by Raven Kross:
The River: “Los Ciegos”
Original Air Date (ABC): Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Season 1 Episode 3
This was an especially captivating episode. It started, like the others, with brief clips of what happened in the previous episodes. It cuts to an episode of The Undiscovered Country, where Emmet gives a few facts about sharks. And then the fun begins.
Doc Gave Me A Home On This Ship — I Gave Him My Life
The group is plodding through the rainforest, Tess’s perpetual energy exhausting the crew. While searching in a clearing of sorts, they pull back some branches and find the carving of an eye. Jahel explains that it’s the mark of Los Morcegos, a native warrior tribe.
They continue searching and come across a cave. AJ reveals that his number one fear is caves, after he nearly died in a mine collapse once. He refuses to follow them inside, so the camera is passed to Emilio. The group goes into the cave and begin searching in the darkness. They find the body of a dead man, disemboweled and his eyes gouged out. Farther into the cave, they see a wall of glittering white points. As soon as the flashlight turns on, the crowd of bats screeches and scatters. AJ gets a kick out of seeing everyone flee in terror from a bunch of bats.
Uh, Guys? You May Wanna Wake Up Now
The next morning, AJ wakes before everyone else to check his tree cameras. He discovers that in the night, someone has painted white symbols around the tents-the same symbol as the carving. The others wake up and are unsettled. Jahel explains that Los Murcegos are watching them, right now, judging them to see if they’re worthy of passing. Only those who are worthy can see the jungle. As usual, Clark is the most vocal skeptic.
It is around that point that they realize Emilio is missing. They spread out and search for him. They find him leaning against a tree, his eyes swollen and red. He explains that he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and his eyes started to burn. His vision blurred, and then he couldn’t see. Lincoln looks him over and says that it could be a bacterial infection from bat guano (um, ew) or a neurotoxin in one of the plants.
They decided to head back to the Magus to get Emilio medical attention. AJ discovers that his last tree cam has been crushed, and he goes on a rant and demands some respect. He’s treated with indifference and annoyance.
As the group starts back toward the ship, they hear squeals and rustling from the underbrush, and they start to panic. Captain Kurt shoots at random into the jungle, and he hits something. It’s not a Morcego warrior, though- it’s a wild boar. Jahel begins to panic- they took the life of a creature that didn’t mean them harm. They were likely failing the tribe’s test.
Suddenly, Tess begins to freak out. She finds that she has gone blind as well. The group returns to the ship and goes into emergency mode. Jahel tries desperately to contact someone over the radio, but there is no response. On the deck, Clark confronts the Captain about the idea that lives could be on the line. The Captains appears indifferent.
Lincoln attempts to treat his mother’s blindness, to no avail. He gives her eye solution and tells her to keep flushing. Down in the camera room, Clark is looking for something useful in Emmet’s old tapes when he goes blind as well. At the helm, Jahel has dissolved into tears; Kurt brings the boat into the middle of the river, hopefully out of reach of any leaping Murcego, and when he talks to Jahel, she says she cannot see.
What Have You Gotten Us Into, You Old Bastard?
Tess is wandering through the halls of the ship, looking (no pun intended) for Lincoln. She finds Clark instead. She expresses her fear that they’ll never find a cure for the blindness and she’ll never see Emmet again. His response is somewhat emotionally revealing, leaving us to wonder… is he the affair Lincoln suspected his mother of having? And, of course, Lincoln overhears their discourse.
While Jahel steers the boat and Kurt keeps a lookout for Murcego warriors, Lena gathers the remaining crew members belowdecks and they think of a plan. Emmet’s journal says that there is a tree whose spores cause blindness. He used to say that everything in the Amazon has a counterpart (a yin for every yang), and the particular counterpart they’re looking for is a bulb that grows under the sentido tree. Only problem? It only grows at an elevation of 750 meters.
Outside, on the deck, Kurt and AJ are getting jumpy as sounds from the water indicate that the Murcego will be coming for them. Clark surprises him by coming up behind him a little too suddenly; acting on instinct, the Captain whips around and plunges a knife into his gut. Now Clark is lying on a table with a severe knife wound while Lincoln attempts to heal him, Lena is heading out with Kurt and AJ to find a tree that grows half a day’s hike into the jungle, and everyone else is blind.
Jahel goes to get fishing line from Emilio’s tool box. She heads up to the navigation room, finding her way only by memory and feel. She senses that something is nearby, but she can’t quite put her finger on it.
While they’re alone, Lincoln grills Clark about the possibility of his mother’s affair. All he gets in response is a few cryptic what-ifs. Suddenly, Jahel realizes that the Murcego are on the ship and sounds the alarm.
In the jungle, AJ, Lena, and Kurt are already starting out on rocky territory. The tension between the two men is evident, although the cameraman is a bit more vocal about his frustrations. It’s Lena who notices the Murcego warriors creeping slowly toward them across the river. The three run and dive into the underbrush to wait until the warriors pass.
I Don’t Suppose You Have Any Anesthetic
On the ship, Lincoln is forced to cauterize Clark’s wound, despite the revelation that he too has now gone blind. With Tess, Jahel, and Emilio barricaded in one of the cabins, he has no other way to seal the wound. Probably because the loss of blood and unsanitary conditions put him very close to death, Clark began to spout the story of Tess and Emmet’s relationship, divulging more information than Lincoln cared to hear. He said that Emmet had wanted to go to the Amazon one last time, even though Tess had begged him to stay, and that was when he disappeared. HE left HER; he chose the jungle over his wife.
Back among the trees, both Lena and Kurt lose their eyesight. AJ leaves them, promising to find civilization and get help. Lena begs him not to abandon them, but there’s no reasoning with him. Not long after he sets off, however, what should he come across but a sentido tree! He begins to search around the base of the tree. Oh- they meant literally UNDER the tree. In a CAVE. Oh, the things he does for people.
Half crazed from panic and claustrophobia, he makes his way under the tree and finds the bulbs. But as luck would have it, as soon as he retrieves them, the cave walls start to crumble.
I Should Have Never Let It Come Apart In the First Place
Clark knocks Lincoln out and goes into the hallway, telling the Murcego to take him and leave the others alone. To his surprise, the warriors instead withdraw from the ship. In the jungle, one of them pulls AJ out of the cave that has by now filled with dirt. He finds Lena and Kurt, interrupting another one of the Captain’s cryptic, secretive phone calls.
With everyone back on the ship safe and sound, blindness cured, Lincoln and Tess convene on the deck for another sweet mother-son moment. Little do they know that Clark is watching through one of his many cameras, until he’s interrupted by Kurt. Here’s a surprise- the stone cold captain has come to apologize for stabbing him.
Typically, Clark responds with an expletive.
And that’s the end of another exciting episode of The River. I hope the rest of my eager readers enjoy watching it as much as I do, and I promise there are plenty more recaps to come.
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