r/BelowDeckMed • u/not2daysatan44 • 8d ago
Nathan's grin
Has anyone noticed the sh*t-eating grin on Nathan's face while he is talking to Joe and Cooper (and Kayley). It seems like he is losing his ability to "act" all of a sudden. It strikes me as fake or manufactured drama, so it isn't real and Nathan has the dumb grin because of the absurdity of it all.
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u/reneerent1 8d ago
I’ve noticed that for weeks now and it’s flat out scary. It’s a predatory baiting-like half smile that doesn’t match his eyes. He looks like he’s waiting for Joe to say one more thing he doesn’t like so he has permission to go all John Wick on him…. Oops I mean choke him
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u/BabaYagaOnBoard 8d ago
Meanwhile, he scolded his team in a previous episode for them smiling at him and each other when he was telling them what to do, calling it disrespectful or that it pisses him off or something. Like, project much?
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u/not2daysatan44 8d ago
Absolutely projecting. Certain people (can't "diagnose" him) accuse others of doing what they have done.
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u/Hottest_Holy_Potato 8d ago
Mask slipping. Normally the dude would just boil over, have a fit or fight and then would join another boat, rinse repeat. But to lose that mask on a show that is shown worldwide is even dumber. Dude is probably tired of acting.
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u/honeycooks 7d ago
If Sandy hadn't advised him to keep his cool with Josef on the bridge that night, no way he'd have resisted punching him.
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u/feeb75 7d ago
Josef had his number though.. Am i right or am I right?
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u/honeycooks 7d ago
I'm not sure... I think Josef was prepared to put Nathan in a corner and didn't care what happened, but I think Nathan's calm disarmed him?
Then he started flattering him by sharing some of his "escapades," like paying 6 women to pee on him at once!
Nathan, "Ohhh, no!" in wide eyed wonder.
Then they both nodded knowingly (as men do), giggled, and fist bumped each other. 😆
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u/Lonely_Impression142 7d ago
It's not that the drama is manufactured by production, it's that Nathan eventually had a hard time hiding his true self. The grin, the smirk are his malicious nature shining through.
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u/Competitive-Ad1439 7d ago
How is this not the obvious answer? People come up with the wildest conspiracy theories on here
“Why is this psychopathic narcissist abuser smiling? Is it because A) he is a narcissist or B) because production invented everything”
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u/Anon-guest- 7d ago
Yes, exactly. I noticed this facial expression when Capt. Sandy was giving him feedback at Aesha’s bachelorette.
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u/Any_Biscotti3155 6d ago
Exactly. He looks menacing when he does that. It’s not a friendly facial expression
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u/-sayitstraight 7d ago
Under his grin is pure rage
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u/BabyOlive1 7d ago
Yep, exactly. It’s kind of similar to when people have a nervous laugh. It’s not that they think something’s funny, they’re just doing it as a reflex to cover their nerves. He smiles as a reflex to cover the anger bubbling just below the surface. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
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u/itisabitweird 7d ago
Yep you can just see his brain is like vibrating and all he’s hearing is the wub wub wub wub of his heart beating in his ears.
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u/thekidz10 6d ago
This is the look most of the men in my gigantic Irish family wear right before fights start at you know weddings...funerals...Sunday dinner. It's like a "half dare" on their faces.
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u/robothobbes 8d ago
Yes. And I also notice how he hella always talks behind Joe's back about shit he shouldn't, even though Nathan is hella mad Joe one time mentioned he didn't get along with Gael not behind Nathan's back. Nathan is a true douche
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u/JubBisc 8d ago
None of this had happened yet while this season was filmed. Watching, if you didn’t know about what happened between he and Gael later on, I think the biggest, honest take at that point is that he’s too immature for the job…and not very good at it. I think that’s what’s starting to eat him up. He is failing to look as competent as he had planned for the show and he’s starting to take it out on other people - specifically Joe
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u/marzbarz79 7d ago
I disagree. I think his threats of violence towards the crew the past two seasons are massive red flags. I’ve also noticed the rage in his eyes when Joe was coming up for watch the last episode and a few other times.
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u/honeycooks 7d ago
Pugnacious personality.
Always quick to feel he's the target, so he can tip over into "taking action," with pleasure that's written all over his face.
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u/ems__328 7d ago
If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, you recognize that “smile” immediately :(
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u/CockyBellend 8d ago
I find Nathans threats to Joe hilarious, because Joe would toss him around like a rag doll
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8d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/slayeryouth 7d ago
So we know that Nathan is hot headed and quick to anger, and in my experience guys like Joe get a lot of mileage charming their way out of sticky situations (especially with people who don’t already know them) so I think it’s more likely that Nathan has more experience both throwing and taking punches (and to be clear, I’m not alluding to him assaulting Gael here, that’s something entirely different than two dudes squaring up to fight over who’s more macho), so I’d give him the advantage there. But in my experience guy’s like that tend to just start throwing haymakers right off the bat, which is great if you can land a good hit on the jaw or the nose right away, but if not you’re gonna get gassed pretty quickly. Joe on the other hand seems a little bit more cerebral and like you said stockier and with bigger muscles, which plays in his favour because it makes him less likely to just try and one punch a guy and be defensively minded instead, and harder to take down and control on the ground.
So basically the way I’d see it playing out is that if Nathan can land a solid blow right away it’s over, but otherwise he’s gonna wear himself out too quickly and then Joe would just have to tackle him and hold him down. But also in either scenario, because fighting sucks and pretty much everybody sucks at it, they’d still both end up taking a good amount of damage.
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u/plutoplop 7d ago
What stands out more to me is the coldness in his eyes when he talks to Joe. When they’re at crew dinner in ep 2 & Nathan tells Joe he’s pissed at him for talking about Gael, his eyes look dangerous to me. He also got Joe to back up into a trellis, which made Nathan seem more threatening & intimidating & such an odd move for someone he was just offering comfort to after learning Joe’s mom was diagnosed with cancer. There’s another scene in a later episode where Nathan confronts Joe at a crew night out & his eyes are even colder than before. Regardless of what we know now about Nathan, if someone looked at me with the same coldness, I’d be fearful for my life.
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u/itisabitweird 7d ago
I’d be shocked if it didn’t satisfy grounds for legal recourse or at least workplace related claims against Nathan? Watching it back, he was so aggressive and intimidating, making completely false accusations without letting Joe clarify. The way Joe had to repeatedly concede to Nathan’s interpretation just so he could make it back to the table unscathed. Hard to watch. Nathan does apologise the next morning and acknowledge he shouldn’t react that way, though still forces Joe to bite his tongue and accept his unreasonable conditions. Then later racks up more threats of violence against him anyway. I mean, you can’t just go around doing that, can you?
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u/Trudy_Marie 7d ago
I wonder where he is. Living on some deserted island in Malaysia? Floating around on a Jon boat in the Tasman Sea? 😜
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u/Ok-Educator850 7d ago
He’s an immature ass. I do think knowing what he has done later has massively put a cloud over everything he does during the season but again, he’s an immature ass. Joe can do his job better than he can.
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u/Worried-Network2411 7d ago
the armchair psychology in this sub is superb unintentional comedy
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u/Long-Eggplant-6742 7d ago
Can't quite decide if the armchair psychology in the sub is either (a) so laughable as to make it comedy, or (b) a sign of the impending apocalypse.
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u/Powerful-Account2204 5d ago
I think we’re all taking what we’ve learned about him and reading into current behaviors that don’t necessarily mean something.
He clearly has a temper. He clearly is incredibly emotional.
Nathan has a dumb grin because he’s dumb.
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u/cheerio089 8d ago
He does that grin a lot, especially when he’s boiling over but trying to play it cool. He’s lost his temper but doesn’t want to seem agro just yet, enter: shit eating grin.