Monday, October 30, 2006
Episode Seven: The One Where Dweeze Regrets Saying Nice Things About Some Of These People
Previously on The Amazing Race.
Ding dong, the Aryan obnoxious jerk is dead
Which Aryan obnoxious jerk?
Peter the Aryan obnoxious jerk!
Ding dong, the Aryan obnoxious jerk is dead
The Aryan obnoxious jerk is dead
Yeah, previously Peter and his fetish, Sarah, were eliminated. And the crowd went wild!
So what next? Well, we’re in the Middle East, and the teams can’t Kuwait to get out of there! Ha!
David and Mary, in first place because of the Fast Forward, get their clue, telling them to go to Mauritius, an island near Madagascar, and if you think I’m going to pass up the chance to include this:
quite frankly, you’re nuts. Or as Stephen A. Smith would say “QUITE FRANKLY, YOU’RE NUTS! NOW, HOW ABOUT SOME DELICIOUS CHEESE DOODLES?” and if that isn’t a sign I spend too much time at Deadspin, I don’t know what is.
In confessional, Mary tells us what we already know, that they got the Fast Forward because of the Cho brothers. She says the friendships they have made are woth more than a million dollars. Ever try to buy groceries with friendship, Mary? Not a good currency. She further tells us that the three teams, David and Mary, Erwin and Godwin, and Lyn and Karlyn, are calling themselves the Six Pack, after the Kenny Rogers movie of the same name.
David and Mary are first at the airport, and they are told the fastest flight available goes through London. They book the tickets and wait. And we, the home viewer are now in for about twenty minutes of hot airport action.
Seriously. We don’t get out of the airport before the first break. Dustin and Kandice arrive, don’t like the idea of booking through London, and head out for more information. Rob and Kimberly arrive, and get annoyed when they are ignored when they ask David and Mary what flight they are on. Erwin and Godwin arrive and are sent to the right counter by David and Mary. Lyn and Karlyn arrive, are also sent to the right counter only to find themselves behind Dustin and Kandice, who have concluded that this flight is the only flight. The only excitement in the whole sequence comes when Tyler and James show up and, despite the fact that they are behind Lyn and Karlyn, get their tickets booked by Dustin and Kandice, causing an argument between all three teams, a meaningless argument because there is only one flight and everyone got on it.
When teams arrive, they are to head for TAR cars. You know, the identical fleet lined up right next to each other when the producers want teams to drive themselves and get lost. The car has a model boat inside, and teams have to figure out where the boat is located and then swim to it.
Everyone arrives at the boat at about the same time, except for Tyler and James, who took a wrong turn and ended up in Albuquerque. We are then treated (Dustin, Kandice) or punished (everyone else) with swimsuit shots. Dustin reaches the boat first, followed by Kimberly, but they cannot get the clue until both team members reach the boat. After getting the clue, they are directed to a post office to receive another clue.
Wait. Shouldn’t there be a roadblock here?
Anyway, teams finish, though the Cho brothers wait for Lyn and Karlyn and Mary and David to finish the task. They are still there when Tyler and James arrive, and James thinks the Cho brothers have formed the alliance so that they can take two weaker teams to the final three. You know, I got in a conversation about just that topic on Saturday, and if it is their strategy (they say in confessional, it isn’t their reason), it is a brilliant strategy.
Cut to fun driving montages. Rob and Kimberly’s car breaks down. Dustin and Kandice have an accident.
Dustin and Kandice are the first to arrive at the post office, and the clue they receive, postage due, tells them it’s detour time. I didn’t do the song last week, causing the readers not to comment, so I’ll do the song this week. Ready?
A detour is a choice between two tasks,
Between two tasks,
Between two tasks,
A detour is a choice between two tasks,
Each with its own pros and cons
Our choices are Salt ‘n’ Pepa. In Salt, teams must… Sorry. Our choice are between the current day economy and the island heritage. In Salt, teams must search three big Salt stacks to find a salt shaker containing their next clue. This should have been called the Jimmy Buffet task. In Sea, teams must take a boat to an island and, using a map created by third graders, find a mast and sail for their boat.
Dustin and Kandice elect for Sea because the clue tells them they will have a skipper to help them. Uhm, girls? The skipper is just to sail the boat. You have to find the clue by yourself.
Cut to Rob and Kimberly, finally getting a new car (but as Phil tells us in voiceover, not getting any time break for the first car breaking down), trying to find their way to the post office. Rob says it’s tough to enjoy the view when you’re stressed out all the time. Kimberly says “This isn’t a vaca” which we get captioned because, uhm, no idea. Some worry that America wouldn’t understand vaca without seeing it? Perhaps. Rob returns to his old self, making fun of the locals for not being more helpful. Because, as we all know, the only thing natives of foreign countries have to do all day long is be prepared to help any Americans who cross their path. Other things – going to their jobs, taking their kids to school, meeting a friend for lunch, you know, living their lives? – are secondary to making sure they are always able to help random asshole Americans traveling with a camera crew. Get with it, rest of the world!
You know, I said some nice things about Rob last week. I would like to withdraw those I don’t think he ever quit being an aggressive asshole, it’s just that Peter was such an enormous asshole that he made any other asshole seem like a nice guy. Peter sucked in assholeness like a black hole sucks in light, making stars that are actually burning bright seem dim. Course, there is a possibility that Peter’s absence may make Rob seem like even more of an asshole than he is. When Peter took his assholeness with him, it left an asshole void that makes Rob’s assholeness all the more assholey.
Lyn and Karlyn and Erwin and Godwin and David and Mary and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice arrive at the Post Office all at the same time. These days, they even all have their periods at the same time! Either Karlyn or Lyn ask the postal clerk if he has a package for her, and if I knew for sure which one said it, I would make a “I’ve got a package for her” joke. But I don’t, so I won’t. All three teams debate the pros and cons of the detours, just as Phil would want them to do, and eventually decide on Salt. For a moment it looked like they might actually split up, with Erwin and Godwin going to Salt and the others to Sea, but they fought back their urges for individuality. It’s a stupid move, especially if you are considering yourself a part of an alliance. There are a limited number of salt shakers, and it’s not like you will stay to help another team find one if you find yours first. On the other hand, if you take three teams to the island at the same time, you have effectively tripled your ability to cover the island and find the mast and sails. And since all of the masts and sails are in the same place, one team completing the task means all teams complete the task.
As they are driving away from the post office, they see Tyler and James driving to the post office. The boys also decide to do Salt, because Sea is too complex. Yeah. Riding a boat, then following a map, hurts the mind.
Cut to Dustin and Kandice on the boat, happy for the break they get while sailing. They decide to stretch out in the boat, and somehow we get an almost overhead shot of the two of them laying down side by side.
Jump back to four teams at the salt piles, digging through salt. In the background, we see Mauritiusians hard at work stacking salt. I guess we know who is going to clean up the mess. Tyler tells us his hands will be pickled. Mary finds a salt shaker, but it’s filled with pepper. Ha ha! I mean, that’s HI-larious! I mean, it’s not like spilling pepper into stacks of pure salt are going to mean extra work for someone else, right? Right?
Meanwhile, Rob and Kimberly have finally found the post office. Kimberly takes the clue, and reads it. Or tries to read it, because, as Rob points out, she isn’t getting all the words. Come on. Who needs all the words? What’s the difference between, say, “when the priest gets drunk he wants to fuck you up” and “the priest wants to fuck you”? They have a debate moment over which task to do, then Rob picks Salt. As they head back to their car, Rob trips over nothing, then tosses the clue in the car window, prompting Kimberly to accuse him of throwing the clue at her.
I apologize again, but I was wrong earlier. It’s not just the absence of Peter making Rob look like more of an asshole, it’s the added factor that Rob has stepped up his game in Peter’s absence. Rob, recognizing the dearth of assholeness, is bringing it hard. He’s determined not to let this season of TAR lose it’s assholeness. Good show Rob! Good show.
Dustin and Kandice reach the island and start searching. They quickly become lost, but they are at least sharp enough to be able to read the map and head off from the boat landing in the right direction.
Rob and Kimberly find the salt piles and Kimberly immediately tells Rob that they are going to switch to sea because of the chance of passing the other four teams. He seems hesitant at first, though as they are driving off he acts like it was his idea. Seeing them leave, Tyler and James also decide to go to sea. After a couple more minutes, Erwin and Godwin and Lyn and Karlyn decide to switch as well. Mary and David, on the other hand, decide to stay. Well, David does. He says he is not going to quit, though Mary keeps pestering him about it. In confessional she says that she didn’t blame Erwin and Godwin and Lyn and Karlyn, that they were playing to win, but she felt they were going to end up being a team forever looking for the lost item and getting eliminated because of it. She keeps pestering David about switching. She tells him they are never going to find it, he says he wants to keep looking, and we cut to commercial.
Now why do I mention the commercial, seeing that I have decided not to do the commercial gig anymore? Here’s why. It’s a standard TAR editing technique to go to commercial break with someone saying something can’t be done, then come back from commercial with the person doing it. And that’s what I was expecting here. But we don’t get it. Instead, when we come back from commercial David finally agrees with Mary that, since they are in last place anyway, they need to switch tasks.
Uhm, no. No. NO! For one thing, you don’t know how hard the other task is. We, the viewers, in order to form a more perfect union, have already seen Dustin and Kandice contemplate switching tasks from Sea to Salt. But even if you want to assume the other task is easier, at this point you are so far behind the other teams that, barring unforeseen difficulties, you’re going to end up in last place. On the other hand, finding the salt shaker will probably guarantee that you will pass some of the other teams. As a result, better to stay and stake your chances on finding the salt shaker than leaving.
Meanwhile, Rob and Kimberly and Tyler and James have arrived at the island and started looking. Tyler and James head off in the opposite direction from what the map indicates, and this, added with all the time they have spent lost on the trip, explains why they were reluctant to pursue this task in the first place. I mean, figuring out the right direction to head is as simple as it can be – the map marks the sails as being to the right of the boat landing. So even if you can’t figure out north or south, once you hit the boat landing, you head right. Perhaps all the drugs they collectively did killed their sense of direction.
Not that Rob and Kimberly are doing much better. They do head off in the proper direction, but rather than trying to work their way on the path into the jungle that is drawn on the map, Rob decides to just walk along the beach. Great plan, dude!
Cut back to Dustin and Kandice, who finally find the location of the masts and sails. Guarding the location is a ManTrap1900, the original version of the Man Trap, and yes, that’s a joke so far inside no one reading (if anyone is reading) is going to get it. The ManTrap1900 is covered with grass, and one of the girls falls into it. They return with the equipment, the skipper puts it up, and they are given their clue. It instructs them to go to the next pit stop at Chateau Briand. Or some such place. The two are worried that there is no one else there, apparently ignoring the two boats from the other teams.
Jump back to Erwin and Godwin and Lyn and Karlyn getting boats and heading for the island. As they head out, Dustin and Kandice are heading in. They wave at each of the other two teams, but both the brothers and the sistahs ignore them. And, to show how long the boat ride is (or perhaps more accurately, how little time actually passed between Erwin/Godwin/Lyn/Karlyn deciding to leave salt and Mary and David deciding to leave salt, Dustin and Kandice see David and Mary on their boat headed to the island. And when Dustin and Kandice wave at them, they both wave back, much to the delight of the blondes.
So now we have five teams on sea. Rob and Kimberly find them first, with Kimberly falling into the ManTrap1900. They pass the Karlyn and Lyn and Erwin and Godwin on their way back to the main island, and they must also pass David and Mary, though we don’t see that. Same with Tyler and James. Tyler is next victim of the ManTrap1900. The boys get their equipment and head back. Before they leave, David and Mary get to the island. Indeed, just after we see Tyler and James take off, we see David/Erwin/Lyn/Karlyn/Mary/Godwin hook up and start searching. The three teams find the sails and masts at the same time, but no one falls into the ManTrap1900.
Cut to the main island, where three teams are searching for the Pit Stop. Dustin and Kandice get there first, winning scooters. Phil tells them the scooters hold two people, so they can use them to go on dates. Dustin asks Phil if she can take him on a date, and though Jeff Probst is sitting on his shoulder whispering “Say yes”, Phil just arches an eyebrow.
Tyler and James are next to the mat, and one of them remarks that one of the Six Pack will be going home. Rob and Kimberly come in third.
Cut to the Six Pack arriving at the main island. The teams are all making comments about how they don’t expect any of the other teams to wait for them or to have hard feelings about trying to not finish last. We see David and Mary take a wrong turn at Mary’s suggestion. Erwin and Godwin make it next to the mat, followed very closely by Lyn and Karlyn. Lyn and Karlyn are visibly upset, and Phil asks them why. Lyn says “Because we know who is finishing sixth”, and indeed, David and Mary are last. But we get another non-elimination, which means we should only have one left. David and Mary are marked for elimination and get hit with a 30-second penalty if they don’t finish first, and since they already used a Fast Forward, that option is no longer open to them, even if the next leg features one.
Next on the Amazing Race? Cool! A Yield? Wait. The hell? An Intersection? Sounds like teams will be required to work with another team to perform a task. ¶ 3:22 PM
Comments:
<< Home
There are three people in the world, including me, who would get it, and neither of the other two read this blog.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home
