Below Deck Sailing Yacht’s crew may not know what show they’re on

The Below Deck franchise has a tendency to tease a major event for the next episode, and then leave that moment for the end of the episode, so there are two weeks until that thing is resolved.

That’s what happened with the Below Deck Sailing Yacht season five, episode three teaser that aired after the second episode: Glenn was very mad at Cloyce’s carousing with guests, a series of events that started at the very end of last night’s episode, and is now our cliffhanger for episode four.

And that was also the case with Daisy and Gary’s fight during the crew dinner, which ends with them laughing and Daisy kissing Gary’s cheek while holding a cigarette in one hand and a wine glass in another, and me dry heaving on my couch.

Despite falling back into the same Gary gutter, Daisy at least has some self-awareness: “This is what Gary does. In the moment, he’s a total dick; then he goes into remorseful, guilt, half-assed apology, so I forgive him, move on, so we’re in this vicious cycle.”

We move on to the crew dinner, where it’s time to pay, because Bravo/51 Minds no longer pays for their alcohol.

Daisy says that the way the crew handled it last season is that every crew member buy drinks at one dinner. As someone who folds up into a little ball any time someone suggests just splitting the bill evenly when we all had different things, I’d be doing the math—number of charters, number of crew members.

“You made $1,400 today; this is how we do things,” Daisy says. We’ll get to Cloyce’s overreaction in a second, but I’m not quite sure spending your tip money so you can all get trashed at a restaurant instead of drinking the boat’s alcohol is the best use of money.

Also, this system only works if everyone is actually present for the whole season, and maybe Cloyce is worried he will not last and thus won’t get to benefit from all those future drinks.

Now, though, Cloyce doesn’t seem to understand this basic concept, which I guess tracks because of his failure to understand other basic concepts like serving on time and giving the guests what they ordered.

“I don’t want to buy everybody five drinks every time we go out,” he says. Why does he think he’s going to be responsible every week? He complains all the way back to the boat, like about how he’s paying the “down payment for the house that my family’s going to move into.”

Meanwhile, Captain Glenn is in his cabin with his laptop on head, listening to something about sirens—the mythical ocean sirens, not the ambulance kind. This is before naked Davide climbs into his bunk over Glenn, and gives the editors something to blur out.

Danni asks, “Where is the party?” and the answer is: in bed, because everyone just goes to bed, except for Cloyce and Gary. Cloyce cooks; Gary eats oysters and jokes that being in the galley with Cloyce “is quite romantic,” which tells us more about Gary’s idea of romance than the actual moment.

Gary tries to lighten the mood by opening an already opened bottle of wine, and neither can Cloyce, and if you were asleep in your cabin what you’d have heard was them grunting and pulling and Cloyce saying, “you’re right; it’s quite tight.”

In an interview, Cloyce complains about how being on the boat “reminds me of high school” and then reminds us why people didn’t like him in high school, saying, “I got straight As” and “I had multiple people who didn’t enjoy me,” such as strangers who told him “you are an asshole.”

Look, high school sucks, but if you’re in your 20s talking about your straight As in high school? You may just be an asshole.

Cloyce ends up on the deck with Keith and Gary, and Gary says, “We needed that as crew bondage.” Cloyce mocks him: “Crew bondage? Bondage is link when you have a gag in your mouth and someone is slapping your nipples.”

So then they go back to their cabin to do that—I mean, bond more, over the skid marks they leave in the toilet.

It’s time for charter number two: Amy, a relator from Texas, celebrating her 60th birthday with her adult daughters and friends. They want a “beef and reef” dinner, the thought of which made me beef.

Diana and Danni are bonding over how everyone is great, so cue Danni starting to complain about everything. “Going downstairs is like literal punishment,” she says, having applied to work on a show called Below Deck. What did she think she’d be above deck, sunning?

Diana says Danni is a “vitimiso,” a Portuguese word she describes as meaning “oh, poor me”—which also describes Danni’s approach to Keith.

Danni keeps flirting with Keith—”What are you packin’ that it’s overkill?” she asks; she also insists on following him up the stairs so she can look at his ass—but is annoyed that Keith won’t flirt back. This is a day after she fell in love with the host at the beach club and introduced him to Keith, so I cannot imagine why Keith is at least resistant.

Anyway, Daisy is worried about “this bitching and complaining.” Speaking of, it’s back to Gary!

He says “at the moment, I’m the only person on this boat that can drive the tender,” and then he stole my job by saying, “Unfortunately, only I can crash it, too.”

Gary then gives tender driving lessons to Keith and Emma, and—this is shocking—he is suddenly good at his job as a leader! Later, Emma is sitting out back on a break while the tender slams into the boat next to her, because the knot she tied came undone.

The hull is scratched and Gary is frustrated by this, which is understandable, but then he also shows Emma how to correctly tie the knot. Wow!

Below Deck Sailing Yacht first mate Gary in a rare moment where he’s doing his job and not crashing the tender

This is a good moment to mention that Gary is whining online about his treatment. He posted a photo on Instagram, “Sad to see this has all been edited out of tonight’s episode. Scary how ones persons lies can ruin someone’s career and livelihood.”

First, things are edited out all the time. Second, it’s not one person who reported he’s a creep, but several crew members. Gary also wrote, “Oh well my head is held I’m high as I know the truth. Karma will get ya, anyways. Seeing as most of me will probably be edited out of this season 😢 I will try post as much as possible to show you all what you’re missing out on 🤗”.

Somehow that 🤗 emoji is the worst part. But if anything, this season seems like there’s more Gary in this season than usual, which, ugh.

Speaking of “completely fucking shit-show,” that’s how Daisy describes the aftermath of sailing, which causes liquor bottles to fly all over the place and smash, covering walls in alcohol. I think they may want to check for poltergeists because it looked like someone had been throwing things around.

The editing of this episode is very choppy and montage-y, and there are some light moments in between, like primary Amy wondering if there are whales off the coast of Ibiza, and one of her guests or daughters saying, “There’s just a bunch of alcoholics on the coast.” Also one of her daughters thinks the yellow and red-striped flag on the boat means pirates, but soon learns it’s, you know, the flag of Spain.

Danni, who was upset about having to be below deck on Below Deck, upset about Daisy asking her to do something above deck

Speaking of flags, here comes a red one: Daisy tells Danni to decorate the table for the beefy reef aperitif dinner, and “the tackier, the better.”

Danni, who liked art in school, tells us, “I take pride in my tables,” and then basically melts down, “nervous about tacky—and my name being on tacky.” She says, “I’m passionate about this shit.”

Let’s take a breath and realize 1) you’ve chosen to be on Below Deck, so worrying about being “tacky” is kinda out the window, and 2) passion is wonderful but it’s a dinner table?

Daisy consoles Danni, saying “I will never ever let you look bad, okay?” and telling her to ignore the “tacky” directive and instead think “over the top,” like “American Fourth of July—they just go super-all-out.” America, fuck yeah!

Dinner is fine until dessert, which Cloyce doesn’t put in the oven after Emma tells him plates are cleared. “Deckhands should be completely removed form the scenario,” he says. Okay, how about you do all their work, like dishes and clearing?

Cloyce wants Daisy to call him on the radio, which may be him wanting to talk to her more, since he later tells Gary he’s interested in her.

The next day, the guests are going to float on floats. While they’re waiting around, Amy is wearing large, round sunglasses that have a novella written on them.

They say, “L’Aveugle Par Amour,” which, if I know my French, means I am wearing really fucking big sunglasses with words on them.

Actually, they’re Gucci, and this article says one meaning is “Love is Blind,” so now I think all the people on Love is Blind should wear those.

Captain Glenn wants to leave by 5 for their dinner location, and I guess it’s going to be a very late dinner because lunch is planned for 4 p.m.

All of this takes a long time to get going because Emma didn’t inflate and tie all the floaties together, so Gary has to help, and is back to characteristically being a dick (“she doesn’t fucking listen”) instead of just handling it like a mature boss.

Somehow—and the editing is weird about the timing—Cloyce ends up on the dock and offers to help, “if you guys need a hand.” Gary says, “if you’re happy with your galley,” and the editors show us the galley, which looks like the poltergeists are back and have been throwing food around.

Cloyce says, “after quite a few days of hard work, getting some of that fresh, Spanish sunshine is quite lovely.”

Did the producers trick this crew into thinking they’re on Love Island and not Below Deck? Why does he think he gets some “Spanish sunshine” in the middle of a charter?

The guests make it to the floating toys where Cloyce pours wine for them and rides on Keith’s back, which will probably make Danni jealous.

Gary, acting responsibly again, says, “Cheffy, I need to take you back.” Clocye says, “Not necessarily,” and Gary replies, “You don’t need to prep?” Cloyce says, “I’m good.” Narrator: He wasn’t.

With 45 minutes until lunch, Glenn goes looking for Cloyce, and over the radio, Gary reveals Cloyce has been hanging with the guests the whole time.

“Bring him back now!” Glenn says, and we have to wait until next week to find out if Cloyce gets fired or gets the Captain Sandy “17 strikes and you’re still fine!” treatment because Below Deck just can’t find anyone to do these jobs any more.