The Season 22 finale of “Deadliest Catch” examined the death of star Todd Meadows, who fell overboard months earlier while filming the Discovery Channel reality series.

In Friday’s episode, producers showed what happened shortly before and after the 25-year-old’s fatal fall from the Aleutian Lady in the Bering Sea off Alaska on Feb. 25.

Although the show did not broadcast the moment Meadows went overboard, viewers heard from Captain Rick Shelford and watched the crew respond to the emergency.

A warning appeared before the segment, cautioning viewers that the material could be disturbing.

Shortly before his death, Meadows appeared in a confessional interview while preparing food. “It’s been a rough season, from what I’ve heard it’s been one of the rougher seasons for the boat,” he told the cameras.

When a producer asked whether he would return to the boat if he were allowed to go home, Meadows replied, “Absolutely.”

“It’s been one of my dreams and goals to make it up here,” he said. “That’s why I’m up here to make it and to try to support my family.”

Meadows also spoke about his three children, who were 1, 2 and 4 years old at the time. He described being away from them as a “heart-wrencher,” especially because his youngest children did not understand why he was gone.

The episode later showed Meadows speaking with his family on FaceTime. During the call, he promised his son that they would go salmon fishing together when he returned home.

“I hope you’re being safe,” Meadows’ daughter told him. “If you’re not being safe you better be safe.”

“Oh I’m being safe,” he answered.

The footage then shifted to the wheelhouse, where Shelford asked the crew, “Everybody OK?” after hearing screams.

“No,” the crew replied, telling him that a man had gone overboard. Shelford immediately turned the vessel around and instructed the crew to prepare to bring Meadows out of the water.

EXPLORE MORE: Suki Waterhouse Steals the Spotlight in a Frilly Pink Met Gala Dress

Cameras remained inside the control center as Shelford directed the crew to recover Meadows and begin CPR.

“Come on, man, come on,” Shelford said off camera before contacting the Coast Guard. He later broke down in tears when a producer told him, “He’s gone, Rick.”

An on-screen message stated: “On February 25th, 2026, deckhand Todd Meadows went overboard. After six minutes and twenty-six seconds in the water, he was recovered unresponsive.”

Shelford previously announced Meadows’ death in a heartbreaking Facebook post, calling it the “most tragic day in the history of the Aleutian Lady on the Bering Sea.”

“Todd was the newest member of our crew, he quickly became family. His love for fishing and his strong work ethic earned everyone’s respect right away,” he wrote.

Trey John Green III, a fellow deckhand and “Deadliest Catch” cast member, told Page Six exclusively in March that conditions on the notoriously dangerous Bering Sea were “calm” when Meadows fell overboard. However, he said the water was only “a degree or two above freezing.”

Green said Meadows was “in the right place at the right time” and “doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing” when the accident happened.

“It’s one of those things that none of us really understand. I don’t know what happened,” Green explained.

Meadows’ mom previously begged Discovery not to profit off her son’s death by showing the footage and, as of April, the family was planning to launch a wrongful death lawsuit.

It remains to be seen if they have moved ahead with such plans.

Per Meadows’ death certificate, his cause of death attributed to “drowning with probable hypothermia” and “submersion of body in cold water.”

A GoFundMe, originally launched in April on behalf of Meadows’ mother, has recently picked up traction again and seen donations come in after the chilling episode.

As of this article’s publishing, it has made nearly $71K of its $75K goal.

Women are supposedly losing their minds this fall—and pumpkin spice lattes have nothing to do with it.

Before the predictable online backlash begins, let me clarify: it is the broader “woke” movement that appears to be losing its mind.

Again.

Remember when commentators were writing woke’s political obituary?

“It’s a vibe shift,” they declared.

“Woke 1.0 was craaaazy,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, laughing off an era when teenagers could face intense backlash for something as minor as smirking.

For a brief moment, it seemed ordinary Americans had taken the culture back from its most zealous activists.

I regret to report that they had not.

If Woke 1.0 seemed extreme, Woke 2.0 looks even more unmoored.

Two stories I read this week, one after the other, suggested that woke politics never disappeared. It simply retreated from view—perhaps to western Massachusetts before resurfacing in Philadelphia.

Consider Philadelphia. Hannah Gann, a veteran public-school teacher, reportedly spent years presenting herself to local activists as Palestinian, Tunisian or another identity that suited the political moment.

A Gaza “scholasticide” teach-in even introduced her as Palestinian American.

According to the account, fellow activists confronted Gann, and after about an hour she acknowledged that she had no Palestinian heritage.

Her grandfather, she said, was born in Baltimore.

The activists were outraged, alleging that Gann had solicited money while claiming financial hardship caused by sending funds to relatives in Palestine.

The account also said Gann is Jewish and that her relatives overseas live in Israel.

The episode offers another example of how the activist slogan #FreePalestine has assumed a role in progressive politics once associated with Black Lives Matter.

In an Instagram confession, Gann described herself as a “white woman of significant privilege and wealth.”

Yet by the movement’s own standards, it is fair to ask what, exactly, she did wrong.

After all, this is a movement that insists men can become pregnant.

If you can identify into possessing a uterus, why can’t you identify your family tree into Ramallah?

Maybe Hannah has a Palestinian soul and she was born in the wrong body.

Why does gender self-ID get you a book deal and racial self-ID get you a struggle session? Make it make sense.

Exhibit B: Greenfield, Mass. (is there something in the water, Massachusetts?), where, per the Boston Globe, men in ponytails and N95s flock to order hibiscus tea.

I’m not making that up. I couldn’t make that up.

Meet Last Ditch, a lesbian bar that required N95 masks at all times. In the year-of-our-Lord 2026.

It was going broke (because woke), so it made Saturdays mask-optional and gently broke the news to its “immunocompromised disabled divas.”

Everyone responded reasonably. Just kidding.

No, the bar’s owners were denounced as ableist and eugenicists, and one commentator hoped the place got firebombed.

The bar attempted to apologize but the apology got dragged too, because the graphic had no alt-text for the vision-impaired.

Then came the community meeting, and I really need you to picture it.

Masked adults in a circle on a dance floor with a stripper pole in the center.

Two mediators, and a calming breath circle.

Everyone got two-minute turns. There was a Zoom peanut gallery.

The meeting went for three and a half hours.

Then the Zoom crowd attacked the mediator for being a white therapist, and the 26-year-old owner who got stuck with a $50,000 loan after her two co-founders bailed (one for clown school, I swear to God), broke down crying.

She was promptly informed her tears were racist.

You cannot convince me this isn’t the plot of a Christopher Guest film.

Laugh, I did. But underneath the clown-school comedy is something darker.

The Last Ditch bar’s own regulars are fantasizing about it getting torched.

And in Philly, a woman in a costume spent years earning the trust of mostly black teenagers by pretending to share their oppression.

That’s what makes Woke 2.0 even scarier than the original.

They’re so sure they’re the good guys that anything goes: lying, conning people out of cash, shooting executives or campus speakers, wishing arson on a bar for lifting its mask mandate in 2026.

Woke didn’t die. It was hibernating.

And judging by this week, it woke up hungry.

Bridget Phetasy is the host of the “Dumpster Fire” and “Walk-Ins Welcome” podcasts, and author of the upcoming book “The Left Can’t Meme: How Comedy Wins Culture Wars.”

Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, has faced intense community backlash after suspending its mask requirement one night a week. Critics accused the struggling business of ableism and called for a boycott.

The bar recently stopped requiring masks on Saturdays in hopes of drawing more customers and increasing revenue. But the decision angered some members of the small city’s queer community, The Boston Globe reported.

Some critics said the policy change endangered disabled and immunocompromised people. Others described it as contributing to a “mass disabling event” and a “eugenicist” attack. Several commenters also directed violent threats at the establishment, according to The Boston Globe.

“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic],” one person wrote in response to the bar’s social media announcement.

“People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience,” another commenter wrote.

“Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with,” a third person said.

“When y’all close, let the record state it was ableism + complying in advance, because that’s what it is,” another commenter wrote.

“Does COVlD not disable people on Saturday nights?” another user added. The person’s profile picture showed him wearing a mask.

The dispute comes years after the federal government declared the COVID-19 pandemic over in 2023. State and local governments, along with most businesses nationwide, had already ended mask requirements several years earlier.

Greenfield also had not reported a COVID-19 case in more than two months, according to The Boston Globe.

The controversy has coincided with weak Saturday-night attendance, which would typically be one of the bar’s busiest periods. Some unhappy customers have called for a boycott, The Boston Globe reported.

The backlash came as Last Ditch was already under financial pressure because of its unusual business model, which includes the policy: “Nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds.”

Last Ditch had adopted its mask mandate as part of an effort to make the venue more accessible to disabled and immunocompromised patrons. The face-covering requirement was intended to help protect people with compromised immune systems.

Under the policy, customers were expected to wear masks except while actively taking a bite of food or a sip of a drink.

The owners eventually fell behind on bills and could no longer afford to pay themselves or their staff.

Jackie Matellian, the owner still involved in the bar’s daily operations, lived in her truck for six months while working four jobs and carrying a $50,000 loan, according to The Boston Globe.

The two other owners had stepped away from day-to-day operations several months earlier. One had enrolled in clown school, while another was a drag performer who uses it/its pronouns.

Facing mounting financial problems, the bar decided to suspend its Saturday mask mandate in an effort to increase revenue and keep the business operating, The Boston Globe reported.

“It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional,” Last Ditch wrote on an August Instagram post that ignited the backlash.

The bar first attempted to ease tensions and apologize for its post, writing: “We are sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us. We understand everyone faces different intersections and we are always working to consider all needs fully.”

But that did little to lower the temperature, as critics said Last Ditch’s post failed to include written “alt text,” a short written description of an image added to the HTML code of a webpage for visually impaired people.

“This is not an accessible post,” one person commented. “It indicates the lack of care or interest in Disability intersectionality.”

Last Ditch again sought to address the controversy during its monthly community meeting on Sept. 11, according to The Boston Globe.

Outraged attendees who joined by Zoom began flooding the chat with comments that were read aloud for the in-person group to hear.

The meeting took another twist when critics made an allegation of racism because the mediator, a licensed therapist, was white.

“A lot of people are calling for an acknowledgment of harm and I’m hearing a WHITE therapist … center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff,” one person said, the newspaper reported.

Attendees also took issue with a therapist being there at all and said it made them feel “widely unsafe” since that made the woman a mandated reporter, meaning she is required by law to report known or suspected abuse.

Matellian broke down in tears when it was her turn to speak, saying she was only trying to help her friends with bar before taking over once they left and having a difficult time trying to survive financially.

Matellian has fallen behind on rent and the bar’s landlord wants $3,900 by the end of September.

“It was not my passion project,” Matellian cried while masked up. “I never really wanted this. I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”

But the bar’s critics had no sympathy for the struggling business owner.

“You chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings,” one person responded. “This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior.”

The mask-optional Saturday nights have not helped with business, as the barroom has been nearly empty each weekend despite drink deals and DJs that would attract dozens of customers in the past.

One person recently suggested having a Lady Gaga-themed party to pull in more patrons.

“Gaga is canceled,” the bartender said. “Gaga is Zionist.”