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Is Laura the worst stewardess to ever appear on the Below Deck franchise? I know Lara (Mediterranean), Madga (Down Under), Lexi (Med), and Ashley (Sailing Yacht) were awful, but I feel like Laura has reached another level at this point. From her constant undermining of Aesha to her disgusting behavior toward an uninterested Adam, she has zero redeeming qualities.
We pick up in the middle of dinner service with Tzarina scrambling to fix the issue at hand: forgetting the guests’ dietary restrictions. She whips up a salad and gives the red-meat non-eaters the fish portion of the surf-and-turf main course. But to add to the issue, the primary, René, sends back his tomahawk steak because it isn’t cooked the way he wanted. This whole dinner issue could’ve easily been avoided if Tzarina had, as Captain Jason says, been more thorough, but thankfully the guests enjoy the meal anyway. Tzarina presents one guest with a homemade birthday cake, which he subsequently gets his face smashed into. This makes Tzarina want to die since she spent the better part of a day making it.
Back in the galley, Luke tries to kiss Margot, and the way he grabs her neck when attempting to smash her face into the leftover cake is alarming. This foreshadows the unfortunate events that occur during the forthcoming crew night out.
It’s super-rainy and windy the next morning, which concerns Captain Jason. He decides that it’s best they return to the dock later in the day to avoid getting caught in something dangerous, which means the deckhand crew will have to step up and keep the guests occupied. After the guests enjoy a delicious-looking breakfast spread, they play flip cup. Jason uses this fun time to break the news that they’ll be heading back to the dock, and the guests take it well since they also noticed the increasingly rough weather. Elsewhere on the boat, Laura’s still obsessing over using fresh lime juice even though Aesha already told her to use the bottled juice. It’s really not that serious!
Then Sandra informs Tzarina that she’d like for dinner to be arroz con pollo, a traditional Latin American dish, as René’s mother’s memorial dinner. Tzarina isn’t familiar with Cuban cuisine, so she does what any smart chef would do, which is look up recipes online. Sandra also asks for another birthday cake, which wasn’t on a preference sheet. Two cakes in two days is an absurd request, but the guests get what the guests want. Despite a hiccup with the provisioner being unable to deliver chicken until they’re docked, Tzarian knocks it out of the park and fully redeems herself with a meal that, according to René, is “Cuban certified.”
Meanwhile, Adam’s seasickness finally comes back to bite him in the ass. The boat is swaying in the strong winds, which makes him feel sick throughout the day. After Captain Jason asks him to keep watch while he steps away for a few minutes, he returns to find Adam trying (and failing) to hide the fact he’s “turning a different shade of green.” He struggles the rest of the night, and it becomes a bigger issue when they have to dock in the middle of a rainy night. Why he would choose a job that requires him to spend nearly every day in the middle of the ocean continues to be a mystery to me. It’s like being a surgeon who can’t stomach the sight of blood.
Following dinner, René and the guests hold a memorial for his late mother to celebrate her birthday. He speaks a little about how supportive she was of him during a time when they were homeless, and the entire moment just had me in my feels.
Earlier, Laura told us that she’s now set her sights on Adam because Luke isn’t giving her attention, even though Adam has turned her down more times than I can count. She’s delusional to the point where it has just become creepy. In his room, she sniffs him and then names the cologne he’s wearing. I’m going to assume that she went through his stuff because she seems like the type of person to do that. Adam is, rightfully, alarmed by her behavior. Laura later tells us that she’s annoyed that Adam isn’t on the night shift anymore, which brings us to the next morning’s issue.
During breakfast service, Laura has the gall to ask Aesha if they can switch shifts because she’s “tired.” In reality, she just wants to spend time bugging Adam. Aesha says no because she isn’t confident that Margot can handle service, and Laura needs to deal with it and “be a yachtie.” Laura takes offense to this, telling Margot that Aesha was “mean” by implying she isn’t a “real” yachtie. What planet is she on???
Back upstairs, Aesha reminds Laura that she requested a shift change due to fatigue, which Laura claims she never said. Girl, there’s no point in lying when you’re literally on camera. When Aesha reiterates that Margot can’t work lates, Laura boldly counters, “I never meant Margot, honey,” adding that Aesha should be the one to switch, which she obviously can’t do. This situation is mind-blowing because Aesha doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. Laura just won’t accept the fact that she didn’t get her way. I’m proud of Aesha for finally putting her foot down, all the while remaining professional. If I were in her shoes, Laura would be long gone.
When it’s time for the guests to leave, René shows Captain Jason two fat tip envelopes and says that to get the second one, they have to arm wrestle. René wins but gives him both envelopes anyway, and Captain Jason jokes in a confessional that he may or may not have let the primary win. It’s a fun moment in an episode that quickly heads down a dark path. At the tip meeting, Captain Jason reveals that the envelopes contained a whopping $25,000 tip, which is incredible. Adam also gets the disco helmet for obvious reasons.
Then it’s time for the night out, which is where the episode takes a turn for the worse. At the restaurant, Laura is touchy and flirty with Adam throughout the entire evening. She kisses his arm and brushes her hand across his chest despite him telling her multiple times that he just wants them to be friends. He repeatedly tells her no, yet she doesn’t take him seriously. It’s all just a game to her, and it’s genuinely difficult to watch a visibly uncomfortable Adam attempt to gently shut her down. Clearly, picking up on social cues isn’t Laura’s forte because, as Tzarina says, “Babe, he’s just not that into you.”
While everyone gets shit-faced and dances in the middle of the restaurant, Luke, now shirtless for no reason, hugs and kisses Margot. Shortly after, they jump back in the sprinter vans, where Margot is passed out on Luke’s lap, making Aesha grow concerned that he’s going to take advantage of her. The episode shifts to an unsettling tone for its final minutes, becoming something that’s hard to stomach.
When they return to the Northern Sun, Aesha, like the good person she is, is intent on chaperoning Margot and making sure she gets to bed safe and sound. When the power suddenly goes out, a stark-naked Luke takes it as an opportunity to enter Margot’s cabin and climb into her bed while she’s unconscious. This prompts the producers to intervene, repeatedly telling Luke to get out of the bed and leave the room, but he refuses and tells them to “fuck off.” The episode concludes with the producers trying to force the door open as Aesha discovers the situation. The fact that Luke chose to enter Margot’s cabin while the lights were off shows exactly what his intentions were, and thank God the producers were there to stop him before things escalated. Luke is a predator, and him doing this on literal television makes you wonder what else he’s done in the past when cameras weren’t around.
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