Below Deck Down Under Season-Premiere Recap: Choosing to Engage

Below Deck Down Under
The Real Housewives Of Down Under
Season 4 Episode 1
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
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Ahoy, mates, and welcome back aboard Captain Jason’s Katina! After an uneventful, not to say boring, season three in the Seychelles, the producers in charge of this circus have decided to reset. I imagine they asked themselves: What was missing from last season? There was plenty of work drama, firings, entitled guests, and making out. What went wrong? I think it came down to most of the storylines taking some time to find momentum. As a result, the same beats got rehashed week after week and ultimately became exhausted. In order to inject some life back into Down Under, the Powers That Be decided to get some real professionals onboard. No more dilly-dallying: the Katina is ready to play in the major leagues.

The yacht will sail out of Canouan, a reclusive island in the Caribbean that is only accessible by charter plane (“Down under,” according to Jason, is “a state of mind”). We open the first episode of the season with Jason meeting with his three heads of department for a pre-season drink. I already miss Tzarina, that weirdo with a heart of gold, but I cackled and rubbed my hands together, Smithers-style, when I saw Chef Ben arrive. A Below Deck legend, Ben has been away from yachting for the last six years — he got betrothed, paid $50,000 for his wedding, then broke up the engagement. He’s been down in the dumps running his catering company, and he’s determined to regain confidence in the galley. That’s bittersweet news for returning sous-chef Alesia. On the one hand, Ben is more experienced than Tzarina, just by virtue of being older; on the other hand, while Tzarina was desperate to be liked by everyone, Ben could not give less of a rat’s ass if he tried. He is sort of mean and prickly, and within the first hours of her first shift, he makes Alesia cry.

Alesia was last season’s MVP: Independent, outspoken, and fun as hell, she was a crew and audience darling. We all recognized the spark of youthful possibility in her eyes. And yet. Though she left the Seychelles determined to go to culinary school and “get serious” about life, she spent her time in between seasons skiing in Canada and “falling in love.” From the sounds of it, she decided to put her career on the back burner when her mom balked at the notion that she could one day be a chef, which is not only cruel but plain unhelpful. Now, even though a whole year has gone by, Alesia has gained zero knife skills. And Ben is going to make her pay for it. Are you happy, mom?

To helm the interior crew, Jason — ahem, Bravo — brought in Daisy, from Sailing Yacht, as a chief stew. She is already excited that she won’t have to deal with plates and glasses shattering every hour of every day. Daisy is a no-nonsense boss, though she has been known to get … involved, if you will, with other crewmembers. She welcomes stews Joe and Jenna to her team, as well as the green Mike, who is brought on as a deck/stew. This position, once rare in the Below Deck universe, has become more and more popular with the franchise. It is a vortex for inter-departmental chaos, leading to misunderstanding and tension between the interior and exterior departments. That said, Mike presents as an uplifting, jovial kind of guy. I’m watching him though, because I don’t trust a man who describes himself as a “cheeky flirt” or who starts every conversation by asking his colleagues about their “types.”

In the evenings, Mike will be with the stews, and in the mornings, he’ll help out on deck. That schedule was suggested, with all the best intentions, by the bosun — God help us, João is back. Known for his arrogance and insufferable macho attitude, João claims to be a reformed man who intends to redeem his reputation. He is now a captain who wouldn’t have accepted an officer position on a boat if it weren’t for Jason, whom he considers a “mentor” and a “big brother.” We’ll see how much he’s really grown in the couple of years since we last saw him. For now, his deckies include Eddy, who has only been yachting for about a year, and Betul, who I immediately love. Her name means “virgin” in Turkish, and she was raised in a strict Muslim family, but decided to strike out on her own and find freedom in yachting. She describes herself as “a strong, independent woman” and quickly shows herself to be fun, spunky, and tough. 

Daisy makes Jenna, who has been in yachting for a couple of years, her second stew. Jenna seems like a hard worker who works hard, specifically so one day she won’t have to work at all. Joe has mostly been on smaller sail boats, and while Daisy seems happy to guide her through a superyacht, she sadly never gets a chance to change into her whites. Right before the first charter guests arrive, Joe receives news that her grandfather is in the hospital. She makes the difficult decision to go back to Montreal to be with her family. Though Daisy and Jason both agree that she’s doing the right thing, it’s stressful to go into the very first charter missing a stew. 

And that’s not just because the Katina is massive — it’s also because of who the first charter guests are. I don’t know what maniacal genius at Bravo had this idea, but the entire cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is coming on charter. Heather Gray will be the primary. I am teeming with anticipation. Upon looking at their preference sheets, the crew is immediately on edge. It doesn’t help that the vibes in the galley are so bad. Though Ben assures Alesia that he is not worried about her lack of training or scant experience, and that really, any dish, no matter how complicated, is “comprised of a series of simple tasks,” he proceeds to lose his cool when she messes up a frittata for crew brunch. He’s not exactly mean about it, but he’s not nice. He instructs her, for example, to witness the genius of his method (cooking the frittata in the oven rather than the stovetop, like any frittata, which our girl Alesia would know if she had just googled frittata) so that she can avoid repeating her mistake, which he dubs “the fuck-up of the century.” In immediate succession, Alesia burns her hands on a bunch of hot plates. It’s all too much for her; she retreats into her cabin to cry. She’s probably thinking, if he’s this insane about crew brunch, how insane will he be about guest food? 

She will learn soon. The ladies minus Bronwyn arrive — Bronwyn gets there a bit later, wearing a floatie as a hat. In true Housewives fashion, they make a big deal about who’s getting what room, and while Daisy takes in the gravity of what she’s about to deal with for the next two days, the first undocking goes without a hitch. João demonstrates how to drop the anchors to Eddy, having him watch while he talks through the process. I retain the right to retract any statement that I put in writing on the first episode of the season, but I like Eddy — there is a warmth to him.

For a moment, right before lunch, Jenna wishes she was hanging with the Housewives. They seem fun; they keep throwing water at Britani every time she mentions her ex Jared’s name. But by the time lunch comes around — with the help of an increasingly flustered Alesia, Ben makes a spread of fancy bar foods, with sliders, chicken tenders (served on a bowl lined with … a paper towel?), and lobster salad on offer — the ladies don’t seem as inviting. They spend the afternoon asking for stuff: Can someone unpack their bags? Can someone bring up a purse that was left downstairs? Can someone bring up sea-sickness bracelets? Can someone find Heather’s nipple cover? Can they slap it on? Can they have more Champagne? Can someone take care of Angie, who keeps throwing up? Over lunch, the Housewives bring out some of their classic moves. Bronwyn wonders if someone has been leaking information about her divorce to the press. Lisa starts yelling. But it’s too early for this chaos yet, so they go for a swim to refresh and reset. Jason — a singular captain when it comes to chilling with guests — takes Heather on the seabob. In her own words, she “rode him like a Bronco.”

Meanwhile, the vibes in the kitchen continue to plummet. Before lunch, Ben teased Alesia about her nonexistent knife skills, asking if she went at the cucumbers with a chainsaw. He asks her to show him her work before they serve food to the guests, so they don’t waste time doing everything over. Then, he becomes baffled at her green salad: the leaf sizes are wrong, she doesn’t know what he means about “dressing it,” and he doesn’t like the way it looks. By the time they get to prepping dessert for dinner, things reach a fever pitch. Ben asks Alesia to help make a cheesecake, which she assures him she can do. Though he runs through it pretty fast, he does give her a recipe. I wanted to yell at her: write it down! Alesia forgets to add sugar to the mixture. When he tastes it, Ben is irritated, but what seems to really inflame him is her justification: “I don’t cook very often.” In a confessional, he says that her proclaiming that she is “passionate” about food was just a way of avoiding accountability for her lack of skills.

Now, I’m on Alesia’s side, and Ben should be much gentler. He is arrogant and cruel — the team has to team in order to work. That said, I can kind of see where he is coming from. Alesia is coming back for her second season in the galley — “I don’t cook very often” won’t cut it as an excuse, especially when she said she was passionate about it. I have every faith in Alesia that she can step up to the job, and of course, Ben is only tripping her up by harping on every single mistake and not being gracious about her beginner-level skills. I really hope that these two can find their groove, because I could see them getting along like a house on fire. Maybe Alesia will let her fury power her; anger, after all, is a great motivator. Prove him wrong!

Unlike the rest of dinner service, though, the cheesecake turns out fine. Angie is still feeling sick, so she decides to skip dinner and eat some crackers in bed — Mary, her cabin-mate, stays with her and takes her dinner in the room. Up in the sundeck, all hell breaks loose after the burrata. The Housewives unleash the chaos they reigned in during lunch: Not only are Meredith and Britani yelling at each other, but they are throwing water, breaking glasses, and generally acting like lunatics. Daisy stands by, literally helpless. Ben is getting frustrated because Daisy won’t give him the go-ahead on plating the main course and won’t tell him when this fight will be over. The Housewives are definitely dialing it up in order to intensify the drama for our Below Deck-watching sake, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enthralled. It looks like it’s going to be a really intense season. The first thing Jason said to his heads of department is that there is “no room for egos,” but we can already tell that the season will be all about egos, from the heads of department to the guests. I’m strapped in.