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Below Deck: Down Under Cast Members Fired For Sexual Misconduct

 

 

As you may have noticed, I haven't been recapping Below Deck:  Down Under (or much of anything else), but it's been such an explosive season that I had to jump in.  This week's double episodes (E5 and 6) were filled with brazen arrogance, and then outrage, but eventually sweet just deserts.  But let's start at the beginning. 

 

Charter #2 ends with a second group of trashy looking nouveau riche' gang bangers who dropped a $25K tip, leaving each of the kids with a couple thousand bucks to blow on dinners, booze, and God knows what else.  Then it’s time for a celebratory night out where the episode starts getting really weird. At the restaurant, Ukrainian skank second stew, Laura, is getting all touchy and feely with deckhand Adam.  Mind you, Adam has told we the viewers, Aesha, and practically everyone else (except the ho herself) that he wants nothing to do with her.  As she kisses his arm and brushes her hand across his chest and even his lower regions on various occasions, he finally tells her that he just wants them to be friends, but 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 trying to gently shut this slut 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 and showing off his scrawny body, hugs and kisses first stew, Margot (again).  In the previous episode, Margot had the good sense to shut him down, so in an attempt to make her jealous, he had sex with Laura and then the next morning, dumped her like the trash that she is by making it clear that she was nothing more than a warm hole for him to stick his D in.  Shortly after, they jump back in the sprinter vans, where Margot is passed out on Luke’s lap (I'll go into Margot's part in all this later).

 

Chief stew Aesha witnesses Luke's predatory behavior and becomes increasingly concerned that he's going to cross the line.  BTW, it's probably worth mentioning that in the very first episode, Bosun Boner Luke said (out loud) that he was still deciding on which of the stews were going to have the privilege of sucking his D.  Episode 5 then shifts to an unsettling tone for its final minutes, becoming something that’s hard to stomach. When they return to the Northern Sun (the ugly fishing boat turned into an ugly yacht), Aesha is intent on chaperoning Margot and making sure she gets to bed safe and sound.

 

 

When the power on this rickety vessel suddenly goes out, a butt-naked Luke takes seizes the opportunity to enter Margot’s cabin and climb into her bunk ... 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, tells them to “fuck off”, and then slams the door on their faces.  Episode 5 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 international television makes you wonder what else he’s done in the past when cameras weren’t around.

 

The episode was disturbing to watch, and as it progressed, all I kept thinking was has Bravo really stooped this low?  The two incidents of attempted and full on sexual assault happen in just a matter of minutes. As I watched with my partner, we were actually at a loss for words, but let’s get into the second half of this week’s doozy of a double-header.

 

Episode 6 picks up where the last left off: with Luke retreating to his room after production caught him climbing into Margot’s bed while she was asleep. Fellow predator Laura checks in on him, and barely able lto stand, Luke tells her that he "did nothing wrong to Margot" (which is telling in itself) and doesn’t understand why the producers were interfering. At the same time, Aesha checks on Margot and tells her what just happened with Luke, and Margot (in her own drunken stupor) manages to confirm that she didn’t give her consent to him.

 

 

Afterward, Laura joins deckhand Harry, Chef Tzarina, and deckhands Culver and Adam in the jacuzzi.  Once again, Laura gets very touchy with Adam, rubbing her back on his legs, clinging onto his back, and rubbing her body against his. Adam tells her “no” and to stop touching him several times, and he’s clearly frustrated that she won't leave him alone.  Having had enough, he eventually hops outof the hot tub.  Laura then follows Adam back to his bunk and finds him on his belly, presumably passed out.  So she begins putting some kind of lotion on his back and then climbs up on his bunk and hops on his back!  As she begins massaging him, the producers intervene and tell her to get out of his room, but like a bitch in heat, she continues trying to kiss and massage him until the producers become more stern with her.

 

 

I’m no prude, but watching this chick practically molesting this boy, especially just moments after watching Luke attemping to rape Margot, made my stomach drop.  My partner and I literally put it on pause to gather ourselves and discuss what we were witnessing.  What’s worse is that Adam feels like he shouldn’t speak out about what’s happening because he doesn’t want to make things awkward or see Laura get fired, even though she deserves it, and more.

 

Aesha, visibly shaken and in tears, goes to Captain Jason's quarters and informs him about the Luke situation.  Woken up out of a cold sleep, a panic-stricken Captain Jason asks if Margot is safe and then comforts Aesha, who tells him that it’s hard for her to see people get taken advantage of. She then shares with us that she has sexual-assault trauma from an experience similar to what Margot has just gone through. As she was speaking to Captain Jason, I could literally feel her pain.  Captain Jason immediately jumps into action, grabs a spare key to unlock Luke’s door, and orders him to leave.  Still completely wasted, a totally confused Luke is escorted off the boat and thrown into a sprinter van which takes him to a nearby hotel.

 

The following morning, Margot tells Laura about what Luke did, and Laura's response is, “Was his dick standing?” Again, I'm at a loss for words.  Aesha, Tzarina, and Margot then chat in Aesha’s cabin, where they tell Margot everything that happened. Margot’s first instinct is to blame herself for being “drunk” and “flirty.”  OK, this is where it gets dicey for me.  Sorry, but not sorry ... Margot is not completely innocent here.  She knew that Luke was a dooshbag, and by her own words, a "fuck boy", so it's pretty pathetic that she would let him near her, let alone continue flirting with him.  So yeah, she's right to feel stupid.  But of course, there is Aesha and Tzarina telling her that she did nothing wrong, and even worse, reminding her that "women should be allowed to get drunk without the fear of being harmed".  It was really disappointing, but I guess Bravo/NBC just can't help themselves.

 

Captain Jason then calls for a crew meeting to address Luke’s absence and informs them that he’s going to be fired, stressing the importance of consent and respect among the crew.  I commend hot Jason for the way he handled the situation, but I don't think he took it far enough.  I know there are plenty of Captains who enforce strict "no fraternization" policies.  But of course what would Below Deck be without sexually irresponsible young people?  Unsurprisingly, Laura is only  concerned about the fact that she didn’t get to say goodbye to him.

 

Luke returns to the boat, where Jason informs him that his employment’s been terminated and that he needs to pack and leave immediately. Good riddance! When Laura tells Harry that she’s sad about Luke’s departure, Harry says that he feels worse for Margot and that they need to focus on caring for her.  Although the bar is very low, I guess it was nice to see that the rest of the guys on board are all concerned for Margot, and agree that Luke is a piece of shit who deserved to fired.

 

The same cannot be said about Laura, who spends the day expressing how sad she is not for Margot, but for Luke. Given that Laura also disregards consent and wasn’t respectful of Adam’s boundaries, I can’t say I’m surprised that she feels bad for Luke. Paraphrasing won’t cut it, so here’s what she says directly to Margot, who’s literally in the midst of processing a traumatic experience: “Aw, poor Luke. I should have just kept him happy. If he comes naked in my cabin, I’d be like, ‘Hello! Yes!’” Like, what the hell??? She then says, “We all feel bad, but he feels the worst right now.” Laura’s insensitive response to Margot is sickening. The lack of empathy she has for Margot — and the blatant support and sympathy she’s showing for Luke, who doesn’t even give two shits about her — is very telling of what type of person she is.

 

Down in the laundry room, Aesha tells Adam that she’s been noticing how "aggressive" Laura has been with him, and asks him to tell her if it becomes a problem.  Adam acknowledges that she is indeed going to far, but feels like he has it under control.  He tells Aesha that he plans on being more stern with her.  Yours truly has been sexually harrassed several times throughout my career; and by "sexually", I'm talking in gender sense as well as the the literal sense.  Back in the day, I just took it in stride, because we really had no name for it, but today, I get angry just thinking about it.

 

Jason assigns Culver "bosun for the day", but perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn't exactly pull it off.  Awkward and unsure, Culver tries to give Adam and Harry directions, and both of them waste no time sharing in their confessionals that he's not up for the job.  They wouldn't be wrong; Culver is just as passive with the deck crew as he apparently is in his romantic life (or lack there of).  Suffice to say, Culver needs to stick to wearing stupid Party City blonde wigs.

 

Meanwhile, Laura is still complaining to Aesha about how she didn’t get to say goodbye to her fellow predator.  Completely oblivious of the fact that Aesha can't stand her, she tells her that the situation wasn't that serious, and certainly not serious enough to be fired over. In a confessional, she shares that she thinks he should’ve gotten a second chance.  Then in the laundry room, she tells Margot that she feels sad for Luke because she thinks he meant it as a joke and that he “wouldn’t rape you or anything.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, she implies that Margot didn’t refuse his advances and that he “felt welcomed” coming to her cabin. Margot quite literally told him she wanted to sleep, and he hovered over her in bed while naked. How much clearer could she possibly have been?   Laura''s behavior is so outrageous that at this point, I'm expecting the entire cast to appear on the screen telling us that this episode was actually a re-enactment of sexual harrassment in the work place, before joining hands and taking a bow.

 

 

After Margot informs Aesha about Laura’s inappropriate comments, Aesha goes straight to Captain Jason (again) and tells him that Laura is making Margot feel worse.  While she's there, she also mentions Laura’s unwanted advances on Adam (just for good measure).  Visably angry, Captain Jason immediately calls Adam into the bridge to further explain what's been happening with Laura.  When Adam confirms that Laura is indeed creeping him out, Captain Jason then calls Laura to the bridge.  Obviously still turnt up over the situation with Luke, Jason begins  reprimanding Laura for being an insensitive c-word toward Margot.  Laura denies it, saying that she was just checking in on Margot.  But Jason's mind is already clearly made up, so he fires Laura on the spot.  The dumb skank tries to tell him that he’s making a mistake and, in her final confessional, has the gall to say that firing her was not good leadership on his part.

 

Man, what a crazy episode this was. I'll never think of "Luke and Laura" again without reliving the horror that these modern day Luke and Lauras put us through, and if you get that reference, then your probably as old as I am.  We also got a mid-season preview introducing a new stew who takes a liking to Culver, Margot being busted for drinking during a charter, and yet more trashy charter guests, this time porn stars.  We also learn that João, who previously worked as bosun on Below Deck Mediterranean, will be joining the cast.