The only thing better than a new episode of Below Deck on Monday nights is Sarah D Bunting's Tuesday morning power rankings. Click here for previous Below Deck power rankings.
Below Deck S07, E09: "Twelve Seconds in Heaven"
Last week's Rhylee-versus-the-world scrapping carries over into tonight's episode... and then everyone goes to a bar, which doesn't seem like the best way to calm everything down. It's definitely not the best outcome for this correspondent when Tanner, so drunk he's nearly falling over, repairs to a bathroom to chunder really noisily. Why do the editors keep trolling me this way?!
A semi-refreshed Tanner then announcing to Simone that he wants to hook up with her, and frenching her with his barf breath, is not great either, especially because it transfers the episode's center of drama gravity to Simone. With Ashton and Kevin each squashing their beefs with Rhylee the next day, that subplot is put on pause for Tanner's butt, Simone's moans, Tanner classlessly detailing exactly what they got up to in bed (and making it clear that, as far as Simone satisfying him, it wasn't enough), and Simone having a crisis about getting taken off service.
Oh, and Brian's leg almost falls off. We'll get to it. Who's running the show and who's just limping along? Your Episode 9 power rankings...
1. Courtney. Grossed out by Tanner and Simone's sloppy PDA (ditto), and Brian's hospital germs (ditto!). Mock-wails at the ironing that they need anti-wrinkle-fabric uniforms, because she "can't live like this!" [Last week: 2]
2. Captain Lee. It's kind of crazy to me that, if he does have any decision-making power vis-a-vis the staff, he wouldn't just send Brian home. Then again, it's also kind of crazy to me that he got through that entire dinner with these wasted basics gurgling about his silver foxiness without feigning an emergency in the wheelhouse and fleeing. [Last week: 3]
3. Kate. Credit to Kate for calling Tanner out on siding with Kevin...but she doesn't have a great week, starting with not accounting for the tides that almost strand the guests after their beach-cave picnic. And when Simone pitches her sulk about getting taken off service, Kate's real passive-aggressive and disingenuous, and overreacts to Simone having complained to others about her issues with Kate. I get that that's annoying, but when you're the boss, it's going to happen; get over it. [Last week: 1]
4. Brian. Finally packed off to a hospital for IV antibiotics and debridement, he's game to return, and helps out with stuff that doesn't involve getting the wound wet, or heavy lifting. This isn't on him, but: that's 95% of his job, no? [Last week: 5]
5. Rhylee. It's not that I approve of how Ashton or Kevin handled themselves in their kerfuffling with her, and it's not that I don't think she deserved apologies from them both, or needed to apologize herself. It's that she is so unapologetic about being "quick to anger," and that she shrugs it off with "I am who I am" -- but she also complains that there's a "bias" against her. You don't have to change to please people, but then if people aren't pleased, that's...how that goes. [Last week: 4]
6. Ashton. Ashton's more than happy to comment that, before Rhylee joined the crew, their nights out were drama-free. The thing is, Smashton, they were drama-free for you because you were the one hitting on people who weren't into it; kissing people who were grossed out by it; and not really remembering what you did or laughing it off as your drunken alter ego. He does get a couple of points for acknowledging to himself and Rhylee that he shouldn't have brought the previous season's conflict into their current season. [Last week: 8]
7. The guests. Near-blackout sexual harassment isn't cute no matter who's doing it. The line between flirting and pawing people really isn't that hard to see; can we get some guests who stay on the right side of it next time, please? [Last week: 10]
8. Kevin. What kind of Carol Channing homage is he doing with the bartender? He's a weird guy. And not a very good guy. He apologizes to Rhylee, true, and his proud account of conversing with his daughter in emojis is sweet...but then he's back to insulting Kate's palate, then insulting Courtney by complimenting her palate but calling her spoiled in the next breath (with a pony reference that, technically, makes no sense). Do you know how off-putting he has to be to still rank so close to the bottom this week? [Last week: 9]
9. Tanner. Oh, look who thinks he deserves a medal for going down on a woman. Look who thinks he's entitled to an orgasm. Why am I not surprised that it was the same dingus who was congratulating himself for being into "cougars"? And if this mofo doesn't start taking his mic pack off to puke, I don't know what. [Last week: 6]
10. Simone. She's incompetent at cutting up lemons and limes; could Kate have called that to her attention and corrected it instead of making fun of it? Yes. Is this something a second stew should not need corrected? Yes. Does being a "mathematician" who speaks a lot of languages have crap-all to do with this job? No. Is "Kate's probably upset that I'm smarter than her" why she's hiding Simone in the laundry? No. (Also, that's literally never the motive...for anything.) I will grant that Kate is not the most nurturing mentor, but that's not actually her job, and Simone couldn't open a bottle of wine by herself, let's remember. [Last week: 7]
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Sarah D. Bunting co-founded Television Without Pity, and her work has appeared in Glamour and New York, and on MSNBC, NPR's Monkey See blog, MLB.com, and Yahoo!. Find her at her true-crime newsletter, Best Evidence, and on TV podcasts Extra Hot Great and Again With This.
TOPICS: Below Deck, Bravo, Lee Rosbach