Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Barcelona Killed The Beauty Queens
By Miss Alli | Season 10 | Episode 12 | Aired on 12.02.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After a camel-eating Roadblock in Morocco, the teams head to Barcelona, where they have to complete a most emotionally taxing Detour in which they choose between carrying giant dolls on their bodies and standing around while locals throw tomatoes at them. No kidding. When Kimberly realizes that people are, for real, pelting her with actual whole tomatoes that hurt when they wing you in the face, she basically panics (genuinely panics, not just gets unhappy) and runs. Rob screeches at her, which makes it worse, and she screeches back, which makes it even worse than that. They wind up staying put, though, and they finish the Detour and get to the pit stop in first place. Right behind them are the *lyns, who get into a couple of very nasty arguments that last for basically the whole leg, but who are certainly pleased to be the first all-female team in the final three. The Addicts (And Models!) wind up beating out the BQs, which is good, because their last-place finish means that the BQs can't even claim that they only went out because of the penalty they carried from last week. No, they legitimately came in last twice in a row, and it's finally enough to knock them out. Next week, what will happen? Well, the previews make a couple of strong suggestions, but the history would suggest you should beware of reverse psychology. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Olive My Favorite People Did This Detour: The teams went to Morocco, where the BQs bungled their flight planning and were big old slowpokes in the initial dash, but still managed to get to the mat in time to Yield the *lyns. A Roadblock featured chariots and the ongoing tale of James Is A Disappointment And Will Never Get Into Big-Boy Pants At This Rate, but the *lyns managed to complete it quickly enough that they didn't fall terribly far behind, all things and horses and turbans and Yields and ill-advised hissyfits considered. On the way to the Detour, the BQs wound up having to actually navigate instead of hiring taxis to lead their shapely fannies all over the place as they've been doing, and they immediately missed the turn and wound up having to wait around to crush olives. They learned what it means to be neither first to come, nor first to be served. In fact, things changed so rapidly that they landed on the mat in last place, and they held on by the thinnest thread of non-elimination. Four teams left, and the BQs "marked for elimination" in the sense that they will serve a 30-minute penalty unless they finish first. Who will be eliminated... next?
Credits. You know, I'm no expert, but that does not look like good bicep-curl form, the way Erwin is leaning back to make that weight come up. I'm thinking that a muscle is about to come boinging out of his arm. [BOMP.]
Commercials. I cannot believe that NCIS is still on. You could abolish television, movies, and video, and there would still be Mark Harmon, like, doing monologues at Starbucks. The dude does not die.
We are in the scenic Atlas Mountains, which separate the Mediterranean from the Sahara Desert, which is presumably a large job, what with their tendency to argue. At the edge of the desert near what Phil refers to as "the famed road to Marrakesh," we find the Berber camp that is serving as our pit stop. Phil looks all kinds of wrinkly. I think he needs to be ironed. Like, not just his shirt -- the whole guy. It's not really the good kind of "rumpled" here. Naturally, he has to wonder aloud whether the BQs can get past the limitation of being "marked." Of course, the answer is, "As long as they're not marked with mascara smears."
5:30 AM. James and Tyler. Tyler is wearing his hat backwards today, the better to let the intelligence leak freely from his ears. The clue tells them to drive to Casablanca and, once there, find a particular area where the clue is located, not that it's described very specifically. It's kind of like being told to look for the clue in "Times Square," I think, if Times Square had fewer seventeen-dollar hamburgers and more locally grown vegetables. Phil explains that this is a 275-mile drive through the mountains, so: good luck with that. They comment on the pretty sunrise as they leave the mat, so that's something. James voices over as they get in the car that they're going to do whatever it takes, million dollars, high stakes, yap yap yap. In the car, Tyler says that they're not worried about their placement today, as long as they manage to get the BQs out of the game. Tyler interviews that they'd obviously rather have the *lyns there than the BQs, because the *lyns aren't as much competition. I certainly understand why he might reach that conclusion, but it's the kind of comment that will get a guy whapped right on the noggin with a karmic tire iron.