‘Alaskan Bush People’ Episode 7: ‘Noah’s Animal Ark’ (RECAP)

On the new Alaskan Bush People episode “Noah’s Animal Ark” (January 22), the Browns flee the mountain during a dangerous lightning storm in the heat of fire season. To ensure their safety, they devise ingenious new fire safety measures, including a bush alert system and animal evacuation ark, which they put to the test.

It is August-ish on Brown Star Ranch. It’s getting hot, and as the danger of wildfires grows, so too do the flames of passion between Bear and his beloved Raiv3n.

Sweltering in an ever-intensifying inferno of desire, the lovers long to release the sensual supernova swelling within the very core of their being. All that is needed is that spark — a glance, a smile, an accidental brush of the hand — to ignite the tinder that erupts into an erotic firestorm that fully engulfs their intertwined bodies and wholly consumes their intermingled souls.

But first, the obstacle course.

It’s about time for Raiv3n to make her escape exit from Brown Star Ranch, but Bear wants to hold her hostage for just a little while longer. He has so many cool EXXXXTREME things left to show her and to talk to her about. One of their first conversations was especially spicy.

Bear is enraptured with the winsome Raiv3n, and he finds “just something magical about her, I guess.” Indeed, Raiv3n bewitched Bear with her wit and ability to recite her lines with almost no help.

Bear tells Raiv3n about some heart-shaped rock that Billy once gave to Mother Ami. Bear didn’t have the time to go find any such rock, so he takes two small rocks and puts them together until they maybe kinda possibly resemble a heart shape. He gives one half to Raiv3n, who must feel like Charlie Brown at tricks or treats.

Elsewhere, the Browns have gotten wind of an impending storm that could include dangerous lightning. With the higher potential of wildfires sparked by lightning, Birdy and Rainy decide to test out their cute-animal evacuation procedures. They pack as many goats, bunnies, turkeys and chickens as they can into the SUV.

It doesn’t go well. Turkeys are eating Rainy’s arms. Bunnies are urinating on Birdy. If this were a real emergency, they’d all be screwed. And when Billy sees what the goats did to the upholstery, he’s going to be dadgum ticked to death.

Or Billy could just keel over at any moment. He’s been having some trouble with Billy Brown Syndrome again, and it’s gotten so severe that he’s going to separate himself from the couch and go see the doctor for a day or two. Mostly, it’s just an excuse to get out of work.

Fortunately, Billy has a son with the strength and smarts of an ox who will merrily do preventative maintenance on useless things. Gabe is married now, and he’s going to be a father [shudder], which means he has some growing up to do. He has to take on more responsibilities, such as rotating the tires on Noah’s stupid Bush firetruck from a few seasons back.

Bear wants Raiv3n to be comfortable while she’s visiting him for sexytime in his shipping-container castle. Bear plans to put a window in his conex so that Raiv3n can enjoy the view and he can clear out that fetid stench of loneliness and despair. Punching the wall doesn’t exactly cut it, so Bear enlists Noah and his welding torch.

Noah goes over the laundry list of fire safety precautions he’s taken, so you can save your angry letters and phone calls to the Okanogan County Emergency Management Office for another day.

BLACK SCREENS OF FAKE DOOM!

Yeah, I’m sure there was no official evacuation order issued. Even if there was, the Browns were probably all safe and snug in their beds in real houses/apartments somewhere around Loomis. Just to enhance the fakery, the camera crew gets in on it, claiming to have seen lightning start a fire. It would be cool if they could show it to us, but that would just make too much sense and confuse the audience.

The following morning, Birdy and Rainy go around making sure none of their livestock have been burnt to a crisp. Birdy needs to wrangle up her three dozen cats. They’re way overdue for milking.

The lightning storm is a good opportunity for the Browns to remind us that they’re tough, hardy folks who have been through so many catastrophes, from house fires to sunken boats. They’re used to the nomadic life, packing up and moving somewhere else after they’ve managed to piss off every one of the local residents. But Brown Star Ranch is different. It has animals that must be saved and returned to their owners when the season’s filming is completed.

They realize their emergency management protocols and infrastructure are woefully ineffective. Birdy claims that they can’t communicate with each other by cellphone, “’cause on the mountain, we don’t have signal.” Unless they’re updating their Instagram accounts or using their smart watches, then they have signal.

To overcome this problem, they decide to rig up signal flags to warn each other of imminent danger.

Or they could just open a window and look outside. The flag thing is such a monumentally stupid idea. Like they’re just going to sit outside all day, every day, and stare at the trees to make sure no flags are flying. And there is the obvious problem of how they expect these flags to work in the dark of night.

Perhaps they could hire those guys from Lord of the Rings.

The concept is so asinine that even Gabe really struggles to wrap his head around it.

Another element of the Brown Star Ranch emergency alert system involves sirens. Someone wails one siren and then has to wait for the siren to be acknowledged with another siren, which means that they all must meet at the barn.

I think they should instead implement the Everything’s OK Alarm.

Birdy and Rainy consult with Noah, who is busy transforming the skeletal remains of woodland creatures into hazardous teething rings for his infant son. The sisters want Noah to build them an … ark. No, not the kind of ark that melts faces when opened, though that would definitely be more entertaining. They want Noah to come up with some sort of vehicle that would transport all the small animals to safety in the event that Brown Star Ranch were threatened by fire.

Yes, because no one would’ve made that connection otherwise. Jackass.

Noah must’ve brokered a deal (of course he did!) with a local used-bus dealer, because here he comes tearing up the road in an old school bus. The salesman even threw in a free hat with “Bus Driver” taped on it.

Birdy and Rainy just knew that Noah would come up with something good, because they read the script earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, not content to let his siblings exceed him in idiocy, Bear is going to put a lightning rod on the hill near his conex. The idea is that the metal pole made from a bed frame and duct tape will attract lightning and allow it to be absorbed into the ground at a less-flammable spot.

Plus, he’ll need a bolt of lightning to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity required for the flux capacitor to flux.

Bear is very proud of his accomplishment. Somewhere in Oregon, meteorologist Rod Hill nods in approval.

The Bush Bus must undergo a series of modifications before it can become the Brown Star Ark. First, Birdy and Rainy must remove most of the seats so more goats can fit in the back. One of the bolts securing the seat to the floor is stuck or something, and somehow Birdy has to go literally “under the bus” to loosen it.

Then, the Bush Bus must be given a name that the Browns think is clever. Gabe throws out some ideas that sound like the names of bad ’80s metal bands.

Eventually, they settle on Brown Star Ark. Why waste the effort trying to be fun or imaginative at this point?

One final modification on the bus involves the installation of a fire-suppression system consisting of two 55-gallon drums, some hoses, some lawn sprinklers and a water pump. The bus will spray a “force field” of water around it as it drives the animals down the mountain and away from the fury of God’s wrath.

That night, the Browns run a drill of their evacuation plan. I guess it worked, based on what little night-vision footage we get to see. The goats seemed cool with it. They say that you repeatedly practice this emergency stuff in the hope that you’ll never need to do it for real. That won’t be an issue for the Browns, since none of it is real.

Bear brings Raiv3n up to his Sex Conex to show her where the sex happens. He shows her the Bammock sex contraption he rigged up a few episodes ago. He shows her the sex window that he just had installed for some sex reason.

Raiv3n really doesn’t say a whole lot about all of this. She certainly doesn’t say that she’s about four weeks pregnant when this scene took place.

Next week is the season finale. There’s going to be boring windmill stuff, and Billy’s going to say something about his Billy Brown Syndrome diagnosis.

Take heart, friends: Each episode brings us one closer to the last.

It’s time for this week’s edition of “That’s Matt!,” in which we take a social media look at Matt Brown’s sober adventures in Southern California.

Matt photographed this quote he found on the tag from a tea bag.

Only 30 trees were killed in the making of those tags.

Join us next time for another edition of “That’s Matt!”

Alaskan Bush People, Wednesdays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel