Below Deck Mediterranean Recap: Abandoned Anchor
Gael finally realizes she shouldn’t be tied down, but a little too late to spare her long-distance boyfriend.
Too often this week we’re told how terribly something could go and then it’s fine. I’m the unwilling participant in a butt workout with all the cheek clenching and unclenching. The worst thing I saw in this episode was Gael’s boyfriend’s text: “Could use an update. Thanks.” That is a text you send to a co-worker you hate or the Spectrum installation guy who said he’d be there two hours ago. Not to your girlfriend! The punctuation — thanks PERIOD — is a clear kiss of death for this relationship. More on that later.
The immediate drama at hand is that the anchor is stuck on the ocean floor because of a broken windlass. They can’t take the guests back to port in the tender because Iain forgot to charge its battery. It’s like waking up to the awful realization that you forgot to plug your phone in the night before, if that mistake could cost upwards of $65,000 if they have to buy a new anchor. Lucky for Iain, it turns out not to be his fault because the second officer wasn’t turning the intrepid on correctly. Sandy decides to leave the anchor, running the risk of losing it. They put a buoy on the chain so it can be retrieved later. As the deck crew prepares to drop the anchor, Joe tells us, “Someone could get hurt, if not die.” This does not happen. It’s fine, and I’m annoyed by the melodramatics, which are far from over.
The anchor issues put the boat three-plus hours behind schedule, so the guests will miss their flights out. Trishelle is supposed to host people at her house that night. It feels like it could get tense, but her husband is a Delta pilot, so she’s not really concerned. All the guests are incredibly laid-back about the situation. They see it as extending the vacation, and Aesha keeps them in decent spirits with plenty of drinks.
The Mustique finally sails to the port, which is two hours away, so taking the tender doesn’t seem like it was ever a realistic option. The wind is getting worse, threatening their docking ability. Boy, have we seen this one before. Joe takes too long to drop a fender, but the docking is ultimately fine. It’s yet another build-up of suspense that goes nowhere. Sandy can tell Nathan has more experience than Joe and designates him as the bow contact. Joe can’t even tie lines properly. Any rock-climbing tech bro or 12-year-old skipper at summer camp knows their knots; how doesn’t he?! Sandy asks Iain if he’s chosen a lead deckhand, prompting me to do a double take when we realize Iain never told the captain he chose Joe on day one. Sandy says he should reassess: Nate works circles around Joe, who’s merely a good talker. She thinks Iain didn’t read their CVs, and it’s a red flag he didn’t check with her first.
Iain is incompetent not only in leadership but also in flirting. He thinks he’s been playing the long game with Ellie and is ready to make his interest known. Unfortunately for him, Ellie says he has no shot with her. This feels a bit mean on her part, but also, we understand. When Iain compliments her lipstick, Ellie makes her feelings clear by turning instead to Joe for outfit advice. Iain awkwardly butts in: “I concur. Bodysuit.” As the guests depart, Brittany compliments Sandy on running a tight, perfect ship. This is obviously untrue, given the delay, but they leave a $25,000 tip nonetheless. Who wants to look like a bad tipper on TV, right?
Aesha, now an official Marsha Doll Model, holds an interior team meeting, reminding the stews to watch how they speak to each other. Ellie pushes back, saying they don’t have time to be overly sensitive about every word. She insists that they all — clearly meaning Bri — should work on “how we take things.” Aesha can tell the issue isn’t fully resolved but will keep an eye on it. As will all of us.
A team comes to repair the windlass while another emergency-services crew fetches the anchor. I’m disappointed we don’t get to see the retrieval. Later, “Zea Marina” texts Sandy that the anchor is there for delivery. That’s just the name of the marina, but I love that it looks like how you’d save a person, Zea who works at the marina, in your phone. The whole process was cheaper than buying a new anchor but still expensive at $40,419.93. Very exact, those Bravo accountants. Also a great reminder to never buy a boat.
The crew night out is at Six d.o.g.s, a club name whose periods I cannot find the meaning in, unlike Gael’s boyfriend’s passive-aggressive periods. Nathan and Gael lick salt off each other for tequila shots. Jono correctly assesses the pair: “It’s gonna happen.” Back on the boat, Gael worries about being a heartbreaker, but she thinks Nathan is different. Sure, he’s different because he’s in front of her now. She could also save her boyfriend some pain by breaking up with him before kissing another guy, but she seems too afraid to do the breaking up, so she goes ahead and kisses Nathan. The next morning, Gael shows her boyfriend’s sad texts to Jono. Jono asks, “Do you feel like you’re trying?” and I applauded. He could add therapist to the architect-chef title. However, Gael does think she’s trying because she’s always on her phone. Jono gently suggests maybe they need a break. She doesn’t want to disappoint her boyfriend, but it’s definitely too late for that. She explains that growing up, she never heard “good job,” only “you can do better.” I guess the analogy is that now she’s looking for a better boyfriend? Or is it that she knows she could do better by cleanly breaking up with her boyfriend before kissing her co-worker? Whatever the reasoning, she has found that distance does not always make the heart grow fonder.
On the Joe-Ellie-Bri love triangle front, Joe goes to Aesha for advice, and she asks him to take the night off from the girls. He wants to be professional and agrees taking a step back is for the best. He tells Bri he doesn’t want to do anything right now, and she’s okay with that. Again, all that lead-up for nothing. It’s like they keep inflating a balloon, teasing how exciting it’ll be to see it pop, but then just slowly and safely let the air out.
With Joe taking the night off, Ellie’s lace bodysuit isn’t attracting the guy she wanted it to. Iain turns on the cringe: “There’s a lot of people telling you you’re beautiful. I’m another one.” She tries to shut down the conversation, saying she’s “a person of few words.” Iain claims he is too, then continues talking and talking. He drunkenly confesses he’s not connecting with people as much as he wants. Ellie gives solid advice: Ask people about themselves and listen. So he asks her … about himself. That is, if she’s interested in him. She leaves to dance and he follows her, talking the whole time and missing all her social cues.
And Bri is once again missing laundry, specifically Sandy’s. The captain says this is incident No. 4, or maybe 5, and while it’s not a fireable offense, Bri needs to develop a better system. Bri knows she’s making mistakes but insinuates that Ellie might be sabotaging her, so she’s going to log everything for “receipts, bitch.” If this were true, I think we’d get to see footage of Ellie’s rearranging. I won’t be mad if petty rivalry finally motivates Bri to be good at her job.
Sandy doesn’t have time to look for her missing shirt because she’s checking the wind and reports on wildfires north of Athens. It’s difficult to create suspense over events that happened a year ago. (HBO’s The Newsroom, anyone?) While we know the fire won’t reach the Mustique, we don’t know what will happen when a giant superyacht docks right in front of them. Typically, Sandy wouldn’t leave in these conditions, but she wants to avoid the smoke rolling in. The wind dies down enough, and they’re off. From sea level, it looks like they’re heading straight into the huge yacht. From above, it looks fine, like getting out of a wide parallel-parking spot. But the Mustique is close to the other boat’s lines, so the episode ends on a “to be continued.” They want me to clench my cheeks until next week, but I’m no longer falling for it.