Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Gods Must Be in the Tub
By M. Giant | Season 22 | Episode 6 | Aired on 03.24.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After some discussion of the U-Turning that went down during the previous leg, everyone flies together from Hanoi to Botswana, but three different bush flights carry the seven remaining teams to the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Bates & Anthony and Caroline & Jennifer are in the lead as each team meets up with a group of three Bushmen who will be running the rest of the leg with them. They start by going out and digging up scorpions, which the Bushmen orally tame before letting the racers pop them into jars. Joey & Meghan and Max & Katie are on the second flight, and although neither man is particularly macho about the scorpion encounter, Joey makes Max look like Indiana Jones by comparison. The third flight, carrying the derby moms, Pam & Winnie, and the perennially trailing Chuck & Wynona, have different levels of luck at the scorpion hunt, but at least Wynona does a Roadblock at last.
Each team drives their Bushmen guides on to the Detour, where they have to either make a fire by rubbing two sticks together or construct a clever snare to catch guinea fowl in the local style. Almost everyone opts for the first choice, but Bates & Anthony prove to be the only team who can actually do it, and they win the leg. Everyone else eventually gives up and switches. That ends up being to the advantage of both Pam & Winnie and Chuck & Wynona, who were previously at the back of the pack when they decided to start with the snare task in the first place. Pam & Winnie come in second and Chuck & Wynona post an unprecedented third-place finish while the teams who were once ahead of them try to build their own snares. Joey & Meghan come in fifth and Caroline & Jennifer sixth. Max & Katie were the last team to switch tasks, but does Beth & Mona's ill-advised detour to the parking lot to see if they could drive to the Pit Stop give Team Newlywed a chance to not come in last? It does not; the derby moms are team number six, and Max & Katie are the last team to arrive. But it's a non-elimination leg, and they're still in the race to continue grossing us out about being on their honeymoon.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!You want a really serious beginning? Even before the previouslies, we open with onscreen titles on a blue background read by Phil in voice-over: "Parts of last Sunday's episode, filmed in Vietnam, were insensitive to a group that is very important to us: our nation's veterans. We want to apologize to veterans -- particularly those who served in Vietnam -- as well as to their families and any viewers who were offended by the broadcast. All of us here have the most profound respect for the men and women who fight for our country." Okay, I agree that the B-52 wreckage could have been treated more respectfully and with some actual context, including in my recap, so I apologize for that too. But I'll have to disagree with anyone who thought the producers intended that pro-communism song to come off as anything other than supremely goofy.
Previouslies, credits, and ads. Then Phil tells us, as if we need reminding, "This is Vietnam," over a shot of a giant sculpture clearly dedicated to world peace: a globe being held by two hands, surmounted by a giant white dove, with an entire hemisphere covered by Vietnam. So, you know, peace under Vietnam. Phil goes on to say that more than 90 million people live here and "Its capital, Hanoi, is the economic and cultural center of the country. This National History Museum was once the French Consulate, and is now the start of the sixth leg in a race around the world." Now they're going to have to apologize to the French next week.
Pam & Winnie, having won the previous leg, are the first to begin this one at 10:40 PM. The clue reads, "Make your way to the city of Maun in the Kalahari Desert." After some shots of the African savannah and elephants and such, Phil narrates, "Teams must now figure out that they need to fly more than six thousand miles across the Indian Ocean to the African nation of Botswana. When they touch down, they'll have to find Mack Air and sign up for one of three flights that will then take them to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park on the edge of the Kalahari Desert." This is all illustrated with shots of elephants, ostriches, giraffes, apes and the like in their natural habitats, as well as the chalkboard sign-up outside Mack Air. "Once there --" specifically, a primitive lean-to at the National Park with a hand-painted sign identifying it as "Xhumaga Airstrip Lounge -- "they'll find their next clue." Pam & Winnie head into a hotel to borrow some Internet, which is how they find out they're going to Botswana. They are aware that they don't want to get overconfident, especially after having U-Turned Meghan & Joey and potentially called down their twee wrath, but they think it would be pretty stupid of Team YouTube to take it personally. Mostly, as we see them back in their cab, they're just excited to be going to Botswana. As any fans of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series would be. Not that I know they are, it's just that who isn't?