8:01 This week's episode is titled "Bless Us and Keep Us Safe." That sounds an awful lot like the bible. And the first thing we see is Morgan (12-IN): "Sophia, do you think God put us here for a reason?" Sophia (14-FL): "God, I stopped believing in God a while ago." Oh man, my head already hurts from it getting beaten over with stuff.
8:04: Wait a second, every conversation in town is about religion all of a sudden. It's almost as if someone is manipulating reality. Zach (10-FL) gives someone the finger for insulting the story of Hanukkah. It's World War III up in this barn. If only there was more understanding about the true meaning of Chanukah (making Jewish kids feel less self-conscious about not celebrating Christmas) there probably wouldn't be so much sadness in the world.
804: When the Town Council consults the Olde Timey Journale, they are told that they have to start "feeding their souls." If this is anything like the chicken slaughtering episode of a couple weeks ago, feeding their souls is going to be very messy, and Greg (15-NV) will kill something.
8:09: Divad (11-GA) says that "putting Democrats and Republicans in the room together is like putting Hindus and Christians in the same room." I don't know what that means, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't either. Unless it means that Hindus and Christians differ fundamentally about the appropriation of income taxes and the effectiveness of gun control.
8:12: Alex (9-NV) takes a survey of everyone's religious beliefs. I'm not saying this is how the Nazis got started, but this is how the Nazis got started. He finds that there are three atheists, which seems like a ton of atheists considering the median age for participants is ten. In conducting the survey, Alex also splits the Muslim branch into Shia and Sunni, which, um, no. No, he didn't. Something tells me that these kids are not entirely without adult intervention.
8:15: On second thought, they might be more alone than I'd care to admit. Almost all the kids in this episode have bruises and cuts on their faces. But no one is talking about it. It's like they're all married to the same abusive husband, and the town is made out of staircases and so many opened cupboards. It's their own fault, really, they're just so clumsy!
8:16: Morgan organizes the kids for a prayer group around a fire. It's charming, really. Zach says his prayer in Hebrew. Everyone is hugging and saying stuff to God. Suddenly I feel unmoored, with little to no spiritual connection to the people in my life. Just kidding. God is dead.
8:22: Despite last week's tearful promise to work harder to earn the town's confidence, Taylor (10-GA) reminds us that when you're upper class you don't have to do any work, you can sleep in, and have seltzer fights with 15-year-old boys. Uh oh, I hope her parents packed her Dora the Explorer duffel with a healthy supply of RU-486.
8:25: The showdown. Remember how this episode is about God? Well what better way to celebrate the importance of religion in daily life than a timed challenge involving a life-size puzzle of a church, an elaborate pulley system, and a lot of screaming?
8:27: The blue team is just crushing on this one. It is pointed out that the blue team is filled with nerds, like four-eyed Alex, and the Indian one, so they're really good at puzzles. At the end of the competition, green is back to the laborer class. Yellow is back in the kitchens. Taylor immediately says that as the cooks she's not going to do anything and if everyone starves themselves, too bad? Any self-respecting band of unsupervised children would have murdered her by now, so clearly this is all fake.
8:31: Their choice of town rewards this week is a miniature golf course or A LIBRARY OF HOLY BOOKS? Guess what, you don't need either of these things. Apparently, they have enough medical supplies.
8:32: DK (14-IL) points out that "religious books doesn't sound as fun as an evening of golfing" and that pretty much sums it up. Thousands of years of religious belief versus one night of miniature golf. Not even good miniature golf, either, just a crappy Costco set laid out on a dirt road in the middle of the desert. In what is clearly just a façade put on to please their parents watching at home, they pick the bibles.
8:38: Kelsey (11-PA) sees Anjay (12-TX) praying to a Hindu shrine. She asks him, "What is Muslim?" Awesome question. And before you start defending her with claims that she just made a mistake, earlier in the episode she said, "I know a few things about Jewish." I'm not sure what sorority she's going to be rushing in 7 years from now, but I'm sure they'd be lucky to have her.
8:39: Cody (9-OH) cries while reading a letter he got from his girlfriend, Ashley. He's liked her since third grade, and he's nine now, so that's almost four months. He seriously goes to the saloon to get a root beer to drown the pain. If there's one way that this show has truly been groundbreaking it is in making crystal clear the direct line from indulging in soda to full blown alcoholism. Someone tells Cody that they need to get his mind off of Ashley, and asks him what he'd like to do. Cody says, "Going to look at cows is fun."
8:41: Taylor is not in the kitchen doing her job, because she is doing shots in the saloon. She is the best. She is sitting with Leila (9-NC), who is seriously wearing a coat with leopard fur trim. Everyone comes to yell at Taylor and she just laughs. Love her. She is going to make her husbands so happy until they get fed up and divorce her. I have one word for the ten-year-old boys out there: pre-nup.
8:48: Town Meeting: Taylor gets another ripping from the town, and even host Jonathan Karsh tells her that she either has a very tough skin or she just doesn't listen. She just shrugs and says she doesn't really care. Maybe a pre-nup is not enough. I have a new word for the ten-year-olds out there: vasectomy.
8:53: Cody leaves because he misses his family. No mention of the beloved Ashley. Trouble in paradise? Morgan wins the gold star. The perpetually bottom-ranked green team has won a disproportionate number of gold stars. It's a horrible lesson for the labor class of the world, because no matter how many outhouses you scrub, no one is handing you a surprise check for 20,000 dollars just because you gave that really powerful speech at breakfast about proving to your parents that you could live on your own for a month. If this show was realistic, only people in the upper class would get gold stars, and they would use those gold stars to open sweat shops. I'm against exploitative labor practices, but I would seriously buy sweat shop goods from "Kid Nation."
8:55: After another long day in Bonanza City, with all its ups and downs, Campbell (10-GA) goes to the saloon, and has some shots because he misses his friend Cody. I need a drink.
Next Week: It's election time in Bonanza City. I've got ten wooden nickels on Taylor crying bitter, perfumed tears during her inevitable concession speech.