 Parenting might seem like an uphill battle, but just remember if you don't let your kid chase a Komodo dragon You're already doing better than the thornberries. Where were the parents? Buckle and everyone because less than five seconds into this episode of the wild thornberries Eliza's already feet away from a highly deadly lizard. So where were the parents? Oh over here literally watching as Donnie rubs a toxic plant all over himself. Nigel's actually explaining that it's toxic while he's doing it and they still don't stop him Anyway, Eliza comes back to the convent and is surprised to find her homeschooling teacher Mr. Culpepper Wait, did they not know he was coming? How do you just pop in on the thornberries? Even if you knew they were on Rinka Island, they're constantly moving. How would you ever find them? So Nigel and Marianne do some good parenting and bring Donnie to a doctor He only needs a doctor because of their poor parenting granted But hey, we've got to give him some credit They even leave their kids with a responsible adult But don't worry, Marianne is sure to tell Mr. Culpepper this Don't worry about the children, they're all right Excuse me? Look, we know Eliza's 12 years old and all alone in the hostile jungle of Rinka Island And we know 10 minutes ago she was out looking for a highly deadly Komodo dragon But whatever you do, don't worry about her We certainly don't and definitely don't keep an eye on her Oh no, she'll be fine You worry too much Culpepper, the last thing we want is any adult supervision here Anyway, Culpepper's pretty ticked off about Eliza's latest assignments Not because they were poorly written or anything But because they were waterlogged, bitten, and smelling of the jungle Now there's a good teacher for you Eliza, your paper's well written and all But how does it smell? Yep, yep, just as I suspected of the jungle Well, I'm just gonna have to take some points off And then he does this oddly dramatic blackmail thing I mean, he turns his back and everything All this jungle business And then he turns around quickly to deliver the dramatic line May not be the best thing for you And then gets all in her face for the final blow I was afraid I was going to have to tell your parents That you may be better suited to a more structured school environment I mean, you're a sixth grade teacher, not some sort of super villain But as much as Culpepper is painted like the bad guy here He is the only one trying to stop Eliza from getting into potentially deadly situations Her parents couldn't care less So I'm holding out hope Maybe Culpepper will turn out to be the voice of reason So he makes Eliza write a paper about a U.S. president And Eliza chooses every 12 year old's favorite president Martin Van Buren When Debbie comes out and tries to get his attention And the second Culpepper turns to leave, Eliza starts packing her bag Hold on there Eliza Can't you write about Van Buren for like one more second? The guy's still two feet away from you He's gonna notice you're leaving Oh it's that? He didn't notice I stand corrected And she's right back to hunting a Komodo dragon Everywhere she goes, there are signs of how dangerous this thing is Portions of the jungle are utterly destroyed Darwin certainly tries to talk her out of it Wasn't there something you were supposed to be doing back at camp? And these birds repeatedly tell her how it eats anything it can get to Well, this bird tells her That dragon would have eaten us both if we hadn't gotten into that tree This bird is too busy sobbing over the fact that the dragon ate her unhatched eggs And Eliza's still just like, I want to meet this guy Even this water buffalo seems to think she's lost her mind Okay, wondering where the parents are at this point Remember when they just stood there while Donny played with the toxic plant? Well now they're just standing there while he eats a random caterpillar Wait, scratch that They're encouraging him while he eats a random caterpillar Nice to see you haven't lost your appetite, Donny So Eliza finally finds this thing and it is menacing Not sure what's up with its teeth Anyway, Eliza even looks scared But for some reason she still decides to approach it And big surprise, it wants to eat them So tell me Eliza, now what? I mean, what was your plan here? You were warned this thing would eat you In fact, it seemed like you knew from the start that it would eat you And you saw countless signs that it would want to eat you Now when it says it will eat you, you're going to act all surprised? Got to come up with a plan on the spot? I mean your parents host a freaking nature show They're not going to teach you how to respect nature My parents don't host a nature show and even I know this is a bad idea So they run for it Bump into Mr. Cold Pepper who has no clue there's any danger Even though Eliza's screaming for her life And a 150 pound lizard is making a 150 pound lizard sound So like any normal teacher, he chases her through the jungle Because she's not doing her homework and this happens Now he's being chased too And his priorities are still all screwed up Because Eliza uses her paper to literally save their lives And he's just mad she ruined her schoolwork That was my paper Eliza? I mean she only wrote four words on it anyway President Van Buren is, is what? Seriously the smartest character so far is the chimp And they didn't even give him any paper to breathe with He just has to hold his breath And now that Cold Pepper's seen Eliza getting chased by a killer beast And learned she's in life threatening situations on the reg He decides that maybe jungle life is right for her That was incredible Eliza Come on Cold Pepper we thought you were the voice of reason Then to top it all off, he decides that instead of writing about Martin Van Buren He'll accept a recounting of Eliza's recent traumatic near-death encounter with a Komodo dragon Van Buren, near-death experience of the Komodo dragon Eh, what's the difference? I mean what subject is this for? And what do the parents say when they return? Their daughter was missing And now the adult she was with looks all beat up and everything They must be worried sick Want to come and see some absolutely smashing mold? Nobody cares