We’re back for the second half of our charter on Below Deck Mediterranean, that means we have a tip AND a night of drunken crew shenanigans ahead of us, wooooo! Let’s roll into my Below Deck Med S5:E06 Oh Snap recap after the break!
Okay! To ‘cap the recap, we’ve got guests Primary Justin Thornton and 7 friends cruising the high seas on The Wellington, except…they’re not actually able to cruise anywhere. The weather sucks so Captain Sandy Yawn and crew have been stuck at the dock trying their hardest to make it a SUPER fancy and fun floating hotel experience for everyone. I think most of the guests are having fun, except that one guy. You know there’s always that one guy. Our other guests are: Zachary Messenger, Leon Glore, Yuki and Motoko Harata, Jane Zhao and Daniel Rauscher. I’m missing someone! I’ll try to figure out who.
So we open where we left, with the guests playing with water toys on a beach they can’t drink or be sheltered on. I sort of get the no-glass-containers rule on a fancy beach, but not the no-tents thing. The guests don’t understand either, they want to go back on the boat, although Primary Justin is having a blast playing with his dog Mr. Scout. You remember Mr. Scout!
Unfortunately, there are no dogs allowed on the actual boat, so there’s a dog nanny (DOG.NANNY) bringing Primary Justin’s furbs to him for a cuddle. All of this makes absolute sense to me.
Chief steward Hannah Ferrier is working with deckhand Alex Radcliffe to clean up the beach, serve drinkies and find out where the hell the tender is to get these guests back to the comfort of the yacht. It’s not going well.
*Was Alex always that tall? He’s legit a giant.
So there are two groups of guests, one that wants to go back to the boat and the other that is having fun with the water toys. Hannah can’t reach bosun Malia White who has the tender and the water toy guests, so she finally calls for cars to take the guests back. They’ve also added four more people that they met in the club the night before and.
That’s not okay.
I mean, it’s sort of okay, if you rented a house you could have as many people as you wanted stay there, right? But what if you also had to feed everyone and you had already paid based on a certain number? I dunno. If I chartered a mega-yacht, I’d want to bring as many people as I felt like but then I’d give lots of notice because I’m notoriously Canadian.
Hindrigo “Kiko” Lorran is freaking out in the galley, not only does he have four extra people to cook for, they’ve requested a six course menu for dinner for everyone.
That seems like a planning issue, maybe if they had preference sheets longer than two hours before everyone showed up, the chef could be a little better prepared and 56% less panicky.
Communication is finally restored! Captain Sandy can finally reach Malia and Hannah’s in there too, woooo! Everyone makes it back to the boat, the guests are happy and hitting the giant rosé bottle, laying out in the sun while Kiko quietly panics and the crew unpacks and puts away the picnic.
Here is the main problem Hannah and the crew are running into: the group of eight has split into two factions, one of whom asks for snacks and the other who actually snags the snacks. Hannah should not be shittalking under her breath about having to make a second snack tray, especially to Primary Justin. That’s just poor service.
Lead deckhand Pete Hunziker is still trying to come to terms with not being the boss AND answering to a woman, it shows in how he interacts with Malia, calling her sweetheart and being slightly saucy on the radio.
Third steward Jessica More is in the laundry room when Alex comes in to talk about second steward Christine “Bugsy” Drake. Does Jessica think Bugsy liiiiiiiiikes him? Does she want to kiiiiisssssss him? Jessica hasn’t heard anything (pretty sure Bugsy’s been on onboard maybe 24 hours at this point) but I bet Bugsy does like him! He’s cute and funny and super tall all of a sudden.
Bugsy is getting the table set in her inimitable fashion when Jessica comes up to see if she can slowly help. Jessica even listens slowly, she doesn’t understand what Bugs is staying over the radio. That’s okay, Bugsy speaks American! She shows Jessica how to make a lotus flower out of a napkin; she’s used to teaching people like her adorable younger brother and sister.
In between ironing napkins, Jessica flirts with deckhand Rob Westergaard, another South African like Bugsy but oddly: one Jessica can understand. Well. Rob doesn’t talk much, but he’s cute, at least my mom and Jessica think so.
I think Bugsy’s cute as a button but the deckhands are all sort of making a run at her in an unexpected way. Pete brushes something off her shoulder in an extended way that doesn’t make her happy.
The guests dress for dinner as Kiko continues to freak out about supper, poor guy. 72 courses! And he only has 23 oysters!
First course is one of those oysters with a tangerine sorbet:
Primary Justin watches videos of Mr. Scout between courses, the second is Brazilian Moqueca, sea bass stew. Hannah seriously needs to stop calling it “mo-caca”.
The guests demolish it, not a shrimp left for scraping. On we go to Spain for our third course of shrimp and peppers.
Everyone from the interior and the deck crew is helping get these 72 plates out, Captain Sandy is ecstatic that Hannah and Bugsy are able to work together so well.
Our Japanese fourth course means we’re past the halfway point!
Kiko gives us Italy on a plate with his white truffle risotto and filet for the fifth course.
The final course is a bacon ice cream representing the United States hahahaha.
Captain Sandy is blown away by Kiko’s food, his passion, his excellence, creativity and delivery.
Primary Justin stops by the galley to say thanks to Kiko, awww, I love it when the guests are decent people. The four extra guests depart and the party moves to the hot tub deck. They want snackies, but don’t wake up the chef!
I LOVE that they say that, when’s the last time you saw a bunch of wealthy people A) acknowledge the hard and extra work of those around them and B) were aware that those feeding them are actual humans with a need for rest?
Hannah’s gonna round up food, but it’s just tacky when she says “then you go to bed, yeah?” They’re there to have a good time, H. Cut up some more cheese and open another giant bottle of rosé. You can sleep when they’re gone and not paying you a metric tonne of cash to get them pretzels.
The guests are so nice that they’re telling Alex to go to bed, but he can’t because they’re up and it’s kind of his job to make sure nobody drowns. Primary Justin even says Alex should go out with them in New York.
Oh calm down, he was just being nice, Alex.
This feels like a bigger group than usual, I can’t keep score of who’s who and what group they’re in. There are the Haratas, lovely and quiet, pretty Jane, Ken-Doll-like Primary Justin, obnoxious Leon (who seems less obnoxious this half) and a bunch of other guys that I can’t differentiate.
It’s 3:30 before the gang heads to bed and later still for Hannah and Alex going to bed and I just remembered I have those same chips somewhere in my pantry…
It’s 6:30 am already, Jessica and Pete get up to get this last day on charter started, followed by a bleary Kiko. I’m shocked that the guests are already up, Jessica getting coffee for Primary Justin before 7 am. They just went to bed! He orders breakfast and hits the hot tub while the rest of the guests start to make their way on deck.
Bugsy hits the galley half an hour early for her shift – EARLY. Bugsy. This is why Hannah hated working with you and Captain Sandy loves you.
Pete is also loving the Bugsy, he’s come up with a plan: The Unit is going to play it cool. Just a quick review of what Bugsy thinks of Pete touching her:
He just sits across the galley and stares at her, literally stares at her as she gets more and more uncomfortable.
Mr. Scout is brought to The Wellington, time for guest departure and the TIP!!!!! How can this be the same morning? It feels like 8 mornings today already.
Primary Justin does a quick goodbye speech with Mr. Scout in hand then hands over an envelope I couldn’t gauge.. time to wipe down the boat and count the loot!
Captain Sandy doesn’t say much in the tip meeting and hands over…$17,000 USD, which works out to $1277 each. I don’t think that’s bad but everyone looks crestfallen and a caption at the bottom tells us that the usual tip should be $20,000 USD. I mean, no offense, but they didn’t leave the dock the whole time. That’s a fucktonne of money for a floating hotel AND tip.
Rob walks into the crew mess where Hannah is talking about his Instagram post with his girlfriend; Jessica looks weirded right out. Saying you’re missing someone’s touch on Insta with a picture of you kissing someone, that’s not a casual relationship, right? Not just “seeing someone” and especially since he’s been enjoying Jessica’s touch lately.
Okay, that was posted before he and Jessica hooked up, whew. By hooked up I mean they shared a bunk with their clothes on.
Malia takes a call from her boyfriend Tom. He’s a chef, has an accent and is coming to visit, whee! Can’t wait to meet him!
Everyone gets fancy for a night out, I wonder how Bugsy’s gonna handle all this deckhand attention. Alex is adorable, I’d say go for him, Bugs! The gorgeous group heads to a beautiful outside restaurant for supper, nobody’s sloppy drunk yet so let’s just enjoy it.
Alex and Bugsy are seated at one end of the table, Pete’s off in No Mans Land at the other end. Pete says he’s not jealous, he’s just missing former second steward Lara Flumiami who bailed after too many fights with Hannah. It was seriously ugly and I totally respect that he’s feeling a bit sad and missing his person. They did hit it off ridiculously well.
Jessica and Rob are cuddled up by Pete, Hannah can’t take it any longer. While everyone talks about how cute they are, she asks Rob pointblank if he and his girlfriend are in an open relationship. He immediately denies that the woman is his girlfriend while Jessica tries to sink into the floor in embarrassment.
Rob goes on to say he broke things off with that woman, he wouldn’t be here messing with Jessica if he hadn’t. Jessica is clearly uncomfortable and I respect that Hannah was looking out for her but that was messy.
Alex! Your shirt!
He promises to keep Pete at bay and have a chat with him if he gets out of line. I appreciate that. Sometimes guys don’t understand unless it comes from another guy.
Hannah pulls Bugsy aside to ask if things are going well for her, is she okay coming back to work with such a lousy chief stew? (Those are the exact words Bugsy used when confronting Hannah three years ago) Bugsy doesn’t bite, she says it’s been great and she had hoped for the best since it’s been so many years. They’ve found a mutual respect!
*tense music*
Shots shots shots shots! Alex unbuttons his shirt, wooooo! Then Bugsy sits in his lap, holds hands with him and you see what a supportive teddy bear he is.
Jessica and Rob climb into his bed to cuddle, Bugsy and Alex get the hot tub going and he gets in…in his ginch? Malia comes to join them, she’s the only one sober enough to notice that the heater is turned off, Alex and Bugs are sitting in ice cold splashy water. Malia hears Alex saying he and Bugs are “low-key in love” and bails after Bugsy screams with laughter and points gleefully at Alex’s boxer shorts when told it’s cold.
Alex bangs his way along the corridor back to his bed, ricocheting off walls until he gets to his room where Pete is sweettalking Lara on the phone.
Bugsy is hung to the nuts the next morning, but she’s up early! I’ll give her that! She’s worried that she kissed Alex, but he sets her mind at ease right away.
Ah Rob. It’s Rob’s anniversary of his 10 year sober anniversary from Narcotics Anonymous. He went to rehab with his mom and now he’s crying and we’re crying, oh my goodness. His mom’s death gave him the strength to carry on, to make a better life because he didn’t want to perpetuate this pattern. Man. I was not expecting that kind of emotional involvement on Below Deck Mediterranean.
And then we’re in the crew mess with Pete bragging about “banging my stewardesses” to Bugsy and I feel my equilibrium return. He says he’s going to undress Lara “with my f&*^%$& teeth” and yeah. He can’t really think this is okay.
Upstairs, Jessica is working alone on the cabins when she accidentally slams a door on her finger, sounds like it’s broken. Yikes. We’re out!
