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| Justin & Austin Denison. Photo courtesy of Fox. |
I hand it to Team Jake. These three brothers are solid. I admire the dedication Austin and Justin have to helping their brother Jake survive the wilderness—one could say that’s a given—but I’m even more impressed with how Austin lends support to the struggles and achievements of other teams. When Haley, driven by hunger, elects to eat ants that taste like lemons, Austin and Justin physically react in sympathetic revulsion. Austin expresses his pride in Davina for hanging in there and keeping an optimistic attitude, even though she is clearly ill-equipped to handle the wilderness, not even being able to build an adequate shelter for herself. He gives it up for Rose when she gets her fire going. Empathy becomes a makeweight in the building of drama.
The bulk of the third episode is a second survival trial. As the survivalists begin to hear their stomachs grumble in hunger, they’re offered a chance to retrieve meat from a fallen deer. At HQ, the family companions are briefly shown a map of the deer’s location (30 seconds) and must then reconstruct the map from memory to guide their competitors to the carcass. Once they finish their map, they enter the supply room for a container for the meat and must choose (first come first serve) a knife the survivalist will use to cut the carcass. The knives vary in utility and as each team enters the supply room, choice becomes limited. Justin observes that when he and his brothers are in the wilderness they can read a map and know where they’re going; but, to be a shown a map for 30 seconds and then have to reconstruct it in their mind is another story altogether. This proves to be true as he and Austin have a hard time getting their bearings while drawing their map for Jake. They are unaware that they misread the map they were shown and have placed the carcass north of the lake, instead of south. They eventually make the painful discovery that the map they have drawn and delivered to Jake by drone is inaccurate and upside down. Justin finds it amazing that neither he nor Austin caught the error and worries that Jake is screwed because of them.
As Jake begins navigating through two miles of unforgiving terrain to locate the deer’s carcass, he has started off in the wrong direction and detects early on that there is something “weird” about the map. It makes Austin sick to his stomach how much they have put their brother at a disadvantage, but Justin trusts his brother and is depending on Jake’s instincts to compensate for their error. He hopes that Jake will rely on landmarks to get him to his destination.
Meanwhile, in the survival zone, Jake complains that “someone” is really bad at drawing maps. Austin beseeches him to “figure it out”, which Jake does admirably. Determining that the landmarks on the map are accurate even if the directions are not, he figures out that he’s on the wrong side of the lake and compensates accordingly, arriving fourth to the carcass and able to carve off enough venison to feed himself.
As a coldfront approaches after the survival trial, the threat of hypothermia becomes a concern. A supply drop of wool socks and cannisters of hot chocolate are offered to the survivalists, but only for seven out of the eleven teams. The companions at HQ must decide amongst themselves which survivalists will receive the critical supplies to offset potential hypothermia, and who will not. Not only that, but for every three minutes that passes without the companions making a unanimous decision, one of the supply packs will be removed. Justin and Austin immediately volunteer to go without. They can see that some of the survivalists are truly struggling—without water, fire or food—and that volunteering to opt out is the right thing to do. Though it’s unfortunate that Jake opens an empty supply box, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the strong moral center of the Denison brothers. My question is answered: integrity, compassion and competence are what makes proactive drama.
Inversely, selfishness and incompetence make for reactive drama. As the families bicker over who should get the supply drops or not, animosities and resentments surface. I’m glad Team Jake removed themselves from that undignified scene before it even started. By the end of the episode, Davina is extracted, wasting a survival drop of hot chocolate and socks, which does not go unnoticed.