Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cab Fair
By M. Giant | Season 17 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.07.2010
Team YouTube and Team QVC pull up to the church in their illegal taxis, which the other teams see while they're waiting to get on a tour bus. "Did you guys lie to us?" Kevin yells at them across the street. Nick plays dumb, and pretty convincingly, but Kevin isn't fooled. Except Nick claims to us that he doesn't know what Kevin is talking about, so it's possible he actually did forget. Now that Kevin has righteously confronted the wrongdoers, they head over to the clue box and open it up, agreeing to continue to work together and trust Kevin's "really smart" taxi driver. Obviously that taxi driver didn't get a gander the clue. Across the street, Nat and Kat have stepped onto a tour bus just long enough to find out from the guide where Peter the Great is buried, so now they have a destination. Nick wonders what they're waiting for, and they split up to go back to their taxis. Which Nat and Kat pretty much have to do anyway, since their backpacks are still in theirs. While Kevin rides to the next destination, he says they want to beat Nick and Vicki to show them that lying doesn't help them. You know what does help, Kevin? Reading the clue.
Chad and Stephanie have found the tower, and Stephanie climbs up while Chad hangs back and tells us, "I'm trying more and more to let her make decisions and let her do things without me." Big of him. What else does he "let" her do? Up above, Stephanie's having the same problem everyone else did, which isn't surprising.
Nick and Vicki are having trouble hailing a taxi. "Why won't they stop for us?" Vicki wonders. Well, you're both a little scary-looking. Take out a piercing or two and see if you don't have better luck. She leads them back to where their original cab was. Team @ has already returned to Bank Bridge and their original driver, who's all ready to drive them to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nick and Vicki arrive a bit later, out of breath, only to discover that the taxis there are waiting on other people. Following her, Nick bitches about this "brilliant Vicki idea. Get off the main road to go into a ditch." He yells some criticism at her, then mutters, "Moron." The subtitles are certainly helpful there, as I'm sure they will be when Nick and Vicki watch this at home. Meet the new improved Nick, everyone.
Meanwhile, in the cab to the Fortress, Claire has just looked at their clue and how it says, "You must walk to your next destination." Which they are emphatically not doing. Brook realizes that means they have to go back to the tower, and although the driver doesn't look happy, he turns them around anyway. What, do the taxi meters in St. Petersburg unwind if you retrace your route? Up ahead, Michael and Kevin realize that Team QVC are no longer behind them. Brook says that Michael and Kevin are going to get penalized, and they feel bad enough about it that it causes a commercial break. My question is, how come hardly anybody ever double-checks their clues like Claire just did? I get that the only practical time to do that is when you're crammed into the back of a cab with your partner and your sound guy, when the last thing you want to be doing is rooting around in your paperwork, but we've seen so many people screw themselves out of the race by missing an important part of the clue, while hardly anyone ever gets eliminated as a result of accidentally elbowing someone.