Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Back to School
By M. Giant | Season 17 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.10.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Without leaving Ghana, the teams get to go to boxing school and do everything but box, in a Road Block that Brook knocks out before three of the teams have even left the Pit Stop. But Jonathan and Connor steal the lead on the way to a primary school where they have to schlep construction supplies before humiliating themselves in a one-question geography quiz (find Ghana on a map) and then doing a Detour in which they either have to roll a hoop the length of a soccer field and back, or decode a wall of pictograms. The singers make it to the Pit Stop before the episode is even halfway over, which bodes much drama in the second half.
Sure enough, Nick throws a fit and screams at Vicky for misreading the clue about the building supplies, and continues to be a dick until she calms him down by having an asthma attack. Most other teams are completely flummoxed by the decoding task and switch to the hoop-rolling one, which seems physically impossible for Michael's dad Kevin. The medics need to step in, which nearly gives him an emotional breakdown as well. Fortunately for the Amazing Editors, Nat and Kat, who were already nearly kidnapped by their cabdriver, get lost en route to the Pit Stop, so it almost ends up as a race after all. But Kevin and Michael still come in last. BUT it's a non-elimination leg, so they're still in it. Also, all of the racers will be doing renovation work on the school before they start the next leg. I'm a little worried for that school now.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!"This is Accra, capitol city of Ghana," Phil intones. He's back in Kaneshie Market, the second Pit Stop, which he says has more than 2,000 vendors, making it one of the largest markets in West Africa. Which he told us last week. Remember when episodes used to open with new and interesting facts about the Pit Stops, or at least new ones? His research department is letting down the side. Brook and Claire, who won the last leg, are leaving at 7:34 AM. The clue is sending them to the Jamestown neighborhood to find the Akotoku Boxing Academy and their next clue. But Brook and Claire don't know it's a boxing school until their driver tells them, at which point they're thrilled. What did they think Akotoku Boxing Academy was, a gift wrapping club?
Katie and Rachel are close behind at 7:35, and quickly get a taxi. Michael and Kevin will be leaving in third place, at 7:45. In a pre-leg interview, Kevin admits that they have a hard time keeping up physically with teams in their twenties and thirties, Michael being fifty-nine and all. Kevin adds that this isn't as much about winning the million dollars as staying in as many legs as they can so they can experience all the different countries. I'm glad to see he has a realistic attitude about their chances of winning the million dollars. I suppose he also wouldn't complain if this gig scored him another million YouTube subscribers, but then if there were a way to monetize the first million he probably wouldn't be here.
Brook and Claire have already arrived at the boxing academy, where guys are doing some early-morning sparring in an outdoor ring. Brook shrieks her excitement as she grabs their clue and gushes about the burly men. "You've got a Rocky road ahead," the clue hint reads, har har. Suddenly here's Phil, to tell us that boxing is the second-most popular sport in Ghana after soccer, so there are boxing gyms like this all over the country. They certainly take up less space than soccer fields. Phil reminds us that Ghana has produced several world-champion boxers, so it's kind of a letdown when he says that for this Road Block, all they'll have to accomplish is tape up their hands like a boxer, and then do sixty seconds each on the speed bag and the jump rope to earn their next clue. Seriously, that's it? I was hoping they'd have to knock down a boxer, or at the very least get knocked down by a boxer, but it doesn't look like they're even getting in the ring. Boo. Despite this, Brook wants to do the Road Block, and I'm sure those watermelon-sized speed bags on their vertical elastic bands are giving Claire PTSD flashbacks anyway. Brook interviews that she and Claire train at a boxing facility back home. "Come on, Bammer," Claire calls to Brook from the sidelines. She tells us, "If Brook gets in the ring with those other guys, I'm scared for the other guy." I'm scared for the guy who has to tell Brook she's not getting into the ring. Brook starts taping up her hand, trying to keep up with the trainer who's taping his. Think he'll put the tape over his mouth just to see if he can get her to mimic it?