Tribe Leader Episode Recaps

Series 3, Episode 06

Previously on the Tribe: May and Salene participated in a Chosen ceremony, to the rest of the Mallrats' disapproval. Dal went to Eagle Mountain to dig up Amber's grave and found she wasn't actually in it. He and the others traveled to Pride's tribe and were stunned to see that Amber was alive and apparently Pride's tribe leader.

Amber, or rather Eagle, is not happy to see Bray and the others. In fact, she's cold and forbidding and ignores them while she speaks to Pride. She orders him to escort them to the edge of the forest. After they've gone, she plans to move camp. Well, that's a bit extreme, don't you think? Those treehouses aren't exactly modular and won't travel well either. Pride's like, what, tonight? Yes, tonight! She's disappointed in Pride and wonders what exactly he was thinking bringing strangers here. Eagle returns inside the treehouse as Bray bewilderedly calls for her to wait. Pride, clearly confused by her reaction, tells some of the other members of the tribe to watch them as he follows her inside.

Ebony, Lex, Bray, and Dal are surrounded by forest people. They try to move beyond the shock and process what they just saw. Ebony guesses that explains the empty grave. Oh yeah, crystal clear, adds Lex. Bray and Dal are still staring after Amber, shell-shocked. Bray wants to know if he's dreaming, unsure whether what he just saw was real or merely the thing he's hoped for secretly for months. Ebony thinks Amber's changed, become a whole different person, because she acted as if she didn't even know them. She seems sincerely surprised by the transformation, and knowing Ebony, maybe even a little respectful. It's the Amber Lex remembers though. That doesn't even make sense. First of all, that wasn't at all like the old Amber. Second, Lex was not too long ago agreeing that she was a natural leader, had strength of character, etc. Is he schizophrenic or something? I mean, I get he's not her biggest fan, but…whatever, fine, I'll shut up. Anyway, Dal says it doesn't matter. Who cares if she's changed, she's alive and that's all that matters.

Eagle paces agitatedly inside her hut, turquoise feathers streaming along behind her. I suspect that color feather does not actually exist in nature. Pride follows her inside and immediately starts questioning her behavior. Doesn't she think the tribe council should decide their fate? She points out, quite reasonably actually, that their fate isn't the tribe's problem. No one asked them there. Pride did, actually, and he thought the tribe should hear them out. She doesn't respond aloud, but continues pacing and stares rather balefully at him. He asks that at least they be allowed to stay the night as they're tired and hungry. Amber grudgingly agrees, not completely devoid of compassion even though they're the last people she wanted to see.

Pride pauses and then asks if it's true that she was a Mallrat and fought against "the Evil One," Zoot. He wonders why she never told him and she tries to dodge the question. "We've got to look to the future now; there's no point in looking back." "Not even to make sure our enemies aren't following us?" he asks. She assures him that Zoot is dead and she was a witness, though as he points out, that's what they're saying about her as well. Pride brings up the story she told him about "being reborn on Eagle mountain." He's seen the grave with her name on it. Eagle tells him she didn't mean the story literally, though it certainly fits the literal meaning too. "I meant," she says as she takes his hands in her own, "I was reborn when I met you and the others, in the sense that my life changed for the good and for the better." Pride looks away from her, questioning her perhaps for the first time. He sees why she fears the Mallrats: because they remind her of her past. Eagle tries again to brush it off, correcting him that she fears all "city dwellers." If he'd seen what she had when she lived in the city, he would fear them too.

She finally asks him to leave so that she can get some rest. He turns away in sad frustration, but pauses at the door. There's something she needs to know. "You're not the only one to be reborn. Zoot lives on through a group called the Chosen; they rule the city with an iron fist. They almost executed Bray. I got there just in time."

Pride cares deeply about Eagle and has great respect for her. In some ways she seems more of a mentor to him than a romantic relationship. But I would venture to guess (since Nick Miller's acting is more wooden than a log and it's really hard to tell for sure) that she's hurt him deeply by keeping these secrets and he feels betrayed by both his mentor and the woman he might love. He would never reveal that pain to her though in order to spare her pain. Pride is devoted, and only continues to be so. He really does deserve more than what's coming.

Pride leaves Eagle confused and thoughtful, remembering a montage of her moments with Bray before it all ended on the mountain. There's the moment she met Bray in the sewers beneath the Mall and later, when they were still dancing around their potential feelings for each other, she remembers him asking, "Isn't it worse to pretend? To live a lie? I mean, what about love, Amber? Doesn't that count for anything?" Their first kiss and the morning after on the roof where they analyzed their budding relationship and pledged their feelings for each other. And finally, after they'd left the city and Bray tried to talk to her at the river about her Ebony misconceptions, where she tells him to drop dead. Quite a storied past in just a few months.

The Mallrats sit outside, resting and having a drink of water. Bray is off by himself, his back to the others, in a shocked stupor. Lex tries to puzzle through the events of the explosion. He hypothesizes that Amber was knocked out and looked like she was dead. "Somebody buried her alive, you mean? Seems kind of careless, don't you think?" Ebony asks. Yeah, Ebony, it's careless to bury someone when they're not actually dead. Rude even! Lex wants to know if medic Dal examined the body. Dal doesn't like the accusatory tone and repeats what he's already told them: he couldn't look at the body at all.

Bray surfaces from his confusion and longing and says how crazy it is that they're asking themselves all these stupid questions when the answers are only meters away. He rises with intent and Lex and Dal jump to their feet too late. Pride yells at some of his tribemates to stop Bray, who shoves one kid out of his way and climbs the steps to Eagle's hut. He's stopped there by two guards, and I use the term loosely, with staffs. I'm wondering if those guards are always there or if they were put there because of their visitors. Did Amber request them or were they Pride's idea? Bray demands to speak with Amber, "Or Eagle, whatever her name is!" He shouts her name and Eagle can hear him perfectly inside her hut, though she chooses to remain hidden and silent. Pride tries to diffuse the situation and get Bray to cease and desist. He did all that Bray asked of him and broke his tribe's law in the process. "Now you must leave." Bray is understandably pissed. After coming all this way and finding out that Amber is actually alive they're just supposed to leave? I don't think so. Pride thinks Bray should get some rest as they'll need it for their fight against the Chosen. Bray refuses. He won't rest until he knows the truth. He goes back to yelling at Amber. "I know you're up there so come on out. It's me, Bray." Thanks for clearing that up, Bray. "Remember? Or is it just that you don't care anymore? Amber, if you don't want to know me anymore, at least have the guts to tell me to my face! Amber!" She paces in her hut, trying to block out the sound of his voice, and the press of old memories, to no avail.

The sun sinks behind the clouds, and the horizon, and night falls. Bray tries to sleep beside a fire, but is beset by nightmares in which he relives receiving the news of Amber's death at Eagle Mountain. He tosses and turns as he hears Lex telling him she's gone and that they've got to stick together. Then, apropos of nothing, he remembers Ebony telling him at the golf course that she loves him. It's clumsy and stupid and really pisses me off. At this point, Bray should have no inkling that Ebony was involved with Amber's fake death. Are they trying to imply that his intuition is telling him she was? Because he's never used his damned intuition for anything else, why would he start now? He's thick as a board when it comes to Ebony and I find it unlikely if not impossible that he would think of her now. So irritating, but again, whatever. Lex and Dal manage to sleep through Bray's thrashing about and moaning like a sick hippo, but Ebony merely sits watching him, wrapped up in a blanket and contemplating her imminent downfall.

Back at the Mall, Ellie brings Alice a cup of water and joins her at a table in the café. Alice makes some joke about champagne bubbles, but I just roll my eyes and don't care. Ellie doesn't want to play along, still gloomy over Jack's exile, but gives in and creates a fiction about the Chosen being a rock band and the Guardian is the lead singer and what the hell are talking about? I honestly don't care. I get that they're trying to make the best out of a bad situation, or whatever. But most of the time I find the two of them patronizing and condescending to the others - specifically Patsy, Cloe, and Salene - during this whole situation, so I have a hard time caring about their silly little games.

Thankfully, Luke interrupts them and I don't have to listen to any more of it. He wants to know what they're doing in the café and suggests, rather kindly, that they return to the others. Alice carries on with the joke, saying that they're just having a laugh and trying to take their minds off their hunger, but Ellie has lost interest in the fantasy. She doesn't want Alice to mention their troubles around Luke. But he has always seemed more compassionate than the rest of his brethren. "There's no need for anyone to be hungry. Not when you can be fed the word of Zoot." That doesn't make sense, but I'll allow it because I like Luke. He comes up behind Ellie and hands her the apple he was about to bite into, telling them to return downstairs.

Alice wonders what to make of such a gesture coming from one of the Chosen, but Ellie just wants to eat. Alice stops her and points out the significance of the fruit. "Apples have been doing people in since the beginning of time. Remember Adam? And Snow White. Both lured to their fate by a shiny, red apple. Just like the one in your hand." Her delivery is perfect: she's all serious and solemn about it. Oh, alright, that was funny. But they sober up when they consider what exactly he meant by being "fed the word of Zoot."

In the forest camp, Dal and Ebony are eating their breakfast around the fire while Bray sulks. "I'll say one thing for these creeps, they know how to eat." Ah Ebony, ever the diplomatic ambassador for your people. She can't help but notice Dal's slight coldness towards her and asks after its cause. He thinks it's strange that Amber's showed up alive and Ebony doesn't seem to be surprised at all. She claims that seeing half the population kick the bucket because of the virus has made her immune to surprise. She admits that Amber wasn't her favorite person but she didn't wish her harm and is happy to see her alive.

Again, they're trying to establish Dal's suspicion of her complicity, but I'm not buying it. She did exclaim some surprise, but they're implying that Dal has some sort of intuition about her involvement. Are we supposed to believe these characters have suddenly developed extra-sensory abilities?? Oy.

Lex returns, having mingled with the tribe and gathered information about them. "They call themselves the Gaians after some idea from the old days when they believed the earth was one giant living thing. They each take their name from an animal or a bird and that becomes their spiritual guide. They learn important things from it." He delivers this information with the world weary air of an anthropology professor and the impression that he thinks they're nuts. It's rather funny. Bray, however, is boring and makes a bitchy comment about Amber being an Eagle now. Shut up, Bray. Ebony thinks it's clear that the Gaians would be no use in a fight, but Lex thinks she's pretty quick to forget how Pride took them down. Ebony attributes that to home court advantage and that to win back the city, they'll need city kids. Pride wasn't on home ground when he helped Bray escape, though.

Speaking of Pride, he comes to tell Dal that Eagle has asked to see him. Bray, predictably, throws a tantrum and stalks off. When Dal hesitates, it's Lex who encourages him to go. Oh how the roles have gotten all jumbled up.

Dal goes up the stairs to the hut and Amber meets him on the small balcony/porch. She awkwardly asks how he's been (she pronounces it beeean) and wonders why he hesitates. He still doesn't really believe she's alive. She promises him she's no ghost and reaches out to touch his arm as proof. She smiles at him and they hug, two friends reunited after tragedy and suffering. She interrupts him before he can say he's missed her and she returns the sentiment. He gazes at her wonderingly, and it reminds me a little of how Pride looks at her.

Dal asks her how this happened, how she managed to cheat death and reappear months later and miles away as leader of another tribe. She claims to not remember much as she blacked out after the explosion. "It all seems so long ago," she says apologetically, leading him inside the hut. They sit and she tells him what happened as she remembers it. They were all standing around in the observatory listening to recording when the lights went out. Jack and Dal went to check on the generator and the next thing Amber knew, the whole place exploded. They use footage to imply she left the room before the others, but it's actually a shot of when she left to go after Bray. Everyone was screaming and evacuating the building but Amber was still inside. "I must have suffered a blow to the head. There was smoke everywhere, and heat. I remember thinking I was gonna die." She coughs and stumbles, trying to see through the smoke before finally collapsing. "Then things kind of went hazy for awhile. When I came 'round I was outside and it was morning. I was cold and weak and I had no food or water."

Dal earnestly assures her that they would never have left Eagle Mountain if they'd known she was still alive. He tells her about returning to the city to search for the antidote to the virus and finding it. "After that we were in great demand. Made a change from hiding all the time. We were top dogs for awhile, kings of the city." Amber's no fool and sees immediately where this is going. "Power corrupts, right?" They did their best, he says, and maybe even saved a few lives in the process. She should have been there. Which brings us back to her story. He still doesn't understand why she didn't come back to the Mall. "Things happened, Dal." We see Pride (with some funky ethnic music in the background to show how earthy he is) traveling along when he discovers Amber. "Pride found me halfway down the mountain. If he hadn't, then I really would be dead now. I don't know how long I lay in a fever; it seemed like weeks. All I know is, when I finally came out of it I'd become a sort of honorary Gaian. I'd been adopted, sort of. And the strangest part was, I didn't mind a bit." We see a montage of her time with Pride as he teaches her to fish using the spear Lex had admired. "I learned to hunt and fish, grow crops. I learned the ways of the forest, taking only what you need to live. One earth. And before long, though I never planned it, I was made tribe leader." She stands in a small circle, we're talking like eight people. Damn this is a small tribe. Anyway, she stands in the circle as Pride places some kind of necklace around her neck and everyone cheers. She takes off her ring, the one she'd previously given to Bray, kisses it and gives it to Pride who steps forward smiling to hug her.

"So you chose to forget about us," Dal says. She denies it, but says she did decide to start over. She can't imagine going back to the city now. This place, the Gaians, is the paradise she and Dal always dreamed of finding. She offers him a place with the tribe, saying he can be a part of it. He seems like he might consider it for all of a second, but declines. He couldn't join them while the Mallrats are still in danger. And this paradise might not last anyway. "Things are happening back there, Amber, bad things. It's like the virus all over again. Except this time, there's no adults to blame." Does he mean the new tribe, the Chosen? They're not just a tribe, he tells her. They're making slaves out of everyone and they'll do the same to the Gaians eventually, no matter how well they're hidden.

"You mean unless I join forces with Bray and Ebony? They're the last two people on Earth I'd ever help. They make quite a couple though, I'll say that." She gets all snotty about it, which is kind of amusing since up to this point she's been the responsible, visionary leader. Dal scoffs incredulously at their being a couple. They hate each other, he says, always have. Well, that's not exactly true. They didn't always hate each other and they seem to be getting along okay now that she's saved his life. Amber tries to nonchalantly ask who Bray is with if it isn't Ebony, and Dal awesomely tells her she should ask Bray that question if she really wants to know. Dal can't act, but he's one of the best characters by far.

Amber then tries to make apologies for how it looks throwing them out like this. The Gaians have worked hard to make a life for themselves and they don't want to jeopardize it. Although, technically, at this point it's just her that wants to kick them out since she hasn't give the tribe a say. He forgives her, quite nicely I think. She asks after his life and if there's someone special in it. He thinks of Ellie for an instance, but she's not his. He says there's no one and that maybe his standards are just too high since no one could ever replace Amber. And also maybe you've only ever met one girl. You gotta get out more, dude. Just a thought.

Pride speaks with Lex, Bray, and Ebony and apologetically wishes them luck. Lex isn't in the mood for it; he didn't come all this way to leave with nothing. He wants to know why Amber, who used to be their friend, is so unwilling to help them now. He demands to know from Dal, who rejoins them, what Amber had to say. Dal relays that she feels bad about sending them away but Lex thinks that's crap. Dal defends her, saying that they can't risk it. Which I also think is crap, but understandable I guess considering the world after the virus. Bray asks about the "other thing," her cheating death and all. Dal again relays what she told him, even though he gets it a bit jumbled. He says she got out of the building okay, though she never actually clarified how she got out, and that she blacked out once outside. When she woke up, the Mallrats were gone. Lex points out exasperatedly that she had to know they thought she was dead and didn't just leave her there, and Bray bitterly puts in that she knew alright. Ebony figures that's it and they should get going since they've already wasted enough time. Lex thanks Pride for giving it his best shot and shakes his hand.

Bray takes this moment to flip out again. He breaks their handshake and says he's not buying this scenario. "She knew; she had the ring. I'm not leaving hill 'til I get the whole story from her!" Dal calls his name, but Bray's already shoving the Gaian guards at the base of the stair out of the way and charging up them. He punches one in the gut for good measure and barges in on Amber sitting on her bed, cot whatever. She immediately jumps to her feet and tells him to get out and that he's not allowed to come in but he's not having it. He's not leaving, no matter how much she yells, until she actually talks to him. The guards come in then and grab Bray by the arms; she orders them to get him out of there. "Go on then, throw me out!" he replies. "I'll just keep coming back 'til I get an answer. You're just gonna have to have me killed, Amber." Okay, drama queen. She tells him that can be arranged and he says to finish what she started. "Why do you call yourself Eagle? Because you like to rip people's hearts out while they're still beating?" He struggles against the guards to no avail. As Pride comes in, she says Bray would know about all ripping out people's hearts, and it's a sort of breakthrough. He begs her quietly, after all that shouting, to tell him why she thinks that and it seems to get through to her. She finally tells the guards they can let him go. Pride asks if she's sure and she tells them to go. Bray shrugs off the restraining hands of the guards as they leave and shares a challenging stare with Pride on his way out the door. Now it's just Bray and Amber alone together.

He begins by asking her why she didn't come to the Mall to try and find them after the explosion. She starts she was confused and alone but he cuts her off. He's broken up about the whole thing and hurt and angry, but also trying to reach her and get her to understand. They all thought she was dead, but she had to know that. She has the rings so she had to find the grave. She admits she did, and tells him he has no idea what it's like to stand in front of your own grave. She flashes back to that day again, the moment when she stumbled away from observatory, everyone gone, and found a grave with her name on it. It seemed like a nightmare until she found her ring place among the stones. She says she was hurt and exhausted, she's bleeding from her temple, and that if she didn't get help soon she knew she'd die. I'm not sure I buy that actually. I mean, she's ambulatory, and mostly not bleeding except for the small gash on her forehead. Other than the concussion, which I'm not sure how much knowledge she has on that subject, she really isn't that bad off. And another thought just occurred to me that is never addressed: who did she think was buried in the other grave? There's no name on it, unlike hers, so it could have been anyone and she never went to check it out? Curious. Did she feel pain thinking it might have been Bray or Dal?

Back in the present, Amber defiantly tells Bray that Pride rescued her and saved her life. He speaks very softly and overly calm when he says that he's glad she was saved. That was why she gave Pride her ring, and he asks what else she gave him. The ugly implication is that she gave him her body, or less ugly, her heart. But either way, she's insulted and she pulls back her hand and slaps him hard across the face. "Don't you dare speak to me like that! After what you did?!" Bray is even quieter now, and so intent on her face. "What was my crime, Amber? That I loved you?" She turns away from him at this point but he continues. "All the months I spent missing you, all the tears I cried." He's such a girl; don't admit that! "You know when things got really rough, I'd ask myself, what would Amber do now? And when I heard that you had died…" His voice dies off as he remembers kissing the ring and placing it on her grave. Or maybe he says, "I thought I'd died," or something because otherwise what she says next doesn't make a whole lot of sense. She turns around determinedly and cuts in. "But you didn't; Amber did. I'm Eagle now. There is no Amber! She died in a fire and she's not coming back. There's no Amber, so just forget her!" She's hard and a little bit cruel and ignores the tear sliding down Bray's cheek as we fade out.

I'll wait until next episode to point out all the holes in this Amber faking her death scenario. Ta ta!