This is it! The end of Below Deck Mediterranean for…how long? Do we know? COVID is messing with every industry it can, I can’t imagine when people will be allowed to be all up on each other like that in a small space again. ANYWAY, let’s find out what’s happening with THIS gang THIS season on Below Deck Med S5:E20 A Mighty Wind and quickly since I’m already super late.
It’s just been a week, y’all! I didn’t mean to let the last known episode of Below Deck Med float around for so long but if it could happen this week: it did. It wasn’t all bad, in fact most of it was awesome, but it all took time and here we are.
We open with a review of the season, HOW did we have this much drama this year??? HOW?? We lost so much staff, none more important than longtime chief steward Hannah Ferrier because she didn’t declare her medication. Apparently that’s a big deal; is it as big a deal as bosun Malia White going into Hannah’s bag to take photos of said medication? I dunno, but it was shady af. Captain Sandy Yawn earned a lot of my ire for firing Hannah then yelling at Hannah for not appreciating how hard it was for her, Captain Sandy, to fire her and how much she cared. It’s like when someone cheats on you and insists on telling you about it so THEY can feel better and are annoyed when you don’t forgive them immediately and move on. In that scenario, Captain Sandy was the one following Hannah screaming “Okay, so I DON’T F****** CARE THEN.” You know, as we expect from senior management.
We didn’t just lose Hannah, we lost obstreperous second steward Lara Flumiani after her mouth wrote a cheque her skill level couldn’t carry and earned all of Hannah’s anger.
Lara left almost immediately after the start of the season, she just had time to get some dirty texts from deckhand Peter ‘The Unit’ Hunziker. You’re not going to see what else happened with him during that time because he was fired by Bravo for an apparently racist post on Instagram. Pete cried when Lara left, mere days after meeting her, but they seemed to have found their way into some kind of long distance attachment.
Pete himself went from Lead Deckhand to Just Deckhand for calling his boss Malia “sweetie” and undermining her authority, as well as telling super gross “jokes” to female crew in the mess.
So Hannah was the most shocking staffing loss, Lara was the most expected but the saddest for me was when awesome Brazilian chef Hindrigo ‘Kiko’ Lorran went home after an ill-conceived Las Vegas dinner. It wasn’t just that, of course, he had a string of unfortunate dinners after Captain Sandy completely undermined his confidence. Kiko is an artist, which is a tough gig at best and when your manager does everything they can to call your work into question, it’s rough for anyone.
So he left and oh, what a coincidence, Captain Sandy’s good friend and mentee Malia had a chef boyfriend who just happened to be coming for a visit the.day.Kiko.got.fired.
We got Tom Chekkets for the rest of the season and while it was only a couple of charters, it felt like 687 because Tom is a whiny, whiny diiiiiiiiiiiiiiijerk. He’s also an artist, like Kiko, but with more technically trained skill and 1000% more obnoxiousness. He’s the only reason I am glad this season is over. Okay maybe also because of a couple of people we’re gonna meet shortly.
Wow, sounds like I had a problem with Captain Sandy this whole season and I’d say maybe half the time? You’ve all heard me wax poetic about how much I love her management style, empowering but involved, but this was not my favourite season with her. She leads with her feelings and hey, that works for her most of the time. I just wasn’t crazy about her lack of protection for her staff. I remember her dragging out a preference sheet at a client to back up a previous chef, this time she fired a chef after an extremely successful charter with ecstatic guests. You’ll have to explain it to me, I got nothing.
What was that?
And we had returning people to replace those that left, too! Christine ‘Bugsy’ Drake came back, first as second steward to replace Lara then as chief steward to replace Hannah. She never faltered, or thought too much about the nachos she should never have served, she just kept rolling. She rolled right into the arms of deckhand Alex Radcliffe, who earned a lead deckhand role for the last charter and all of Bugsy’s regard.
The last to join and oddly the most contentious staffer right now is second steward Aesha Scott, who came on when Bugsy got her sudden promotion. Aesha’s a ball of laughs, profane and funny but right in the middle of some super gross relationship dramz between third steward Jessica More and deckhand Robert Westergaard. I’m kind of sad that Aesha’s legacy from this season will be this picture of her grabbing Rob’s butt in front of Jessica.
Okay, let’s get back to what’s happening now. Oh wait, it’s still this shite fighting between Rob and Jessica in their bunk.
*SIGH*
So. Jessica has been planning to go to Bali after the charter season. It’s kind of a bucket list thing, and since Rob dropped the L word after 2 weeks, she invited him along. He didn’t really answer, but eventually changed his tickets to surprise her.
She did not take that as a *good* surprise, even though she was happy he was coming with her, she was mostly focused on the fact that he was super good at keeping this surprise from her. I’d like to start making MREEP MREEP alarm noises at this point about this obvious red flag but…how much can you trust someone you’ve been dating for 30 seconds who told you he loves you? She’s still getting to know him, she’s in the information gathering stage so “Good at lying by omission for surprise purposes” could legit be alarming.
But also: she cray.
He changed his tickets the last charter, I think? And a whole three or four days later has decided to do a crossing to the Bahamas to advance his career instead.
*SIGH*
Malia gets tapped to take superyacht The Wellington out of anchorage, this is the Captain Sandy we know and love! She gives people opportunities to learn and grow!
Oh wait, right, we’re still on our last charter of the season! Very last day, guys, only a few hours left to not kill each other, yay!
There are three Primary charter guests this time ’round: Primary Zaida Brown, Primary Hannah Yu and Primary Erin Grace. Everyone but Primary Zaida is relatively relaxed and fun, I worry about her. She seems down most of the time and is almost never happy with her food.
She’s not happy with how long it takes to get her food, either. We got a lovely passive aggressive gem in her comment to Primary Hannah that she didn’t have to wait for her, since it took so long for her to get her food…Primary Hannah is super nice and chill, I have to wonder if Primary Zaida is always like this or if she’s feeling a bit out of her element and uncomfortable. She always looks forlorn waiting for her food, as she always is.
Bugsy takes everyone’s breakfast orders and reflects on her time in yachting, which she’s not quite ready to leave.
Rob smears his shite all over the bridge by telling Alex about the upcoming crossing; Alex gets all my high fives for telling Rob straight up he doesn’t want to be involved. None of us want to be involved in Rob and Jess’s drama but here we are.
Alex and Jessica worked boats together before too, so Alex likes to stay neutral when possible.
Everyone is so ready for this season to be OVER!
It’s a fraught docking thanks to an unruly ground line, but Malia guides our giant ship into port and we getta say goodbye to all our Stay At Home Mom guests. Bye guys! Primary Hannah does the going away speech about how nice it is to be pampered for once while we all do that thing that dogs do when you hold a treat in one hand but expect their attention elsewhere.
Basically she said Something Something *tip envelope moved* *tracking with our eyes* Something Something *tip envelope moved again*
She had on some awesome shiny pink aluminum foil shorts too!
Everyone drops their dress whites immediately and switches into polos for boat cleaning, last tip meeting of the season!! I am going to go on record hoping for $22,000 USD* to take us out on a high note.
*Only if Primary Zaida didn’t get a vote.
Okay, it’s $20,000 USD, which is $1,750 USD each, that’s alright, yes? They raked in $171,500 USD for this whole season, which means that everyone is taking home just over $14,000 each for six weeks work, on top of their salaries. That’s not bad!
Captain Sandy has prepared a bunch of certificates for the crew, rating them on the Beaufort Scale of…wind? How windy they are? For example, Rob got a 0 on the scale because Captain Sandy never had to worry about him whereas Tom scored a full 10 for being a wanker.
Okay, I maybe added the wanker part. But she was thinking it!!
Jess comes to see Captain Sandy after in tears, she was moved by how Captain Sandy saw her. She’s not always been taken seriously in her life but Captain Sandy saw her willingness to learn and how hard she tried. She did shine once she had more direction, thanks, Bugs!
I guess it’s just another sign that Hannah was checked out this season, but hey, Hannah’s having a kiddo so she don’t curr right now anyway.
It’s the last day and night on ship, so cleanup is calm and easy. Nobody gets too carried away, nobody works too hard, it’s like the last Friday of the summer. Everyone’s just watching the clock and the boss.
Rob wants to go out and have fun tonight, so he’s decided to not tell Jessica he’s not going with her to Bali until the next day. Watching her be this vulnerable, mannnn.
She takes his comment about wanting to have fun and not be serious poorly, saying okay, they’ll be single tonight. But we know that’s not what’s going to happen.
Rob doesn’t give any of this context when he tells the boys in a cab separate from Jess that she said she wants to be single tonight because of course he doesn’t.
If I never ever hear or see Robert Westergaar after the end of this season, it will still be too soon.
Captain Sandy has joined the team for supper, Tom makes a move to mend some fences but she’s all good. She knows he was stressed out and this was a very stressful situation for everyone. I did narrow my eyes slightly when the captain of a yacht said yacht chefs are the best chefs in the world but I guess when you’re a carpenter.
If you understood that sentence, we shall now be friends forever and ever and I shall bake you muffins every other Wednesday.
Their last supper is at a lovely restaurant with magnificent views, a singer and a dancer. Bugsy gets up and dances with them after watching, awww, usually that’s one of the drunk men! They join about 30 seconds later, wooooo!
Jessica is silent all through dinner, staring at Rob out of the corner of her eyes, but caves and asks if everything is okay after Captain Sandy leaves and they’re all en route to the bar.
It’s like watching a train wreck for the second time, you know something bad is going to happen, you even know what, now it’s just a matter of figured out when it’s going to hit.
It spills over while everyone else is cheersing with champagne, you guys, stop. Stop. This is awful to watch, everyone is in pain, this is the opposite of entertaining and it feels…gross.
Jess runs to the bathroom and won’t talk, but hey! The charter guests are here! Formerly Primary Zaida thinks she left her Vans on board, erm, lady, they’re off the clock. Time is up, they don’t have to serve you any more. At all.
Bugsy and Alex cuddle and talk about their relationship, is it that even? He’s been really cute about pursuing her properly and putting himself out there, but she’s slightly more reserved. Good for you, being vulnerable too fast can make you end up like
Ya know? I mean, you can’t get anywhere unless you open up, but when you’ve got someone who’s only in love with infatuation, it can be hella scary.
Rob is talking with former Primary Hannah Yu, they have…something. Some kind of connection. She’s totally keeping it clean, she’s married and all, but he just keeps leading everything into over-deep territory. Well. I mean. She’s the one who insists he smell her shoes, so it’s not all one-sided with the weirdness.
They hang out for a WHILE, when they’re outside chatting Jessica throws her lit cigarette at him as he walks by. I should mention that it looks like some cute guy was chatting her up at that time.
Finally, it’s time to go and once again Rob and Jess have RUINT another night out for everyone. She cries and he seeks comfort from his bros as they head back to The Wellington in separate cabs.
I dislike Rob SO MUCH. SO MUCH. After a quiet night on the ship, he gets up and tells Jessica that he’s doing the crossing, this has just caused him so much damage and he can’t do it any more. When Jess, crying, says he was damaging to her, he says her pain is a gift. To be able to feel it. DOES HE EVEN HEAR HIMSELF?
Perhaps he could go enjoy some of that pain himself, in a dark and cold room.
This is just gross, we’re right in the middle of this fight and we getta see every wrenching detail. Long story short (TOO LATE), he has a ticket to Bali and two days to decide. Get off the boat, you two!!
They pack as everyone else does the same, Malia has to wake the boys up even though it’s late and technically they’re men. Are we getting more shots than usual of Alex’s hairy thighs or is that me? Don’t answer if it’s me, we’ll pretend I never said anything lalalalala.
He’s the first to leave, boooo, I really like disguy. He’s decent and I dig that. Jessica and Rob take off next, SEEYOUBAI.
Aesha is all of us, but with tassels.
I’m shouting more than normal, sorry!
Yay, we get Captions of Truth!
Oh. Okay. Sure. I like Jessica but I kind of feel like I’d normally have to pay to look at her photos so I always flinch at them.
Aesha bails next but no Captions for her? Booo. Nor for Bugsy next, shall we call her Christine coz she’s leaving? Nah. She does meet a baby goat on the dock?
Tom and Malia bid Captain Sandy adieu next, see ya, whatevs, I hate you both hahaha okay not really (yes really).
No Pete goodbye, of course, so we watch Captain Sandy lock up the ship and turn the lights off oh wait!! More Captions of Truth!! Okay, more like Photos of Update but I’m not fussy.
I LOVE YOU KIKO
Until next time, ScriptKiddies! I’ve had a blast recapping and audiocapping this series of Below Deck Mediterranean, thanks for reading along! And for sending emails and following on social media, you know who you are and you’re AWESOME. Cheers!
