16x06 - Crawl to Redemption

[bunniefuu]

Time now for
the Bering Sea Gold
mid-season status report.

Who bathed in success?

Here it goes.

Best day ever.

I love it when a plan
comes together.

Who felt the bitter
taste of failure?

And now,

as the head to the back half,

will they ride out on
a hot streak?

Boo-ya!

This is
the best gold I've seen
in this season.

- Very funny.
- Ha!

Or be left out
in the cold?

You wanna get on
in there first?

- I'll get in there.
- Boo-ya.

- We'll have this all
warmed up and ready.
- Perfect.

As Shawn Pomrenke
begins the back half
of winter,

he finds himself in
an unfamiliar place,

on a losing streak.

Season started out hot.

Every hole was paying off.

This last one turned up empty.

Honestly, I can't even
remember the last time
that happened.

And now I got McCully
on my tail.

Not a good time for this.

So, I went back to
the drill rocks.

I'm pretty sure this is gonna
be a path back to redemption.

If it isn't, I'll be
scrambling on the second half.

Boo-ya! Good to go.

All right.
Made it to the bottom.

Seems like there's some fresh
ground out in front of us
here, Joe.

Fresh ground's the best
kind of ground to look at.

Yeah,
go ahead. Throttle up.

All right-y.
Here it comes.

Throttling up!

Ah, here we go.

See what's in there.

What do you
think of that ground out
in front of you?

Quite a bit
of sand down here.

See any gold yet
or what?

I'm looking for it,
buddy. I'm looking for it.

Aw, keep them eyes peeled.

Yeah,
it's gray hard pan.

And then it goes cobbled.

But just not seeing it.

No gold.

It's like a knife in my soul.

Brings on all these
bad emotions.

I just don't
see the color.

Got me thinking about
our next move already.

Yeah, let's
go ahead and let this
thing moved.

I'm coming up.

yeah.

Man, I must be losing
my touch.

Second spot in a row
coming up a bust.

Can't spend the rest of
my season hunting and pecking.

I hope moving away
from the Tomcod this season

ain't gonna bite me
in the a*s.

So, fingers crossed,

after we move, hopefully,
we get back on the good stuff.

We better just
keep moving, huh?

While Shawn
continues to struggle,

We got lots of ground
to work on.

About to tear this up.

Chris McCully keeps
on rolling.

You gotta keep making money,

can't stop now, you know?

This season's been pretty
sick already.

We've been crushing it.

And last time out, we found
a sweet new spot,

and we nicknamed
it Wall Street.

We pulled an all nighter
as soon as we found it.

We're all pretty drained
right now, but I don't really
wanna stop the train.

So, I've got a guest diver
that's coming in today

so we can keep the gold
coming in.

Jessie Holmes is a buddy
of mine,

who is the top Iditarod racer.

For years, Jessie wanted to
go ice mining with me.

He's in town for the race,

which is really good for me
'cause I really need
a diver right now.

We're on good stuff.

Right now, we're on
Wall Street.

So, you're gonna get
to experience stuff.

- There! See gold action.
- Wow.

This spot is really hot.

This is absolutely the perfect
spot for Jessie to go dive.

He's gonna keep
our team fresh.

And we're gonna keep loading
that box.

This is it. You're geared up
and ready to rock and roll.

Take it easy.

Mic check,
mic check. Jessie, copy?

Yeah, cool, cool.
Loud and clear.

When you get to
the nozzle, let me know,

so that we can idle you up.

Here we go, idle up.

So, how's the life below


You seeing gold?

Yeah, dude!

Whoo-hoo!

Jessie, I think you're
a gold musher now,

not a dog musher.

Back in Nome...

Well,
we're making progress.

We got it all the way through.

It went all
the way through?

- Yeah.
- Damn.

After a stellar
first half of the season,

Zeke Tenhoff's looking to ride
the momentum for the rest
of the winter.

All right,
we're in business.

Yeah, I almost totally lost
hope there for a minute.

The season's been going
super well so far.

And I wanna keep it going on
this next new hole.

We're saving a lot of time
with the hole melting device
that we've made.

But right now, we're on
a seriously thick
pressure ridge.

So, it's taking us a lot
longer than we expected
to melt through.

Like, it's honestly
pretty embarrassing

how long it's taking us
to melt though this ice.

It should take no time at all
to melt these holes.

It's already working
it's way in.

We've put it on
at two.

Hopefully, by three
it's punched through.

We went through
six feet of ice.

And now, there's another four
or five feet of ice to
go through.

Passing through
another layer, and then,
there's another layer.

All these chunks.
All this .

We got a dive hole, baby!

Great!

The hole melter
melted all the way through.

So, it's like, ten feet
of ice.

There' probably multiple
layers of pressure ridge.

A pressure ridge is where
the winds and the tides force
the ice into itself

and create a upside down
mountain of ice underwater.

Diving under this
pressure ridge is super scary

because these loose ice chunks
could float up and plug
your ice hole

that you dive in and out of.

I'm gonna suit up.

Our last hole we dug right
next to a pressure ridge,

and that was dangerous enough
for me.

But now, we're trying to
tunnel right directly through
the pressure ridge.

And that adds a whole new
level of danger.

But I suspect that the gold
is good enough that
it'll be worth it.

...pause for dramatic effect.

All right. I'm on the bottom.

I'm hoping it doesn't look
too dangerous

because we worked really hard
to get this hold cut,

and it'd be nice to pull
some gold out of it.

Pump action.

All right.

Let's just hope our hard work
pays off in gold.

If it shines
in dark, that's what it is.

Whoo, baby! The gold's good.

- Yeah!
- Yeah, baby!

The gold's that good.
It was all worth it.

It was all
worth it. Yeah.

That's what it is.

I got the cameras
hooked up and working.

The lights are working.

This machine's ready to
go in the water.

We're doing it today!

After spending half
the season working out
the kinks,

Kris Kelly is finally ready
to put his bottom crawler
to work.

So, we're gonna lift the gold
crawler up in the air.

We're gonna slide out those 4x4s.

And then, we're gonna jam it
in the hole.

That's what we're doing. So,
it's breaking the tradition.

Stand by in position.

- Does everybody know
their jobs?
- Yeah.

- One on each side of
the crawler.
- Yep.

Standby, let's rock and roll.

This season's been
a dumpster fire so far.

We're aiming for 75 ounces
and this crawler to do
its magic.

And so far, we have no gold

and the crawler
hasn't even gotten
underneath the water.

Let's do this, team!
Let's do this!

We finally have
everything ready. Cameras,
power supply, everything.

Trying to use an underwater
crawler in ice mining
sounds crazy.

But we're about to shock
Nome and get rich in
the process.

Hey, we're ready. Let's do it!

Going down.

That sucks.

We're . I don't know
what to do.

We finally got this thing
in the water and it's
going down great.

But Andy was too slow to get
the hose in the water,

and the suction hose
ripped apart.

One step forward,
one messed up step backwards.

The hose, where it connects,

we had too much weight on it.

And we should've pushed it
in a lot more.

It broke off.

What happened? Did you guys
just couldn't move this?

Right, we're trying!

Yeah, well, it broke.

- Yeah?
- It broke right off.

Yeah, everything broke.

me.

We were that close to
making it work.

We have to get this to work.
It's k*lling me.



Well, it's not gonna be
a full day. It's 2:20.

It's gonna be
a full day.

You can bet your a*s
it's gonna be a full day.

Well, a full day would be
starting in the morning.

A full day means
at least eight hours.

So, whatever you want to do
... We're diving today.

- I didn't say we weren't.
- I know. Full day.

It sounds more
like a half day,
but I'm not on half day.

You can do a half day
if you want.

Sweet. I think I will.

As the Riedel camp
starts the back half
of winter,

tensions are high, as the gold
output is disturbingly low.

So, it's like this. Emily left
to go have her baby.

And our plan is to get
at least 75 ounces of gold
for this season.

And so far we have,
let me count...

Zero. Nothing. Nada.

So much has gone wrong
and it's really frustrating.

So honestly, it's starting
to make everybody
a little irritable.

I know. Will do.

I get that I'm a newbie,

but we still need to all
do our part,

and we need to put like,
our big-boy snow pants on.

We need to get our
together and we need
to get gold.

Okay.

Okay,
sounds like a plan.



It's...

Um...

Your air is like, 100.

Okay.

Roger.

- Is that better?
- Um...



Roger.
That's happening.

- You're on 120.
- Okay.

So, for air pressure,
our optimal spot is 120.

If it gets too low,
the diver's not getting
any air

if it goes high, then our
system just goes wonky.

There's always a little bit
of a fine tuning,

especially, like, on
the onset of a dive.

I'm gonna keep watching
the gauge.

As I always do. So, there's no
reason to get testy.

It just keeps scraping down.

I know. It's filling
a lot right now.

It's just weirded out.

- Jeff...
- Don't tell him that.
Don't tell him.

- He doesn't need to know.
- Why?

- It sounds like a problem.
- No, it's not
a problem.

It's a situation.

- I know. But this has
never happened before.
- Oh!

So, throttle keeps
creeping down. Why is that?

I don't
know.
I'm not up there!

Hey, don't turn it that high!

That's way too much.

Okay, yeah.
I'm sorry. Just closing it.

Another day in paradise.

yeah.

Despite
the overhead threat of
the thick pressure ridge,

Zeke Tenhoff is closing in on
a multi-hour dive under
the ice.

There's cracks
in bedrock with pieces of gold
in it.

This is exactly what I was
expecting and hoping that
it would be.

Yeah, roger that.

We're moving ground,
we're making money.

Roger.

What's up?

Oh, .

That's exactly why
pressure ridges are
so dangerous.

Chunks of ice can break off
and float to the top of
your hole,

and essentially, cut you off
from the surface.

So, my tether got snagged in
some pieces of ice

and I had to wrestle it
to get it free.

It's scary. It's terrifying.
No doubt.

Damn.

This is like,
the sketchiest thing that
could possibly ever happen.

Honestly, if I'd come up
just a few seconds later,

there could've easily been
no path out.

The gold is super good here.

It might just be too dangerous
and hazardous to continue
mining at this spot.

So, we'll have to leave this
hole behind and find a new one
moving forward,

that's not under a giant
pressure ridge.

Sketchy.

Yeah, pretty sure.

It's not a cool ice hole.

So, it's time to bail.

Eight miles east,

Back a little bit.

Right there's good.

After two
straight busts,

Nome's most legendary miner

finds himself in desperate
need of rich ground.

We need to get onto
something real quick here.

Can't believe I'm saying
this but

if there ain't gold here,
we're in real trouble.

Even though we have
an efficient operation
and we can move quick,

we just can't spend every day
with nothing to show for it.

It's starting to feel like
now or never.

Hopefully, Joel taps into
something huge.

Get on
some gold, buddy.

What type of bottom
under the gravel?

Come on. Come on.

Yeah!

Big money.

Sometimes, you start
doubting yourself.

But you gotta believe that
you're making
the right decisions

and you're moving in
the right direction.

We're back on the gold,

and I have no intention on
letting up this season.

This is
badass, dude.

Yeah.

Welcome to BSG's
Mysteries of the Sea,

the only quiz show that
there is to ask,

what strange treasure
did Shawn's team find

hidden in the depths?

Was it, A, a wooly
mammoth tusk.

B, the remains of Kris Kelly's
burnt out shack.

C, an antique anchor.

Or D, the gates of Atlantis.

- What the...
- What?

If you guessed C...
...you're right.

- Yeah!
- It's a big anchor.

Tune in next time
to uncover more...

Mysteries of the Sea.

Hell yeah! Joel,
nice find, man!

Might've been 100 years
since this thing got surfaced.

Our mission is always
to find gold.

And thank God that
happened today.

But we're treasure hunters
at heart.

When we find something cool
like this antique anchor,

we just gotta shut down
and bring it up.

Nice job.

Not only did Joel find
this cool antique anchor,

he anchored us straight on
the hotspot to boot.

It's time to load up this box
day after day,

until this pay streak
runs out.

It's gold time.

They don't make 'em
like that anymore.

That's the tattoo I'm getting
on my forearm.

Nice job, Joel.

As Shawn gets
back on track...

I can't believe
a dog musher is sucking
up gold.

Keep it up!

Chris McCully isn't
missing a beat

as musher-turned-diver,
Jessie Holmes

has already logged four
solid hours on Wall Street.

Hey, idle down.
He's coming up.

Yeah, dude.

Even though we work
an all-nighter,

we still find a way out
to keep the gold rolling in.

Jessie k*lled it.

There's gold in the corner
of the box.

Team's fresh.
We're crushing it.

I don't think Shawn will be
able to catch up with me.

- Oh, my god.
- Yeah, look at that.

That's a little
nugget there, man.

Wow, man.

- That's pretty cool.
- Big piece right here.

I might be getting
a gold fever now, dude.

Cool, man. .

Well, technically,
the much bally-hoo'ed
underwater crawler

did make it into the water.

But not for very long.

We can do a quick fix
just to make this work,

but it won't swivel.

But at least, we'll get
gold today.

So, there's really only
two choices to fix this
suction hose.

First, we take the time
and money to do this right
and professional.

But honestly, we have no money
and we're running out of time.

Second choice, we do something
janky with the rope,

try to hold everything
together just to get gold.

Yeah, I'm going with choice
number two.

We got our quick fix in place,



but it's better than nothing.

We're gonna drop it down,
throw the hose in, and see
where we are from there.

Hey, are you ready?

Okay.

We just gotta finish
lowering this thing out.

Okay, ground floor.

Success!

Hey, we made it on the bottom.

The hose needs to come up.

And everything's good.

Yes, the MacGyver fix worked.

The hose is still attached

and the crawler has touched
down on the sea floor.

This is an epic moment
in Reaper Nation history.

Okay, go ahead.

I'm sending Andy down
there to check on everything

and make sure everything's
running smoothly.

Then it's time to start
sucking up gold, making money

round the clock,
with no divers.

Boom, baby!

Huddling up. Standby.

Here we go.

Well, I can see material
ripping on the sides.

Hey, is it sucking
material up?

Ha!

That's what
I'm talking about.

The defining chapter of
Reaper Nation history
has begun.

The crawler's working perfect.
No need for divers.

No limits to how long we mine.

This crawler will be our
ticket to the biggest
cleanouts Nome's ever seen.

You're right. This thing's
working.

It's working
great. Damn.

Oh, watch this .

Yeah, it
moves everything, dude.

Okay, well let's just
keep smashing into things.

This thing
takes it all.

Thank God
it's happening!

As one team
makes progress...

Ask him if he's
got suction.

Do you have suction?

"Kind of"?

Jane and her crew
are still struggling to
get on the same page.

Tell him eddy is messing
with the...

the machines.

eddy's messing
with the... with the...

- The pump.
- ...pump.

We have no gold.

We really needed today
to be a big one.

But instead, it's been
more of the same.

Issue after issue, after issue

and nothing is going smoothly.

It's starting to become
a combustible mess

that's ready to explode
this team.

It's not ideal. Like,
not at all.

How's my air?

You're at about
a 100.

I'm trying.

I'm inexperienced
and I'm trying.

Why would you say that?

What is your
problem, man?

- Yeah.
- Excuse me?

Because you have
a problem with us.

What the heck was that
all about?

I don't know.

So, that wasn't cool.

But I'm not surprised
something like that happened.

When you're not getting
any gold,

and when like, nothing's
going right,

tensions definitely boil over.

But at least screaming at me
is not gonna make
the situation any better.

In fact, things can go from
bad to worse in a hurry.

Uh-oh.

- What the hell?
- I don't know.

Uh...

- Okay.
- So, do you wanna
come up? Or...

Yeah.

All right. Copy.

How's that box looking?

- I just don't like it.
- I feel like we're...

- Wasting time?
- Dude...

I have
the same feeling.

I know.

Let's shut the pump up,
check the box.

Everything's falling
apart right now.

The only thing that can
turn this around

is if we actually got some
gold before Jeff came up.

Maybe seeing some ounces
on the scale would turn those
frowns upside down.

I can see gold in here.

- Oh, you can see
gold in there?
- Uh-huh.

Good.

Weigh it
and see what we got.



Man, at least it's something.


is worth about 1,200 bucks.

A meagre result,

especially when it's
the grand total for the season
thus far.

Still gotta
pay the bills.

This is not
"yippee-ki-yay" type gold.

But sometimes what you
gotta do is just

keep plugging away
until you hit.

Vernon Adkison's
season has been a rough ride.

And now he's hoping
to find a way back onto
the golden road.

We gotta get some gold
in the box and start paying
some bills.

I don't know exactly what
the I'm going to do.

- Well, we're .
- There's the clay.

Yeah, that's all clay.
That's all clay.

This is working.

Oh, it hits everything, man.

It may have been
a long march to the bottom
of the sea,

but the Kelly's crawler is
finally alive and kicking.

It looks good, James.
Look at that.

This thing hums, dude.

Finally, watching this
crawler work,

it's like a dream come true.

This season may have been
rough so far,

but I can finally see
the light at the end of
the tunnel.

We're gonna be out of the red
and into the black in no time.

Well, it runs
great, James.

Let's start moving some
ground now.

Look at that.

Okay, now watch it when
I pull it forward.

annihilating it.

Blocks of beautiful
black material.

Something's wrong.

It's not going backwards.
It's not going backwards.

Put your nozzle up
a little bit and back up.

Well, it's stuck.

It's 'cause of the
suction hose.

Well, that fell apart
in a hurry.

So, the crawler can
go forward, which is great.

But it can't go backwards.

So, as of right now,
it's completely impractical.

Probably 'cause there's
so many hoses wrapped around
each other going down.

There was no
organization done.

The lines weren't
checked properly.

It's a mess.

And I know whose fault
that is.

All you had to do was
untangle the hose from
the hydraulic umbilical.

Well, then what's wrong
with this thing?

It starts off on the right,
now it's all the way
on the left.

Do you think that's a problem?

Well, then why didn't you
take care of that problem?

I'll do it myself.

I'll do it all myself.

So, that's like a day's work
to get this .

And I'll be the one
fixing it, of course.

And I'll be doing it in
the morning,

so we just wasted another day.

Hooray for
Reaper Nation. Yippie.

It's like, almost
ten o' clock at night.

Let's shut everything down,

and tomorrow, I'm gonna go
down there myself.

I'll clean up my own mess,
like I always do.

I didn't really need a
idiot to look at the nozzle.

I needed a idiot to
move around the suction hose.

Can't get changed out
of here soon. Let's go home.

Just across
the ice...

I wanna get weighed up
and cleaned out.

We need more gold, for sure.

Busy as a one legged cat
in a sandbox.

Know what I'm saying?

After narrowly
escaping the dangers of
the massive pressure ridge,

the pressure's on
the Tenhoff crew

to deliver a big number
on the scale.

Previous holes, we did okay.

And it's like, we're kind of
like, at the same three ounces
a hole.

We spent three entire days
trying to punch a dive hole
through this pressure ridge,

only to find that it's
too dangerous to continue
mining right here.

That should be dry enough.

That's a lot of effort for
just one cleanout.

Hopefully, it's gonna prove
to be worth it.

But my gut is telling me that
we're gonna be disappointed.

That would be a bummer
and time is definitely of
the essence right now.

We're gonna weigh the gold
on the scale.

I'm excited to see what
it looks like.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

- A little over 666.
- No way.

Yeah, no. 6.9.

- Almost seven.
- Yeah!

- All right.
- Yeah.


is worth a hearty $13,000

and keeps Zeke and the boys
on pace

to break their 25 ounce
season goal.

That's a great haul.

That's good money
in my bucket.

We just need to like, grind
out a bunch of more holes

to be in a decent place.

Good news, that gold haul was
definitely more than
I was expecting.

The tricky part is that
we need to keep moving.

We need to find the next spot,
and then the spot after that

and keep this momentum going.

It's just simple math,
and it's like,

well, we know how much effort
it's gonna take to like,

do another seven
or eight holes.

You know? And I don't see
a reason why we can't do that.

We just gotta hustle.