Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Phuket Again
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.16.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The next leg takes place in Phuket, Thailand, and the two lead teams (the snowboarders and Zac & Laurence) are on a plane to Jakarta before the other six teams have even left the Pit Stop, but the other racers book seats all the way through before leaving, securing their arrival in Phuket almost an hour before the "lead" teams. Bill and Cathi's ability to pick the fastest cabbie plays out yet again in a nighttime race to a Marina, but they find the place closed until eight the next morning anyway, so the whole first act was much ado about nothing. At 8:00 AM, they all run out to a floating pier (and the snowboarders quickly get the lead back) to get a Detour clue. This is how they learn that they have to either arrange beach chairs or plant coral for reef reconstruction, both of which will supposedly repair damage from the 2004 tsunami. Awfully nice of them.
They all motorboat out to a tiny island and get to work at pretty much the same time. Andy and Tommy continue to do well as they plant coral, while Justin & Jennifer and Marcus & Amani and Jeremy & Sandy and Bill & Cathi struggle against the current, and experienced lifeguards Liz and Marie struggle with the beach chairs, even with help from other racers. Most teams attempting the coral task end up switching, although the siblings manage to survive both the current and their own persistent bickering. Then the wind wreaks havoc with the beach umbrellas. After the Detour, teams have to navigate to two towering islands and do a Road Block where they climb a sheer rock wall to retrieve their next clue. Andy aces that, so he and Tommy win their third leg in a row, but their first one that didn't require another team to screw up.
Ernie and Cindy get lost in the ocean on the way to the Road Block and drop a few positions, while Sandy and Jeremy's Test Drive Of Love hits a few potholes on their way to a third-place finish. And Laurence and Zac, who have sailed around the world, can't manage to navigate across the sea to the floating Pit Stop and end up having to follow another team's boat. Amani and Marcus get lost in the floating village while other teams beat them to the mat, but they don't come in last; that honor goes to Liz and Marie, who find out that it's a non-elimination leg anyway. So they have another leg to prove themselves, and I have another leg to figure out how to tell them apart. I think I'm getting close, y'all!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"Indonesia has 129 active volcanoes," Phil informs us like we were just in the middle of a conversation, "more than any other country in the world." Then we're back at the Buddhist temple at Borobudur, which Phil tells us was covered by volcanic ash and dense jungle for centuries. But now that it's back in daylight, it's both a place of worship and the start of the fourth leg in a race around the world. Two-fer! We waste no time getting started with the winners of the previous leg (and the leg before that): Andy and Tommy, whose starting time is 8:17 AM. They rip their clue and we learn that they'll fly north to Phuket, Thailand, which Phil describes as a "tropical playground." After they land, they'll race to the end of a floating pier at a marina, where a red-and-yellow barrel awaits with yellow clue envelopes strapped to it. Did the old free-standing clue boxes get put on a terrorist watch list or something? Tommy interviews that they want a "clean, legit first place" this time, reminding us of how much Laurence helped them during the last leg. They hop into a cab, and are pretty stoked about going to Thailand. That's a good snowboarder word, right? Stoked? I think it's right up there with "enthused."
Laurence and Zac take off at 8:28 AM, which means that if you don't count the fifteen-minute penalty they incurred, they got to the mat four whole minutes ahead of the snowboarders. Some of that can probably be accounted for by the time Tommy spent giving the solution to the Road Block to Amani and Marcus, which ended up making no difference to the latter team at all. Laurence interviews that they don't want to make the same mistake they made yesterday, which they won't unless there's another Detour with a limited number of buckets, "but this game is full of the unexpected, so if we make a mistake, make sure we're with another team." The key to winning the Amazing Race: drag someone else down with you. In their cab to the airport, Zac says he's never been to Thailand, and asks his dad if he ever has. Laurence doesn't think so. If you can't remember everywhere you've been, it's possible you're too well traveled. Unless Laurence has a story that was the basis for The Hangover Part II.
Andy and Tommy are already at the airport, where the woman behind the ticket window tells them there are no direct flights to Phuket, but they can catch an imminent flight back to Jakarta and figure it out from there. That sounds cool to them. Laurence and Zac are also at the airport, and the snowboarders send them over to the window where they got their Jakarta tickets. Both teams are on the 9:40 AM flight. Literally, they're on the plane before we know it, planning to get seats through to Phuket once they reach Jakarta. What could go wrong?