EPISODE 11 - "Down Under: Paradise's Price" (2016)
“Persevere” glides into Auckland’s emerald waters, her hull telling stories of 33 countries across five continents. The Rath family stands on deck, triumphant yet exhausted, their two cats—veterans of every ocean crossing—perched in their usual spots. Back in Manhattan, their super reports another record-high rent for their foreclosed condo, the irony of success at a distance not lost on anyone.
Then New Zealand’s bio-security team boards, and paradise shows its teeth.
What follows plays like a horror movie in slow motion: the failed paperwork, the bureaucratic death sentence, the impossible choice. Their cats—family members who’ve crossed oceans, weathered storms, and kept the girl’s company through 2.5 years of wandering—must be euthanized to enter the country. In a heart-wrenching sequence, intercut with flashbacks of the cats’ adventures across the globe, the family faces their cruelest test yet.
The episode ends with dual transitions: “Persevere” going up for sale—their floating home becoming just another listing—while the family piles into a camper, their downsized dreams now on wheels. As they navigate their first encounters with Kiwi culture, language, and characters, the girls’ grief mingles with the excitement of new beginnings.
Cut to Hobbiton’s Ale House, where Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) breaks down New Zealand’s bio-security laws with both pride and sympathy: “We’ve kept our islands pure for centuries… but every paradise demands sacrifice.” The explanation plays against montages of New Zealand’s unique wildlife, showing what’s at stake.He elaborates how bio security has been able to keep out mammals out of New Zealand until the 19th century.