‘Alaskan Bush People’: ‘Clear and Pheasant Danger’ (RECAP)
On the Alaskan Bush People episode “Clear and Pheasant Danger” (August 18), the Wolfpack’s first pheasant hunt turns into a competition in anticipation of a much-needed, post-Thanksgiving celebration. Later, Billy and Ami surprise the family with new additions to the ranch that will bring them closer to their roots.
This episode, titled “Clear and Pheasant Danger,” suggests some Tom Clancy-style covert military operations, perhaps involving long-tailed game birds. Having sat through this dull affair, I can tell you there is nothing of the sort. The pheasants pose no threat to Billy’s months-long dream of a sustainable ranch.
I suggest that the episode be retitled “No Time Like the Pheasant,” “Pheasant Company Excluded,” “Alfred Hitchcock Pheasants” or any such play on words in which “present” can be replaced with “pheasant.”
It’s Thanksgiving-ish at Brown Star Ranch. Everyone has been working hard/hardly working and the Browns haven’t had much time for fun, taking bathroom selfies or for “vigilante-ism.”
Doesn’t Noah own 20 capes?
Mother Ami makes her first real appearance of the season as she sits down with Billy to discuss all the hard work their kids are doing, their growing family (including a daughter-in-law and “one perspective [sic] of a daughter-in-law”), and which one of them loves the other one … more.
It’s decided that they will have some sort of post-Thanksgiving feast and the kids will go out to shoot a bunch of pheasants on land that Billy arranged for them to hunt (a.k.a. land on which Park Slope paid to have a guided pheasant hunting tour).
Meanwhile, Noah is preparing a feast of scrambled eggs and ham while lifting weights, because She Who Will Not Be Named likes to have her food perspired on.
Noah tells his wife that he’s going to set aside his baby-harming projects for the day and partake in the family fun by building a bobsled.
Then Noah’s wife tries to make him feel better by reminding him that muscles require a gut to feed them. It’s not a beer belly, it’s a gas tank for a sex machine!
Before there can be feasting, there must be terrible entertainment! As they’ve done in the past, the Brown kids put on a talent show for their parents.
First up, Birdy plays the wine goblets. We hear two seconds of it, and that’s plenty, thank you.
Next up, Gabe yodels and dances for our amusement. We get two seconds of it, and that’s plenty, thank you.
Rainy sings and plays the ukulele. We get two seconds of it, and that’s plenty, thank you.
Finally, Bam recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54. We hear two seconds of it, and that’s plenty, thank you.
Bam takes the rest of this episode off, because he hates all of this B.S. and is just here for the paycheck.
Birdy, Bear, Gabe and Rainy embark on the pheasant hunt. They set up camp and dine on grilled bison and wool sock.
The Browns have always been competitive with each other, and they make a contest of the hunt by dividing into teams. It’s Gabe and Birdy vs. Bear and Rainy to see who can kill the most birds. Bear talks about his competitive spirit and how he actually prefers losing over winning, which is what you always want to hear from your teammate.
That’s loser talk! He tries to explain his logic, but like so many things about this show, no sense can be made of it.
Morning comes and the shootin’ starts. Birdy blasts some birds, while Gabe gets nothing.
Bear and Rainy score some kills, and even Gabe starts hitting the mark.
Eh. That was dull. At least it was a way to eat up screen time and watch pheasants explode. Still better than listening to Billy. [Update: A few pheasant hunters noted that these birds were probably raised in a pen and then released on a preserve, which would explain why they were so slow and why one of them actually had to be kicked before it would fly. An AP story on South Dakota’s pheasant-hunting scene states, “Wildlife biologists agree that farmed pheasants lack the instincts, cunning and flight skills of wild birds.” So basically, these birds were so unfit for survival in the wild that even the Browns could shoot them.]
Noah has completed his “Accele-sled,” which he assembled out of a bed frame, some old skis, a snowboard and some seats. It also has a … battery?
Yeah, the stupid sled has headlights and taillights.
The sled is a huge failure. It cannot be steered and crashes shortly after takeoff. Should’ve installed some Martin-Bakers on that thing.
Bear tries snowboarding instead, and he faceplants beautifully. If he likes losing, then he must be the happiest man in the world.
Gabe and fiancée Raquell are cooking up the pheasants in a skillet over an open fire with some seasonings and a crap-ton of butter.
Gabe says that cooking is a great way for “outsiders” like Raquell to ingratiate herself into Billy’s creepy cult.
Gabe burns his hand on the skillet, and Raquell applies first aid to his boo-boos.
In the interstitial segment, Birdy and Rainy are making “cakes” for their goats. It’s further proof that goats will eat anything, even something prepared by these two halfwits.
We get the most unnecessary of Unnecessary Dramas when Billy calls Birdy and Rainy to look at something in the barn. We’re led to believe that something — probably El Chupacabra — got in there and killed all their livestock, and Billy wants to show his daughters the carnage.
Nah! It’s just Silly Billy playing a prank! He brokered a deal with a local rancher and got them each a horse. (He doesn’t tell Birdy and Rainy that they’ll have to work in the rancher’s fields all summer as part of the barter.)
Birdy gets a horse and immediately she wants to do stupid things with it.
Finally, it’s dinner time. Mother Ami loves the smell of the log table. Seriously, have you smelled the table? Smell the table. Why aren’t you smelling it? YOU MUST SMELL THE !@#$%^& TABLE!!
We’re told that pheasant doesn’t taste like chicken; it tastes like pheasant. Bear is pheasantly surprised!
Then stuff gets weird. Billy says, “Little Kitten’s gonna have a kitten,” using his pet name for She Who Will Not Be Named. Agh! Not while we’re eating!
And then he mentions Raquell, the other new addition to the family, sitting waaaaaaaay over there. She Who Will Not Be Named takes a passive-aggressive shot at Gabe’s fiancée, calling her “a very quiet addition.” Perhaps Raquell just knows when to shut the hell up, unlike some other recent addition to this family.
Then Billy breaks into his spiel about the Good Lord rewarding him for being an idiot.
You see, Billy has faith that the Good Lord has faith in them that as long as they stick together (without Matt), they can dupe Discovery Channel executives into buying an 11th-ish season of this dumpster fire.
It’s time now for another edition of “That’s Matt!,” in which we take a social media look at Matt’s sober offscreen adventures:
Matt posted a picture of this little toy dinosaur on Instagram. It had 370 likes within 30 minutes. People on Instagram are just the worst.
Alaskan Bush People, Sundays at 9/8c, Discovery Channel
Conversation31 Comments
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Ryan, while I like your recap of the horrible scammers known as Alaskan Bush People, you must, for the sake of your fans, include a recap of the lamest show on TV, Raising Wild. I watched both shows on Sunday night, went to bed, had a nightmare.
The 'Alaskan' Bush People has been reduced to a random collection of scenes and studio interviews. It can be filmed at any time of the year, with post-production cleanups. And any particular film clip is interchangeable with any other film clip.
With that said, here is my contribution.
Ami looks an awful lot like Norman Bates's mother. That is sad. Park Slop must have ordered her to appear on camera.
God works in mysterious ways. The fact that Billy continues with his scamorama proves that. (Billy frequently babbles about faith, but in the 70 or 80 seasons of ABP, there was just one scene involving a a reverend, and that was where the priest held the blessing of the fleet ceremony, and Billy and Ami stood and watched.
The Brown children were, as you noted, on a shooting preserve, or what we hunters call a whorehouse for bad hunters. Park Slop paid a fee for each child, and paid for each pheasant planted. (The technique used by many of the shooting preserves is to temporarily stun the pheasant when they plant it.) Hunter orange clothing, by the way, is required in Washington for hunting upland game.
Frying a pheasant should be a felony.
The talent show was hideous - more so than the one in Browntown 30 or 40 seasons ago. At least back then, Bird and Rain were minors.
The scene with Noah and his linebacker wife were bordering on truthfulness. She is a ball-breaker. A beard as a ball-breaker is a really bad combination. As dangerous as Noah's sled.
The late Thanksgiving dinner was as odd as Gabe's yodeling. Have things gotten so bad, most of the film can't meet the really low standards of the Discovery channel?
Why is it a big surprise when Billy, who tells us he is building a horse ranch, acquires horses? And how did the horses get delivered, what with the snow on the road? And none of the demented clan members noticed the delivery? Or hoof prints in the snow?
That's all for now. I will add an analysis of the Hines family later.
But you are on notice, Ryan. You must do recaps of the Raising Wild show!
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Let's give Ryan a break. There is only so much idiocy the human mind can take. Besides all you have to do is to change the names on the ABP recap and you have a Raising Wild recap.
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I must disagree.
This is what happened on Raising Wild on Sunday night.
After three episodes of the Haines family telling us that they had no way of going to a store to buy food or anything else (episode #2 was devoted to the fat son's killing a chicken) we learned that Ma Raines goes to town once a week to a laundromat with the family clothes. So two members of the clan pretend to build a washing machine, set up in an abandoned hot tub, powered by a junkpile bicycle.
That was worse than Noah's Browntown 'bush' washing machine.
And we learned that there are wild horses on their land, and they tamed one, named Comma, by holding food in their hands, the Comma came to them, they put a halter on him, and he peacefully followed them into the barn, and went into the stall.
All of those western movies, showing the dangerous work it takes to break a wild horse? Not necessary on Raising Wild.
But worst of all was the pizza oven, which two of the offspring pretended to build. The fat one mixed pizza dough with dirty hands, pressed it out on the truck hood, and used a traffic sign as a ladle.
It was disgusting.
And next week, what are they doing? Erecting a windmill - perhaps they stole it from the Browns.
We need your recaps, Ryan - both shows!
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Dang it I have it on DVR and I was going to watch it later. I agree I would love to read a Raising Wild recap by Ryan but I'm sure recapping ABP is bad enough.
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It was my intent to recap Raising Wild. I even interviewed an executive producer. But RW was nowhere near as popular as ABP, and I decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
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Good to see you posting Lakerman, I always like your keen eye. I don't watch ABP anymore let alone RW, but I have heard it is even worse than ABP. That is saying something.
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Recapping ABP and RW is probably bordering on employee abuse. OSHA might get involved.
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The fat one mixed pizza dough on the hood of a dusty truck and mashed it down with the bottom of a dirty plastic bucket leaving black spots behind in the dough. I don't think his dirty hands mattered much. Yes I (shudder) watched it.
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R
"We hear two seconds of it, and that's plenty, thank you." This statement is quite true, I think it is a great response to this show in general 😉
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Ryan, thank you for once again enduring and penning yet another WBP episode recap! Keep those creative juices flowing and continue to fall on the WBP sword for your lowly serfs that can’t ”not watch” ABP-WBP 😳.
Hugs from Donna ”Belle” in Louisiana❤️
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😉Thanks, Donna! Right back at ya!
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B
(Ryan, a pheasant day to you. Oh man, I still got it. You will note I am
putting ( ) s around my missive. This was a trick I learned from my ex girl friend who told me that if you are putting ( ) around whatever you are sending to some one, no one else can read it. I tried it a few times in trying to make hay with her girlfriend and about a week later my ex girlfriend broke up with me. Some coincidence, huh? Anyway I am writing to you about our friend David. David, I believe has been living in a state of wrought, discontent and unhappiness since the ABP left Alaska and became the CBP and now the WBP. His emphasis appears to be on quantity rather than quality. I know you would rather have 6 people of quality read your column than 2,000,000 read your column especially if you couldn’t attest as to the quality of any of the 2,000,000. I ask that you counsel with David and set him on the track to redemption with the fortuitous knowledge that the WBP will be returning to the home of the Inuit next season.
As far as the show, great recap as usual. What I found funny and somewhat scary was when a pheasant was let go right (key words, let go) in front of Rain and instead of flying forward it flew back over her causing her for a minute to be pointing the shotgun right at the camera crew. It was after the fact editing with Bear where you here the disclaimer, “ aw, her safety was on “.
Really no comment on Running/Raising Wild as that is about the dumbest show I have ever seen.
I too, enjoyed the LLWS and especially that young lady pitcher. Though she gave up 8 runs there were some not attributable to her. Excellent fastball and great fielding skills.
C ya, b ya, my friend)
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We are in the process of building a bush wall to keep the Brows out.
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I, too, love parentheses. I even love the brackets for parentheticals within parentheticals. Then stuff gets weird when you have to switch back to the parentheses for the parentheticals within the parentheticals within the parentheticals. But I DIGRESS!
Like Spinal Tap's audience, my readership isn't getting smaller. It's just becoming more selective.
Qualitatively, ABP is holding steady at Absolute Suck. Quantitatively, its ratings are descending to the nether regions. It's fun to watch the decline, which has been about the only fun thing to watch about ABP.
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😆
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👍🏻😆👍🏻😆!
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After the canned and potentially fatal pheasant hunt...did anyone note the beautiful Thanksgiving dinner table planted in the center of the Bushigan’s barn? When did the Bushigan kids build that masterpiece? Also, as the Bushigans were feasting I noted the restaurant quality hotel pans, tongs, knives, cookware, dinnerware & utensils etc that the Bushigans scored bigtime from ”the bush”. I’ve never been so lucky to ”happen upon or have kids that can conjure up, forge, create and fashion ANYTHING as nice as what the Browns had at their ”pheasant feast”. Just sayin’ from Louisiana.
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Quite an embarrassment to have to ask my daughter whom is Spinal Tap.
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B
If those weren’t pen raised pheasants with surgery on their toes I will come to Washington and eat Brutus. That’s why you saw the pheasants flush so close to the 4 Brownclowns. A pheasants first instinct, just like quail is to skedaddle on the ground before having to go airborne. Surgery on their dew claw more or less prevents the skedaddling.
And the way those Springers worked tells me it was pen raised pheasants. No self respecting pheasant is gonna let a dog get that close.
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bob_AZ, I totally agree with you. I never considered the REAL possibility that those poor birds were pen-raised and altered. When the ”bird hunt” was happening I thought the noise the brown clowns we're making, the closeness of the dogs seemed hinky at best. Each of your points are valid. DUH on me for never thinking the hunt would be fair for the upland game. I was impressed with the Springer Spaniels but actually, they didn't have to do what their instincts and training intended; what a waste of those brilliant canines efforts. 🥺
Bob, this is one more example of the brown clowns farce. However, I must say, stupid me will continue to watch the ABP/WBP sh!t show. It's like a car crash, I can't stop watching 😳the mayhem and stupidity. Please keep your comments coming; I enjoy your observations. 🥰
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Your right most pheasants I hunt come with a pair of Nikes . Drives my dog nuts..those hunts are basically for people who don't know much about hunting...i.e. Idiot Browns.
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Horses seem like the last thing the Browns need. We had two growing up and they are pretty expensive pets and don't add anything economically. Unless you are a cowboy on a ranch or have a horse ranch for guests. The Browns are no where near that.
This show seems so horrific on every level. Just no idea how it is still on. Blah!
Ratings wise ABP was 14th on the night for Sunday night cable shows with a total of 1,512 million viewers and an 18-49 rating of .28 and as usual lately, both series lows. 1.5 million is far from embarrassing but .28 is getting pretty low. Fall much further and they are probably in danger of not getting renewed. Serengeti as a lead in gained just a bit so not a good trend for ABP.
Raising Wild actually rose all the way from 48th last week to 33rd this week. Great news right? Not really. Their total viewers actually fell from 968,000 viewers to 887,000 and their 18-49 rating was the same at .17. Basically they rose because shows around them sank worse. Not good for a show that is probably past any chance at getting renewed and is desperate to gains some traction.
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I am curious to see what the ABP ratings floor will be. I think it's safe to assume there will be another ABP season. Reports are that Matt filmed scenes while he was visiting the fam.
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Well ABP being part of the undead world and never being able to be killed certainly doesn't hurt their cause. Yes, it will be interesting to see how long and low this can go. All things come to an end and nobody in their right mind when we were laughing at, and ripping this show years ago would have guessed this was still going to be airing. I long ago realized Discovery could care less how dumb the product is as long as it is profitable. They are a for profit organization.The good thing always working in their favor was the economics. Super cheap to produce and decent ratings will expand your lifespan greatly. I have always read Ami and Billy make 500K per year and the kids are around 40-60K per year, or 8-16K per episode depending on the source. In a way I am almost surprised it is that high especially for Billy. Falling ratings, cheaper production costs and lack of any screen time you would thing would weigh on that. But he is also the one who pulls the strings and puts this all together for the family. For the kids, this is far from life changing money.
I do think for the first time this is probably getting into "uh oh" territory. .28 18-49 and falling is worrisome.
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Ah! Another missed episode. I was watching the Cubs and Pirates game at the Little League World Series. There are much better things to watch on Sunday night that don't get me pissed off.
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The LLWS is great. Good life choices. ANYTHING is better than ABP.
That is why I quit fantasy sports many years ago. When I sat and thought about it I had to question why I participated in an activity that had a 95% chance of pissing me off. Basically the same conclusion I came to with ABP a few years ago.
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David only fantasy sport I do is football and that's among our family,in laws, son in laws my daughters it's no stress.i stopped watching because I have lived my life in the Allegany mountains. Hunting,fishing, photographing wildlife I usually spend from end of September to mid December living in a camp I built as a young man years ago. These idiots no nothing about what it takes to live in the outdoors. There hunting scenes are fake nobody hunts the way they do that knows anything. Not one hunter would dress and outfit themselves the way they do. There 100% Phonies just out to make a buck. Trying to ripoff the state of Alaska they way they did should have been the end of the tv series. They supposedly know nothing of the outside world yet wear Apple watches and never lived in Browntown or any other fake homestead. There just phonies.
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I can remember losing fantasy football games by less then point when my kicker misses three FG's, my QB has the worst game of his life, the opposing team who was miles behind me and only has his RB left on Monday night has the game of his life and I barely lose. I would get upset and feel bad still on Wednesday. Not to mention having to spend the first few hours of Sunday researching who to start, and inevitably picking the wrong player at the last second costing me the victory. Plus all the wasted time constantly updating stats and watching games I had no there interest in than fantasy. At times even rooting against my own team because I was facing players that played for them. Yet when I would win the winning high was nowhere near lows of losing. It was then I figured this was a losing proposition for me and I would be better off without it. So frustrating to participate in yet kept doing it. Quit 10 years ago and never looked back.
The Browns are so so fake. But it is past fake. They don't even have the time and energy to fake really living off the land and being homesteaders. Instead views are treated to a lame talent show and people howling all the damn time. All the while everybody at this time knows they don't ever winter or hang around their property other than film. Sheesh. I don't get the draw. It isn't even so bad iti s funny anymore. It is just awful.
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David years ago probably 10 a friend talked me into doing fantasy baseball. They needed a person to make it 14 teams. I was in it 2 yeas and never new how it worked. From September to mid December I'm basically off grid. So I never new who was in baseball playoffs. I'd have to drive my truck a couple miles from camp just to make a phone call. Now in 2019 I have cell service at camp. One thing about living in the Allegany mountains is stress level is very low. All the Alaskan Bush fakes show is anymore is a bunch a clips put together and who knows when they were shot. Last years teepee living ended it for me I couldn't watch anymore. By then I was recording it and fast forwarding thru the show most of the time. There was no way anyone was living in a teepee not after seeing photos of them in Hawaii and other places. I don't how Ryan can stomach writing reviews now because some of the stuff they show there just isn't anything to say about it. Billy Brown is a snake oil salesman scamming to make a buck.
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When I played fantasy sports I would have been much better off not knowing what was going on. I am so old I remember playing fantasy basketball in about 1987-88 range when we would have to phone our lineups in on an answering machine. Then we would buy the Anchorage paper every day for 50 cents (the local Fairbanks one didn't have sports statistics). It would only give you how many points each player scored and the high rebounder and assist player from each team and no steals or blocks. So really you still didn't know how you did. Then Monday mornings the company would send us by mail the results and the standings and you would get it about Thursday. You looked forward to opening it because it was a total surprise if you won or lost. Compared to today it was like being there when the wheel was first invented. That was about 30 years ago, but feel like a hundred. Now you can watch the results of your team on your phone in real time as it happens. One of my favorite writers once asked the question a few years ago of which changed more from the internet, fantasy sports or porn. After a long debate it was decided fantasy sports.
I give Ryan credit for still being able to crank out good recaps when this show blows so badly. At least he is getting paid. No earthly idea how anyone with an IQ over 60 can sit down and turn the TV on and flip to the Browns for an hour and find it enjoyable in the least. You know every single thing you ware watching is completely scripted, staged, done over a week or two and the worst part more than any of that... boring as $%^&. If you are just making crap up at least make it somewhat interesting. This is the show that thought up amazing things like lets have a feet smelling contest. Oh boy, you are completely out of ideas aren't you? Half the kids don't even want to be there anymore. They say their two lines per episode and cash the check.
Like you I quit watching a while ago and it was kind of glorious to not watch. I even felt guilt watching like I was supporting this charade to continue on. The teepee part like much of the show was ridiculous. I doubt the Browns even peeked in one, let alone lived there.
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Solid gold summary! Keep up the good work.
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