Photo: Bravo
Hallelujah! Below Deck Down Under is alive! After four arduous episodes of beating Wihan’s dead horse, conflict is finally escalating again. Maybe the excitement is clouding my discernment, but if the warning signs are to be trusted –– and I’m optimistic, given how many plants and pay-offs there are in this episode alone –– we could be seeing the last of Wihan next week or at least arriving at some breaking point. That’ll depend on how well Harry’s puppy-eyed charm will work on the captain and on how serious Johnny was when he promised to sink the damn ship if Wihan muttered even one more word.
There’s a lot for us to get through, but before we do, let me say this: at least since episode 5, we have focused on Wihan’s dismal work ethic, his lack of leadership skills, and his uncontainable egotism. So far, his villainy has been frustrating but kind of funny; he has a Harry-and-Marv demeanor when it comes to his schemes, which tend to go wrong. But it was less funny when, this week, his misogynistic impulses –– which were already there –– gained full traction. This is a man who thinks women owe him something. Among other egregious comments, Wihan speculates that “after a certain age, women don’t have anything going for them, so they just start yapping,” and later concludes that he should “stop being so nice to girls” if they’re going to talk about him after he has kissed, cuddled, or otherwise flirted with every single one of them, mostly unprompted. Imagine that this is him thinking he’s nice.
You can almost feel the production’s thrill behind this week’s episode structure, which opens not on Wihan’s conversation with Jason after the K2r fiasco, where we left off, but with Harry and Johnny losing their minds sometime past midnight. In reverse chronology, we flash back to Wihan’s “But it wasn’t me!” spiel on the bridge 16 hours earlier. It became clear that we were going to get more out of this episode than we had in the past month when Jason shut down Wihan’s whining. It’s the bosun’s responsibility to make sure the deck team meets all of their appointed tasks; in fact, Jason tells Wihan that Lara was right. How sweet, the taste of vindication.
Huffing and puffing, Wihan gives Harry confusing directions to prioritize cleaning the sundeck first thing in the morning. It wasn’t that much of an oversight on Harry’s part to have missed it since that very task was checked off on the team’s whiteboard, but by this point, Wihan could have said anything in the world, and Harry would’ve pushed back. He could’ve said that Harry was getting the day off and $2,000, and Harry would’ve complained. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly sympathize with Harry’s impatience, but we have to admit that, for the next forty minutes or so, he is a bottomless well of pettiness.
Though the miscommunication about the sundeck was partly Johnny’s fault, Wihan doesn’t bother to speak to him about it. Instead, he wants to know why Lara is “so angry all the time.” In response, Johnny offers another line of inquiry: Why is Wihan so “sensual?” After witnessing Wihan flirt with Tzarina in the kitchen, Johnny wants to know what spirit possesses Wihan to want to seduce every woman on board. Wihan’s explanation is simple: he is a warm person. He even kisses his mother on the lips. (I’d love for any readers who happen to be Freudian analysts to take a crack at this in the comments.)
Jason decides to come half alive this week, so after briefly chatting with Lara about her spat with Wihan on the sundeck, he clears the air with Marina about their awkward run-in. Marina apologizes, which the captain takes well, and then expresses her frustration with being kept in housekeeping for the rest of the season. Jason instinctively takes Lara’s side and tells Marina that the best thing she can do is make herself indispensable to Lara. It’s decent advice that also doesn’t change her situation or address her discontent at all. I understand why it’s important for Jason to trust his heads of department and their choices, but it’s starting to seem like he just doesn’t want to go through the trouble of actually leading them. He constantly tells Lara and Wihan that their job is to lead, but he seems to be forgetting that as the captain, that’s his job, too.
There is a brief whiff of misunderstanding between Lara and Tzarina during breakfast –– the guests change their minds about what time they want to eat at the last minute, which creates a problem for Tzarina and makes Lara look bad –– but it’s over pretty quickly. It’s when the Katina is getting ready to leave for the port that things take a turn for the worse. Over the radio, Wihan and Harry argue about the best way to drive the tenders ahead of the boat. Harry thinks it’s better to take them side by side, and Wihan thinks it’s best to have one behind the other, but the point becomes moot once they start throwing digs at each other while the rest of the crew, captain included, listens on. Jason tells them to cut it out, and they manage to get the boat docked and the guests out. Primary Billy admits he’d “never seen a foam party like that” in his life, which makes you wonder how many foam parties he has attended.
Changing into their blues, Harry and Wihan continue to argue about an unfueled Jet Ski, and Wihan complains about Harry’s undermining of his authority. At the tip meeting, in which each crew member banks $1,920 from a $25,000 total tip, Jason tells them their fight over the radio was unacceptable and that he’s not afraid to “make changes” (his favorite euphemism for firing) if the deck team can’t get their shit together. He doesn’t award the disco helmet to anyone, but Adair inexplicably asks to wear it to the bar. With each passing episode, Adair seems more like an alien doing her best Below Deck cast member imitation. Jason also tells the crew that they’ll have the next day off, with a trip planned to a private beach, and boy, are they going to need it.
As they get ready to go out, people check in with each other in their cabins. Lara vents to Bri about how frustrating it is to work with Wihan. Harry (indelicately) tells Wihan he didn’t like the way he was spoken to over the radio, to which Wihan replies that he’s trying to take a firmer tone with the team, which is dumb because it’s not true. He’s just speaking like that to Harry because Harry is getting on his nerves. Wihan tells Harry that if there’s something wrong, he should come to him, but otherwise, just let him run the boat. Johnny all but declares his loyalty to the bosun, and he and Alesia plan to cuddle in his bed later.
Meanwhile, Adair gets ready for her date with Wihan, which I totally forgot was happening. They have an awkward time at a sushi restaurant. During the date, Wihan texts Tzarina about how it’s “hard to read” Adair. The obvious truth is, of course, unfathomable to him: she’s just not that interested. I’m assuming it is a highly inflammable combination of jealousy, intoxication, and tedium that leads Tzarina to then unleash absolute chaos into the night. She tells the whole table that before going out with Adair, Wihan grabbed her ass and kissed her neck — we all saw it — and that he’s been texting her about his date as it’s happening. The floodgates open: everyone talks shit about Wihan and his philandering ways. In a moment of foreshadowing, they even wonder what Wihan would do if Alesia were to give him an opening.
Lara does not waste one minute, once Adair and Wihan return, before telling Adair everything that Tzarina said. With the look of someone who could not possibly care less, Adair sighs, “that upsets me.” Lara makes a brief girl power speech that is well-intentioned but unnecessary, seeing as being around Wihan has not seemed to at all impact the way Adair thinks or feels about anything or anyone. Caught in the gossip vortex she started, Tzarina tries to get Johnny to say more about Wihan. But Johnny thinks Wihan is doing a decent job; it’s Harry who lacks initiative. Tzarina forges on with her rampage: she runs to tell Harry what Johnny said about him.
But it’s not just Tzarina who has tattle-titis. Johnny’s loyalty would be touching if it weren’t so gratingly naive. He pulls Wihan aside to tell him everything that was said about him at the table, which is when Wihan concludes that he should “stop being so nice to girls.” Wihan also promises Johnny that he would never try anything with Alesia. To give him credit where it’s due, Johnny does his best to alert Wihan that he should carry himself more thoughtfully — he should consider the women’s feelings before going around kissing everyone’s neck. At this point, Johnny is Wihan’s only ally on board.
Infuriated by what’s been related to him, back in their cabin, Wihan threatens Harry. He tells the deckhand to “be careful” and to “stop what you’re doing,” though he refuses to say what, exactly, Harry is doing. Harry is wilfully ignorant; he knows that Wihan is referring to his habit of venting to the interior crew about the deck team. Talking to Tzarina about the way Wihan yelled at him, Harry starts crying and threatens to quit. Johnny comes around, but Harry doesn’t want to talk to him — he resents the fact that Johnny stood silently by as he was berated by their boss.
As the rest of the girls hang out obliviously by the hot tub, randomly dressed up as angels, Lara and Tzarina rally around Harry in a ridiculous way. I’m not nearly as moved by his tears in this situation as I was when he lost his nail to the Jet Ski hook. I am still anti-Wihan and pro-Harry, but there is something unbecoming and indulgent about how much Harry enjoys being coddled by these two women. Walking him up to the master bedroom where they intend to put him to bed, they treat him as if he’s a helpless wounded bird. At no point does it occur to anyone, least of all Harry, to call Bri (though we see her in tears at the episode’s end, so something must have happened). As Lara and Tzarina take him up, Johnny tries to get another word in, and Lara makes him go around and go upstairs through the back so that the sensitive little boy won’t be further disturbed.
While Johnny reroutes, already annoyed by Lara’s dismissal, Alesia goes into Wihan and Johnny’s cabin to commence the planned cuddling. Listen: if it looks like a reality TV set-up and quacks like a reality TV set-up, it’s probably a reality TV set-up. The lights in the cabin are off, and Alesia climbs into Wihan’s bunk, thinking it’s Johnny who’s sleeping there. She talks to him a little, and Wihan responds quietly before putting his arms around her. It stretches the imagination, to put it mildly, to think she wouldn’t have noticed that it wasn’t Johnny, but I guess they’re all drunk. On the other hand, nothing in the world could convince me that Wihan didn’t know right away it wasn’t Adair or even Tzarina lying next to him.
It’s like a movie when Johnny walks in and sees the two of them in bed. He has spent the whole night defending Wihan! Mere hours ago, Wihan promised that he’d never make a move on Alesia! Johnny disagreed when everyone told him that they wouldn’t put it past Wihan to try! Alesia jumps out of bed and tells Johnny it was an honest mistake; he seems to believe her. His problem is with Wihan. He doesn’t say much more than that he’s out of here and that if Wihan says one more word, the boat will sink. It’s compellingly dramatic until it becomes scary: Johnny throws a hard punch at the cabinet before covering the camera with a shirt. I hope he doesn’t lose his head beyond redemption; I want to be on his side. We’ll find out next week: a title card promises us that the fight is to be continued.
