‘Growing the Wolfpack’ Alaskan Bush People Recap Season 4 Ep 4

In this episode Billy wants to complete the continuous work on Brownton Abbey, and resolve his unfinished business from his past. This will change his life forever.

Brownton Abbey is still taking care of unfinished tasks. Matt says “We need to have some means of a telephone in the bush”. So he thinks rigging up chimes and a receiver made of piping and a funnel is cool. Bam thinks it’s a waste of time and walks away.

Bear is shifting his focus to lumber! He’s looking to finish his never ending treehouse. He explains the use of shacks he’s using were used to build ‘old trapper’ shacks. Bear seems to be in his usual 100 mph mode and is completing it, as he says, in record time.

In Hoonah, Bam and Gabe have a promise they haven’t fulfilled to an old friend named Trapper. They’re going trolling fishing for giant salmon. That’s a process of putting lots of hooks on a line to catch lots of salmon. The boys explain that Trapper still lives the old style in Alaska fishing, and he’s been an old friend of the family. Problem is there’s no salmon to be trolled. As usual Gabe is always bringing up old stories from 10 years ago about Billy and Trapper…mostly how both found Trappers boat, which is about the size of one small room.

Its Billys turn to bring up the past. When he was left at age 16 to take care of himself, due to his parents and sister being killed in a plane crash. He had a life before Ami and starts explaining how he married as a teen, and had two children. Out of that marriage he had a daughter named Twyla.

Billy is explaining all of this to Ami and of course, she knew all about Billys past. They both think it’s time to fix the present and piece together his life. Ami says after 30 years “we need to bring her home.”

The Brown family gathers together and talks about their new sister, Twyla. Billy married Twyla’s mother as a teenager, but things didn’t work out and Twyla mother took her away. After 30 years, they’re meeting again.

Ami, said that it is a “profound” thing for her children to let a stranger in. Rain says her worry about how Twyla will react to meeting them,  “What if we scare her?”

Billy stands awaiting his oldest daughter. When he sees the plane he says, “I have no clue on what to say to her?” Twyla steps off the plane and Billy is amazed she’s no longer a little girl, but a grown woman. Ami welcomes her and starts giving her the tour of Brownton Abbey. Billy exclaims, “Everything you see we hauled from the beach right to here!” (Now that statement has been in question for many episodes) He says, “someday we’ll have plumbing instead of an outdoor shower”. Twyla definitely looks skeptical. Gabe and Bear made a mechanical bull to show her. She says Bear has lots of energy and a little crazy. Matt starts to prepare a barbecue meal with the diamond grate he had on the island.

Billy sits down with Twyla and Ami. She doesn’t have a lot of memory and nothing was said, and the subject wasn’t spoken about. Billy says he missed a lifetime and when he was told to leave he took her music box. He traveled all over Mexico and played the music box, it kept him going.

Twyla then talks about her own daughters recent passing in a car accident, and that she was the only survivor. Billy was shocked, but not visibly moved. He does say, “I had a grandaughter I never knew I had, and now I’ll never know her.” He is happy that his daughter has another child and maybe he’ll be able to meet her here or down there!

Twyla is learning everything before leaving. Ami takes her to the ‘range’ and teaches her to use a shotgun. It looks like Twyla can handle a gun pretty good. It seems Ami is going out of her way and wants her to call her ‘Mom’. Twyla accepts with a hug. Billy ends with this experience was a process of healing with Twyla.

To be honest, Twila did not seem excited to be in Browntown. She was polite, yes, but excited? She seemed more hesitant and cautious than excited. After 30 years she is suddenly re-introduced to her dad, a new “mom,” and seven new sisters and brothers, she has never known. Maybe appearing “exited” is too much to ask in such a situation.

The biggest question hanging between the father-daughter seemed to simply be, “Why?” Billy explained he had basically been told to leave when he and his ex-wife ended things, and that he had tried to take Twila with him had been prevented. It wasn’t clear if her grandparents prevented it or the ex wife. But, no doubt she still has thoughts about why he never tried to come back in all those years. Billy said he sent letters she never received, Twila said he had heard that. Billy obviously knew where she was if he could send her letters. So, the thought why he never physically tried to visit her had to be a question that had entered her mind over the years. And, last night, Billy never seemed to provide a good answer for that question.