Did your brother ever go back and watch season 1 after he finished? My buddy did the same thing, started at season 2 on a friend's tip and spent the whole time asking me who Stringer was and why everyone was so scared of him. He finally went back and watched season 1 later and told me he felt like an idiot for waiting, said it was like meeting your in-laws after the wedding. The setup is the point of that season, it earns all the stuff that comes later, and skipping it just makes everything else feel flat. Half the people giving that advice probably only watched it once themselves years ago and forgot how much they missed the first time.

Did you see him dunk them or just hose them down? I've done it both ways in a pinch. What worked for me in that kind of heat was keeping the pile covered and giving them a quick soak in a wheelbarrow right before they go down, not a full dunk. The brick pulls the water out of the mortar fast when it's 95 out, so a dry one just sucks the life out of the mix. Twelve years with no call back just means nobody has looked close enough at his work yet.