Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Kafka'ed Up
By M. Giant | Season 15 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.29.2009
Has it been five minutes yet? After failing again, Big Easy casts a frustrated glance out the door Dan just exited by and lets out a loud grunt. "I wouldn't have done him like that, but like I always say, you are who you are," he tells us. He settles down and says, "It is what it is. I'm here, I just gotta get it before the next team comes."
Too late, because here are Brian and Ericka. Brian will be doing this one. He gets right to it, with the underling in the office watching him creepily through the office window in a rather Magrittian fashion while Big Easy continues toiling, and admits that he's losing track of previous attempts but he'll figure it out. Brian gets an R. As in, he R catching up.
Meghan and Cheyne have reached the Charles Bridge, and run onto the span to find a clue box not far from where Jon Voight toppled over the railing in Mission: Impossible. It's a Detour, and the choice is "Legend" or "Lager." I know which one I'd go with based on the names, but let's let Phil describe them. For Legend, Phil says that teams will be "building a Golem, a figure made of straw and clay that was constructed to protect the Jewish Quarters in the fifteenth century." You already know what a Golem is if you've read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or ever played Dungeons and Dragons. And they really don't have to build one, per se. The wooden shells, in the vague but threatening shapes of humanoid hulks with squashed heads, are already built for them and enveloped in a layer of chicken wire. All the racers will have to do is plaster heavy wet clay (provided in wooden buckets right there) all over the figure. The hard part, actually -- and it will be hard -- is getting it across town to the Old New Synagogue, which Phil calls "the Golem's ancient home." If the rabbi there is happy, he'll give them their next clue. As for Lager, Phil says, "Teams must drink in the local culture and deliver beer to a group of rowdy soccer hooligans." The camera winds down a steep, narrow spiral staircase and into a basement taproom, where said hooligans are raucously wearing and waving their various teams' colors. Phil says that soccer is Europe's most popular sport, with beer-drinking coming in a close second in Prague. "The Czech people drink more beer per capita than any other country in the world," he informs us. Judge much, Phil? Back to the task, which requires the teams to carry a total of thirty beers -- in open pint glasses, on trays -- "through the busy town square" (which actually looks abandoned in the high-speed trek the camera takes through it) to the previously shown bar. Then the bartender "will serve them their next clue." Meghan and Cheyne quickly agree to do Legend.