Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Election Day
By M. Giant | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.16.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The "Pioneer Journal" drops a bomb on the Council: it's election time. I don't understand why they're so upset; not only were they told at the beginning that their positions weren't permanent, but why would they want them to be? On the Green team, nobody runs against Laurel, claiming that they couldn't do a better job, although I suspect that none of them wants the gig. Guylan challenges Mike for leadership of the Red district. Olivia snottily challenges Anjay on the Blue team, and Taylor faces a challenge from Zach on the Yellow team. Before everyone votes, however, it's time for the Showdown. This one is all about smashing piñatas to find cards depicting U.S. presidents, and then the Council members have to put seven random president cards into the correct historical order. Green gets finished first, but they've got Taft and Teddy Roosevelt swapped, so Yellow wins the Showdown thanks to Zach's historical knowledge. Green wins second place for the first time, with Red coming in third and Blue bringing up the rear just in time to get the reward. And here's the choice: a full barbecue complete with an abundance of meat versus a collection of dental care supplies to replace the baking-soda-and-finger system they've been using. And because the Council are idiots, they go with the latter, so that the town will have nice strong teeth with which to bite them in the ass. Campaigning commences, both clean and dirty. The clean: the candidates talk to the electorate on-on-one. The dirty: Markelle vandalizes one of Taylor's campaign posters, leaving the artist, nine-year-old Leila, heartbroken. Maybe Taylor shouldn't have made "deal with it" her campaign slogan. At the Town Hall meeting, the incumbent Council members award the Gold Star to Greg at long last, so he's going to college. But before Greg gets to call his parents, Jonathan holds the election. Anjay holds onto his Blue seat 7-3, and Olivia continues to be snotty. On the Red team, Mike only gets one vote -- his own -- which puts Guylan on the Council. With only Yellow left to go, Zach unseats Taylor 5-4, having accomplished the seemingly impossible task of stealing one of the Yellow girls' votes for himself. So there's your new Council: Laurel, Anjay, Guylan, and Zach. And Greg, screwed again, has to make do with calling his parents behind the closing credits. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's morning in Bonanza City. Zach makes his way down the windy street, telling us that he's on his way to wake up the girls on the Yellow team to get them into the kitchen. "They'll probably just yell at me and tell me to close the door," he predicts. Sure enough, when he sticks his head into the bunkhouse, they yell at him and tell him to close the door. Without getting up, Kelsey proposes her plan: the guys will cook and the girls will do the dishes. "That's a crappy plan," Zach says hilariously. He leaves, saying he'll meet them in the kitchen, and they yell at him again to "close the fricking door!" If nothing else, Zach's uncanny powers of prognostication should win him the Gold Star.
Meanwhile, Anjay's not doing any better waking his own Blue team up despite his position as Council leader. We see a bunch of sleepy girls ignoring him, and Olivia interviews that nobody listens to Anjay. He gives up for now, but threatens to return with a megaphone. Olivia wishes him luck finding one. Careful, you don't want to give Jonathan any more kooky ideas for showdown rewards.
For some reason, the Council is up at 5:30 in the morning to read the Pioneer Journal. You guys, do you realize what that means? It means the production assistant who writes the Journal was probably up by 5:00. That's rough. The supposedly dead pioneers tell us that the wagon train leaders who founded Bonanza City v.1.0 kept on leading the town when they arrived, even though running a town and running a wagon train call for entirely different skill sets. "Sometimes those leaders had too much power," Taylor reads. Well, that certainly isn't the problem this time around. The Council looks at each other in alarm, predicting what this means for them. Underlining this, Zach interviews that they'd be better off if Taylor weren't on the Council. "The winds of change are blowing in Bonanza City," Laurel reads calmly. Olivia tells Alex that Anjay is more of a follower than a leader. Of course, Alex is sweeping while Olivia is talking, so tell me which of those two is the better leader. The Pioneer Journal finally gets to the point: it's time for District Elections. Without taking a single poll, Anjay gauges his support and comes to an inescapable conclusion: "I'm screwed." Laurel says it's time to prove themselves, and Mike vows to fight "one heck of a battle" in order to stay on the Council so everyone can keep hating him more.
It's chaos in the mess hall, as a full-on food fight is underway. This is how kids will succeed where adults failed: by wasting their limited resources like this while they're completely cut off from the world. Except the more I watch this show, the more I begin to suspect that their resources aren't as limited as we may have been led to believe, at least in terms of the volume of things they're allowed to have. Some are trying to calm the food-throwing down, but those people only get more food thrown at them. Anjay -- who clearly has already been hit a couple of times -- climbs up on a table to get everyone's attention. But that just makes him an easy target for Greg to nail him in the face with an egg. I can't not say it: Anjay literally has egg on his face. He dives behind the table for cover, too late to avoid also getting splattered with a cup of thick cocoa from DK. With everyone laughing at Anjay, he starts retaliating. As things continue to escalate around them, Olivia scolds Anjay for his immaturity in getting involved. Anjay rolls his eyes like this isn't a new subject with them, and then an interview confirms it, as he reports that Olivia is always nitpicking at him and it's getting on his nerves. Yes, something tells me that Anjay and Olivia's relationship is to the point where he can literally do nothing of which she will approve. If he hadn't fought back, she would have criticized him for that, and for failing to stop the food fight. If he'd stopped the food fight, she would have criticized him for the way he accomplished it, or for not accomplishing it quickly enough. On any other show, that would mean they're secretly doing it. I don't think that's the case here though.