Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes is certainly a wild ride to watch and there is some uncertainty over the fates of some of the expedition members.
Erin Gamble and David Freid, the showrunner and director of Discovery’s puzzling new documentary series, Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes, sorted through over 700 hours of uncategorized and unorganized video footage, in order to make the show.
The result, at least in the show’s first two episodes, is a perplexing mish-mash of ‘found’ footage that documents the explorations of Mickey Grosman and his group of adventurers on their unprecedented and grueling 5,000-mile expedition through the Amazon rainforest.
The curious case of Matt Saxman
The first two episodes of Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes have already made it clear that this particular trek turned out to be very different from the expertly-guided charitable endeavor that it was marketed as.
And although we have only seen a few bits and pieces of the story so far – the sense of impending doom is only growing with every new piece of information that is revealed.
This is especially true for the story of Matt Saxman, the lead cinematographer who joined the group for their expedition.
All the details for Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes season one
Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes officially premiered for the first time on Discovery Channel (and on the streaming service, Max) on May 12, 2024.
This limited series shows only the most pertinent clips from the hours’ worth of real archival footage recovered from Mickey and the team’s trek-turned-battle-for-survival.
As strange as it seems, Expedition from Hell is really real
Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes also contains a series of live interviews with some of the expedition members as they recount the challenges that they experienced, the peril they found themselves in and the various ineptitudes, which ultimately made this journey across South America a living nightmare.
The episodes of the show that have aired, thus, far can be summarized as follows:
| Episode | Title | Premiere date |
| Episode 1 | “Brink of Death” | May 12, 2024 |
| Episode 2 | “It’s Not Life or Death – Yet” | May 16, 2024 |
New episodes of Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes will air on Discovery Channel and Max at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Who will make it out alive?
If you have tuned in to watch the first two episodes of this one-of-a-kind show, you already know that Mickey’s questionable leadership has seemingly led the entire expedition group ever-closer to danger (instead of away from it) numerous times in their first few days.
This has led to lots of speculation online that some of the expedition members may not have made it out alive all those years ago.
Fortunately, we have already seen the modern-day Robert Finlay, Kevin Jackson and Alexander Hernandez appear on the show – so, we know that they made it out safely. But the fates of the rest of the group still remain uncertain.
What we know about Matt’s story so far
At the top of the list for Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes team members with uncertain fates, is Matt. At first glance, you may think that Matt is somewhat removed from most of the danger of this trek as the team’s head cameraman.
However, from the little that we have seen so far on the show, we know that this is far from the truth.
It has become quite evident that filming this journey was a priority for Mickey, and as the embodiment of the filming-process – Matt was often smack-dab in the middle of the action.
It will likely take a few episodes for us to piece together Matt’s full story, but based on the foreboding line in the show’s preview: “no one has spoken or heard from Matt” – we can guess that his journey probably will not have a very happy ending.
What will happen next?
The next episode of Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes will air on May 19, 2024. But with everything that we have seen about this botched expedition so far, there is truly no way to tell where the story is headed.
This episode, ominously titled “I’m Gonna Die on This Mountain” will see the expedition group, with Mickey at the helm – as always – attempt a perilous crossing at a jungle bridge.
The episode summary promises that this episode will also delve deeper into Mickey’s true intent in filming this expedition and expose his darker side when the team members are unable to locate one of their fellow adventurers, and Mickey claims had been sent back to civilization.
At this point, it seems like Mickey’s questionable survival skills and hard-knock leadership style will be the least of the team’s concerns moving forward.
Expedition from Hell: The Lost Tapes – What happened to Mickey Grosman after the trip
