Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Philimination And Philimination Accessories
By Miss Alli | Season 12 | Episode 8 | Aired on 12.29.2007
And finally, finally, finally, Nate and Jen find the clue in the damn newspaper. Nate voices over that being in such a bad position in this leg, when the leg is almost surely an elimination, is no fun at all.
Nick and Don's driver seems to have the wrong underpass on the first try. Ron and Chris, on the other hand, find the posters. There aren't any directions, so they lay the panels down on the ground to look at them. Meanwhile, TK and Rachel are searching for the "marked flower stand." They find it and get moving, with him laying the flowers down in order and her stringing them. You know what I like about TK and Rachel? They're a type, but they're not phonies. You can tease them about that goofy hippie affect, but it's not an affectation. They're not acting like this because they're trying to control what you think about them, and they're not doing it because they're attention-seeking. I probably have about as much faith in their genuineness as I've ever had in a Race team. Ahead or behind, this is how they behave; they just pull it together, and while they have been known to bicker, you realize over time that when he says, "Can you stop talking now?" to her, that's literally all it means. It means, "This isn't helping me." It doesn't mean, "Oh my God, shut up, you fucking asshole." I'm about 98 percent sure they'd be delightful to have...not a beer with, necessarily; maybe a whole-wheat pizza?
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Ron and Christina's scene with the pasting is, I have to tell you, one of the most subtly depressing things this show has ever thrown out. I mean...he's not abusive in the same way as Jonathan or one of those really yell-and-scream people, but as soon as they get started -- a process he makes much harder by starting the panels so high up that he can barely reach them -- he starts hollering at her about being "cheap" with the paste and fucking everything up, and no matter how many times he has said he wants to behave differently, he apparently doesn't know any way other than berating her. I'm not even talking about being authoritarian; I'm talking about being belittling. She seems like such a lovely person, and he can't even enjoy what a good kid he has, because he's so busy putting her down. She tries to give him a crate to stand on, and when it collapses, he bitterly blames her, despite the fact that all she did was try to solve the problem he created by starting the panels so high. I'm not sure why he thinks it's important to start way above his own head, but all she did was try to fix that, you know?