OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
My wife enjoys watching various reality TV shows, most of which I can't stand (and don't join her in watching) such as those "love island" ones. However, she got into those "alone" survivor shows which I didn't find terrible, so we watched the Arctic version of "Alone" last weekend, which was entertaining. This then resulted in her moving on to the Netflix-produced "Outlast" show, which seemed to have a similar premise at first blush, but then that was quickly demonstrated as not actually being the case.
Quick overview:
Four groups (A, B, C, D) of four contestants are placed in a river basin area in Alaska just before winter and have to survive. Sounds kinda similar right? The surviving aspect is where the similarity ends. They get periodic goal and supply drops (crab traps for example) and the groups are able to see, and interact with each other (alone, as the name would imply, no contestant ever sees another contestant, the focus is simply on who can survive the longest).
I won't bother you with further details, but three of the contestants, and two in particular, start sending out some very strong "Lord of the Flies" vibes early on, which gets further cemented by their scheming and abhorrent behaviour. Amber (left) and Jill, form some sort of "big sister" bond, with Amber, a former hardcore addict and felon turned yoga instructor, being the Beastly to Jill's "Shrieky" (Care bears reference there... lol).
Their teammate Justin's loose morals initially fits well with this dynamic.
So, while everybody else is focusing on keeping their group healthy and warm, this lot begins scheming about how they can force other people out of the competition through sabotage. Justin cooks up a plan, fully endorsed by the other two, to steal one of the competing group's sleeping bags. This is Alaska in the late fall/early winter, these are essential items, but they don't give the potential implications there a second thought.
The two that were the victims of the theft end up approaching Jill/Justin/Amber's neighbouring group to hopefully merge. At this point, one of the members of that group (Brian) decides he's had enough of a game that he thought was about survival, not this "pack of starving jackals" nonsense, and taps out, leaving only Javier to pursue the merger. Jill and Amber decide that he's an easy target now and so Jill starts destroying his shelter while Amber, in full crackhead mode, starts destroying his raft, the legacy of her former addiction on full display as her drug-addled mind starts spewing nonsense that parts of his raft are in fact hers. If you've ever had an interaction with a hardcore drug addict, this scene will feel hauntingly familiar.
He (Javier) is exasperated, accusing them of everything they are doing right in front of him, such as vandalism, theft and cheating, and she (Jill) very matter of factly says "there are no rules in this place, we can do whatever we want" to which he responds "where do you think Alaska is? We are still in America, theft is still theft, the reality is that you are just a horrible person and can't win fairly" or something along those lines.
The other two that had their sleeping bags stolen, observing this debacle, decide that this also isn't what they signed up for, guerrilla warfare basically, and tell Javier that they are leaving, wishing him the best of luck.
He (Javier) before leaving to try and join another group, torches his own shelter so that Jill and Amber can't salvage anything from it, and they both start talking about how he's insane and that this is mental illness and only a crazy person would destroy a shelter... After she literally was destroying his shelter and clearly getting her rocks off in doing so. He tries to join the 3-man camp further down on the other side, but they reject him, telling him they don't want to import this drama that seems to be happening upstream, so he ends up having to go home.
At this point Jill/Amber/Justin start to implode, which, isn't really surprising. When you put garbage humans together, they start not trusting each other. Justin ends up exiting and joining the 3-man team, but he vandalizes Jill/Amber's shelter before he leaves, and when that ends up coming out, they kick him out, as that's not how they are playing. Jill and Amber are accusing him of all manner of malicious behaviour, most of which he didn't do, claiming benevolence and talking themselves up like the last 48 hours never happened and they didn't just undertake everything, and more, that he's being accused of
These two pieces of trash then start rambling on about how they so deserve to win because they were underdogs and succeeded against all odds and blah blah blah mental gymnastics, total delusion...etc.
Not sure about how much, if any of the show is scripted, or how it's recorded (drones I assume for a portion) but I doubt their intention was for this to play out as it did. I hopped on twitter to see how other people reacted and a lot of people actually stopped watching the show when things went sideways with Jill and Amber, choosing to google how it finished, rather than continuing to watch, which I thought was interesting.
Anyway, not sure if anybody else has watched this yet (it originally aired back in March I think?) but I'm curious if the reaction was the same as mine.
Quick overview:
Four groups (A, B, C, D) of four contestants are placed in a river basin area in Alaska just before winter and have to survive. Sounds kinda similar right? The surviving aspect is where the similarity ends. They get periodic goal and supply drops (crab traps for example) and the groups are able to see, and interact with each other (alone, as the name would imply, no contestant ever sees another contestant, the focus is simply on who can survive the longest).
I won't bother you with further details, but three of the contestants, and two in particular, start sending out some very strong "Lord of the Flies" vibes early on, which gets further cemented by their scheming and abhorrent behaviour. Amber (left) and Jill, form some sort of "big sister" bond, with Amber, a former hardcore addict and felon turned yoga instructor, being the Beastly to Jill's "Shrieky" (Care bears reference there... lol).
Their teammate Justin's loose morals initially fits well with this dynamic.
So, while everybody else is focusing on keeping their group healthy and warm, this lot begins scheming about how they can force other people out of the competition through sabotage. Justin cooks up a plan, fully endorsed by the other two, to steal one of the competing group's sleeping bags. This is Alaska in the late fall/early winter, these are essential items, but they don't give the potential implications there a second thought.
The two that were the victims of the theft end up approaching Jill/Justin/Amber's neighbouring group to hopefully merge. At this point, one of the members of that group (Brian) decides he's had enough of a game that he thought was about survival, not this "pack of starving jackals" nonsense, and taps out, leaving only Javier to pursue the merger. Jill and Amber decide that he's an easy target now and so Jill starts destroying his shelter while Amber, in full crackhead mode, starts destroying his raft, the legacy of her former addiction on full display as her drug-addled mind starts spewing nonsense that parts of his raft are in fact hers. If you've ever had an interaction with a hardcore drug addict, this scene will feel hauntingly familiar.
He (Javier) is exasperated, accusing them of everything they are doing right in front of him, such as vandalism, theft and cheating, and she (Jill) very matter of factly says "there are no rules in this place, we can do whatever we want" to which he responds "where do you think Alaska is? We are still in America, theft is still theft, the reality is that you are just a horrible person and can't win fairly" or something along those lines.
The other two that had their sleeping bags stolen, observing this debacle, decide that this also isn't what they signed up for, guerrilla warfare basically, and tell Javier that they are leaving, wishing him the best of luck.
He (Javier) before leaving to try and join another group, torches his own shelter so that Jill and Amber can't salvage anything from it, and they both start talking about how he's insane and that this is mental illness and only a crazy person would destroy a shelter... After she literally was destroying his shelter and clearly getting her rocks off in doing so. He tries to join the 3-man camp further down on the other side, but they reject him, telling him they don't want to import this drama that seems to be happening upstream, so he ends up having to go home.
At this point Jill/Amber/Justin start to implode, which, isn't really surprising. When you put garbage humans together, they start not trusting each other. Justin ends up exiting and joining the 3-man team, but he vandalizes Jill/Amber's shelter before he leaves, and when that ends up coming out, they kick him out, as that's not how they are playing. Jill and Amber are accusing him of all manner of malicious behaviour, most of which he didn't do, claiming benevolence and talking themselves up like the last 48 hours never happened and they didn't just undertake everything, and more, that he's being accused of
These two pieces of trash then start rambling on about how they so deserve to win because they were underdogs and succeeded against all odds and blah blah blah mental gymnastics, total delusion...etc.
Not sure about how much, if any of the show is scripted, or how it's recorded (drones I assume for a portion) but I doubt their intention was for this to play out as it did. I hopped on twitter to see how other people reacted and a lot of people actually stopped watching the show when things went sideways with Jill and Amber, choosing to google how it finished, rather than continuing to watch, which I thought was interesting.
Anyway, not sure if anybody else has watched this yet (it originally aired back in March I think?) but I'm curious if the reaction was the same as mine.
