Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Can Dance If You Want To
By Miss Alli | Season 12 | Episode 4 | Aired on 11.24.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The teams stay in Africa, starting off with the grabbing of a chicken that has to stay with them for the rest of the leg. They proceed to a Detour that requires them either to dance their pants off or pan for gold, and we meet a new race feature called the U-Turn. The U-Turn -- long advocated by Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters undoubtedly now demanding a percentage -- is a Yield-like penalty that requires an affected team to go back at the end of a Detour and complete the other Detour option before continuing. Wisely, Shana and Jennifer -- who reach the Detour in seventh place -- use the U-Turn on Jason and Lorena, who are (as they were at the opening of the leg) in last place. Efforts are made to convince us that the remainder of the leg, in which a Roadblock requires someone to carry a heavy load of supplies on a bicycle through a Chaotic Marketplace™, will shuffle the teams enough that Jason and Lorena will recover. New drama breaks out when Jen apparently takes the position that Azaria and Hendekea, who have come in first twice (though she seems to believe it's thrice) should step aside and let her and Nate win. Yes, it seems that she is serious. Hendekea's like, "Yeah...no," and she and Azaria finish first again. In the end, Jason and Lorena are unable to come back from their last-place departure and their subsequent U-Turning, and are eliminated, just as they easily could have been last week. Oh, and: Ron survives another episode dragging that hernia, which is getting really uncomfortable to watch. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on I, Phil Keoghan, Will Now Be Awesomely Funny And Put The Stank Of Jeff Probst To Absolute Shame: Ron had a hernia; you may have heard something about it. The teams traveled to Burkina Faso, where a bunch of camels were not too keen on being used for milk, and Lorena melted down like Frosty in the greenhouse when her camel kept kicking and screaming. Nevertheless, when Julia took pity on Lorena and bailed her out, Lorena came back from the abyss, passed Julia at the Detour, and ultimately knocked Marianna and Julia right out of the race. Moral of the story? If somebody's KF-ing themselves right behind you, you really need to...you know, let them. Azaria and Hendekea finished first, which you wouldn't think would have any continuing repercussions in this leg, but you would be wrong. Eight teams left. Who will be eliminated...next?
Credits. I have to agree with everyone who has noted that Kynt and Vyxsin's dramatic head-turn is so spectacular that it basically ruins the head-turn forever. The head-turn will have to be retired. Like Brett Favre's number. And helmet. And shoes. And towel. [BOMP.]
Happy children play and happy music accompanies them as we return to Burkina Faso, which is apparently home to a lot of pickup soccer games. Phil tells us that Burkina Faso is "a developing West African nation" jam-packed with art festivals. So, like certain parts of New York, but with fewer hair salons. We find Phil in Bingo, the village where the last pit stop was. He reminds us how all the teams piled up at the end of the last leg, and how they have absolutely no idea what on earth might happen next. He wonders whether TK and Rachel's calm (read: stoned) approach will serve them well, and whether Jason and Lorena will have their relationship tested. There's a great moment in this little teaser showing Lorena at the last pit-stop mat sobbing, "I didn't milk the camel right!" She is like something out of a movie, I tell you. A movie with Sally Field in it.
7:58 AM. Azaria and Hendekea. Phil is careful not to claim that they arrived at 7:58 PM, since it was clearly daytime, so it's some kind of extended pit stop. In Bingo. It's no palace in India, but I'm sure it has charms of its own as a place to hang out for a while. The clue tells them to follow a path to a nearby village, where a tribal chief will give them a "customary gift of generosity." Phil doesn't explicitly say what the gift is, but the loud "bawwwwk bawk bawk" heard under this part of the explanation might be a hint of some kind. They are receiving no money for this leg of the race, so you can bet it's a short one in a confined space.