In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Miljan has escaped, and the assumption is that he kidnapped Irene. So Neeko, Esther, Annie, and Sabina go looking for him through the snow that has gotten a few feet deeper overnight. They run across a frozen corpse, but it's Natalie, the woman who allegedly quit the game a few episodes ago. Annie and Esther stay so they can try to dig a grave for her, but the ground is hard as a rock. Then they get attacked by bigfoots or something.
Neeko and Sabina continue the search for Miljan on their own, but they don't have any success. This is partly because it's not actually easy to wander into a trackless forest and find someone, and partly because fog rolls in and makes it even harder to see anything. Sabina breaks down and delivers a lot of her background information. Then she pulls it together and spots some mysterious footprints that belong to whatever monster lurks around here. On their way back to the camp, Neeko and Sabina discover that the monster has probably grabbed Esther and Annie.
And farther out in the snow, Johnny, Sam, Joyce, and Daniel continue their search for the radio beacon. Sam's frostbitten foot is a little better, so he's able to walk. The real problem is that the tower they're looking for has vanished, but that doesn't stop Johnny from leading everybody to about the place he thought it was. They end up walking into the woods again, and Sam has to stop. They move on without him and end up at a giant metal tower. Johnny climbs it and gets electrocuted. Luckily, Sam recovers his ability to walk just in time to administer CPR. Then they wander some more and find an abandoned Russian Science Center just when Joyce is about to collapse. They break in and hang out on a couch. Then there's a mysterious noise outside, because that's the sort of thing that happens on this show. Lots of mysterious noises.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Picking up from the last episode, Neeko reveals that Miljan has escaped from the cabin where he was left with no supervision. Good heavens! So he probably took Irene! Naturally, everyone has to stomp through the snow and shout for them. I think shouting "Miljan!" is more logical than "Irene!" because he almost certainly kidnapped her.
Elsewhere, Johnny is the first one out and about in the morning, and the sound of him getting a fire going wakes up Joyce, Sam, and Daniel. Joyce thinks that maybe the weather will magically turn sunny and warm. Which sounds silly at first, but the snow came from nowhere, so who's to say it can't vanish the same way? If the weather's going to start working randomly, you never know what will happen.
Sam claims his foot is much better than last night, which does not match what I know of how frostbite works. Like, I don't think staying outside in the freezing cold is actually a frostbite cure. Johnny tells Sam to have some of the bottled water in his backpack, but it's frozen solid. Sam claims he can walk, so it's time to go to the beacon. But Joyce has been looking around, and she reports that it's missing. No one can see the beacon now? That's weird. Was it there last night?
Back at the main camp, Annie, Esther, Neeko, and Sabina have formed a search party and are looking for Irene and Miljan. Neeko says there should be footprints, but there aren't. It looks like they got another two feet of snow last night. And then! Sabina hears that musical birthday card! They look in the direction of the sound, and there's a hand sticking out of the snow. It's only about ten feet from them, so you'd think they'd go see what the deal is, instead of just standing around gasping. But I guess they need to put in a pause for the start of the episode.
Ah! Now that the credits are over, people are digging out whoever belongs to this hand. It's not Irene! In fact, it's Natalie! You remember how she quit the game in the middle of the night and we never saw her leave, right? Annie does not take this news well, and we see some slow-motion shots of her screaming and flailing while Neeko tries to calm her down.
The beacon team still can't see the beacon. They don't even know what direction it was. I feel they should have figured out where it was while they were walking. And now they don't even know what direction north is, even though it's a clear day and it's morning. Johnny is not the outdoorsman he has been made out to be if he doesn't know the sun rises in the east. Johnny decides he knows what direction they were going last night, and he leads them away.
Sabina studies Natalie's body while Esther shouts about how this is obviously Miljan's doing. Neeko thinks the producers would have done background checks to make sure there wasn't anybody dangerous in the game. That seems like the exact opposite of what producers of reality shows do, doesn't it? They want angry, unstable people. It's called the Puck Factor. Esther points out that the producers haven't done a great job of protecting them so far. Another good point! Neeko's trust in the producers has lasted at least two episodes past the point of plausibility. Sabina tries to uncover Natalie's body to see how she died, and Neeko tells her to leave it alone for the authorities.
Sabina accurately points out that there are no "authorities" coming. Yeah, don't be dumb, Neeko. Sabina finds that Natalie's stomach is missing. She declares that Miljan didn't do it, because, "No human can do this. We're not alone out here." Very dramatic. But not all that novel, since there's already been a tiger sighting, plus the Bigfoots or Gumbies or whatever. And probably ghost natives. See, you can't just keep giving the audience the same surprises every week. The stakes need to be raised.
The beacon team staggers through the snow. Each of them gives despairing interviews about how they might have made a horrible mistake. Johnny admits that he doesn't know where they are, and that he might have killed all of them. Even the camera crew? Joyce wants to stop, but Johnny insists that her blood will freeze. If they can just get to the top of the ridge, he thinks they'll be able to see the beacon. He starts to suggest that the others turn back, but Daniel rejects the idea of splitting up because it's something you're not supposed to do when you're lost. Well, you're also supposed to stay where you are, and I don't see anybody doing that. Anyway, I say they knock over the camera crew and steal their food and warm clothes.
After staring at Natalie's frozen corpse for too long, Neeko says it's time to continue looking for Irene. But Annie won't leave Natalie because she needs to be buried. Esther decides to stay with Annie, which will conveniently keep her out of the theoretical confrontation with Miljan. I like this plan. So Neeko and Sabina continue the search. Sabina doesn't want to speculate about what killed Natalie, but she figures that whatever killed the tiger and Tommy also killed Natalie. Neeko recaps all the crazy things so far this season, but he does it by shouting at Sabina and demanding to know why the producers would send them here. She doesn't have answers for him. I don't think any of those things are necessarily Sabina's fault.
Team Beacon struggles along, with each of them occasionally falling to a knee before getting up. Johnny looks across a flat, blank expanse of snow. I regret calling them "Team Beacon" if the beacon doesn't even exist anymore. I just felt kind of silly calling them the "Away Team" in the last episode. Sam asks Johnny what the new plan is, but he does not have one. He thinks the beacon should be about where they're standing. But it isn't.
Johnny and Sam have a kind of awkward fight, because they're both shivering and dying so they can't get any strength into their punches. Johnny shouts that he should have left Sam for dead. Sam agrees with him! Daniel and Joyce are taking this opportunity to huddle together for warmth and not get involved. Sam tells Johnny he needs to do the right thing. And then! Joyce sees something! There are footprints in the snow! Well, that's something, right It's certainly worth following them, right? It looks like Sam might be watching the other three leave.
Annie and Esther dig a hole in the snow, but when they get to the ground, it's frozen solid. It's hard to dig a grave with your hands, you know. Esther remembers seeing a shovel in the men's cabin, so they go back to the camp.
Ah, Sam is still with the rest of Team Beacon, although he's straggling behind a little. I guess no one ever straggles in front. Joyce is in the lead, and she's mumbling about footprints. No one else can see any footprints, and Sam eventually sits down. Now she can't see the footprints either, and apparently no one actually saw them. They were just sort of following each other. That's a bad plan, but there wasn't anything going on back at the missing beacon, either.
Sam looks like he might be dead. No, he's talking. But he can't get up. Johnny sees some sort of glinting light from through the woods, and he gets the others to see it as well. Sam claims he'll be right behind them, which is not a remotely plausible lie. They all leave, and Sam sits against a tree, alone. Well, with a camera crew.
Neeko calls out for Miljan and Irene and claims that they can't be far. Why not, exactly? He doesn't even know which way they went, nor when it was. It seems to me that even if Neeko started out going in the exact right direction, Miljan had about a ten hour head start, plus the snow was about two feet lower last night. This show has a completely unrealistic idea of how easy it is to find people in the woods. Sabina suddenly falls to her knees and starts crying, which is very disconcerting. She's been so tough this whole time!
She's worried she might not make it home and see her son again. Her son is ten years old, and she hasn't seen him for years because he's with his father, who's a horrible man. She's just rushing through all this backstory about growing up in an orphanage and her son's father being one of the staff members when she was sixteen. Then she went into the army, which you have to do in Israel, and she was escorting an important man, and he was with a young girl and she started crying, and she knocked him out and got discharged and therefore couldn't get her son back. And now she's broke, so she came on the show. This is coming out of nowhere and is not being presented with any subtlety or art whatsoever. And it's not like the characters need a reason to hope they get out of this alive. Anyway, Neeko promises she'll see her son again, and she calms down. Sabina has the bow, incidentally.
Oh, hey! Team Beacon has arrived at a tall metal structure! It might be a water tower or something. Johnny thinks it's a good sign that they found something that's man-made. Well, it beats being lost in the woods, but it's no immediate help. Then he climbs it. I'm surprised his hands don't freeze to it, if it's so cold. The process of climbing is not particularly interesting to describe, so it's a good thing that Joyce sees something. I feel obliged to point out that the camera following Johnny up the tower stays at about the same height as him. As though there's a crane shot. I wouldn't dwell so much on the in-world camera people if they didn't keep bringing them up.
Anyway, Joyce finds some wooden wreckage and a sign in Russian. It might have a red lightning bolt on it. It looks like some kind of a warning sign. She starts to tell Daniel about it, so naturally that's when there's a loud buzzing noise and Johnny gets thrown off the tower. He lands in the snow, so at least the impact didn't kill him. Hey, if the tower's electrified, they could use it to warm Sam up!
Daniel says Johnny doesn't have a pulse. I suppose they couldn't use the electric tower to restart his heart? I guess you'd need equipment for that. At least some wires. Daniel tries doing some CPR, but he doesn't really know how, so he's just pushing on Johnny's chest. The piano on the soundtrack gets very sad. And then! Sam runs into the scene! He's miraculously recovered! I guess! He knows what he's doing, and he soon gets Johnny back on his feet. Johnny falls down again, but that's not Sam's fault. Johnny's just a little dazed. He says that when he was up there, he saw a roof. So there's a building somewhere. Off they go again!
Esther is not having a lot of success digging a grave for Natalie, even with a shovel. The ground is frozen solid, which means that the snow didn't just appear out of nowhere. See, because the ground was soft two days ago. If the snow had just appeared on top of the ground, digging would be easier; instead, it appears that everyone has been transported into the middle of winter. It's important to figure out the rules of whatever crazy world you're in!
Annie is very sad not to be able to bury her friend properly. She thanks Esther for helping, and Esther says she's just trying to make it right. She does not explain why she's to blame for Natalie's death, but she probably is. More sad piano music ensues. They make a cross out of sticks. Annie sticks the cross in the snow and apologizes to Natalie for what happened to her. There's a lovely shot of foggy sunlight streaming through the trees. Esther says it's time to go, and then there's the sound of a foot breaking a branch. They scream, and the camera goes crazy. We don't see what happens .
The fog turns out to be plot-relevant, because Neeko and Sabina are now complaining that they can't see anything. Frankly, it's not as foggy as they are claiming it is, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on this one point. Sabina wants to turn back, but Neeko insists on pushing onward. Even though he doesn't know where he is or what direction he's going or where the people are that he's looking for. This guy's going to get lost.
Team Beacon also has fog issues. Sam is being helped along by Daniel, and Joyce is now lagging behind and crying. Johnny gives her a pep talk and tells her to trust him. She wants to give up, so he picks her up and carries her. He has a lot of trouble, and he falls down a couple of times. But he gets back up and continues to carry her. The third time he falls, I start to feel like this is filler. The fourth time, he tells her he's sorry he's not strong enough. She tells him to leave her, which would be a very inspiring moment if it weren't the third time in the last two episodes someone had said that. Daniel comes back to them and says the building is in view. And so it is! It's right over there! The plot has actually progressed a little bit!
Johnny runs toward the building. Joyce is feeling well enough to walk on her own. It looks like it might be a house. Johnny pounds on the front door, and there is no answer. The camera pans past a sign that says...well, it says something in Russian. I feel like a fool for pausing the TiVo, because obviously I wasn't going to be able to read it. Johnny runs to another building, and there is no answer from that one either. This place is deserted. Sam suggests breaking a window, and that seems like a good idea to everybody. Johnny breaks one and hops inside. While he's off screen, Sam says that the sign says that it's a Russian Science Institute. He's perplexed by that, but I don't see why you can't have a science institute in the middle of nowhere. Seems like a pretty safe place to me.
Sabina convinces Neeko that it's time to go back. And just then, the fog clears and they see crazy footprints in the snow. They could almost be kangaroo footprints, but I don't think the show has the guts to be that crazy. Also, the footprints are walking, not hopping. And there's no tail print. Forget the kangaroo theory, okay? These are the same crazy footprints from before that I suggested were either Bigfoots or giant Gumbies. They hustle back toward camp.
Johnny takes a little too long to open the Science Institute door, but he eventually gets everyone inside. There's an abandoned control room with a couch. And blankets! And there's a coffee machine and a refrigerator, but the power doesn't seem to be on. Everyone calms down a little once they're inside. Daniel checks the refrigerator and Johnny looks around the building for warm coats. Daniel drinks whatever he finds, which seems risky. Johnny puts on a coat, and there's a banging from outside. Johnny calls out, "Hello?" But of course we won't see what it is until week. If at all.
Neeko and Sabina are lost. But they come upon Natalie's grave. Well, that's good news, right? Neeko thinks he can get them back home from here. Sabina looks freaked out, and there are lots of those Bigfoot (or kangaroo or Gumby) footprints around. There appears to have been some kind of scuffle in the area. She doesn't think Annie and Esther made it back.
week: someone finds a Mad Fold-In!
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.