‘Alaskan Bush People’: ‘The Chaos Before the Storm’ (RECAP)

In the Alaskan Bush People episode “The Chaos Before the Storm” (September 1), winter is approaching yet the Wolfpack is feeling the heat!

Bear works furiously to finalize an addition to his home as Billy faces a new medical crisis. A big winter storm forces Noah and Rhain Alisha to make a tough decision.

WINTER IS RIGHT THERE!! There is much work to be done. Which means it’s time for … Billy Brown Syndrome! Right on schedule, the Brown family patriarch is once again having difficulty breathing, though he’s having absolutely no trouble talking nonsense.

Have you noticed how often Billy throws in the “to be honest with you” phrase? The more he says it, the higher he peaks on the B.S. meter.

“I thought I was home,” Billy mumbles. Huh? Who shot who in the what now? Billy’s definitely discoherent.

Billy decides to go “talk to doc” and have his Billy Brown Syndrome properly diagnosed and treated. And just like that, he’s back.

His family is eager to help him out in many ridiculous ways.

Billy don’t need no hospital. If he can walk 20 feet, he’s just fine. Besides, the Bush heals all. As long as Billy is in the Bush, he will be just fine and will never require the marvels of modern medicine again.

Remember Bear’s stupid shipping container (i.e. conex) house that’s precariously perched on top of Mount EXXXXTREME? Bear decides it’s time to fix that problem and add a second conex to his dwelling. This will require a bulldozer (no word on how Bear acquired it) and the earth-moving prowess of his infirm dad.

Back at the barn, there’s a commotion brewing. One of the horses is preggers, and it’s about to “drop a dream” any day now.

Billy bloviates on how this is a major milestone in his months-long dream of building Brown Star Ranch, and how this event will be cornerstone of something that will remain “when we’re all gone and just memories around here.”

I wonder what will happen to all this after Discovery Channel regains consciousness and cancels the show. Unlike Brownton Abbey, Billy owns this Bushington land. When the Park Slope crew packs up and leaves for the final time, Brown Star Ranch is all Billy’s problem. Without Discovery bankrolling this B.S., Brown Star Ranch and everything on it will probably just be left to disintegrate. I would enjoy watching a time-lapse video of that.

On the subject of disintegration, Noah, Gabe and Bam visit a demolition site to acquire concrete blocks for Noah’s castle. This whole place reminds me of Wall-E. Drone operator Cico gets a nice aerial shot of this incinerating pile.

Basically, it looks like someone’s gotta drive a forklift around, pick up a bunch of wooden crates, and drop them into the fire. I am clearly in the wrong business. Do you see that massive pile of crates on the right? Why don’t they just set that whole thing ablaze? INEFFICIENCY!

One of the workmen, who came to the job site that morning not expecting that he would have a scene in the worst show on TV, guides Noah to where he can find the best cinder blocks. Noah says he needs at least 300 blocks so he and his wife can build a castle. The only appropriate reaction is:

Noah and Gabe start dismantling a brick wall while Bam stacks them on a pallet jack. Bam envisions Noah’s son one day working alongside his father in the family business, acting like an ass on TV and building things that don’t work.

Bear consults with Billy on the conex project. Nothing like sitting around the campfire enveloped in a thick haze of smoke after you’ve just been treated for Billy Brown Syndrome. Billy says he’s a little “apprehentious” (the closed captioners changed it to “apprehensive”) about Bear’s plan for the conex deal, which involves leveling out the ground with the magically appearing bulldozer and then hauling the second conex up the hill and parking it right next to the first one.

Billy’s up to the task, however, since it’s just sitting and moving some levers. “I’m not finished with the Bush, yet. You know?” Billy says. You are welcome to finish with the Bush anytime, Billy.

We don’t get to see the actual leveling of the ground, which must’ve been accomplished by someone who knows what they were doing.

Back at the barn, Birdy must deal with the consequences of keeping Bambi, the billy goat. Billy must be banded, a method of castration by which a tight rubber band is put “around the male part,” cutting off the circulation to the cojones until they “rot” and fall off. Birdy underestimates the size of Bambi’s enormous nads and it takes her three different attempts to band him.

The whole subplot involves a lot of bizarre shots of Birdy and Gabe handling a goat’s scrotum while every male viewer winces.

Like so.

That’s enough.

GOOD GOD, STOP ALREADY!

The show moves from one scene of emasculation to another, as Noah and She Who Will Not Be Named, his “very, massively pregnant” wife, unload cinder blocks. Noah thinks it’s perfectly fine for his wife to lift heavy objects because he knows everything about women from his vast experience with them.

If only Noah had as much knowledge of the English language. He pronounces “M*A*S*H tent” as “mash-tuh” and the closed captioners totally gave up on trying to translate that. Making She Who Will Not Be Named’s head look like a concrete block, however, is rare flash of brilliance from Park Slope.

This episode can’t decide if there’s snow on the ground or not, which is a clear giveaway that some scenes were shot out of sequence. At the time Noah and She Who Will Not Be Named are hauling bricks, there was an overnight snowstorm. There’s a really pointless scene of Noah and She Who Will Not Be Named in her Jeep trying to negotiate the treacherous road to Castle Ridge. It was sure swell of someone to plow the driveway before they got there. (Another nice drone shot, Cico.)

Noah finally realizes how stupid this castle idea is and how it won’t come to fruition before young Elijah pops out. It’s decided that Noah and She Who Will Not Be Named will leave Brown Star Ranch and move closer to the “hospital area.” In this case, the hospital area is in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, more than four hours’ drive from Loomis, Bushington.

The Browns gather for a send-off to Noah and the Very Massively Pregnant “Kitten.”

Bear likes to make everything about him, so he talks about how he wants to teach the kid about starting fires. Rainy gives him an eye roll.

Then Bear says he’s not having any kids until he’s 60 or 70. So now you’re forced to think of AARP Bear procreating with a woman of childbearing age. Or maybe Bear will have his sperm cryogenically preserved, and now you’re forced to think about that. Someone fetch Birdy’s banding device.

Our Dear Narrator, Asa, notifies us that “hours after Discovery crews left the mountain,” there’s some late-night wild rumpus in the barn that has nothing to do with Gabe and Raquell in the Hayloft of Love.

The horse is giving birth. They rouse Billy from his sleep because they think he knows what to do. But Billy don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ horses! Billy tries to lend a hand, but Mother Horse is like, “Back the F off, bro.”

You can tell just how incompetent the Browns are with horses. No one even thought to turn the horse placenta into a luxury shampoo.

Of course, Billy and Mother Ami fawn over the foal and its greater significance as a symbol of “everything that we’ve ever dreamed of and wanted.” Yeah, sure, that’s it.

That screen shot really accentuates the massive size and slope of Mother Ami’s schnozzola. You could park a conex on that thing. Damn!

Which brings us full circle to Bear’s little conex villa. Billy’s feeling better and he’s reinvigorated, probably from eating all that horse placenta. The snow has magically vanished, and Billy’s ready to get behind the controls of the bulldozer again.

Sure, Billy. It’s nice to think that you’re needed. You just go out there and do your best and have fun!

In the interstitial segment, we find Bear adding “extra flair” to conex No. 2.

Bear is decorating the conex with his own style of EXXXXTREME art, which consists of painting some flames on the side and then throwing dirt at it.

This is really beautiful, Bear. Maybe Mother Ami will hang it on the fridge. Or maybe Billy will hide it behind this other conex so no one can ever see it again.

Billy may not be “the same, strong, macho Bush guy” he never was 30 years ago, but he can still pretend to operate a bulldozer and pull his troglodyte son’s shipping container up a hill. Huzzah.

Spiel time! Everything is just wonderful at Brown Star Ranch. Horses are giving birth. Blood flow to Bambi’s gonads is finally being restricted. Pretty girls are flocking to Bear’s conex house.

And next week is already the season finale!

It’s time for another edition of “That’s Matt!,” in which we take a social media look at Matt’s sober offscreen adventures:

Matt currently lives in Southern California, where he enjoys riding shotgun in his girlfriend’s car while blasting GnFnR’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and pointing the camera directly into the sun. Good times.

BONUS! Matt also posted a YouTube video for the first time in six months. Bartering social-media exposure for discounted dental services is the Brown Way, and Matt made this exhaustingly long video of his office visit.

Alaskan Bush People, Sundays, 9/8c, Discovery Channel