Right now, it seems to be a bit of a Bravo trend to feature footage or audio involving the camera crew and producers “breaking the fourth wall” by making their presence clear on the network’s best shows. Lala Kent has not stopped speaking about the significance of the fourth wall break. On Vanderpump Rules this season, a series producer was shown attempting to prevent Ariana Madix from dramatically leaving the finale party in San Francisco when her repugnant ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval attempted, once again, to initiate an on-camera apology.
Andy Cohen revealed an additional fourth wall tidbit at the recent Summer House reunion, where he convincingly expressed to Lindsay Hubbard that when her then-fiancé Carl Radke spoke with production about bringing cameras back up to capture a conversation between them, nobody knew that the conversation was leading up to a breakup. And who can forget the infamous unmasking of Monica Garcia on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City as the Housewives troll account Reality Vontease.
Below Deck Mediterranean Cast Try To Avoid Cameras
Now it seems Below Deck: Mediterranean has hopped onto this fourth wall trend in the second and third episodes of Season 9, and in an unexpected way. The popular spin-off of the Below Deck franchise follows Captain Sandy Yawn and her crew aboard the Mustique this season.
The second episode ends on a dramatic cliffhanger as the young crew arrive back at the yacht from celebrating a night off. As Deckhands Nathan Gallagher and Gael Cameron walked back together, Nathan whispered to Gael that they needed to “lose these cameras.” Once back in their cabins, the pair coordinated via text messages, hatching a plot to meet up at the starboard bow locker in the hopes of ditching the production team.
In the third episode of the hit Bravo show, viewers learn about the aftermath of this endeavor as Gael bumps into the camera crew on her way to meet Nathan. When the camera operator inquired if she needed to be wired with a mic, she sheepishly replied that she was just grabbing a glass of water. She texted Nathan to let him know she had been caught, and to cancel their plan.
The most shocking element about the entire scene is that Gael had a boyfriend at the time, which in part seems to have been a motive for the secrecy. Gael admitted that she and her beau working out in the long term “is a little bit of a long-shot,” since they had failed to develop a “total trust factor.” As reality stars, the deal is an agreement to be on camera so that production gets to decide what is shown in the final edit, but it seems on Below Deck: Mediterranean the cast wanted to take a liberty and the producers caught wind quick.