Alone Season 5 Episode 6 Review: Of Mice and Men
Kim Russell
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On Alone Season 5 Episode 6, the contestants have been in Mongolia for almost a month. The weather is getting stormy and the leaves are turning. Winter is just around the corner.
Some of the people are doing well, like Britt, and some are going a bit crazy, like Larry.
Again, Britt is sunshiney with his attitude and his sense of humor. As long as the fish keep biting, and he eats, he's going the distance.
Britt's funny remarks and the way he makes himself laugh will do more for his mental health than anything. He's having luck with fishing too, and it appears his secret is his bait. Britt's been using grasshoppers since the beginning for bait, and they've worked well for him.
All right, so welcome to the green glow psych ward.
Brooke
Every time he's gone out, he's caught about five fish back to back. He's done catching them pretty quickly and takes them back to his shelter to eat. I mentioned in Alone Season 5 Episode 5, Britt might start to make fish jerky.
Well, close. He started smoking his fish, which will make them last seven days instead of one. That's a smart use of his resource. It would be nice if the smoked fish lasted a bit longer, but a week is better than a day. Britt didn't seem concerned that smoking the fish would attract bears, so that's good.
Although, there was some heavy moose activity right near his camp. That could be dangerous.
Britt's not the only one smoking his fish. Randy was doing the exact same thing with his fish skins, so it seems to be a universal way to make fish last longer.
Those two seem to be having the best luck with the fishing, although Britt admits he needs more fat, so he's after the bigger game now.
It doesn't seem like traps are Britt's strong suit, but he's good at creating devices on the fly, so I have no doubt he'll keep working until he figures out an effective trap. Britt hasn't mentioned hunting, so it looks like he'll stick to the traps.
What if all my footage was this close?
Britt
The big hunter this season is Dave. Man, he's a tenderfoot, sailing through the woods with his bow and arrows on the prowl for a kill.
Watching him was like watching Katniss at the beginning of The Hunger Games when she moved swiftly and silently through the woods.
It's aboriginal.
It's like Dave is part of nature. His problem is still that he feels bad for killing, and I thought he might tap this week because of it.
When he shot the cormorant and hit it, but then lost it, I thought that was it. Dave's been struggling with the killing aspect of survival, yes, but the thing that bothers him most is the pain. If he's going to kill something, it needs to be clean, so when the cormorant took off, he was upset.
The bird was out there somewhere hurting because Dave didn't make a clean kill.
Related: Alone Season 5 Episode 5 Review: The Bowels of Hell
But Dave is still in the running. He didn't tap, which is good because he's an impressive outdoorsman.
In my opinion, Larry is the one who's going to tap next.
I hurt something else out here. I don't like that.
Dave
Why?
Because of his temper. He's not emotionally stable. The mice are driving him crazy, and it has me cracking up. I'm imaging the mice from Cinderella gathering together at night and hatching a plan just to drive Larry out of his mind.
They're laughing at him, these mice, as Larry throws everything out of his shelter trying to find them.
Better yet, Larry is Tom and they're Jerry.
If Larry can't get ahold of himself when it comes to something a little as mice running through his shelter, he's not going to make it much longer. It's comical to watch, though.
Notice how Dave handled the mice?
Dave sat calmly in his shelter with a deadfall trap next to him. The mouse came in, and Dave simply told the mouse to leave or die.
The mouse decided to stay, and the trap killed it.
No fanfare. No ripping apart his bed. No temper tantrums.
This is enough hungry. This is enough cold. This is enough loneliness. This is enough of the green monster.
Brooke
The big thing these guys battle out in the wilderness by themselves is not the mice or the wildlife or even the hunger. It's themselves.
They're battling their own brains and their own thoughts. That's what finally did Brooke in.
She was lonely. She was stuck in her tarp shelter out of the rain for an extended period of time. All she did was think, and she talked herself into going home.
Brooke didn't want to starve. She'd done that, and she just wasn't going to do it again.
What she did in her 27 days was enough for her, and she was done with the lonely life.
Honestly, it's a crapshoot between the contestants in this episode on who will go the distance. It's anyone's game.
What do you think, Alone fans? Were you surprised when Brooke tapped out? Who do you think can go the distance? Do you think Larry is setting himself up for failure?
Let me know your opinions in the comments!
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Kim Russell was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in January 2019.
