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Oregon's Todd Hoffman, right, with his father, Jack Hoffman, face more obstacles in Season 5 of "Gold Rush."
(Discovery Channel)
It wouldn't be a new season of "Gold Rush" without more drama circulating around Todd Hoffman, of Sandy, Oregon. Especially since Season 5 follows in the wake of Hoffman's disastrous misadventure in South America in Season 4.
So as Season 5 premiered Friday night, it was reasonable to wonder if Todd and his father, Jack Hoffman, would finally give it up, and stay home in Sandy.
But did they? Obviously, spoilers about what happened in the Season 5 premiere are coming up, so if you haven't watched yet and want to be surprised, you know what to do.
It wouldn't be a "Gold Rush" season without the miners facing obstacles, and this one was no different. While young Parker Schnabel is fresh off a great season, having led a crew that found more than 1,000 ounces of gold in the Klondike, Parker is peeved that Tony Beets won't let him work better ground this season. But then, Parker seems to get peeved pretty easily.
Taking his grandfather's advice, Parker goes ahead and returns to Beets' land in the Klondike, setting an ambitious goal of finding 2,000 ounces, which should be enough, Parker thinks, for him to buy his own land.
As for Beets, the king of bleeped-out expletives is taking a higher profile this season, now that he's sunk a million bucks into a huge, 75-year-old dredge, which he's convinced can help him find even more gold. If the mechanics can get the thing -- which has been sitting idle for decades -- to work, that is.
But, as usual, most of the crises have to do with Todd, who we first see sitting in Sandy, staring moodily at a firepit, and musing about how much money he lost and how badly everything went in South America. It caused "a lot of pain and heartbreak," and was "embarrassing and demoralizing."
Todd's crew, also all back in Oregon, are working various jobs, trying to earn money. Jim Thurber is working odd jobs, Andy Spinks is toiling at his family's nursery, and Kevin Hiatt is "dealing with other people's garbage" as a trash collector.
Todd calls the crew together for what we're told is the first meet-up since the South America fiasco. It's not exactly a kumbaya moment. Jim asks, "What the hell were we doing in Guyana?" Todd now wants to go back to the Klondike, and says if they can find some good land, they can finish what they started. The guys are amazed that Todd is asking them to go when he doesn't have any land lined up yet.
Todd's father, Jack, tries to encourage the guys to go back to the Klondike, saying they've got to take a chance.
"Who's with me?" Todd asks.
Uh, nobody. Jim says he can't go unless Todd has land. The rest of the guys are also not willing to go back to the Klondike with Todd.
Meanwhile, we've seen Todd's old friend, Dave Turin, already jump ship. He loves Todd, he says, but "I can't spend another year of my life working for him." But Dave still wants to go for the gold, so he joins forces with Freddie and Derek Dodge.
But Todd and Jack decide to head to the Klondike, anyway, and say goodbye to the family, in the rain. Todd has no land, no plan, no crew, and says, "I've never been this unprepared for anything in my life."
Up north, Todd's reputation precedes him, and he faces an uphill battle getting anybody to lease him ground. Jack bucks him up with, "It's not the fight that the dog's in, it's the fight that's in the dog."
Another of Todd's former Oregonian crew members, Mitch Blaschke, has also left the fold, and joins Parker's crew.
Finally, Todd and Jack check out the ground at McKinnon Creek, and make a deal to mine it. The owner, citing Todd's past difficulties coming up with any gold, demands that he be paid 100 ounces of gold, whether Todd finds any gold or not.
As always, despite all this, Todd sounds optimistic.
-- Kristi Turnquist