Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People recap: Pile it On

Alaskan Bush People recap

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

On the Alaskan Bush People Season 2, Episode 5 “Pile it On,” the Browns start building their home on their remote land in Alaska. They have to float the foundation pilings to their land and suffer a setback when a big storm hits. Oldest brother Matt builds a home for himself.

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

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

Good morning beautiful, serene Chicago Bears Island! Nothing like having Bush Alarm Clock Ami blasting the shotgun to start your day off right!

There’s a lot of work to do today around the Brown family camp. Hey, Bam! Nice work raking those leaves! Because if there’s one thing we can’t tolerate in the bush, it’s leaves.

The Browns are getting ready to build the house that they’ve always dreamed of abandoning some day. It’s going to be a 24 x 28 foot house, half of which will be allotted for the family’s shoes.

Remember The Lorcan, the boat the Browns abandoned on the good 12 people of Meyers Chuck a few episodes ago? They got someone to put the engine back together with fishing line and chewing gum, so it’s at least in working order. Billy thinks The Osprey might be more desirable in a trade, so Billy finds a guy — we’ll call him Lumber Guy II — who will take the boat in a barter for lumber. The pilings are available now, but it will take several weeks for the rest of the lumber to be ready. At least that’s what Lumber Guy II says, if in fact Lumber Guy II is who he says he is.

And then we get to Matt, who has dropped below Mr. Cupcake on the Brown family usefulness hierarchy. He’s a self proclaimed idiot savant — “idiot most of the time, savant some of the time.” Birdy says, “He’s insane, but he’s also a genius.” Matt is pretty smart, though, if he can sucker his family into keeping his freeloading ass around.

Remember Matt’s Yoda hut? The Force was not strong with Matt, and he got kicked out of it by a spider. Yes, a spider frightened Little Miss Matt away. So now he’s going to use a giant roll of plastic wrap to build a “house.”

Let’s forget about the suffocation hazard for a moment. Matt thinks he’s going to create some kind of hermetically sealed arachnid-proof shelter. The spider laughs at you, Matt.

Lumber Guy II is going to charge Billy “a fortune” to deliver the pilings. See, that’s how Lumber Guy II gets you. He’s like those companies that make inkjet printers. They’ll sell you a nice printer for under $100 and then you find out the ink cartridges cost $60 and you get so angry you throw the damn printer into a drainage ditch. Billy says he’s going to go get the eight 20-foot long, 600-pound pilings himself, roll them into the water, tie them all together and tow them with the boat. “Should be an easy process,” he says. The spider also laughs at you, Billy.

Bam, Gabe, Billy and Bear head out on The Lorca and the skiff, which now has a motor (would’ve come in handy two weeks ago). Does not change the fact that THE SKIFF IS CURSED. The weather turns and the waters get rough. Billy is concerned because he doesn’t want to lose any of his precious yellow cedar pilings, and he doesn’t want to lose a kid, either (in that order).

You know, Alaskan Bush People spends an inordinate amount of time showing you what you’ve already seen and what you’re about to see. It’s like the football game that takes three hours but has only 11 minutes of actual football game play. Take out all the junk and every episode probably only has 10 minutes of original material.

Bear loves the smell of cedar. He says, “I like to get up close and smell it because I love cedar!” Is there anyone who doesn’t? I remember as a kid going to the hardware store and just hanging out in the lumber section by the cedar planks because they smelled nice. What I didn’t do is rub cedar all over myself so I could go around smelling like a tree. Look for Bear Essence cologne by Calvin Klein at your local department store this coming holiday season.

Hey, guess what? Stuff AGAIN turns out to be a lot harder than Billy expected. It’s rainy and muddy, and dragging the logs to the beach is difficult. Billy devises a plan to roll the logs off a platform and drop them in the water so those in the accursed skiff can retrieve them and tie them all together.

Meanwhile, we find the womenfolk back at camp. Bush Alarm Clock Ami is also a Bush Encyclopedia. Remember encyclopedias? Man, they were terrible. I grew up in the ’80s studying from World Book encyclopedias printed in 1962. What was I talking about? Oh, Rainy and Birdy help Ami prepare a hide by soaking it in a solution of water and ashes, which will cause the hair to fall out. The people at Nair need to hear about this.

Meanwhile, Matt’s isolation tent from E.T. The Extra-terrestrial is coming along nicely. Wise choice working on this instead of helping your father and brothers.

Speaking of which, Billy and the boys have to tie ropes to the pilings so they can be retrieved in the water. This family has issues with tying things down properly. Billy and Gabe push a log into the water, and the old man looks like he might keel over. Only seven more to go, Billy. And then, the Voodoo Skiff works its dark magic once again. A rope got tangled in the skiff’s propeller and a precious cedar log is floating out to open water. “Stupid rope somebody tied to the frickin’ back of the damn thing!” Bam yells, further angering the Skiff of Death. But Bam is able to get the motor started again and retrieve the wayfaring log.

Things finally start going smoothly, as logs are rolled, dropped and collected. We even get to see a view from the spinning Log Cam, which reminds me of:

Billy and Gabe struggle with the last piling and it falls end-first into the water and gets stuck upright in the sea bed. Gabe is going to try to pry the piling loose with a big piece of lumber, because dropping it on Bam and Bear and sinking the skiff would be the perfect way to end this mission. Bear instead climbs up the mossy, slimy side of the platform, hitches a rope to the piling, and Bam can pull it down from the skiff. “Extremely dangerous. Extremely fun,” Bear says of his awesome climbing of the extremely extreme platform.

Matt’s plastic shack is a failure, surprising no one but Matt. “A lot of people bet against me on this one, and I don’t want to admit that they might be winning,” he says. The roof collected too much rain water and caved, drenching all of Matt’s bedding inside. He puts a positive spin on his utter failure, saying he’ll rejigger the roof to collect fresh water or do some hydroponic gardening, because mineral nutrient solutions are so readily available in the Alaskan bush.

Billy and the boys start towing the eight pilings, but there’s a break in the line and all but two get loose. DADGUMIT! They have to circle around and pick them up, while bad weather and nightfall come bearing down on them. “I’d almost rather lose the skiff than the logs,” Billy says. The skiff was built on an Indian burial ground.

A storm’s a’coming and a hard rain’s a gonna fall, and there will be gale force winds. Billy’s got to get the pilings secured to shore as best he can and then everyone’s got to help keep the trapper shack from ending up in Munchkin Land. Billy instructs his family, “Cameramen and all these people get in your way, knock ’em down out of your way! This does not matter about them right now!” The camera crew would be pissed if this all wasn’t so fake.

The Browns ride out the storm or whatever that was outside. Morning comes, and the Browns emerge from the trapper shack to see what debris the production crew spread around the place. “All of our construction seems to have held,” Noah says, “except for [Matt’s] bubble.” Yes, Matt’s Plastic Palace took the brunt of two “widowmaker” branches that laid waste to it.

And somewhere a spider laughs.

42 Comments

  1. Every year at the end of September I ponder over what kind of costume I can come up with for the Halloween party… Be easy this year. Going to get an old rag mop, make myself a ratty-ass wig and droopy-ass ‘stash and go as Billie. Maybe I won’t bathe for a week or two and put some pine nee3dles in my hait to be more realistic. Ric.

  2. I noticed the obvious hearing problem with Matt…..and have wondered about Rainey’s dialect……but did not notice Noah having a problem pronouncing certain words. I have wondered about Rainey’s education, or lack thereof.

    • It probably stood out to me because I am a speech therapist. I have worked with many children who were in neglectful situations, where a sinus or ear infection was allowed to go far too long. They speak like the Brown kids. That nasal sound. Almost like they are closing the back of their tongue to the roof of their mouth as they speak. This is common. Usually due to scar tissue, or a damage of the nasal cavity.
      It stands out to me clearly in Noah. Sometimes it seems like he even struggles to say his words. It really stood out the one clip where he was showing how he built a arm radio out of a plastic bottle. He was explaining how he “magnifies” to see as he works by wearing more than one pair of glasses. He could not say the word “magnify” and actually gave up and skipped over the middle of the word.
      I have heard him do that more than once. It was just really obvious that time. Painfully obvious.
      Children with this damage often have problems saying any “ing” sound or the g to n change in words. It can also sound like a accent when they speak.
      As for Rainy, I agree. I think there is a lack of formal education among them all. Sadly, they are her teachers.

  3. I just have to put it out there. Everyone kept saying they have an accent. That seems more like some serious sinus damage. Children are notorious for getting ear and sinus infections. If not medicated and addressed, it can do permanent damage.
    It really showed when Noah was trying to say “magnify”. He could not say the changeover from g to n. If you say the word yourself, you can feel that you almost use your sinus to make that changeover. Your sinus kind of closes. He couldn’t do it. If you listen to him….he has a hard time saying words with changeovers. He almost splits the word into two words to say it. A huge indication of sinus damage.
    Matt obviously has hearing loss. Probably due to a ear infection that was not treated as a child. He talks really loud, and at one point Bam and Noah pointed it out.
    So that is no accent. It’s damage. Even if the younger ones don’t have damage, children learn from their peers more than they learn from parents. The younger children just learned how to speak from the older children….
    If you notice, Ami and Billy do not have any accent.

  4. To David,
    Thanks for all your posts. Wow. What an eye opener. I mean I thought this family was fake …. but sounds like they are a bunch of grifting criminals.
    I refuse to watch anymore. Anyone who continues to watch this may as well add themselves to the long line of people this family has conned and stolen from.
    You watch…they get ratings and money.

    • Kas, I am starting to feel the same about this show. It was fun to laugh at because it is fake at first. But this seems much darker. Not sure yet if I will even finish watching this.

  5. I love your recaps Ryan! I actually laugh out loud as I read them. You nail it every time.
    When I saw Matt with that huge role of plastic wrap, I couldn’t help but think about Honey Boo Boo. They had those big rolls of wrap too. Rolled each other up in it. Coincidence both of these reality shows just happen to have mega plastic wrap? Yet, to insult our intelligence further, Matt says he found it on an island. Yeah, right. This nice new pristine roll of wrap found on some island?

    They keep saying they are an hour away from anyone. They make sure to say that as they are on the motor boat. An hour away on a motor boat. Yet I see next week some girls are going to paddle a canoe up to see the boys. Umm hmm. That’s believable. It makes me wonder if Matt and Gabe really got lost that night when they went to retrieve the crab pot. Maybe they just slipped over to town for a while. Stayed too late, and was making their way back when they were reported missing. That is more believable. They didn’t know the tides and currents…got themselves in a jackpot trying to get back. Busted.

    I am getting really tired of these reality shows. This is the reality. In the real world, these people would be homeless. Living in the woods because they have to. I am sure if not for the show, they would not have anything.
    It reminds me of the show on TLC, Sister Wives. Same story. If not for the show, these people would be living on welfare for all the children, as most polygamists do. Thanks to TLC, they just bought four houses for 250,000 each.
    Ironically, both of these families last names are “Brown”.

    I just love how the bush family praise Noah for being such a genius. When he got the cassette player for Birdie’s birthday, my first thought was how is she supposed to get batteries. I remember those walkmans, and the battery life sucked. But then, Noah glues it to this huge old PCV pipe to strap on her arm? Ummm….. what!?
    And if he is so genius, how come they never asked him to fix that chainsaw when Gabe broke it? Then they make it like some big deal for him to fix the crab pot that the bear broke. A monkey could have fixed that crab pot!
    I dunno. I stopped watching Sister Wives because I got tired of all the contradictions and inconsistencies. I realized by my watching, I was giving them ratings, that was making them rich. The bush family is following in their footsteps.

    What happened to America? What happened that left us all sitting around watching irresponsible losers ….and call it reality? I stopped asking myself what the hell is wrong with those people. Now I ask myself what the hell is wrong with me that I’m actually watching them! I mean…Daggum!

    • Thank you! Unfortunately, Neilsen can’t distinguish viewers who hate-watch a show from those who actually like it. Tonight’s episode should be crazy bad/fun.

    • it’s like a train reck. you have to look. but how creepy is four adult men and there two younger sisters on an island with no one else around.

  6. I think we can all agree this show is completely fake and lame. What I don’t understand is why DC continues to air it and doesn’t add a disclaimer stating it’s mostly staged. Do they think we’re idiots!? They have to know people are talking about it and have figured out it’s fake. And how unethical to have a show on your channel with participants who are pending a multitude of felony charges! Seriously DC?

  7. David….tried to do name searches per the link you provided and could not do name searches because you need case numbers. Have seen your latest post……please email me at txtwostepper@gmail.com as I have questions that I do not want to post.

    • You don’t need the case number. Right next to the case number tab on the right is the “name” tab. You can search just by name.
      I will e-mail you right now though.

  8. ok….so now DC has another “staged” episode lined up. If two of the “girls” are already engaged and in other relationships that leaves the hippy “girl” for five guys to fight over. But should nothing pan out she should get along famously with Ami who was the poster child for hippy-dom in the 60s.

    As for Billy….may the Alaskan courts be swift and just. He has turned out to be the “flim flam” man from hell, loving his family so much that he used them to further his own gain. He better brush up on those there cons of his……..he will need them in prison……where he belongs.

  9. I went to Courtview for the state of Alaska and decided to look up Mr Billy Brown. I use the site in my business and just decided to give it a little look. Billy Boy is in a tad bit of trouble with the State of Alaska. He is up on 24 class C felony charges right now. Guess he is charged with stealing money from the State of Alaska for a number of years. Looks like the hearing keeps getting pushed back and is now scheduled for trail in early June of this year.
    Incase you aren’t aware but the state of Alaska gives money every year out of our oil reserve money fund (the permanent fund dividend) to anybody who is an Alaska state resident. The biggest requirement is you have to live in the state full time and not leave for more than a number of set days. Somebody tipped off the state that the Brown family wasn’t living in the state like they said. When you fill out your yearly application to receive the money you of course swear you are telling the truth and then sign it. The Browns received tens of thousands of dollars that they look like they weren’t entitled to receive. In the case of receiving this money when you weren’t entitled to it, the state of Alaska will prosecute and go after a reimbursement of the money.
    Now I only looked up Billy and none of the kids. From what I have read and the number of the charges I believe many of them are also charged. Maybe somebody with more time could look them up also.
    Here is the site…
    http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/eservices/home.page.6
    go to the bottom and hit “search cases” then search under the “name” tab
    These guys keeping getting worse.

  10. Mitt…….I just read the post that you placed in regard to the article by Jim Davis………I am sick to my stomach.

  11. Yes, the “dignified” way out of this lies in the next episode where the boys all go into “town” (I thought the nearest town was a long way off), invite some women folk to the island and their way of life…..they match up and begin populating Browntown !!! And the populace watches every season thereafter while each boy builds his own cabin,etc. However…..there won’t be anything as dignified and sensible because, in reality, city “girls” are spoiled and lazy. They don’t have what it takes to survive in that harsh mode of living . Once the “real deal” is known……the quote from the Alamo comes to mind: “they are running like sheep to wolf pack”. These young men need women…..NOT GIRLS. So as much as we would like to see a dignified ending to this hallucination…….don’t think it will happen. The final episode will leave us hate watchers believing that we were actually IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE and we will never really know what was real…….

  12. “This article originated from a post in this group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlaskanBushPeople

    It was written by Mr Jim Davis, a resident of Alaska, who has personal knowledge of the Brown family. The original post which was copied from this group by ALU can be found in the files section of the above group on FB. There is a lot more info about the Brown family that can be found in this group. Some members in this group are the people that have been scammed by Billy Brown. Les Branson, Ami’s brother, is also a member. This is a discussion group, not a fan page, although everyone is welcome to join this group and can stay as long as you follow the groups guidelines. Thank you”

    One thing he (Billy) does is “barter” then never fulfills his part of the barter. He also borrows stuff and money and never returns or repays the money. Someone from Texas said he even stole from his grandmother and sold her jewelry and other stuff.

    He also mooches off relatives when he visits them and even back before Alaska “borrowed” money to start a plumbing business.

    In Port Protection, he moved into the widow Sorenson’s house on Lot 29 with the promise he would pay their permanent funds each year to buy the house for $50,000. After the second October went by and he had not paid her a penny of their 5 PFDs, (at the time there were just 3 boys), he still wouldn’t move out and Mrs Sorenson was living in the lower 48 and what could she do? Jack Mason finally bought the house for $55,000 and Billy finally moved out and left for Haines.

    abp

    I saw his pot growing operation downstairs and the heavy wire running through the woods to the Wooden Wheel Cove Trading Post’s generator where he was stealing electricity to grow pot. He also left tons of garbage that Jack paid to have cleaned up.

    He also sold a boat to Buddy Baker for a thousand dollars cash that he still owed the $1500. to Chris Dahl and never paid Chris a dime. The boat was ruined anyways, tied up to Buddy Bakers floathouse with the engine not running and a couple years of garbage in it and in buddy’s floathouse that he had been using also.

    When he left for Haines, he took two vehicles that were not his loaded with stuff like the community generator, Bob Hite’s chainsaw, Buddy Baker’s large wall tent and owing Jack at the store and a friend of mine, Maynard Daum who ran a little church there, money that was lent him because he said he was heading to Texas to get his father’s vast fortunes to invest in Jack’s store and Maynard was just a kind-hearted Christian that Billy took advantage of.

    Billy went north on the ferry to a piece of property in the Mosquito Lake subdivision about 22 miles from Haines where he told people he was a Vietnam vet and other lies and again spent the next 7 to 10 years there “borrowing” money, “bartering” and growing pot.

    abp

    Sherrie Brewington lived near them for 7 years till he left there owing her money and stealing her son’s guns worth about $10,000 including an expensive one that had been her son’s grandfathers and his gold nugget watch passed down from his great grand father.

    Billy never nor any of the Brown “boys” ever worked as commercial fisherman other than maybe a few days over the last 30 years. They didn’t hunt or fish much even when they were in very game rich areas and fish rich areas like around Haines and Prince of Wales Island. Billy has been using his children’s stories CDs as a scam to raise money to make more CDs but his 70 to 80 children’s stories he says he has written don’t seem to be available anywhere? His books, YouTube videos, websites full of lies are now showing contradictions to the TV shows so now those are being taken down.

    abp

    Even when the Browns would show up in Texas, they would show up in broken down motor home and pretending to be broke and then relatives would buy them groceries and other supplies and lend him money though he probably had stuff stored away? He never repaid them or thanked them or visited again till he needed help again. They drove around the lower 48 from WA state to California to Texas to Tennessee and back to WA state and ferry to Alaska, conning people and especially churches to raise money to get back to Alaska and free places to stay.

    abp

    Some of those years between 2007 and 2014, they applied for and got money from the Alaska Permanent Fund fraudulently and have now been indicted by a grand jury on 63 counts of felonies, unsworn falsification for filling out the application in the spring for 4 years and then felony theft when they received the money in October of 4 different years. All that and dozens of other scams and a continuous stream of ripping people off by various ways not to mention food stamp and welfare fraud.

    abp

    Also, in my opinion, he has ripped off his wife and 7 kids the worst by keeping them under his tight control that even as adults, they jump to his every command and their bad teeth and bad health no doubt causing BamBam’s depression and possible Bear’s broken leg that Billy blames on Bear stepping into a bucket? I can just imagine Billy saying to Bear, you best get over here right now, causing poor little kid to break his leg or making Noah climb a tree or hurt himself somehow under duress from Billy and his dangerous clumsiness? Noah with his cane and injured leg that has never even been mentioned the cause.

    abp

    There, that’s a string of about 35 years of ripping people off and even before he was 16, Billy was in some serious trouble that his dad bailed him out of. To me, seeing Billy in action in real life, he is a slick smiling slimy con-artist smart and quick to take advantage of every person he can and he gets away with a lot.

    I’ve heard him on the phone and in person, always talking of projects, secret gold locations, movie and documentaries, endorsements of products like Stihl chainsaws, Lund skiffs, Yamaha outboards and Arctic Cat snow machines to get backers or investors, but then the deals fall through, backers die or he says they cheated him, so he leaves owing all his bills for lodging, skiff rentals, groceries and supplies.

    On Prince of Wales Island and in Port Protection, some backers showed up looking for him to film all he had said he had like a cabin in the deep bush and a recreation of his adventures but Billy had hidden equipment and supplies and the two guys that had come all the way from Tennessee didn’t even get their camera equipment back from Billy. All there was bills all over that Billy said these guys were going to pay.

    I took them in my skiff over to the their rental SUV on the logging road because Billy and his boys were not any where around to give them a ride in the skiffs these backers had paid part of the rentals for. So then when Billy was confronted by Jack, the guy Billy owed lots of money to, Billy got Gabe with clenched fists and the other boys in the office threatening Jack and my friendship worked in the office with their fists and yelling.

    Then they left a few days later loaded with all the stuff they had ordered through their backers and without paying for their lodging and 4 skiff rentals and groceries and supplies that they had gotten over the 3 months their but they did leave 3 piles of garbage that I saw, a small pile by where they cleaned out their brand new AKWilderness Family production vehicle on the logging road plus a giant pile of 3 months worth of garbage at the lodge and a camp site they filmed at that Jack had to pay people to clean up.

    • I thought this was just a harmless hippie family pretending to be Bush people to make some money, I really didn’t care that much if they fudged their residency a bit to get some free money from the government.

      But it sounds like this is just a family of travelers taking advantage of kind people and scamming people for decades.

      I think Billy needs to serve some jail time, the boys I might still have some hope for if Billy is gone and not controlling them, but that may not be the case either…

    • Wow, that is some pretty heavy stuff there. Like Mitt said Billy seemed less than savory, and there is the PFD fraud, but no idea it could be this bad.
      I did read somewhere that when they left Ketchikan the apartment that they were staying in (rented by the film company), was left in bad condition and very dirty, which would go along with what other people are saying.
      I am old enough not to completely form an opinion based on second hand info, but I am not seeing or reading a lot that is refuting this or making it hard to believe.

      • After reading Billy’s history it’s clear what a scheming, sleazebag he is. We’ve all probably met someone like him. The guy who always has a million dollar deal about to come through but is driving a $50 car, never held a real job, always has their hand out, takes advantage of other people’s kindness but NEVER does anything for anyone else.
        Yeah… I hope he does time for lying and taking the money. The worst thing that could happen is the discovery channel paying his fines for him.

  13. As always, Ryan, your recap was hilarious and thought provoking. The plastic wrap housing “scheme” of Matts was a trainwreck extraordinare….. I laughed so hard I was crying. Even a non bush person such as myself could see a strong suffication possibility and serious water issues. He must want his own “space” pretty bad to come up with some of the cocka mamey things that he does. Then again, when you consider his alternatives…………

    Bam gets my vote this episode for being on top of the “pilings” dilemma. He stated in an earlier episode that nobody listens to him …..and this time his Dad didn’t either! Bam told them he needed to tie the pilings together correctly to prevent problems on the way home. They kept urging and urging him to hurry, and look what happened…….it is like the blind leading the blind…….the pilings came loose and a major problem ensued. Unbelievable……….

  14. On a positive note`, I notice Merlin from Amish Mafia appears to have bought himself some some new teeth-maybe there is hope for the Browns after all.Who wants to go to prison toothless?

  15. Is there any dignified way out of this mess?
    I imagine Billy will look into the camera and explain it all away as a ‘family vacation’ or ‘kooky adventure’. He’ll be all dadgum flustered by those in the lower 48 who thought it was real. “Aw shucks, folks, we was just funnin’ around for the camera.”
    They now remind me of that guy who had people believing his kid floated away in his home made flying saucer. He was pitching his wacky life to one of the networks. The Browns have been a little more successful at avoiding getting real jobs… until their court date!
    Add me to the list of Hate-Watchers, my family leaves the room shaking their heads when I start yelling at the tv lol! …didnt want to lose a log or a kid… in that order! classic!!

    • Your are exactly right and what I have been wondering all along, how will this end?
      Last season they made up this whole “gunshots in the night drove us out of our house” to bring things to end. While in reality there is no way they would have survived a winter there.
      This season they are taking forever to get anything going so it is obvious that they weren’t going to be able to actually live there over a winter. So I wonder how this whole thing will come to a quick conclusion at the end., yet leave it where they could hope to get picked up again for another season.

  16. What is really sad is if the film company had a brain amongst the crew they could actually probably film a completely contrived but yet interesting show that could actually have some lasting power. You could sell the Alaskan wilderness along with an actual survival story. That this crap fest made a second season only tells me the Browns have some compromising pictures on Discovery management.
    They could probably get multiple episodes on building a real log cabin. How to cut and move the trees, barking them, scribing them ect ect ect. If done right many people would probably be interested in how it actually takes place and comes together. Living here in Alaska there are some very talented custom log builders. Pretty darn interesting seeing how they create amazing structures. Instead we are given an idiot savant wrapping trees with Saran Wrap. Of course these people don’t actually live in the wilderness so having a real house probably isn’t much of a priority.

  17. Look forward to next week when the boys find the only 4 or 5 single women in Alaska and convince them to go to a deserted Island with them….

    • Just remember Mitt, Ami is counting on all of these kids having at least 4 kids each to populate Browntown. Hilarious every once in a while a poster will think one of the boys is cute and wants to escape “the big city life” and go out any live with them. Now that would be a good show. Tell me how it is going living in a tent with their parents. I am sure that would be fun for about two hours

    • I read DC recruited for some women to appear on the show and that two of them are already engaged to be married and one of those is a local policewoman. A third is some hippie girl who is new to Alaska.

  18. I now enjoy this show in a different way as I now call it:

    “Idiot’s in the Woods” I look forward to watching them do stupid things and nothing people that have ever lived in the Bush would actually do.

    So Matt has been carrying around that pristine shrink wrap that he “found somewhere” for how long now? SInce before his family “lost everything” on the sinking boat at least…. Sure dirt poor people in the woods would just waste 40 bucks of plastic wrap like that. People living in the Bush would certainly never expect a spider though, yeah that would make them move out.

    • I enjoy the show the same way. There are many bad shows on TV that aren’t weren’t watching. But there are a few that are so bad that it becomes “train wreck bad”, and can be enjoyable for complete sheer stupidity. This show has become that. My wife will watch The Bachelor and it is actually watchable for how contrived and stupid it is. Of course she doesn’t appreciate my continual running commentary so I am not allowed to watch it with her anymore.
      Thought the same thing on the plastic wrap. That stuff is heavy and can’t imagine toting it around. Wondered even about Matt finding it on a beach like it washed up. Seems like it wouldn’t float, but not sure on that. Also hilarious that real bush people would be chased out of their home by a spider. Course these are not bush people.

        • I was not aware of that term. I like it. Thank you for adding to my vocabulary. I sure hope you get hazzard pay for your time covering the Brown’s. Course you are the smart one as I am doing to for free

          • I think there’s as much entertainment to be had by hate-watching a show as there is by legitimately liking it. So don’t feel bad. I’m sure most reality TV shows are successful because they’re hate-watched by a large portion of the audience. Only explanation for The Bachelor.

        • Hate watching is what I would call watching season 2 of “under the dome”. People just wanted the nightmare to end after wasting time on it.
          This is a little different, more like watching TJ Hooker or Big Ass Spider, its so bad its fun to watch and make fun of.

  19. Great recap Ryan…
    Wow this show is fast becoming unbearable. The last thing that is keeping me going is watching all of the terrible editing. Seriously, this was an hour of television and all they did was get six logs home and Matt made a shrink wrap house. Is this show going to be running continuously for the next 17.6 years while they try to build their home? Five episodes and they have taken a boat ride from Ketchikan, put up a tent, built a crappy twig house that took a few hours, shot a deer, built a saran wrap house and gotten six logs. That is called a good day for most people.
    Crappy editing…
    Love how Matt stays home to play with plastic rather than help his dad and brothers. Also notice that Noah only showed up in the episode for the last few minutes? Must have bought non refundable tickets to Hawaii and couldn’t change the date. Hate it when that happens.
    The log that gets jammed up vertically, well in slow mo it was falling completely flat like the rest. Needing some action in this unexciting show it magically goes vertical. Yea…right.
    Love the big chop and storm they are supposedly going through on the way home with the logs. Yet from the overhead shot the water is glass smooth.
    When they showed close ups of the log that was supposedly floating away you could actually see the wake behind it. Kind of exactly type of wake of somebody off camera dragging it swiftly. Simple physics of a floating object that it will not create a wake since it is going the same speed as the surrounding water. Like the Browns or this filming company know anything about physics or any of the learning stuff.
    Enjoyed the deerskin scene with Ami and the girls. What exactly are they going to do with a deerskin? All their clothes are store bought. They have pots, pans and Tupperware so they aren’t using it to make food or water storage. It is like they have a rough living guide that was written by somebody else about living in the bush and they skim through it every once in a while to see things people who actually live off they land would do.
    Storm scene was great. In every wide angle shot outside during the storm there appeared to not even be a breeze, let alone a hurricane. In the background of the family inside of the log shack you could see large gaps in there little logs with light coming through. Nice moss stuffing job Browns. The wind would have rushed right through it, if there were any wind of course. Which there wasn’t. But a little night cam shot was supposed to rachet up the tension so we wouldn’t notice. Wonder if the film crew got tired of breaking twigs outside to simulate breaking trees?
    Lastly why wouldn’t you just carry the logs away from the beach before the storm if you were so damned worried about them floating away. You have yet to tie up a single thing in this show where the knot has held. Also since the logs are going to be used for pilings, they will be cut way down. Don’t cut them up at the beach to make things easier.
    These are things I remember off the top of my head. Couldn’t even imagine all the things I missed.
    Wonder if they will pick up the next season… “Browns go to prison for fraud and embezzlement” for PFD fraud. I for one hope so.

    • Next season could be great, show them using their skills in prison. Matt makes a Saran wrap fort out of his bunk. Noah makes soap out of a soda bottle that stays on his wrist in the shower. Billy barters cigarettes for lumber to build a ladder to escape. Ami teaches the girls how to cook Ramen over toilet paper lit on fire. Bear finds his name has another meaning in prison….

    • There were so many continuity problems with the weather that I couldn’t keep up with them. Also, I watched the scene with the rope-tangled propeller a bunch of times and can’t figure out why the rope seems to vanish. They didn’t even make an effort for that “storm” to appear realistic.

      • On the boat they keep going from dry to soaking wet, and Ami has on different earrings a couple times every show. Her sweater is of course spotless.

      • The last episode the trapper shack was lined with heavy duty gray mylar. There were cots and a stove with hard 4″ pipe ductwork! That was all gone this episode.
        Even funnier in the tent it showed a bed with a headboard and what looks like a mattress.

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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.