Mammoth Season: ep 1.03 detailed summary
Whew! I'm glad I got the summary done in time for this week's reaction post, otherwise we'd have had to say the show was pre-empted for a football match!
EPISODE 1.03: 'Under Siege'
SHORT SUMMARY: The group attempts to establish a deeper level of communication with the Cro-Magnon, hoping for information about the animals and plants in the valley. Sister of Winds gives Jean-Pierre a surprisingly effective headache cure, Brother of Thunder is badly wounded in a three-against-one fight, and Gus and his crew find themselves shut out of the camp as a siege begins. The attacking Neanderthals are soon driven off, but the price paid may have been very high.
DETAILED SUMMARY: The episode begins back in the Cro-Magnon camp, where Brother of Thunder is telling his people the story of how John saved Angeline the mammoth baby. They seem very impressed by it, and the children have clustered around Angeline herself. John is standing there proudly while they pet her and give her bits and pieces to eat. Gus is filming. The scientists are sitting in a semi-circle around John and Angeline, drinking morning coffee and looking vaguely resentful of the fact that John, whom none of them like, is the hero of the day. Kim is with them, obviously counting and writing something in a notebook.
David helps Jim outside to join them, and they share their coffee with him as Kim looks him over - but his presence has an odd effect. A number of Cro-Magnon women suddenly stand up and call to their children to come back, which the kids do, all while looking at Jim with obvious fear. All except two, both girls; these choose instead to approach and see what Kim is doing. But an elderly woman, perhaps their grandmother, comes and hurries them away with what sounds like a sharp scolding.
With the storytelling session broken up, Gus’ team join the others for breakfast before beginning the day’s filming. Boom shyly inquires about Kim’s counting: she has noticed that there are only twenty-four Cro-Magnon: five adult men, eight women, three elderly people and nine children. Yet there are twenty tepees and fires kept burning in all of them. Boom suggests that perhaps it's a religious thing, but Kim is convinced that it is a military strategy: they're trying to convince an enemy that there are far more of them than there really are.
Gus and crew head out. Set up on a lookout point, they film wide shots of the valley while Gus talks about how the weather's getting colder but none of them would trade this for the world - look how magnificent those Megaloceros are! As they head down the hill, hoping to get closer to the herd, he starts chatting about the idea of doing this every year if Damn Hannah will allow it - as his next destination, he wants the Cretaceous, to maybe get a T-rex on film! When a member of his crew points out that a T-rex could eat him in one bite, Gus cheerfully says that if he had to pick a way to go, being eaten by a dinosaur would top the list. Audience members who watched Primeval snicker.
Back at camp, Seiko is cataloguing plants, while Sister of Winds watches. Jean-Pierre tries to help for a while, but he clearly has a bad headache. Kim notices and offers a painkiller, but Jean-Pierre refuses, saying he’s tried them all; he’s had migraines for years, and nothing does anything for it. Kim is concerned, as migraines are a women’s disease, rare among men, but Jean-Pierre assures her that he is fine. Seiko recommends that he go back to his tent and nap, and he agrees that is probably the best course.
John, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to teach the Cro-Magnon some English. This is not going well... he seems to be one of those people who think that everybody in the world will understand if he just speaks loudly and slowly enough. Indeed, it’s going so badly that Seiko eventually interrupts him and tells him it’s painful to watch. He invites her to take over and once again, she does - starting with the animal names she got in the previous episode, she tries to get some verbs out of the children, but this game is not as much fun for them as the last one and they lose interest quickly. She is disappointed, and John smug.
Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre lies in his tent, awake, restless, and clearly very uncomfortable. Somebody opens the flap, allowing a shaft of light to fall across his face - this is obviously painful for him, and he angrily prepares to shout at the intruder, but stops himself when he sees that it is not a member of the expedition. It is, instead, Sister of Winds, and she is carrying a wooden bowl containing some kind of steaming soup or tea. She urges him to drink it and for some reason, despite having refused Kim’s earlier offer, he accepts.
Seiko is gathering up her visual aids as the rest of the children run off, when Brother of Thunder comes and sits down with her. He seems to have understood what she was getting at, but rather than teach her words to be spoken aloud, he begins trying to teach her some kind of a sign language. Jim and David leave off what they were doing - tracking David’s weather balloons - to join in the lesson, and even John starts making a good effort. As Brother of Thunder helps Seiko get her hands and arms into the right positions, we begin to sense that the two are attracted to each other. However, when David tries to ask a question, Brother of Thunder looks pained for a moment, then elects to ignore him. The lessons continue as if he is not there.
Seiko is delighted to learn that the hand sign for ‘mammoth’ means something like ‘plays two flutes’ - the Cro-Magnon have a musical instrument, a double curved flute, which resembles mammoth tusks and seems to have a religious function. Obviously the mammoths have a deep spiritual importance to the Cro-Magnon. She believes that Jean-Pierre would want to know that they’re starting to learn to communicate, headache or no, and so goes to wake him. He is sleeping soundly next to the empty bowl, which doesn’t trouble Seiko at all until she finds that he will not wake up, even when she shakes him hard. She runs off and comes back with Kim, who examines his pupils and says that he’s been drugged with what appears to be a damned powerful narcotic.
The women take the bowl to Sister of Winds, who is happy to show them what her tea was made from: opium pearls. Seiko is excited, because the dried flowers Sister of Winds show her are a species she doesn’t recognize. She manages to ask, with the hand signs and some help from Brother of Thunder, where the poppies grow. Sister of Winds is reluctant, but knows a refusal would only complicate matters when her brother already seems to have decided to trust these strangers. Brother and sister take Seiko and Kim up a hillside to where the poppies grow. None are in flower, but Seiko happily collects leaves and seed heads.
Below them in the valley, Gus is filming the Megaloceros, cheerfully nattering about how deer regrow their antlers every year - these ones are just shedding their velvet. Boom notices his friend the rhino grazing in the brush and attempts to keep clear of it, insisting to a co-worker that it's following them around. Gus gets a bit too close to the Megaloceros and one of them charges him, sending him running for the hills. The whole gang pass by Orwell, who continues eating, only glancing up momentarily after they've all gone. Not seeing anything, he returns to his lunch.
Sister of Winds, fed up with Seiko’s manhandling of the poppies, takes a green seed head from her and shows her how to collect opium properly, by slitting the bulb so the juice runs out. While they do this, Kim excuses herself to ‘do some business’. Brother of Thunder follows her for her own protection, although she misinterprets this as him being nosy, and tries to make him go away. Suddenly, Brother of Thunder puts a hand over her mouth. Although she cannot hear anything, he listens for a moment, then grabs her wrist and drags her back to Seiko and Sister of Winds, shouting for their attention.
It is too late - three Neanderthal scouts have already found them. Brother of Thunder tries to talk to them in sign language, telling them that these women are no threat to them. The Neanderthals reply that they don’t care about the women - they are here to avenge the deaths of their men and kill the sorcerer who ruined their meat. They attack Brother of Thunder, who urges the women to run. Sister of Winds grabs Kim and Seiko and makes to do so, but Kim, for one, is not helpless: she has a large hunting knife with her and is also a pretty good hand-to-hand fighter. The first Neanderthal she fights barely puts up a resistance, apparently unable to believe he is being attacked by a woman. When she drags a second one off Brother of Thunder, she manages to wound him, but he knocks the knife out of her hand with his spear and gets her in a headlock.
Brother of Thunder kills the third scout, but then is badly wounded by the first one, whom Kim knocked down but did not kill. Seiko retrieves Kim’s knife but doesn’t know how to use it - she tries to kick the first Neanderthal in the nuts, but he grabs her leg and sends her sprawling. Brother of Thunder stabs the man in the lower back, killing him. Kim throws the one she is fighting, then she and Seiko help Brother of Thunder to his feet, and they hurry to catch up with Sister of Winds, who is already halfway back to camp, calling for help.
The Neanderthal attack seems to have caused quite a scare. The Cro-Magnon shut themselves up inside their little fortress and do not want to admit the time-travelers, but grudgingly allow them in when Brother of Thunder says that Kim saved his life. His wound is quite serious, and Sister of Winds drugs him before seeing to it. She removes the broken spear point and cleans out the wound with hot water. Kim offers help, but Sister of Winds won’t let her anywhere near him. Other female Cro-Magnon are given rattles to shake, while the four remaining adult males work on making sure the barricade is solid. Now that Brother of Thunder is unconscious, they refuse help from the expedition entirely. The time travelers and Angeline are exiled to a muddy back corner, where all they can do is sit and watch.
Evening falls. Jean-Pierre has awakened, feeling terrible from the after-effects of the drug but with his headache cured. Angeline the mammoth is terribly unhappy, pacing and crying out. John is following her, holding her trunk and murmuring reassurances. Outside, torches have begun to appear - slowly, a circle of armed Neanderthals closes in around the fortress. They communicate with the Cro-Magnon, once again, using sign language - their new leader wants Brother of Thunder, the Sorcerer, and Angeline, and says when he has them he will call his men off. The Cro-Magnon discuss this. They are unwilling to give up Brother of Thunder or the mammoth, but throwing John to the Neanderthal seems well within the realm of possibility. Sister of Winds refuses on the grounds that her brother wouldn’t like it, but says that if their guests have such magical powers, they ought to be able to drive the Neanderthal off easily.
The Cro-Magnon therefore refuse to meet any of the demands. The Neanderthal reply that they will then starve them into submission. They jeer and hoot, hollering what can only be insults, and the new leader makes threats in sign language, saying that the gods will punish the Cro-Magnon for stealing the Neanderthals’ land and meat - their men will be killed, their women enslaved, and their children eaten! The Cro-Magnon try to shoot them with arrows, but in the flickering firelight, and with brush to retreat into, the Neanderthal are not easy targets, and the archers themselves, silhouetted against the sky at the top of the wall, are in great danger themselves.
The time travelers suddenly find themselves being called on to do something, but most of the stuff they might be able to use is still outside in their own camp, which several Neanderthal are enthusiastically ransacking. They have one rifle, but their only ammunition is what’s already in it, and the Neanderthal, having seen that guns sometimes don’t work, are not frightened of merely having it pointed at them.
Lacking their ‘magic’, the expedition starts to get really frightened. If they are not killed by the Neanderthal, there is a good possibility that the Cro-Magnon will give them up. Their camp and equipment are probably being destroyed as they speak. And nobody knows what’s happened to Gus, but everybody agrees that while most of them might not have liked him, nobody wants to think he’s dead.
As it happens, Gus and his crew are completely ignorant of what’s going on back at camp - they were detained filming a pack of wolves hunting the Megaloceros and are very pleased with the footage they got. They’re laughing and talking as they walk back towards camp. Gus is cheerfully suggesting a trip to the Carboniferous, and describes its cat-sized spiders for the edification of a clearly horrified employee. Boom is leading the way, looking left and right out of terror that they're going to meet Orwell again. When he stops short, another man starts to ask him what's up, but he shushes the guy, and the next thing we see is Gus creeping forward to peer over a ridge of rock as he would when sneaking up on animals. Looking past him, we see the besieged camp.
Gus sends a group a short distance away with some of the lights - they climb a hill and flash out ‘we’re okay!’ in Morse code for the benefit of their trapped companions. Seiko sees this, but does not understand the code; fortunately, David does, and the others help him up to the top of the wall to send a return message with a flashlight. In reply, Gus’ lighting guys start flashing the opening lines of King Lear. This is meant as a distraction, and it works: the Neanderthal leader sends a party to investigate.
Meanwhile, Gus himself and a few others are trying to sneak around the enemy lines and get into camp. Naturally, they’re still filming as they go. Gus apologizes to the camera for the ‘rubbish lighting’ but explains why it can’t be helped. They find their way to the time travelers’ camp, where chance has given them an unexpected helping hand - the ransackers have gotten into Boyd’s supply of alcohol, and it seems that Neanderthals cannot hold their liquor. A couple of them are singing, but they’re quickly dispatched by Boom, who whacks them over their heads with a folding metal chair. A few more are just passed out drunk. Gus ignores them and gets to work.
The Neanderthal scouting party reaches the hilltop where the lighting guys were, and finds it lit up like day but deserted. They begin to scout the perimeter, sensing that the people who were here can’t be far away. The crew members are hiding in the bushes, counting on the harsh shadows produced by the lights to keep the scouts from noticing them.
Gus starts to scurry away from the camp with arms full of something, but is suddenly confronted by another drunken Neanderthal - and this one is clearly an angry drunk. He wants to fight something, but fortunately his own clumsiness leads to him getting tangled in a tent, and Gus escapes with what he’s retrieved. When he rejoins his crew, however, he finds he’s lacking one vital thing: a means to make fire. None of them smoke, and nobody has a lighter. Eventually they are forced to dismantle some equipment in order to get a spark, but that works fine, and we now learn what Gus was getting: some rags, some specimen bottles, and a big can of fuel for their camp stoves; the makings for Molotov cocktails. His crew are still filming and he gets halfway through explaining how to make the little bombs before somebody interrupts him and points out that he probably shouldn't tell that to their entire tv audience.
The first explosion makes the Neanderthal back off, but they return. Repeated bombings, however, drive them into the woods, several with their clothes or hair on fire. When all the Neanderthal have fled, Gus and crew are welcomed into the camp as heroes by their fellow time-travellers, who seem to have finally gotten over their dislike of Gus. The Cro-Magnon are more subdued, badly frightened themselves by this demonstration of their guests’ magic. Sister of Winds admits that Brother of Thunder was probably right - they cannot afford to make enemies of people like this.
In the morning, the camp is quiet but tense. The time travelers are cleaning up the mess the Neanderthals made of their stuff and repairing what they can. The stragglers, suffering from terrible hangovers, are quickly chased off. Sister of Winds, meanwhile, is giving her brother’s wound another cleaning. It does not look good. Kim is watching from a distance, with Sister of Winds shooting her furious glares every so often.
Gus and his crew have set out looking for their lighting guys. They find the hill the men were stationed on, but it is deserted. All that’s left is the smashed remains of the lights.
Tune in next week!
EPISODE 1.03: 'Under Siege'
SHORT SUMMARY: The group attempts to establish a deeper level of communication with the Cro-Magnon, hoping for information about the animals and plants in the valley. Sister of Winds gives Jean-Pierre a surprisingly effective headache cure, Brother of Thunder is badly wounded in a three-against-one fight, and Gus and his crew find themselves shut out of the camp as a siege begins. The attacking Neanderthals are soon driven off, but the price paid may have been very high.
DETAILED SUMMARY: The episode begins back in the Cro-Magnon camp, where Brother of Thunder is telling his people the story of how John saved Angeline the mammoth baby. They seem very impressed by it, and the children have clustered around Angeline herself. John is standing there proudly while they pet her and give her bits and pieces to eat. Gus is filming. The scientists are sitting in a semi-circle around John and Angeline, drinking morning coffee and looking vaguely resentful of the fact that John, whom none of them like, is the hero of the day. Kim is with them, obviously counting and writing something in a notebook.
David helps Jim outside to join them, and they share their coffee with him as Kim looks him over - but his presence has an odd effect. A number of Cro-Magnon women suddenly stand up and call to their children to come back, which the kids do, all while looking at Jim with obvious fear. All except two, both girls; these choose instead to approach and see what Kim is doing. But an elderly woman, perhaps their grandmother, comes and hurries them away with what sounds like a sharp scolding.
With the storytelling session broken up, Gus’ team join the others for breakfast before beginning the day’s filming. Boom shyly inquires about Kim’s counting: she has noticed that there are only twenty-four Cro-Magnon: five adult men, eight women, three elderly people and nine children. Yet there are twenty tepees and fires kept burning in all of them. Boom suggests that perhaps it's a religious thing, but Kim is convinced that it is a military strategy: they're trying to convince an enemy that there are far more of them than there really are.
Gus and crew head out. Set up on a lookout point, they film wide shots of the valley while Gus talks about how the weather's getting colder but none of them would trade this for the world - look how magnificent those Megaloceros are! As they head down the hill, hoping to get closer to the herd, he starts chatting about the idea of doing this every year if Damn Hannah will allow it - as his next destination, he wants the Cretaceous, to maybe get a T-rex on film! When a member of his crew points out that a T-rex could eat him in one bite, Gus cheerfully says that if he had to pick a way to go, being eaten by a dinosaur would top the list. Audience members who watched Primeval snicker.
Back at camp, Seiko is cataloguing plants, while Sister of Winds watches. Jean-Pierre tries to help for a while, but he clearly has a bad headache. Kim notices and offers a painkiller, but Jean-Pierre refuses, saying he’s tried them all; he’s had migraines for years, and nothing does anything for it. Kim is concerned, as migraines are a women’s disease, rare among men, but Jean-Pierre assures her that he is fine. Seiko recommends that he go back to his tent and nap, and he agrees that is probably the best course.
John, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to teach the Cro-Magnon some English. This is not going well... he seems to be one of those people who think that everybody in the world will understand if he just speaks loudly and slowly enough. Indeed, it’s going so badly that Seiko eventually interrupts him and tells him it’s painful to watch. He invites her to take over and once again, she does - starting with the animal names she got in the previous episode, she tries to get some verbs out of the children, but this game is not as much fun for them as the last one and they lose interest quickly. She is disappointed, and John smug.
Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre lies in his tent, awake, restless, and clearly very uncomfortable. Somebody opens the flap, allowing a shaft of light to fall across his face - this is obviously painful for him, and he angrily prepares to shout at the intruder, but stops himself when he sees that it is not a member of the expedition. It is, instead, Sister of Winds, and she is carrying a wooden bowl containing some kind of steaming soup or tea. She urges him to drink it and for some reason, despite having refused Kim’s earlier offer, he accepts.
Seiko is gathering up her visual aids as the rest of the children run off, when Brother of Thunder comes and sits down with her. He seems to have understood what she was getting at, but rather than teach her words to be spoken aloud, he begins trying to teach her some kind of a sign language. Jim and David leave off what they were doing - tracking David’s weather balloons - to join in the lesson, and even John starts making a good effort. As Brother of Thunder helps Seiko get her hands and arms into the right positions, we begin to sense that the two are attracted to each other. However, when David tries to ask a question, Brother of Thunder looks pained for a moment, then elects to ignore him. The lessons continue as if he is not there.
Seiko is delighted to learn that the hand sign for ‘mammoth’ means something like ‘plays two flutes’ - the Cro-Magnon have a musical instrument, a double curved flute, which resembles mammoth tusks and seems to have a religious function. Obviously the mammoths have a deep spiritual importance to the Cro-Magnon. She believes that Jean-Pierre would want to know that they’re starting to learn to communicate, headache or no, and so goes to wake him. He is sleeping soundly next to the empty bowl, which doesn’t trouble Seiko at all until she finds that he will not wake up, even when she shakes him hard. She runs off and comes back with Kim, who examines his pupils and says that he’s been drugged with what appears to be a damned powerful narcotic.
The women take the bowl to Sister of Winds, who is happy to show them what her tea was made from: opium pearls. Seiko is excited, because the dried flowers Sister of Winds show her are a species she doesn’t recognize. She manages to ask, with the hand signs and some help from Brother of Thunder, where the poppies grow. Sister of Winds is reluctant, but knows a refusal would only complicate matters when her brother already seems to have decided to trust these strangers. Brother and sister take Seiko and Kim up a hillside to where the poppies grow. None are in flower, but Seiko happily collects leaves and seed heads.
Below them in the valley, Gus is filming the Megaloceros, cheerfully nattering about how deer regrow their antlers every year - these ones are just shedding their velvet. Boom notices his friend the rhino grazing in the brush and attempts to keep clear of it, insisting to a co-worker that it's following them around. Gus gets a bit too close to the Megaloceros and one of them charges him, sending him running for the hills. The whole gang pass by Orwell, who continues eating, only glancing up momentarily after they've all gone. Not seeing anything, he returns to his lunch.
Sister of Winds, fed up with Seiko’s manhandling of the poppies, takes a green seed head from her and shows her how to collect opium properly, by slitting the bulb so the juice runs out. While they do this, Kim excuses herself to ‘do some business’. Brother of Thunder follows her for her own protection, although she misinterprets this as him being nosy, and tries to make him go away. Suddenly, Brother of Thunder puts a hand over her mouth. Although she cannot hear anything, he listens for a moment, then grabs her wrist and drags her back to Seiko and Sister of Winds, shouting for their attention.
It is too late - three Neanderthal scouts have already found them. Brother of Thunder tries to talk to them in sign language, telling them that these women are no threat to them. The Neanderthals reply that they don’t care about the women - they are here to avenge the deaths of their men and kill the sorcerer who ruined their meat. They attack Brother of Thunder, who urges the women to run. Sister of Winds grabs Kim and Seiko and makes to do so, but Kim, for one, is not helpless: she has a large hunting knife with her and is also a pretty good hand-to-hand fighter. The first Neanderthal she fights barely puts up a resistance, apparently unable to believe he is being attacked by a woman. When she drags a second one off Brother of Thunder, she manages to wound him, but he knocks the knife out of her hand with his spear and gets her in a headlock.
Brother of Thunder kills the third scout, but then is badly wounded by the first one, whom Kim knocked down but did not kill. Seiko retrieves Kim’s knife but doesn’t know how to use it - she tries to kick the first Neanderthal in the nuts, but he grabs her leg and sends her sprawling. Brother of Thunder stabs the man in the lower back, killing him. Kim throws the one she is fighting, then she and Seiko help Brother of Thunder to his feet, and they hurry to catch up with Sister of Winds, who is already halfway back to camp, calling for help.
The Neanderthal attack seems to have caused quite a scare. The Cro-Magnon shut themselves up inside their little fortress and do not want to admit the time-travelers, but grudgingly allow them in when Brother of Thunder says that Kim saved his life. His wound is quite serious, and Sister of Winds drugs him before seeing to it. She removes the broken spear point and cleans out the wound with hot water. Kim offers help, but Sister of Winds won’t let her anywhere near him. Other female Cro-Magnon are given rattles to shake, while the four remaining adult males work on making sure the barricade is solid. Now that Brother of Thunder is unconscious, they refuse help from the expedition entirely. The time travelers and Angeline are exiled to a muddy back corner, where all they can do is sit and watch.
Evening falls. Jean-Pierre has awakened, feeling terrible from the after-effects of the drug but with his headache cured. Angeline the mammoth is terribly unhappy, pacing and crying out. John is following her, holding her trunk and murmuring reassurances. Outside, torches have begun to appear - slowly, a circle of armed Neanderthals closes in around the fortress. They communicate with the Cro-Magnon, once again, using sign language - their new leader wants Brother of Thunder, the Sorcerer, and Angeline, and says when he has them he will call his men off. The Cro-Magnon discuss this. They are unwilling to give up Brother of Thunder or the mammoth, but throwing John to the Neanderthal seems well within the realm of possibility. Sister of Winds refuses on the grounds that her brother wouldn’t like it, but says that if their guests have such magical powers, they ought to be able to drive the Neanderthal off easily.
The Cro-Magnon therefore refuse to meet any of the demands. The Neanderthal reply that they will then starve them into submission. They jeer and hoot, hollering what can only be insults, and the new leader makes threats in sign language, saying that the gods will punish the Cro-Magnon for stealing the Neanderthals’ land and meat - their men will be killed, their women enslaved, and their children eaten! The Cro-Magnon try to shoot them with arrows, but in the flickering firelight, and with brush to retreat into, the Neanderthal are not easy targets, and the archers themselves, silhouetted against the sky at the top of the wall, are in great danger themselves.
The time travelers suddenly find themselves being called on to do something, but most of the stuff they might be able to use is still outside in their own camp, which several Neanderthal are enthusiastically ransacking. They have one rifle, but their only ammunition is what’s already in it, and the Neanderthal, having seen that guns sometimes don’t work, are not frightened of merely having it pointed at them.
Lacking their ‘magic’, the expedition starts to get really frightened. If they are not killed by the Neanderthal, there is a good possibility that the Cro-Magnon will give them up. Their camp and equipment are probably being destroyed as they speak. And nobody knows what’s happened to Gus, but everybody agrees that while most of them might not have liked him, nobody wants to think he’s dead.
As it happens, Gus and his crew are completely ignorant of what’s going on back at camp - they were detained filming a pack of wolves hunting the Megaloceros and are very pleased with the footage they got. They’re laughing and talking as they walk back towards camp. Gus is cheerfully suggesting a trip to the Carboniferous, and describes its cat-sized spiders for the edification of a clearly horrified employee. Boom is leading the way, looking left and right out of terror that they're going to meet Orwell again. When he stops short, another man starts to ask him what's up, but he shushes the guy, and the next thing we see is Gus creeping forward to peer over a ridge of rock as he would when sneaking up on animals. Looking past him, we see the besieged camp.
Gus sends a group a short distance away with some of the lights - they climb a hill and flash out ‘we’re okay!’ in Morse code for the benefit of their trapped companions. Seiko sees this, but does not understand the code; fortunately, David does, and the others help him up to the top of the wall to send a return message with a flashlight. In reply, Gus’ lighting guys start flashing the opening lines of King Lear. This is meant as a distraction, and it works: the Neanderthal leader sends a party to investigate.
Meanwhile, Gus himself and a few others are trying to sneak around the enemy lines and get into camp. Naturally, they’re still filming as they go. Gus apologizes to the camera for the ‘rubbish lighting’ but explains why it can’t be helped. They find their way to the time travelers’ camp, where chance has given them an unexpected helping hand - the ransackers have gotten into Boyd’s supply of alcohol, and it seems that Neanderthals cannot hold their liquor. A couple of them are singing, but they’re quickly dispatched by Boom, who whacks them over their heads with a folding metal chair. A few more are just passed out drunk. Gus ignores them and gets to work.
The Neanderthal scouting party reaches the hilltop where the lighting guys were, and finds it lit up like day but deserted. They begin to scout the perimeter, sensing that the people who were here can’t be far away. The crew members are hiding in the bushes, counting on the harsh shadows produced by the lights to keep the scouts from noticing them.
Gus starts to scurry away from the camp with arms full of something, but is suddenly confronted by another drunken Neanderthal - and this one is clearly an angry drunk. He wants to fight something, but fortunately his own clumsiness leads to him getting tangled in a tent, and Gus escapes with what he’s retrieved. When he rejoins his crew, however, he finds he’s lacking one vital thing: a means to make fire. None of them smoke, and nobody has a lighter. Eventually they are forced to dismantle some equipment in order to get a spark, but that works fine, and we now learn what Gus was getting: some rags, some specimen bottles, and a big can of fuel for their camp stoves; the makings for Molotov cocktails. His crew are still filming and he gets halfway through explaining how to make the little bombs before somebody interrupts him and points out that he probably shouldn't tell that to their entire tv audience.
The first explosion makes the Neanderthal back off, but they return. Repeated bombings, however, drive them into the woods, several with their clothes or hair on fire. When all the Neanderthal have fled, Gus and crew are welcomed into the camp as heroes by their fellow time-travellers, who seem to have finally gotten over their dislike of Gus. The Cro-Magnon are more subdued, badly frightened themselves by this demonstration of their guests’ magic. Sister of Winds admits that Brother of Thunder was probably right - they cannot afford to make enemies of people like this.
In the morning, the camp is quiet but tense. The time travelers are cleaning up the mess the Neanderthals made of their stuff and repairing what they can. The stragglers, suffering from terrible hangovers, are quickly chased off. Sister of Winds, meanwhile, is giving her brother’s wound another cleaning. It does not look good. Kim is watching from a distance, with Sister of Winds shooting her furious glares every so often.
Gus and his crew have set out looking for their lighting guys. They find the hill the men were stationed on, but it is deserted. All that’s left is the smashed remains of the lights.
Tune in next week!