After last week’s love fest, hearts are bound to break on this week’s Below Deck. And break they do, when Kelley Johnson discovers Ben Robinson has wooed Emily Warburton-Adam away from his shirtless shenanigans with a mere bouquet of blue roses and a dinner date. Kelley weirdly directs his pent up hormonal rage at the perpetually confused Sierra Storm, though, who also has to weather her own ill-fated date with the very persistent Kyle Dixon.
As Emily and Ben lightly flirt their way through the workday, Kate Chastain still can’t believe how goofy/nervous Ben has been with his newest love interest. So, she decides to humiliate him by asking him to dress as Elvis for a Vegas themed party she’s planning! His grouchy days may be largely behind him, but he’s not about to bow to this wish. Even if Kate did score him a date with Emily. Meanwhile, Sierra is dreading her fishing date with Kyle, and doesn’t have the heart to tell her suitor that she’s kinda-sorta-maybe got a dude back home. Or at least the prospect of a dude!
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Captain Lee Rosbach is still riding Kelley’s arse hard, as Lauren Burchnell notes. He didn’t like the way Kelley handled the tender situation, the dirty window situation, nor the general crew ineptitude situation these past few weeks. Also tiring of telling Kelley what to do all of the time (posturing that Kelley should just know what to do by now, dammit!), Lee feels it’s time for Kelley to act like a bosun, not a boner. So, when Kelley sets up a golf green on the yacht for the head charter to hit some balls from, Lee snaps that Kelley can’t swing a club first! It’s down to this level of sniping, people.
Later that night, Kelley flirts with Emily more and – is it my imagination? – Emily seems to flirt back. She’s been leading Kelley on, whether she thinks so or not. She doesn’t want to tell him about the date with Ben either, which speaks volumes. She knows she has a part to play in this scenario, even if it’s a tiny part.
Nico Scholly to the rescue! Convinced to play Elvis, Nico hams it up for the guests during Kate’s Vegas party, while Kelley sports his best back up career Chip N Dales look. After the party, Ben and Emily clean up the mess, both looking forward to spending time together NOT slinging trash bags.
The next morning, the happy charter guests sit down to breakfast while the deck crew pull up anchor to get Valor moving back to the dock. Kyle and Kate strike up an odd conversation, in which Kyle confesses he was homeless at one point after his parents kicked him out. He also admits he was homeless in London on a quest to be with a girl, who eventually left him for a doctor. Kate loves the unapologetic, never-embarrassed Kyle. To her, Kyle is good people. To Sierra, he’s a pity date. <sad face>
Kate decides to talk Sierra into falling for Kyle, who she calls the “British Ryan Gosling.” (!?!?!?) Sierra is all about brains, not brawn (bwahahaha!) though, claiming she falls in love with what’s between a guy’s ears, not what’s between his “head and his knees.” Mmkay. Kate is not giving up on her BRG yet though. She’s ready to stand up in a row boat in the rain screaming, “It wasn’t over! It still isn’t OVER!” to get Sierra on board with this sh*t if she has to!
The guests depart, thank the crew genuinely, and hand over the tip envelope. For once, we saw a great group of guests genuinely enjoying themselves aboard Valor this season. (Something tells me we’ll be back to mouth breathers by next charter though.)
Tip meeting! Captain Lee praises the interior crew, but wants to see the exterior step up. Kelley stiffly nods. The guests tipped $15k, which is decent for 48 hours of work! And Kyle gets permission from Lee to take Sierra fishing that afternoon. A beaming Kate approves this message. Sierra, not so much. She’d rather get back to texting her potential guy back home instead. The rest of the crew are given leave to go out to dinner after all of their work is done.
That evening, a pink-shirted Kyle takes Sierra out (alone!) for their fishing excursion. He wants to “pull out all the stops” romancing this Alaskan-faced woman, but doesn’t know that Sierra doesn’t necessarily want all the stops pulled out on her sorry a$$. Speaking of not knowing things – Kelley has mentioned he’d also like to take Emily fishing (what’s with this “romantic fishing” stuff? is this a yachtie thing or a desperation thing?!?!?).
Lauren and Nico chat with Emily about her dinner date with Ben, which they predict Kelley is going to FLIP OUT over. Yes. Yes, he is. Let’s fast forward to that moment, please!
On their Under The Sea adventure, Kyle tries to cozy up to Sierra, but she’s putting walls up left and right. She’s uncomfortable with how persistent he is. Since he’s not catching any good vibes from his lady friend, Kyle has no choice but to spend his time catching actual fish. After he casts a few lines, he finally gets some vital info out of Sierra: She’s “kind of” got a guy back home, who she’s texting during her fishing date. #Tacky
Kyle feels duped and depressed. He confesses the story to Kelley afterward, who seems to take it a wee bit too personally. Sierra, admittedly, did pull a cruel move in waiting until their actual date to tell Kyle she’s interested in someone else. Girlfriend needs communication skills training, for sure. But Kelley getting involved in this mess will help no one. Did Sierra two-time HIM? No. But he seems to think so, by proxy.
To make matters considerably worse, Kelley gets a virtual kick in the nads two minutes later when he finds out that Ben and Emily are going out on a date. His face reads: OH HELL NO! But he says nothing directly to Ben or Emily, opting instead to go out for a smoke and complain to his bloke, Kyle, the mutual cast-off.
Out on the dock, Kelley fills Kyle in on the Ben blindside, snarking that Ben bags a girl every charter season (true) and this fling with Emily is no different (maybe). Kelley is like, When did this sh*t even happen? Kyle, also raw from his bad date with Sierra, feels wronged by the wily females aboard this vessel. Kelley vows to right these wrongs for all of brah-kind!
As Ben and Emily begin their dinner date, they get to know each other over drinks. Emily is a spontaneous, independent woman who finds yachting a fun stop on her career path. Ben jokes that his parents are thrilled he’s in yachting because it got him out of the country!
Back on Valor, Kyle and Kelley wind each other up into a frenzy, finally ending with Kelley huffing around the boat in preparation to confront Sierra. Lauren goes to warn Sierra about Attack Of The Rejected Kelley coming to her theater very, very soon. But Sierra just blows it off, hoping that their crew dinner tonight doesn’t get twisted.
To avoid dinner disaster, Sierra pulls Kelley aside before they head out. She asks him what’s up. Kelley says he doesn’t like the way Sierra played Kyle. “You did not tell him the truth – end of story!” snaps Kelley, then walks away. Sierra doesn’t understand anything his damage, calling it all pointless drama. “I’m not gonna be treated like this!” whines Sierra, who then refuses to go to dinner. But she goes anyway.
Kate intervenes, reminding Kelley that Kyle’s beef with Sierra is really none of his business. Nico also wisely realizes that Kelley is just displacing his ire on Sierra because he’s mad about Emily’s date with Ben. Agreed. Kate basically orders all of them to stand down! It’s not an issue between Kelley and Sierra. It’s an issue between Kelley and Emily. “Part of growing up is learning how to handle rejection, and that’s just not a skill Kelley’s mastered yet,” Kate sagely tells Sierra, whose facial expression still reads, “Am I on a boat?” rather than “Ahhh…I see!” Kate is throwing pearls to swine with this chick. But hey, at least she tried.
Back at the restaurant, Emily tells Ben it’s refreshing to be asked properly out on a date. She’s also glad to be on this proper date with Ben – not Kelley. “Cheers to Kelley for not being here!” toasts Ben, who gets rewarded with a peck on the cheek and some hand holding afterward. Their joy is not to last long, however, as they make their way to join the rest of the crew for some post-dinner drinks.
Lauren greets them warmly, but Kelley and Kyle split at the sight of the happy couple. Sierra fills Ben and Emily in on Kelley’s meltdown, but she doesn’t get far before Kyle steps in to clarify his side of things. He felt duped by Sierra, who he really liked, because she had a guy back home the whole time. “It f**king hurt me, and that’s how I really felt,” he admits – in front of everyone, which is sweetly vulnerable. He’s willing to put it all in the past now though and “get on with our lives.”
Sierra says nothing in response. “I just hope this guy back home is worth it,” adds Kyle, who finally hugs her, wishing her the best. Although, he admits later that he doesn’t expect Sierra will ever get any measure of happiness if she continues to operate on this level of shadiness. #TeamKyle #AlaskanWomenUnite #SierraSucks
As Ben and Emily hang behind to extend their date, the rest of the crew heads back to Valor. Later that night, Captain Lee asks Kate about the gross trail of half-eaten pizza lining the hallway floor back to his quarters. Who wrought this devilment?!?!? Kate doesn’t make excuses for the frat boys who left it behind, but simply gets on the task of cleaning it up, promising it won’t happen again.
Speaking of frat boys, Kyle and Kelley are fully in the proverbial bag, wrestling in a drunken brawl on board, trying to numb the pain of being summarily stew-dissed. Meanwhile, Nico has found a toaster that’s been left on and is ready to burn up the joint! He carries it out of the kitchen, but not before Captain Lee and Kate see him hauling the “boat bomb” out of sight. Kate is nervous that Lee will think the entire crew is devolving into a liability at this point, so she pulls Nico aside afterward to assess the situation.
No sooner does Kate start interrogating Nico, than Lauren steps in to demand Nico talk to her. Kate’s all, No I Don’t THINK So! But Nico runs off with Lauren to hear her list of complaints, nonetheless. Kate sees this as insubordination, even though Nico is not technically her subordinate. Dang! Nico got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nico can’t win for losing, but he shouldn’t have run off with Lauren in the middle of a Kate-frontation. Sigh. I guess he’ll have to learn this the hard way. Lauren’s complaints don’t amount to much more than wanting to “find” Nico anyway, so he ultimately made the wrong choice. Kate relays the incident to Kelley, who fears that this will be used as yet another excuse to dog the deck crew. And Captain Lee does not need another excuse for that!
As their date ashore winds down, Ben pulls out some French to woo his lady love. Emily is in the process of becoming smitten, but she’s wary of falling too far, too fast. She does feel like genuine feelings are developing between them though. Ben does too. He’s feeling the chemistry now, and hopes this little experiment is successful.
TELL US: DID SIERRA DESERVE KELLEY’S WRATH? ARE BEN AND EMILY A LOVE CONNECTION? DID YOU FEEL BAD FOR KYLE, OR DID HE COME ON TOO STRONG?
Photo Credit: Bravo
