Folks living in a small town can often be hard-pressed to find ways to entertain themselves. Having a couple of pints at your favorite hole-in-the-wall tavern and watching a high school sports team rally to a late victory can be plenty of fun. However, sometimes it’s necessary to go a little bigger, and many small towns have created unique local festivals.
Nederland, Colorado, for example, celebrates Frozen Dead Guy Days, a weekend of wackiness centered around a cryogenically frozen man who passed away in the eighties. Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, holds the ear-shattering National Hollerin' Contest, and Clinton, Montana, has a graphically named jamboree that draws inspiration from a particular bit of the bull.
The fifth episode ofThe Great North’sthird season, “Woodfellas Adventure,” sees the town of Lone Moose competing in one of these local festivals. It’s a hilarious romp on the high seas, full of striking statues set ablaze while sipping on a tall glass of wine, relationship-straining synchronized walking, and a ton of town pride.
An Annual Alaskan Sea-Centric Celebration Tests Everyone
Every year, a group of small Alaskan villages competes in the cavalcade of ships, an event that sees each town vying to present thebest-decorated boatto a crowd of onlooking locals. Despite having been a part of the festival for decades, Lone Moose has never claimed gold in the competition.
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The ship ofNick Offerman’s Beef Tobin, The Mighty Kathleen, is chosen to represent Lone Moose. His children are tasked with decorating the ship, and they decide to go with the theme Long Moose 2050, which hilariously highlights the effects that pollution and climate change will have on the Alaskan village in the upcoming decades.
Each town also nominates a pair of boat boys to walk in sync with one another along a nearby pier to aid in their respective town’s ships sailing smoothly. For years, Ham served as a boat boy along with an elderly, but his partner passed away in his old age, leaving a spot open. Ham decides to train his boyfriend, Crispin, for the job.
Immediately, it is apparent to audiences that Ham and Crispin aren’t cut out for the boat boy life. They struggle to step in time with one another and compare themselves unfavorably to another Lone Moose couple, whose eerily similar personalities made them effective boat boys years ago.
The Episode “Woodfellas Adventure” Highlights the Show’s Silly But Sweet Nature
When looking through a historical account of the Cavalcade of Ships, Wolf Tobin discovers a startling secret: each year, the Cavalcade of Ships grand prize is awarded to the boat with the mosthandsome captain, regardless of the ship’s decoration or the captain’s seafaring skills. He tries to find a Lone Moose citizen that is handsome enough to represent the town but is unable to find a sufficiently striking captain.
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A local woodcarver offers a solution. After explaining that he recently stumbled upon a particularly striking piece of driftwood, he insists that he could carve a man out of the log that would be so handsome and lifelike that the statue could help Lone Moose win the Cavalcade. The entire town isawed by the statue, who they name Todd Hotsworth, or “Hot Toddie” for short. The Tobins take Hot Toddie home, but after most of the family goes to sleep, Wolf decides to stay up and have a glass of wine with the statue. When the alcohol makes him drift off, he accidentally knocks the statue into a nearby fire, permanently scarring half of the wooden figure.
The Cavalcade of Ships comes, and the Tobins try to use Hot Toddie regardless, only showing his unburned side to the crowd. However, when Ham and Crispin decide to showcase their unique personalities by walking out of sync, Beef, secretly piloting the ship, gets confused, and his erratic sailing sends the charred Hot Toddie careening into the sea.
Lone Moose doesn’t win the competition, but when the hunky captain of the winning town’s boat takes the stage to deliver a speech, he’s interrupted by Wolf, who delivers a powerful address to his fellow townsfolk. The citizens of Lone Moose find pride in their commitment to circumventing the rules of the competition. They realize their town’s unique perseverance is more important than the valueless award.
“Woodfellas Adventure” is an excellent example of howThe Great Northbalances sillinesswith sincerity to make hilarious, heartwarming television. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Lone Moose pieced the charred Hot Toddie back together and set him up in the town square, standing tall. Though he’ll likely never captain a boat again, his spirit will sail on into eternity.
