Original subtitles

♪ ♪

It's really easy, in this type of environment,

to just become your own worst enemy.

I'm so frustrated by not performing better yet.

The solitude, it's driving me insane.

I think I'm too far gone.

I'm tapping out; I'm done.

I will not spend another night in there.

This has been the longest day since I've been here,

and I think they'll probably get longer.

You spend a lot of time alone in the wilderness,

you better like yourself.

Pretty sure I just saw a cougar about ten feet by my front door.

I could hear it out there.

If I die tonight, I just want my wife

and my daughter to know that I think of them every day.

This is gonna be a bitch.

We have to film it, and we're totally alone.

Nobody knows what it's like here

except for the ten guys out here doing it.

Time to get shelter.

There's nobody here but me.

It's just so hard doing this alone.

I'm scared to death right now.

I feel like I'm starving.

Pretty sure I just saw a cougar.

Oh,.

The last man standing wins $500,000.

I don't want to go home. I want to win.

This is the chance in a lifetime,

but it's not worth dying over.

♪ ♪

Definitely the biggest fish I ever caught.

Time to dig in.

Mmm.

Pretty sure I just saw a cougar about ten feet

from my front door.

Two bright flashing eyes.

When my headlamp hit its face, it moved really fast

out of the way, silently.

I could hear it out there.

I have a flare in my hand, and I have my knife.

Everything is buttoned up, and I'm gonna try

to get some sleep.

We'll see what happens.

This whole cougar ordeal has been really stressful.

It could sneak up and be within two feet of me

if it goes on my side walls or my door.

I won't even know.

It was literally about 10 to 12 feet

from my tent.

Got my bear spray in front of me.

I don't want to use it in these close quarters,

but I don't want to die tonight, either.

I could hear it out there.

Everything I've read about them

is that if they decide to fight you,

you have to basically fight to the death.

Hope he decides to leave.

♪ ♪

Last night was the longest night I've had here.

I had a hard time sleeping.

I'm sitting here in my shelter.

All my stuff is still outside.

I want to build a nicer shelter eventually.

Then I don't have to worry about cougars, like, just

walking up on my tent ten feet from where I'm sleeping.

I haven't seen that cougar again,

but I think I'm just gonna hang out here for a bit,

work on my shelter a little bit.

♪ ♪

Check, baby.

Well, it's another beautiful day.

I didn't do anything too stupid so far.

I feel good.

I mean, it's a beautiful place.

It's not like any place I've been.

I might be the first one out, or I might be the last one out.

No one knows yet, but...

I will never forget these moments.

This is what life is about.

I watched a sea otter cracking mussels on his stomach.

I've never seen that before.

That stuff is just perfect.

It's just downright beautiful today.

Sun, blue skies, flat water--

perfect day in the perfect spot.

My goal is to push my own limits.

That could be good and bad.

You can really find yourself,

or you could really think of reasons to leave.

It's gonna be an interesting experiment.

The amount of stuff that comes in on this beach

with high tide is unbelievable.

There's cords and cords of driftwood.

Watch your toes, big boy.

It's just a matter of processing it down

and finding a way to keep it pretty dry

and keep it up out of the water.

Sea otter's still out in the cove getting fat.

I know it's a competition with a lot of money at stake.

It's life-changing money, but I can't be out here

thinking about that.

I have to be out here living in the moment,

doing what I need to do to become

part of this landscape--

not in the competition or as a television personality

but to thrive here for as long as I can.

Here's a frickin' pallet.

Unbelievable.

That's a wooden pallet.

I just found the front porch for my shelter.

Jackpot.

♪ ♪

A lot of today is just reevaluating, reassessing,

and kind of starting again,

forgiving myself for maybe making decisions

that maybe aren't the best.

I definitely lucked out on my site.

This place is unbelievable.

And there's an island out there.

I can't wait to get to it.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret:

I hope to build a boat and to be able

to do some fishing.

♪ ♪

I know we've got some weather moving in,

and there's water to be purified,

so I'm trying to stay ahead of the game on wood,

get it before it starts raining.

♪ ♪

This storm is coming in pretty quick.

Man, the sky looks evil.

Holy cow. My shelter is whipping around.

The tarp, at least.

Shelter's pretty solid.

I'm gonna go ahead and hunker down.

The temperature's dropping. Oh, man.

Yeah, it's definitely time to hunker down.

♪ ♪

So today is firewood production and battening down the hatches.

It's already starting to rain just little drops.

I'm just gonna chop up this whole tree

and just stack up some firewood.

I don't want to be caught with my pants down.

♪ ♪

Absolutely miserable weather, and I'm dragging this thing

back to camp,

trying to, without carving--

breaking it up into a lot of pieces.

One hand for the limb; one hand for me saw.

I'm feeling cranky today.

Ah.

Been in a pretty good mood since I got here

but not so much today.

Kind of over the weather for right now.

♪ ♪

It's blowing pretty hard down here on the beach.

I think I'm gonna go back up into the bush and--

I don't know-- the way this wind's blowing,

just lay around in the shelter and rest.

It's just howling.

I can't imagine how fire is gonna last up here

and not blow all around and burn a ton of material.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go--go up and batten down the hatches

and ride this storm out.

This is no joke.

This is gale force-- gale force stuff.

You can see I'm just surrounded by trees,

and I've heard three fall and one crack,

and that's just since this storm started.

This tree here is about 18 inches in diameter,

and it's swaying three, four feet at the top,

just back and forth, and the wind is just blowing

straight towards me.

♪ ♪

This is not a time to be in a forest like this.

I mean, it's just a debris field everywhere here.

I mean, it's bad.

It's bad.

You know, it's one thing to sit inside your shelter

on a down day, and, you know,

I've been rambling and rambling

about home and everything, but...

maybe that's-- maybe that's just a way

of me rationalizing that I'm-- I am afraid.

It's unbelievable.

Here comes the wind again..

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Houston, this ain't good.

I do not like this.

Rain is just now starting to pick up

as soon as I got down here.

Back to camp.

♪ ♪

The weather has really taken a turn for the worse.

Had to go outside and tie everything down.

Man, if it weren't for this big solid base

on this shelter, it'd just be gone.

Not what I was expecting for today.

We probably won't make it out to get crabs.

The tide has just barely gone down.

We're just gonna have to hunker down through this one.

There's a storm coming, because the rain is picking up,

and it's getting colder as well.

That's another sign there's a storm coming.

And it's coming quick.

It's gonna be here in maybe an hour or two

at the most.

It's just raining constantly here.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

I mean, it is just howling.

Makes me feel a little insecure about my shelter,

I'll tell you that.

I'm sure some people are thriving here,

but for me, this is way out of my area of expertise.

I am scared of these conditions,

because this is dangerous.

It's gonna get colder and wetter,

and the storms are gonna come more frequently as time goes on.

There's nobody here to help me.

There's nobody here to tell me what to do.

There's nobody here to give me advice.

I just hope I make it through the night.

♪ ♪

It's getting bad out there, guys.

This is the worst one yet.

It's rainy and very windy out.

It's blowing harder than I've--

today than I've seen it get.

Just about as bad as it gets.

The wind's probably blowing, like, 40, 50 mile an hour

through the trees, at least.

Then it hits the treetops, and you just hear it, like--

the trees just going, "Rrrow."

Trees are just collapsing.

I'm hearing trees drop.

Just things are falling all over the forest.

I'm tired. I just want to go to bed.

But sometimes you got to man the ship,

make sure this place doesn't blow apart.

It's just built out of sticks and rope.

It's intense.

♪ ♪

This is nuts.

Wind is just pounding against--

I'm surprised my shelter is still up at this point.

Man, I'm really gonna need to reinforce this thing

if these storms are gonna keep happening.

It's just been flapping all over the place.

Rain is coming down in sheets,

huge drops, heavy,

just "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom."

Shelter is just whipping around like crazy,

and you can just hear when a big wind comes over the sea.

You know, and we're on the--

we're on the west side of the island,

the spot where all the crazy weather comes through,

you know, pretty much unimpeded by anything,

from the--from the Pacific.

♪ ♪

There's something about this place,

just pulls it out of you.

Been out here alone for so long, it's like, I can't stop thinking

about, like, the way my wife looks at me sometimes.

I really miss my family.

It's real.

Now I'm starting to question myself.

You wonder if the people in your life really know

how much you love them.

Sitting around all day sucks.

I'm not sure why I wanted to do it, to be honest.

This is just completely different

than any other thing I've ever done.

It makes me question, you know, why be here?

This environment's tough.

It's just what's inside me that's tough sometimes too.

I'm just--just breaking down a little bit.

♪ ♪

I don't like being in these situations at all.

If it doesn't get better, then I might go home

and continue on with my life.

♪ ♪

It's time to go.

There is hundred-foot-tall trees right outside my shelter,

just swaying back and forth.

You know, you're just insignificant in this landscape.

I am afraid.

I didn't come here to get killed.

I just came out here to prove this to myself,

and that's no reason to come out here.

I have to live with my decision.

I don't have any regrets coming here.

I've learned a lot,

and today is the best I could do.

Whether it's day 5 or day 14 or day 21,

it doesn't matter.

I mean, nobody knows what it's like here

except for the ten guys out here doing it.

♪ ♪

I'm just gonna go down to the beach, hike around,

see if I can get any easy-to-catch prey.

I know there are little crabs in the area,

so who knows?

Maybe today will get me where I need to go.

♪ ♪

The fact that my wife is pregnant,

that just really kills me.

I have this duty to protect her and to take care of her

and to comfort her, and being out in the woods,

you can't do that.

You have to just hope and pray that she's fine

and that she is somehow gonna get through it.

♪ ♪

Bunch of 'em.

Man, just a bunch of crabs.

This is awesome.

Official count: 33. 33 crabs.

That's a ton. That's--

I mean, they're small, of course,

but this is so freaking awesome.

♪ ♪

Oh, man. Holy crap.

Oh--oh, shoot.

♪ ♪

Oh, man.

♪ ♪

Easily one of the best tastes I've ever had.

Maybe it's 'cause I'm starving.

♪ ♪

Last night was a crazy storm.

I didn't get hardly any sleep.

It was just nasty,

blowing and blowing and blowing, raining,

and more wind than I've ever experienced so far,

but today is all about making a boat.

♪ ♪

So--so on a canoe,

you have the front and the back,

the bow and the stern, and I'm gonna be making

the internal frame pieces for that.

It's where all the wood will come back around

and tie into these pieces-- the front and the back.

And so I've got a piece here.

I'm gonna split it into two, and then I'm gonna

whittle it down, chop it down

so it's obvious-- they're pretty similar,

and--and they'll be the front and the back

of my canoe, essentially.

I'm trying to understand my situation.

If you're living out in the wild,

you want to be close to water, which I am,

and you want to be close to food,

which I am not.

And if that's the case, I need to get a boat going,

or I need to live right down next to the ocean,

or both.

And so I want to explore and see if there is a place

that would be better to camp.

If I can make a little canoe, I can cruise around

and find a good location, maybe even build

before I get there, maintaining this as my camp,

or I can just do my daily trips from my boat,

and that would be enough for food.

That's pretty much the shape I want.

♪ ♪

All right.

Just found a cedar pole for my canoe.

I'm gonna split it down the middle.

♪ ♪

What I'm doing with wood is making a frame,

so think of it kind of like a basket,

and then I'll take a tarp and then wrap it

around that basket, which will create

the waterproof membrane; it's called the skin.

Switching up game plans.

Trying to be flexible.

Darwin is often misquoted or misunderstood.

A lot of people quote Darwin as saying

it's "the survival of the fittest."

I think, really, what his work says is,

"survival of the most adaptable,"

and that means being able to roll with changes and punches

and things like that.

And certainly out here, I'm gonna have to do that a lot.

Not gonna work.

♪ ♪

Sometimes I get my mind fixated on an idea,

and then when that idea doesn't work out,

I get all disgruntled.

♪ ♪

I think there's a lot of pressure,

coming out here to do something great,

you know, to be someone great

and to make people proud, make my family proud.

♪ ♪

Well, I just had a...

I think the first good cry I've had

in a long time.

♪ ♪

I think I just, like, cried for the last ten minutes

on my knees,

asking for help.

♪ ♪

But I came here 'cause I wanted

to do something great.

♪ ♪

I wanted to-- I wanted to...

make my family proud

and my friends.

And I just don't want to feel like I'm a loser.

Sometimes I just feel so alone.

I mean, of course I do right now,

but just sometimes I feel so alone.

♪ ♪

I just want to feel like I've succeeded in something.

If I can build this boat and get it to float,

I'll walk away with my head up high.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Today is gonna be a big day getting stuff done on the canoe.

If I can make a little canoe, I can cruise around

and find a good location,

maybe fishing from the boat.

I can just do my daily trips from my boat,

and that would be enough for food.

♪ ♪

If I miss any one of these little poke-y branches,

it could mean sinking in the ocean,

because it could puncture through

while I'm putting weight on it, and I can't have that.

♪ ♪

I've never built a canoe in my life.

My father taught me a lot of the basic skills.

He taught me ingenuity.

He taught me craftsmanship.

And he's an amazing man.

♪ ♪

I really took a lot from my parents.

I learned a lot from them.

And my father, as I grew up,

was definitely a hero of mine.

Does this job come with paper towels?

Maybe some hand sanitizer?

♪ ♪

You know, there's this moment

where me and my brother Sam were helping him get firewood.

I was probably, like, nine, and Sam was probably,

like, five or six, and I went up to Sam,

and I was like, "Sam, do you think Dad's amazing?"

He's like, "Yeah."

And I'm like, "Sam, do you think Dad's your hero?"

And he's like, "Yeah, definitely."

I'm like, "We should just say it."

It took me so much courage to come up to my dad

and, as a kid, say, "Dad, you're my hero."

And he was like, "Wow."

And we were kids, and that was cute and all,

but, like, we really meant it.

Like, this--this guy is a... is a special human being.

This guy isn't a survival expert, not at all.

I didn't grow up with a dad like that.

I didn't need to.

He w enough.

So...

thanks, Dad.

Okay, got the front and the end tied on the canoe,

and now it's just gonna take some more

getting poles and time.

Um... I'd say I'd be setting sail

in the end of four days.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The emotional experience and the spiritual experience

that's happening out here is profound.

The same stuff that's playing out in my life

plays out out here, like,

"I don't know where I should be.

Is this the right place?"

That's the question I ask myself,

whether I'm here at this camp, like,

"Is this the right place?"

or I'm out in the real world,

like, "Should I be doing this right now?

Is this right?"

I just have so much pressure to be something great.

♪ ♪

My parents went through a split when I was 14, 15.

I think my mom needed something else,

or she was feeling like maybe something

in her life wasn't working out.

I think she wanted-- I think she wanted

to do something great.

I'm more emotionally raw than I thought I'd be.

I'm chewing on it right now.

It's coming up.

♪ ♪

There are things out here that make my heart go pitter-patter--

you know, when I hear a big, crashing noise

in the bush at night and I get up.

But what I fear most isn't out in these woods.

I'm feeling things I don't think I've ever felt,

because there's always been distractions.

And with everything just completely obliterated

out of my life, like, nothing--

no phone, no computer, no friends,

I actually feel what it's like to be me.

♪ ♪

Getting there, slow but sure.

It's cold today, though.

♪ ♪

Yeah, I wonder if what I'm looking for

is really to be the last survivor

or more so just really to see what's inside me.

♪ ♪

Whoo!

This whole process has been quite a roller coaster

of emotions, and I wonder

where it's gonna take me.

♪ ♪

It's getting tougher and tougher as the days go by.

♪ ♪

Really, really difficult at times.

All you want to do is go home and be warm and dry

and eat some good food and talk to your wife

at the end of the day.

That's all you want to do.

So while part of me wants to, like, go back to my shelter

and mope all day, the other part of me

just wants to go get some food.

So what I'm gonna do is go on a hunt

for some bull kelp.

They're pretty much all over, but I want to find a newer one,

one that's not all brown and gross.

Even though it's not fish, it's something, you know?

♪ ♪

There's something really peaceful about this place,

how it's just surrounded by these beautiful, towering trees.

♪ ♪

Everything's so green and lush.

I'm not--I'm not usually

a sentimental guy,

not really.

I try to just be goofy as much as possible.

There's something about this place,

just pulls it out of you.

For all of week one, I just pushed it.

I just pushed it aside as hard as I could.

Like, I didn't-- I didn't think about home.

I didn't think about my wife or my soon-to-be little boy.

There's something about it,

being out here alone for so long.

It's like, I just can't-- I can't stop

thinking about them, because I knew,

the second--the second I thought about those guys,

it would just tear me up and my days here

would just be numbered.

♪ ♪

A lot of rain here.

This is a severely rainy environment.

I find it disagreeable.

So I'm sitting here rubbing two rocks together,

working on my sharpening stone some.

As far as the tides go, I've pretty much settled

into a two-meal-a-day thing,

because there isn't a lunchtime tide.

There's just a breakfast and supper tide, that's all.

I've eaten about twice a day, I guess.

And what's funny is, I feel satisfied

on the smaller portions.

This is how hunter-gatherers ate.

You know, they ate what they needed.

They didn't do anything that they didn't have to.

They conserved their energy, and they lived smart, you know?

There's no point in burning energy that you don't have to.

In modern society, we would look on that

as laziness, but I look on it as efficient.

Efficiency.

♪ ♪

So I'm out here scouting, and I'm following

this game trail that's near my camp.

One thing I see on this game trail

is some bear scat.

Looks like this bear has been eating a lot of berries.

♪ ♪

We follow this...

and see a big burrow right there,

or a den.

That might be the-- the bear's home right there.

I'm not sure, but I don't plan on checking.

♪ ♪

Well, I'm about to put the canoe in the water,

and I feel like this is a-- this might be it for me.

Today is a big day.

It's a cold day too, so while it's a big day,

to see if this actually floats, I've got to be prepared

for the fact that it doesn't.

I might even go in the drink.

And if I get wet and it's 40 degrees out--

it's plenty cold--

I've got to be prepared for that,

so I have a few extra pieces of firewood gathered.

I normally would get my firewood at night,

but I've got some going now.

I've got a good fire going.

My sleeping bag's ready.

I've got dry clothes set up.

I've got my paddle carved.

Pretty much, it's just hauling the boat down--down the way.

This is--this is big, guys.

♪ ♪

Whoa.

Okay...

If I get this moving, I can do fishing from the boat,

I can start getting bottom feeders,

and I have access to beaches, and also,

I can see that there's tributaries across the way.

There's rivers, so there's got to be salmon at the base.

So I open up the door for my resources

to go from shore fishing and gathering mussels

to opening up and being able to go so much further

and even potentially moving my camp.

But first things first-- I got to see

if this floats, so this is huge.

♪ ♪

In the future, I want to put more--

I want this to be sewed on, and...

have a bunch of security at the ends.

Right now, it doesn't, but that's about

as good as it's gonna get.

And if she doesn't float right now, then, well...

I'm just going big.

It's probably my nature to a fault

to want to do things to the next level.

It's possible that this is actually what takes me out

or what shoots me through the roof.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Today is a big day.

I'm about to put the canoe in the water.

If I get this moving, I open up the door

for my resources to go from shore fishing

and gathering mussels

to being able to go so much further

and even potentially moving my camp.

So this is huge. This is huge, huge.

It's a cold day too, so I've got to be prepared

for the fact that if I get wet and it's 40 degrees out,

it might be it for me.

And if she doesn't float right now, then, well...

what do I say?

♪ ♪

I'm just going big.

It's probably my nature to a fault

to want to do things to the next level.

It's possible that this is actually what takes me out

or what shoots me through the roof.

It's just kind of one of those situations.

♪ ♪

Oh, my God.

It works.

Oh, my God, I can't believe it.

Ugh, all these branches in my face.

Oh, my God.

I've got a boat, man.

Is it leaking?

I don't see it.

This is amazing.

I'm out here in the middle of the water.

It's dangerous and hypothermic

and stupid if I fail,

but it's working.

And now it just needs a little modifications.

It tracks pretty hard to one side.

Oh, my God, this is so scary.

I can't believe it.

This is freedom, this ability to explore.

♪ ♪

Whoo!

Yeah!

I got a boat.

Oh, my gosh.

It don't--it don't... always go straight,

but it works.

♪ ♪

I did it.

I made a boat.

♪ ♪

I'm gonna make a cooking camp.

I don't want it really close to my sleeping camp.

Don't want any unwanted guests.

Oh, my gosh, I'm catching the current.

Huge, tremendous whirlpools.

How am I gonna get home?

I can't make these currents. It's just too much.

My gear is growing mold.

It's been wet for so long.

That's bad news.

See the mold? It's not good.

It's the hardest on you psychologically and physically.

It's just relentless.

Days like this make you want to hit the old button.

Cold, wet.

Who wants to sleep in that environment?

I just feel raw out here. I feel really raw.

♪ ♪