Below Deck Mediterranean S1:E8 Charter King Recap

BDM cover

Welcome back to the high seas and even higher guests on Below Deck Mediterranean! We left Danny and Bobby partying with the clients ashore in Mykonos; let’s see who has the most game! (Hint: it’s Ben)

Bobby is smitten with the Go-Go dancer fan-dancing on the bar, Primary Jerry makes it about money; Danny and Bobby will be competing to see who can kiss her first… winner gets a hundred American dollars. I’m not going to go into how that inherently plays into the idea that women are objects or trophies or bystanders in sexual relations, am I? I am not, buzzkilling is for LATERS, Baby!!

Bobby’s up first, asking when she gets off work and then upon finding there’s a language barrier, cuts right to the chase, using the old “my friends bet me” ruse. She looks SHOCKED but recovers to demur, nicely. That’s exactly what being in the hospitality industry is like, especially if your job requires you to dance on a bar in a bikini; nicely saying no to overstepping jackholes. It’s a skill

Danny’s turn! She’s caught on that she’s part of the show now, but his jumping up on the bar to dance with her is just too charming to resist. He begs for a kiss on the cheek and she can’t refuse friendly, happy funDan. He wins!

1

The guests laugh that Big Bobby got taken down by wee fun Daniel, calling them “Ninja…and Grasshopper” in reverse order, hahaha. Bobby tries to pretend he’s a good sport but you can see every single bit of green.

Hannah’s still got a bad head, but this is her ship, her baby and she needs to give Tiffany a break. Julia’s sad that Bobby’s avoiding her now, she really liked him. It sucks when that happens, when you lose a friendship over someone liking the other in a non-reciprocating fashion.

Hannah’s trying to page Danny, who’s still lining up ladies for the clients (suuuuuuure), inviting EVERYONE back to the boat. Jerry’s just got to sort out who he’s taking back to the master suite and I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. One sec. It’s not that he’s gross, he looks like a perfectly normal guy, thinning hair, a bit chubby, no goiter I can see, it’s just the presumption that he gets to pick and choose amongst all these very young women as to who he gets to bed because he’s wealthy… but no, really the grossest thing is that he’s probably right.

Daniel FINALLY radios the crew with a status update; they want to come back to the boat in half and hour and oh, have supper in half an hour with 8 extra people. Go team! Hannah looks very drained and Ben looks like HE wants to throw up, but like, angrily: set-up time!

DrunkJerry LOVES Daniel, he’ll party with him ANY time! Not Bobby, pfft.

The guests and THEIR guests arrive at the boat, Hannah sneers “no shoes” at one while interviewing about manners.

2

You know snarling “no shoes” at someone isn’t good manners, right, Hannah? You know that? They don’t know they aren’t supposed to wear shoes, and they ARE kinda guests. Put on that stew face! And don’t have your fingers in your mouth while you’re doing ANYTHING guest-related, I mean.

Drinkies time! PrimaryJerry waxes ecstatic to Captain Mark about DanielSan; calling Bobby a pretender and I don’t know why you’d want to trash someone like that. Bobby’s fine, he just prefers to hunt in packs and maybe his looks take him further at home than they do where rich people hang out.

Julia tries to joke with Bobby, looking at him hopefully with a “are we still friends?” written all over, but he is hella rude, turning away, swearing and trash-talking the guests. His ego is sooooo sore right now, he can’t be friends just this minute. From what I remember, we have a three acts coming in the saga of Julia and Bobbay: Act I: Rude / Pretend Indifference from Bobbay, followed by Act II: Bobbay trying to pick up someone he thinks is hotter to make out with in front of Julia and ending with Act III: Making a slightly more muted run at Julia, who will be so.over.it by that point. We’ll see if any or all of that happens!

Danny’s dressed for work now, which disappoints the girls especially, but I’m pretty sure he’s still drunk. He offers to help the interior crew setting up for supper, but doesn’t ACTUALLY help, aside from slurring “I got you” in their direction. Buffet style supper! Danny helps Ben and apologizes for the extra work, is he going to pay him more too, Ben wants to know?

The stews are dressing for dinner service, Julia concerned about the shortness of her dress, it must have shrunk. Hannah advises her to not bend over, she’ll be pregnant by the time she gets back up with this lot, hahahaha. She would.

Hannah’s horrified by this group of drunky millionaires and their wannabe yacht girls, she thinks they should have stayed at the bar and had some buckets of chicken. Jerry offers Danny a job even! And then loudly trash-talks Bobby, which again: not necessary. Danny’s the Charter King!

Julia sums up what’s wrong with how Danny interacts with the guests: she calls him a salesman, he’s acting instead of working and I absolutely agree. He’s selling personality as hard as he can and some guest really dig that, like drunk horny millionaires from the States that want to get laid. I’m remembering the lizard-like one from Below Deck that gave Kate such a hard time about her RBF. There is no way he’d be impressed with Danny, OR want to hang out with him. He likes actual service.

Bobby isn’t taking this very well. Like really really. This client is Danny’s kind of client, though. You can’t argue with the guests about who they like. It’s essentially the reason why I would never go on a boat like this, even if I sold off all my non-vital organs to do so; I don’t like so many people around fetching shite for me. I dig privacy. I wonder if these guests are similarly un-unsed to being waited on hand and foot and that’s why they’ve bonded with Danny so quickly: he’s not our servant, he’s our FRIEND!! There’s no class structure! Or they’re drunk and Danny got them girls. One of those.

Primary Jerry doesn’t care about all this fantastic food, he just wants milkshakes with rum. He mentions that eleventy thousand times, didja catch that, Ben?

Jerry’s at Daniel again, he thinks he looks like Ralph Macchio and he even has a bandana! Bryan gives up and asks the captain if he’s okay with Danny interacting with the guests this much? No, keep him in the galley and I’d love to see them try!

Bryan’s busting Jen’s hump over her re-washing of the windows; she needs to do them a third time, interviewing that he’s concerned about her lack of enthusiasm and motivation. How the HELL do you get enthusiastic and motivated about washing the same window three times for guests that are seeing double anyhow?

Hannah HATES it when Danny’s in the galley, he’s always in the way and really doesn’t do much other than make faces at the guests as they scream “DANIELSAN!!” around the sliding door. Hannah’s decided to take this personally

Ben’s milkshakes bring all the drunks to the yard, woo hoo! They love them! Tiffany asks Hannah “how’s your head” and it’s like nobody knows the answer to that any more!! Break it down for us, Miss Fame:

And it's WEDNESDAY, BITCHES!!
And it’s WEDNESDAY, BITCHES!! WOO HOO!!

Daniel’s even gotten his bandana off, delighting Jerry, but everyone else is just ready for it to be OVER. Me too! The boys go into the turn; are any of the ladies staying overnight? One of the really old guys helps explain what they mean by getting a ride with the old finger through the circle move… so classy. NONE of the women take them up on their offer and all is right with the world. They leave on a tender while Jerry forlornly shouts “you have my number!!” at all and sundry. I’m sure some MRA type is foaming at the mouth right now about these women not “paying” for dinner and drinks with their bums, awww, win some and lose some, fellas.

Hannah’s wants to fight with Ben about their continuing miscommunication re: service; which goes okay, but when she presses re: his use of Danny in the galley, he pushes back HARD. It’s his galley, if he wants Danny in there, in there will DanielSan be. She shuts down immediately.

The next day is beautiful, but Captain Mark is worried about the wind, it’s picking up. As per my prediction of behaviour above, Hannah’s decided to mess with Bobby because she’s mad at Ben. She doesn’t know if it’s a girl-thing or a me-thing, but Imma call it a young-human-thing. You did not agree with me and I like you, so I will go flirt with someone else. In this particular case, practically sitting on Bobby’s neck. I mean.

Jerry’s up in the wheelhouse asking about the weather; he can’t control the weather, Primary Jerry!! Ben’s pissed that nobody told him the guests were awake, now he’s rushing to get food out. Tiffany is funning around with the guests, who want to know what kind of shenanigans they got up to the previous evening. She just needs a bandana to really sell it.

Ben’s serving lamb chops for breakfast to hungover guests, whuuuut? They dig in, though, then it’s time for water toys! I was just thinking how awesome it would be to be on such fancy equipment when Jen shames me AND the guests; these jetskis are old as shit, but so are the guests, they can handle it.

Daniel’s talking to a subdued Primary Jerry, calling it his favourite charter so far. There’s a weather issue arising, so they need to get going. Docking is going to be tricky and Captain Mark is worried. Bryan lays out the responsibilities very clearly while the guests eat inside and watch the waves.

Bryan was very clear with Jen about what she was supposed to be doing, but that’s not what she did, making docking very difficult. Bryan’s very frustrated with her this charter, no enthusiasm, no motivation, and too much slack on the line.

Danny and Jerry are upping the bromance stakes; they’re gonna be Facebook pals! And Danny’s got Jerry’s email address so he can email the pictures. This is just creepy. I mean. What’s Jerry gonna do? Keep in contact with a third deckhand he met for 24 hours in the Mediterranean? What would they have to talk about?  Danny’s sharing pics he took of the Tilted Kilt models as well, is that kosher? Would they like it if he shared photos of them drooling all over random ladies of the sea?

Bryan’s trying to figure out what’s gonna work with Jen; asking what kind of boats she’s worked on before. Maybe the big 20 member crews are more her style? She DID like the professionalism on those boats and I can see that. Old fratbro boss Bryan and his preferred newb deckhand Bobby is about as far from professional as you can imagine. Bryan calls that false entitlement.

TIP TIME!!! So ‘CITED! Oh noooooo, Jerry’s decided to do two tips: one for everyone and an MVP Tip. Guess who’s gonna get that one? NO, GUESS?? See? Jerry is fully aware Danny is working for him, even though he treated him like a friend, he’s just paying him extry! He wants Danny to be in his aging entourage. I bet the other crew members are not gonna like it… and he calls Daniel over to give it to him personally, oh man. HAHAHAHA and the Captain takes it from Danny.

Hannah’s working Bobby hard, mentioned his bed and laying on him while upright, she must be really REALLY mad at Ben this time.

Danny’s getting text messages from his new friends, everyone but Ben is OVER it. Splitting the tip time! Let’s see if Danny will get extry! He doesn’t, it’s all for one and one for all aship, so his $500 Euros gets rolled into: not a great tip. $14,000 Euros, so $1180 each American. Eeh, not bad but I think everyone was expecting more from the clearly ecstatic leaving charter guests.

Bryan rakes Daniel over the coals again, reinforcing Daniel’s role; this is not that standard of how we operate. Bryan interviews that he’s not trying to be a mean boss… I will just leave that right there.

Hannah’s still obsessing about Ben, but also thinks Bobby’s adorable, when he’s not speaking. Julia thinks Hannah and Bobby bouncing would be a GREAT thing!

Supper time at the Flamingo! Hannah’s flirting with Bobby a LOT, and I don’t know if it’s because Ben’s right beside her or what, but it’s super obvious. Of all the boys, only Daniel dressed for dinner and I dig that. All the girls look lovely!

Ben and Hannah are getting into it now at the table; blah blah you threw me under the bus blah you threw ME under the bus blah generous side blah etc etc. Hannah has no interest in being friendsicles with someone who would do that and Danny has HAD it. He accuses her of chasing drama and having an ugly personality, over and over and over while all you can hear is everyone else saying “Danny! Danny! Dannnnny!”. She pushes him and they step to each other and it ends with their showdown. Meh

I guess whether you see Danny’s interaction with the guests as over the line or an essential part of the service is probably based on how much you think the average person paying $200,000.00 a week for a yacht wants to have a third deckhand yelling fake Karate words at them. In this case, it worked out. In another case? Who knows. I would err on the side of professionalism, but clearly Jerry dug it, so…until next week, keep your lines slack, but not TOO slack, ifyouknowwhatImean.