‘Alaskan Bush People’: ‘Call to Duty’ (RECAP)
In September 9’s Alaskan Bush People episode, “Call to Duty,” Noah invents an ingenious device to rid their homesite of moles. Billy gives daughter Rain major responsibility as barn construction goes full bore at the ranch.
Full bore indeed.
Bear has been exploring this new alien land called “WASH-ing-TON” and cataloging its many heretofore undiscovered animal species. He is like Charles Darwin of the Bush, and Brown Star Ranch is his Galápagos. Bear makes several keen observations, like how wild cows roam freely throughout the countryside and the snakes in the Lower 48 don’t have arms or legs. His zoology degree from Mother Ami’s HomeSkool of Bush Learnin’ has served him well.
Snakes don’t have arms. That’s why they can’t wear vests!
Construction of Billy’s Barn of Dreams is two weeks behind schedule because of the severe flooding around Loomis. Billy doesn’t much like natural disasters and other people’s problems interfering with his Grand Vision.
Still, Billy has enough time to finally teach Gabe how to drive a car. Of course, residents of Hoonah have seen Gabe driving cars already, so this is all hogwash. Gabe pretends to not know where the “make-it-go” pedal is, but he has mastered the skill of inadvertent windshield-wiper activation. Gabe makes funny faces as he haphazardly winds the SUV through the dirt roads while Billy yells gibberish at him. And then the lesson mercifully comes to a stop.
Gabe explains how driving a boat is much different from driving a car, even though both vehicles have a circular steering mechanism. Also, boats travel on the water while automobiles generally travel on land, for the same reason snakes do not have arms and legs.
Wax on, wax off, Gabriel-san. Gabe calls the driving lesson a success.
Not true. A part of me dies every time I watch this show.
Let’s see what freaky-deaky stuff the Sisterhood of the Green Sweatshirt is up to today. Last week it was turning turkey-call whistles into Bush orthodontic appliances. This week, they’re having a much more disturbing exchange about how they envision their futures at Brown Star Ranch. Birdy can’t wait for her and Rainy to move into “our” house, while Rainy informs Birdy that there’s not going to be an “our” house.
Birdy tells Rainy that she always thought they would live together and share a room, and their husbands would be totally cool with sleeping in their own separate bedrooms. Rainy tries to hide her laughter, because even she knows this is beyond ridiculous. They did 1,000 takes of this scene, and this was the best one.
Based on the number of pervy comments posted about Rainy and Birdy on the internet, I’m sure there are more than a few creepy dudes getting in line for such an arrangement. I’d be worried about Birdy’s mental health if I didn’t know this whole scene was just bad theater.
I like how Mother Ami’s role on the show has been reduced to a one-minute scene in which she acts like some kind of wise oracle explaining to Billy what the theme of this week’s episode is all about. She is like the Trash Heap on Fraggle Rock.
This puts Billy in Bush Existential Crisis mode, as he realizes he won’t be around forever and Brown Star Ranch will belong to his kids, so they’d better be prepared for the responsibilities of this lousy inheritance he’s forcing them to build. I think Billy can find solace in the fact that he and his family will be abandoning this place in a year or two and none of this will matter.
With the all-important driving lesson out of the way, it’s time to get to work with the hole-drillin’. Some guys who know what they’re doing drill a water well on the property so that Matt can enjoy mason jars full of murky fluid instead of the few drops of pure water his puny Bush Distillery yields. Mmmmm, that’s good sediment!
Rainy hasn’t had much to do this season, so this becomes the “Look What a Capable Young Woman Rainy Is!” episode. But why is she incapable of buttoning her flannel shirt to an appropriate level?
Drilling the post holes for the barn’s structure is a task that requires precision and mastery of a heavy-duty skid steer auger attachment system, so Billy gives this responsibility to Bear.
Yeah, Billy’s right. Bear’s too EXXXXTREME. Let’s give this crucial task to a 15-year-old girl whose only real skill is posting photographs of her tongue on Instagram.
Billy might be dumb enough to allow Rain to do this, but this show’s construction crew isn’t. With the help of some camera angles and crafty editing, Rainy gets the job done. She hits a snag when the auger can’t bore through a large tree trunk buried beneath the ground, so the crew puts on the hydraulic breaker attachment and she hammers through the obstruction.
Ah, yes. Good times.
Noah’s still around and doing stuff. Noah’s project du jour is ridding Brown Star Ranch of its pesky mole problem. Moles burrowing underground can create surface soil instability, and, like, you know, a cow could get, like, swallowed up by the earth or something. “The No. 1 way to do it is to shoot them or poison them,” Noah says, completely ignoring the most entertaining and effective method of mole control:
If he can’t poison them, shoot them, whack them or blow them up Caddyshack style, he’s going to “invent” some kind of sonic deterrent device that will annoy the moles much in the same way Noah’s nasally voice irritates us.
Noah can’t accomplish anything without boasting about how brilliant he is, but now he’s doing it with JAZZ HANDS!
Of course, none of Noah’s creations have to function beyond the three seconds the camera crew catches it doing whatever it’s supposed to do. This thing Noah just built is just a battery-powered motor that flips up a lever. When the lever drops, it strikes a metal cylinder, producing a sound and vibration. And for this, he proclaims himself Noah da Vinci.
The only person who’s ever told that to Noah is Noah. He’s like da Vinci, except Noah doesn’t paint. He prefers to be the subject.
Noah has compared himself to the likes of Tesla, Edison, and da Vinci before, but now he’s doing it with JAZZ HANDS!
If you’re so damn omnipotent, Noah, why can’t you use your mind powers to force Rhain back onto your crappy reality TV show? You pompous, bloated, gallbladderless Renaissance fair cast reject.
With his fake work completed, Noah says, “I get to go home and have a really good sleep tonight.”
I hope the moles devour Noah in his sleep.
Elsewhere, Bam and Gabe are on a mission to get some supplies for when Bam decides to build his own house on Brown Star Ranch, far…far…far away from the rest of his family. You’ll may recall that Bam tried to do the same thing back at Brownton Abbey, but then he had the good sense to abandon it all so he could be with Allison in the Lower 48.
Bam finds an old bathtub he plans on converting into a worm farm to produce natural fertilizer.
Ah, so that’s how Noah got his creative juices from last week’s episode!
Bam and Gabe drive back with their load of junk in the trailer. Gabe says it’s getting dusty outside, and Bam puts on some dark goggles. This whole scene just turned into something out of Mad Max: Fury Road.
Somewhere between the Citadel and Gas Town — right on schedule — their farm truck has a breakdown. Gabe’s not sure what the problem is, but he checks under the truck anyway, because it’s always good to get your vehicle serviced by a guy who just this morning learned where a car’s “make-it-go” pedal is.
I hear ya, Brotha Bam. As Brown Luck would have it, one of the Browns’ “neighbors” happened to come along the road with his truck. The neighbor — whose face did not appear on camera — somehow towed the farm truck and the trailer loaded with Bam’s junk all the way up to Brown Star Ranch.
I call total B.S. all over the place.
With that Unnecessary Drama out of the way, the Browns can finally deal with the construction materials that the Lower 48 Lumber Fairies delivered. But I’m not sure that this truly is lumber. Does anyone know?
I like how this show doesn’t even attempt to do stuff the Bush Way anymore. Production is just too lazy to pretend that Matt built a sawmill to cut 1,500 board-feet of lumber in 24 hours. Now they just “barter” for bulldozers, get water wells professionally drilled and have their building materials dropped on their doorstep. OK, almost on their doorstep.
You’re probably looking at 90 percent of this season’s production budget right there. The next step is getting the lumber up to the construction site. You’d think that working together as a family for over three decades in the Alaskan Bush would give someone a sense of how to lift heavy things as a team, but this still has not sunken into the mind of the incredibly dense Gabe.
After slathering herself in mud to hunt turkeys last week, we get more of the Dirty Bird this week as she starts rolling around in the soil excavated by the auger. She claims to be cooling herself off like a chinchilla. I claim she’s just thinning the herd of guys who might still find her attractive. Ditto with her desire to bathe in concrete, though an hours-long soak in a hole full of concrete mix would probably do Birdy some good.
In the interstitial, we find Gabe, Rainy and Birdy playing a game of Throw the Rock in the Hole. It’s a mashup of golf, bocce ball, horseshoes, basketball and lawn darts, and the object of the game is to be the first to throw a rock in a hole. Here’s the view from the Alaskan Bush People Hole Cam:
Despite being unable to understand the rules of the game, Gabe wins this round and he goes as giddy as a schoolgirl at a One Direction show or a grown-ass man getting behind the wheel of his dad’s SUV for the first time.
Finally, it’s time to call it a day. The Brown kids sure had a busy one. They learned about herpetology. They learned about big holes. They learned about worm manure. They learned that anything is possible through faith, family, a crew of competent construction workers and a cable TV network with diminished content-quality standards.
Billy is incredibly pleased with how the kids managed to do all that stuff, and still have time to cement and brace all these posts into the ground before dusk.
Billy’s also pleased that his kids seem to have inherited his braggadocio.
Hundreds of years? Landmark? Yeah, families should probably start planning their 22nd-century trips to historic Brown Star Ranch now because it will definitely be a popular destination. This barn will be lucky to survive the wildfire that Bear is sure to start next spring.
Next week, the Brown family is on the brink of another separation…again. Who’s leaving this time? My money’s on Matt…again.
Alaskan Bush People, Sundays, 9/8c, Discovery Channel
Conversation37 Comments
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G
If the Brown fans are supposed to believe that the kids will really build this barn all on their own why are the real builders named in the credits under the title Barn Construction? There are thirteen of them along with a foreman and a project manager. If I was a fan I think this would just pop my little bubble.
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G
That seems like a weird thing to list in the credits. They honestly quit trying on so many levels on this show.
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P
i think they hit rock bottom. are we sure that the browns are going to build a barn without plans. flood of century stops billy's plans more so than just plain old country ignorance. it seems each shoe now has barf factor. i used to enjoy how they would mess-up but grown men behaving as 4 year olds
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G
Yep, and one of the people credited with Barn Construction is Bill Fuller!
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G
A couple of gunshots in the night and the Browns are out of there. Eventually they are going to run out of states to go to.
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G
I am still puzzled why they would list the Barn Construction crew. What is the point of doing that? Not like the people on the crew are going to get extra money or anything. It is like they are just flat out admitting to lying. Why oh why do I keep trying to use logic when analyzing this show?
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R
Or pop bottle rockets, those can get the brownies the hell out of Alaska..
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P
Union contract probably requires the credits.
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G
As good as an explanation as any I can come up with
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B
Did they just stick those posts in the concrete? They will rot out within 15 years even if they are cedar or redwood, if not they are still below ground level not good.
Maybe they know this will be torn down in a couple years tops....
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G
You're right. I see no evidence of steel brackets or rebar or anything like that. Father Billy's Grand Vision is threatened to be jeopardized forever.
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G
That is a good catch. Those will definitely rot out. Even when I put a new mailbox post in I wrap it in plastic. Ahhh the long lost days of me watching the show and then dissecting it like the Zapruder film.
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B
Good as usual, Ryan. You mentioned the bit about Rainey’s shirt and her inability to button the dang thing. I thought during my torture of watching the final episode of this season that there was a blurring of the clevage. Instead of selling child porn why doesn’t Pork Slop just tell her to button up. And every time I see that artist rendering of the “barn”, I still say it looks like an Ark and would be an interesting story line with Noah and all the animals they are going to house there.
You are right, Ryan, Pork Slop ain’t even trying. So much bad editing that sometimes I feel that I am watching.....don’t know what I am watching.
Welcome back David. Guess you were happy to finally boot the ABP to the CBP whom became the WBP. Bet they become the ABP again within the next 4 to 5 years but I will be pushing up cacti 🌵 out here in the desert.
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G
Oh please don't hex us and have me thinking they will ever return. On a side note that is true reality once you commit Alaska State Dividend fraud you are barred from ever collecting again. So the Browns completely burned that bridge. I think the fine folks of Hoonah had enough of them anyway. All but the Icy Straight Inn which got to collect money from the Browns staying there during filming.
You did get me thinking Bob... ABP... ARIZONA Bush People. That really rolls of the tongue. You must have some spare land next door you could rent them.
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B
David, May an Orca Whale s*** in your tent. Perish that thought and I personally would never open a box 📦 mailed from AZ that rattled.
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G
Lol,... I thought you would enjoy that
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P
Did anyone tell Ami the production company owns the 400 acres they are calling theirs?
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G
Word on the street is that Billy actually did purchase this land, unlike the land in Alaska that was leased by the production company.
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B
And somewhere there is a real estate 🏡 agent laughing 😂 his you know what off.
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B
Gabe has turned into fat Mac on Always Sunny. He is just cultivating mass though, he will be strong Gabe again soon.
Both have the same personality: good natured, easy going, and completely clueless.
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G
I do not want to see Gabe wearing the shirtless duster.
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O
"If you're so damn omnipotent, Noah, why can't you use your mindpowers to force Rhain back onto your crappy reality TV show? You pompous, bloated, gallbladderless Renaissance fair cast reject." You're good Ryan! That quote was midway in your piece when you lost it, but the professional that you are, you got yourself back under control and swimmingly transitioned back to the review!
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G
Yeah, sorry. Noah really pissed me off in this one, even though I know everything he says is scripted and everything he builds is built by someone else.
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O
Spot on and I haven't laughed so hard
in a long time. Great writing. The Brown's are a good cast for a remake of an old movie, to be retitled, "Nine Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest ". They have the same weird looks as the original cast.
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G
I was just looking at the new ratings and the ABP rating for this week were 2.087 million viewers and a .4 rating in the 18-49 category and was in 11th place in the Sunday cable ratings. That is down from 4 weeks ago in the premier of 3.412 million and a .8 and won the night. That is a pretty precipitous drop. This show is part of the undead world and will never die, but a pretty fast drop. All due respect to my all time favorite show Sienfeld, but could this show about nothing finally be wearing thin?
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G
I thought this was master work Ryan. I laughed many times.
So if they are building a Ranch that is usually a for profit endeavor. What are they trying to do... farm, ranch? From your pictures it looks like hilly scrub country. It looks like eastern Washington to me and water can be a problem on that side of the Cascades. It doesn't look like land that would be very productive for anything. In the same thread, what is the barn for? Basically other than throw around the word "ranch", have they discussed an actual plan to make money and survive? They usually throw out a token way they are going to make money like their boat hauling business with the Integrity (the best irony I have ever heard of). Look at me... searching for logic in the most illogical show ever produced.
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G
Billy didn't say anything about this ranch being a money-making venture. He keeps throwing around "self-sustainability," but you know Billy's got something else cooking.
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P
Did you notice they claim it is the Northern border of the rockies. It is the Cascade mtns and is owned by the production company.
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B
Billy's Weed Barn and Emporium.
Noah will invent grow lights powered by Bear on a treadmill.
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G
You may not be that far from the truth, sir.
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O
Good review, Ryan.
This show is reaching the point where satire is difficult.
I would add a few comments, though.
Billy, in talking about the rain and flooding, says, in a mystical way, "It doesn't even have to rain here to cause floods. It rains in Canada." They are FOUR MILES from the Canadian border!
Who believes that Gabe has never driven a car? Who believes that giving a driving lesson on a mountain road is a good thing?
Who believes that you can set the poles for a large pole barn without surveyor equipment to align the poles? Who believes a 15 year old emerging porn princess has the skills necessary to drill the holes properly? Who believes that the cement was mixed by the wheelbarrow load by the three of the Browwns to secure all of those poles? And who believes the lumber company couldn't deliver to the site of the barn construction?
What will they do with their shit star ranch? Sell tours and events to believers, just like the Roloff little people do. And the tour guide can be Noah the bloated bloviator, who compared himself to Einstein, and other geniuses. It would be cool if one of the guys on the construction crew kicked Noah's fat ass all the wway down the mountain!r
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G
The Browns need their trebuchet back so they can launch pumpkins like the Roloffs.
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G
All valid points. The viewers don't seem to care so why even bother to try anymore. This will never be confused with Masterpiece Theater that is for sure. I think I remember writing long ago that Billy might as well just flip the bird to the camera anytime he is on screen since that is what he thinks of the audience.
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O
Hey Ryan, i saw this quote and wondered if it has any truth to it.
"Writing is like Prostitution. First, you
do it for the love, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do
it for the money." ~Moliere
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G
I am fortunate that I can do all three simultaneously.
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O
The property being declared 'Designated Forest Land' is causing Billy some problems. I think it's why there's no plans or any mention of building a forever home for Ami. You'd think her comfort and relaxation after all she's been through would be a priority.
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G
Not if she is ready to kick the bucket.
On another note, I would like to see Sue from an authentic alaskan bush people show, Life Below Zero, go down to the Shit Star Ranch and kick the crap out of the Brown sissy boys. It could be a steel cage match, and Sue knows how to build such stuff, unlike the Brown family.
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