Below Deck Mediterranean Recap: Fool Me Once, Shame On You

Below Deck Mediterranean
Infrared-Colored Glasses
Season 11 Episode 4
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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Despite being at the center of this season’s developing drama, rookie deckhand Luke is a bit of a cypher. We haven’t learned much about him, except that as a scrawny kid, he was inspired by Men’s Health to get jacked. Writing this, I realize I’m not even sure where he’s from. I think Cape Town? He told us about a past doing various stints on different kinds of boats, but what makes Luke tick? I have no idea. Do Joy and Gen know? Is that why they’re so obsessed, or is it his Marvel-ass frame? The most personality we’ve gotten from him emerges in goofy moments, like when, this week, he makes Scooby-Doo-sounding noises to Joy, who remarks he looks like Scooby-Doo’s owner. “No one owns Scooby-Doo,” Luke fires back. “He’s his own dog.” Damn right, partner. Also, an indicator of sorts for where their flirtationship is headed.

The way Luke is handling the love triangle with Joy and Gen makes Nathan and Joe look like sage old men. It’s shocking that there is a precarious boatmance situation that doesn’t include Joe. In fact, much to my relief, both Joe and Nathan’s storylines this season have much more to do with work than women. In Joe’s words, the two of them have “clicked back into a groove.” Nathan’s effort to put their history behind them last week pays off in the second charter: They work well, and in tandem, and as a result, the deck team becomes more efficient. In the morning of the second day of the charter, Nathan tells Joe about being trapped in the bridge with drunk, hostile, gross Josef, and they have a good laugh about it. 

As it turns out, Josef’s cliff-hanging confrontation with Nathan was just a Below Deck red herring: Josef calls Nathan a “prick in a good way,” like in a way that commands respect. With a fresh margarita in hand, Josef launches into a 70-minute monologue about his Life and Times, which carries on past Nathan’s anchor-watch shift and into Coop’s. (“I’ve had six girls pee on me at once,” he declares, to which Coop replies: “I’ve never had a single one pee on me.” Never change, Coop.) The next day, Josef tells Sandy that he’s come around on Nathan, and now he fully “loves that guy.” He takes a weird picture of the bosun before he leaves the next day.

Having been forced to admit to himself that Joe is the only reasonable choice for lead deckhand, and given that they’ve been able to surmount their personal tension, and seeing that Joe demonstrated his value on deck throughout the charter — setting up water toys expertly, anticipating the needs of the bosun and keeping the deck team operating smoothly — by the time the Akira One is heading back to the dock the next day, Nathan finally bites the bullet and appoints Joe as his lead. He even says that he trusts Joe on deck; this from the guy who has spent the past four episodes going on and on about not trusting Joe. Still, the promotion is a good thing for the team, and for their dynamic; let’s just hope it keeps on keeping Joe out of trouble, boatmance-wise. We have our hands full with Luke in that department.

Despite being probably 10 years older than Nathan, in the morning of the second day of the charter, Luke goes to the bosun for some light relationship advice, asking him if he knew Gael was the one immediately, and whether or not Nathan was also courting other girls when he met his partner (yes and no, respectively). This conversation happens right before the crew takes the guests on what looks like a really cool oyster farm tour. The topic is on Luke’s mind because his excursion mates are Joy — taken along by the guests to learn some local cuisine in a generous gesture — and Gen, whom Aesha sends out in hopes it will soften the blow of Kayley’s promotion. Of course, Gen’s first response is to grumble: “I don’t even like oysters.” The only thing that makes her smile is that Luke is also going. 

Having overheard Gen talk about Luke in the crew mess, Kayley — who has more than a little incentive to stir up some shit with Gen — asks Joy how she feels about Luke. Direct as always, Joy wants to know why Kayley wants to know, but she’s not worried about Gen: “I’m not competing because we are not on the same level.” On the way to the oyster farm, Luke asks about a ring Joy is wearing, which turns out to be from an engagement that ended badly. Joy’s no-nonsense demeanor and her directness are delightful and refreshing in a reality television context: There is absolutely no affectation to her. When one of the producers asks, later, if she plans on emphasizing flavors for dinner because the guests will be eating in the dark, she shoots back: “Stupid question.” Just because the guests can’t see doesn’t mean they can’t taste, duh.

The fact that Joy still wears her engagement ring stumps Luke, which is not wholly unreasonable, but it also gives him an excuse to keep flirting with Gen. While the three of them play out their love triangle on the excursion, the interior team sets up dinner, which, per the guests’ request, will take place entirely in the dark. As a person whose curmudgeonly instincts jump out in a too-dark restaurant despite relative youth and good eyesight, I do not understand what impulse would lead anyone to want to eat in pitch-black darkness. Perhaps it’s the same instinct that would lead someone to befriend a guy like Josef? The guests’ request for an escape-room experience, while annoying, is much more understandable. Kayley starts setting up early in the day and takes advantage of the excursion to run it by the rest of the team. She sees the activity as her first opportunity to prove Gen wrong about her not being ready to be second stew. 

Of course, she knocks it out of the park. Dinner service in the dark goes as well as possible, with Kayley and Aesha wearing night vision goggles to serve the food. As the escape-room activity kicks off — the guests have 30 minutes to find Aesha’s crew — the boys find plenty of opportunity to make insinuating jokes about tying up the girls, some (Coop) more wholesome than others (Luke). Coop even gets to do a card trick. The guests don’t find Joe in time, but they have a lot of fun. Everyone is over the moon with the experience, especially Aesha, who can barely contain her happiness; the night set the bar very high for the rest of the season. 

Gen’s elegant response to Kayley’s success is: “I don’t really give a fuck, bro.” She’s still feeling like the interior department is “Kayley’s show,” though she has taken exactly zero steps towards making it Gen’s show. She tells us in a confessional that she’s used to feeling “overlooked” because she grew up in New York City, where her parents’ friends’ kids were always going off to do “amazing internships in London.” Gen is still really young, and I feel for her. That she is having to swallow her pride as Kayley ascends is probably going to be better for her in the long run than if she got what she wanted right away, but living through a teachable moment sucks. Maybe that explains her chaotic behavior when the crew goes out later that night. 

Before we deal with that, the guests need to leave the boat. We have our first smooth docking of the season, which makes Nathan happy. Coop — who has been practicing his knots, learning how to drive the tender, and generally being attentive and curious about his new job — does wonderfully, which earns him some praise from the bosun. Then, the guests leave a truly whopping $50,000 tip, a tip so astounding it tops the record left by LaDonna’s charter from hell last season (remember Carlos?!), which doled out $40,000 to a crew also led by GOAT Aesha Scott. Back then, they each pocketed $4,000 because the crew was smaller, but $3,847 is nothing to sneeze at. It makes Aesha, who grew up in a house where “cheese was such a luxury,” cry. Seeing her emotional kind of got me, too. They deserved it!

Now several thousand dollars richer, everyone can succumb to their worst instincts. Out for dinner and then at a club, things come to a head between Luke, Joy, and Gen. The drama starts on the water taxi when Gen immediately sets out to mark her territory by asking Luke to sit next to her instead of Joy. In a confessional, she tells us that she’s been cheated on in every relationship she’s been in recently, so there’s a reason why she’s suspicious. I wanted to remind her that she has known Luke for five days, so chill considerably. She is upfront with Luke that she doesn’t want to be in a love triangle, but he asks her to talk later, over dinner. Luke sits next to her at the restaurant, but when she gets up to go to the bathroom, he scurries over to the end of the table to chat up Joy, who reminds him that she can be “a real bitch.” Joy is also open with Luke, telling him she’d like to “discover” him, though maybe he needs to “taste the grass if it’s better,” Joy-speak for what she perceives as an ongoing comparison between the two girls by Luke, who denies being interested in anyone else. 

By the time they get to the club, Luke fully knows what both women want and expect from him, which is to make a decision. He does nothing with the information. In fact, Gen finally sounds reasonable when she fumes that Luke “wants to have his cake and eat it, too.” But instead of walking away, Gen digs her heels in. She warns Luke not to “lead [Joy] on,” then, when she sees him sitting with Joy, approaches him with a reprimanding “seriously?,” the second of two times during their night out she uses that tactic. Gen asks to speak to Luke privately, and his ready agreement is all Joy needs to see to understand what’s going on. She doesn’t speak to Luke for the rest of the night. When they get back to the boat, she locks herself in her cabin.

Gen, meanwhile, cries as she tells Luke that she’s tired of feeling second best, which makes him feel guilty. Elsewhere in the club, Kayley and Joe continue to “discover” each other. Earlier in the episode, she told us that she’s more worried about Joe falling in love with her than the other way around. I’m relieved to see Joe in such an uncomplicated situation, but the people I’m happiest for are Kat and Coop. Kat tells us in a confessional that she grew up watching Gilmore Girls, and that she feels maybe Coop is her Dean, but that’s not right. Coop is obviously her Logan — they share mutual interests, and Coop has surprised her with his winning personality despite her first impression of him. Coop reads as a jock, but he’s a dork at heart. “He’d be the president of the chess club, but he’s weirdly big?” is how Kat perfectly describes his vibe. Aesha encourages Kat’s crush, and she’s only more smitten by the pair when, back on the boat, Coop brings her signature after-hours noodles to her in bed. Getting ready to sleep side by side on the deck, under the stars, Coop asks Kat out on a date the next day, to which she happily agrees.

Because we can never have anything nice, we are then made to listen to Gen and Luke have sex with their mics on. Suffice it to say, I’m not interested in that level of graphic detail. Even Kayley and Joe, who are still up and fooling around, are shocked at how loud the two of them are: “You can hear it throughout the boat,” Joe says. Luke asks Gen not to tell anyone about it, but from the looks of next week’s episode, word will get out, and he will regret his actions, which is only going to make Gen feel worse. Save yourself, Gen!