Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Going, Going, Goths
By M. Giant | Season 18 | Episode 4 | Aired on 03.13.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Everyone flies to Kunming, China, together -- except Kent and Vyxsin, who start melting down even before they get in their car and completely miss the flight. The other teams have to scramble to find a way to Li Jiang, while the Goths scramble to catch up. On Jade Dragon Mountain, they ride yaks across a river and then ride gondolas to 14,000 feet, where they have to rummage among thousands of charms to recreate windchimes of the Chinese zodiac. Zev gets frustrated with the task, and ends up taking long enough for Kent and Vyxsin to catch up. After the Road Block, Ron and Christina get on the wrong vehicle, but are rescued by the Globetrotters. Back to the mountain town of Li Jiang, where a quick errand with a prayer wheel is the gateway to a Detour where they ether pound candy or use a giant horn to lead a parade through town. Vyxsin has a second meltdown at the Road Block, keeping them in last place. Ron, meanwhile, is like a distracted toddler, completely negating their linguistic advantage. The altitude tells on the re-racers during the final sprint to a tower at the peak, but Margie and Luke make it there first. Meanwhile, Vyxsin finally completes the Road Block, but then they leave their Amazing Purse on the gondola. I think they might be angling for a spinoff called How Not to Race. But for now, with everyone checked in yet still racing, it's another "To Be Continued."
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Phil welcomes us back to Yokosuka, Japan. Take a good look, because it probably doesn't look like this any more. We get to see and hear about the Seventh U.S. Fleet in the harbor, and then we're at the monument commemorating Commodore Perry's Landing, which Phil says is in the heart of the city. Perry must have had some good speed going when he hit the shore, then. Phil tells us the monument was build in 1901 to honor the opening of trade relations between Japan and the U.S. (at cannon-point, if memory serves), and was the third Pit Stop in a race around the world. Commodore Perry would have been thrilled to know it.
Zev and Justin, who arrived first, are leaving at 8:44 PM. I hope that's at least 24 hours after they got there, because it was getting dark then and it's full dark now. I guess it must be a different day, because if it were the same one we'd still see Phil and the greeters welcoming other teams to the mat while these two are trying to get started. Zev opens the clue and reads, "Make your way to the city of Li Jiang, China." Phil says that'll start with a 2,700-mile flight, during which we get a glimpse of a single, snow-covered mountain peak poking up through the clouds from an airplane window. Once they get to Li Jiang, they'll have to find Jade Dragon Mountain, which happens to be one of my favorite places I've ever been to, if you swap the word "Mountain" for "Buffet." But Phil's not done; he says that limited availability of flights means that all teams must take a "provided mandatory flight" from Tokyo to the city of Kunming. They'll have to figure out their own way to Li Jiang from there, so at least their hands aren't being held all the way from Yokosuka. Not that that would help everyone anyway, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In the car to Narita Airport, Zev isn't excited about China. "There's a lot of people in China," he says. "I'm not much of a people person." Here's hoping he won't have to hang out with all of them, then. Justin interviews (clearly in China, as we can tell by a wall decoration in the background) that Zev has had some of what Justin calls "rocking chair" legs, where he just sits in the back of a car and cruises around. "I'm good at it," Zev points out. No argument from Justin. Back in the car, Zev is not looking forward to whatever they'll have to do at "Blue Moon Valley White Water River. I'm not a big fan of water." So people, and water? He might be on the wrong planet. He interviews that he'll step up when it's called for, but in the car, he says there's a long night ahead of them, with their flight leaving at 9:50 AM. Even worse, there's almost no chance that any teams will be lame enough to miss such a late flight.