Discovery Channel Alaskan Bush People recap: Endless Summer

Do the Alaskan Bush People get paid? We asked! Read our interview with the Brown family.

Alaskan Bush People Season 1 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | The Wild Life

Season 2 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2Episode 3 | Episode 4Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8  | Wild Times | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | SHARK WEEK! | Episode 15 |Episode 16 | Lost Footage | The Wild Year

In a special Season 3 preview episode of Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People, the Browns are busy at work and at play during the summer months in Southeast Alaska. The special also includes never-before-seen footage from past seasons and sneak previews of scenes from Season 3.

Greetings, friends. Welcome back to the continuing saga of Brownton Abbey. With “Endless Summer,” we get our first glimpse of what life is like on Chicago Bears Island when the Browns are not racing against the icy finger of wintery death. We also get to see some more LOST FOOTAGE! from past seasons and some previews of the new season that will continue Western civilization’s descent into the abyss.

“It’s now or never for the Browns,” says Billy for about the 20th time in the series. We’ve seen so much manufactured urgency that we’ve grown desensitized to it. Like Noah putting spiders in a jar on his desk so he can overcome his fear of them.

“Tesla of the Bush” Noah is going ahead with his power station idea to deliver electricity to the various cabins and rig up street lamps. He plans to bury power lines, which might have a shocking effect the next time Matt wants to dig a bush hot tub. Still unknown is the source of Noah’s electricity, though I’m holding out hope they’ll just chain Bear to the stationary bike for the rest of his life.

Brownton Abbey is expanding and the boys are building their own dwellings, which finds them competing for space and materials. In my Alaskan Bush People fan fiction novel, Brownton Abbey is divided among the five Brown Barons, feudalistic warlords who vie for dominance of Chicago Bears Island while their father, Tsar Billy, lies comatose. It’s all transpiring in accordance with prophecy.

Hey, ever notice how the Brown boys wear nothing but sleeveless T-shirts out in the snow and cold? What’s up with that? Noah says the Browns’ blood is thicker than the blood of someone who’s just come up from Texas or Florida. Noah knows this because he has jars of Florida blood on his desk. I envision the Browns’ blood as a viscous sludge like condensed tomato soup.

The Browns’ tolerance for low temperatures works against them when they’re in more temperate climes. “I once actually heatstroked in a store one time at 60 degrees,” Bear says. Considering that this kid has the metabolism of a hummingbird, this does not surprise me.

Dogs

And hey, how do the Browns keep all that deer meat fresh? They dig a Bush Freezer in the ground and pack the meat with ice. “Burying the meat” is a joke I used way back in Season 1, Episode 1, so I won’t go there again.

“Da Vinci of Our Time” Noah’s character arc has progressed from contemplative introvert to self-absorbed idealist to Victor Frankenstein. We get a look at Noah’s upgraded workshop of horrors, where he dissects woodland creatures and saves their organs in containers. So what exactly does Noah have planned for his jarred deer hearts? “I was going to use them basically as a water pump.”

Bat

In a pointless scene that makes zero sense, we find Matt (of course) trying to blast branches off of trees with a shotgun. In principle, Matt’s trying to remove the sharp “widowmaker spears” near the bottom of the tree. In practice, this is stupid because it’s Matt’s idea and therefore ineffective. “The shotgun shells failed,” Noah says smugly. “But I do believe I might have a solution for that.”

NoahFail

Noah gets his archery set, ties some rope to an arrow and fires the rope over the offending branch so it can be pulled down. And here is your deadly “widowmaker spear,” folks:

Branch

Indeed, it requires the genius of Noah to complete a simple and unnecessary task that I could’ve accomplished in less than 30 seconds with a pole pruner.

Why does the profile segment of every Brown kid somehow involve Matt’s dumbassery?

But Matt’s segment in this episode trumps all previous displays of dumbassery. You see, in addition to all the physical dangers in the bush, there’s also the psychological danger of going batshit crazy. Matt wanders around Brownton Abbey talking to himself or inanimate objects. Apparently inspired by the DVD of Cast Away that finally found its way up to Alaska, Matt has a totem head, “Bob,” who is forced to listen to Matt’s witty comments about the imaginary shows on a cardboard box Bush TV.

TotemHead

Let’s see. What else?

MattFoil

Matt decides to build a bear-fighting robot — a “BearBot” — out of a bunch of random crap that could’ve been put to much better use. Kids, be sure to try this out on your own bears at home!

BEarBot

Unfortunately, Matt mothballed Project BearBot before it had the chance to become Skynet self-aware and turn against the Browns. “Due to a lack of time and interest I only got as far as one arm,” Matt says.

Poor Matt gets no respect, and it should remain that way, since Matt knows his character is the Rodney Dangerfield of the family and his antics are all that’s keeping viewers from dumping this show “due to a lack of time and interest.” Against all precedent and sound judgment, Matt gets put in charge of the roofing project. Bam will most assuredly be decapitated by a sheet of corrugated metal. “He’s still my older brother, the only one I have at the end of the day, so that’s why I haven’t killed him yet,” Bam says.

In more LOST FOOTAGE! we discover that Matt superglued his hand to that car-desk thing they were transporting last season. “That’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve done in a while,” says the guy who minutes ago accidentally scratched his eye with a tooth necklace.

MattGlue

Time for the Bear Pissing Intermission!BEarPiss

Also in Season 3 HOLY CRAP A BEAR IS BUSTING UP BROWNTON ABBEY!!

BearAttack

BearAttack2

If you’re not thinking about The Great Outdoors, you’re not thinking correctly.

More random thoughts and observations:

Hey! Look at little Rainy, all growns up and eye-rolling at an 11th-grade level!

Rainy

Desperate for lampshades, the Brown family has resorted to skinning Bear.

Tide

Someone who’s not really missing goes missing.

Gabe

The Browns celebrate Halloween, or something.

BrownsGoth

The producers hired some Hoonah ladies to attend Matt’s birthday party.

MattBirthday

SPOILER ALERT! Ami gets sick this season.

Ami

SPOILER ALERT! Billy gets sick this season.

BillyComa

And OH HELL YEAH! THE SKIFF PUTS OUT FIRES!

Skiff

This is going to be the most wonderful terrible season ever.

18 Comments

  1. I think this family are wonderful , they are fun , happy , loving , resourceful , thank you to them for sharing your life with me . god bless and prayers are with you all Cynthia davis

  2. Does people not read anymore billy the father is a retired fisherman captain and has 70 books on sale over the years and is worth between 500,000 to a million dollars and each one of there kids are worth 60,000 a piece from there jobs that they work between filming time

  3. As a Sourdough, my nickname after living through my first and only Alaskan winter, I find this series a great form of entertainment. I believe that is the goal of any television production.

  4. Love, love this series. Down to earth people. Family is so close living simply. They really have it made (if no electricity for us city people or appocolypse), they won’t miss any of the luxurys that most of us depend on. Wish I had the want to do as they do.

  5. I love to watch this show. And I know they have got to be getting paid to do the show. So could somebody please get Bird some braces? At least on the top! That poor baby needs that tooth turned around. And poor Ami halo of her teeth are gone! Bless her heart! Dental implants are wonderful! I know I have two!

  6. OMG….where does one begin?

    Blood thickening? Nope. Doesn’t happen.

    Heatstroke in a store at 60 degrees? Nope. Not possible.

    Burying meat in a hole in the ground? Yup, if you’re a bear. If not, you are about to meet a bear.

    Widowmaker spears? Another example that Matt has never lived in the Bush? A widomaker is a tree that falls on a person – leaning tree, rotten tree, bad cut etc.

    WTF is that hat on Noah’s head?? Freak.

  7. Noah the next time you folks need an Alaskan sawmill weld the head of a 3/8 s bolt to a piece of 2 in angle iron about a foot long. Put two thick washers on the bolt drill a3/8hole in your saw bar slide it on the bolt then two more washers the you can nut it down tight.You can slide the angle iron on a 2×4 spiked to the log.

  8. OMGosh. Bam has to be the most annoying, bossy know it all person on t.v. He needs to learn a little patience with his siblings. I can’t imagine how he would treat a wife.
    Lighten up Bam Bam.

  9. As usual excellent and witty review of what has to be one of the dumbest “reality” tv shows ever created by out of work tv producers.

    I think poor Ami’s medical problem is that she has a pain the arse having to deal with her family.

  10. I think the background noise. Is going to drive people away from watching this season. It already turned me away. Was a good show in the past

  11. We enjoy the Bush People program but the background noise makes it impossible
    to understand what is going on. Is this really necessary? Tone it down.

    Thank you

Comments are closed.

About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.