Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Phoenix Is the New New York
By Miss Alli | Season 4 | Episode 13 | Aired on 08.20.2003
2:14 AM. Chipsters. They reveal that, again, they're down to one dollar for the leg, so it really has been a case of needing to conserve the funds here at the end. They voice over that they don't think people expected them to get this far, with Reichen adding that people think gay people are "queeny and effeminate," so obviously, there's great ground to be covered by their not acting that way. Of course, one could rain rather heavily on this Yay! Pride Parade by pointing out that there's not exactly a tradition of the gay guys on this show being unable to compete, to say the least, including both the more queeny and effeminate and the less so, but...never mind. ["I still say Chip and Reichen have gone so far to confound viewers' expectations of gay men that they've decided to make a statement by never sharing physical affection, ever, and sleeping with women instead, just to prove their point." -- Wing Chun] Reichen wants people to look at him and Chip and realize gay people can be "strong and prepared." Unlike, I guess, you know, Guido, or Kenny, or Cha-Cha-Cha, all of whom were apparently quite an embarrassment to Reichen. Nice attitude.
Team Who is arriving at the cultural park and noting that the operating hours are 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, so they're out of luck here. The Chipsters are right behind them.
2:38 AM. Jon and Kelly. She happily notes the operating hours as she reads the clue, and Jon grins and adds, "Doesn't that stink for the boys? Let's go." They take off. Kelly explains in an interview that she can't believe they've made it so far. "Not only do I think that we don't deserve to be here because we're so stupid, but I also think that it's so surreal that there's an actual million-dollar pot at the end." Jon adds, "Our strictest competition is going to be ourselves." "Strictest"? Whapping yourselves on the knuckles with rulers, are you? It's bad enough when teams don't have the English-Korean dictionaries they need, but it's sad when they could use just a regular English-English dictionary as well.
As Jon explains, the ceremony at Tjapukai isn't available until morning, so the teams wind up in a big operating-hours bunch, spending what looks to be a fairly uncomfortably rainy interlude waiting at the gate. Finally, morning comes, as exemplified by the dramatic Yellowish Clouds of Dawn. The obligatory didgeridoo plays as the teams are let in through the fence at just 6:00 AM. They dash together along a path, and wind up sitting through the same ceremony. The ceremony requires a fire, so one of the ceremonial guys sets about making one with friction. That guy may be good at his current job, but I have to say that he would kick everybody's ass on Survivor. Kelly comments that she found it enjoyable to stop for a minute during the madness of the race and enjoy the ceremony itself. It's certainly a fairly dramatic ceremony, as a guy takes a bit of fire onto the end of a stick and shoots it arrow-like through the air across a stretch of water (the place looks to me like a golf course, as much as anything), at which point it lands in a tree. The tree then goes up in what looks to be a pyrotechnically-assisted ball of fire. With this part of the ceremony accomplished and the gimmick being that the fire signals the other guys to bring the clue, another guy now shows up with a container full of envelopes, which the teams remove all at the same time.