Greetings everyone! Hope life is keeping you toasty and fed! Things aren’t going quite as well for the survivalists who are roughing it in the Canadian wilderness.
It’s that time of week to see how those survivalists are doing. Will they or will they not be Extracted? This episode is titled, “A Juicy Power Play” and you’ll see just how juicy it will be!
As usual, if you haven’t watched the episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled…look away now! Spoilers are coming at you faster than a squirrel towards a meaty steak!
The fifth episode titled, “A Juicy Power Play” begins with some bears getting a little too close to Amey’s camp. She can hear their footsteps. We can see a glimpse of them (there’s two) on the cameras and can hear them snorting. Amey uses her blow horn to scare them away. Doug and RJ can hear her horn go off. Doug knows that means there’s bears in the area.
The next day, Rhoman has a visitor come to his camp…a woodpecker! It’s a few joyful minutes of watching nature at work, while the woodpecker is pecking a tree. Summer is living only on water. She hasn’t eaten anything since the grouse, but she calls it a chicken. RJ’s dreaming of a nice juicy steak. Doug wants lobster bisque, baked potato with lots of butter and cheese and a piece of cheesecake. Polly needs food and says she’ll never give up until her body does. She’s survived cancer after all. Katie wants a sleeping bag and food.
We find out Katie is the second oldest of five girls. Emily is the middle child and Carly is the youngest. Carly doesn’t read her emails, but Emily reads all of hers.
Time for a survival trial! The survivalists get a freshly cooked, sixteen ounce, juicy steak! The catch is…they have to share it with all of the other survivalists. Each survivalist takes as much as they need to win, one by one, until each survivalist has eaten. They won’t know how many have eaten before them, or how many will get to eat after. (They had this same trial during the first season.)
Back at HQ, they decide the order the survivalists will go in. They have three minutes to decide. Who do they trust?
Doug’s sons decide to go last. They had decided beforehand they don’t have to feel bad if Doug eats too much that way.
The order they eat in is: Amey, Katie, Polly, Luke, RJ, Rhoman, Summer, and Doug.
Polly took the most, with everyone in HQ watching, giving her family the side eye. Everyone made sure to leave some behind for others. RJ took a few moments to think about taking more, before deciding against it. I swear he was drooling over the steak like Homer Simpson over donuts. Doug could’ve eaten the last of the steak if he wanted to, but he wasn’t sure who still had to go. There was a good chunk left, but don’t worry, it didn’t go to waste…a squirrel ate it!
After they get back to camp, Rhoman goes fishing and catches a fish, he’s glad he only took a small amount. Amey says she feels guilty if she ate too much and hopes everyone got something to eat.
Doug’s son and Emily discuss going to the end together (Doug and Katie). They have to think about who they don’t want at the end. They figure their biggest competitors are Rhoman, Luke and Polly. They need to figure out how to get them out. Double Trouble forever!
Polly’s almost out of water because she’s almost out of matches, so she’s getting dehydrated as well as hungry. It’s cold too. Rhoman says he’s not hungry anymore. The wind is picking up, but at least he has a blanket.
A message appears on a computer screen back in HQ that reads;
Some of the letters are brighter than the others, spelling out L-A-M-P. Emily finds the black card under the lamp. The only thing is…Skyler is right there and knows about it. As soon as Emily goes to tell Carly about what she found, Skylar tells everybody in HQ that Emily found it. Which is good strategy, IMO.
When Emily returns to HQ, she denies finding it, but nobody believes her. Soon, Emily and Carly are given a message on their desk computer, telling them to go to the supply room.
They’re told they can gift any survivalist a sleeping bag, which they give to Katie, of course. But then they’re told to take something out of the game from any survivalist. The girls decide to take Rhoman’s blanket. Then they’re told to take an item from one survivalist and give it to another survivalist. They decide to take a sleeping bag from Polly (excuse me, what?) and give it to Doug (he has a blanket already)!?!?
They did think of giving it to RJ (which I would’ve done) but decided because of their alliance with Doug’s sons, they’d give it to Doug instead. I still think that was a mistake. I would’ve taken from Luke and given to RJ, but that’s just me. 🤷🏼♀️
Later on, when the power card is brought into play, the families in HQ find out when the survivalists receive their crates. Polly’s sister, Molly and her niece, Bailey are devastated. Polly has no matches and now, no sleeping bag. She literally has no way to keep warm and it’s going down to 30°F that night. Polly apologizes for taking too much steak—assuming that’s why that was done to her.
Luke’s brother thinks it’s too early in the game to make shots like that. Is it though? I’m sure you would’ve been okay with it if you had made this decision. 🙄
Back at HQ, Rhoman’s mom, Lynsey confronts the girls about the decisions the girls made and why. The girls say that it was a very hard decision to make.
Everyone else swarms around them asking a million questions about it, until Makala steps in saying the optics about this is wrong. They need to drop it now and to calm down.
Luke’s brother, Daniel takes exception to this, telling Makala to stay out of this, it doesn’t concern her and she’s always getting in the middle of everything.
I DID NOT like how Daniel disrespected and talked to Makala at all. He came across like a domineering douchecanoe. He even had his hands clapped together and was pointing them towards Makala’s face! He’s REALLY lucky I wasn’t at HQ, because that’s very condescending and disrespectful behaviour!
Afterwords, the girls (Emily and Carly) refuse to look at Molly and Bailey, until Bailey somehow finds Carly alone and gets her to agree to have a chat outside by the fire pit. Carly tells her she’ll just have to get Emily and they’ll be right there.
Bailey and Molly go out to the fire pit and end up waiting for over twenty minutes for the girls to show up.
What were the girls doing, you might ask? They were talking to Doug’s sons who were reassuring them they would’ve pissed somebody off regardless.
Emily and Carly are only making things worse for themselves by taking their time meeting Molly and Bailey.
Now, if I were Molly, I would’ve left the fire pit after fifteen minutes and put spiders into their beds. But that’s just me and I’m petty sometimes.
Finally, the girls have put it off long enough and meet Molly and Bailey outside. They asked them, why Polly? The girls said that it’s because she’s one of the strongest players. Why did they give the sleeping bag to Doug, when he already had a blanket?
The girls don’t know what to say—other than it was a very difficult decision they had to make and they’re sorry.
The episode ends later on that night when a weather alert comes onscreen. The temperature has dropped to below freezing. A drone drops two buoys in the lake with lights on, so you can see them.
They’re probably sleeping bags or something to keep the survivalists warm, but what? And why do they have to put their lives into more danger just to retrieve them?
What are your thoughts? Please feel free to share them below!
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Until the next time… ✌🏻
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