Crusoe: Do You Want to Form an Alliance With Me?

Happy post-Halloween! I hope everyone is enjoying their sugar high. It’s time to check in and see what happened this week with our favorite Friday-night castaway.

When a ship of mutineers arrives on the island looking to replenish their supplies, Crusoe sees them as a potential way home. He approaches the ousted ship captain and strikes a deal where Crusoe will help the captain regain control of his ship if the captain will take Crusoe back to England once he does regain control. Realizing it might take a while to overthrow the mutineers, Crusoe thinks he can approach a mutineer named Oliver and ask him for help in setting the captain free. But it turns out the mutineer Crusoe had in mind is actually a woman in disguise named Olivia, which causes Crusoe to change his mind about involving her in his plan.

Meanwhile, Friday has his own plan on how to overtake the mutineers. After an earlier run-in with one of the mutineers who was convinced he was a demon, Friday realizes the mutineers are convinced there are demons haunting them on the island. So he visits a sacrificial burial ground where he digs up skeletons that he uses to make puppets to scare off the mutineers. Friday’s plan works, and when some of the mutineers bring the captain’s wife and daughter to bathe at the pond, he scares them with the puppet. The mutineers are convinced that not only is the island cursed, but the ship is as well and that they need to leave.

Later that evening, Crusoe and Friday go to the beach where after they unleash a barrage of homemade coconut shell bombs, they are able to set the captain free. But of course he can’t be set free that easily – his daughter is taken at gun point and in order to save her, they’re forced to stop the attack.

The next morning, while Friday is trying to lead the captain’s wife and daughter to safety, he points out to Crusoe that the ship is getting ready to sail away. Crusoe sneaks on board by hiding under a tarp and duels one of the mutineers in a swordfight. Crusoe ends up injured and when Olivia realizes what has happened, she sharply turns the wheel of the ship. Everyone loses their balance and in the process Crusoe is able to gain the upper hand over the mutineer and hold him at sword point. But of course there can’t be a happy ending for Crusoe – due to the sharp turn, the ship hits rocks and he is forced to jump overboard for safety where he heads back to the beach.

I have to say that it was a relief to see outsiders on the island this week instead of just Crusoe and Friday and some wild dogs. For me, the best part of the show was watching Friday battle one of the mutineers: the mutineer had a sword and Friday only had a stick. And I can’t forget the scene where Crusoe approaches the captured captain and asks him if he wants to form an alliance with him. I had to laugh because I know it definitely wasn’t intended to be funny at all, but something about it was reminiscent of The Office and Dwight approaching Jim about forming an alliance with him. Maybe it was the way both Dwight and Crusoe approached their potential partners with hushed voices, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

I’m not sure this episode really got off the ground like I was expecting it to. Maybe it was just me and I had had too much Halloween by the time I sat down to watch it, but something about the storyline never really gelled for me and I can’t quite figure out why that is. What did you guys think? Did it work for you?

— posted by Meredith

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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.