

That was awesome hahaha. They go from predatory to best girlfriends in seconds, they didn’t mean anything by it, Jenna knows that, right??

Paget and Georgia practice music, she’s uncomfortably attracted to him which makes me wonder if there’s a side to Paget we’re not seeing due to editing.

Captain Glenn Shepard takes the boat off sail and anchors in the middle of the ocean, just in time to receive a package of party supplies, so you know, not far into the ocean.

Jenna ordered flowers to make flower crowns for the beach picnic, letting Adam know that receiving flowers would mean a lot to her. She’d cry.

*Tangent! Disregard if you’re not into oversharing by aged overweight ex-housewives with more freckles than common sense. I used to think flowers were a total copout, a way to manipulate a positive response in a difficult situation, which should tell you everything I felt about the person I was with at that time and nothing actually about flowers. I came to view flowers as a reminder that someone cared, someone took time, someone thought I MEANT something. I am at the point where I now think flowers are really pretty and I can buy them for myself whenever I want, which isn’t often because they die really quickly. Long story short (TOO LATE): flowers only represent what the relationship means to you and if getting them or not getting them from someone would make you cry, you probably aren’t feeling very secure in that situation. FIN

Of course I am thinking of the huge bouquet chef Ben Robinson got for Emily Warburton-Adams in Below Deck lo those many years ago.

Adam decides to make an effort with scavenged beach flowers, too bad about that log.

I should be ashamed at how long and hard I laughed at that. He’s fine!

Chief engineer Byron Hissel is amazed by the idea of influencing in general, and these ladies in specific. How did they make enough to charter a yacht just by taking pictures? I mean, that’s not all of it, Byron, there’s a lot of upkeep, surgery and life handing over that happens before you get to the yacht renting stage.

Adam is successful in his scrounging of wild flowers, it’s actually really nice that he does that. It’s not as though he has a lot of time during the day to bang his head off a log and gather wild flowers on the beach.

Jenna is giving Madison another shot at setting up a beach picnic properly, fingers crossed! Adam cooks, the guests dress and Primary Lyndi does this, which explains a bunch, maybe.

I can’t see myself if you are near me looking at me!

The guests eat supper while Madison and gang set up, I love that Chris is right in there with suggestions.

Madison knocks it out of the park. Jenna is impressed with how cute it is and refreshingly: so are the guests. They come over with Paget and Georgia about to play music, Madison heads back to do laundry and turndown service.

Primary Lyndi thinks she looks fat, even in the pretty filter. I don’t know that filter but I am sad that her eyes are broken.

Georgia and Paget play a lovely romantic song together, they won’t break each other’s heaaar-artsss. *Ciara eye-roll*

Guest Jesse contemplates his love for Primary Lyndi, will he make a move? Her friend Missy says Lyndi totally loves him back! Jesse doesn’t have a ring but wants to propose, so he asks Jenna for her ring and this show is getting on the road one way or the other!

Primary Lyndi is extremely uncomfortable being put on the spot like this, as you would being proposed to on international television by someone you’re in a not-great relationship with.

That…was awful.

It doesn’t get any better back on the boat when Adam gives Jenna the wildflowers. She’s quiet and not crying, she doesn’t even say thank you. Adam and I are confused. We thought you were lobbing him a softball over the plate?

In some weird tortured way, the failed wedding proposal is now JENNA’S fault, for being supportive to Jesse and allowing him the use of her ring.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are a tonne of shitty things that Jenna has actually done, this just ain’t one of them. I’m starting to get a controlling/gaslight-y vibe from Jesse, but then I don’t really know any of these people, even the ones I don’t like.

It’s 7 am the last day of charter and everyone is up bright and early, yay! I’m a little confused, I was pretty sure I saw a request for early morning yoga for each day and I haven’t seen it yet.

Also: Jesse kept Lyndi up late crying, rude.

Adam is reserved in the morning with Jenna, who doesn’t know why he’s mad at her again.

The guests are leavvvving after breakfast, so bags are packed and Captain Shephard pulls anchor to start the move towards docking. Even with Ciara and Paget squabbling on deck, the docking is smooth and it’s almost time to see the tip!!

Georgia flirts a little with Chris, I wonder if anything is going to happen there or if it’s all buildup and no release.

He just seems really innocent and she seems to be playing a role.

Primary Lyndi Kennedy hands over a relatively flat envelope, which Captain Glenn RUNS off with, hahaha, has he ever done that before? Does he have to call his bookie? Ah wait, I forgot, he likes to beep the boat horn at them as they walk away. BAI OC!

I’m guessing maybe $12k, it didn’t look like a lot. I’m willing to be wrong!

Right after guest departure, Chris goes looking for Georgia. He invites her to a fish foot spa the following evening.

Fish

Foot

Spa?

Is that when fish nibble away all the dead skin on your feet whilst you sip rose?

She laughs when she sees everyone out in the hallway waiting to hear her answer, it takes a village to get this woman laid!

Tip Meeting Time, wooooo! Omigod I was so CLOSE! It’s $12,700! That means $1400 each, awwww!

Ciara asks Paget out on a date night, aww! They definitely need to ramp up the romance or she really will be like his mother.

Everyone dresses for dinner, Ciara and Georgia are dressed exactly the same…Paget invites Adam and Jenna along on their date, the four of them split off from the rest and sit separately in.the.same.restaurant.

The editing makes it look like Paget and Georgia keep looking across the restaurant in each other’s general direction, in between his general inattentiveness and Georgia calling Chris desperate. THEN she says she’s looking for a sugardaddy, before we have time to process that Paget is at the table flirting with her.

Le yikes.

x two.

Madison is not enjoying absolutely everyone but her being coupled up, so interrupts her inner monologue to call herself an “ugly a**hole” out loud. Nobody knows where that came from, Byron’s all over it: what’s going on, Mads?? When she doesn’t explain right away, he says she’s doing it for attention and look, Byron, you’ve been this age long, long ago. Literally everything is for attention and yeah: she’s feeling ignored and left out. Why be so brutal about it?

I’m sad for Madison that Georgia doesn’t follow her departure. That’s what friends do at that age.

Time for shots shots shots with the whole gang at a nightclub, too bad Madison and Adam are in rotten moods. She heads back to the boat early and Adam stops drinking. I sense a passive aggressive fight later wherein Jenna won’t even know what she’s done wrong but will still feel compelled to apologize.

They discuss Madison on the way back to the boat, Georgia explaining about Madison’s sister being murdered and everyone spontaneously deciding that it covers her behaviour. Things can be more complex than that you, guys, people can have the absolutely worst thing happen to them in the world and still be pissed off because lonely and alone in a world of couples. They don’t have to be related.

Jenna and Adam head to the Master Guest Room after he complains about Madison complaining about it, Chris heads to the hot tub and Georgia shows us how she really feels about him. She is not going to up there with “him.” Aww, Chris, you seem nice, you just believed Jenna and you should never do that.

Yikkkkes, we getta hear the aftermath of Adam and Jenna having sex, which is a furious fight where he accuses her of acting like a corpse about his precious flowers AND that she ruins every moment and HE’S OUT OF HERE. Man. So many issues there. We end on that note, with him freaking out on Jenna less than ten seconds after sex, and we’re out. Damn. Until next time!