A Return to the Dark Forest Opens Doors for Season of New Investigations for Mountain Monsters

It's been 18 months since Mountain Monsters finished its fifth season run on Destination America. That's 18 months since Huckleberry pulled a tiny skull out of Jeff's nose, and since Buck was forced to ride away to places unknown with a masked man in his truck.

But now they're back,having moved to the Travel Channel, and after a much discussed and often maligned season, in which the team went from single-episode monster hunts to a season-long story arc, the Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings (AIMS) team has found a way to segue out of that adventure and back into looking for the monsters in the mountains.

Picking up right where season five left off, Huck and the team try to find where Buck disappeared to, finding only his abandoned camera. They're ready to go looking for him, but they've left Jeff to lie in the back seat of an abandoned vehicle to rest after having his nose picked (you had to be there). Jeff calls them back on the radio because he hears an engine, and the team arrives just in time to see a large forklift crush the vehicle and flip it over. Huckleberry calls in rescue workers to cut the car open and get Jeff out, taking him to the hospital.

After that, the hunt for Buck has to continue, and they ultimately find him, standing in a cage the size of a phone booth. He's disoriented, which explains why he couldn't get out of the cage. Granted, there was no door, but Willie was able to kick one of the lower bars loose easily enough. Buck gets out, and the team is more than ready to get out of the Dark Forest of Lee County, West Virginia, wherever that is (the Dark Forest, not West Virginia).

That was a year and a half ago. And they haven't gone hunting since.

Buck hasn't been the same since the events. What's more, he can't remember how he got in that cage, or explain how he knew there was something up Jeff's nose. But after all this time, Trapper, who has been sidelined for health concerns, decides it's time to meet up with Buck and help him buck up. Fortunately, Huck has a solution for Buck's problem: a hillbilly hypnotist! And it works. Buck's memories begin to slowly return about where he went in that fateful truck ride, and what he saw -- including a film projected on a sheet that showed how Jeff got that tiny head up his nose. He also remembers he had something during that missing time: a camera.

So it's back to Lee County, and almost immediately things get hot and heavy. Entering the county, they find out they're being followed, and a dusty-road car chase ensues as they try to lose their tail. That out of the way, they make it back into the Dark Forest that night -- because if you're going to look for a camera left on a forest floor for 18 months through rain and snow and heat, you may as well look for it when it's pitch black outside.

They find the tree where Buck was caged. But the cage is gone, and there's no sign of a camera. But there are headlights, because there's no place in the woods so deep that the road isn't just right over there. They're assailed by another group with guns drawn, so naturally they aim their guns back at them. A shot rings out. Jeff falls! But it was "just a warning shot" -- and Jeff chose that moment to trip in a hole.

Turns out these guys know what the team is looking for. It's their property, and while they don't have the camera, which they claim was busted up, they DO have the HD card that was in it, which they're willing to give up -- for a price. The price turns out to be a jug of Tinkerbell Tears and a jug of Sasquatch Piss. Turns out Huck should have a slot on MOONSHINERS. The strangers agree to the trade, but rather than check that card out right now on one of the production computers, they choose to continue toward the creek that Huck remembers, to find the old bridge and the barn.

Yes, they find the bridge. And yes, they find the barn.

And they find a film projector.

And now the team has a side quest. Six side quests, to be precise.

It's a neat little segue to get out of the Woman of the Woods saga and back to hunting monsters from folklore, while still keeping a connection to the overarching adventure.

If you missed it, catch the reruns before next Wednesday, because this two-hour premiere gives you a lot to talk about, whether you're on the edge of your seat or making snarky comments -- maybe even both.

Join us next week for more Mountain Monsters -- and be sure to check out our interview with Colt Straub, executive producer (and seen in this episode) to go behind the scenes with the AIMS team.