Discovery ChannelDo the Alaskan Bush People get paid? We asked! Read our interview with the Brown family.
In the Season 2 finale* of Discovery Channel’s Alaskan Bush People “Never Give Up” (July 24), the
Browns encounter obstacles on the way to completing their first cargo haul job on the Integrity. The family finds something shocking when they return to their home.
*There’s a “Lost Footage” special on July 31 and a season recap episode on Aug. 6. We’ll try to cover those in some way. Stay tuned.
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
So …
The Integrity has a rotten hull plank, and it threatens Billy’s pity deal to haul overflow cargo for Paul, the Grand Poobah of Hoonah freighting. Billy decides to go for the quick fix and just fills in the hole with epoxy. Hey, would that stuff also work on Ami’s teeth?
So while the Bondo Boat’s hull patch is drying, Billy sends the boys to pick up the cargo for the job: lumber, furniture, livestock and school supplies. By furniture, we mean the front end of a ’51 Mercury that has been chop-shopped into a desk. By livestock, we mean two small goats. And by school supplies, we mean some new gym mats for a school’s wrestling team. Because of the tides, the Browns have a short window of time to leave. And here I thought there might be some kind of goat emergency.
Leave it to Matt to screw things up. Matt jumps off the boat onto the dock and his tooth necklace comes up and hits him in his “good eye.” Matt goes to the doctor, where a nurse tells him he has a scratch. He comes back wearing an eye patch that looks like it was cut from a black T-shirt.
https://twitter.com/AlaskanBushPPL/status/624748522324238336/photo/1
That’s just awful, even by this show’s standards.
Billy’s ready to cast off with the Integrity, but then there’s … yet another problem with the boat. Sigh. The wheel is spinning freely, meaning that Billy can’t steer the boat. They suspect there’s a hydraulic fluid leak somewhere. When Billy says “hydraulic fluid,” it sounds like he’s saying “hot dog fluid.” Noah checks the hydraulic lines, but there’s no steady leak. So where did all that hot dog fluid go? It shall remain one of life’s great mysteries. Billy replenishes the hot dog fluid, and the boat shoves off.
After some unnecessary drama at South Inian Pass, the Browns arrive at Elfin Cove, a small harbor town with no cars, no police and no school. There’s even more unnecessary drama about the rocks and shallow water in Elfin Cove due to the low tide. They drop anchor, and Matt and Gabe deliver the goats with The Skiff.
The goats are going to a nice hippie family. The dad’s name is Taiga, and he’s got long blond dreadlocks. He’s got a cute little toddler named Ronin. Seeing Ronin with the goats is Cute Overload. Matt and Gabe feel the need to stick around and make conversation with them, because “You don’t want to just throw goats at them and leave.”
Back on the Integrity, Billy decides to stay in Elfin Cove for the night instead of trying to make it to Pelican against the tide. So the kids take The Skiff out fishing. Bear catches a fish and starts humanely punching it. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this display, and it was a little shocking to some ABP newbies on Twitter. Bear punches the fish in the head repeatedly, since he’d rather have it die quickly than to slowly “die of oxygen.”¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “I have not yet seen a fish big enough that I would not try to punch it,” Bear says. I wish you guys could’ve heard me explain Bear’s fish-punching logic to my 4-year-old son just now.
Rainy hasn’t gotten much screen time lately, so Billy lets her steer the boat. This is the bush equivalent of the daddy-daughter dance. Rainy says Billy is the greatest dad ever. Oh, you think you’re better than me?
Then the teaser before the commercial says the Browns return to Chicago Bears Island to find their home destroyed. WHAAAAT? Did the government do it again? Did those guys who shot at the Browns in Chitina try and finish the job? Did Ami’s mom send some hired goons? Oh, I can’t wait to find out how they explain this shit. But we press on …
The town of Pelican has a bar and a liquor store but no grocery store. This sounds like most towns I know of in rural Wisconsin. There’s one school and one teacher in Pelican and it serves 12 students of all grades. The Browns are delivering new gym mats for the two-member wrestling team. They’re finally replacing the mats that have been there for 40 years and must smell like a musty, sweaty singlet worn by a months-long rotted, bloated corpse. No one told the Browns that they were also supposed to haul away the old gym mats (thanks for leaving that out, Paul!). At least Coach Wolff lets the Browns use his four-wheeler ATV to haul the old mats back to the dock. Like any wrestling coach worth his salt, Coach Wolff is a hard-ass. “The strong survive here. The weak, they go back down to the Lower 48,” he says.
Now for the delivery of the car desk. The Browns get the luxury of using an electric hoist on the dock for this job, which really speeds things up and saves us from having to watch another boring manual hoist. The Browns get an ATV and trailer on loan to haul the desk. Hey, all the machinery and stuff is pretty nice, ain’t it? Of course the Browns would give the job of driving the ATV to the village idiot with one eye and no depth perception. It’s the Brown Way.
The desk is delivered to Chris, who just saw Crocodile Dundee and absolutely loved it, and Chris’ buddy, who just got back from playing Smokey in The Big Lebowski. Chris is going to use the desk as a picnic table for his “hot dog match” and build a cooler inside of it. Chris should check if the desk is low on hot dog fluid.
The Browns are swelling with pride over this mission accomplished. Jeez, Billy delivers some goats and suddenly he thinks he’s freaking Captain Phillips or something. Noah repurposes the old gym mats as padding for the floor of the boat. I fully expected Matt to build Matt’s Gym Mat Mansion with them, but whatever.
The Browns get close to Brownton Abbey, and they think they spot people on the beach. After getting our hopes up, they discover that it’s just a bear. When they arrive at their home, they find that all their trash has been trashed. Noah’s meat smoker is destroyed, and so is the shower and the stupid bicycle battery charger. OH DEAR GOD, NO! NOT THE CRAP THAT DIDN’T WORK ANYWAY! “Things were ravished and eaten,” Ami says, clearly not knowing what “ravished” means.
The lesson: A bear can ruin a bunch of garbage, but he can never ruin the love.
You guys are smart. I don’t need to write a long screed about this bullshit ending. A) The cameras that once caught a bear walking through their yard at night didn’t catch a bear ransacking the whole place. B) A bear didn’t actually ransack the place. C) If they’re going to make something up, couldn’t they make up something better than this? D) We sit through 16 hours of this crap this year and this is how they reward us?
This show has gone from being kinda fake to being ridiculously fake to just openly and aggressively hating its audience.
Digression! I’ve spent so much time writing about this show, and sharing thoughts and laughs with some very fine, funny and smart people, that I would be truly sad if Discovery Channel gave Alaskan Bush People the ax it so rightly deserves. (I think we’re going to have at least another whole season of ABP. I hope to have some kind of an answer on that next week during the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.) I love that such a terrible TV show can bring people together from across the country to throw rotten fruit at their TVs through Twitter and these recaps. It’s been a blast, and I hope we’ll keep the good times rolling when the show returns.
“Chris should check if the desk is low on hot dog fluid.” “Matt’s Gym Mat Mansion.” hee hee you’re reviews always crack me up!
sorry, meant to put the other “your”
You’re forgiven. 😉
Without going into specifics and TV executive spin, I briefly met Discovery Channel president Rich Ross and asked him if Alaskan Bush People will be back. He said it would be. I asked him something vague like, “Even though they may be having legal troubles in the near future?” He said he couldn’t speak to that. (It’s entirely possible he truly has no idea what I’m talking about. A TV exec shouldn’t have to keep tabs on that stuff.) I said fair enough. A loud party was not the time or place to corner him with Journalism.
Bottom line: We will have more ABP.
So Antonio Banderas is out. To bad .
Absolutely loved this recap, Ryan ! I am still laughing at your comment that Billy thinks he is “Captain Phillips”……….LOL. And THE SKIFF “Get Your Damn Goats Away From Me”……..priceless. The SKIFF now has a personality all his own….someone said he should have his own show and I thought that was a good idea !!!!! And Diane……I am still laughing at your comment : “@@#@#$$%%%$###@@@@” ……..that pretty much sums up my thoughts, as well ! Keep cranking out those recaps, Ryan. We all love them and look forward to them and the very unique observations that you enlighten us with.
You guys keep me going! Thank you!
You make me laugh out loud. Thank you for that.
Yep, the “Get your damn goats away from me” quote is too funny!
When you said “another season” of this swill my heart sunk.The American people deserve so much better than Brown Clowns in the Alaskan Bush. Up til then I was happily chuckling away. It struck me that Brown Clown life has been a reality show in the making all Billy Brown’s life. As an athiest I offer up my irreverent prayer to the good lord-please sweet Jesus let this crappy show end. However, if the Skiff were to get a spin off, I imagine he will have a nice accent, much like Hannah’s horse.Thank you Ryan, your humor has given me much pleasure.
Thanks, Diane! I could see Antonio Banderas doing the voice of The Skiff. I will contact his agent.
I really enjoy your blog Ryan. I enjoy ABP too. I’ve come over to the dark side on how I perceive it’s “reality” though. The Skiff is the only thing real. I believe it will run for another season then it will be off to “Dancing With the Stars” for Matt or Gabe. You could get several seasons out of that family. Probably have to do some complimentary dental veneers for some of them, but, mark my words, just like “The Situation”, the Kardasians and and cute little Sadie Robertson, one of them will show up on the dance floor vyying for their chance at the mirrored-ball dance trophy. Tango anyone?
Ha! I don’t think the Browns even qualify for the D-list talent that ends up on DWTS.
lol, one of the Brown boys on dancing, i can picture it…Can you imagine Bam? He would probably be yelling at his brothers about it…
This show is the best. You bloggers need to get real jobs.
Well according to the show the Brown’s bought a bought with an IOU last fall and did their first and only job this spring.
Should say, “bought the boat”, I really need an edit button…
I wish I could join them and be part of the family!!!!
One of the BEST SERIES I have ever seen!!!!!
SO, how long did it take for the Brown family and skif, to get back home from there first delievery job ? Winter turned into spring, in just minutes,good thing they live in a house boat with a freight roof, they sure needed the stinky mats for carpeting ! But honestly I do like the show,, however the kids will never have their own lives,, how sad. T
hey are daddy’s pac mules.Looking forward to next season,, maybe,, mom will have some grand babies, that a Alaskan stork dropped at the front door !
It very hard to follow there time line. We know for sure that when Bam and Mat went hunting and had to kill a dear cause it was the last day of the season that it was Dec. 30th because the season ends on the 31st. Then there was the show with the law talking to ma brown. It was still snowy. Then they bought the boat and it seemed to be spring. Then after they got the boat home and delivered the barrels it was snowing again. In the last episode it was clearly warm. Mat was able to dig a big hole in the ground 2 episode’s after it was depicted to be the middle of winter so the ground must have been thawed out?
Who the hell knows none of it makes any sense.
For Mitt Zombie- You are phenomenal!! I just finished reading Billy has to go to the bathroom and I can’t stop laughing. I’m crying from laughing so hard. THE best ABP story ever!
YEAH!!!
Right on ‘Deb M’!!!!!
Darn! I’m going to miss your recaps. If for no other reason than that I’m hoping they decided to renew the show.
So much fakery this season. I’m not sure why Billy was whining about Rainy growing up so fast. It’s not like any of his kids have plans to leave- ever, so he has plenty of time to teach her sub-par piloting skills.
I’m not entirely sure how I started watching this show, but just when I was going to stop wasting hours of my life that I will never get back watching the least prepared wilderness family ever – I found your recaps which are really a modern day Rosetta Stone for navigating the shipwreck that is the Browns! And I laugh my a– off reading them every week! So now I find myself at the end of the season and frankly feeling a bit bereft- what’s next?! How will I live without your recaps? And then it struck me (like a log hits the Lorcan or how Bear punches a fish) we need a spin off show! I’m thinking that you and the guy who penned that awesome poem should get together, go to the Discovery Channel and pitch a new show -it could star The Skiff! Maybe “Revenge of the Skiff” or “The Skiff Strikes Back”
Just a thought….
You are too kind, Jen! I like your idea. We can write some ABP fan fiction!
In the last episode when Gabe was lowering the infamous 600 pound barrels down to the skiff he says that it takes more strength to lower a barrel than it dose to raise it ( and this is home schooling at its best) because you have gravity fighting against you ???? OK my point , it just so happens that that car desk hot dog cooler or whatever it was also weighed 600 pounds. If Gabe could lift 600 pound barrels by himself why did it take 4 browns to lift the car thing.
And why does everything weigh 600 pounds in Brown World?
That bed Noah made for Billy supposedly weighed 2,000 pounds. There’s like a black hole of suckage in Brownton Abbey that increases gravity.
Did anyone besides myself become just a little nervous for the safety of the goats when the idiots, i mean Brown children, were loading them onto the skiff? Had disaster written all over it.
I think it was safer on the skiff it sure sounded like the goats were happy to get off that death trap and the skiff we know will take good care of them. As the boat hits a rock in the shallows because Billy wasn’t paying attention to the depth of the water and and then can’t turn the boat cause the steering dosnt work and the sub standard patch blows out and the boat is filling up with water he can have another moment with Rainy. Im sure she will remember it for the rest of her life that is if she lives.
Yes! Poor goats, I was worried they would put them on the top of the boat, but luckily they were in a little animal carrier.
Hi Ryan,
My husband and I started watching The Alaskan Bush People this year and we love the show. It is so ridiculous that it is so good. Especially when Billy says the survival of my family depends on … We always laugh so much. We look forward to your reviews, they are great.
I asked my husband who he thought the least brightest of the boys was but he had difficulty answering that question.
We are looking forward to the next year watching the show. We are such fans of your reviews, we look forward to reading them the next day after the show.
Thanks, Bev! Matt is clearly the dimmest bulb on the show, which means he’s actually the smartest of the bunch in real life.
On the next ABP Billy has to go to the bathroom.
“Everything is on the line” says Billy. “If I don’t get this done who knows what could happen, winters just around the corner”
“I am really concerned for him” Chimes in Ami, “the last time Billy soiled himself he went into a Coma, I am really, really concerned”.
Voiceover “But just when thing appear to be going his way, Billy’s zipper locks up, without removing his pants, he risks going into a poo induce coma.” “Billy summons his strongest son Gabe to yank at his pants, while Noah works on a zipper puller made out of a brand new pair of vice grips he found at the Hoonah dump”
“With the good Lord willing, and a family working together, I know we can get these pants off, we are Browns that’s what we do” said Billy.
Voiceover “With nightfall and winter closing in the boys work hard to remove Billy’s pants, finally Bear crawls up a pants leg freeing the zipper from inside the pants nearly avoiding a disaster”
Billy – “Could another family have gotten through this? I doubt it, but us Browns do things normal people can’t and with the blessing of the good Lord we pulled through”
That is the Brown Way, my friend.
You are INCREDIBLY hilarious. I can’t stop laughing!!! Best ABP story ever!!
Mitt, you have more talent in your one posting here then all of the writers (LOL! as if!) on this show combined
David, let us know if you have any insight on these ADF&G charges of false statements on fishing licenses: http://dps.alaska.gov/PIO/dispatch/Trooper%20Dispatches%20of%2007-25-2015.20150725.txt
Priceless!
9 people spend 2 days, and hundreds of dollar in fuel, claim to risk death and losing everything several times, all to haul some mats, a few boards, 2 goats and a junk desk. In real life they made about 7 cents an hour. In Alaska a dishwasher makes 16 bucks an hour.
I forgot probably 200 bucks for that boat epoxy and a trip to the doctor, they would have lost money on the deal. But the pay would still have to come off their food stamp and welfare allotment.
Or don’t forget their stolen money from the State of Alaska
They would have lost a ton of money on this deal. Plus they are breaking numerous Federal and State laws concerning taxes, licenses, inspections, on and on
I like the Alaska Bush Ppl. reality program. I hope it comes back for another round in season 4.
Ryan, I hope that this show does come back for another season. This is such a Discovery train wreck -it’s one of the “best shows” on TV! Your recaps are priceless! Thank you for your humorous self and I look forward to another extremely awesome ABP:).
I love this show and believe it is real. Sorry you don’t like it. Too bad. Stop watching. I want to know what happened to the chickens and what the inside of the cabin really looks like. I love the ingenuity of the way things are made. What makes you think this is fake. I watch fake on MSNBC. Now that is fake. Hope there are a dozen more seasons. Sure better than that naked bit of trash they are running.
May “the Good lord” have mercy on your soul.
Mit don’t give up now.
The chickens either all starved to death or were devoured by the bears or both while the Browns were out.
Thanks Ryan , can’t wait for the lost footage special. Another excellent recap. I almost died of oxygen when I was laughing.
SOOOO COOL…watching every episode! Can’t wait until the next episode.
Me too; I truly admire the way the Brown family survive the wilderness;with due respect to those saying dislike comments to the show stop for a while & ask yourselves if you have the skill & ability to survive the way Brown family does;
Jack, may your hot dog fluid always be at optimal levels.
#@&#!$&#$@
You mean the magic chickens that laid enough eggs in one afternoon to feed a family of 9?
Just a factoid. Chickens although they don’t need a rooster to lay eggs only lay one egg a day. Red chickens lay brown eggs. They had 5 chickens so 5 eggs.