Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sugar, sugar
By Miss Alli | Season 9 | Episode 2 | Aired on 03.06.2006
Upon arriving at their destination, BJ and Tyler holler.
The four lead teams all arrive at Edificio Copan close together, and they discover that the building doesn't open until 8:00 AM. So there's your bunching, and while not everyone is a fan of it, it's certainly better to have it at the beginning of the leg, rather than at the end, where it negates everything up until the last ten minutes of the show, which was the horror of the last couple of the normally formatted seasons. Tyler, of course, reacts to this news with a theatrical, exaggerated "Oh, crumbs!" I seriously would have smacked him by now, I'm not kidding.
6:10 AM. Lake and Michelle. He announces that they have only $23 for the leg. Michelle tells us as they leave that Lake is "a Type-A personality." Ah, yes! He's intense! He has a Type-A personality! He's competitive! He's driven! For additional synonyms for "asshole," please consult your copies of A Racing Thesaurus: Language Without Meaning. Michelle says she's in charge of wrangling his obnoxious behavior and calming him down. Which I'm sure is awesome for her when they're fixing someone's teeth. "Now, honey, she doesn't have a chipped tooth on purpose; we could give her a little anesthesia, couldn't we?" They get into a cab, and she is already telling him to calm down, so they are off to a great start for the day.
6:13 AM. Joseph and Monica. She explains that they were perfectly happy to finish in sixth place, considering that they were on the last flight out. Generalized pabulum about never giving up follows. They arrive at the building at close to the same time as Lake and Michelle, and they all realize that the building is still closed and they'll have to wait.
6:47 AM. Ray and Yolanda. Yolanda says that they're "floundering" at the moment, and that makes her uncomfortable. Ray, looking to be optimistic, compares it to a marathon, saying that what matters is how you finish the entire thing, so they're just going to move on. There's a way in which this is kind of the opposite of true, in that in a marathon, they don't stop every two miles and throw the person in last place out of the entire thing, but I would never step on anyone's attempt at perseverance.
7:06 AM. Fran and Barry share a smooch on the mat and open their clue. This is where we get Fran's interview in which she explains that she's a breast cancer survivor, so good for her. When people aren't very good at racing, I like to hear back story that makes it seem likely that they can keep it in perspective. She says that she wants to prove she's in as good shape as she was before, which is very understandable. Barry speaks well of her strength and so forth. It would be great if they were better at the whole "racing" part, because I don't think I would find their personalities disagreeable if there weren't so much talk of losing and near-losing.