They're Slithering To The Finish Line Like The Rest Of Us

Previously on Eleven Legs Can Bring You To Your Knees When The Game Is Afoot: Everybody decided to leave Florida to get away from the alligators. The race visited so many castles and fortresses that it began to resemble a special episode of The Munsters, where the family is visited by a bunch of eccentric strangers who don't believe in bathing and operate on a strangely regimented arrival and departure schedule. Alliances including the Band of Brothers, the HugeTinies, and Nerd Lust taught us all a little bit about working with your fellow human beings for the common good, if by "common good" you mean "your own naked ambition." And let's face it, you do. Heather and Eve learned that money can't buy literacy, even if you find a man gullible enough to give you some. Aaron and Arianne learned that "diesel" isn't spelled U-N-L-E-A-D-E-D, and that the auto club is worth every penny. Gina and Sylvia learned that somebody has to be the first to go, so you might as well be good sports about it. Tramel and Talicia learned that the chicken dance is big, but distributing your weight properly on a WaveRunner is everything. Ian and Teri learned that nothing soothes the skin like paper underwear, and spouses often don't behave as well as pets. Dennis and Andrew learned that of all the ways to get really dirty, driving a tank in the mud is one of the ten most enjoyable. Michael and Kathy learned that giving yourself the night off in the middle of a race is almost never a good idea. Andre and Damon learned that the locals are not always friendly, but sometimes it only takes a dollar to regain your dignity. Jill and John Vito learned to eat cheese and get up in a hurry. Derek and Drew learned that in the end, pretty really is as pretty does, and under that standard, they fared surprisingly well. Ken and Gerard learned that panache will get you everywhere, as will a well-placed "YAAY!" Zach learned that that if the liberal arts thing doesn't work out, he might have a future with the bomb squad, and Flo learned...uh, Flo learned...hang on, I'll get back to you.

And now that it's all said and done, we're down to Asshat, FloZach, and the Bald Snark. "One of these three teams will win..." The sun burns out. "The Amazing Race."

Credits. A $35 million seaside resort was recently built on China Beach as part of Vietnam's growing tourism industry. The average train in Vietnam travels between fifteen and thirty kilometers per hour. Rowing a basket boat properly involves standing at the forward edge and moving the oar in a seesawing motion. Child development experts recommend that when a child whines, an adult should insist that the child repeat whatever she is saying in a non-whining tone before responding. [BOMP.]

Drunken cameramen swoop into and out of assorted Vietnamese tableaus. Phil explains that we are on a layover in Ho Chi Minh City, which he calls a "thriving economic center." As has frequently been the case this season, Phil's shirt looks like he picked it up off the floor of his closet after a three-day bender. I think whoever is responsible for dressing Phil needs to rediscover the landmark invention that is the travel iron. At any rate, you will be shocked to learn, after thirty-seven race legs have been run, that the teams will have to figure out where to go for themselves. But they're getting clues and sealed envelopes, so it shouldn't be that difficult. Eat/rest/mingle looks pretty tense this week, as the last three teams try to act like they're not plotting each other's destruction. Kenny is totally plotting, though. You can tell just by watching him eat. As drums pound mercilessly in the background, Phil wonders aloud whether Teri and Ian's age will slow them down. Surprisingly, he's not even curious about whether stopping in the middle of the leg to yell "Did not!" and "Did too!" at each other might slow them down. Drums: [BOOM-ba-ba-BOOM BOOM!] He wonders whether Flo's periodic descents into madness (which he charitably calls her "emotional highs and lows") will take a toll on Zach. Wow, they even accompany this with a shot of Flo wearing a blank expression and twisting her hair, just like a real crazy lady. Drums: [BOOM-ba-ba-BOOM BOOM!] He wonders whether the Bald Snark can rub their own heads and build up so much luck that they can rocket to the front of the pack and run away with the whole thing after the clue-hunting fiasco of last week. Presumably, all the rubbing will at least build up so much static electricity that they can use it to launder their dirty clothes. Drums: [BOOM-ba-ba-BOOM BOOM!]

5:19 AM. Asshat. They open the clue, which tells them to take a train to Hue and find the Imperial Palace. Phil explains that this will require a four-hundred-mile train trip into central Vietnam. When they get to Hue, they will find the palace, which used to house Vietnam's royal family, and they'll look for the clue box somewhere on what Phil Philiciously calls "the sprawling grounds." Teri mentions that they've been given $162 for the leg. Apparently, the amount of money available for this leg of the race was determined by seeing how much loose change was rattling around in the bottom of the camera guys' backpacks. They leave. We see them strolling along in the dark, and he asks her again where they're going. "To Hue," she says, pronouncing it to rhyme with "cue." He corrects her pronunciation, pointing out that it's more like "hway." She thinks about arguing the point, but is forced to implicitly acknowledge that this is a situation in which he just may know more than she does. In an interview, Teri says that being in first place is the best. Much better than being in last place. Boy, they are scraping the sides of the bowl with this tautological interview footage. In a minute or two, this is going to be an episode of The Bachelor, and every time anyone gets a taxi, they'll play a voiceover of the person saying, "Then we got a taxi." Asshat boards a ferry for the other side of the Saigon River as Teri voices over that they're just taking the race one step at a time and one clue at a time. On the ferry, Ian gives the obligatory shout of "Good morning, Vietnam!" Their ferry lands, and they disembark. "You've gotta walk fast now," he commands, pointing to the ground as if she's a cat and he's pointing a flashlight beam for her to chase. They grab a cab. He voices over that this is his first time back to Vietnam since the war, and that Hue isn't far from what was once the border between the northern and southern parts of Vietnam. There's no time for reminiscing, though, because it's time to harangue the members of the service industry once again. "Big hurry," he says to the cabbie.

At the Saigon train station, Asshat grabs their bags out of the trunk, and they walk inside. Inside, the ticket lady tells them that booking for the train doesn't open until 7:00 AM, and the sign over her window tells us that it isn't quite 6:00 yet, so they've got a bit of a wait. I swear, the travel would be difficult and the stressful situations would certainly challenge me, but I often think that the one thing I couldn't stand about racing would be all the sitting around in airports and train stations. I can just see myself three legs from the end, bleary-eyed and desperate in the Tokyo airport, buying copies of Who Moved My Cheese? and Chicken Soup For The Misanthrope's Soul and not even caring that they're in Japanese.

5:58 AM. FloZach. She reads the clue, and they leave. As they walk, Zach gives the first of what will be many pep talks over the two hours. "Home stretch for us," he says. "Beginning of the end for me," she responds helpfully. I guess the upside of her approach is that your cheerful attitude can't desert you if you never bring it along to begin with. He encourages her to stay positive -- to "maintain the focus," as he puts it. Seriously, it's hard to even imagine exactly what the hell her problem could possibly be at this stage, unless they served her roaches and rubbing alcohol for breakfast. Zach voices over as they walk toward the ferry, "Flo is, uh...very fragile these days, so, you know, I basically...I proceed with caution." He laughs, so that he won't cry. He goes on to say that no matter how much it sucks, they have to keep going and keep working, presumably because if they don't even finish, it's going to mean that he has spent twelve legs dragging her ass around the world for nothing. Flo voices over a Princess and the Pea speech about how the race is hard, and her body needs sleep and food. You know, not to sound unsympathetic, but if Teri and Ian and Ken and Gerard can take the strain on their bods, I would think Miss Flo could suck it up. They grab a taxi, and she starts right in with the attitude she's going to employ for the rest of the leg. "I wish we'd gotten eliminated," she says, half-crying. Zach is trying his coping strategy of finding her a little bit funny, so he chortles. "Come on, Flo, we made it so far. You should try and be happy about it." She goes on to say that she's all through trying to keep a positive attitude. "This is misery," she says, offending a lot of people in the world who know a little bit about actual misery. Like, oh, I don't know, a significant share of the population of Vietnam, one would suspect. ["Not to mention TAR viewers whenever Flo is on-screen. Thank you and good night!" -- Sars]

6:13 AM. The Bald Snark. They rip open the clue. As they take off, Gerard explains in a voice-over that he thinks their advantage is that they're brothers, and brothers can put up with a lot from each other. Considering that I once knew a guy whose chiropractor told him that his spine was permanently compressed from being dropped on his head repeatedly by his large gaggle of older brothers, I suppose I can believe that. On the ferry, they express regret that no one speaks English. I'm sure they would be the first to admit, of course, that life would also be easier if they themselves spoke Vietnamese. I have to add that I'm fascinated by those sandals Kenny wears. They seem to be his comfortable shoes of choice, and not being a real sandal-wearer (sandals season in the frozen tundra lasts about a week and a half), I'm not used to seeing them as sporty shoes. It might be that he has really nice feet and doesn't want to hide his light under a bushel. "We treat one another with respect and kindness and it's served us well," Gerard says. Aww.

At the Saigon train station, FloZach is arriving. When they get inside, Ian gives Zach the scoop that the ticket sales lady doesn't open until 7:00. He also mentions that he understands this to be about a twenty-four-hour train ride they're gearing up for. "Oh, really, a beefy...a beefy ride," Zach says unhappily, seeing The Ghost Of Whining Future rearing up to stalk him. Ian continues to talk about the rough ride they're probably in for, well aware that this chatter will aggravate Flo. Zach tries to stem her gathering indignation by saying that maybe they can get first-class tickets. Ian laughs contemptuously through his nose. "I'm not getting on this train," Flo announces. "Just try and breathe," Zach says to her. He tells her that they don't even know how long the ride is yet, and they shouldn't take the information from Ian without checking. She begins to snurfle pitifully. "Do you want to come with me and take a look at the schedules, and we'll find out how long it is?" he asks gently. She nods and stands up to follow him. When they're gone, Ian says in a mini-interview that Flo may come out of this all right, but she also may melt down spectacularly. You can tell that he can hardly wait.

Over at the scheduling board, Zach points out that the train ride is indeed twenty-four hours. "I'm not doing this," she says flatly. (We'll call that Flo Declares Defeat, Part One, abbreviated FDD1.) "Why not?" Zach asks. "Because it's torture!" she snots back. Ian takes all this in from across the waiting area with a certain detached amusement, commenting that he would never quit the way Flo is threatening to do, but of course that's just his personality, and the fact that he's twice Flo's age anyway. Interestingly, there's something almost sympathetic about the way he says this, as if acknowledging that it's easy for him to say he'd be better behaved, considering that he's been on the earth twice as long as Flo has. Flo, meanwhile, sees no light at the end of the train tunnel. "Twenty-four hours on a non-air-conditioned train? Are you out of your mind?" she demands. Because it's totally Zach's fault. Zach says that they don't even know yet that it isn't air conditioned. He says they'll get the best seats they can, and maybe there will even be air conditioning. "I physically don't think I can deal with it!" she insists. "Let's just forget it," she says. (FDD2.) Ian watches and smirks.

Meanwhile, Ken and Gerard clamber off the ferry. They cross the street -- no small feat, considering that the task takes on the appearance of the forty-fifth super-expert triple-advanced level of Frogger -- and catch a cab. They take off for the train station, and we watch them cringe broadly at the speedy and death-defying antics of the driver. This entire scene is notable in part for the hilarious sequence of facial expressions that Gerard, in particular, produces. You know, I like wit as much as the girl, but show me a guy who makes funny faces, and I become the cheapest date in history. Gerard voices over that he finds the Extreme Taxi thing that seems to go on in Vietnam very unnerving. "It's not worth winning a million dollars if someone's gonna die," he says. The pedestrian population of Vietnam thanks him, I'm sure. In the cab, he and Ken both cover their faces in horror at what's unfolding. Hey, that's just how I watched this whole episode! Shout-out!

In the train station, Zach continues to carefully monitor Flo, watching for sudden fluctuations like the guy who reads temperature gauges at a nuclear plant. She's returned to her recurring theme, which is that the situation is miserable, and she can't do it, and blah dee blah. She says that she's going to have a nervous breakdown on the train, and asks if he really wants to watch that. I'm sure he doesn't, actually. And I don't either, considering how unfortunate it would be to see her reputation for plucky perseverance interfered with by signs of distress. "I don't want to do this anymore," she whines. (FDD3.) She lies down on a bank of plastic chairs for a nap, but for whatever reason, the train station starts playing psychotically cheerful music over the speakers. Horrified at this development, she and Zach take off for a different terminal, where she lies down and goes to sleep. Call me a sadist, but her suffering in this sequence is beginning to take on a tone of absurdism that I find slightly satisfying, particularly when the music starts to play.

Just at 7:00 AM, the Bald Snark arrives at the station. They go inside and have a chat with Ian and Teri about getting first-class tickets. Teri somewhat gleefully tells them that she thinks Flo is bailing out. Gerard asks what exactly went on, but we don't see how much Teri tells him. In the other terminal, we see Flo snoozing in her nerd glasses on the benches while Zach, who can't sleep because he has to stay with Flo to throw baking soda on her in the event she spontaneously combusts, stares out the windows. I suspect he's wondering how many hours can possibly be left before he gets home and cuts through the links on the chains that currently bind him to the Flobatross.

Back at the ticket window, Ian orders up some first-class tickets so that he and Teri can have a sleeper. Gerard gets the same for himself and Kenny. As he finishes the purchase and walks away from the counter, Zach walks in and passes him. "Hey, everything all right?" Gerard asks. "Uh, define 'all right,'" says a frustrated and exhausted Zach, inching along toward the frayed end of his rope. When he gets up to the counter, Zach finds that he isn't able to get a first-class sleeper for himself and Flo, because Ken and Gerard and Ian and Teri apparently got the last two. He grabs seats that are at least in the first-class section, where it's air-conditioned. "If this girl doesn't get air conditioning, she's going to kill me," he tells the ticket agent. It's interesting -- I think that's one of the few times you can see how much this is all getting to Zach, because he certainly doesn't think the ticket lady really cares about that. This is like Zach's version of venting, which is sort of funny if you think about it. But not if you think about it too hard, because then it will make you run for the liquor cabinet, where you will unscrew every bottle top you encounter until you pass out. When the tickets are purchased, Zach goes and fetches Flo, who is wearing her unhappy fish-face. He assures her that there is indeed air conditioning where they'll be sitting. She nods and agrees to go. As she hobbles behind him across the terminal, she tells him that her foot is asleep. "That's good," Zach says. "The more sleep, the better, at this stage." It's really too bad he didn't parlay this theory into a large purchase of barbiturates, because then he could have just thrown her drugged body in his backpack for the rest of the leg, which I think would have saved him a lot of anguish. Hard on the back, but easy on the ears, if you know what I mean.

All three teams board the same train to Hue. Asshat and the Bald Snark head for their beds, and FloZach stretches out in their seats. Flo voices over that she just kept wondering to herself why she was subjecting herself to these conditions. You know, I think she should totally sue CBS for coming to her house in that blue van and tying her up and forcing her to come on the show in the first place. As Zach watches her, he voices over that he knew Flo was genuinely wavering, and he knew she wanted to quit, which was a "terrible feeling." Flo stares wanly out the window as the tension continues to build.

Commercials. Shut up, Flo. Oh, I'm sorry, that had nothing to do with the commercials, except that that's what I was screaming while they were going on.

The Amazing Yellow Line travels from Ho Chi Minh City to Hue. Gerard interviews that twenty-four hours on a train, as it turns out, is a lot. He comments that at least they had beds, whereas FloZach had to sleep in their seats. Cut to FloZach, doing just that. Zach is making the best of it, mouth-breathing shamelessly while stretched out for a snooze. Flo, determined to be as miserable and put-upon as possible, has curled up against the corner of her seat in an obviously uncomfortable position that you wouldn't ever assume voluntarily unless you were trying to pick up tips as a street contortionist. Teri explains in her interview that once Zach and Flo didn't get a sleeper, she didn't see much of them for, presumably, the rest of the leg. I like to imagine that as soon as the camera cuts away from this interview, Teri does a comedically exaggerated "Whew!" with the back of her hand across her forehead.

A pretty morning arrives as the train continues toward Hue. Flo wakes up complaining, not having missed a step since the evening. "This was a horrible night...horrible," she says. "I feel like I got hit by a truck." If you cup a hand to your ear, you can hear several million viewers mutter, "I'll give you 'hit by a truck.'" She yammers some more about how miserable she is and so forth, and about how she has no idea what's going on or where she is, but she sees Zach sleeping, so she figures she can't have gone too terribly wrong. As Zach wakes and stretches, the loud music plays again. For whatever reason, this train system believes in accompanying your journey with the fabulous song stylings of the Vietnamese version of Mannheim Steamroller. "This music...I knew it. I predicted this music," she bitches. Zach says in a mini-interview that it wasn't a great night, but they've only got about five more hours to go until they get to Hue. I think that's called "the bright side," but I must admit that it's not particularly bright. Elsewhere, Flo pities herself. "I feel like I'm in hell," she says. Millions of viewers: "I'll give you 'in hell.'"

Lovely shots of the green mountains mingle with shots of the train, as relaxing morning music plays on the soundtrack. Kenny explains in an interview that he never would have named Vietnam as a place he wanted to visit, and that it's been strange for him, because he and Gerard lost an uncle in the war as well. Ian explains that he has long believed that the Vietnam War was "the wrong war to fight," but that he believes in "my country, right or wrong." He goes on: "It's very interesting to see what the country is about without a war going on." Hmm. Teri adds that she used to associate Vietnam only with the war, and now she can associate it substantially more positive imagery, in the form of the things that went on during this trip. Except for Flo whining, because no country deserves to be associated with that.

Gerard adds that he's a financial advisor by trade, so his general attitude is to plan for twenty years from now, but the people he's seen in Vietnam live pretty much day-to-day. As we see some local folks come up plying jewelry as the train passes through, Gerard speaks admiringly about the fact that the people he's met in Vietnam are friendly and smiling, in spite of not living under the easiest of circumstances. "They're doing something right," he says thoughtfully.

The train pulls into the Hue train station, and the pounding Love Theme From Flo's Impending Breakdown swings into gear again. Zach interviews that he and Flo decided that they would "just take it easy," essentially because it could hardly be worse than quitting, which was the only other thing Flo was willing to do. Everyone else gets off the train eagerly. Asshat grabs a taxi, as does the Bald Snark. Zach gets one too, making sure the driver knows to go as fast as possible. "Okay, speedy," the driver says. "Very speedy." FloZach actually manages to get out of the train station parking lot first. Everyone urges on their drivers to go faster, and peppers them with questions about the destination. Ken and Gerard appear to sneak by FloZach along the road, so they are first to arrive at the Imperial Palace. FloZach is close behind. Now, Flo is whining that she's going to throw up. Boy, I hear you, sister -- me, too, although I somehow suspect it may be for different reasons. Zach suggests that she drink a little water, and she whimpers that she doesn't want any, because she has to pee so bad. And her feet are killing her, and she just swallowed her gum, and she has blisters, and her nose is running, and her eyebrows are falling out, and she has a loose tooth, rickets, a hammertoe, and a dry scaly rash. It's just a guess.