Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Fare Competition
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.09.2011
Three teams are still out there, but only one of them has paid their cabbie, let alone found him. Sure enough, Bill and Cathi make it to the mat in seventh place again. Finally, Liz and Marie find and pay their cabdriver, while Kaylani and Lisa are still searching for theirs, wandering through what looks like a marketplace. So it's pretty much over, but when the twins get to the mat, Phil makes them wait (and say "yeah?" in desultory unison when he says their names) before telling them they're team number eight. They're so happy about that they must have been sure they'd already lost. "We're barely making it, but we're still here," Liz says.
Finally, the music gets really sad as Kaylani and Lisa finally make it to the mat. The greeter welcomes them, and Phil breaks the news that they're in last place, and Philiminates them. Lisa starts making the usual standard loser-speech about the experience and being closer together and blah blah blah, but Kaylani doesn't seem to trust herself to speak. "You're allowed to cry, it's okay," Phil tells her. In fact, he gets a bonus if she does. He asks what she's thinking, and she admits that she misses her daughter. Which happens, if you leave for a month. We get another look at the picture clipped to her backpack as Kaylani says she was hoping to go further. "It's not easy being a single mom. I was kind of hoping to do something good for her and I feel like I failed her," Kaylani sobs. Phil kindly says her daughter will be proud of her for giving it a try and never giving up. Phil clearly doesn't know what selfish assholes four-year-olds can be. "Can we go to McDonald's?" "Not tonight, honey." "If you'd won the Amazing Race we could go to McDonald's every night." Their post-leg interview follows the same dynamic, with Lisa talking about the experience while Kaylani sits next to her trying not to cry. "I get to go home and I hope my little girl's going to be proud of me," Kaylani says. Lisa says she will. Well, except for that whole passport-losing thing. That little girl is going to have a free pass for losing shit all the way through high school.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.