I'm Not a Miner! No, You're An Idiot! (II)

In Part One of this two-leg evening, Oswald and Danny reinvented the concept of "racing" by proving that sometimes the real time-saver is taking the afternoon off to contribute to the local consumer economy. Gary and Dave put on perhaps the worst display of boat navigation in history not involving Alaskan oil tankers or icebergs, while Boston made like the U.S.S. Constitution. Wil and Tara vacillated about the Fast Forward, eventually leaving it in Hong Kong along with whatever scraps of civility remained between them. Thunk and Boston were back on the bus, y'all, and Chris voiced my opinion of Gary more neatly and accurately than I ever could have. The Aussie cozzie was wasted on Ozzie, but Dave (dog!) dug the doll's duds. The Teeth experimented with a mysterious style of travel in which they got in a cab with no idea of where they were going and feverishly hoped to emerge at the right location, but they were quickly convinced to return to more conventional styles of navigation, such as emergency cell phone calls to local tourist bureaus to plead for assistance. Wil and Blake flubbed the Roadblock after failing to read the directions, because everything they really need to know, they failed to learn in kindergarten. At the non-elimination pit stop, Cha-Cha-Cha came in first, Boston slid into second, Gary and Dave thunked their way into third, Taraweasel squeaked out an avoidance of last place, and Blake and Paige once AGAIN managed to avoid elimination despite richly deserving it after making two potentially fatal errors in the same episode. Now, however, there is no more escaping the inevitable axe -- at the end of this chapter of our story, somebody will be out.

It gets dark in Sydney as our teams rest up for the leg. Phil provides a shiny new "who will be eliminated tonight?" speech, complete with Horns of Perseverance, but there is no second round of credits, so there are no theme song lyrics for me to write. Oh, thank God. I mean...uh, what a bitter disappointment!

8:26 PM. Cha-Cha-Cha tears open the clue, which tells them to get themselves to BridgeClimb. Phil exposits that the clue is at the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is, in sophisticated architectural lingo, a big honkin' archy deal. You've seen it in pictures, along with the opera house. (Nice aerial shot.) Owing to the hazardous nature of scaling something of this magnitude, and owing to what is probably a sweet exclusive contract with the city, the only way to climb the bridge and its two hundred stairs is to sign up with a particular company called BridgeClimb. Now that is a business with a specialty. What's even more remarkable is that it appears to occupy a whole big building with its name on it. How can a business that ties people to little safety harnesses so they can walk across a bridge on a bunch of stairs be successful enough to have its own big building? I'm wondering if they do something else, like coach you in actually doing a Spider-Man up the side of the bridge, because I can't believe the stairs alone could pay the rent. Phil goes on to explain that although the teams can't climb until 5:45 in the morning, they have to walk across single-file with a few minutes separating each team, so they do need to hustle over to BridgeClimb and sign up to claim their spot in line.

As Danny and Oswald look for BridgeClimb, Ozzie voices over that after they left Thailand, he and Danny decided that although they've been having a wonderful time on the race and focusing on enjoying it more than anything else, they've now decided to "add an element of competitiveness." He says it casually, like he would say "add a pair of fabulous sunglasses" if he were discussing an outfit. "Before, we didn't really race that much," he says. So, to review: they made the top five, they're currently in first place, and they've really just been trying to have fun. Kinda rips a gaping, yawning maw in the whole "good racing requires desperate intensity and a sour, clipped, ungracious attitude" theory that so many teams embrace, doesn't it?

9:10 PM. Boston. They read the clue for BridgeClimb, but they tell us immediately that they're not doing it -- they're going for the Fast Forward. Their theory is that Danny and Oswald have used their FF already, so if Boston can snag it, they'll wind up well ahead of the pack. In other words, they're using it purely as a lead-building strategy, as opposed to using it for crisis management. It's not a bad idea, but there are four legs left, and with the almost pathological bunching that's been the rule this season, I doubt it will work. I guess if they don't need it to bail them out, they might as well take it to give themselves a rest, but the unbunchable lead will, I suspect, continue to evade them. Now you can probably sit back and watch me be wrong, of course, especially since we're talking about Boston, whose entire function is apparently to throw me into fits of internal conflict.

Welcome to Phil's Phast Phorward Phacts. One per leg, one per team, blah dee blah. "Most advantageous to go for it." As Phil explains it, this particular leg's FF is probably just about the easiest ever, as it involves locating a well-known diner with all kinds of obvious signage, and eating a meat pie. The meat pie doesn't look particularly appetizing, but finding it looks to be about as difficult as finding your local Burger King. Boy, the hike in the first episode of season one was universally described as extremely punishing, and Xerox had to beat a bunch of Brazilians at beach volleyball, and now Boston just has to drive up and eat? Hmph. I suppose Danny only had to take his pants off and jump in a pool, so perhaps it's on par with that. Anyway, they hop in a cab, and they're on their way. I hope they're hungry.

At BridgeClimb, Oswald and Danny sign up for the first time slot in the morning. "Five forty-five...," Danny says as he signs the card. "Oswald and Danny," Oswald finishes proudly. Hee. This is so strange -- Oswald was so close to running dry in Thailand, and now he appears to be having a better time than anyone. They head for a hotel for the night, which makes me wonder whether they're running out of money. They've got to be cash-poor, don't they? By the way, if there's a season, I want tighter budgeting in addition to less bunching.

9:19 PM. Thunk opens the clue. Dave interviews that some of the other teams are experiencing friction (Taraweasel) and screwups of various kinds (the Teeth), so he and Gary have concluded that they are emerging as "one of the stronger teams." Apparently, Dave did not see the most recent episode, in which he and Gary sniped at each other and piloted that boat with all the skill you'd expect from a couple of sleep-deprived chimps. "All we've got to do is maintain our pace, play our own game, and we're going to be fine. We're going to get to the final leg." Yeah, right on, Cheetah.

Cha-Cha-Cha prevails upon the nice hotel staff to let them check their bags with the bellman, fibbing that they just checked out of the hotel and are waiting for a ride. With this, they plunk down in one of the little lobbies and fall asleep. Aside from the firm "tsk, tsk" that I feel compelled to deliver regarding the lying (and I'm always a little more likely to forgive lying in a situation like this where there's really no marginal cost), this is a good thought. Won't cost them anything, and it keeps them out of the rain.

Thunk is second to sign up for the BridgeClimb.

9:59 PM. Taraweasel. ACK! Wil is wearing the Horrible Hat again. He voices over that Tara doesn't really think he's pulling his weight at this point in the race, and that their game has been slipping because he's obsessed with what everybody else is doing, and he thinks she's right. I actually...agree with Wil and Tara! Both! At the same time! Will wonders never cease? As they hop in a cab, we see the first of what will be a series of incidents in this leg in which Wil and Tara discover another crucial difference in their approaches -- she pays attention and asks for what she actually needs, and he doesn't. Here, he just asks the taxi driver for "Cumberland Street," which is where the address is, but if you've ever been in a big city, you know that just finding the street isn't necessarily going to help if you don't know how long it is and you don't get directions to the specific address. (Go into St. Paul and ask where Grand Avenue is, and you could very easily wind up no closer to your destination than you were before.) Tara, on the other hand, provides the necessary context that they're looking for the place where you "do the bridge." I'm betting they're more likely to get where they're going that way.

Alex, in the Boston cab, explains a bit of the Fast Forward intrigue that's suddenly cropped up. In the leg, Tara told Alex that she and Wil were going for the Fast Forward and then they didn't, which "messed up [Boston's] game plan." This time, therefore, Boston opted to "guarantee" themselves the Fast Forward by telling Blake and Paige that they were going to take it, even though they "didn't want to do that to [Wil and Tara]." This didn't make sense to me at first, but I think I get it. Boston gave Blake and Paige the scoop that they were going for the FF so that Blake and Paige wouldn't fight them for it, despite the fact that Blake and Paige wasting time going for it might have been a real help to Wil and Tara in staying out of last place. Here's the other thing, though -- you'll note that Boston is counting on Paige and Blake to be more sure that they have no chance against Boston than Boston is. After all, the boys wouldn't be trying to back Blake and Paige down if they really believed there was no chance the Teeth would beat them out for the Fast Forward -- that's what "guaranteeing it" means. They're still counting on the Teeth to skip it, though, on the assumption that they can't get it if they go up against Boston. These guys really are a little smarter than I originally thought, because as much as I usually don't like intrigue, this is a nice piece of play. Furthermore, as much as I have always argued that you have little to gain in this game from intimidation, if this plan of Boston's were to work, it would mean that anything they've done to convince Blake and Paige that they're invincible would pay off in spades.

10:06 PM. Teeth. Blake says that for them, "this leg is the entire race." A nice sentiment, except that Blake says things like this a lot. He's said repeatedly that the entire race comes down to a particular task, or that everything depends on how they do at this or that Roadblock...he's certainly got a flair for the dramatic, does the Glowtoothed Boy. He also says "all the sacrifices [they've] made have been to prepare for this leg." Sacrifices? Wow, I'm getting all misty-eyed remembering how Paige didn't let him buy as much jewelry as he wanted in Bangkok after he'd already bought himself a pair of sunglasses. Or maybe he's talking about when that guy in the store wouldn't sell him the book. It seems to me all he's given up is the cowboy hat. What ever happened to the cowboy hat, anyway?

Back to the Intrigue portion of our program. In the Teeth's cab, Paige explains that she and Blake are going for the Fast Forward, because -- get this -- Chris told them that he and Alex are going for the Fast Forward, but the Teeth have decided that he was lying. I think Blake and Paige understand that Chris told them that Boston was going for the FF so that the Teeth wouldn't go for it. But because of the Adultery Alliance, Blake and Paige think Boston did this to allow Taraweasel to go for the FF uncontested or to ensure that nobody went for it at all. So Boston's attempt to prevent anyone from competing with them for the Fast Forward has backfired on their northeastern necklessness, because Blake and Paige think Boston is trying to screw them. Ha! Sometimes I just love the Teeth. They come up with such wacko maneuvers when they try to be tricky. They're like the bumbling international spies in a cheesy afternoon movie. Pretty much all that's left now is for Blake to pull a canister of microfilm out of his pants.

At the Fast Forward caf, Chris and Alex order their meat pies. They scarf them in about three bites, pausing only to ask for Cokes to wash them down. Alex tries to get Chris to eat faster, which gives the whole thing a lovely Animal House sort of vibe. It also causes Chris to talk with his mouth full, which -- all right, no. I refuse to declare that cute. The Club For Women Who Do Not Find Appallingly Stupid Things Attractive will take away my membership card, and they will never give it back. Anyway, they finally finish eating and collect the clue, which tells them to go to an aboriginal bush camp near a town called Coober Pedy. Phil repeats the info. Can I buy you a drink, Phil? You're clearly not busy. Chris and Alex head for the airport.

Wil and Tara sign in at BridgeClimb, and then they go hunting for a hotel. Thunk, taking a walk in the city, mentions that since they have a few hours to kill, they thought they'd explore the wonderful world of panhandling. No, really. It's funny, but when Blake and Paige lost all their money in the second leg, it didn't seem like a horribly big deal for them to do a little emergency begging, because they appeared to have genuinely no choice. Having said that, I'd hate to see this become a routine way that teams cope with limited funds. In a crisis situation, it doesn't bother me so much, but...it does strike me as a bit distasteful to include it as a basic part of one's strategy. Anyway, they successfully suck some funds from the friendly Aussies. I actually think that like most urban nuisances, Thunk is benefiting from the fact that people will pay for them to go away.

The Teeth approach Harry's Caf, and learn that they've indulged in one too many layers of overly inventive smartitude, that Chris was in fact not lying, and that the FF is but a memory. Of course, in this situation, having gone for the FF and missed it isn't nearly as big of a problem as it was for Mary and Peach. All they really risked was their place in line -- which probably would have been the same (last, that is) anyway. In the end, it was a free shot for the Teeth, wacky maneuvering notwithstanding. As they head for BridgeClimb, Paige says that she's a little bit happy they didn't have to eat the meat pie, but Blake is disappointed, and can only hiss, "Damn."

Boston is cabbing it to the airport, and they talk about whether they're sure that nobody else can get the FF. Man, don't they watch this show? How many times has Phil explained this? Why do they think it is that teams have to figure out when it's most advantageous to...oh, never mind. They go inside and ask for a flight to Adelaide. The friendly ticket agent breaks the news that they'll be "overnighting in Melbourne," which they say is fine, as long as that's fastest. Chris voices over that this will get them a couple of hours ahead of everybody -- "This is a real smaaht decision," he says. "We're wicked smaaht. We're from Boston and we're wicked smaaht." Hee! It's not every barrel-chested bouncer who has the balls to channel Casey Affleck. Their flight takes off at 11:06 PM.

At the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Danny and Oswald are the first to suit up at 5:45 AM. The outfit features a gray jumpsuit and some climbing-type stuff, and when Gary and Dave start to put it on, Gary comments that "it looks like you're going to be carted off to a mental institution." Well, he would know. Cha-Cha-Cha ascends the many stairs, getting a lovely view of the opera house in the process. Gary and Dave get on the bridge, followed by Wil and Tara. Wil, who isn't so much a big heights-liking type of guy, says that "this is going to be a doozy." Did he say "doozy"? Wow, Bugs Bunny vocabulary! Everything old really is new again.

Danny and Oswald get across the bridge and are handed a clue wrapped in rain-resistant plastic, which tells them to go to Coober Pedy to "the metal tree." Phil gives the additional detail that they have to fly to Adelaide, where they will pick up one of three charter flights to Coober Pedy. There, they'll grab an SUV and drive to a rather barren-looking...well, metal tree. You'll know the metal tree when you see it, because it's located to The Big Winch, which Phil tells us is a "local landmark." I originally thought he said "Big Witch," which I think would make a funnier local landmark, with the pointy hat and the broomstick and everything. A lot more people would go to see that than to see a winch, am I right?

The Teeth take to the bridge. Gary and Dave get the metal tree clue.

At the Melbourne airport, Chris and Alex have just scored their flight to Adelaide. Chris: "I think we're going to the outback, do a little hangin' out, do a little dancin' around fires..." He now does his rather brilliant didgeridoo imitation, and says he "always wanted to play that instrument...I was a tuba man myself." Stop it, Chris! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Enough with the cute, already. Like I don't despise myself enough as it is. Anyway, they get a 6:10 AM flight from Melbourne to Adelaide.

Cha-Cha-Cha heads from the bridge to the airport. In their cab, Oswald says, "You wouldn't happen to have a cell phone with you, would you?" The cabbie hands it over. Ah, the kindness of strangers. "Thank you very much," Ozzie says.

Taraweasel climbing the bridge. Wil comments that conquering his fear of heights was "a great experience, looking out and seeing the opera house," which is very humorously juxtaposed with a shot of him walking resolutely up the stairs, most definitely not taking his eyes off the stairs to look out at the scenery, including the opera house, lest he suddenly start thinking about falling to his death or dangling from the bridge by his safety harness or something of that sort. My love affair with the funny, funny editors continues.

In the Cha-Cab, Oswald tries to arrange a flight to Adelaide, starting out with, "Yes, hello, good morning," just as he always does. Not only does he get the flight arranged, but he finds out exactly what gate they're departing from once they make their way to the airport. They've arranged a 7:10 AM flight, but they need to speed along the taxi in order to make it. They're fairly sheepish about asking the driver to hurry up, which is quite a contrast from the teams that have been screaming at their drivers incessantly for seven or eight episodes. Gary and Dave grab a cab for the airport as well.

The Teeth finish up at the bridge, and Paige voices over that they just needed to try not to make any mistakes, and not to worry about the fact that they're in last place. Meanwhile, Tara and Wil get a taxi, and Wil rather dimly tries to tell the driver about Coober Pedy, which is of course completely irrelevant at this point. It's like telling the lady who sells you a plane ticket the address of the house you're staying at on the other end -- doesn't care, doesn't need to know. "No, no, no, we need to get to the airport," Tara points out, "to go to Adelaide." Right on, Bony. In case you haven't noticed, Wil is getting really fuzzy-headed as he becomes more and more exhausted. In the cab, Tara praises him for having climbed the bridge in spite of his crippling fear of heights, and he beams some more, much as he did back at the hotel when she laughed at his joke. This is so weird -- if he likes her this much, why is he so damn mean? God, men are mystifying.

Cha-Cha-Cha gets to the airport, goes right to good old gate seventeen, and makes the 7:10 AM flight. Thunk gets to the Sydney airport , and the agent tells them that the flight to Adelaide is at 8:10 AM. As Tara and Wil bail out of their cab, he runs immediately inside, but she does take a second to call over her shoulder to the driver, "Thank you!" Sigh. I honestly think if she were playing with somebody else, Tara would probably be okay with me. I think Dave and Tara should have left Gary and Wil at home. This race would look completely different if they had. At any rate, they land the 8:10 AM flight as well. When the Teeth show up, however, their luck has temporarily run out yet again, because they can only get standby for the 8:10 flight. Blake gets on the phone and tries to find out whether they can get to Adelaide on any other flight, but they seem to be fresh out of miracles. They despair.

Commercials. You know, if there's anything on TV right now that's funnier than when that Saturn lady tells the guy he has corn in his goatee, I haven't seen it.