On tonight’s Gold Rush on Discovery, there’s a bit grumbling about pay and money on Rick Ness’s crew, and the day’s work turns south as ‘Zee” Zaremba has a dozer full of big rocks that jams the wash plant.
Zee reports to Freddy Dodge as he loads the washplant and for a brief moment in time, feels pretty good about the day’s work.
But the day isn’t over. And that feeling will fade.
Despite careful coaching from Freddy, Zee loads up the dozer with rocky paydirt and heads to the plant. “I feel pretty good,” he says. “It seems to be running alright.”
Suddenly we hear Zee channel a bit of Tony Beets. He says: “F***” as the gears of the washplant seem to be operating under duress.
Prior to this, he faced his task determined and said: “Rick [Ness] hasn’t gotten paid, we haven’t gotten paid so I feel like I got the whole crew on my shoulders here. It’s on me to keep this thing going.”
Dodge coached him through the transfer, but Zee sees the trouble plain as day, there are huge boulders and rocks slowing down and jamming the belt of the wash plant.
Zee radios for help from Rick who shows up quickly to survey the mess. He sees the issue and has the production line halt for the moment until the rock situation is cleared.
Gold Rush season nine is loaded with twists and turns in the post-Todd Hoffman era. Hoffman has left the gang to create a pilot on his own with greenhorns as Rick Ness has stepped up to assume crew boss role, leaving Parker Schnabel behind.
It has been Ness’s venture for his own claim and competition with and between Tony Beets and Parker Schnabel that has driven the action in season nine.
Meanwhile, Parker has absorbed all the bad luck that traditionally plagued Todd Hoffman, with dozers malfunctioning and lower than expected gold production.
This season also sees Gold Rush star Freddy Dodge hitching his wagon to team Rick Ness. The clip shows him trying to advise Zee who is thwarted by really rocky paydirt.
Another personnel move was mechanic Mitch Blaschke, once part of the Hoffman crew in Season 3 then Parker’s crew in Season 5. Mitch is the head mechanic of Parker’s crew. Brennan Ruault is also stepping up in foreman duties in the Ness void.
But all the “rick rock” misery aside, Ness is finding gold and crowed a bit about it last week on Facebook, but can he keep it up?
Tune in tonight to see how Ness solves the latest curveball thrown at him while Parker too is wrestling with some setbacks. It seems so far that Tony Beets is having the best run of it but anything can happen on Gold Rush, the season is not over yet.
Gold Rush airs Fridays at 9/8c on Discovery