mmmsoap

I think it's really interesting the discovery chose to put the show Homestead Rescue right after ABP. The Raineys are doing what the Browns implied they'd be doing: actually living off the land. It's very interesting to see each of the three explain something or construct something on the homesteads. Contrast that with the Brown knuckleheads who claim to have been living in the bush forever, but have an episode where Ami teaches the girls how to cure deer hide. If they'd been in the bush regularly, the kids would have grown up watching that their whole lives (the same way no one had to text me to write a check, because I watched my mom write them at the grocery store every week for years as a kid.) I wonder whether the juxtaposition is going to shoot DSC in the foot or not.

Bear and Gabe jump on the stairs to verify that they're sturdy...and the stairs moved! Not sturdy! (Which isn't shocking, given that one nail isn't enough to hold stairs to the frame like that.)

That scene was ridiculous, but I did notice a moment when Billy kind of snapped at Ami and she rolled her eyes at him. If anyone still has it, go back and watch the DVR and tell me I'm not crazy? But the boat moving the cabin in general made no sense. It started out...plausible, I guess. Then we're getting close to final placement of the cabin, and the cabin gets pulled left (inland) into the trees, and Bear runs right (to the bay) to signal the boat to stop pulling. There were no cables in the view that could have explained the boat being able to pull the cabin in the opposite direction that it was actually moving.

Just caught a rerun of the "We're back from the Lower 48 so we need to take a family trip!" episode... I'm pretty sure Ami and some other lady just plowed the runway (blade down and everything) that had ZERO snow on it! They were making a big deal about "keeping it clear" because it's "their only connection to the outside world". Ami asks whether the blade should be down, other lady agrees, and they show it just kicking up gravel. At this point, I'm wondering how the producers who come up with the ideas to stage this crap haven't been fired yet.

Ugh, this greenhouse... I'm a firm believer in "if it looks stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid", so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt regarding their plastic wrap greenhouse. I've never built one, so what do I know? Maybe it would be fine. But Ami sees it and immediately says "They've built a functional greenhouse!" No they haven't! You don't get to call it "functional" until it has carried out its functions! If it works, neat. If not, cool little experiment (for a 14 year old, but that pretty much goes without saying for this crew), but they don't know whether it works yet!! Seriously, can they at least pretend they're invested enough in this lifestyle to use these things, instead of oohing and aahing without substance?

Watching some reruns today and I realized something: my least favorite Brown Clown (Noah, Bam, Bird) are the ones that pretty clearly believe their wn bullshit. Noah actually thinks he's a genius; Bam seems to be aware of that in general the family is acting, but I think the squabbling with his siblings is real, because he thinks he's better at everything then them; Bird's in idiot, and really seems to believe that she's an amazing crack shot, that she can teach her brothers things about shooting, that her dad actually put her "in charge" of things, etc. Meanwhile, Bear is kind of a s***, but I am more and more convinced that he's doing it on purpose (especially when he makes a point to make fun of Bam for crashing into the docks). Gabe is pretty happy go lucky, and not too crazy serious about the whole thing. Matt I'm convinced is fully aware that he's acting, and puts all of the "hyper" and "crazy" persona on purpose.

I agree that the best part was Maddie's speech about Logan, but that was followed by the middle boys (now teenagers, but younger than the college kid) teasing each other about being kissed by the women welcoming them to Hawaii. I think it was Paedon, Dayton, Garrison, and Gabriel. It's pretty cool to see them having a nice relationship, despite the fact that the four of them have 3 different moms and have spent a significant part of their formative years living apart. Clearly Dayton's fully integrated into their family culture, which is also great. The adults are just exhausting. The paintings were a nice gesture, but didn't need such production about them. I think it's telling that Robin didn't know which one was supposed to be "hers", and that Merri passive-aggressively noted in a previous episode that she painted Robin a sunrise because "that's where she and Kodi are in their relationship."

Bah, now Noah. Okay, my chemistry is a bit rusty, but a hydrogen burner? It takes more energy to isolate hydrogen than he's going to get out of it, because no collection method is 100% efficient. Hydrogen is useful for things like rocket propulsion, not a Bunsen burner.

Rain and Birdbrain showed us how much they live off the land by harvesting fiddle heads and eating them raw...except m understanding is that fiddleheads are poisonous raw (they give you bad diarrhea). Source from a super quick googling to see whether I was misremembering.

First thing I noticed....Janelle is now about the same size as Maddie! Obviously, this means that Maddie is gaining some weight. But also it shows how much Janelle has been losing. I watched a couple older episodes, and I hadn't remember how big she was originally. Her shape has definitely changed, although she obviously has more to go (and I think her weight will always be distributed around her middle, making it harder to hide in general.)

According to the preview for next week's episode, "something" (that involves Billy limping between between two sons) is going to rock Browntown to its foundations. How many times is that now?

Noah's smelting: I've seen all of 1 video on Youtube regarding home smelting, and I know enough to know that what he did looks fishy...shouldn't he be dealing with the slag? A couple bullets looked like they went splat when he dumped them in the bucket of water. I'm pretty much anti-anything-Noah-says-or-does, so I'm also unimpressed with his monkeywrechet. Regarding the car: How much can we go on and on about how "Rainy is really stepping up" and "Rainy's job is sooooo important"? There's no reason for her to steer down the hill when they're going to stop at the bottom anyway; they should have had someone who actually knows how to drive do that part, since gravity is doing all the work, and assuming they actually care about getting the car there in one piece. The actual job they needed her to do, steering/braking while they got onto the raft, wasn't any more difficult then when I would steer my dad's car as he pushed it out of the garage onto the driveway so he could work on it or wash it. This seems like yet another case of "if we gush about it, people will think it's important." Getting the Integrity to wherever: I love that Billy gave the most unhelpful advice ever, and that Bam called him on it ("Yes, of course I tied it down.") If he's really so "worried" then he'd have one of the kids stay with Ami while he supervised or helped. Instead, his super-important-can't-be-called-away job is to sit next to Ami, without actually doing anything because she's refusing all medical care. Also, it's interesting that Billy really only cared about the Integrity not having lights, and the Coast Guard potentially showing up. Not about possibly losing the Jeep into the water. Noah's date: I love the spray foam insulation in the chicken coop. I totally believe they built that themselves. Also, I applaud Noah's stalker-level obsession of this girl who (apparently, according to his song) he hasn't seen in 2 years. Classy that he sang his obsession song to his new date. Good thing the other chick went to college elsewhere, or I think he'd have started sewing her skin into his leather jacket by now. Kudos to the "date" and/or the editors for her very tactful assessment of Noah; she called him on being creepy/weird, without being impolite, and without seeming too terribly fake. Delivering the Jeep: I like that Bear can't take anything seriously, especially Bam's ability to pilot the boat. Saying goodbye to the skiff: Billy tells Noah (nicely) to stop playing his whistle. Anyone else catch the eyeroll that Noah gave? I couldn't tell whether he's eyerolling at Billy for telling him to stop, or eyerolling at the producers for making him do something so inane in the first place. If it's the latter, my estimation of him incrementally improves. Also, how awkward was it with the family trying to come up with "nice" things to say at the skiff funeral? Clearly they were there because they were told to be, not because anyone had the desire to be. /sigh...I'm home with no internet temporarily and a twisted ankle, so I watched this episode through twice. I miss Netflix!

I totally agree. The entire point of a hatchet/axe is to save effort. The fact that he has to work so hard to get it back out of the stump means it's not right for the job. (Also, love the whole "I don't know if there's anything this couldn't cut", then demonstrating by splitting a tiny piece of kindling.)

Noah has a very weird prosody very similar to those with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder), but I don't think we see enough of him overall do diagnose one way or another. I do see other speech impediments, specifically that he has a hiccup or stutter in the middle of a syllable, and then will finish the syllable anyway (as opposed to starting the entire word over, or skipping the interrupted syllable). That's where he ends up with weirdly interrupted words, like "goin-ga" that you pointed out. I try hard to not dislike him for mannerisms that he can't control, but he really is an unlikable person. He's so full of himself, and convinced that he's smarter than anyone else, which is a pretty good indication that he isn't. I always enjoy it when we get little glimpses from the others in the family that they're fed up with his bullshit (like when Bam was all "I don't need a nuke, I just want to smoke some fish", or when Billy was all "cut it out kid, it's only you and me here now").

I really don't understand what they're trying to do with these telephone poles… Some of the little kids jumped into one of the holes, and it was clearly only 2 to 3 feet deep at the most. That's nowhere near deep enough to safely hold posts that big. A post supporting a deck is usually sunk at least 4 feet, these 20 foot poles should be sunk way way way further than these knuckleheads are sucking them. This whole thing looks incredibly dangerous. I'm also kind of over this "let's showcase one of the girls, because they totally have individual personalities, despite insisting for 10 years that we were the Stepford family " episodes.

But all of his "experiments" involve putting dead (or sometimes alive) things in a jar. There's no...doing involved. He doesn't "test" anything to learn things. He didn't dissect the bat, he just keeps it so he can be "science-y". I think he would totally become a serial killer, if he could figure out a way that wouldn't violate a Commandment. I believe that he is pretty devout to whatever crazy version of Christianity that Billy has indoctrinated the family into.

I could totally get behind a show that touted itself as "strangers go to the bush and figure out how to live". That's exactly what's going on here, as no one (maybe Billy?) acts like they know what they're doing. The 30 year old adult men are still asking their dad how to do things, and this family that supposedly has lived off of venison for years teaches the 12 and 20 year old women how cure hide...and discuss what they might do with it. If you had actually "lived wild" all your life, don't you think you would have started wearing free deer hide, rather than going into town to pay for the denim and biker jackets that won't keep you warm?

The spoon/ladle on the faucet was just cover so you couldn't see the actual faucet end on it. The showed a faucet with no end, to make it look like it came from the junkyard, then Noah attached a label to it. However, when he turned on the water, the water came out straight down, which it wouldn't have if it was hitting the ladle. The ladle would direct it down, but not in such a direct, linear fashion. Just more producer shenanigans to cover up the fact that this is a modern building, constructed up to code, rather than the bush log cabin that they pretend it is.

From the December 30 episode: And: This kid is like the walking caricature of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

So they can't get water where the dead fish are, but magically when the water comes to them, they won't have to worry about whether it's contaminated. Out of sight, out of mind! Anyone notice that when Billy was working in the "kitchen", there were 8 outlets (2 banks of 2, one bank of 4) and two light switches? Thats not Noah-rigged-a-bush-light, that's up to code, wired through the walls, modern household electricity. And speaking of Noah (my least favorite person on television), I'm remembering him showing his "experiments" last week. Apparently pinning a bat and putting it in a jar is an "experiment", despite the fact that he didn't do anything with it. He too dumb to even pretend to be the genius the family thinks he is.

So they made a contrived wish list of all the "projects" that need lumber, and then it HAS TO BE DONE TODAY THERE'S NO TIME. Because reasons. And these seasoned people who have been on boats all their lives didn't think to tie the logs on in a train? These people have always been awkward, but this episode more than any other seemed very staged and rehearsed. I mean, they're always going in to manufactured crises, but this time it seemed like they were delivering actually rehearsed lines, rather than just "reacting" to the scenario. I was fascinated to see Noah dispense a muscle relaxant in a hospital...That's not a thing that would ever happen, so they can't possibly be in a medical facility. Of course "no one knows" what's wrong. They did all the tests, and not one person with a license stopped by to say what they were testing for? Makes me suspect it's just a pulled muscle (hence the muscle relaxant dispensed at home) and they're just playing everything up for the cameras.

Watching the new episode tonight, and I noticed that they painted their bedroom! Now it's a greenish...how had I missed this?

They've mentioned that he was "injured" in the past, but it definitely looms convenient to me. He walks with a cane in a way that seems like more of an affectation than a need. He dropped the cane to "duel" with Bam, but uses it to talk around their house...

All of these "kids" seem to be about a decade behind their ages, developmentally. Matt and Bam seem like dudes in their early 20s, Bear runs around like a 17 year old s*** who thinks he's cool for being extra random and spazzy, and Noah seems stuck at about 12. His inventions are juvenile, and don't look like they'd work at all (hello, 90 lb dryer, useless 5-drip shower, and non working generator). He's in that imagination stage kids get, without any knowledge to back it up. I'm guessing his parents were blown away when he did something relatively smart, like take something apart without instructions at a young age, and his "brilliance" became the family narrative. It interesting that he's never around when it's time for labor....clearly his father's son.

Oh goodness, Noah drives me bonkers. He's so smug. I get that the family thinks he's pretty smart, and he may even be so compared to them, but the old adage "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know" really applies here. He calls himself the DaVinci of our times...with a straight face. On the "Lost Footage" episode last night, they "dueled", and it was interesting to see Noah start all Japanese-stance like a anime character. But they have no contact with the outside world, right?! Pfft.