Discovery Channel Alaskan Bush People recap: Endless Summer

Ryan Berenz

11 years ago

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

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.

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.”

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.”

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:

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.

Let’s see. What else?

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!

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.