Episode Report Card Strega: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT In Your Car
By Strega | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 04.22.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.At the drive-in, Alex wins a "most improved" reward: a different destination from the other racers and a chance to get way ahead of the pack. Winston jump-starts his brain and decides to follow Alex. At least until Alex shakes him, which takes all of five minutes. Then Alex and Corinna go to Sweetwater, Georgia, where it appears that in order to reach the checkpoint, they need to get a safe deposit box from a bank. Corinna recruits Winston and Sean to help, presumably because Peter Graves wasn't available. The heist goes pretty well until some kind of extra-evil bionic security guard turns up. Sean kills the guard and gets shot himself for his trouble. Alex drops Corinna and Winston off at a motel with the safe deposit box and takes off with a gutshot Sean in his back seat. Where's Mr. Wolf when you need him? Amazingly enough, the other racers aren't doing much better. Wendy gets a call from Cindy Williams, who thinks that Sam is in danger. When Wendy prepares to skip the race and go get her son, Ivy pulls out the pistol. Wendy finally offers to give Ivy the minivan, which is when Ivy has to admit that she can't drive. Heh. Leigh and Susan (remember them?) turn up at the drive-in a day late. It turns out that Bright called them there because he wants his racephone back. After being told that she and Leigh are out of the race, Susan gets all Roslin-y about how God said she'd win. Then she spots Rob and Ellie and starts following them. Rob, meanwhile, has found out that he's going to be court-martialed because of Ellie's inability to take a message. While bitching her out, he tosses their racephone out of the car. Susan retrieves the impressively sturdy phone, and just when she's starting to feel really messianic, she and Leigh are run off the road by a menacing 4x4. Leigh wakes up just in time to watch Susan die. I'm gonna try not to take that personally. Then Leigh climbs out of the wreck and starts hitchhiking her way to the checkpoint in Appomattox, Virginia. As for John and Violet...well, I'm sure they're fine. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open with a montage! It's like the Oscars, only cooler, since this is a montage of car crashes set to a country song. So maybe it's more like driver's ed. It turns out that this is the show the racers are being treated to at the drive-in. Although I was kind of hoping for a cameo by Joe Bob. Sigh. Corinna thinks the montage might contain a clue to the next checkpoint, so Alex sulkily tries to pay attention.
Wendy's standing outside her minivan, having another conference call with Cindy Williams. Apparently Wendy wants to say goodnight to her baby. Cindy Williams has reached the end of her patience, and I can't really blame her. She tells Wendy that Sam's asleep, and lectures, "If there's a problem, I promise we'll call you first." A duly chastened Wendy apologizes and hangs up.
Rob is vexed because he can't use the racephone to call out. He gets out of the car and says that he's going to find a pay phone so he can "check in with the Sarge." Ellie protests, as usual, but this time she's not successful. Maybe she should have tried leaning over into the backseat again. But she's saved as there's a music cue signaling the end of the montage, and Bright says, "Welcome drivers!" over the loudspeaker.
As Bright congratulates the racers on making it this far, Violet unsuccessfully tries to wake up John, who's sacked out in the passenger seat. We cut between the cars as Bright explains, "Tonight, one of you will be rewarded with a special advantage. A little something we call a jump-start."
A cheesy soundtrack from shorts in the 1950s plays as the movie screen shows some cars zipping along. Bright says that the jump-start is an opportunity to gain a huge lead, and we go to a CGI illustration. Bright really does love visual aids. He adds, "We use the word 'opportunity' because winning is not guaranteed. You have to earn it. This involves risk." Anyway, he and the CGI explain that after completing the challenge, the racers will be able to skip the current checkpoint entirely and go on to the next one. He breathlessly says, "This could earn you a distance advantage of up to 700 miles!" He says that the challenge will go to the racer with the "most improved overall" ranking. And that'd be Alex. The movie screen suddenly shows a live image of Alex. All of the other racers lean around to stare at the Challenger. Then Alex's racephone rings. He looks at the display and reads, "455 Broad Street, Sweetwater, Georgia." Bright wishes all of the other racers luck, and their racephones ring. Which distracts them from giving Alex the stink-eye.