The crew of "The River" find themselves deeper in the jungle and in trouble in 'Los Ciegos,' which aired Feb. 14 on ABC. After watching old footage left on the tapes of the missing Dr. Emmet Cole, the team travel up river. Tess finds a geographic match to a photograph Emmet left in the boat. What they also discover at a nearby cave is a chalk pictograph of an eye. Jahel tells everyone it's the mark of the Morcegos, a tribe that punishes selfishness.
That punishment is severe as the group finds one of the Morcegos' victims: The body of a Peace Corps volunteer with his eyes gouged out. Jahel warns everyone that the Morcegos are watching and judging them to determine whether they are allowed to pass through the Morcegos' land.
That night the Morcegos sneak up on them in their sleep. Instead of killing them outright, the Morcegos draw a chalk circle around each of their tents with the same creepy eye symbol. Soon after Emilio goes blind and subsequently the rest of the crew one by one. They head back to the ship to call for help. Clark tells Kurt he knows about Kurt's private radio and wants to use it. The stakes grow higher and more dangerous when Kurt cuts Clark in the stomach with a knife while supposedly "startled." Whether this is intentional or Kurt was just frightened is hard to tell, but I'm guessing Kurt did this to silence Clark.
Back in the boat, Lena finds Emmet's old journal and conveniently a cure for their blindness. It's a bulb that grows beneath a certain tree that also is in the heart of Morcegos' territory. The remaining sighted crew, AJ, Lena and Kurt, head back into the jungle while Lincoln tries to tend Clark's possibly fatal knife wound.
Lena, Kurt and AJ discover Morcegos stalking them and are forced to hide and remain silent while slug-like millipedes crawl all over them. It's a truly disgusting and skin-crawling scene. While they escape the Moregos, Lena and Kurt have gone blind, leaving AJ to find the tree. AJ freaks out and ditches Lena and Kurt, hoping to find civilization and safety. Coincidentally as AJ treks through the jungle, he finds the tree and makes a heroic choice to crawl under the tree in spite of being claustrophobic. As AJ is cutting the bulbs from the tree, dirt starts falling and burying AJ alive.
Meanwhile back at the boat, Lincoln desperately is trying to save Clark from hemorrhaging and cauterizes his stomach wound. The Morcegos break into the ship and are determined to slaugher everyone. In an act of selflessness, Clark offers himself as bait and sacrifice to draw the Morcegos away from the others. The Morcegos (who somehow understand English) take that as a sign they are worthy to pass through their land and withdraw. AJ also finds a cluster of the healing bulbs by his head as a gift from the Moregos for his own act of heroism. Quickly the team regain their eyesight and continue on their journey to save Emmet.
'Los Ciegos' is an exciting episode with a lot of action. It does not have the creepy supernatural element of the second episode 'Marbeley' in which the team encounger a jungle haunted by the ghost of a dead girl. The villain of 'Los Ciegos' is an Amazonian tribe that first blinds their victims with tree spores, then is determined to kill them. There are a few plot holes, such as why the Morcegos didn't kill them all while they were asleep? 'Los Ciegos' hints that "The River" will not just have supernatural elements, but real human threats as well. Most likely their greatest obstacle will not be tribesmen, but Kurt who is working against the team to keep them from discovering the "Source."
Other The River episodes:
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