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
Flight Time and Big Easy are departing the Pit Stop at 10:17, and it seems like a lot more than four minutes since Sam and Dan left. We also learn that the allowance for this leg is $113. As they cab up and get on their way to the Spanish Synagogue, Big Easy interviews that they're proud of how they've run the race. "As I said earlier, who you really are is going to come out." For a moment I wonder what Mika and Canaan would think about that, but then I remember that it's been a good long time since anyone cared what Mika and Canaan think.
"N! What's an animal that starts with N?" Meghan asks herself. One letter to go, unless she gets flustered trying to come up with "nematode" or "naked mole rat" and forgets some.
Sam and Dan get to the Spanish Synagogue, and ask their cabbie to wait, which is tempting fate. "Look how cute they are," Sam observes of Brian and Ericka's photo on the Speed Bump sign, causing fate's trigger finger to itch. They get back in their cab, which screams around a corner on the way to the museum. "We got Jeff Gordon up here," Sam says happily.
Meghan has her five letters: RZFNA. Now for the really scary part: facing those two stone-faced judges. From behind his desk, the supervisor hands her a clipboard with a form on it for her to fill out. In addition to the unscrambling, you have to fill out the entire sheet of questions, the purpose of which Meghan thinks is to drive the letters out of your mind. "This is freakin' ridiculous," Meghan says. I think the word she's looking for is actually...let me think..."Gilliamesque." Finally she finishes the form and hands it over. But since she filled in the letters in the order she discovered them, it's wrong. The supervisor seems to come alive for the first time, using a big rubber stamp to energetically pound three giant X'es onto the form, like a bureaucratic version of Family Feud. She asks for another form to give it another try.
The Globetrotters get to the Spanish Synagogue and get their museum clue, still in third place.
Meghan has figured out on her second try that she needed to fill out the boxes on the bottom to spell out "FRANZ." I notice that elsewhere on the form, in addition to her name, initials, and a list of check boxes to indicate what kind of task this is, she also had to give answers like "Patrick Henry" and "Cabernet." How very Ionescan. But it doesn't matter, because the supervisor pounds home the black KAFKA stamp, hands her a clue, and sends her on her way, with neither him nor his underling ever even cracking a smile. For one last, perfect, Kafkaesque touch, we even get to see the supervisor dumping her completed form into the trash bin as she trots obliviously but happily out. Outside, she and Cheyne read the clue sending them to a place called Kryocentrum. Sounds cold, and the flash we get of the place's storefront sign, which includes the characters -160˚ C and a drawing of a harp seal lying on its side to wave a friendly flipper, would seem to support that. But that's where their next clue is. They go running off in search of a cab, but the next one they spot is the one that belongs to the brothers, who are just arriving. Sam and Dan firmly tell the cabbie to wait for them before leaving. And when Meghan runs up and asks their driver for a ride, he declines. "No, tell him it's okay!" Cheyne calls out to the departing boys, but Meghan says they're not going to do that and asks the driver to call another cab. "This sucks," she says. Yes, they actually encountered another team. So much for a clean leg for them.