Everyone is in a bad mood this week on Below Deck Mediterranean. Except the departing vibrator-packing charter guests. Choppy seas and slow-moving dry toast won’t get those gynos down!
Sandy, however, is a different story. Perhaps her new vibrator hasn’t had the same effect on her, because after breakfast she ascends to the bridge to give Hannah a proper dressing down. After sleeping in, Hannah woke up and snuck up there to write a grocery list while Brooke struggled to ferry porridge from Adam to the guests, and Kasey, presumably, learned what coffee is. Hannah runs to her cabin in tears after Sandy tells her that breakfast service “sucked.†She slept four hours and works 19-hour days, she says. Never mind all those times in episodes past that she stayed up drinking and flirting with various boat staff until three in the morning knowing she’d only get a few hours of sleep before having to get up early to fold toilet paper points for the next group of winners paying thousands of dollars to wait 30 minutes for a Nespresso.
After the guests leave, Sandy expresses relief that they didn’t complain about the service. She then meets with the crew, who get Champagne even though they sucked at their jobs and so are essentially toasting their own failure, to tell them this was “the worst breakfast†she’s ever experienced on a charter yacht. She had to wait 30 minutes for her omelet from the time she ordered it — and then didn’t even get her dry toast until after she had finished eating said omelet. Hannah, unwilling to accept responsibility for any of her or her team’s failings, says Sandy is just mad that she didn’t get to drive the boat and show off for her friends. Of course, this is ridiculous. Every time they go out on the water, they risk dying out of sheer incompetence, so the bad weather probably spared Sandy the humiliation and sheer terror of, like, Brooke setting off fireworks indoors.
Having made a show of being a disciplinarian, she invites Adam up to the bridge so she can assume the nonconfrontational, head-patting persona that comes more naturally to her. She tells him not to take it personally, and Adam assumes the vindictive persona that comes more naturally to him. He tells Sandy the problem wasn’t that he couldn’t make the toast fast enough, it was that no one — coughHANNAHcough — told him to make the toast! Besides, there were no slides or Jet Skis or nonedible noodles on this charter. Just actual noodles born of dough, swimming merrily in Adam’s polarizing bowls, which is why he believes their $12,000 tip is owed entirely to him.
Below deck, Joao forces Colin and Kasey to listen to him blather about all the times he got stitches as a kid, which is the kind of thing 70-year-olds think you want to hear about their children.
They change for their night out and Joao is wearing black pants and a maroon top while Colin is wearing maroon pants and a black top. Joao calls this “yin yang bullshit.†Hannah goes out in a lavender cold-shoulder romper she may have stolen from the first primary. Also be-rompered is Brooke, who has white-and-purple tassels dangling from her shorts hems that are so jarring they even made my husband recoil.
They go for sushi at a place called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Kasey and Brooke try to score the most flirting time with Joao. Kasey tells us she feels confused by him, but also “gets these glimpses of amazingness.†Joao holds a dinner napkin up to his chest as though a set of breasts. If this is the first man Kasey sleeps with in eight years, I will die.
Adam tells Hannah he likes the restaurant because the sushi “comes out so hot and fast†— which sounds like something Joao would say to Kasey. Hannah storms out to smoke a cigarette, dragging fair Conrad with her. She tells him she heard what Adam told Sandy about her girls not being able to carry porridge around, and Conrad tells her that his dad is a bad guy.
Then they go back to the boat, where Conrad changes from his white Disney Prince shirt into his after-hours flannel and shorts. “I’ve always said don’t screw the crew,†he says, right before proceeding to make out with Hannah, who stays up past 2:12 a.m. This is a momentous occasion for Hannah and for us — Hannah because I feel like she tries (and fails) to have a tryst with one of the crew every season, and us because making out leads to drama!
The next day Hannah awakens only to be reminded that her fairy-tale romance with Conrad won’t continue with little blue birds folding her petticoats to song, but Kasey putting her bras in the dryer. They learn about the next set of guests. The primary is kosher, which has Adam in a panic because now he has to order new meat. They have to throw these people a Great Gatsby–themed party, which is the Ugg boot of dumb rich people activities.
While Conrad goes to pick up a slide, Joao makes Jamie cry and Brooke Googles Great Gatsby quotes, which she prints out so she can either use them to decorate the candle holders or set them on fire. If the trailer for next week’s episode is to be believed, you never know with her!
While Adam is playing with his new meat, Brooke saunters into the kitchen with her printouts talking about how romantic The Great Gatsby is. “Have you seen the film? Er — read the book?†she asks Adam, who replies, “Pretty sure I’ve just read the CliffsNotes.†Brooke then tells us she thinks Adam is “sexy.†Well, he may live in a van and not read, but at least he can make you a Caprese salad with pine nuts.
The next group of charter guests are assholes. We know this from their attire alone: The primary is wearing sunglasses that say Givenchy on the side, and one of her male guests is wearing a distressed denim shirt and large beaded pendant necklace.
They decide they’d rather have their special 1942 tequila instead of Champagne, so Hannah prepares them shots only to learn she got the wrong kind of Don Julio 1942 tequila. The guests make a stink about it but drink the tequila Hannah got anyway, because they don’t actually have palates refined enough to know the difference; they just requested that tequila to be monsters.
Now that the boat is back at sea, Kasey is worried about barfing again so Joao gives her a bottle of water and a slice of whole-wheat Wonder Bread. Upstairs, the guests are sitting down for a nice lunch of Chinese chicken salad. Hannah asks them if they want wine, and they say no, they only want tequila.
After complaining about the salad and how hungry they still are, they force Adam to make a pasta course, which puts Adam in a very bad mood. Hannah says she can’t keep track of who’s vegan, kosher, paleo, gluten-free, etc. You know if Brooke or Kasey said this, Hannah would curse at them and say knowing that stuff is literally their entire job (which it is!). Making everyone more agitated is Kasey, whose medicine makes her drowsy, which means she washes one fork every 12 minutes.
Attempting to keep up with the night’s theme, Brooke turns the dinner table into something involving satin and beads that looks the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show threw up on it. Adam prepares dinner for 9 p.m. as instructed, but doesn’t learn from Hannah until 9:05 that it’s been pushed back by 30 minutes. I understand his anger here. Even the Olive Garden isn’t going to serve you pasta in cream sauce that’s been sitting out for 30 minutes. Hannah doesn’t seem to care how late they are because this gives her the opportunity to gossip with Brooke about Conrad and how Adam lives in a van.
I’m super excited about next week when Brooke lights a sparkler indoors! If no one dies, at least we all will, metaphorically.