Crusoe: Hallucinations

So Crusoe and Susannah are finally reunited…or are they?

Crusoe wakes up to find Susannah standing over him and he’s happy to finally see her again, but instead of just enjoying the moment, he’s just in a hurry to return to shore so they can leave before the tides change. When he tries to find Friday so he can leave with them, he discovers that Friday is missing, his tree house is a wreck, and he has no idea how any of it happened. As he heads back to shore to find Friday, Susannah helps him remember the events leading up to her appearance. Through a series of flashbacks, Crusoe remembers that he and Friday had discovered a quartz-filled cave. While they were in the cave, they found the letter “N” inscribed on the wall which stood for Nugent, the captain of the ill-fated ship that wrecked and brought Crusoe to the island. Then Crusoe finally remembers that he and Friday are not alone on the island — Nugent had survived the shipwreck and had used a smoke bomb to smoke them out of their tree house.

As Crusoe and Susannah continue heading to shore, they both start getting sick. When they finally arrive on shore, Susannah starts coughing up blood, then soon dies and vanishes into thin air– the bomb Nugent used was poisonous and was causing Crusoe to hallucinate, so Susannah was never really there. (I was actually quite relieved to find out Susannah was just a figment of his imagination. After being separated for six years, Crusoe seemed more concerned with Friday and with the tide schedule than he did her. For someone who claims to miss her as much as he says he does, he didn’t seem very excited to see her).

Friday then finds Crusoe at the shore and gives him the anecdote for the smoke bomb. Nugent, who has gone insane, has taken Friday captive and is forcing him to build a palace out of the quartz found in the cave, which he believes are diamonds. Later, Nugent takes Friday back to the cave and then momentarily leaves him alone. While he is alone, Crusoe sneaks into the cave to free him, but he is taken captive by Nugent as well. The delusional Nugent then thinks he is king of the island and can hold court, so he puts Crusoe on trial for treason. He finds him guilty and sentences him to death by hanging.

Nugent forces Friday to get Crusoe’s noose ready and while he’s in the process of doing so, Friday swings down and kicks Nugent, knocking him unconscious. They then have one of those I-can-see-where-this-whole-thing-is-going moments and they tie Nugent’s hands together (just his hands, nothing else, which is just asking for trouble) and make him walk back with them to the tree house. As they’re walking back, Crusoe realizes he forgot his bible and returns for it. As if you couldn’t see this coming, Nugent knocks Friday out and returns to the cave to have a go at Crusoe. The guys fight it out and fire from a torch is close to igniting some barrels of gunpowder in the cave, but of course Friday regains consciousness just in the nick of time and runs to the cave to warn Crusoe. The guys make it out of the cave just before it explodes.

Overall, I thought this episode was just odd and I’m finding it difficult to write about. There were way too many flashbacks between Susannah and Crusoe and they seemed to be happening every 10 seconds or so. I wish they had chosen to tell that story in a different way. I don’t have an idea as to how it could have been done better, I just know that as a viewer, it was difficult to watch.

The real-time story between Crusoe, Friday and Nugent was very predictable and contrived. It was pretty obvious that Nugent was going to try and escape when the guys only tie up his hands and let him walk freely alongside them. It was also pretty obvious that Nugent was going to take Crusoe captive when he finds him in the cave looking for Friday. The entire episode played out like a bad, uncomfortable action movie. As much as it pains me to say it, I definitely understand why the show hasn’t been renewed.

– posted by Meredith

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.