Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Build Me Up, Buttercup
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.20.2011
Early the next morning, the sun is just now up and Cindy doesn't look like she slept all night, given that they're about to pull into Cologne with no tickets to get on the train there. "I'm very disappointed in myself," Cindy says. Ernie looks at her like, "Wait, what?" It says a lot about their relationship that he's not more relieved that this one isn't his fault.
The other teams are waiting to pull in, looking out the window at such graffiti as "WELCOME TO COLOGNE." That's straight-up gangsta. Bill reminds us that from here they'll catch a train to Brussels. He and Cathi are the first ones off the train, with the others getting off in a big knot, although Cindy and Ernie push impatiently through the crowd. Everyone hurries over to the next train and gets on, including Team Control. Cindy goes over the possibilities: "Either they don't check for tickets and we're fine, or they check for tickets and we say we lost it in the run." Solid plan. Tommy re-explains the situation to us, with a little analysis of Team Control's dynamic thrown in: "Ernie seems like he stays pretty calm and lets Cindy do the stressing out." Fortunately, Cindy also has a plan C: "Or I'll hide in the bathroom." That one works well just around the house too, I find.
On to Brussels, Belgium, land of castles and row houses and what looks like a big giant stainless-steel molecule. They're about to pull into the station, and nobody ever checked anyone's tickets. At all. "The whole lost ticket situation flew out the window, no issue any more," Cindy explains. Okay, but we'll see what Phil has to say about that on the mat, otherwise I don't know why we wasted so much time on a subplot that amounts to nothing. "We were worrying for a little bit," Cindy says, then amends that to, "I was worrying for a little bit." Ernie just smiles. He seems to know he's got a pretty good gig here.
The train pulls in and everyone jumps off looking for taxis. What they find is a long, long line of people waiting at the taxi stand, and almost as a single entity they teams all essentially go "fuck that" and run out to the road to try to catch one upstream. Bill and Cathi get a cab first, and Bill apologizes to the driver for jumping the line. Like he cares. Andy and Tommy are off in second place. "In the back of the cab, Cathi says, "We're just hoping that we get there quickly, and I think we did." Yep, there they are. They hop out. Andy and Tommy arrive shortly thereafter, followed by the other teams. Bill is the first to spot the bicycle, and they grab a clue and find a secluded spot behind a support column to open it. "Bodybuilding posedown," Cathi reads. Over shots of bodybuilders posing on a stage, Phil informs us that Jean-Claude Van Damme is "Belgium's most famous bodybuilder." And there's a photo of him posing on a beach, like, thirty years ago, so young that even Belgium's most famous bodybuilder -- or possibly even its most famous person, for that matter -- is barely recognizable. "Teams now have a chance to walk in the shoes of the Muscles from Brussels by showing off their physiques in a specific routine to score points." Only without shoes or, really physiques. They'll have to put on tiny orange bikinis (bikini briefs for the dudes), spray each other down with "competition oil," and then learn a series of poses from a professional bodybuilder, which they'll have to perform in front of three judges who will score their performance. There's an amusing throwaway shot of Phil mugging shirtless between the bodybuilders on the stage and the judges at the table as he narrates that the teams will need to score a total of 12 points or higher to earn their next clue. Twelve out of how many? That seems relevant.