After John's departure, nobody below is too worried, least of all makeup artist Nessa (who has some explaining to do if she's responsible for everyone's over-the-top "pirate" eye makeup). day, Captain Joe Don nominates Bartender Sean to be ship's cook, being sure to remind Sean assily that Captain Joe Don can take the position away from him at any time. Joe Don also wants a "crew leader," to establish "distance" between himself and his officers, and the crew. It's twelve other people, dude. Things are kind of top-heavy on this boat as it is. Jay (the auto parts salesman) accepts the job of Bosun, comparing it to a union liaison kind of position, and Officer Cheryl the D.A. thinks Jay bears watching. Cheryl's constant milking of how her real-life experience makes it impossible for anyone to fool her is really making me look forward to the day she gets well and truly fooled.
Full credits this week, with everyone's name, unlike last week. Good thing John had a storyline in the pilot, or we never would have found out who he was. After we get back from commercials, the ship weighs anchor, sets sail, flies the Jolly Roger, all that nautical crap. Kendra interviews that she wants to stay on the boat forever, and since her job is "office worker," I don't blame her, except for the jinx she just called down on herself. We also meet Azmyth, a dreadlocked "music producer" who hippies that he's going to be looking out for his crew, but also himself.
Lots of sailboat porn. You really think old-school pirates had to sail their ships with a camera helicopter constantly circling them the way these guys do? Sean has to make some inedible gruel for the crew, while Joe Don gets a fancy breakfast (bacon, eggs, peppers, fruit, etc.) up on the topdeck. At least he shares with his officers. Ex-NFL guy Christian complains that Joe Don should be feeding his crew better. "A happy crew is a hardworking crew," he claims, although I don't exactly see anybody slacking now. Joe Don's enjoying his breakfast rum too much to care. After breakfast, he puts everyone to work swabbing the decks. Louie isn't as enamored of shipboard life as Kendra is. "It's nothing but work. If you're a crew member," he says pointedly. Jay also bitches to us about the unfair division of labor and food, while Joe Don clearly digs it. He might be a sociopath.
Off the coast of the island, Cameron calls everyone to the quarterdeck to open the compartment in the chest of Zanzibar, which will contain the clues to this week's treasure. Cameron hands over the key they found with last week's treasure, and Joe Don has Kendra use it to unlock and open a drawer that contains two maps. It's going to be Black crew and Red crew again, with the Captain and officers leading the Black crew while the rest of the pirates are randomly divided between Red and Black. And if the Red crew wins, a new captain will be chosen. Since there's an odd number of pirates, Joe Don has the advantage (?) of the extra crew member. The crews are as follows: Black is Joe Don, Ben, Cheryl, Nessa, Azmyth, Louie, Christa, and Jupiter. The Red crew is Sean, Joy, Christian, Kendra, Alexis, Laurel, and Jay.
Cameron opens the paper saying that the new treasure was hidden by Henry Steel's master gunner, who had a thing for booby traps and snakes. Everyone groans, and then Cameron tells them to climb up on the starboard gunwale. He uses a flintlock pistol as a starter's gun to send them leaping over the side to swim to the island. I'm pretty sure it's a replica, because it doesn't explode in his hand. Cameron narrates that they're swimming through "shark-infested waters," and then they'll have to navigate a "treacherous coastline" to the jungle. Then they have to run up a mountain to a snake pit. While they're still in the water, nobody gets eaten by a shark, even a little bit. But Alexis complains that she has to help Kendra, a.k.a. "Little Miss I Need My Water Wings." So the Black Crew is first to land, with Azmyth leading them to the sabotage point. They get to drop a giant mass of branches across the narrow path just as Kendra is finally hauling herself out of the ocean. With some difficulty on Louie's part, Black reaches the summit and finds what looks like an exposed basement foundation filled with murky water and, of course, snakes. After Azmyth deciphers the clue to mean that a chest with some form of key is down there somewhere, nobody on Black wants to go in. So they spend the commercials staring at it, while Red has passed the sabotage point and is now gaining. Christian is bringing up the rear for Red. Yes, he was in the NFL, but he was a running back, not a running up, people. He's a big guy.
Nessa lowers herself into the snake pit with Azmyth as backup, and the water turns out to be not quite knee-deep. Okay, that's less scary. Louie gets in there too, and Azmyth hoists a sodden chest out of the murk. Meanwhile, Joy on the Red crew has fallen and can't get up. "I know she's got a lot of heart, I just don't think she's cut out to be a pirate," says Jay in all seriousness. I would just like to remind you that Jay is an auto parts salesman. Sean picks Joy up and starts bodily hauling her up the mountain.
Meanwhile, the Black crew (including someone's pixilated boobs) open the chest that contains a large "compass plate," which they have to put on a nearby "altar" and use a "compass spoon" that will point to the buried treasure. It works in theory, as a spoon-shaped bit of wood with a red metal tip swivels in what is presumably the right direction. But the Black crew is still trying to figure out exactly where to dig when Red arrives. Red isn't nearly as wimpy about jumping in, although Jay complains about Christian's weak snake-repelling skills, which seem to consist largely of saying "I've got the snakes" and standing there while pointing sticks at them. I see Jay's point, but I could have done without his mocking of Christian's Nigerian accent. And it's all moot pretty quickly anyway, when Azmyth finds the treasure for the Black crew. Looks like another week under Captain Joe Don. Huzzah. Louie points out in an interview that Azmyth was the clear MVP, while Joe Don didn't do much of anything the whole time. He's not wrong. You'd think that Joe Don's extra rest and hearty breakfast would have helped him to motor at least a bit.
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After everyone swims back to the ship -- including poor Joy, who has to climb up over the side with her injured knee in a bandage -- Sean blames Joy's injury for losing it for the Red crew. The Black Crew returns with a big vase full of gold coins and a key that will unlock the compartment in the Chest of Zanzibar. They count up $45,000, half of which goes to Joe Don. He also gets the chance to pick two new officers, but he keeps the ones he has. That means Ben and Cheryl get to split a quarter of the total, and Louie is again unhappy. He'd like to cut them all adrift and have them "see the inside of a shark's belly." Harsh. The rest of the crew gets $2,250 each, and the crews are now dissolved, giving Joe Don the night to mark three pirates with the black spot, and Pirates Court will be the night. There is no complaining from Azmyth, probably because he remembers what happened to John when he tried to claim too much credit for finding last week's treasure.
Down below, the crew bitches about the injustice of it all while Joe Don and his officers revel in their largesse, although he at least realizes that the crew is going to be unhappy. So he tries to smooth things over by handing down $200 each, which is worse than nothing. "How's your gold treating you, that you're sleeping on in your gold bed in your gold cabin?" Alexis interviews bitterly. Because if she were captain, everyone would be getting equal shares, right?
And then Joe Don calls in his Bosun, Jay, to bribe him with $2,000 to keep an eye on the crew. Jay doesn't seem too morally outraged. He boasts, "I got $2,000 that nobody knows about, and I haven't won a thing." Which is what being a pirate is really all about, he figures. Again: auto parts salesman.
Joe Don confers with Cheryl and Ben about who's going to get the black marks. We get to see very little of the discussion, although Joe Don does say it was a harder decision this time. We'll soon see why he was lying.
Out on deck, Cheryl and Ben pass out the summons, along with explanations to us that people were nominated for physical reasons. No strategy whatsoever. Thrilling. Spotted this time around are Kendra ("I'm not sure the captain cares for me that much"), Christian ("I'm not worried about it"), and Joy ("Being marked for the second time in a row made my confidence go way down, but you better watch out, because I'm still fighting"). Jay gets to work strategizing, making a case for getting rid of Christian. Meanwhile, Louie is back to fomenting mutiny, but he should really talk to someone besides Christian about that, seeing has how a mutiny vote has to be unanimous and all.
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At Pirates Court that night, Joy, Christian, and Kendra stand in the dock while Cameron explains how it works and calls court into session. Joe Don starts by explaining why he Spotted the ones he did: Kendra's slow in the water, Christian is large but slow, and Joy is injured. Kendra goes first in her own defense, saying she wasn't the best swimmer, but was plenty fast on land. Alexis's bitchface is unimpressed. Joy shows off her lack of a knee bandage, and says she was there hauling up the anchor at 4 AM: "I'm Joy, and it ain't time for me to go yet." When Christian comes up, he says it's a captain's job to keep the crew happy, and promises to share the cash more equitably if he's made captain. He asks Joe Don, "How do you run the ship?" Joe Don says he won't take the bait, and when it's time for him to make is own case, his big argument is, "You know how I roll. I say what I do, I do what I say. I think you guys are happy, and I'm okay with that." Cameron senses Louie's displeasure, and Louie gripes that he's only got $4,400, while Joe Don has ten times that. "It's less than that," Joe Don says. "I've shared money with my Bosun." Jay looks sick in the ensuing silence, but says, "He's given me a thousand dollars so far and $200 dollars for being on the losing team." Joe Don smirks at having hung his spy out to dry. Alexis says that the amount they got from Joe Don was worse than nothing. So she's giving it back, then?
Ballot time. Cameron reminds us that a mutiny requires a unanimous vote, and the nine jury members come up to spike their vote cards on the dagger. Azmyth gives Joe Don a long (if not mutinous) look before his vote, as does Sean. Cameron counts up the votes, and says that there are no votes for mutiny, which means the Captain is safe. So is Joy. And in a 5-4 vote, the person who's being cut adrift tonight is...Christian. He and Louie share a regretful look as Joe Don comes down from the top deck to cut Christian loose. Guess you didn't play that one too well, you guys. Christian climbs over the side and onto the raft (which is of course the same raft John sailed off on, complete with electric lantern and hidden trolling motor), and Joe Don does his thing with the sword again, sending Christian out into the night on his floating taxi. Christian interviews that he'll miss his fellow crewmen the most. Even the assholes?
You know, once you get past the initial shock of how stupid this show is, you realize that it's actually kind of boring.
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