CRUSOE: The Mutineers

Crusoe is back this week and has redeemed itself.

While Friday and Crusoe are trying to catch a boar that has stolen Crusoe’s shirt, they encounter the mutineers from last week’s episode who are still on the island trying to repair their ship. So the mutineers won’t see them, they have to head back to the treehouse in a different way than they originally came. On their way back, Crusoe looks up and sees an abandoned boat in a tree. While the boat isn’t in the greatest shape, Crusoe thinks he can fix it. He and Friday devise a pulley system to get the boat out of the tree and when they’re able to get it down, they discover a compass inside the boat. The guys start working on rebuilding the boat and while they are working on the mast, Friday accidentally knocks the compass into the fire where the heat melts the needle.

Crusoe realizes the mutineers would have a compass so he and Friday decide to sneak into their camp to steal it. They are able to sneak into a tent and steal the compass, but as they are leaving they run into Olivia, the female mutineer who is pretending to be a man. Crusoe tells her about his plan to escape and that he will send for her once he’s off the island. While Crusoe seems somewhat smitten by Olivia, Friday thinks she’s trouble. As the guys are sneaking out of the tent, the mutineers see them and run after them. Olivia is able to unleash some barrels into the path of the mutineers to slow them down, but despite their head start, Crusoe and Friday are soon surrounded by the mutineers in every direction and are forced to hide in a tree.

Once they’re down from the tree, they end up on a hill where they argue about which way would be best to go. Crusoe thinks using the compass would be best, but Friday wants to continue on downhill. Crusoe questions Friday as to why he is being so argumentative. He tells Friday that it almost seems like he doesn’t want to leave the island. Friday admits that he doesn’t really want to leave and he decides to continue downhill like he originally wanted. As he steps downhill, he falls and tumbles into a sinkhole where he ends up pinned underneath a log.

Crusoe immediately heads after Friday to rescue him. After realizing the sinkhole will soon fill with seawater from high tide, he sneaks back onto the mutineers’ camp where he finds a hatchet and begins chopping the log. After realizing the hatchet is having little effect on chopping the log, Friday tells Crusoe to forget about him and worry about saving the boat, which is on the shore and in danger of being swept away when high tide comes in. Crusoe refuses to let Friday die and asks him why he’s not interested in getting off the island. Friday admits it’s because he doesn’t want to be sold into slavery once they return to England. Crusoe assures him he won’t let that happen. Crusoe’s hatchet eventually breaks as he hacks at the log too hard out of frustration, and as the water rises around Friday’s head, he once again encourages Crusoe to forget about him and concentrate on getting off the island. Crusoe refuses to leave him there and devises a system where he ties one end of a rope to the log pinning Friday and the other end of a rope to a log at the edge of a cliff. He pushes the log off the cliff and the weight of the fall lifts the log off Friday. The guys then race to the shore hoping to save the boat, but they watch it float off into the ocean where the waves destroy it.

After sort of ignoring the back story for the past few episodes, the plot picks up and starts to move forward this week. It turns out Susannah’s brother is shady. He tried to convince Crusoe to borrow more money from Blackthorn to invest in a trading scheme. Crusoe refuses to borrow more money, but Susannah says her brother is trustworthy and encourages Crusoe to invest her dowry money. It’s not until everything is legal that Crusoe realizes that the trade venture he has invested in is basically legalized piracy, which does not make Crusoe happy.

We also learn that Blackthorn had something to do with Crusoe’s downfall before the shipwreck. Both Crusoe and Blackthorn attended a meeting about a rebellion being planned by the Duke of Monmouth to overthrow the king. Even though the people at the meeting are cheering in favor of the rebellion, Crusoe definitely doesn’t join in the celebration. However, Blackthorn has a meeting with a judge to inform him of the planned rebellion and gives him a list of names involved. Crusoe’s name is on the list, but Blackthorn makes it clear that Crusoe is an informant and should not be arrested. The judge questions why Blackthorn would even put Crusoe’s name on the list if he didn’t want him arrested, but Blackthorn doesn’t answer.

I think this week’s episode is definitely the best one since the premiere. What I really enjoyed about this week’s episode was how they developed the friendship between Friday and Crusoe. While we can tell from their interaction with each other that Crusoe really does think of Friday as his equal, it was great to hear Crusoe stick up for Friday when Olivia made the comment about Crusoe being able to “fetch a good price” for Friday once he returns to England. It was also interesting to see Friday open up and be vulnerable and admit that the reason he doesn’t want to return to England is because he’s afraid he’ll end up a slave.

Did anyone else wonder why the log that was pinning Friday down didn’t float off when the water started to rise? We know that the log was resting on a rock and wasn’t completely crushing Friday’s legs, so shouldn’t it have been able to move somewhat, if not float away completely once the water started to rise?

What do you think will happen with Olivia? Do you think that Friday’s intuition is correct and that she’s trouble? I’m assuming the mutineers will stick around until their ship is fixed since Crusoe keeps plotting to use their ship as his escape to England and since he keeps making references to how long it’s going to take them to fix it. Let’s hope Crusoe doesn’t get too caught up in the fact that it’s been six years since he’s seen his wife and fall victim to her feminine wiles. It could spell trouble. Based on how we’ve seen him interact with Pirate Judy and now Olivia, Crusoe is definitely a ladies’ man.

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Meredith lives in a small South Carolina town where there is nothing to do but watch TV! She loves The Office, Chuck, Scrubs and Arrested Development, and her guilty pleasure is anything Gordon Ramsay related.