Sarah Palin's Alaska Recap: Sarah and Kate Plus Fate

Kate Gosselin joined Sarah Palin on her show Temptation Yukon (AKA Sarah Palin's Alaska) last night, and the bleary-eyed TLC vet sent a message to the Palin family with a single stare: "This is what you want, Sarah? A reality show? I have a reality show, and I am downtrodden. I am a seething divorcee with a haircut like a circular saw. I am a sack of quilted vests. You don't want to do this, Annie Oakley. Get out while you can. Use your optimism to fly away. Move quickly. Or I'll crash this floatplane with all of us in it. Ahehe! Oh, let me." Let's review.

Blah, blah, blah. The show commences with the usual opening credit sequence: Sarah scales Everest, Todd parasails into the moon, Bristol wins the Iditarod, and Willow loses a pinochle game to a snow leopard. More importantly, the episode starts with Kate Gosselin arriving in Wasilla since "she was filming her reality show in Alaska anyway" (thanks for making sense, TLC), and she's bringing her 125 kids to camp with the Palins. What could possibly go right?

After Sarah makes a fantastic remark about how you can see Russia from some Alaskan hill -- ugh, Aunt Sarah, stop -- Kate Gosselin enters the Palin household and marvels at the lifelike rugs.

"I admire her," Kate tells us, tripping over the rug's snout and fangs. "She's a strong woman who doesn't let other people's opinions get her down."

Indeed. Sarah and Kate tour the premises, their children trailing like millions of Gandhi townspeople, and soon its time to venture outward.

"We're goin' campin' out with a girl who's never camped in our wilds before!" Sarah squawks, since she's Yosemite Sam today. Though Sarah and Kate claim to have paparazzo problems in common, these two have, uh, nothing in common. Observe: Sarah's outdoorsy, Kate's indoorsy. Sarah's feeling happy; Kate's feeling crappy. Sarah squawks, Kate gawks. Sarah is a perky sharpshooter while Kate is sharky parpshooter, whatever that is. You know.

Time for a brisk training session with the Gosselins! A camping instructor helpfully tells Kate, "If a grizzly is sorta close by, walk away slowly. If the grizzly gets a little closer, you need to shoot that killer under the frontal lobe, margin of error, 0%." Cut to Kate stiffening like old Velveeta. The instructor adds that if a bear knocks you down, it's going to grab your face, back, and ass in that order. Enlightening, but that's where this episode's NatGeo lessons end. Let's begin the part where Kate complains every three seconds that she hates everything.

"I can honestly say I've never camped for real," Kate says, minutes after arriving in Denali. "I wish it wasn't so cold and rainy."

Benign, yes, but Sarah senses weakness. She decides to wee-wee up Kate's frustration.

"I'm going to stoke a fire!" she declares. "And we're going to stoke some fun!"

Man, Sarah's so obnoxious and awesome today. #TeamSarah, honestly. She knows she's got Kate beat in the folksiness competition, and she's going to exploit her stupid victory ceaselessly. It's a hilarious one to watch. Best episode yet.

"I've been stung over 200 times," Kate says to us, swatting at mosquitoes with her mittened hands. "But the kids are enjoying themselves, so I'll tolerate it for them."

Haha, right. Seconds later, Kate is in less of a "tolerate things" mood.

"Sorry, I'm miserable," she snaps at us, standing under a tarp. "But somebody's gotta be."

A few feet away in the meat-locker weather, Sarah performs a traditional Aleutian jig. The kids happily caw for s'mores and hot dogs, and Sarah fulfills their every wish like a backwoods candyman. She can take a sunrise and sprinkle it with actual dew.

"This is cruel and unusual punishment," Kate adds, looking at the chipper mortals.

Now Sarah and the children are turning cartwheels on the subzero tundra. They wish they were colder! Kate respectfully disagrees.

"I'll be under this tarp the whole time," she murmurs, losing breath. "I'm paralyzed."

Did I forget to mention that it's raining too?

"I... hate... rain." Kate yelps, twitching a bit and letting tears freeze on her cheeks. "I hate it."

Meanwhile, Sarah is juking like a backup dancer in a Nelly video. It's getting cold in herre, so take off all your worries. The children flail like St. Lunatics. "Extra, extra!" Sarah hoots, hips popping hard.

"I can't get over that people do this," Kate weeps. "Really, it is so shocking to me." She is weeping.

Meanwhile, little Alexis and Jonathan are gyrating faster than ever. Sarah puts down her fishing rod, claps once, and teaches Hannah and Leah how to drop the booty right.

"We are not camping people," Kate says to us. She hasn't looked at her children for 20 minutes now. "I'll scream it from mountaintops."

Go Aaden! Go Aaden! He's breakdancing at six years old.

"Why would you pretend to be homeless?" Kate asks no one in particular. "I don't get it. I just don't get the concept. There's no paper towels! How do you make sandwiches for eight kids on your arm? I don't see a table! I don't see utensils! I don't see hand cleansing materials! This is not ideal conditions! I am freezing to the bone. I have 19 layers on. My hands are frigid. I held it together as long as I could, and I'm done now. I'm hungry!"

To clarify: I haven't misquoted Kate once yet. Maybe Sarah and the kids weren't quite shimmying for the snow gods, but they enjoyed themselves. It was sincerely weird to watch Kate ignore her kids' happiness. I know reality editing is dubious, but she's out-of-control angry, and she's not hiding it. Bizarre.

"Even though I'm the crazy one supposedly, and everyone else is normal -- if that requires being crazy, I'm crazy," she snivels at us nonsensically.

Soon, Kate quizzes one of her kids: "Do you want to stay?"

He says, "Actually, I do want to stay." He spins on his head and makes a crown from icicles to prove it. Kate huffs.

"OK, goodbye," she replies. "You're no longer a Gosselin. You're a Palin."

Ouch! Without further ado, Kate loses patience and makes her kids flee the area with her. She hardly says goodbye to Sarah, who hardly says goodbye back. The Palins shrug and continue to make out with barracudas.

In other words, this episode was a gift. Happy holidays from all of us at the shooting range, the river, and the Wasillan dance factory. It's not going to get better than this.