CRUSOE Recap: Traitors

Crusoe is back after the Thanksgiving break and it looks like the powers that be at NBC have allowed him to stay stranded just a little while longer.

This week, Crusoe and Friday learn the mutineers’ ship is ready earlier than they thought it would be, so they quickly devise a scheme to sneak on board and overthrow Atkins and restore Captain Taylor to power. Their plan is for Olivia to take Atkins and a few of his men into the jungle and show them where Crusoe’s tree house is so that Crusoe and Taylor can overtake them when they return. Of course it doesn’t work out that way.

When Olivia/Oliver takes Atkins and his men into the jungle, Crusoe frees Taylor from the brig where they met in secret about overtaking Atkins when he returns. But of course things can’t go too smoothly (otherwise we wouldn’t have our TV show, would we?) and Taylor’s lieutenant, who was imprisoned with Taylor, turns the tables on Crusoe and Taylor when he reveals that he has actually decided to side with Atkins. Their main goal in teaming up is to bring Friday back to England with them since they know he would be sold for a lot of money at a slave auction.

Once Olivia/Oliver leads Atkins into the jungle, Atkins reveals to her that he knows about their plan to remove him from power. Atkins captures her, as well as Crusoe, who had to jump off the ship and run into the jungle to avoid being captured by the lieutenant. But along comes the ever-faithful Friday and manages to pretty much singlehandedly overtake Atkins and his men – but not without Olivia/Oliver getting shot in the process.

Crusoe and Friday take her back to mutineers’ camp where they ask Taylor’s wife for help in taking care of her. After they are able to close up her wound, they bring her back to the tree house where they take care of her until she’s well enough to return to the ship. And this is where it gets interesting: while Taylor is looking for Crusoe so the ship can leave, one of his men tips him off that his wife is with Crusoe. Taylor is angry and goes looking for her; he gets even more upset when he spies her with Friday, looking at some of his drawings. As revenge, Taylor captures Friday and plans to sell him into slavery.

Just as Friday is about to be branded for slavery, Crusoe finds him below deck and his able to free him. But it’s not really Crusoe who is actually able to set him free – it’s Olivia/Oliver who tells Taylor that she has to let Friday go or she’ll leave the ship. Taylor, who has a wounded leg and needs her medical knowledge, has to oblige and free Friday. Since Crusoe won’t leave without Friday, he misses yet another chance to escape.

Two things really struck me about this week’s episode. The first one was how incredibly great Friday is. I loved the way he was able to defeat all of Atkins’ men and they never knew it was coming. It proves that there is no way Crusoe could survive on that island, or be able to defeat all of the intruders, without him. Part of me thinks that if Crusoe would take a back seat and let Friday do all of the scheming, they would have been off the island a long time ago.

The second thing that really stood out was a scene with Blackthorn and the coroner in the morgue. The coroner questions Blackthorn’s involvement in Crusoe’s life and then makes a remark that Crusoe might stand to gain more from Blackthorn than Blackthorn would stand to gain from Crusoe. This is just a shot in the dark, but could it be possible that Blackthorn is Crusoe’s biological father or would that be too much like a soap opera?

There’s no new episode next week – the next one is in two weeks (Dec. 20th). I’m even starting to wonder if the rest of the episodes will air. NBC recently released its January 2009 schedule and Crusoe’s new Saturday night time slot has now been overtaken by “Law & Order” episodes beginning January 10. With that being said, it’s probably pretty safe to say that the show is done. Since NBC didn’t really do a lot to promote the show to begin with, they probably won’t start now, but here’s a link to an online petition to try and save the show: http://tvseriesfinale.com/articles/crusoe-a-petition-to-save-the-nbc-tv-show-from-cancellation/.

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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.