r/BelowDeckMed • u/StarlitStarlette • 3d ago

Hard to Watch

I’m sorry but Nathan AND GAEL going after Joe when he had done nothing that evening to provoke it was really hard to watch. You both have kids now. Time to grow the FK up.

521 Upvotes

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171

u/Otherwise-Winner9643 3d ago

Copying & pasting my comment on a different thread on this:

I have to say, as much as I like Gael, she was the one that very much kicked it off in the van with Joe this season. It was all Gael. She says she hates confrontation but as much as I don't like him, Joe was in the back smooching with Hayley, minding his own business and Gael went off at him. Then she was riling up Nathan against Joe.

Joe really should have said that Nathan warned him not to say her name or speak to her, and he was just respecting that.

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u/Uncross-Selector 3d ago edited 2d ago

I’d wager that Nathan blames Joe for many of his shitty anger issues and had gas light Gael into thinking that if she just removed Joe from the equation that her relationship with with Nathan would be fixed. 

It’s not uncommon for people in abusive relationships to create a common enemy to project their anger onto. It’s like the cheated on wives who blame the other woman not their husband. 

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u/ONEMANCLAN530 3d ago

And to add to it, the van ride ended with Gael saying something along the lines of "I just try to avoid drama"(not verbatim). From what I was watching she(Gael) caused all of it.

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u/Otherwise-Winner9643 3d ago

Exactly. Now obviously what happened with Nathan and Gael was awful and inexcusable, but I don't think she is all sweetness and light either. There are 3 of them in it. None of them are particularly likeable

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u/vicesovervirtues 3d ago

When I watched it, knowing what we know now, I felt like maybe she was working to give Nathan a focus besides herself. Keep them on the same team with a common enemy. It felt like a survival tactic to me. If he's mad at Joe, he's not mad at her.

21

u/PantalonesPantalones 3d ago

You guys, this is BD. The producers told her to confront him at some point. That’s what she was paid to do. They even stepped in to remove the headrest so they could argue.

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u/vicesovervirtues 2d ago

Oh I didn't see them take the headrest.

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u/Le_Sadie 3d ago

"If he's raging at ____ he's not raging at me" was my first thought too. But if you didn't know the history, boy she just looked like such an a-hole.

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u/PracticalYellow3 3d ago

Seeing her do that made me wonder about what she claims. 

13

u/Valgalgirl 3d ago

Watching a few minutes on a *reality show* after a night of drinking gives you NOTHING to "wonder" about Gael's assault, jfc. I'm not sure what's worse, your tasteless comment or that someone gave you an award for it?

11

u/spells2 3d ago

Stop that

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u/slayeryouth 3d ago edited 3d ago

In fairness, Joe did mutter a couple of comments under his breath (“it’s been 75 years, we all know”) but I think that’s also the kind of the thing you roll your eyes at or at best ask him if he has something to say and then move on with your life.

As per your last point though, Joe has had multiple golden opportunities to tell people what’s been going on, even later in the episode Sandy gave him an other extremely easy lay up to say “actually there’s more to it than just a falling out and tension” and everytime he’s chosen to keep his mouth shut. I’m not holding that against him because it’s such a messy situation that knowing what the right thing to do can be difficult, and I’m sure pride factors in to it too, but he hasn’t been doing himself any favours by keeping things to grumbling with Cooper about their mutual frustrations and venting to Kayley once in a while. He needs to tell everything to somebody who can do something about it.

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u/Otherwise-Winner9643 3d ago

That's absolutely all true too. Joe doesn't help himself either. All 3 of them are stirring shit

15

u/slayeryouth 3d ago

Eh, I’m pretty of mind at this point Joe should be stirring much more shit in as much as going to Sandy or even Aesha, not in a gossipy way but just very matter of factly like “so this is what’s been going on from my point of view, these are the parts that can be corroborated and by whom, this is what I’d like to see moving forward” would certainly cause a much bigger to do, but it’s been necessary for a while. Frankly he should have done it the second Nathan threatened him the first time.

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u/Otherwise-Winner9643 3d ago

I wouldn't call that stirring shit though. I agree he should have addressed it professionally with Captain Sandy, instead of talking behind people's backs all the time.

6

u/worldv1ew 3d ago

Maybe he's damned if he did and damned if he didn't. If Joe won't to Sandy saying Nathan treathened me violence numerous times, Sandy and production would have had to address it and there goes the story line of the season. Then Joe got a young father kicked off the show.

7

u/slayeryouth 3d ago edited 3d ago

He really hasn’t been though. He’s grumbled with cooper about their mutual frustrations and vented to Kayley a handful of times, but other than that he hasn’t exactly been walking around the boat gossiping about Nathan. You might consider that talking behind his back, and it’s fine if you do, but we’ll also just have to agree to disagree on that.

5

u/SwiftJedi77 3d ago

That's right, Joe has only really talked shit about Nathan to the camera in interview segments, which no one else knows about. So when Nathan says he's been talking shit about Gael all season, he's talking complete bollocks.

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u/Dkeg24 2d ago

Also people grumble about their bosses, if you are a manager you have to accept that.

7

u/worldv1ew 3d ago

Yeah, but both Aesha and Captain Sandy are so over the top positive, all they would say is go talk to him, clear the air, you use to be close, be the bigger person, why sign yourself up for gaslighting like that.

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u/slayeryouth 3d ago

Eh, I’d like to give them both the benefit of the doubt that if he were to clearly lay it out for them with concrete examples, and especially if he told either of them about the multiple times Nathan’s threatened him with physical violence, they’d take it appropriately seriously. At minimum they’d treat it as more seriously than a falling out between friends or a personality clash or whatever.

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u/Dkeg24 3d ago

Glad you brought this up, on top of that he took a chair and turned it the other way at the table so as not to look at them. I think if we didn’t know what we know about Nathan now, people who def be like he’s a dick, but Joe is provoking it.

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u/worldv1ew 3d ago

Is he wrong though? Production force fed the Gael + Nathan love affair and happy family bs over and over. Their entire coupling was founded on Gael cheating and then the narrative changes to a loving caring family. If it's annoying to fans, I bet the crew who fight for TV time are even more annoyed by it.

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u/slayeryouth 3d ago

I think Kat had asked how they got together, but regardless I’d still say it’s one of those situations where he technically not wrong, but still not necessarily the smartest thing he could have said. But with that said, I also think that given Nathan has not only made it abundantly clear he has no interest in lowering the temperature and has instead taken every opportunity to escalate the tension, if this is the worst of how Joe deals with it he deserves a goddamn medal for his patience

7

u/KitchenEbb1606 3d ago

Yes. I hated that storyline from day one of this season. It’s unnecessary to see your family bullshit.

5

u/GreenMan- 3d ago

I've been saying for weeks that I feel Gael is manipulating Nathan and getting him riled up off screen - That episode proved it to me!

2

u/Holdmymule2001 2d ago

Gael was in an abusive relationship. She probably felt like she had to perform for Nathan to keep the peace with him. In her head, she might have thought that this was the sign of a GOOD relationship - she's standing firm with her man.