Deadliest Catch Recap: Week 7

Week 7: When Hell Freezes Over (premiered May 25, 2010)
“I could get kinda jazzed about this.”
~ Captain Phil Harris 

A close-up of Phil Harris followed by a shot of a cemetery? Subtle, Discovery, real subtle.

Obvious intro foreshadowing aside, it’s opilio season 2010 on the Bering Sea, and everyone’s in port getting ready for the cold, cold trip. The Time Bandit begins their prep by breaking in their new greenhorn, Jeremy. How do the notorious pranksters accomplish this? They convince him that they need to tune the radar, wrap him up in tinfoil, and send him out on the dock to walk around and pose like an idiot while they shout instructions and take pictures. Hilarity ensues (for the crew and viewers, at least). I’m certain that Jeremy knows they’re messing with him from the start, but he takes everything in stride and without complaint, winning immediate points with the Hillstrand brothers. Good call, Jeremy!  

Over on the Northwestern, the crew is taking an uncharacteristic break before starting the season to celebrate Deckboss Edgar’s 39^th birthday. Unfortunately, Edgar is feeling every single one of those years with a herniated disk in his back and torn shoulder muscles. Naturally, his injuries are slowing him down, leaving Captain Sig feeling torn between being a captain (if the deckboss is slow, everyone is slow) and being a brother. It’s a familiar dilemma played out on many of the boats: Johnathan, Andy, and Scotty Hillstrand; Phil, Josh, and Jake Harris; Keith and Monte Colburn. Eventually, there’s going to be a moment when being a captain conflicts with being a father or brother. As we’ve seen over the seasons, it’s a fine line and an imperfect science, and they don’t always get it right. Sig promises Edgar that he’ll try to keep things at a pace Edgar can handle, but that sort of thing really isn’t in Sig’s nature. He naturally wants to be out of port before an incoming storm, and in hoping to beat the weather and be the first boat out he pushes his people as hard as ever.

The Kodiak, as I predicted, is back for opilio with two greenhorns because three of Captain Bill’s deckhands—including his own son—refused to come back after the incredible suck that was king crab season. “The pressures are huge,” says Wild Bill, and he’s right. If opilio season doesn’t go a hell of a lot better for him than king crab did, I expect he’ll find it almost impossible to get a crew for next year—assuming he doesn’t hightail it back to the warm-weather fishing he’s become accustomed to.

The Cornelia Marie, in an event that has unwittingly set the tone for how we all know this opilio season is going to go, has run aground and is now stuck in dock receiving what eventually amounts to 22 hours and $50,000 in repairs. “It’s one of those things that’s just…unfortunate,” says Captain Phil, and I can’t help but feel sad about the way the final fishing season of his life has begun. He deserves one last hurrah, and shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for prop repairs isn’t the way I’d like him to go.

After all the bait is stocked and the pots are stacked, the boats are ready to go. The Northwestern gets out a day before anyone else and the Cornelia Marie is a day behind the pack, but eventually everyone’s headed towards their opilio crab grounds. The weather, however, doesn’t want to cooperate, and immediately hits the fleet with an icy blast that has them all dropping empty pots just to keep their boats from getting too top-heavy. Captain Sig finds himself stopping short of his grounds and dropping pots in water 200 feet deeper than he anticipated, which means every pot has to be threaded with extra line. Edgar, quite out of character, is complaining about the pain he’s in, and I am really starting to believe his crab-fishing days are numbered. And in a strange editing move I’m beginning to expect from this season, a track of Sig’s maniacal laughter keeps playing at odd times. What are you people up to in that editing room, Discovery?

The Wizard has yet another greenhorn to break in: Paul. By now even the crew is acknowledging their reputation for going through greenhorns like candy, and the greenhorn montage thrown in is amusing for pointing out just how many people the Wizard has chewed up and spit out over the seasons. It doesn’t take long for them to hit the nasty storm that’s pummeling everyone else, and Keith begins flashing back to this time last year, when a rogue wave took out half his crew, including his brother Monte, as they were securing pots. Keith is extremely (and understandably) nervous about being in the same situation, and keeps an eagle eye on his people as they crawl over the stacks. “I just wanna get my gear off the boat,” he says as doom and gloom music plays in the background. I swear, I’m going to need some Prozac by the time this season is over.

The Time Bandit, with Captain Andy at the helm for this run, also find themselves dropping iced-over pots unbaited and short of their grounds. “So, this feels like it’s going to be a cold-ass opilio season,” says Andy in what so far looks to be the understatement of the year. Poor Jeremy is getting a greenhorn baptism by fire, and no chance to get his sea legs before the storm means he spends his first day puking his guts out on deck.

Wild Bill is having trouble setting his pots since everything’s iced over so quickly, and spends more time watching his very green crew than devising crab-catching strategy. It looks to be such a rough season weather-wise that I can’t help but wonder how long it’s going to be before one of the four opie greenhorns gets hurt.

Meanwhile, on the Cornelia Marie, Phil is running into the same problem everyone else has: ice. His pots are basically fused together, and Jake suits up and heads out to dangle off the side of the stacks and hammer away at the ice. “The whole thing’s gonna be a pain in the ass,” Phil says as his foot taps incessantly. Watching his son hanging out over the water is clearly nerve-wracking, and the weird crewman-cam angles didn’t help my disposition, either. Vicarious sea sickness, anyone? 

And then…well, the episode ends, mid-hammer. These non-ending endings are starting to drive me batty, and I wish I knew why DC insists on doing it this season. With the built-in drama of an upcoming death, leaving us hanging every episode seems a bit over-the-top. Of course, it’s not going to stop me from watching every week, so perhaps Discovery knows what they’re up to, after all. 

My predictions for next week’s episode: Brrrrrr.