The messiah has returned!

And if you’re thinking of a certain Jewish carpenter, save that discussion for the “Forum” section of The BG News, because the messiah I’m referring to is none other than the hulking display of manhood himself: Bear Grylls.

Loyal readers of mine undoubtedly know of the immense amount of respect and awe I have for everyone’s favorite television survival expert. If one season of the Discovery Channel show “Man vs. Wild” wasn’t enough to get you to swear undying allegiance to Bear Grylls, he’s back in season two with enough awesome in his backpack to get even you stupid people who missed out on season one to pull your heads away from the front-row view of your colons and tune in.

That’s right, this past Friday, Bear Grylls made his triumphant return to television, and he opened the new season with one of his best episodes yet.

In fact, this particular episode was so manly, that my girlfriend was instantly impregnated as soon as the opening credits started to roll” or at least that’s what I told her father anyway.

Before I continue describing this glorious episode, there’s something I’d like to get off my chest.

Last Friday, while having my regular lunch drink before my afternoon class, I thought it only appropriate to toast Bear Gryll’s return, when I was interrupted by an ex-friend of mine who said, “Who cares? Isn’t that show fake?”

After asking myself, “What would Bear Grylls do?” I gave him a flying elbow to the face and proceeded to stomp on his genitals (it seemed like the right thing to do). So just keep that in mind before you come to me and disparage the almighty Bear. Seriously, what do these people think? “Bear gets help from the crew when his life is in serious danger, so he doesn’t die – what a sketch!”

There are also rumors that Bear has been staying in hotels. Now I don’t know the whole story about this hotel business, but who cares? I’ve seen the guy drink turtle blood and a canteen full of his own urine. As far as I’m concerned that earns you a stay at a Holiday Inn. I’ll make a blood and urine smoothie (but no protein shot because the friggin’ smoothie place in the union is always out), and if any of you critics can down it, I’ll give you a night at the Ritz-Carlton.

But now that we’ve got that unpleasantness out of the way, let me give you a run-down of the season two opener.

This episode took place in the Sahara, where it was so hot, one of the crew members suffered heatstroke and had to be evacuated. But there was no heatstroke for Bear, because he opened the season with an old fan favorite: He made himself a heatstroke repelling turban out of a cut T-shirt and pee, and because this is the second time I’ve seen this happen, I’m convinced that the pee turban is his signature move.

But even before the drops of urine on his forehead could evaporate in the intense Sahara heat, Bear found a camel spider and started poking it with a stick, like a fat kid passed out on your couch, just to tick it off.

All of Bear’s fans knew what was coming next, but being the master showman he is, he let the anticipation build up by whacking it with the stick for a few more minutes before cutting off its face and eating the body. Of course a mere camel spider is barely enough to satiate the gargantuan hunger of Bear, so he quickly found a scorpion and described how the venom is strong enough to kill a human.

Since he’s way too cool to worry about things like venom, he bit into it anyway and sprayed green goo all over his face. Still not satisfied, he caught a lizard and decided to taunt it by letting him go and catching him a few times, before he ended up eating that too.

After he got tired of eating most of the animal population of the Sahara, he had his crew bring him a cobra, so he could amuse himself and display his manliness by whacking it in the face with his canteen over and over. Once the snake conceded defeat, Bear was again bored, so he finished up by jumping in some quicksand and climbing back out. I’d like to see anybody who calls him “fake” do that!

At this point, it’s quite clear nothing in the Sahara can deter the unstoppable force that is Bear Grylls, but I’m going to have to wait until this Friday at 9 p.m. to see what other things Bear can eat because this episode was “to be continued.” Until then it looks like I’m just going to have to continue toasting him over lunch.

Colby James ([email protected]) no longer has regard for the lives of animals.