last season<\/a>, which was an unqualifiable mess of flailing departments and corroding personal resentments. Captain Sandy finds her newish team in Dubrovnik, Croatia, aboard the Akira One, a bigger and older boat than last season\u2019s Bravado. She is welcoming back Below Deck all-star Aesha Scott as her chief stew and new dad Nathan Gallagher as her bosun. In what I think is a Below Deck first, Nathan has brought his partner, Gael, and their little son, Kayden, to Dubrovnik. They\u2019re staying in a rental near the marina for the season so that Nathan can be with them between charters. It\u2019s an \u2026 interesting choice to add a domestic element to a show about the workplace, but it makes sense in the context of Nathan\u2019s three-season journey toward maturity.<\/p>\nHe\u2019s getting there with baby steps. Nathan\u2019s biggest challenge this season will be figuring out how to be a less frazzled bosun \u2014\u00a0he has a way of putting his head in his hands whenever something happens, and while I relate to that kind of knee-jerk anxiety, it\u2019s not an ideal quality in a boss. It still feels like he is playing catch-up to his position rather than taking the lead with confidence. Perhaps given how long it took the crew to find their groove last season, Sandy has the prudent idea to get them all onboard early so that they can get used to the boat. She scopes out Dubrovnik with Aesha a couple of days in advance and gets the deck team to practice undocking, anchoring, and docking so that they don\u2019t have to learn on the job. As it turns out, it\u2019s a good thing they have a practice round: They hit the dock before the charter has even started. Aesha quips, \u201cWe\u2019ve set the bar so low that we can only go up from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aesha is her usual uplifting, hard-working, funny self. She\u2019s getting married after the charter season, so she needs some generous tips. She nearly cries in excitement when Sandy tells her she\u2019ll have three stews working the interior: Kayley, whose demeanor is best described as Hoodwinked!\u2019s overly caffeinated squirrel; Kat, a green stew with a positive attitude; and Genevieve, an experienced stew who has worked on celebrity yachts and been a chief stew before. Despite their varying levels of experience, they have all been sole stews before, which means they\u2019re familiar with every aspect of the job. In an introductory team meeting, Aesha says that she will hold off on picking a second stew until the dynamics of the team settle. Genevieve responds with a surprised, wounded Oh! It\u2019s obvious that she came on expecting to be second, and she acts accordingly during the first charter.<\/p>\n
Before we get there, though, let\u2019s go over the deck team. We have two new additions, both of them over six-foot-two, which means they are cramped in the Akira One\u2019s teeny cabins. There is Cooper, who is from South Carolina and sounds like it. He\u2019s on his very first month of yachting, having decided to try out a new career path after getting repetitively concussed playing college football. I maintain the right to retract any statements I make in the first episode of the season, but I kind of love \u201cCoop\u201d already; he just seems happy to be there. Then there is Luke, who is 34 years old and therefore ancient compared to his co-workers. Luke is less green than Cooper but still relatively new to yachting. He has an imposing physique that earns him comparisons to Tarzan and Superman. I was relieved to see an \u201colder\u201d man onboard, thinking it might inspire the rest of the crew to be mature, but if the season preview at the end of the episode is any indication, Luke\u2019s advanced age won\u2019t necessarily equal advanced wisdom.<\/p>\n
Also, Joe Bradley is back. Sandy is apparently oblivious to one of last season\u2019s biggest stories, because she\u2019s all happy to tell Nathan that Joe is joining the team. The only person more stressed out than me about Joe\u2019s return is Nathan. They haven\u2019t talked since last season; as Nathan tells Aesha, Joe texted him, but Nathan wasn\u2019t interested in replying. The episode\u2019s cold open suggests their bromance break-up will provide us with plenty of soap-opera moments, although it\u2019s frustrating to start a new season already rehashing stale drama. It might seem like \u201cgood television\u201d to put two best friends turned enemies to work together, but I\u2019d rather see drama develop as the season rolls along rather than get hit with it one minute into the first episode.<\/p>\n
Besides, it doesn\u2019t seem like Joe has done much reflecting on his mistreatment of women. He tells Nathan, simply, that he \u201clikes to have fun\u201d and probably won\u2019t stop. Their friendship fell apart because of Joe\u2019s mishandling of a disastrous love triangle, which made clear to Nathan that they were on two different paths: Nathan\u2019s toward adulthood and Joe\u2019s toward terrorizing women\u2019s lives. At least, in between seasons, he\u2019s been working. Sandy is glad to hear that he\u2019s been a bosun and a captain of smaller vessels, but Nathan is not as impressed. The other boys are either slow to pick up on social cues or really focused on work: It\u2019s not until the first night of the charter that Cooper learns from Joe that there is tension between him and Nathan, despite the fact that the first deck meeting is as awkward as if Joe and Nathan were exes.<\/p>\n
To round out the Akira One\u2019s crew, we have the French chef Joy, who has spent some years cooking for celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Rihanna, and Paul McCartney. She self-describes as intense and puts a little fear into everyone except Luke, who flirts with her by showing off his French, which he is learning because he wants to marry a \u201cfeisty\u201d French woman one day. But, at least for now, Joy is focused on her job. She is demanding when it comes to service and tells Aesha she wants the girls in the galley before the food is ready to go out, to ensure timeliness. She reminds me of another gastronomic icon, Ratatouille\u2019s Colette.<\/p>\n
In a brief intro meeting, Sandy asks the crew to respect each other, then they\u2019re off on their dry run. The undocking and anchoring go fine; it\u2019s only when they have to dock, at night, next to two very loud party boats that problems emerge. Sandy can hardly hear a thing coming from the radio. She misses Nathan\u2019s distance calls from the stern and bumps the rear of the boat on the dock. It\u2019s a huge mistake, but not easily attributable: Everyone was doing what they were supposed to, only they couldn\u2019t hear each other. Still, Nathan immediately freaks out: \u201cI\u2019m going to get fired.\u201d After the boat has been secured, Sandy checks to make sure the damage is repairable and that the Akira One is seaworthy. She is a little rattled but pulls herself together. Nathan can\u2019t quite do the same. Sandy tells him that, as a bosun, he needs to learn how to dust himself off and move on. Joe, meanwhile, says in a confessional that if he were on the stern, they would never have hit the dock. Okay, Joe.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Sandy tells Nathan to put two people on the stern and two people on the bow when anchoring, docking, or undocking the boat. That means that they need an extra pair of hands, and the captain\u2019s suggestion is to put Aesha, a former deckhand, on the bow. Aesha is happy to do it, and undocking and anchoring after guest pick-up go smoothly. The first charter\u2019s co-primaries are Angela and Matt, a married couple who are celebrating the 23rd anniversary of their burlesque show in Vegas. They are bringing their performers onboard, and their requests include white-glove service and a Vegas-themed dinner. Thankfully, we are spared those glimpses into guests\u2019 lives that the franchise tried out in Down Under, going for a brief front-facing intro video instead.<\/p>\n
As the guests enjoy their canape lunch, Nathan\u2019s simple request that Joe get the water toys out as fast as possible causes friction. \u201cJust no more accidents,\u201d Joe provokes. Then, as Nathan rushes him through the task, Joe huffs about the delay: \u201cRespectfully, this is an organizational issue.\u201d Nothing foretells disrespect more clearly than a sentence that starts with \u201crespectfully.\u201d Meanwhile, Genevieve gets annoyed at Kayley for taking charge of the dinner tablescape. Each woman thinks they have a right to lead decorating: Kayley was a wedding coordinator before yachting, and Genevieve has experience from years in the field. Gen only gets more annoyed when Aesha praises Kayley over the radio (after asking Kat who set it), and she starts arbitrarily attributing bad motives to Kayley, like she\u2019s trying to undermine her experience and become second stew. It\u2019s not a great first impression for Gen: Her overreaction makes her seem presumptuous, as if she\u2019s already thinking of herself as a \u201csenior stew\u201d despite the fact that Aesha explicitly told them they each have one stripe for now. Genevieve tells us she\u2019s an only child from a rich New York family, and her ultimate goal is to be a purser, which is the senior-most position in the interior department. That\u2019s a great goal, but it\u2019ll help to learn teamwork to get there. It\u2019s also not very senior-stew behavior to hide in the bathroom in the middle of dinner service to call your mom and whine about your co-worker. The edit makes it seem like Kayley could hear her from the laundry room, but if she did, she was impressively cool about it. All she does is say to Kat that she can tell that Gen hates her.<\/p>\n
After an afternoon in the water and an excruciating exchange between Nathan and Matt \u2014 learning that Nathan is not interested in any of the girls because he has a partner and a child, the primary assures Nathan that a woman\u2019s \u201ctits\u201d get \u201cbigger and firmer\u201d after babies \u2014 the guests are ready for dinner. For the occasion, the performers all wear dresses with a heart-shaped cut-out on their asses. Joy is very pleased with dinner service, and the food looks amazing, especially the heart-shaped raspberry and coconut parfaits for dessert. That she didn\u2019t have to yell at anyone during service is a relief to Joy, who is reassured that Aesha has the same high standards as her.<\/p>\n
By the end of the season\u2019s first episode, the interior team threatens to be roiled by vicious competition and the deck team is already fractured \u2014 and only looking to get worse. Nathan makes a half-hearted attempt to address the tension with Joe by telling him that he doesn\u2019t \u201cappreciate the energy or whatever of the past couple of days,\u201d but he ends the conversation before they can engage in any productive dialogue. On the phone, Nathan tells Gael that, despite the fact that Joe is the most experienced deckhand onboard by a nautical mile, he plans to make Luke his lead. He is convinced that Joe is angling to take over his job, but this move doesn\u2019t seem wise. Joe is already poised to be against Nathan, and by undermining his professional experience (which is separate from his personal conduct), he\u2019s making the problem worse. Realigning their relationship along professional lines might have relieved their tension. Besides, putting an inexperienced deckhand in a lead position will only make more work for Nathan, who is overwhelmed by temperament. Judging by the season preview, though, common sense will not be the driving force of this crew. Buckle in!<\/p>\n
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