overnights

Below Deck Mediterranean Recap: Big Night

Below Deck Mediterranean

Walking on Broken Glass
Season 3 Episode 7
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

Below Deck Mediterranean

Walking on Broken Glass
Season 3 Episode 7
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Below Deck Mediterranean. Photo: Bravo

Is there a scene more emblematic of this season than João in the wheelhouse giggling and driving the boat while Conrad slinks around with a giant bag of trash? Despite being a raging misogynist, João has managed to fool three women on the boat into thinking otherwise — Brooke, Kasey, and Captain Sandy. Meanwhile, Conrad is saddled with Hannah, who is a garbage narcissist, gossip, and — worst of all — 30-year-old raver. That said, I’d still love to share a bottle of rosé with Hannah (on land, where I could escape her secondhand smoke) because she’s the kind of woman who gives you permission to be your bitchiest self.

Somehow, with João at the wheel, no one dies before the tip meeting. This one is a celebration of Kasey, who made grapefruit juice that morning “just in case,” and who Captain Sandy calls out for improved “work ethic.” Everyone claps except Hannah, who still thinks Kasey should be skinned alive and fed to the charter guests for lying on her resumé.

Kasey convenes with human boat-slide João to ask if he noticed that Hannah was the only one who didn’t clap when Captain Sandy recognized her. João goes on to tell Brooke that Hannah is fake and he’s not afraid of her. Captain Sandy pulls Hannah aside to say that she can’t be nasty to people who work for her and expect them to do a good job.

Hannah then goes to Kasey, who’s making beds, to say that she doesn’t want to be a monster to her but she’s “too tired and too stressed” to behave otherwise. In her confessional, she tells producers she’s too busy grocery shopping to teach some girl how to iron. We saw her rolling towels at the top of the episode, but does Hannah do any chores at all on this boat? It seems like she spends her days roaming around looking for people who have a free five minutes to listen to her gossip and LinkedIn-search Kasey in Captain Sandy’s office the rest of the time. But what do I know? I wouldn’t know how to work a boat iron either.

For some reason, the crew gets to eat at a Michelen-starred restaurant, which makes Adam super-annoying because he’s so jazzed about the experience. It’s like going to see Beyoncé with your friend who’s all, “No, but I love Beyoncé” — girl, everyone loves Beyoncé. A defining characteristic, this is not.

Fancy meals you don’t have to pay for are the same — everyone likes that! Yet Adam makes a big stink out of it, like he’s the only one actually appreciating the experience. After Adam revels in the waiter’s five-minute answer to his question about how the lobster is prepared, Hannah and João get in one of their usual fights. “I hope that sip went down with nails,” João tells her, unsatisfied with her lack of eye contact during their cheers. “You’re a fucking psycho,” Hannah says. Then Conrad scurries out of the restaurant to listen to her complain and inhale her cigarette smoke. “You are such a bitch,” he says, giggling and hugging her. Then they make out a little bit before going back inside. Is this what Conrad needs to feel turned on? Someone who verbally abuses others? Maybe what’s really going on in that top bunk each night is Hannah telling him he’s a bad boy who can’t tell one shackle from three.

Back at the table, Hannah is seated across from João, talking about him to Brooke loudly enough so that he can hear. She calls him “a fucking dick,” and says, “‘I hope you swallow a bag of nails’ — isn’t that a bit psychotic?” Then, João somehow, and I don’t know how else to describe it, breaks a glass at her. Over to Adam, who lives in a van: “That could have happened at the last restaurant and not the nicest meal of my life.”

The crew then splits into two vans: João, Kasey, Brooke, and the bottle of wine they’re drinking each other’s backwash from get one, and the rest get in another. Somewhere around here, João says everyone he’s ever dated has cheated on him, and the editors cut to a shot of him shirtless on a bed in Zimbabwe holding a snake.

They get to an outdoor drinking establishment, and Brooke passes out in a chair. One of the guys puts a plaid shirt over her, and Hannah — who is her boss — starts taking selfies with her. João claims this bothers him, although I’m sure it only bothers him inasmuch as it gives him a reason to fight with Hannah. “Brooke can’t speak for herself — she’s sleeping, right?” João says. “I’ll be her voice.”

He tries to get Hannah to stop with the photos, which restarts their fight. The editors bleeped this line heavily, but I’m pretty sure he says: “I’m not asking for a cock-juggling thundercunt like you to come out and be an asshole.” Then they haul Brooke into a van where she sprawls across Hannah and Conrad. And Kasey may have learned to work the juicer, but she hasn’t learned much else since two episodes ago, and says she’s still got the hots for João (!).

The next morning, Hannah tells Brooke João tried to stop her from taking photos of Brooke while she was passed out. Brooke’s takeaway is that João is a gentleman (!).

Now sober and able to reflect on the night before, Conrad says he finds João’s comments to Hannah “unacceptable” — which, if he really liked her, wouldn’t he use stronger language here?! If João called me a “cock-juggling thundercunt” and my husband didn’t come up with an equally bizarre and potent insult I’d be furious. Anyway, Conrad says he’s just trying to keep things professional, which is why he doesn’t take it out on João — but does bone Hannah in her bed above her direct report.

After Hannah spends the day eating ham and gossiping with Adam in the kitchen, it’s time for her to go out and drink again. So she throws on a tablecloth and a belt and Conrad puts on his white shirt and they go to dinner, where she talks about how she “just” went to Ultra Music Festival and it was the greatest trip ever #bestlife #roseallday etc. What did this Hannah do with the Hannah in the first episode who just wanted to become a mom? Unless wine moms go to Ultra Music Festival now?

The next day, the new guests arrive and are just awful. When the primary sees the master suite, he says, “This is where the magic happens.” At which point, I don’t know about Kasey, but I got seasick and vomited out my window. The women with him change into their bathing suits and start complaining because they need to mainline colored gumballs, but the only ones immediately available are white. Hannah says the multi-colored gumball request is one of the strangest she’s ever gotten — and she’s had to book hookers!

Shoutout to this week’s lunch centerpiece, which includes green glass stones and a desiccated starfish instead of the usual dusty old fart of coral. Later that afternoon, Hannah takes the dinner order, and the guests claim that they just want one course of whitefish and that’s it.

If Hannah and Adam had half a brain between them, they would realize that these guests have been drinking all day, eating nothing but gum, and will definitely need more than a dainty piece of fish and a couple tablespoons of pureed celeriac, and at least prepare some backup cocktail egg-rolls. But they don’t, and after the guests spend hours getting ready like they’re Kardashians, the primary goes down into the kitchen to find out where the food is because “people are fading.”

I don’t know anything about working on a boat or waiting on garbage people, but I know this: You don’t spend all day drinking and then three hours putting on makeup to have a single piece of fish and call it an early night. I can’t wait to watch them complain about their branzino and then force Adam to make them grilled cheese and pasta next week.

Below Deck Mediterranean Recap: Big Night