We’ve made it to the end of the Sailing Yacht season, and compared to the recent seasons of Below Deck and Mediterranean, it actually felt like it went by much faster. Except the normally most fun spinoff of the franchise simply wasn’t that fun. Everyone is bitter and ready to leave, which is not the aspirational vibe we want of a crew that wishes they could keep working together. Sure, Danni desperately wants to continue being with Chase, but watching two people fight about a hypothetical long-distance relationship isn’t the same as going out on a high note.
It’s the last night of charter, and Cloyce has to get creative with a sushi dinner for a bunch of guests who don’t eat fish, including Captain Glenn. He sanitizes his work surfaces to avoid spreading allergens and is thoroughly prepared. The primary, ML, is not. Still half-asleep from a nap, she tells her friends not to wait for her to start dinner, then goes back to sleep. Serving the dishes is like a logic puzzle of who can and can’t have what, but Daisy runs the service so there aren’t any slip-ups. The ladies are thrilled that everyone is accounted for. It’s a big success for Cloyce, and Glenn is impressed. ML finally joins as they’re wrapping up, and for a second, it seems like she might be angry they started without her, but it’s all good.
On the less-good Danni-Chase front, Chase understandably doesn’t want to commit to a relationship with Danni when they’ve only known each other for two weeks, and this revelation makes her more of a sourpuss than normal. Chase says he wants to end the season on a good note but not lead her on, and they get a chance to reconcile as the last two awake that night. Chase promises that tomorrow will be good, and I’m already worried Danni’s interpreting this to mean that tomorrow he will say he loves her and wants to be with her forever. She’s done a 180 from earlier, now exuding an eerie calmness that feels like a ploy to make Chase forget about how pissy she was earlier.
For the last docking, Glenn lets Gary park the boat. This would be a nice cap to an arc about maturing and working toward Gary’s goal of being a captain, except he never got past Act One. Glenn still believes in him, which makes me lose faith in Glenn, but at least the docking goes smoothly.
ML shouts out Cloyce as she departs with an extremely sunburned back. The tip is $21,000, which is nice but not amazing, especially given all the dietary restrictions. Cloyce is proud of how much he’s improved and gives a prom-queen-like acceptance speech thanking “each and every one” of his crewmates. They all consider the last charter an appropriate high to go out on.
I’m disappointed Glenn doesn’t join the crew for their last dinner — is it reading too much into things to think even he doesn’t like them? On the way out, Gary predicts that Keith and Daisy will hook up and Chase and Danni will have an argument. These seem like no-brainers, but somehow Gary ends up 0 for 2.
Daisy and Keith keep things pretty chaste. At dinner, they go for a cigarette break, although there are no cigs in sight as they make vague plans for Keith to visit Daisy in London. At the table, Danni brings up the topic of relationships to Gary, a thinly veiled tactic that leads to her and Chase duking it out in front of everyone; they’re both looking for a relationship, but Chase doesn’t want to rush into anything. She love-bombs him, saying she’s ready to move across the world for him and he’s what makes her happy. Chase suggests going to the bathroom, presumably so he doesn’t have to say he doesn’t feel the same in front of everyone. But once there, he just kisses her and reiterates that he wants them to be good. I guess it’s not leading her on if he’s capitulated to his fate.
Danni makes a point of not going in a car with Daisy to the club and takes full advantage of the time to shit-talk. Danni calls herself the queen of interior and Daisy a horrible chief stew. Diana’s been converted to the dark side, too, and has no respect for Daisy anymore. It doesn’t seem fair to Daisy, who’s disappointed the interior crew never came together to get along like her past teams. We’re shown clips of prior seasons and stews we liked more, which is just cruel! With these three, it was a battle the whole time, and they’re all sick of it.
The club we see is once again that random patio — the scene of the over-two-drinks crime. Keith and Daisy kiss, so Gary falls back into his old patterns and takes one more try at getting with Daisy. He tells her the girls were shit-talking in the cab, but he tried to stand up for her and the hierarchy. Of course, Daisy doesn’t fall all over him for this, so he returns to his usual playbook, confessing that he had serious feelings and hoped they’d live a fairy-tale life. Daisy’s upset; he can’t keep saying this when he never acts on it. Horrifically, Gary takes this as an invitation to act and impulsively tries to kiss her. She leans back, pushed into hitting her head on a railing, and Gary hits his mouth on her head. It’s sexual assault with a side of regular assault that should be the last straw, but no one else seems to see, so they go on with the night as if nothing happened.
Back on the boat, Keith and Daisy drunkenly kiss a bit before going to their separate beds. Danni and Chase get snacks and head to the master while everyone else except Gary goes to bed. He’s the only one who wants to keep partying. It’s laughable to think that a few weeks ago it seemed like he was going to quit drinking. Overall, it’s a boring last night.
In the morning, the reflections and good-byes begin. Glenn talks to Gary about stepping up separating himself from the crew in working toward becoming a captain. He has to prioritize leadership over friendship, and Gary claims he’s learned how not to act … again. He knows he needs to take more responsibility for his actions and deal with his relationship with alcohol, but he doesn’t quite have a breakthrough there and definitely doesn’t reach one about his behavior with women. To put a cap on how little he’s learned, he comes into his cabin as Keith and Daisy are hanging out on her bunk, all smiles. Gary does a “pull my finger” fart right after all that talk about maturing.
Davide is the first to depart. The engineer didn’t even get whispers of a character arc, only a bloody nose. He tells us he fixed many things, but we didn’t see that. Davide is off to the clubs.
Cloyce leaves next, an early exit for arguably the MVP of the season. By MVP, I mean he was always entertaining, not that he was the best at his job. Cloyce goes out in no style, spinning a rap recap of the season that I only realize is a rap halfway through. The rapping may be hopeless, but he still has room to improve as a chef.
Chase and Danni leave separately but on good terms. He says he wants to see her as soon as they can, but he’s obtaining a yacht-master training certificate and then starting a five-year circumnavigation in his boat. Yep, FIVE YEARS. That’s almost seven Ultimate World Cruises. When a producer asks what’s next for Danni, she jokes that she’s going to try to make a boy fall in love with her … or is it a joke? Yikes! In a postscript, it’s revealed she won: Danni visited Chase on his boat, and they dated and sailed together for a year. They’ve since “docked their romantic relationship,” so the win was only temporary. Aesha and Daisy appeared on Watch What Happens Live and said they heard things got dark and toxic, which isn’t a huge surprise given the past 24 hours of yo-yoing and Danni trying to manipulate Chase into continuing the relationship. The two of them stuck on a tiny sailboat in the middle of the ocean sounds like the start of a horror movie.
Danni also says she would work with Daisy again if she had to. I’m pretty sure Daisy wouldn’t work with her, especially after seeing all the things Danni’s said behind her back. Diana’s glad she gained more service experience, which was harder than she thought. She learned to be more vocal about things, but in the end, she didn’t apply it in the right areas: telling someone you like them is not the same as criticizing your boss.
As Keith disembarks, Glenn compliments him for operating above his level (unlike Gary). Keith kisses Daisy good-bye and breaks the façade of “the end” a bit by acknowledging that they could just hang in Ibiza the next few days before meeting up in London. They went on to date for a few months (or a year, Daisy says on WWHL), but are just friends now.
Gary watches this and remains delusional, thinking there’s still something there with him and Daisy. The editors give us a jump scare of past-season Daisy-Gary moments, including their messy makeout in the hot tub. Daisy emotionally explains that they’re two lost people who try to protect each other and are attracted to each other for the wrong reasons, but she can’t be there for him. Yes, they have a lot of history together, but it’s downright jarring to end their story like this after that attempted kiss/assault last night. Past consent does not equal present consent. Were they too drunk to remember it?
To cap off the season on a lighter note, the ultimate Below Deck compliment is wanting to work with a crew member again, so here’s a ranking who we’d most like to work with — well, most like to see on the show — again:
Would be thrilled to see back: Keith. Other than drinking with guests, Keith could do no wrong. He has to return if only to explain how he lost (or ruined?) nine pairs of underwear.
It’s fine if they return: Glenn and Daisy. This was neither’s best season. It’d be nice to see Daisy end her Below Deck career with a better interior crew and without Gary.
Would tolerate: Cloyce and Chase. The overconfident boyish energies can be grating.
Politely passing: Davide and Diana. They just didn’t give us enough to work with.
Absolutely not: Danni. Her lack of self-awareness and bad attitude was tough to watch. She has some growing up to do before she’s ready for TV again.
Absolutely fucking not: Gary.
These rankings are as official as Glenn’s rules, which is to say, they can change at any time.
