Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All About the Melons
By M. Giant | Season 20 | Episode 3 | Aired on 03.04.2012
Brendon and Rachel arrive at the auditorium and she thinks they made the right choice. "How can you feel stressed when this music is so beautiful?" she asks Brendon. He agrees that it's not nearly as stressful. This is the most functional I've ever seen them.
Meanwhile, Joey "Fitness" and Danny are schlepping melons, while congratulating themselves on having a Detour that uses their strength. Meanwhile, Ralph and Vanessa suffer a minor collapse of one corner when they're on their fourth tier. Not a good sign.
At the auditorium, racers are discovering their talent for stringing harps. Kerri tells us she and Stacy both played the flute in school and Rachel tells Brendon she's good at this. "I believe you!" Brendon says defensively. Bopper compares it to fixing a gas throttle and, what with getting the hang of it and the air-conditioning, he tells Mark they should have done this a long time ago. Then we get to hear Bopper loudly sing a whole verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" while he works. Did they get clearance for that? Is there a harp arrangement? Elliot and Andrew, however, are bickering and sniping at each other. Turns out guitar-stringing experience is useless, if not actively detrimental, to figuring out how to string a harp. Not that we ever get a decent close-up that illustrates exactly what's involved here.
Other Rachel and Dave reach the bottle-dancing Roadblock and she nominates Dave to take this one. It doesn't go well, with him losing bottles and trying to catch them with his feet and shit as they tumble to the ground. He's soon drenched. "I have an odd-shaped head," he explains as he fetches a fresh bottle from his table. On the sidelines, Rachel says they might take a two-hour penalty. He tells her it isn't going to work. Soon he's down to two bottles, and then one, which smashes on the stones. They open the next clue and read, "Warning, the last team to check in may be eliminated." Off to the Pit Stop. "Today was not our day," Dave understates. Harps are strung, watermelons are stacked and Other Rachel and Dave come down the stairs to the mat, apparently having overshot the Pit Stop by a block or so. Phil tells them they're the second team to arrive, but they need to wait out their two-hour penalty on a bench off to the side. At least it's in the shade. As the clock on the screen starts counting down from two hours, Dave interviews, "Today was a complete failure on us as a team. We're hopefully still in it." Hopefully indeed.