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SKEPTOID BLOG:

Bigfoot Bounty, Episodes 6 & 7: Misogyny Theatre

by Alison Hudson

February 10, 2014

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Donate Another double event this week, and I'm glad for it -- these recaps are getting harder and harder to write as the teams are eliminated and the remaining teams actually learn a little about, you know, how science is done. Luckily, this week bad science was replaced with rampant misogyny so I can continue to mock and deride. Let's go!



EPISODE SIX


This episode, the Field Test takes them to Willow Creek CA, the "Bigfoot Capital of the World" according to whoever decides these things.The teams are tasked with finding Bigfoot tracks, as well as the tracks of "any potential Bigfoot prey," because we still haven't figured out what the Hell Bigfoot actually eats yet so why not keep on guessing?The teams are being challenged to find animal tracks because as Dean Cain puts it, "If you can find Bigfoot's tracks, you can find the beast himself." Um, Dean, have you not been paying attention to the last fifty years of Bigfoot hunting? They find tracks all the time. Tracks are just about all they have.

This time, the teams are out of luck. They find "a shitload of tracks" according to Team Dudebro:bear, bobcat, elk, raccoon, coyote, but not a single Bigfoot track. I guess big woorden footprint stamps weren't allowed in the gear bags.

And oh look, Mike of Team Odd Couple has ditched the Ghille Suit for camouflage body paint. He says it's so he can "get into the woods and get into the mindset of an animal." Why didn't I call them Team Crazy again? Oh yeah, because Mike never claimed to strangle a baby Bigfoot until it shit itself.

The Hunt brings them to Six Rivers National Forest, and the teams are excited -- this is apparently the hot spot for Bigfoot sightings. Team Odd Couple is declared the winner of the Field Test and given a two hour head start. As they head off, they stumble on some unusual scat that Mike declares "matches descriptions of Bigfoot scat." How is it that all these people claim to know what Bigfoot scat looks like, and yet not a single one of them has successfully identified any so far? Anyway, Mike is so curious about this that he puts some of it in his mouth, ostensibly to "taste" what Bigfoot might be eating. Poor, poor Kat reacts the way any normal human being would.

Once the other teams head out to hunt, we get a string of the same old "Anything we don't recognize could be Bigfoot!" mentality: hair, tracks, and other things that probably don't belong to Bigfoot are all presumed to be evidence of Bigfoot. A couple of teams try to collect mosquitoes for DNA evidence. Team Camouflage finds another broken tree that must be a Bigfoot meeting place or something. Team Dudebro finds a tree stump and uses it as an excuse to float a new theory: Bigfoots live in units and use sentries. Totally stupid, but it lets them get all excited about collecting some hairs from a broken stump.

Oh, and also, Team Dudebro is apparently fixated on making Bigfoot horny. First it was the romantic firelit date night, and now they have -- I swear to you this is real -- "Sasquatch pheromone chips," which consist of -- and again, I am not making this up -- "a mixture of human vaginal secretions mixed with chimpanzee vaginal secretions."

No. Stop it guys. This has gone too far. In all seriousness, just stop it. I mean, what the HELL? Are you kidding me? Where did they get this idea? More importantly, how on Earth did these two get hold of human vaginal secretions? I'm guessing roofies must have been involved because I can't imagine a woman in the world who could stand these two long enough to get to that point. And I don't even want to begin to think about the poor chimpanzees!

Ugh. I think I need to take a shower.

The big event in this hunt happens when Team Crazy sees something in the distance. They whip out the infrared and get excited. It's body hot! And it's tall! And it looks like it's on two feet! And they got it on video!

It's ... something. I guess it could be human shaped, maybe. Or bear shaped. It's too far away and it's only visible on infrared, and all it really looks like is a white blobsquatch. We don't know what it is and neither do they, but of course that means it MUST be Bigfoot. Justin even tears up over the encounter. They think they have the ten million in the bag.

At the Evidence Review, all of the evidence gets dismissed. Again. Team odd Couple's mystery poop was deer scat. The hair in team Dudebro's sentry stump was feline. Mosquitos collected by two teams bit bears and humans but no Bigfoot. Team Crazy's video may actually be another team -- specifically, Team Camoflauge, who says they're the thing in the video. Team Crazy pushes back because they really, REALLY want the video to be authentic, but even Ro admits he was "disappointed" when he saw the video played back.

Because Team Crazy did not bring back anything better than a thermal blobsquatch, they are eliminated.

EPISODE SEVEN


This episode, they're at Bluff Creek, the location where the famous Patterson-Gimlin film was shot. Quick, everyone fetch their rubber ape suits!

Before they go to the Creek itself, the Field Test sends the final three teams into some whitewater rapids along the nearby Trinity River. They have to create a river survey map indicating where they think Bigfoot might be in the area, and also catalog any animals or animal tracks they see. So they boat down the river, mapping as they go. The teams all engage in some theory mongering; Team Odd Couple squabbles a bit; Team Camouflage pulls some dirty tricks. The rafting looked like fun but it made for dull television.

Meanwhile Team Dudebro is thinking about Bigfoot sex again. This time they have dropped all pretense and gone straight to the heart of the matter: if a female Bigfoot presented herself to them, would they have sex with it? Yes, they would.

At this point, I'm just ... ugh. Words can not express how repulsive Team Dudebro has become to me, though "vomit-inducing" might be a place to start. And this is the episode where they ramp up the misogyny against Team Camouflage, too, so they become even more reprehensible as the hour goes on. I hope the Squatching community is thoroughly embarrassed to be associated with these two.

The Hunt happens at Bigfoot ground zero: Bluff Creek itself. Team Camouflage wins the two hour head start, as well as a Bluff Creek map with the location of the Patterson-Gimlin site marked on it. They head there, of course, which may have been a bad idea; they're playing tourist, not gathering a lot of lame evidence to show the judges.

It's the final three and in the Bigfoot holy site, so of course teams are hyper-aware of every possible anomaly that might definitely, absolutely be Bigfoot evidence for sure. Team Camouflage finds a "feeding site"; Team Dudebro finds a trackway; Team Odd Couple finds some hand prints in the mud. Team Dudebro follows their trackway, thinks they hear a grunt in the distance, and then they find a "nest" -- what appears to be a "woven" Bigfoot shelter -- but apparently one with no hair, no scat, no food leavings. I guess Bigfoot has OCD when it comes to keeping the nest tidy.

I will admit, the trackway Team Dudebro found seemed interesting. The tracks looked pretty solid from the brief views we got on camera, and if more intelligent hunters with better critical thinking skills had come across them it might have made for an educational case study in Bigfoot track identification. Unfortunately, these two idiots found them, so instead we got no real science and a whole lot of lame conjecture. They didn't bring up sex though, so that's something.

In the Evidence Review, yet again there's nothing that actually holds up to scrutiny. Also, seems like no one submitted scat this time. Have they finally gotten the clue about that particular line of evidence?Things do get contentious, though, as the teams get feisty and begin calling each other out on their lame evidence. Mostly it turned into Team Dudebro and Mike showing Squatcher solidarity and attacking Team Camouflage while Kat looked completely mortified. Seriously, there was a lot of misogyny going on this episode.

Sadly, whether through their own poor effort or through the crude attacks they received from the others, Team Camouflage gets the ax.

The elimination didn't surprise me. It's been kind of projected throughout that Team Dudebro and Team Odd Couple were headed for a showdown at some point. I am in a position where I have to root for Team Odd Couple, which I don't mind. Anything to have to not see Team Dudebro walk away with the prize.

Next week: the end of the whole mess. Phew!

 

by Alison Hudson

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