The episode begins with Penelope (Megan Stott) bathing in the river and picking berries. After eating her fill, she spends the majority of the day collecting nuts, berries, and leaves. Upon returning to camp, the bundles of firewood, kindling, and her erected tent suggest that she’s becoming a regular survivalist. She turns her attention to her assortment of leaves and berries after preparing a pot of oats.
It isn’t long before the distance snap of a twig draws her attention elsewhere. While investigating her oats will somehow get knocked over and spill out on the ground. Suspecting that it was an animal in search of food, she immediately sets out to hang her food reserves from a tree, making them much harder to access. Unfortunately, the task proves far more difficult than she would have imagined. It takes some ingenuity and a bit of work but she will eventually accomplish her task.
Penelope is startled awake later that night by more noises that reveal something with rather large claws is trying to get to her food. The encounter apparently shakes her so badly that she begins crafting defensive weapons while her breakfast cooks. She isn’t nearly fast enough because a baby black bear shows up nearly at the same time the oats finish. The bear startles her so badly that she drops the oats but they do not go to waste because the bear eats them. This ultimately leads to spending the entire day at the camp, despite Penelope’s attempts to scare him off. She does manage to lure him away that evening but he’s the first thing she sees the following morning after exiting the tent.
Penelope practically throws her hands up in surrender and returns to foraging berries and leaves. The bear begins to follow her like a 6 o’clock shadow. After what appears to be several hours pass, she begins conversing with the bear while constructing a net for fishing. She’ll complete the net but using it successfully proves far more difficult. The bear sloshing around probably doesn’t improve matters and despite that, she will catch a frog.
She ends up sharing the frog with the bear as well as a conversation about how it came to be in her camp. Of course, the bear can’t respond but her conversation suggests that she feels bad about running away. She also suspects that she’ll be able to forage enough berries to sustain her until winter.
Later that night, she is woken by what sounds like frantic moaning from the bear. She exits the tents to not only find her food reserves strewn across the ground, but a much larger, more violent black bar. The episode ends with Penelope in flight.
Penelope Review
All around not a horrible episode and I surprisingly enjoyed Penelope’s time with the baby bear. Yes, it was a very unlikely, unrealistic scenario and all it needed to make it even more generic was a lifesaving rescue, but I enjoyed it. It’s also nice to watch Penelope hone her skills. Although she has challenges and struggles, things still appear to come too easy at times.
The solitude has been the most enjoyable thing about the series but I enjoyed this brief introspective encounter with the bear. It was rather revealing, and for that, I’d give episode 3 a 5.6 out of 10.
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