Channel Guide Magazine

Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People recap: Home Alone

Ryan Berenz

Alaskan Bush People

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

On Season 2, Episode 7 of Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People, “Home Alone” (Feb. 13), the Brown family increase their defenses after finding rogue bears near the home site. Billy must seek medical help. The Browns build a raft to move lumber.

First, an announcement:

I’ll take a shot at live tweeting the Bush People “Home Alone” episode tonight. You don’t need to know anything about Twitter or even have an account to follow along. Just view my Twitter feed here at @ChannelGuideRAB or the #AlaskanBushPeople hashtag (ignore Twitter’s Sign Up! crap), watch the show tonight at 10pm ET/9pm CT. (If you’re on the West Coast, I’m sorry. You should probably move.) We’ll see how this goes. It might turn out to be a plastic wrap hut. [Update: It was kinda fun!]

ALSO SEE: What Happened to Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People?

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

Season 2 Recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 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

Now, on to “Home Alone.” Let’s just get this out of the way.

Winter is coming. Brownton Abbey still has no permanent structure to keep the Browns from freezing and becoming bear chow. The milled lumber from Lumber Guy II is ready to be picked up, but first, Billy needs Noah to engineer a pulley-lift tree-elevator platform contraption that will allow the family to keep its food out of reach of bears. Since the peak of Noah’s technical abilities is making arm-band radios, someone is most assuredly going to die on this thing.

Billy is coughing, a serious medical condition if ever there was one. Billy has been sick lately. Sick of WORK, amiright?

To build this crow’s nest thing, Noah puts together a rope harness for Bear that will prevent bear from falling to his awesome and extreme death. Given the family’s knot-tying track record, Bear would be wise to make his peace with the Lord. But Bear accomplishes whatever it was that he was supposed to do up there and then swings around like he’s got the lead role in Bush Peter Pan.

“When Billy gets sick, I do really worry about him,” Ami says. I’m not sure I understand this. She may need to repeat it for us.

While Billy is bed-ridden with Stage 3 Billy Brown’s Syndrome, he puts Matt in charge of building a log raft that will transport the lumber from the mill to Chicago Bears Island. Billy must’ve also slept through those times when Matt built something that failed miserably. Bam doesn’t like playing second fiddle to Matt, and the two butt heads over the best strategy for turning this into a giant clusterf**k.

“Well, when Billy gets sick, I do really worry about him,” Ami says. This “worry” thing is a strange concept to me. We in the Lower 48 just don’t understand. We’re told that Billy has a “complicated” medical history. He once collapsed on the property and had to be airlifted to a hospital, where he fell into a coma for eight days. Ami’s worried because it could happen again at any time! The producers are probably saving that for Season 3.

“Well, yeah, the guys are just going to have to take care of everything on the house building today,” Billy achingly groans. And how is this different from every other day? Bam Bam, M.D., steps in with his own diagnosis: “When he starts getting a little bit, like, discoherent [sic], or like slow in thinking, I think it shows his brain is fighting for it.” Neurologists call this Discoherence Fever.

Back at the shipyard, Bam and Matt get into a pissing match over properties of buoyancy. We have the full, uncut video here.

The debate continues into the night over a feast of canned meat and tomato. Matt resists the urge to choke Bam to death. They need to settle this the Bush way: Thunderdome!

Bam is a master strategist, always thinking two steps ahead. He’s just going to wait for Matt to fail in 3 … 2 … 1 …

MATT IS COUGHING, Y’ALL! This whole family is going to die of Consumption. Matt’s plastic bubble house would’ve made a great place to quarantine him. The other boys realize this is a blessing in disguise and tell Matt to just go away. And he does. And there is much rejoicing.

Meanwhile, Birdy is helping Noah with the Brownton Abbey dumbwaiter so they can lift Emmanuel Lewis up and down from the crow’s nest. Noah is also worried about his father, because he says the doctors were unable to determine the cause of Billy’s eight-day coma. This is what you get when you pay for medical services with beaver pelts.

The raft is somehow seaworthy, and they use the Skiff of Doom, made from metal forged in the fires of Hell itself, to tow it along. Then it’s time for the LUMBER PARTY! LUMBER! LUMBER! LUMBER! WOOOOOOO!

Lumber … We need lumber …

And there is a metric shit-ton of lumber they have to move. The max capacity of the raft is three boards. So they’ll definitely get their house built before the winter … of 2019!

Night falls, and Bam has bear watch. He hears leaves rustling and stuff, and the other boys get up and get their firearms and flares and the whole thing turns into a scene from Platoon.

Oh, hey, Billy’s back and he’s just swell. Go figure. Noah gets all philosophical, like “What good is faith that’s never tested? What good is a wall that’s never tested against the wind?” Eh, it’s probably still pretty good. Wall science has come a long way. Bear feels awesome and extreme and he does his tired-old Bear Schtick and howls. I’d start asking the writers for better lines, dudebro.

Coach Billy has the boys huddle up and take a knee. He says, “It really makes me feel good to be able to not be here …” and some other stuff. I stopped listening.

“This house is basically a correlated dream of 35 years in the bush for Mom and Dad,” Gabe says, not 100% sure on what correlated means, but it sounds cool so he’ll say it.

Things get tense when winter comes early and threatens to disrupt construction, just like in Season 1. Tune in next Friday for the midseason finale of …

What? MIDSEASON finale? You mean …?

Someone please put me in a coma for eight months.

(Hey, you guys read this and tell me what you think in the comments: ALASKAN BUSH PEOPLE Interview: Billy Brown Leads These Modern-Day Waltons with Faith, Humor & Love)

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