Triumph and Loss

Previously on Fear and Loathing in Tunisia: The Guidos got themselves the last seats on a good flight out of Tunis. Phil darkly suggests that they accomplished this by "speaking in French," but it honestly appears that French was not the relevant weapon so much as pure, unadulterated luck, which the Guidos wielded with their usual utter lack of grace. Furthermore, Phil also darkly suggests that Drew "lost his cool," but had the context of giggling and cheek-pinching been supplied, I'm not sure that description would have worked. Following this apparent setback, however, Kevin managed to maneuver Fratilyesque onto an even better flight. Guidonic Scheming followed, including an attempt to create a physical scuffle in an international airport. Fratilyesque prevailed in that skirmish, but it didn't matter, because the Luck of the Guidos managed to get the Fratilyesque connecting flight cancelled, and because once everybody got to Rome, there was more bunching. The day, Bill said, "Good morning," and Drew told him not to. Everybody drove around in dippy little red cars that went "putt-putt," except for those who rode around in incredibly fast silvery cars that went "VROOOOOOM!" Oh, and Loud Pushy Frank? Wasn't. Yeah, I don't get it, either.

Credits. Music from the upcoming action-cooking film, The Parallax Omelet.

Commercials. Eat at Applebee's, pop Doctor Dolittle 2 into the VCR, and you may not have to talk to your children all day.

Drunken cameramen are this week careening around Santa Gata Bolognese, from which the lovely Sara from last week has long disappeared. (My guess? She is with Kevin.) We get a few shots of the twelve-hour pit stop layover, which unsurprisingly show everybody sitting together except Guido. Phil superfluously explains that the controversy continues to swirl around the Guidos (which is pretty obvious, unless the problem is that they smell, which I just can't believe is the case), and we go to yet more post-mortem of the world's most well-known luggage cart scandal, Departuregategate. Drew re-explains that Guido's intent was to block Fratilyesque's path to the flight. Emily re-explains that there was pushing of her mom, and incidentally, the way she describes it, it sounds like it was more of an intentional body-block of her mom -- a Guido backed up into Nancy to physically stop her from going forward. This would go with both Joe's delusional attempt to characterize the push as merely putting his pack in front of Nancy, it would go with Rob's description of their having physically gotten in front of Nancy and prevented her from moving, and it would still clearly constitute "pushing," as the other teams have repeatedly characterized it. Em, at any rate, says, "Do what you want to me, but don't hit my mom." She's "about to cry, [she's] so mad" trying to explain what happened. Rob: "The more I think about it, the more it fires me up. I mean, the way I was raised, somebody treats a woman that way, they get their ass kicked." Brennan, The Boy Who Never Gets To Talk, is with him all the way -- though of course he doesn't say anything about it. Sigh. Drew: "If you're a gentleman, you don't push a lady." Emily, crying while she tries to tell the story, says, "They pull this crap every single time." Nancy is actually trying to tell Emily that it's not all that bad, but I think you can see early signs here that our Miss Emily is unraveling a little. A jarring edit takes us straight to a grinning and cackling Bill and Joe, saying, "As well as we play the game, the temperature will keep going up." Man, these guys are bad characters, and the editors aren't doing anything to help them.

Brief sidebar. Look, I don't like fighting, and God knows there's nothing more boring than a guy you can't take anywhere because he starts fights in bars and at parties and so forth. Having said that, I have a good friend who once told me I shouldn't be afraid to admit that at some level, there's a certain basic appeal to "guys who fight and fix stuff," and in this case, it's true. I wouldn't have a shred of respect for any of the boys if they actually beat up the Guidos, but I sort of love them for feeling like they should.

A strolling Phil tells us that "the competition has gotten ugly," thus cementing his position as Captain Redundancy. He reminds us that there are six teams, and after tonight, there will only be five -- so this isn't another non-elimination leg, like we had last week. He gives the same yellow-flag speech that he gives every week, and this week he explains the idea of the Fast Forward, so you know somebody's going for it.

3:30 AM. Frank and Margarita, who failed to follow the clue in the last leg, are leaving first. (Just my personal opinion? Patently unfair -- it seemed last week that their entire advantage came from the rules violation, so letting them stay in front seems clearly wrong.) We start immediately today with a Detour, which is the one-of-two-options clue. (Usually, we get one clue they have to follow before the detour, but they appear to be shortening the process up this week for whatever reason.) The two choices are Glide and Ride. In "Glide," you have to go to a little airport and take a plane flight -- one team member in the regular little plane, and one in a glider towed by that plane and then set loose to drift down on its own once the planes are both in the air. The advantage is that once you've taken the flight, you get a free ride to the train station at Ferrara, which is the destination. Adding a twist to this option, though, is the fact that there's only one glider, so if you do the Glide option, you may have to wait in line when you get there. In "Ride," you have to go to a bike shop and rent a bike, which you then ride to the train station yourself. (This means, of course, that both biking and navigating are potential pitfalls.)

4:01 AM. Team Guido, which also failed to follow the clue in the last leg, leaves . (Again with the unfair -- I'm just saying.) As they read the clue, Bill voices over that he doesn't like unpredictable situations, and he's now dealing with them every day. He has a knot in his stomach. Boo hoo, Bert. Do the Pigeon, you'll feel better. He says he looks in the mirror every day and says, "This isn't you, at all." Well, if the way he's acting is actually not him, then at least he's got that going for him. As they review their options in the cab, Joe points out that "obviously, taking a glider ride is a lot more sexy and fun than, than doing this other thing." Do I really need to get into how much it makes my head hurt to hear Joe say that a glider ride is "sexy"? Joe whines about the fact that the glider is first-come, first-served, and Bill joins in. My, how could we solve such a dilemma? A team of such diabolical cleverness should be able to think of something, don't you think? Some way to try the glider and hedge against the first-come, first-served problem? Well, Joe and Bill can't figure out a way, so they opt for the bicycles.

Frank and Margarita in the Danzamobile, debating the choices. Bikes, planes, and then there's -- hey, our old friend, the Fast Forward pass! Phil Phills us in that this week, the FF is hidden at a castle in a moat. Frank and Margarita think the Fast Forward at this point sounds like a pretty good idea. Frank wants them to keep their position and maybe "make a move," but mainly, to no one's surprise, he is once again motivated by the fact that he hates everyone. "The rest of these people," he explains, "are getting on my nerves." He doesn't like the "nonsense," "competitive nature," "bitchin' and moanin' and cryin'," et cetera. (I would point out that we've seen plenty of all three of these from LPFrank over the course of the race thus far.) Of course, LPFrank hasn't taken the time to figure out whether anyone is particularly more responsible for the change in tone than anyone else; he's just decided to blame everyone equally. I'd be interested in the degree to which he would have remained above it all if he had been the one sabotaged by the Guidos. He practically put his fist through a wall back in the first episode when the Guidos were beating him fair and square, so I doubt he would be this Zen if he had been the target. But hey, why look at facts when you can just, well, bitch and moan? Ah, yes, here's the misanthropic LPFrank I know and dislike. We're right back where we started with him and his attitude, back when he was constantly sure that Esquire was secretly planning to screw him. He also claims that the other teams have "too much negative energy," which is downright laughable, considering how much time he's spending right this very minute BITCHING ABOUT THEM. He and Margarita camp out by the castle entrance, and Frank speaks some Italian, though opinions of its quality seem to differ. I certainly recognize what sounds like some Spanish in there.

4:13 AM. The theme of the week is Overblown Scoring, and a loud "BWAAAAP!" of horns takes us to Esquire. Matching knit hats, yuck. Marshmallow-man jacket, yuck. Esquire isn't doing it for me today in the winter-wear. In their cab, Rob opines that the way to do it is that, since neither the bikes nor the glider is available until morning, they can go look at the glider place, and if nobody else is in line, they can be first. If other people are there, they can always turn tail and head for the bikes, because the bikes aren't "a first-come, first-served situation." I'd like to point out that the Guidos, clever fiends that they are, were unable to come up with this (let's face it) NOT THAT ADVANCED piece of strategic thinking. I'm telling you, these boys are no dummies. Anyway, Brennan, The Boy Who Never Gets To Talk, says, "Right."

4:36 AM. Kevin and Drew rip open the clue. "Take an eight-kilometer bike ride to the train station, your bags must travel with youscratch ass," Kevin snorts. ("Scratch ass" is Kevin-ian for "Not.") They want to do the glider. As they walk along, they're speculating about whether Bert and Ernie will do the bikes or the plane. Drew voices over that they've been at the front of the pack and the back of the pack, and now they're close to the back again. He thinks they'll recover, given a little time.

Esquire at the airstrip. They're the first to get there, so they park themselves to wait. "Now we get to sit around, like, for four hours out in the dark," Rob says. "But we're first in line, and that's what counts." Brennan: "It's a little cold out here." Man, why do they only give him lines like that? Everything they let him say makes him sound like Rain Man.

4:59 AM. Momily. Nancy tells us that the lack of sleep and the lack of food are beginning to catch up with people. Emily tells us that Momily hasn't been able to catch many breaks. I suppose that's true, if you don't count the help of other teams as a break, which I think you arguably can. On the other hand, sociability is a skill, so perhaps that's not pure luck. After all, it's not an accident that nobody would extend a hand to help the Guidos. Em laments that over and over, "the same people are getting the same good luck." This is partly true as well. The Guidos, in particular, have BOTH played the game quite well AND had unbelievably good luck. More to the point, they've had no bad luck, which is more than basically anyone else can say. Nancy says she keeps thinking they're going to be eliminated, but then they keep squeaking by.

5:00 AM. Lenny and Karyn. Hard to believe it took this long to get them their nickname, but this week -- with all appropriate respect to South Park -- we will call them Team Kenny. Lenny is wearing one of those wraparound-earmuff rigs that make everyone look like they've just had massive ear surgery. As a matter of fact, perhaps Lenny HAS just had massive ear surgery as a result of the screeching he has to listen to all day. Karyn: "We realize couples have differences, but if you love each other, you can work through them." I poke myself in the eye. Karyn: "That's what we've been doing." I poke myself in the other eye. Then, just for good measure, I poke myself in both eyes at the same time.

Team Guido is trying to get to the bike shop. They track it down, calling out the name in their lame-o Italian accents, and park their elegantly matching behinds in front of the door.

Team Shower-Fresh is making a play for the glider. As they arrive at the strip, Kevin says, "With any luck, there'll be nobody here ahead of us -- but it looks as if somebody's here ahead of us." He spots Rob and Brennan, lying on the ground on their packs. Shower-Fresh departs the cab and chats about their choices while they admire the prone Esquire. Drew asks Kev whether he wants to stay or go, and Kevin says, "I just don't want to go over there and sit for three hours with Bert and Ernie." Ouch! Kevin, now you ARE letting them affect your game. Don't do that. Drew: "We got good company here, better than we'd have at the bike shop." I have to say, out of all the times in this race when I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall just from a personal point of view, this couple of hours at the airstrip with the boys is probably number one. I bet it was fun.

Bill and Joe are chipper as heck (hey, it's not a complaint -- everybody deals in their own way), and they manage to find the flag, as do Lenny and Karyn. Joe and Bill pull the clue first, and it's a Roadblock. This week, one member of the team has to hire a rickshaw and find a particular shopkeeper. They're given the address, which you'd think would make it relatively easy to find, but they're about to find out that they only wish life were so simple. Esquire is on the case as well, and here come Kevin and Drew. Brennan gets the clue just in time to avoid what almost becomes a scuffle between Karyn and Drew at the clue box. (Sheesh, people -- have you seen ten seconds matter yet?) Karyn actually tries to shoot Drew The Eyeball Daggers Of Death as he runs off, but all she gets is the Big Bald Back of Drew's Unconcerned Noggin.

Esquire has their usual efficient discussion about who should do the task. Brennan: "We talked, I think you can do it." Rob: "All right." I'm telling you, this is why these guys don't get airtime -- they don't act up enough. Maybe if they started pulling each other's hair or fighting over chicks. Meanwhile, Kevin takes it with a big "I'll go, I'll go, I'll go." Momily has arrived as well, and they read the clue together. Joe climbs into his rickshaw, and says to the driver, "You speak good English?" Of course, he says this in ENGLISH with a slightly GOOFY ACCENT of indeterminate origin. Why does Joe do that? Stop annoying me, Discount Joe. Karyn takes on the task for Team Kenny, which is a good thing, because if Lenny had taken it, he would have probably done something wrong and never heard the end of it.

Chaotic Marketplace. Rob is negotiating directions with his driver, while Karyn yells "'scuse us!" to clear the way in front of her. Yeah, Karyn, uh, "'scuse me," but this isn't an English-speaking crowd, and even if it were, why should they clear the way for you? For all the crap Emily took over some of her behavior in this episode, I'm not sure it's any worse than the contestants who behaved as if the people in the streets were supposed to part like the Red Sea for them when they waved their hands.

Stores, cows, shopkeepers -- and most of all, people, people, people. Nancy, looking unhappy and apprehensive. Joe, getting somewhere fast. Kevin, just behind Rob.

Joe, of course, is first to get there. (I hate these guys.) He's actually pretty polite and friendly, although he manages to get right to the point by asking, "Am I first?" Yes, Joe, you're first. Now shut up. The clue consists of a little model of the Taj Mahal and a clue telling them to go to the Taj Khema Hotel, which is very near the Taj Mahal, in Agra.

Now, here is the Esquire moment of the week. As Rob approaches the shopkeeper, he encounters Joe coming the opposite way. As they pass each other, Joe reaches out a hand. "Hey, how ya doin'?" Discount Joe says, giggling annoyingly. Rob is not so much in a hand-shaking frame of mind with the Guidos, but being the polite boy that he is, he eventually reaches out with the Tokyo-Stomper. BUT -- here's the thing. Remember last week, with the angry gum-chewing? The angry, emotion-suppressing, energy-releasing, hate-reflecting gum chewing? Here, Rob is rolling along in the rickshaw with his usual wad of gum in his mouth, but he's not really chomping on it -- until he encounters Joe. The second the Tokyo-Stomper meets The Hand Of A Guido, the gum-chewing kicks in, HARD. Anybody who watches the tape can tell you I'm right. Mild smile, mild smile, clasp -- chomp chomp chomp chomp. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Rob's "tell." Anger is taken out on gum. It's the Wrigley's Spearmint Frustration-o-meter.

Kevin and Joe, on the other hand, do not shake hands.

Kevin collects the clue, followed by Rob -- who, for some reason, says "welcome" to the shopkeeper. Rob is disoriented from the gum-grinding, I do believe. Cut to an ugly shot of Joe, doing the clear-the-streets-I'm-on-TV arm-waving thing that I just hate. Nancy, wandering unhappily. Back to Rob, inquiring about the fastest way back, propping his elbow up on his pack and giving me what is quite possibly the very best Tokyo-Stomper shot yet. Seriously, this shot could be from a medical documentary about arms. "Ladies and gentlemen, the human arm." I would go to that lecture. And pass the pop quiz after. I might actually wreck the curve. It's no wonder that arm inspires the writing of poetry.

Nancy, finally getting where she needs to go. The shopkeeper is kind enough to tell her she's "late," which I think just adds to her frustration and anxiety. Thanks, Clue Guy! Sheesh. Nancy seems to be tearing up already as she reads the clue. Nancy! Pull it together!

Karyn disembarks from her rickshaw, squawking the entire time. At first, she seems happy -- she's in first place, after all -- and then she seems grumpy almost immediately. "Why are we havin' such a hard time?" she gripes. God, Karyn, for what I only wish were the last time, SHUT UP.

Joe, waving his arms and trying to get the annoying peasants out of his way. Way to go for ultimate control over all people and things, Discount Joe.

Nancy makes a mistake here, I think, which is that she stays put on the rickshaw and tries to get people to tell her where the hotel is. She needs to get out of the craziness where she is and get herself to higher ground -- get back to Em, get back to the taxis, get OUT of the chaos. But she doesn't. She shows the clue to the swarms of people around her, most of whom don't appear to speak English very much, if at all, and certainly not enough to read an Amazing Race clue. As it turns out, she's also asking about a hotel that's a hundred miles away, so they're not all that likely to know where it is.

Karyn, yelling at her cab driver. Karyn, telling the people surrounding her cab to back off. Karyn, telling a man she can't give him a ride. A blind child, held up against her window. Another child, reaching his hand into the cab. See what I meant back there a few paragraphs ago? See how it's right there? Nothing to do but see it, I'm telling you.

Nancy, still burning up time in the rickshaw, asking about the hotel. Bail out, Nancy! Bail out! As was pointed out in the forums, in fairness, a guy looks right at Nancy along about here and says, "Go to Agra." In fact, he says it twice. But Nancy doesn't pick it up, what with the people yelling and pushing. In fact, it almost looks like another guy is trying to stop that guy from talking to her. She leaves, still not sure where she's going. "All I'm seeing is the word 'eliminated,'" she says sadly, "'Cause I'm not ready to go home." Aww. We're not ready yet either, Mom.

Commercials. Naked wolves -- dude!

Guidos in their cab. Joe thinks he was first to get back, and Bill gives him the bad news that Karyn was there ten minutes ago. Joe is steamed. Kevin conveys the clue to Drew, and Drew wants the address. Kevin delivers the bad news that there isn't one. Drew, incidentally, is wearing a variation on the Hating-Hat. On Drew, however, it's not so bad. (Somewhere, Rob is chomping a wad of gum.)

Nobody can find a driver who knows where the hotel is -- or who admits to knowing where the hotel is. Part of the problem with this sequence is that we are in the same position the contestants are in. How much English do these drivers actually speak? How much of this is a scam? How much is a real language barrier? It's really impossible to say. Once they get into a cab, Kevin and Drew start talking about what they've seen. "I've never seen anything like this in my life," Drew says gravely. "You had to be on the rickshaw," Kevin comes back. "You don't know what it's like." "You don't know what it was like waiting for you over there," Drew says. "Kids comin' up, and they have this stare in their eyes? That's like -- it's like they're looking right through you into your soul."

Cut to a little kid, sort of performing on the street -- and guess how he looks at the camera?

Nancy makes it back to the square. As she pulls up, Emily can see that Mom's in bad shape. "Don't get upset, don't get upset. Get out of the thing, c'mon." Nancy, unhappy as she is, of course pauses to thank her rickshaw driver. As they walk toward a cab, you can see that quite an impressive crowd has gathered, and is now apparently free to devote its full attention to the Momily cab. Nancy and Emily climb into the back of the cab, which is sort of van-like, and leaves them sitting facing each other. Emily reaches over and pats her mom's leg. "We're in last," Nancy moans. "It's okay, Mom, don't worry about it," Emily tries to chirp bravely. Then she gets down to business. "C'mon, where's our damn driver." Aside from the fact that her mom cringes when she says "damn," Emily's doing very well at this point, and she really did just the right thing when her mom came back. "Sir, get in the car, let's go," she says to their driver, insistently but -- I would argue -- not rudely. "Sir?" she goes on as Nancy sits, curled up. (The rickshaw and the things she saw on the street are, I think, obviously taking a heck of a toll on Nancy.)

And here is the very painful scene in which Nancy and Emily try to figure out where the hotel is. Unfortunately, they don't confidently make the connection between the hotel and the Taj Mahal, or they could just get going. To her credit, Emily does suggest this at one point -- "Do you think it's near the Taj Mahal?" -- and the driver immediately says, "No." Thanks, driver. At any rate, they start just leaning out the window at what has become a throng around the cab, just asking people whether they know where the Taj Khema hotel is. This doesn't turn out to be a very good strategy, which Emily figures out before her mom does. Nancy keeps asking and asking, and one woman in particular nods in a way that confuses Nancy and keeps her going down this path that's probably doomed to fail. The woman keeps nodding at the question about whether she knows where it is -- which I'm not blaming her for; it's just a communication problem -- and so Emily starts saying, more and more angrily, "Well, where is it?" The more Emily asks, the more frustrated she gets, and eventually she busts out, "They're stupid," and even as tired and used-up as she is, Nancy has enough of The Power Of Mom left to lay the smackdown. "Stop it! Do not insult them," she says sharply. Emily grabs the back of their driver's shirt, trying to draw his attention to someone who looks like he might know where he's going. "These people are nuts," she finally says, and starts waving her hand in disgust. "Look at 'em!" More people, now with the cab pretty thoroughly surrounded. "Where is this place?" Emily says angrily, slapping the clue in her hand. "Where is the damn hotel?" Back to Nancy. "Don't speak if you have to talk like that," she says. "Emily, I cannot deal with it anymore." It is actually here that Emily says the thing I think she shouldn't have said the most, which is, "Okay, well, why are we in this predicament?" Ouch! Like Nancy doesn't feel rotten enough.

Yes, that's an ugly scene for Emily. Yes, she's way out of line. Yes, she came across like a jerk. But you know what? I think the math here is that you add up Emily's lack of sleep, her lack of regular food, her confusion about the clue, her fear about the unfamiliar circumstances and the mobbing of the cab, some anger about her mom having taken so long to get back (which she feels guilty about, because her mom's crying), and her guilt and discomfort about the poverty she's seeing, and it's not that hard to figure out why you get ugly behavior from her. I'm not excusing it -- she's over the line, no question. But this isn't Amie and Ana in the premiere episode, just leaning out of the car yelling at people that they're stupid because they can't give directions in English. She's scared, and as if the throng of people weren't enough to get her scared, she's experiencing perhaps the scariest thing of all, which is The Moment Your Mom Can't Deal. It's a powerful scene, but fortunately it ends on a better note, as Emily reaches over to comfort her mom again. "Don't worry about it," she says. Cut to Emily, holding her mom, calming her down, cradling her head, stroking her hair -- it's a total role-reversal, and really quite touching. Don't let it distract you from your regularly-scheduled mockery of reality TV, but this last minute or so was actually worth something.

Kevin and Drew, in their cab, realizing that they don't feel like they're getting quite the straight scoop from their driver, who seems to be vacillating on whether he knows where the hotel is. In Cab Guido, Joe (to his -- gulp -- credit) has immediately put together that the little model was the Taj Mahal, so they need to go to Agra. I hate him, but he's right. He manages, of course, to put it to us so obnoxiously that it doesn't interfere with our ability to hate him: "I just know that the Taj Mahal is in Agra. I mean, I just know this. I've known this ever since I was a little kid." (Miss Alli's Mom: "'Because I lived in India for two years.'") Back in the Shower-Fresh cab, Drew is offering to take over the driving if the driver is that confused. Driver says no, and Drew notices that suddenly, Driver speaks English. Yep.

Team Kenny. Karyn wants the driver to stop and ask directions to the hotel, although the driver has allegedly convinced her that he knows where he's going. The driver gets out to consult, and Karyn puts her head down. "Oh, Jesus, help us," she says.

Drew wanders into a little building with a sign outside that says, "Is There a BOMB Near You?" Good grief, what kind of a building is this? Anyway, inside, he sits with some guys and tries to figure out where the hotel is. Nobody knows. "Ay, yi, yi," he grumbles. Meanwhile, Rob and Brennan get out of their cab, and it sounds like Brennan tells Rob to pay the driver. "Pay him for what? Gettin' us lost?" You know, there seems to be a lot of this going around. You'd almost think it was The Officially-Sanctioned Consumer Protection Violation of the Indian Taxi Industry. Brennan complains that their driver, who claimed to know where the hotel was, actually just brought them into New Delhi to find out where it was. Actually, in fairness to the driver, that's probably the best thing he could've done for them. Otherwise, you're Momily and Team Kenny and Shower-Fresh, just driving around asking people at random. In New Delhi, by contrast, Esquire manages to find its way into a building with giant letters saying "INFORMATION CENTER," and what could be better than that? I mean, aside from "FREE BEER," there's really nothing better a sign can say. Now, they're able to find out that they need to get to Agra. All in all, not as much trouble as they could have had. Meanwhile, Kevin and Drew also get the news of Agra, and they set up their ride, although Drew is concerned that the vehicle won't get them all the way there. "The tires are -- are bawwld," he Drews.

Karyn, angrily negotiating on her own behalf and -- I suspect -- being ripped off. On one hand, I sympathize with her (for some of the same reasons I gave a break to Emily), but on the other hand, Karyn is screaming much more angrily, and she's also being very strategically foolish, because screaming at your driver is not going to get you anywhere any faster. Apparently, not only are they being asked for more money than they agreed to, but the driver who claimed to know right where they needed to go? Well, now he doesn't. "You lied to us! You lied to me!" she yells. Of course, with Karyn, there's no need for her to limit her screaming to those people who actually deserve it. Hey, let's spread it around! She gives what I think is actually her final "Lennyyyyy!" and then she says to him, in just the most angry-mom voice you can imagine, "I'm tired of doing everything, you do NOTHING." Lenny gives an uncomfortable laugh. Lenny! Get out now!

Esquire. Brennan: "So now all we can do is sit back and hope and pray that we get there before other people." Rob: "This may be our swan song." Brennan: "We'll see. It's been fun." Rob would like you to think he's relatively resigned to, and okay with, his fate. He's not. Know how I know? Chomp chomp chomp chomp. Heh. As their cab speeds along, Rob says, "What really stinks is that our only hope might be that Emily and Nancy ran into trouble, and I hate hopin' for that." Aww.

Joe and Bill spot the hotel flag. I do believe that when he's encouraging Bill to get going, Joe says, "Let's rock." I don't think I even need to get into the humor inherent in that statement, because Bill and Joe haven't rocked in at least thirty years, and even then, it was probably to the Carpenters. They do the Pampers Run up the path to the hotel, and just as the sun is going down, they land on the mat. Welcome, Team Guido, you are Team Number Two. Bill now drops into a dramatic dead-faint on the ground, which I would probably find cute and funny coming from anyone else, and quite frankly, given the way the leg went, I don't blame him. However, since it's Bill, it is neither cute nor funny, but merely chaps my ass.

Esquire, approaching the hotel. They run (also like geeks) up to the mat. Welcome, Team Esquire, you are Team Number Three. The boys are shocked. "I don't believe it," Rob says. "I don't freaking believe it." They high-five, and Rob gives the big "Woo!" and then they double-high-five.

Right on their heels are Kevin and Drew. Welcome, Team Shower-Fresh, you are Team Number Four. "We'll take that," Kevin says plainly. "We'll take that." "Wow," Drew says. My sense is that all of the teams had so much trouble just getting from the market to the hotel that they didn't realize that everyone else had just as much trouble, so everybody from Esquire on down is just happy to hear they're not last.

Suspenseful shot of The Last Non-Eliminated Team approaching. Who is it? Is it Kenny? Is it Momily? We see only the inside of the cab as it pulls up. Cut to the hillside where the mat is, with the focus tight on a torch in the foreground. Two figures come up over the hill, completely out of focus. As they come closer, the focus pulls from the torch to the people, the music swellsMomily! Yaaaaay! Now THIS team SERIOUSLY thinks they're last. They go stand on the mat, prepared to meet Phil. Welcome, Momily, you are Team Number Five. This takes a minute to sink in. "Number five?" Em asks, and then gives an adorable girly scream, turning to her mom with her arms raised. She and her mom hug a little and try to catch their breath. "You're kidding, right?" Emily asks. "Oh, my God," Nancy says in disbelief. "I cried the whole way here." Gorgeous Momily smiles all around. "Pinch me!" Nancy says, and then grabs Emily in one last impetuous Mom hug. Aww. Everybody go call your mom.

Team Kenny. Lenny opens the cab door, leans out, and pukes. It's a perfect indicator of the change in tone, honestly. Karyn, teeming with sympathy, says with disgust, "Can you at least make it to the yellow flag?" Welcome, Team Kenny, you are Team Number Six. Ha! Karyn fires off one last round of Eyeball Daggers Of Death, but boy, is it too late now. Grim Reaper Phil approaches and tells them they're eliminated. Like everybody else, they say, "We know."

Karyn's Speech, Which Is Kinda Like The With-No-Ill-Regrets Speech, Except Meaner. "I'm disappointed in myself, I'm disappointed in us as a team, and I'm going to walk away with some really good memories, but at the same time, I would by lying if I didn't say this is going to take a toll on us as a team. I'm too analytical, I'm too competitive, I'm too impatient, and for everything I am, he's the opposite." Lenny, looking cold as ice: "But, um, at this point, I guess -- I guess she's right, we're just total opposites." Back to Karyn, wearing a creepy, icy smile: "I still love him, butI don't think it's gonna work. Like I said, I'm too competitive. It's not so much the game. He seems to think that it's about the game, and it's about so much more than that to me. The money was not an issue. The issue is giving a hundred and twenty percent every single minute, and that meant a lot to me. And I feel like, um, I did it, and I feel like he didn't."

Man, I could go on and on. But let me make two main points. One is on behalf of the ever-popular Snowmobile Boy, who was particularly irked by Karyn's description of herself as "competitive." As he pointed out, being competitive means a lot more than really, really wanting to win. Being competitive means enjoying competition -- thriving on it, getting a kick out of it, and being able to take something positive away from it, whether you actually win or not. In other words, it's the ability to appreciate competition itself as a positive experience. Karyn, from the beginning, has acted pinched and miserable, and has been so obsessed with blaming Lenny for everything that's gone wrong that she hasn't competed effectively at all. I find her attempt to subtly (ha!) blame Lenny for the fact that they lost to be not only a rotten thing to do, but factually inaccurate. This team's problem from the beginning has been the incredible static that their relationship creates, and the way that static interferes with their ability to compete. You'll notice that the teams that are left have relationships that, while sometimes rocky, are fundamentally functional. The relationship, in some way, supports the performance of the team. Furthermore, you can tell that the team members see themselves as allies -- there's no ACTUAL effort to assign blame when something goes wrong.

And the second point? I cannot stand people who are reckless with the feelings of somebody they claim to "love." Breaking up with the guy would be one thing, but flamboyantly eviscerating him on television is something else entirely. If she had said she now realizes she DOESN'T love him, I'd have more respect for her than I do now. Saying it, and then not meaning it is juststop devaluing the currency, Karyn.

Executive producer? Jerry Bruckheimer.

week: Rob and Brennan both wear the Hating-Hats. (Yes. There are actually TWO Hating-Hats. They match, which is even worse.) The boys have cab difficulties. Momily can't buy tickets because they're girls, and Phil intimates that they may team up with the Guidos. Now THAT would be a surprising alliance at this point, and I think if it materializes, there is only one possible name for it: Guidanomaly. That cracks me up, and I bet it cracked you up, too, and the (tm) on that? Belongs to Quotable Rob.