Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Tea, totally
By Miss Alli | Season 7 | Episode 7 | Aired on 04.11.2005
Boxblock. Meredith is encouraging Gretchen to look at a particular stack of boxes, but she insists she's done those already. "I don't know what to do," she whimpers. Meredith cheers for her, because, of course...he doesn't know what to do either. At last, she opens up a box and finds a clue. "Oh, my gosh!" she says. She heads out with the clue, and Meredith cheers for her and gives her a chuckling kiss, which is really sweet. "All right, open 'er up," he says on the topic of the clue, and she does. They meet up with a gentleman who offers to help find them a rickshaw to get to Aishbagh. Not only that, but once they're on their way, the guy tells them that he's going to come with them. Out of the kindness of his heart. Nothing to do with the cameras! Nothing at all!
Rob and Amber make their way through the streets, followed by Ron and Kelly. When they get to where they're going, they find their way to the gas station, and are essentially together when they pluck the next clue. The clue is a Detour, and the choices are Solid and Liquid. In Solid, you go a mile to a coal depot, and you smash coal into pieces until you have 175 pounds of it, at which point you deliver it on a flatbed tricycle four blocks to a store. Phil claims this is the task that could go well if you have "muscle." Or black lung. In Liquid, you go three miles to a tea shop, and you take a tea cart and push it 100 yards to a three-story office building. Then, you search for five employees in the building from a list of ten, and you serve each of those a cup of tea, for which they'll give you back a business card. You turn in your business cards at the end, and you're done. As Phil explains that this task "doesn't require strength," he is backed by a large crowd of youngish Indian men, all of whom appear to be members of the I Want To Be Phil Club Of India. I've never seen Phil sporting a posse quite like that. They were kind of like the Jets. The only thing that would have made that more awesome would have been if they had started snapping.
Rob and Amber pick the tea. Ron and Kelly do, too. Ron just thinks it sounds "a lot easier than breaking coal." Yeah, I think the unpredictability of what exactly it would be like to actually try to break up coal is part of what's involved here. I think they're just not sure how that would go. No coal miners in the group, apparently. Besides, Ron broke up enough coal when he was in Baghdad. Rob and Amber immediately hop back into the bicycle rickshaw, but Kelly is convinced that three miles is too far to go in one of those, and she wants to get a taxi instead. This in spite of the fact that the taxis are moving so slowly that it seriously doesn't look like it will be faster. It would appear that Lucknow is the Manhattan of India, taxi-traffic-wise. When Ron presses to at least get going in the right direction, Kelly does my least favorite thing of all, which is, "I disagree with that, Ron, but I'll go and do it, but I'll make it known, I disagree with it, and we can get in a taxi in three minutes." There you have it: a speech with no purpose but to set up an argument and bitch session later if it takes a long time to get there in the rickshaw. Ron isn't impressed and is like, "Great, fine, let's go." Heh. It's hard when your manipulation is met with indifference. Kelly continues complaining that it's a "bad idea."
I am not lying when I tell you that in his bicycle rickshaw, Lynn announces, "Oh, I love to wave at the people; I wish I had things to throw at them." I presume he means flowers or something, and not bricks or watermelons. Meaning he's just being insulting and patronizing, rather than, you know, violent. But can you believe that? That's your attitude in someone else's country? You envision yourself throwing something to the adoring crowds? Absolutely unbelievable, and that's why he's not nice to locals. I think that attitude totally comes through. And then they throw in Alex saying, "Ow, my butt hurts," which isn't as mischievously funny as whoever included it thinks it is. It really isn't.