Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Couch Trip
By M. Giant | Season 18 | Episode 8 | Aired on 04.17.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The Cowboys fly solo again, but this time it's to minimize flight connections to Vienna, Austria. Which doesn't really pay off. Once there, they have to drive car commercials to get their clue sending them to Schloss Schallaberg, and thence to the National Library. Then a Detour requires them to either schlep a couch from Freud's house to the University of Vienna or eat a meal during a rotation of a giant Ferris wheel. Both Jen/Kisha, Zev/Justin, and Gary/Mallory try and fail the eating task, meaning everyone ends up carrying the couch sooner or later. Jet and Cord catch up, and then everyone drives to Salzburg to sweep chimneys. After this ridiculously easy Road Block, it's a race to the home of the Von Trapps, where Zev and Justin each win their own Ford Focus, which has got to make Gary and Mallory feel pretty stupid about winning that tea-commercial leg instead of this one. Kent and Vyxsin not only survive a leg of bickering, they score their best ranking yet by finishing in third place. And Gary and Mallory, after a lackluster leg, come in last, only to find that it's a non-elimination leg, and they might not come in sixth for their second Amazing Race in a row after all.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Huh, not one but two Ford Focus commercials between the credits and the beginning of the show. Think that's some kind of mistake? When the show begins, Phil reminds us, "This is the holy city of Varanasi, the religious center of India since its birth more than three thousand years ago." Although the seventh Pit Stop, Ramnagar Fort, was only built in the eighteenth century. Flight Time and Big Easy, after winning the previous leg, will be leaving at 2:07 AM, which is just mean. Flight Time reads from the clue that they're flying to Vienna, Austria. Phil doesn't say how far that is, but he does mention that it's more than 40 degrees colder there. He doesn't say if that's Fahrenheit or Celsius, but then -40 is the same either way. Upon landing, they'll "choose a brand-new, 2012 Ford Focus and get their next clue." Which looks to involve backing over some letters on the floor of the parking ramp and right into a camera. As the Globetrotters get into a cab, Big Easy says he likes Austria: "That's where The Terminator's from." Flight Time does a pretty decent Arnold impression in the cab to the travel agency. "I'll be back. But not to India, hopefully." Just think how many Sarah Connors there must be in that phone book.
Zev and Justin are leaving in second place, at 2:12 AM. Zev must be the only person in India wearing an Elmer Fudd hat. It turns out that the clue specifies certain travel agencies for them to go to in order to book their tickets, probably because the production has arranged for them to be fully staffed overnight. The Globetrotters have already arrived at one of these to request the fastest possible flight to Vienna. Zev and Justin arrive minutes later and ask a different agent, "Same as them, but faster." The agent gets right on that.
Kisha and Jen are leaving at 2:53 AM, in third place. Jen talks about how much she enjoys running the race with her sister, and how they've been close since their childhood of being raised by a single mom. "I can't get rid of her, per se," Jen interviews. Awwww!
Gary and Mallory's leg begins at 3:30 AM, and she wonders if Vienna's cold. Gary says yes. Mallory: "Rats!" They're already wearing jackets against the night chill even here in India. Mallory mentions in a pre-leg interview that this is the eighth leg, the same leg that cost them the race last time. Flashback to one brief moment of their long, long sojourn in Oman. Mallory adds that "the Finish Line is fresh in our mind and we'd like to be the ones runnin' instead of the ones on the sidelines clappin'." Like she isn't usually clappin' and runnin' at the same time either way.