I have to admit it's getting better; it's getting better all the time. -- The Beatles

The Tribe: 36-45

  • Ryan does not comprehend that he has bought himself a a whore. This is because Ryan is a moron. Fortunately, Magenta’s pimp is a femmy guy who a stiff breeze could kick the ass of. Violence has been the answer to everything in this show.
  • Ryan has never heard of bulimia and worries that it’s contagious. He explains that he’s run away from the tribe because he’s sick of Lex Luthor treating him like he’s stupid. Ryan, if you don’t want to be treated like you’re stupid, you’d do best to forsake the company of man. I understand that in New Zealand, there are quite a lot of sheep. Some, but not all, of them are dumber than you are.
  • That said, it looks like Ryan and Magenta are about to fall in love over his watching that she doesn’t throw up.
  • Amber decides to forsake responsibility and run off with Sasha Baron Cohen as he walks the earth being a free spirit. Wonder how long this will last.
  • Meanwhile, Magenta and Ryan have got themselves a pet pig, which they name “Porky”, because in New Zealand, trademark laws work differently.
  • In a consistent show of the writers not paying attention to the passage of time, Bray’s trial is now days ago, despite it only being about half an hour since the proceedings were interrupted by Glenn showing up.
  • Lex decides to kill a hen for a special honeymoon dinner. As I recall, though, the whole reason they went to visit the farm girls is that they didn’t want to kill the chickens.
  • Amber comes back to tell everyone that she’s decided to be carefree and irresponsible and run off. But she can’t leave without being passive agressive about how they’ve let the place go to pot in the three days she’d been gone. Amber, the high horse doesn’t work like that.
  • Lex Luthor offers a piece of chicken to the little girls. Who are distraught about the disappearance of their favorite hen. Because Lex is a douche.
  • Everyone decides to forgive Magenta when she comes out of the closet about her bulimia, but they’re all little bitches to Amber for wanting to leave. Except for Sasha who is a total dick to everyone for daring to think that you should take responsibility for others
  • Five minutes after they leave the mall forever, Amber decides to go back. Ten minutes after that, she has some misty watercolored flashbacks about how much she misses him.
  • For Patsy’s birthday, they hold a party and play Incidental Music From The Tribe on the boom box. It is the only CD they have left.
  • Amber, deciding that she must stay at the mall and can’t shirk her responsibility in favor of love, has wandered off to angst over Sasha and shirk her responsibilities
  • Patsy has an episode over the fact that she’s one year closer to the age of certain death. Which reminds me that we don’t know much about this virus. We know that it spread “too fast” for any adults to have survived (Bad survival trait for a virus), it doesn’t infect children. We’re not told what the age of consent is for viral relations — the oldest anyone seems to be is about 16. Since half of them are past puberty, it’s not puberty (I could believe that it was indeed puberty and the virus burned itself out a year or so ago — about the time Trudy was getting herself impregnated by Zoot. Bad Zoot. Naughty Zoot.). The virus is still around (at least, they think it is) and is probably airborn. In short, virus of plot convenience, which does not behave like real-world viruses would.
  • Magenta’s off the wagon the instant everyone starts fighting again.
  • Kiwi Love Actually sees an adult man on the security camera footage, but everyone thinks he’s crazy, and can’t determine anything from the grainy, staticky, black and white video other than that it was probably a person, and had gray hair. On a black and white video.
  • Zandra is of course jealous that Ryan is happy for once. Because she is, let’s face it, the least sympathetic character in the series
  • Lex Luthor’s plan to get Bray kicked out by hiding water bottles in his room works instantly. As always. It takes 0 seconds for everyone to turn on Bray.
  • Lex immediately tells his wife about his evil plot, meanwhile Ryan and Kiwi Love Actually already know that it’s a setup. Kiwi Love Actually convinces Ryan to grow a pair and confront Lex, whose response is to pimp his wife out. Magnificent Bastard.
  • Magenta, of course, walks in on Ryan with Zandra draped over him. Before running off to binge and purge, she asks Ryan if he needs any help. Did she just suggest a threesome?
    • Leah: (About the mystery adult) Or maybe it’s a mutant
    • Ross: Because it’s after the apocalypse. They have those.
  • The “Adult” is a kid in old-age makeup. I am not yet sure whether this is his schtick or just the craziest casting decision ever
  • Ryan predictably folds, and Lex just threatens KLA into not speaking up. See? Violence is the answer to Everything
  • So, Lex Luthor’s plan is to get rid og Bray, then of Amber. He also plans to kill Jack, and I think he means to get rid of Magenta too. Does Lex want to be the ruler of a tribe consisting of his wife and a bunch of ten year olds? Really?
  • No Grown-ups for thirty-nine episodes and now two all at once.
  • I believe Bray calls Lex Luthor a “Filthy lying piece of dart.”
  • And the weakest link is… Bray. He decides to run away. That’ll show them.
  • But when KLA decides to give Lex up, KC jumps on the grenade, which will of course, prompt Lex Luthor to try to contrive a reason why Bray should have been exiled byt KC shouldn’t
  • Which becomes a moot point when the Old Dude shows up, and turns out to be Lex Luthor’s old buddy Glenn, who we had previously seen back in episode 1 being thrown to the dogs, then durign the tribal gathering kicking Lex’s everloving ass. So, new fact about the virus: it makes you look like you’re wearing unconvincing old age makeup. It also gives you facial hair.
  • Speaking of which… Eveyrone’s clean-shaven. I get that they’re all kids, but I started drowing stubble at 12.
  • Lex Luthor does the first responsible thing he’s ever done, and voluntarily goes into isolation since he’s been exposed to the virus. Maybe this will finally mark him not being a douchebag just for its own sake…. Nah.
  • By the way, Patsy’s also quarantined, for exposure to Glenn. Who she found when she went out to look for him because she alone believed Jack, out of her desperate need for there to be an adult still around, as it means there’s hope for not getting the virus. So if there’s one thing the writers do get, it’s irony.
  • They have used the word “idea” four times in two minutes. Being Kiwis, they pronounce it “idear”. It is the single most grating thing about their accent.
  • In a show that they have more solidarity than brains, the tribe decides to take turns grabbing Patsy, the idea being that they’d rather all be infected together
  • So they’re gonna have a go at curing the virus. Yes. Really
  • The threat of the virus scares off the Locos, worsened by KC misquoting Dirty Harry. “Do you feel lucky?”
  • KLA discovers from a medical CD that viruses can mutate. “Just like computer viruses.” I think I am going to cry.
  • Tyson is upset that no one’s listening to her and everyone is trying to find a cure using science and stuff instead of by meditation and spirituality.
  • Everyone loves the pig more than the dog. The dog will now get depressed and run away.
  • Zandra promises Glenn that she’ll run away with him if he gets better. Unfortunately, he starts getting better. Now Zandra is hoping he kicks, because boy would that be awkward.
  • Good news, everyone…
  • KC’s words on returning: “Who died?” Ah, Lex’s protogee.
  • So, the virus has something to do with an anti-aging experiment… Holy crap, this isn’t our Earth, it’s the parallel earth from the Star Trek episode “Miri”.
  • The gang goes to “Hope Island”, where Evil Inc. set up their virus creation lab. The fence is not electrified, but they have a frakking minefield in front of the gate.
  • Lex Luthor checks if the fence is electrified by touching it with a dry stick. WOOD DOES NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY AND COMPUTER VIRUSES DO NOT MUTATE
  • Tyson sneezes. twice. This means she’s got the virus. Where’s your buddha now, bitch?
  • Upon entering the lab of evil, they start deciding that random test tubes might be the antidote for the virus (VIRUSES DO NOT HAVE ANTIDOTES AND COMPUTER VIRUSES DO NOT MUTATE). Won’t they be surprised when it turns out they want the next lab on the left, and Bray has just found the cure for male pattern baldness. Had viagra been invented yet in 1999?
  • So Bray and Amber, having come all the way to Hope Island to penetrate the evil lab, immediately leave Dal, Lex Luthor, and the dog to find the cure while they have a long, meaningful walk on the beach.
  • Oh, and if you enter the wrong password to the lab computer, the lab kills you. Let me get this straight. The governent of New Zealand contracted out to a company apparently run by Doctor No to make them an anti-aging serum, and when it turned out to be an uber-palgue, they decided to go out of their way to ensure that if everyone got wiped out, the cure to the plague would be protected by automated defense systems to murder all intruders? Maybe Ryan will turn out to be the president’s son.
  • Lex Luthor, showing the most sense he’s ever shown, points out that this can’t possibly be an inescapable death trap, since there’s a countdown, and it doesn’t make any sense to have a countdown if there’s no way out.
  • The batteries KC swipes to use to pay for his gambling habit, the batteries which must logically have been depleted and recharged, are still in the original plastic wrap.
  • While trapped in the lab, Lex is forced to reveal to Bray that he can’t read. Lex has now told 2/3 of the tribe that he’s illiterate, but they’re not to tell anyone.
  • Desperate, they decide to short out the breaker box, by touching the two conveniently pre-bared wires.
  • As the timer hits zero, they manage to open the door and escape. Leah remembered that there’s three more security doors. The writers didn’t.
  • The explosion of Hope Island uses a leftover explosion sequence from Captain Power
  • They reckon that the random vial they found is the cure, so they try to make Tyson take it. She refuses on religious grounds, even though they’re pretty sure it’s the cure. Despite not having found any sort of notes or explanation, or any files or documentation, or a label saying “this is the cure”, or a sign saying “This is a lab where we work on the cure,” or even whether the cure is meant to be administered orally, intravenously or, say, as a suppository.
  • Jack is still crippled from having his ankle fractured during Lex Luthor’s bachelor party. I have no idea how time passes in this show, so he’s either been on crutches for two days or four years by now.
  • Lex, by the way, has the virus. And he’s not going to risk taking the antidote, despite wanting to force Tyson to take it.
  • Bray tells Amber that he’s into her, and then, I believe, picks fleas off of her.
  • KC gambles away the pig at the convenient underground casino, so Cloey decides that poker is a sucker’s game, and insists that they win back the money playing a game which actually has some strategy — roulette.
  • The prospect of his impending death makes Lex Luthor act all noble and patch things up with Ryan, open his soul to Zandra, and generally seems like a nice guy. Either he’s really dying, or this is a convoluted scheme of some sort.
  • Tyson cures herself using karma, meditation, and honesty, and offers to help Lex Luthor do the same, provided he can be pure of heart and soul. So Lex is basically fucked.
  • So, when Lex decides to remake himself as less of a dick, Zandra decided to put her foot down and not support him, because it was Tyson’s idea. Better to die of the virus than to cure yourself using a technique endorsed by the girl who slept with before you got married.
  • KLA freaks out when Lex Luthor is nice to them but doesn’t want them to keep trying to decrypt the evil computer from the lab, and shouts “Is this the 21st century or the dark ages?” Actually, it looks like the 80s.
  • As part of Lex Luthor’s purification process, he burns his clothes, but promptly finds a new short with PVC strips across the nipples. Are these common in New Zealand?
  • Lex’s apologies are probably going to take the next ten or eleven episodes
  • So, it’s kinda touching and all, with Lex Luthor confessing all the crimes that everyone already knew he’d committed, but I think telling his wife that he married her just for the sex was probably an unsound move.
  • Since KC has been gone for days now, it occurs to Ryan that this could be a problem, as the gamblers might force him to tell them where his tribe is holed up so they can rob them. Meanwhile, KC is being beaten by the gangsters to find out where the tribe is holed up so they can rob them.
  • Amber and Bray have been doing nothing but each other for days, and this is the first they’ve heard of it. So, when Amber’s happy, she neglects her leadership duty. When she’s sad, she neglects her leadership duty. Why was it that Amber decided to stick around again? Oh. Right. Duty.
  • The Gambling den is run by a gang called “Tribe Clowns”, run by an escaped Boy George impersonator and sometime Bat-Villain called “Top Hat”, who apparently makes the Locos look sane.
  • He gives KC a villain speech about how much he loves burning things, and how he will set anything on fire. So that’s who keeps setting the cars on fire!
  • Those people who had “Episode 45” in the office pool for “How long before Trudy decides to become a jealous little bitch again, you may collect.
  • Lex Luthor decides to forge an alliance with Ebony to save the Mall Rats from Boy George and his Legion of Clowns. Yes. Lex Luthor, their resident villain, wants an alliance with Ebony, the big bad, to save our heroes from the Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.

There’s just 7 more episodes this season, so I assume they’re building up to something. Hopefully, we’ll get to see it before Leah makes me stop watching for the weekend…

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