It’s Day 13 on Outlast, Netflix’s thrilling adventure reality competition about survivalists in the Alaskan Wilderness, and we have our first serious health emergency. After two weeks without food, DELTA team member Jordan sees black spots, collapses and is evacuated in a helicopter.
The show must go on. Even when your bruh might die.
Paul secretly heads over to neighbor camp CHARLIE, they are on the same side of the river, and posits joining their team. Because DELTA is a disaster. Technically, Jordan is allowed to return to the game if he is healthy enough, but Paul is no dummy. He’s making moves. He knows that if he abandons DELTA, it’ll crumble. It would be near impossible for Dawn and Joel to make it on their own and they’ll have to quit.
A helicopter drops a letter from Jordan to his teammates. He indeed will not be returning. Dawn, Joel and Paul cry and shoot his flare off posthumously.
Across the river, ALPHA squad Jill, Amber, and Justin cannot contain their glee when they see another flare. “All I think about all day long is getting rid of these other players,” Jill says maniacally. She’d make a good cult leader, honestly.
Paul makes an “Irish exit” and ditches DELTA Dawn and Joel for CHARLIE. His power play goes over like a bear scat in a punch bowl. After his “cowardly” defection, the wheels come off the bus. Dawn is apoplectic, calling Paul a traitor and a “dirty despicable asshole…the trash took itself out for us.”
Joel is a smidgen more diplomatic: “So much for integrity. It’s a bitch slap in the face.”
“I gotta take care of mine,” Paul shrugs. “I gotta do what I gotta do.” He’s immediately taken in as part of the family, over at CHARLIE, where they enjoy talking about their favorite grilled cheese sandwiches over a lovely fire.
In the meantime, conniving ALPHA sees big opportunity when Jordan’s flare goes off. With enough food in their bellies, Jill says now that they know they can survive the Alaskan elements, it’s time to really play the game. “Who’s gonna pull the trigger first?” she wonders. We know who. You.
ALPHA discuss teaming up with neighbor BRAVO camp so their unified Southern bank can knock out DELTA and CHARLIE on the other side of the river. Jill wants to cut their heads off. “There’s nothing wrong with playing dirty,” Justin agrees. He might as well twirl his handlebar mustache.
BRAVO’S two remaining players, Javier and Brian, are super wary of ALPHA, especially after Jill suggest burning down the other teams’ camps. They’re just two nice survivalist dudes and ALPHA’s darker ideology is definitely not their vibe.
“Competition brings out the worst in people,” Javier adds. “I don’t think they see us as human.”
Oh, he has no idea what ALPHA is capable of. Jill and Justin discuss how stealing DELTA’s sleeping bags would be “catastrophic” to Joel and Dawn. Not to mention dangerous but meh, who cares. “That’s a disgusting thing to do to another person,” Brian says.
ALPHA decides to go forward with stealing the sleeping bags. Justin fashions himself a ghillie camouflage suit and sneaks across the river in his raft. DELTA is totally unaware they’re being targeted. Javier spots Justin’s river crossing and is shocked at ALPHA’s “devilish witchy” strategy. They make the brown bears look like teddy bears.
Justin steals the sleeping bags, but Joel and Dawn return to their camp earlier than expected and discover the missing gear. Justin has to hide in the bushes. Dawn punctures the tubes on the raft they find. Now Justin is in danger of not being able to return to his camp. He will freeze to death if he can’t.
“It’s Lord of the Flies here,” Javier says while watching the drama unfold across the riverbank.
While Dawn and Joel check the trail cams to see who stole their stuff, Justin takes off his clothes and swims across the river in his boxer shorts, pulling the sleeping bags on his damaged raft. It’s his only chance to make it home and survive. It’s 37 degrees outside, he could get hypothermia in a couple minutes.
Justin makes it back alive and moons the camera with his pasty white ass. “You can break our raft but not our spirit,” he jokes.
“They are crazy,” Javier exclaims. There will be no ALPHA/BRAVO alliance.
But ALPHA’s mission is accomplished. They’ve opened Pandora’s Box and there’s no going back. Outlast is no longer about Mother Nature, it’s about human nature. And it’s about to get real ugly.
