Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Learning Experiences
By M. Giant | Season 16 | Episode 2 | Aired on 02.21.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Bus travel from Santiago to Puerto Varas proves fraught, with debates regarding line etiquette and direct routes versus transfers. Only Jet|Cord, Brent|Caite, and Jordan|Jeff think to score an indirect ticket that will actually get them there earlier. But only the Cowboys pull off their transfer successfully, and are the first to complete the long trek to an island in the Chilean lake country. Then the Detour is a choice between dressing up llamas or dressing as condors. Since the latter option also involves jumping in the frigid lake, that turns out not to be a popular choice among the smarter teams. Then, for the Road Block, teams have to gather fresh pastry ingredients from all over a working farm. The Cowboys hold onto their lead all the way to the Pit Stop and win the leg, and a pair of sailboards, which will be awesome back on the ranch. Whereas the detectives' eagle eyes fail them and they miss the Road Block entirely until Team BB11, on their way to the Pit Stop, points them in the right direction. But not even that mistake, nor even more embarrassing ones by Dan and Jordan, can overcome the bad juju of Shannon and Jody's loser-edit, so it looks like Grandma's going home with nothing but a fresh hoof-print on her forehead.
'Get our predictions for who will win.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"This is Valparaiso, Chile," Phil muses dreamily, except for the "musing dreamily" part. Unlike last week, when it was the San Francisco of South America, it's now known as "Little San Francisco," for its steep streets and cultural institutions like Palacio Baburizza, whose cultural contributions include not only being an art museum, but more importantly the first Pit Stop in this season's race. Phil says the ten teams have no idea where they'll be going after this. Which will still be true even after the leg begins, but it's one of Phil's stock phrases, so let's move on. Big Brother team Jordan and Jeff, who arrived first at 3:21 PM, are leaving at 3:21 AM.
So obviously it's dark outside when they open their clue telling them to get to Puerto Varas, Chile, and they have to do it by bus. That's a bus ride sixty miles back to Santiago, where they initially flew into the country, then another 575-mile bus ride to Puerto Varas, which is longer than any bus ride I ever have or hope to be on. But even then their traveling won't be finished; they'll have to drive to a lake near hotel Petrohué (pronounced "Petro-hway"), take a boat to Isla Margarita (and hope there are lots of them waiting for them there after that bus ride), and climb to a hilltop site called Mirador to find their next clue. Assuming they're still alive by that point. Jordan and Jeff learn that the cash allowance for this leg is $87, and then find a cab. They have difficulty explaining the concept of "bus "to their non-English-speaking driver, so Jordan just tries repeating the word a lot. The driver does understand the word "Valparaiso," at least, so they eventually get moving. In a joint interview where Jeff has a white condom on his head for some reason, he talks about how they're working well together so far. Jordan pipes up, and Jeff half-kids, "I was just on a roll and then you cut it off." She tells him to go ahead and finish his thought, and he says, "Maybe we're not working so well together any more." Then he tells Jordan to go ahead because he was just kidding, but she forgot what she was going to say anyway. Which is a shame, because I'm sure it would have been scintillating. They reach the Valparaiso bus station when it's still dark out, and learn from a worker that the place opens at 5:00 AM. Jeff figures they're going to all get on the first bus together.
We don't get departure times for the rest of the teams, which normally I'd be fully in favor of, but in the second episode of the season, it would be nice to be reminded who everyone is. Especially teams like father and daughter Steve and Allie, and "mom-trepreneurs" Monique and Shawne, who may have about a minute of screen time between them in this whole episode. Still, when the ticketing window opens at 5:00, Dan is somehow the first one there, asking for tickets on the first bus to Santiago for him and is brother Jordan. There's Steve|Allie and Carol|Brandy, the latter of whom wants to take back her earlier characterization of Team BB11 as "Barbie and Ken" in the face of their win the previous leg. She says that obviously they're smarter than she gave them credit for. And as a demonstration of this, we see Jeff marveling to Jordan about how the local dogs understand Spanish.