Naked and Afraid – Season 2, Episode 3 – Live Blog & Discussion

In the interest of journalistic integrity, wherein we bring you complete and unfettered facts about NAKED AND AFRAID, here are E.J. and Laura discussing the handling of sensitive issues, such as menstrual flow and bathroom breaks, while being naked in the wilderness with cameras documenting your every movement. Not THOSE movements, though.

It’s Keith and Alana whom we’ll view struggling to survive on a deserted Fijian island tonight. Back home in Houston, Alana is a makeup artist and “luxury goods” salesperson, but appearing naked on a reality show apparently increased her LinkedIn profile views to such a degree that she’s decided to go back to school for a degree in emergency and disaster management. Now she’ll be able to launch a career evacuating people in advance of hurricanes while naked.

Sharks, venomous sea snakes, and crippling heat make Fiji a less than ideal vacation destination. But Alana is ready to go for it! Keith, from Seattle, is a coach and former Army reservist who’s spent time in rehab for addictions. Alana is concerned that he might  treat her like a “damsel in distress,” while he fears that he might be sexually attracted to her. Romance is highly unlikely given the circumstances, she says, but “you never know.” Nobody seems particularly worried about finding food.

Keith has brought a machete and she has a fire-starter. Does anybody ever bring anything else? Maybe a crate of White Castle burgers? His PSR is now 6.3 and hers is 6.1. Their numbers suffer because he was an addict and she’s really bitchy.

They must move inland to reach a small beach on the opposite side of the island, just like Gilligan and the Skipper did in that episode. Alana is really pasty in between all her tats. The sun is going to bake her like an Alton Brown meatloaf. As they walk, the tall grass is sharp and cuts their skin. He asks how she’s doing and she bristles. Already she’s accusing him of being domineering. Finally, they discuss water and fire instead of reenacting scenes from The Honeymooners.

After he insists he’s not telling her what to do, she manages to get the fire going and they collect water to boil with hot rocks. It doesn’t work. They have to spit it out. Next time, bring a battery-powered immersion heater.

Time to construct a  shelter, the design of which is apparently influenced by Blanche’s bedroom in Golden Girls. Next day, they try sucking moisture from a trunk through a rolled-up leaf. It tastes awful! What did they expect, Crystal Lite? He starts hacking at a tree trunk, announcing at intervals how long the process is taking and how tired he is. The tree finally comes down and they now have a green coconut, which turns out to be empty of fluid. Alana then complains about his impotence and the waste of his energy resources. These two are the Maggie and Jiggs of the South Pacific.

On Day 3, they are “in dire need of a fresh water source,” fusses the narrator, probably as he downs a refreshing glass of iced tea. They trudge into the undergrowth. “It’s draining on my mental state,” moans Alana as she drapes her shoulders with giant leaves in a primitive sort of Pashmina. I would submit her mental state was in question when she applied to be on this show. Presuming they have found rain water in a little pool, they lie prone and suck at the hole in the ground, like at one of those theme restaurants in Times Square. Nighttime brings a rainstorm and more bellyaching from these two charmers.

On Day 5, Keith reports he has diarrhea, something we had all desperately hoped would remain a private matter. He lies down in the shelter, where he describes feeling like vomiting as his intestines rebel like members of Occupy Wall Street. At least there’s no issue with his feeling attracted to Alana.

He’s ready to give up, though. It’s like when he checked into rehab, he tells us, although presumably he was dressed then.  “I’m not being a wussy,” he confesses to Alana when suggesting he may have to go home. She sneers in disgust. He chokes up at the idea of letting down his family, his partner, and the producers, and vows to rally.

They find some nice young bananas, which improves everyone’s mood except the local monkeys. They can make a banana cream pie like Mary Ann always did. But their water supply has run out and they’re dehydrating again. It hardly seems possible, but this makes Alana even more bitchy.

Now the “pain of malnutrition,” similar to the heartbreak of psoriasis, sends them out into the heat to hunt for food. They stalk a little crab and whack him to death. Then a stripey water snake comes along. It’s poisonous, but Keith says you can eat them if you remove the poison sacs. Doesn’t that crab have any relatives?

After he “goes all Rambo” on the snake without managing to either catch it or free some POWs, Alana accuses Keith of putting on a macho show. I think she may be more macho than him, though. Plagued by hunger and weakness, they bicker in the shelter. She says he complains all the time, and he calls her a prima donna. When she gets all shrill at him, he stalks away to the beach and glares out toward the ocean. Hey, if I wanted to watch Real Housewives of Fiji, I’d switch to Bravo.

On Day 11, Keith appears to have had a seizure and must be evacuated to a hospital. The show becomes Untold Stories of the ER as we see him getting an MRI and learn that he exhibits symptoms of head trauma. He must tap out, reports the narrator helpfully, since unconscious people can’t break open coconuts.

Alana is left to bitch at the poisonous water snakes. Wearing a skirt from the Keith’s Burlap Bag Collection, she wanders the beach and sees deadly black-tip sharks coming to feed. They have a lot of protein, she explains. So does she, the sharks explain.

In the night, she wakes up because “something” scuttled past her. On the morning of Day 15, she searches for what it was, to no avail.  I’d be more worried about that GIANT TARANTULA they show crawling around. Weak and desperate, she gives up and scavenges for whatever resources she can find. She gobbles some tiny sea creature, shell and all, then lies like a smoked whitefish in the shelter. Next she eats some termites. I mean, really. There is no cash prize, people.

Time to leave for the extraction point. Now she has on a whole burlap-bag ensemble, topped by a jaunty twig hat. So she has the wherewithal to create an entire outfit with accessories, but she can’t catch a damn fish. She makes it to the extraction point, though. The editing is very choppy here, as in some shots she has the hat on and in some not.

In the end, Keith lost 18 pounds, and Alana 17. He was discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health, thank goodness, because there is no cash prize, people. Alana has the distinction of being the first naked person to finish the challenge all by herself. Naturally, her PSR went up and his went down. Bitchy pays off sometimes.

 

 

 

 

About E.M. Rosenberg 240 Articles
Favorite 40-volume series issued by Time-Life Music: Sounds of the Seventies. Favorite backsplash material: Subway tile. Favorite screen legend I pretend wasn’t gay: Cary Grant. Favorite issue you should not even get me started about: Venal, bloodsucking insurance industry. Favorite character from the comic strip “Nancy”: Sluggo, or maybe Rollo. Favorite Little Debbie snack: Nutty Bars. Favorite Monkee: Mike.