3 weeks Ago By Rafaela Bassili
For all of her faults, Tzarina has some of the most compellingly dramatic psychology of the Below Deck Down Under cast. It’s possible to trace a line from her insecurities to her behavior, though that line is often wonky, filled with random, infuriating detours. Because of this, until now, I was rooting for her.
Her chaotic way made me think of her as a frustrating but dear friend, the kind of friend you want to shake by the shoulders. It was annoying that she was so desperate for Wihan’s attention, but I was moved by what clearly eats at her: her fear of being left out. Last season, she got ditched by a deckhand for another supermodel-looking crew member.
This season, Wihan similarly dropped her when he decided to pursue Adair, and she feels dismissed by Lara, too. I sympathize with her plight — there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re the person who would fall behind on a narrow sidewalk that only fits three people — but it’s becoming impossible to defend her. This week, her behavior can be summed up like this: You know when you know you’re being annoying, and the realization only makes you annoyed at yourself, so you double down and become even more annoying? Still hurt by Lara’s Brady Bunch comment, Tzarina lets her grudge fester and bloom, stretching into the next two days and causing a series of events that snowball way beyond their initial proportions.
Even then, we have to recognize that Lara is no saint, either. The second day of the charter starts pretty smoothly. Nick wonders what would happen if he didn’t actually confess to Jason; Alesia texts Johnny about how much she misses him; Jason asks Lara to put Marina on service for the day’s excursion to a rum distillery.
Lara is resistant to the advice since Marina hasn’t yet — more than halfway through the season! — been on service by herself. But Jason encourages Lara to trust Marina, and ultimately the chief stew relents. Maybe resenting that things are spinning ever so slightly , really just a hair, out of her control, Lara inadvertently (or is it?) brings chaos into the structure of the whole excursion.
Tzarina wants to send Alesia in her place so she can get ahead of dinner in the galley, but Lara is adamant that at least one head of department should go supervise. Though she doesn’t tell Tzarina this, she can’t go herself so as not to undermine Jason, but there’s no reason why she couldn’t have spoken to Nate. Not satisfied with pushing Tzarina to go, Lara then says that it would be good for Alesia to interface more with the guests.
Lara delivers all of this pretty gently, but Tzarina has already decided to be in a shitty mood and Lara’s insistence only makes it worse. This very brief spat in the kitchen is the beginning of the end: Without making any real effort to understand each other, they’ve both decided that the other is wrong. The guests have a great excursion, and Marina rises to the occasion, impressing Lara with her service skills.
The only person unhappy with what’s going on is Tzarina, who — granted — drives 30 minutes to the rum distillery to spend five minutes placing the already-cooked food on the table. Understandably annoyed, she makes an ironic comment to Alesia, asking if next time she thinks she could handle taking the tinfoil off the dishes on her own. It lands flat, and you can tell that she didn’t mean it the way it came out.
In the meantime, Nick decides to do what’s right and confess his tequila shot with the guests to Jason: “I guess I, uh, just kinda got very carried away and I, uh, didn’t — wasn’t — insistent enough and I fucked up, uh, yeah, uh, and I took the shot.” Jason looks bewildered, perhaps as much by Nick’s gift of expression as by his lack of discernment; but he’s glad that Nick came to him right away, so he lets him get away with it. Then, sort of crazily, Nick goes around telling every other member of the deck team about his slipup.
No one cares. When Lara asks Tzarina, still reeling from the day, how the excursion went, the chef deadpans: “It was a waste of my time.” When Alesia gets back in the kitchen, Tzarina shuts down in a more extreme version of the miscommunication that damaged her relationship with Anthony 500 years ago.
Alesia asks what the game plan for dinner is and where she can be helpful and what she can do, but all Tzarina can work up to say is, “It’s all right.” To make matters worse, she overhears Alesia thanking Lara for fighting for her to go on the excursion. It’s true that Lara meddles more than she needs to or should, but I also think it’s an overreaction when Tzarina interprets the exchange as Lara “grooming my sous-chef to be against me.
” Harry, who had already noticed Tzarina’s bad mood and who loves to be the engine for the gossip mill, goes out of his way to ask Tzarina how she and Lara are getting along. The true reason for Tzarina’s moodiness emerges: She’s jealous. She feels pushed out by Lara’s friendship with Bri, which has nothing to do with what’s been going on all day.
Repeatedly, Tzarina says that Lara is like the mean, cool girl on the playground who gets to decide who is going to be friends with whom and what game everyone is going to play; but it actually seems like Tzarina is the person most caught up in this playground version of friendship, as if it’s incumbent on Lara to reassure her that they are friends. As they continue to prepare for dinner, themed “Lavish Dubai Night” (?), Alesia tries to address Tzarina’s mood, but Tzarina shrugs it off, saying that she’s tired. Bogged down by the horrific vibe, Alesia takes a breather mid-way through service.
Dinner goes great with the guests, and Marina enjoys another chance to help with the service. She also enjoys Nick’s budding attention, who approaches her with all his stuttering “charm.” In a confessional, he tells us that he’s always had trouble approaching women, which is why he thanks God for feminism.
Yes, Nick, exactly! After hundreds of years of oppression, liberation is within our reach if only we can work up the courage to talk to you. This guy gets on my nerves. While guests enjoy a dinner surprisingly devoid of steak and lobster, Nate asks Harry to show him the lines on the deck in preparation for docking the boat the next day.
I like Nate so far: He seems genuine and hardworking, and it’s endearing to hear him say — and mean it — that he has no ego after everything we’ve just been through with Wihan. Later, Harry will reap the rewards of his reliability and knowledge: Nate makes him lead deckhand, a position he’s been hoping to land since the first episode of the season. The day doesn’t start out wholesome for the whole crew.
Unable to do the normal thing and write off the previous day as just a shitty one, Tzarina holds on and brings her bad attitude into breakfast service. When she gives Alesia confusing directions, Alesia, our MVP, the queen of direct but thoughtful confrontation, can’t stop herself from expressing why she needs to know what’s happening to do her job well. In a subtle and genius reverse UNO play, Tzarina, who had started out the conversation by telling Alesia she just needs to “Yes, chef” and shut up, is by the end of it saying she’ll make a better effort to be communicative.
The new deck team does an excellent job docking the boat, and at the tip meeting, each crew member banks $1,153 from a measly $15,000 total tip, which the captain assures is not reflective of their good work through the weekend. Jason gently awards the disco helmet to Nick, who takes it gamely. As things begin to wind down, the crew catches each other up on what’s been going on: Adair tells Marina about Nick’s shot with the guests (I sort of love their unexpected friendship; they’re funny together), and Bri tells Lara that Alesia said, in their cabin, that Tzarina’s weird mood was affecting her.
Lara commits to her meddling and convenes a reunion of herself, Bri, and Alesia in Bri’s cabin, where Alesia airs the same frustrations she had already expressed to Tzarina in the galley. Just as she’s finished talking, Tzarina comes in and the girls immediately go quiet. It’s obvious that they’d been talking about her, which is definitely not what Tzarina needs in order to get out of her funk right now: It only proves her notion that she is the odd one out.
It would be better for her to hang out with Marina and Adair, who live in a world totally indifferent to the rest of the boat’s social dynamics. Alesia and Tzarina talk over a smoke later that evening. It’s nice and productive: Tzarina apologizes and says she didn’t mean to take out her frustrations with Lara on the sous-chef.
We can tell that the apology was genuinely received because Alesia, who is easily becoming my favorite person in this crew, plays it down to Lara when they speak in the bathroom. Lara asks Alesia how their talk went, and if she was interested in creating chaos, she could have told Lara that Tzarina had been frustrated with her; instead, she chalks it up to the stress of “the industry,” that “cheffing” really takes it out of you. Like I said, Lara is no saint, so she says she hates it when people say that and takes it upon herself to “fix” the whole situation.
But no one likes a know-it-all, least of all Tzarina, who brings an attitude to match Lara’s to their conversation. Lara tells Tzarina that sometimes the way she talks makes her feel stupid. Tzarina tells her she feels the same way and mentions PlateGate, when Lara decided to butt in on the presentation of her dishes even though that’s not her department.
Lara doesn’t relent, and it looks as though their argument will carry on into next week. In less stressful gossip news, Harry asks both of the new boys who they’re attracted to on the boat. Nate likes Alesia, with whom he had a nice bonding moment in the hot tub earlier, though at this point, Alesia is still texting Johnny things like “I miss you” and “It’s not the same without you.
” Nick likes Marina, which he makes plenty clear when he dances with her and then kisses her in a pretty smooth move for a guy who’s supposed to have no game. Give up this character, Nick! No one believes it! By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us..
