Below Deck Mediterranean Recap: Another Storm Is Brewing

Below Deck Mediterranean
He Came, They Saw, It’s Bonkers
Season 11 Episode 8
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
Previous Next
Previous Episode
Next Episode

I did not expect Luke to actually leave. Maybe it was the weeklong cliffhanger or the fact that red herrings are as native to Below Deck as ill-fated love triangles — months of middling seasons have conditioned me to expect this kind of gimmick. In a slower season, something like Luke’s departure would have been milked for at least a whole episode, if not more. But season 11 proves, yet again, that it has the goods. In the absence of the guy who, for better or worse, has been the main character for the last four episodes, the action shows no signs of slowing down.

This abundance of material is owed to the fact that each crew member has their own compelling narrative arc. Even Sandy is on a journey with docking this damn boat at night. Right before dinner service, she sees strong winds coming and decides to go back to the marina. Last time the deck team had to dock the Akira One in the dark, they hit the dock, so everyone is tense as they head in. Aesha has to briefly leave dinner service to help with the anchor, and despite the loud party boats, the darkness, and the trauma, the boat is docked with no further damage.

The deck team needed this ego boost: Since making contact with the dock on their very first day, the exterior has been struggling to find their groove. The interior team settled into a rhythm much more easily; it’s only in this charter that Joy meets her first real challenge, in the form of Suzanne’s endless preferences. The chef tells us a bit about how cooking kept her going after her mother passed, when she was only 20 years old. Not that we needed any more reason to love Joy or to be annoyed by Suzanne, but Suzanne just has to stroll into the galley and say she expects that night’s dinner to bring her joy (vomit). But Joy is prepared: She pares down her menu into milder flavors (no roasted red peppers) and finally gets Suzanne’s approval. When the chef comes up to serve the dessert, Suzanne makes a big show out of telling her that she had “a food orgasm.”

Last season of Mediterranean benefited from the ridiculousness of Amy’s matchmaking charter because the atmosphere onboard was so heavy. This time, Suzanne’s Bachelorette-lite subplot isn’t as engaging, but I’m still glad she chooses Will. She takes him aside for some one-on-one time before dinner, and they even kiss — Aesha is so happy to hear it she helps Suzanne pick an outfit for dinner. But the other guys don’t go down so easily: Kurt performs a truly alarming mating dance and plans to hot tub with Suzanne after they eat but blows his chance when he tells her that she’s drunk. Kurt’s general judgment is obviously off — he was the one wondering where all the “traditional women” went last week — but he’s, of course, right that Suzanne is drunk. Only a drunk person gets offended when someone points out that they’re drunk.

The next morning, Amy is shocked that Kurt would say something so bizarre. Even more mind-boggling is the fact that Will went to bed without saying good night to Suzanne, who was in her bikini, getting ready to hot tub with another man. Suzanne clears things up with Will before breakfast: His social battery was just low. She makes her decision right then and there, as Coop eavesdrops, crouching on the bow, and Aesha looks on at them from the bridge. Speaking of decisions, the previous evening, Luke told Sandy that he wanted to keep his plan to quit under wraps until after the tip meeting, but by morning time, he’s already thinking of how to break the news to Joy before anyone else. He wants to see her again but isn’t sure how she’ll react. He texts his mom that he’ll be flying home tomorrow and starts packing.

That’s when Nathan goes into their shared cabin, only to find the door obstructed by Luke’s bags. “Maybe he’s looking for something?” Joe offers, trying to be helpful. Nathan doesn’t try to get Luke to stay — no one really does — but he does immediately start worrying about how the team will fare without Luke. They’re picking up charter the next day, and though Sandy texted Norma from the staffing company (can we get Norma on the show?) twice, there are no deckhands available. Luke doesn’t seem to have considered this, but in a team that feels short-staffed even when all members are present — they need Aesha for docking! — losing a set of hands is a serious problem. In any case, in their cabin, Luke tells Nathan that he hasn’t mentioned his departure to anyone. Once Nathan knows, word spreads so fast that everyone knows Luke is leaving before all the guests have even left the boat.

At least Luke gets to tell Joy himself. It upsets her, not that she shows it: She wishes privately that she could’ve “fixed things” with him throughout the season and that she hadn’t been so harsh with him. It’s not entirely clear to me if Joy ever knew about the sheets, but I’m assuming she didn’t — surely we would’ve heard from her on the topic? When Aesha checks in on the chef later, Joy shrugs that it was his decision and it must be respected. As for Gen, she’s relieved she won’t have to deal with Luke or her doomed love triangle any further. Remarkably, Gen doesn’t show any remorse for the way this all turned out. Her part in Sheets-gate aside — we all agree she could’ve taken the initiative to wash the sheets herself — Luke’s departure is a direct consequence of her decision to tell Coop about the sheets, whether or not it was warranted. Still, it’s unspoken between them. Gen gives Luke a big hug before he leaves and resolves to take this as a reset: For the rest of the season, she will keep a positive attitude. She will be Zen Gen. I’ll hold her up to it. 

Luke’s farewell is subdued. At the tip meeting, after Sandy praises Joy for keeping her cool through a difficult charter, Luke tells the crew what an honor it’s been to work with such competent people and closes his emotional speech with a metaphor: “The same water that boils the egg softens the potato.” Kat has to keep herself from laughing. In a confessional, she wonders which is “the cum sheets” — the egg or the potato? At least Luke is leaving $1,900 richer from a generous $25,000 tip. By the way, Suzanne’s suitors take it well when Amy tells them that Will, um, won. It’s not that surprising, given that up until that morning, at least one of them (Billy) was calling Suzanne “Suzanna.” Loath to let a situation play out not awkwardly, Amy leaves the boat with Will and Suzanne. 

With Luke and the guests gone, the focus shifts to couples who, God help us, had seemed pretty solid. For a few episodes, Kat has been expressing some reservations about her rapidly developing fling with Coop, but this week, it’s the first we hear any hesitation from the man himself. Coop wants to enjoy their time together without the pressure he feels from “everyone” to be a couple, and I feel implicated. How can I help it? Ultimately, they’re on the same page about taking things one day at a time, but for a few hours between dinner and the club, their wires get crossed. Coop takes some distance, riding to the restaurant in a separate van and sitting at the opposite end of the table from Kat at dinner. Things come to a head when, at the club, he gets a little too chatty with some girls from North Carolina who Kat herself had briefly met. Kat finally tells Coop she’s feeling neglected, and he admits to being “in his head.” They kiss and make up in the rain, reinstating their rom-com vibes, and cuddle and kiss good night back on the boat. It’s a happy ending to their first argument, and for now, I’m choosing to ignore any potential bad signs, like Coop’s concern when Kayley tells him that in a boatmance, a date is basically a proposal; or the fact that Coop is worried about having hurt Kat more than he’s adamant about liking her; or the fact that Kat is always adding a “but …” to the end of her sentences when she’s talking about Coop. Can’t we just have something nice?!

Meanwhile, Nathan is overwhelmed by the effort to reconcile his responsibilities as a father with his duties as a bosun and the expectations almost certainly put on him by the whole reality TV part of his life. The only explanation I can think of for why Nathan always goes to dinner with the crew instead of heading straight home on a night off is that he might be worried about his place in the cast. It’s not totally unreasonable, but it’s not at all helpful to Gael, who is alone with the baby for days on end. She texts him to make sure he’s coming home after dinner, and Aesha ever so gently suggests he go back sooner rather than later because it’s obvious from Gael’s tone that she needs help (“I’m really sleep deprived,” she writes). At the restaurant, Nathan hears from Gael again, this time more directly: She asks him to come home right away. Comforting her friend, Aesha encourages Nathan to give himself and Gael some grace as they navigate this difficult period, which would be difficult enough if it didn’t involve cameras, a foreign country, and a crazy schedule. 

When Nathan finally gets back to the rental, Gael is so mad, she barely wants to speak to him. We can assume the fight is pretty bad because we don’t even get to see it. Fittingly for such an intense day on the boat, a storm begins to rage at about 1:30 a.m. It’s strong enough to wake up the captain, who then gets Coop and Joe to run up to the bow, even though there’s lightning, and secure the boat with more anchors before it drifts into other docked vessels. Coop and Joe rise to the occasion despite having consumed what I’m assuming were several espresso martinis mere hours ago. Sandy is glad to have deckhands that are “steady under pressure,” but the fact that they’re one man down is even more alarming when they’ll likely have bad weather for the next charter. 

Before going to bed, Joe texts Nathan to let him know they had to resecure the boat for the storm, but everything is fine. This is a text-heavy episode; my favorite, by far, is the one Joy sends to Luke before going to bed: “Maybe one day u will explain to me why u choose the easier option.” So devastating in its concision. In the morning, Aesha also texts Nathan to check in on him. But she doesn’t hear back, and neither does Joe. In fact, no one hears from him — even Sandy texts him when it’s two hours before the guests arrive and Nathan is nowhere to be seen. When he finally makes it one hour late, Nathan apologizes and goes straight up to the bridge to speak to the captain. He only tells Coop and Joe that he was dealing with “family stuff,” but when they’re already at a deficit, his absence sets off alarm bells across the deck. Joe, for one, is ticked off. Just when they’ve managed to get along so well, this will give him the perfect opportunity to question Nathan’s leadership.