Captain Sandy accidentally made Luka Brunton‘s boatmance with Jessika Asai way more complicated by bringing up his surprise connection with Below Deck Mediterranean alum Katie Flood.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the upcoming episode, which airs on Monday, January 8, Sandy points out how happy Luka looks after getting a text message.
“Is that your girlfriend texting you? From the other boat?” the captain asked Luka in front of his coworkers, including his current fling Jessika.
While Luka seemed shocked at the comment, Sandy didn’t notice, adding, “I knew it was her because [of] your face! Luke is smitten.”
The bosun asked Sandy what she meant by the word smitten, which she clarified with the word “crush.” Jessika, for her part, wasn’t thrilled to hear about the other woman in Luke’a life.
“What f—king girlfriend?” Jessika said in a confessional. Tumi Mhlongo elaborated on Sandy blowing up Luka’s spot, telling the cameras, “Captain Sandy has no idea what’s going on with Jess and Luka. I’m really curious how Luka is going to get himself out of this one.”
Season 8 reintroduced viewers to Luka after his stint on the second season of Below Deck Down Under, which aired earlier this year. Luka was primarily focused on his transition from a deckhand to a provisional bosun to leading the deck team after Ruan Irving left the boat due to forged paperwork.
As the season continued, Luka developed a flirtationship with Natalya Scudder as she tried to figure out her open relationship with an offscreen boyfriend. Natalya and Luka made out a few times but ultimately parted ways when she left the Mustique to figure out the issues in her personal life.
Luka quickly moved on with Jessika and it was all smooth sailing until he brought up his bond with Katie.
“I’ve known Katie for like four years. She used to date one of my friends and I know that she’s worked with Sandy in the past,” Luka said during the December 18 episode before laughing off assumptions of a romantic past. “My history [with her]? We don’t really have any history. We’ve hung out a few times. What are you trying to get at?”
Earlier in the episode, Luka told cameras he was “not worried about getting attached” to Jessika. He has since offered Us an update on how the boatmance drama wrapped up.
“I’m in a relationship at the moment. [I’m] back with my partner that I was with before the show,” Luka revealed to Us during BravoCon in November. “We split up [before] the show and we’re back together now. I don’t think she’s watching [this season]. It’s probably good.”
In addition to causing some unexpected trouble for Luka, Katie has been caught up in her own dating drama during her time on Bravo. After filming season 6 of Below Deck Med, Katie told Us about how she previously dated deckhand Jack Stirrup.
“I didn’t watch his season for a long time. When I found out he was doing Below Deck, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ You know, because he’s actually an engineer by trade. He’s not a deckhand. Which obviously comes across in the series,” she shared in June 2021. “When I did finally, like, watch the series, I really loved it. It’s exactly him to a tee, like it’s super goofy, super charming, you know? He just does what he wants to do. That’s Jack. So, it was really nice to see that he was exactly how he is in normal life.”
Katie went on to reveal that she was the inspiration behind Jack’s tattoo, which he showed off on the screen during his season 4 appearance. “He does. I know a lot of his girlfriends often aren’t the biggest fans of that,” she added. “He says he’ll always keep it.”
Despite not returning for more seasons on Below Deck Med, Katie joined the season 3 cast of Winter House alongside former costar Malia White. Katie found herself smitten by Tom Schwartz but the pair’s brief fling ultimately fizzled out before it really started.
Last month, Katie shared her theory on how Schwartz’s split from now-ex-wife Katie Maloney contributed to their unsuccessful attempt at a romance.
“I think he’s done a lot of things in that relationship [with Katie] that he knows put her through a lot, and I think in his mind he was like, ‘OK, this is going to be on TV. She is going to see it,’” the chief stew told Us. “They’d obviously filmed Vanderpump [Rules] a couple of months prior and we obviously saw what happened last season. So I think that was in his head. He was trying not to disrespect [his ex-wife] or do something to her.”
She continued: “Honestly, at the start, I didn’t really mind it. We were all very aware of what he was going through. There was a lot going on in every single area of his life, so I was trying to really hold space for that and be mindful to him and have courtesy towards that. But it definitely gets [to] a [breaking] point, and it just sucked a little bit. I do have feelings, and it was getting a bit exhausting to keep going through this circle, and I felt a bit disrespected.”
Below Deck Mediterranean airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
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