Brendan Jesus
Before we take a look forward at the Season 4 premiere of Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch, let’s take a quick look back at where we left off from Season 3. Season 3 Episode 8 “Into the Cavern Pt. 1” was an exciting finale to a season that fluctuated in enjoyment for me. The lack of Geologist Eric Drummond made the season feel slightly unfocused and the complete lack of Jamie Dube was odd. With the ransacking of the Miner’s Shack in the final two episodes of Season 2, I was hoping we’d get some sort of closure for that storyline.
“Into the Cavern Pt. 1” brings Eric Drummond back via video call. Before we get there, let’s discuss why Eric was called. The team was doing some digging in the middle of the Energy Zone and made contact with a meteorite roughly 120 feet below the surface. This led the team to look for a new entrance into the keyhole cavern. Duane Ollinger, Chad Ollinger, Charlie Boy, and James Keenan video call with Eric to try and get some ideas on what to do next.
Eric tells them the best direction is to find where bats reside. The easiest way to do this is to take soil samples. If the soil samples have traces of nitrate in them then that means bats live down there and fissures release nitrate from their guano through fissures in the ground. Duane, Chad, Charlie Boy, and James head to a few different locations around the ranch to take soil samples.
Four days after they deliver the soil samples to Eric’s lab, they get promising results. The soil that Chad collected from the southern side of the keyhole is nitrate-heavy. This leads Duane to take his CAT excavator to the southern location to try and dig up the ground in hopes of revealing a dry entrance of some sort. Things get hairy when Duane tries to cross what seems like a small bed of mud. His excavator gets stuck in quicksand-like mud, and nearly sinks below the surface. After hours of work, and the help of a heavy-duty tow truck, they get the excavator out of the quicksand.
Unfortunately, Duane’s shortcut was one of his most costly mistakes. While the excavator can be salvaged, it’s not going to be an easy task. What does Duane do next? Well, he gets a new excavator! After some time they eventually get the excavator to the southern side of the keyhole cavern. Duane starts digging around that area and Chad makes an amazing discovery…a cave opening.
Chad, James, Ryan Skinner, and a cameraman head into this incredibly tight cavern. They belly crawl about 150 feet through this cavern and eventually arrive at what will come to be known as the Great Cavern. Not only is this cavern absolutely stunning, but there’s also hand-cut wood in this cavern that looks very similar to what Chad found in the Water Pit.
“Into the Cavern Pt. 2”
With Eric Drummond back on the ranch, the team jumps right back into everything without missing a beat. The episode starts with what seems like something that will make more sense later in the season as we’re told it takes place four months after what we see in Episode 1 “Into the Cavern Pt. 2”. Now that Eric is back on the ranch, Chad giddily can’t wait to show him what’s in the Great Cavern. Not all that glitters is gold, as once Chad and Eric are in the cavern, they are faced with something lurking beyond the rocks and are put in a legitimate life or death situation.
While Chad and Eric are 150 feet deep in the mountain, Duane and Charlie Boy head over to the Bead Site with a special guest. Dr. Bob Morton (Scientist, Professional Analytical Chemist, and Materials Scientist) meets up with them to take samples of the soot found on the exit point of the vents found near the Bead Site as well as to take soil samples from around the Bead Site.
James Keenan is back, and will seemingly be around for the majority of Season 4. Following in Duane’s Season 3 jet-setting footsteps, James heads down to Mexico City, Mexico and meets with Julio Escalante. Julio is incredibly knowledgeable in everything Aztec-related. The information Julio presents to James flips everything we thought we knew about the Aztec people on its head; their origins might be closer than we thought.
Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch Season 4 takes us back to the roots of what made so many people fall in love with the show. If you missed Eric, then grab your popcorn and settle in for a captivating episode. Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch Season 4 premieres on the Discovery Channel on November 20!
