S02.E03: Applegate River Lodge

[walnutqueen]

I would hazard a guess that the locals only showed up because Ramsay was there. I am not sure I'd want to be "caught on tape" high as a kite and dancing like Elaine Benes.

 

That's what the mushroom costume is for, cooksdelight.  ;-)

[Jersey Guy 87]

If you check out the Applegate River Lodge web site they have a link to their upcoming bands.  While it's clear on the show it was stoner son and friends they also bring in some bands (on a fairly regular basis) that are mid-level bands on the jamband circuit.  Given that they only have 7 rooms for guests they better hope the music thing is successful if they want mom to get her money back.

[Pollock]

They didn't update the website with any of the improvements made during the show in the lodge or do my eyes and memory fail me ? 

[Jersey Guy 87]

It looks as if there is furniture in the lobby, so that's been updated.  They also seem to have (wisely) ditched the outdoor tent rooms that Gordon put in.  I can't tell from the pictures on the website if they spilled new stuff on the carpets.

[Tabasco Cat]

Fourth-generation Oregonian here, and I can also vouch for that. I live in Portland but Portlandia irritates the hell out of me: "oooh, we're all just so unique and quirky!" Although I like Grimm, the show makes it look like we all live in charming vintage bungalows and Craftsman houses. I wish!!

 

The place name of Portland Oregon comes up quite often around the country. Heard it a lot in the northeast and now, in the sourheast, it comes up just as often. Often through television shows and news stories.

 

What I can tell you is this: whenever we hear "Portland, Oregon", no matter what the context is, my girlfriend and I always look at each other and exclaim, "Wessen!"

[mlp]

I finally watched this tonight right after watching the new episode with the nice couple.  I wondered for the umpteenth time why Gordon bothers spending time and money on people and places that deserve neither.  Surely he could find people more deserving of his assistance.  Also, he seems to be channeling Robert Irvine.  I can't imagine why.

[Kromm]

I'm glad the sons were able to change, I think the police will be making an arrest soon.

They wouldn't bother in Oregon. Cannabis has a kind of semi-legal status there.  So much so that it was almost approved for general retail availability as recently as a few years ago.  Personal growing of it goes back and forth in legality, and I think it's technically illegal now, but only as a Class C misdemeanor (the least serious classification--in other words it's considered no more serious than jaywalking).  Medical approved use has been legal there for a while (the whole schtick where you simply have to get a doctor to sign off on it).  

[Scout Finch]

 

Medical approved use has been legal there for a while (the whole schtick where you simply have to get a doctor to sign off on it).

 

It seems like just getting a paper cut is enough to get you a medical marijuana card here.

[OnceSane]

Pretty much.  Plus, Washington just legalized it, so people just have to go across the border (aka the Columbia River).  I expect Oregon to legalize in the next few years. 

 

I hope if the show returns to Oregon we get to see something other than stoners (& no, I don't mean hipsters instead).

[Zahdii]

I was so disappointed in this episode.  I'm tired of Oregonians being portrayed as stoners or hipsters.  There's SO much more to Oregon. 

 

We have a lot to be proud of in the arts, outdoor sports and recreation, food and wine (and micro breweries), some excellent institutes of higher education (and some pretty good college athletic teams), tech industries, and some pretty damned good hospitals (OHSU, Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Shriners Hospital, and two well-regarded VA Hospitals, to name a few).  We have beaches, mountains, high deserts, forests, lakes, farms, ranches, and some quirky stuff as well.  We have Portland, with it's rich history, and smaller cities, towns, and rural areas so there's a place for everyone.

 

As for the Applegate River Lodge, I have no words, but you know I'll try.  The father (and co owner) is a lost cause.  He was once a driven man who had a plan and made it happen, and then...I guess he just stopped.  Maybe he'd accomplished all he wanted to do in life and didn't know how to handle it, so he just self-medicated himself into a happy idiocy. 

 

It seems like the mom stepped into a caretaker role.  Between that role and her motherly instincts, she's spent the last 22 years not only enabling the father, but she expanded that role to her sons.  The father is off in a drug induced haze, and the 'musical director' son isn't far behind.  The other son is different, but both sons are strangely passive aggressive towards their mom.  Maybe they've written off Dad and have some sort of resentment towards their mother.  Maybe when they were younger they had hopes of having lives away from the Lodge, and felt that their mother kept them there instead of launching them off into independent lives.  Whatever happened, or didn't happen in the past, they've all settled into their current roles.

 

I don't believe for a second the restaurant son was making as much money as he claimed, he just wanted to outdo his older brother.  Older brother doesn't know good music, or he never would have had that terrible 'band' playing music.  I was thinking that a person pretty much had to be under the influence to appreciate that crap.  The party goers were obviously there to get on camera.  A lot of them were playing up the stoner/hippy role while constantly checking to see if they were on camera.

 

I thought that Gordon's makeover of the downstairs space was pretty awful, maybe Gordon was only phoning it in so he could get the hell out.  Those stripes on the walls were horrible.  I didn't even like a lot of the furniture that was brought in.  Decor aside, there was no discussion about why the rooms weren't cleaned properly, or what training the head chef in the restaurant had because she couldn't turn out a decent meal.  These people are floundering.  They don't know what they're doing, and they don't give me the impression that they want to truly work to make a change.

 

The outdoor tents were pretty dumb.  In the area that the lodge is in, expecting your average customer to sleep outside in a bed in a tent is only feasible for about 2 months of the year.  The temperatures can get too hot in the day in a tent, and at that altitude the nights often get cold.  If there's a summer shower, the mattresses will start to absorb the moisture and quickly start to smell moldy.  Not to mention the bugs that are only too happy to settle into the comfort of a mattress.  And what are the tent dwellers supposed to do for bathroom and shower facilities?

 

I doubt that Gordon really helped them at all, he just made some cosmetic changes.  I suspect that the family simply pretended to embrace Gordon's changes for the sole purpose of getting him and his crew out of there.

[Scout Finch]

 

The outdoor tents were pretty dumb.  In the area that the lodge is in, expecting your average customer to sleep outside in a bed in a tent is only feasible for about 2 months of the year.  The temperatures can get too hot in the day in a tent, and at that altitude the nights often get cold.  If there's a summer shower, the mattresses will start to absorb the moisture and quickly start to smell moldy.  Not to mention the bugs that are only too happy to settle into the comfort of a mattress.  And what are the tent dwellers supposed to do for bathroom and shower facilities?

 

That was my first thought when I saw those, too. In Oregon? Seriously?