Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 43 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Butting Heads
By M. Giant | Season 23 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.24.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.In Indonesia, the leg starts with a task that pretty much completes itself: getting rams to butt heads with each other. Kind of appropriate, given the way the season has been going. And not just with Tim & Marie, either; Travis & Nicole and Leo & Jamal confront each other in the Abu Dhabi airport over the U-Turn, with Travis getting pretty holier-than-thou. After that first task is complete, the teams have to take a train back into town. Only Tim & Marie and Jason & Amy end up missing the train that the other three teams (Nicole & Travis, Leo & Jamal, and Ally & Ashley) manage to catch, so that puts an hour of distance between them right away.
Back in the city, Nicole & Travis select the Detour option that requires them to convince a bird to sing, which puts them in first place heading to the Roadblock. All of the rest of the teams opt for the Detour in which they have to transport an elephant's meal from a market to the zoo via taxi and hand-trolley. The Afghanimals manage it well enough, but the blondes mess up threefold: first by going directly to the zoo without any food, then by failing to get it all on one load, and then by commencing to yell at each other. Despite their struggles with transporting large quantities of watermelon and bananas, Jason & Amy and Tim & Marie easily pass them at the Detour, putting the blondes back in last place.
But then the Roadblock proves a major problem for Nicole. Asked to put together a musical instrument out of pieces of bamboo, she is utterly flummoxed, much to Travis's growing frustration. Leo comes in and passes her up, and Nicole ends up sacrificing the moral high ground by trying to cheat off his work. Which isn't successful anyway, so she's still stuck there while Tim and then Amy come in and finish it up. In fact, Amy's kind decision to hang back and help Nicole out is probably the only reason she isn't still there today.
In the end, the Afghanimals win the leg, with Tim & Marie close behind despite their train problems. Jason & Amy come in third, though not without some recriminations about how long Amy stuck around to help Nicole. The ER docs come in fourth, with Travis sharing some incoherent thoughts about frustration. And the blondes, now fresh out of sacrificial lambs to beat to the mat, are finally Philiminated. I have to say, it isn't the top four I expected. But then I can't think of a lot of other teams who should be in it instead.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We're still in Abu Dhabi, which means more shots of that city's exotic skyline, accompanied by music on the soundtrack that could have been lifted from Argo. The voice of Phil tells us, "This is the United Arab Emirates. Located on the Arabian Peninsula, more than 80 percent of it is covered in sand." Yes, Phil, you mentioned that last week. Better hope they're not sensitive about it. "And towering four thousand feet above the desert," he adds, "is Jebel Hafeet." He's perched Probst-like on a steep slope near a peak as he says this is now the start of the ninth leg in a race around the world. Even though it's technically not. But first, we get to watch Nicole & Travis check out a couple of the cars they won at the end of last week's leg. You and the sponsor who provided the vehicles will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the ER docs have only nice things to say about them.
Then they open their clue at 12:38 AM, with the hotel in the background showing purple lights drifting across its surface. This would be the Yas Viceroy that was the site of the final Roadblock from two legs ago, so it looks like they spent the night here instead of at the Mercure Grand where they checked in at the end of the previous leg. At least we got to see it lit up, briefly and in part. The first clue is telling them to fly to Bandung, Indonesia. Phil says that's more than four thousand miles, as always making it sound as if anybody cares about geographical miles when it comes to air travel. Phil needs to start telling us flight statistics we can relate to, like length of delays, number of hours in the air, proximity to the nearest crying baby, and what percentage of the flight the asshole in front of you had their seat reclined. Bandung looks pretty busy on the ground, and the teams will have to find a place called the Ram Arena in a nearby village to get their next clue. Nicole & Travis get a cab outside the hotel, and now, at this late date, is when we find out that they're all into God and stuff. "We want to be a beacon for God's light to show through us," Travis interviews, "so that people can see that you don't have to resort to lying or cheating or stealing or doing any of those things that we just consider not a good part of anybody's life." Wow, humble.
Jason & Amy are leaving in second place, as usual, at 12:52 AM. Amy interviews that they want to continue to ally with Nicole & Travis and play like them, too. Do they know about the God thing? In the taxi to the airport, Jason asks Amy, "What kind of people live in Indonesia? …Like Chinese people or like, Indians?" Amy can't even look at him without cracking up. Which is a kinder response than that question deserves, if you ask me.