Episode Report Card Miss Alli: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Don't Bite on the Beethoven
By Miss Alli | Season 4 | Episode 3 | Aired on 06.11.2003
5:24 AM. Al and ClownJon. You will not believe this, but Al starts things off by telling us that he and Jon are both clowns. Are they literally going to tell us that at the beginning of every episode? He says that they intend to be the guys who can be "fun guys" but are then serious about the race. Pardon me while I sit over here and do my personal salute to Yawning Clowns. I think I have promise as a professional, based solely on how convincing I am finding myself.
5:25 AM. Russell and Cindy. Cindy says (this will shock you) that spending twenty-four hours a day together has created "tension" between her and Russell. She says she thought they were great partners for three years, and it's taken all of four or five days to make her go, "Yuck." I'm sorry, she's been putting up with this asshole for three years? Wow, there goes my sympathy for her. Cindy and Russell get a water taxi.
5:26 AM. Chuck and Millie. They count their money and leave the mat. Chuck voices over that the first few days of the race have made him neither more nor less inclined to get married. Chuck is so ambivalence's bitch. He says that it has suggested to him that they can work together. "I can't wait for Chuck forever," Millie voices over. I wish I understood how she can be such an aggressive person in every other way and yet not be willing to take responsibility for the direction of her relationship. Again, I refuse to believe this dynamic is as it appears. Who would marry a guy who took twelve years to decide he was prepared to commit to you? That seems like an intrinsically horrible idea.
5:27 AM. Josh and DadSteve. Continuing this week's theme of Hash and Rehash, Josh tells us that for most of his life, he and his dad haven't gotten along, but on the race, they're "working on it." I don't want you to get the impression that Josh bugs me any less than he always has, but I'll say this: Of all the relationships they do on this show, I think I enjoy the parent-child relationships the most, because they generally strike me as the ones that are the most profoundly affected by the experience. I suppose that the way you see a person as a partner in a really grueling situation like this is more unlike the way you normally view your parent or child than it is unlike the way you normally view your best friend or boyfriend, so perhaps it's just that the perspective you get on the other person is more surprising. At any rate, Josh still looks like everything he knows about love, he learned at computer camp.