The Princess Reminded Me of My Grandmother...

Previously on That's A Lot Of Bull: Why put all your Indian entertainment eggs in one leg's basket? Why not spend another couple of days exploring the trains, animals, and fecal matter of a culture different from your own? Tian and Jaree almost died in their cab, while David and Jeff went to a guy's porch and looked for a train in vain. When they finally found it, the twenty-four-hour train ride spelled U-P-G-R-A-D-E for everyone but Millie and Chuck, but unfortunately no new merriment showed up to spell the dog-tired "Millie Mole" non-hilarity. Much to the disappointment of their growing fan base, Tian and Jaree futzed the Roadblock, suffered from a mental mistake at the Detour, and faced the agony of Philimination. "Who will be eliminated..." Capitol security is beefed up after one member of Congress calls another "The Honorable Mr. Ninnyhead." "�?" Of course, now, they have cheapened the "." How can I trust the "" now? The "" is dead to me.

Credits. This Week's Fun Fact You Can Learn From Zaprudering The Credits With The Assistance Of TiVo: Apparently, this race will eventually include a giant squeeze bottle of French's mustard. [BOMP.]

Commercials. Man, would you get a decent mop already? I can't believe how gross your floors are. What's this sticky stuff?

Snappy cuts and tense, percussive music bring us back to Alleppey, India, where Phil explains we won't be for long. I'm sure that whoever edited this would like me to draw your attention to the whiz-bang effect where a guy crosses the screen with a bag slung over his back, and as he walks past, the back of his bag drags along the transition to a shot of Phil by the lake. That's some fancy-pants work there. I feel like I'm watching The Peterson Family's Disney World Adventure, edited on their very own iMac. Or possibly a PowerPoint presentation with wacky sound effects where your first bullet point comes in with the sound of a window breaking and your second one comes in with the sound of squealing brakes. But anyway, this week, Phil has brought us a short-sleeved brown button-up, which certainly is better than the sweaters, style-wise, but...was there no print more attractive than that alternating brown/other-brown striping? That looks like the awning outside a really dirty restaurant. We see the teams during the pit stop, at one point crossing a walkway of some kind that allows Al and ClownJon to show off their semi-tightrope-like skills. Phil actually mentions "eat, sleep, and mingle" this week, because it appears that we are actually going to spend some time observing these very activities. We see the remaining five teams sharing a meal together, where Reichen is explaining how much he loved being in the Air Force. "I got out because I'm gay," he says. Reichen goes on to explain in an interview that he and Chip decided that with just five teams left, they'd tell the other teams they were a couple. Now, I realize that it's easy for me to say, having known they were married since the first episode, but would the other teams really not know they were a couple? I think they're extremely couple-y in behavior, and it's hard for me to imagine that not being pretty clear, but again, it's easy for me to judge, I guess.

At any rate, Reichen tears up as he explains to the group that he met Chip while he was still in the Air Force, and that the two of them got married a year ago, and this is actually their anniversary. A congratulatory round of applause goes up around the table as the camera pans around...to show that Millie and Chuck alone are sitting stone-faced and not offering any congratulatory anything. Well...right. Because what's to be happy about when people love each other and have had a really rough go of it, and are now spilling their guts to you and obviously very nervous about how you're going to react? Love? Feh! Other people's happiness? Yuck! In truth, the whole thing would be really funny if it weren't so sad. I mean, the very idea of Millie and Chuck standing in judgment of anyone's relationship? So ironic it makes my head hurt. It's like having your environmental policy scoffed at by Texaco.

At any rate, Al says in an interview that this pit stop served as a good opportunity for the last five teams to put the race aside and spend some downtime together. Back at the breakfast table, Millie tells the others that she and Chuck have been dating for twelve years. "Twelve years?" Kelly says. Millie confirms it. "Except, uh, we're virgins, too, so..." Chuck adds. The hell? Apparently Chuck has confused Get To Know Each Other Day with TMI Day. In case he's wondering, Millie saying they'd been dating twelve years was analogous to the Chipsters saying it was their anniversary. Saying they were virgins, however, would be analogous to Reichen having added, "Oh, and Chip enjoys being spanked." Which I now wish he had. Jon expresses his shock in just about the way Chuck was asking for, and then Kelly tells the group that she and Jon got engaged right before the race. "We've been livin' in sin," she says, and Jon adds, obviously referencing Millie and Chuck's big announcement, that they "had sex the first week." Chuck sits with his arms crossed, looking cold and disapproving, which makes me wonder why in the hell you would open up a conversation about your "sex" "life" if all you were going to do was sit around steely-like as everyone else discussed theirs. The way Jon says to Chip and Reichen, "Who cares about you guys? Virgins?!" kind of makes me think the other teams also found it a rather bizarre trampling of the moment.

In an interview, Jeff says that "the race really isn't about your sexual preference, or whether you're a virgin or not a virgin, or whether you're a whore in the bedroom [he doesn't say 'respectively,' fortunately]...it's really about two people working together and taking advantage of their strengths that they have." Amen to that, you Who, you. Still, while this isn't what the race is about, it's all very telling. Jeff is sure that "the best team will ultimately win." I'll have to take his word for it. Incidentally, he's got the sunglasses on top of his head, and you know how much I love that. Not.

Aaaanyway, so there's this race. And at 4:02 AM, it's time to send Team Who off the mat. David takes a very Zen cleansing breath as they're getting ready to leave, like he's struggling not to beat up the clue. The clue tells them to fly to Kotu Kinabalu in Malaysia, where they will head for a village to get their clue. They've got $120 for the leg.

4:06 AM. The clowns, clad in headlamps and big blue plastic ponchos to protect them from the rain, head off, chanting "Malaysia!" happily, as they usually do with whatever the name of the country of the week may happen to be. Wow, there appears to be lightning in the background. It's a good thing ClownJon isn't balancing that huge metal ladder from the credits on his nose right about now. Al says in an interview that he and ClownJon have learned that there are times to be a funny clown, and there are times to be a serious clown. An angry clown. A punishing clown. A vengeful clown. Okay, not the last three. In the car, ClownJon is muttering. "Malaysia...where the hell's that? That's east of us, isn't it?" Well, yes, ClownJon, it is. In the Krakatoa, East of Java sense, I suppose.

4:16 AM. Kelly and BuffJon take off. In their cab, they note that they are trailing ClownJon and Al. In a bit, Kelly and the Jon of Buff manage to weasel by Al and the Jon of Clown.

4:16 AM. Millie and Chuck. (Yes, it said "4:16 AM" both times.) They count their money. In the cab, they ask for "the nearest international airport." Does that mean they didn't find out ahead of time where the airport was? That seems impossible, especially since it seems like Millie is all about the research these days. This would make her sort of the opposite of a savant. It's like William Safire using the word "lib-ary."

4:17 AM. Chipsters. In the cab, Chip encourages their driver to hurry up. They pass Chuck and Millie, who then have their driver follow the Chipsters. Oh, sure, their moral path is repugnant, but their tire tracks are just dandy.

At Cochin airport, Team Who is pulling up to the Departures area in their cab. Inside, a guy tells them that the thing to do is take Jet Airways to Mumbai, and from there, they'll be able to get to Malaysia. He also explains that in order to get to Mumbai from Cochin, they need to leave the international terminal (where they understandably headed to begin with) and go to the domestic terminal. He assures them it's within walking distance. You know, I hate it when people tell me things are within walking distance. It's very vague and prone to manipulation. I mean, Mazatlan is within walking distance if I had really good shoes, lots of tequila, and a long time to get there.

Outside, Jon and Kelly are just arriving. She spots David and Jeff leaving the international terminal, and she and BuffJon decide to tag along behind them, figuring they must know what they're doing. (That's a hint from the forthcoming Racer handbook, How To Accidentally Wind Up In Detroit.) Before long, both teams arrive at the domestic terminal, but they discover that the ticket counters aren't open yet. It's only 5:30 now, and the windows won't be open until 6:30. A dramatic shot of the "CLOSED" signs at the counter demonstrates this fact, in case you didn't believe the friendly airport guy. The Who/Buffy crowd is soon joined by a couple of clowns, who give them a warm greeting.

Meanwhile, back at the international terminal, the Chipsters chat up a guy who, instead of sending them to the domestic terminal, sends them to an Air India office, where Chip starts to inquire about making the jump to Mumbai and then to Kota Kinabalu. It's interesting that at this point, the Chipsters seem to have gotten more helpful advice than the teams who were thrown to the domestic terminal right away, but all things considered, that may not be the case. I love these little secret offices, though...where are all these offices? As far as I know, the only thing behind the counters at the airport is the luggage belt, and as soon as your suitcase goes under the flap and disappears, I've always assumed that they couldn't get it back because there was nothing back there but, like, antimatter. Mislabeled bag? "Sorry, sorry, can't do it. It's gone past The Flap." Need to stick a piece of yarn around the handle so you don't accidentally take home a suitcase full of Hello Kitty merchandise? "No, no, it's already by The Flap." Maybe what's on the other side of The Flap is these offices. In which case I have to say I'd like my luggage back.

Outside the airport, Millie and Chuck pull up in their cab, and when they get inside, they manage to make their way to the same little office where the Chipsters are. When they arrive there, the door is open, and Reichen is standing in the open doorway. Millie and Chuck come up and wait in the hallway outside the office. Millie says in a quickie interview, "We're going to find out what flight they're getting on, and see if we can just get on the same one." It's so funny to me how none of them have any embarrassment whatsoever about sponging off each other anymore -- in early seasons, following other people really was considered a bit of an embarrassment. I'm sure they did it; they didn't just admit to it like this, that they were just going to follow other people and hope they were right. It's like if they allowed cheating on the SAT, and finding the best angle at which to crane your neck was a point of pride.

Anyway, while Chip talks to the agent and Reichen stands inside the office, Millie walks into the office -- which I actually thought was fine, because nobody told her she couldn't. Yet. As she's standing there, Reichen voices over that Chip did a lot of work trying to figure out how to get the best flights possible, and they weren't crazy about other teams having access to the information they have. We now see Millie standing so as to hold the door open -- it was propped open before, but apparently someone un-propped it, and Millie is keeping it open by standing against it. Chuck asks her if she can even hear what they're saying in the office, and she nods vigorously. She's so proud. Reichen becomes aware that Millie is listening at the door, and endeavors to close it. Looking at Chuck, Millie puts on her "can you believe these people?" face and says, "He's totally pushing me out of the office." Well, yes. Remember your wonderful "withholding information is totally ethical" speech? The one I agreed with? Yeah. So shut it. And also, you know, shut it. Now we get the Millie voice-over: "Reichen decides he wants to close the door. So as he closes the door, my foot happens to go in front of the door." Man, that's what I can't stand. It's not that she does stuff like that, it's that she does it, and she hasn't got the backbone to own it. She thinks it's cute to be all, "Oh, I somehow accidentally held the door with my foot, wasn't that something, hee hee?" and I think it's just vile. It's exactly what she did when she grabbed Chip at the fiacre -- remember when she yapped about how she somehow came in contact with him "in the heat of the moment"? Yeah. Apparently, that meant "I shoved him and grabbed him and then I blamed him for it -- aren't I adorably plucky?" No. No, you are not.

Finally, Chip puts the kibosh on all the silliness by calmly saying, "Millie, I'm not going to do anything if you keep the door open, so I'll just sit here." He voices over, "I wanted them to do their own work." Wow. Chip is so Millie's dad right now. But I'm sure that Millie, after her aforementioned "withholding information is totally ethical" speech, understands that, right? I mean, she must.

Over at the domestic terminal, the Kelly/BuffJon/Clowns/Who group is working on their flight to Mumbai, and there's a growing crowd of folks at the window with them. They don't seem to have a specific plan beyond Mumbai at this point. BuffJon winds up having to defend their position in line with some guys who come up and butt in front of them. There's sort of a mush of people by the window, and BuffJon firmly, but actually reasonably politely for the most part, tells them that they need to slide back, because he and his group were there first -- which they were. And, hey -- no cutting! He'll punch you in the eye.

Back in The Air India Office of Intrigue, Chip is still working on the flight pattern. He voices over that he discovered a different way to go through Madras, but that would be "very risky." Outside, Millie is still in me-too mode, saying that she's not going anywhere until she finds out what flight the Chipsters are on. Chip is told that for the flight he wants to try, he needs to head for -- you guessed it -- the domestic terminal. I don't really understand that, because it's a flight from Madras (India) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), so I don't understand why that would be purchased at the domestic terminal unless they're using a unique definition of "domestic." Nevertheless, those are the words of the ticket guy, so off the Chipsters go. When they've walked by her in the direction of the domestic terminal, Millie, having done absolutely nothing except stand around waiting to sponge off Chip and Reichen, now has no plan at all. "Do you think we should stay here, or go somewhere else?" she says to Chuck. An unhappy Chuck, who looks like he thinks her insistence on sponging just wasted a lot of perfectly good frowning and worrying time, says he thinks they've got to get to Mumbai anyway, so they might as well head for domestic.

Speaking of the domestic terminal, David and Kelly seem to be working together on getting a flight out of Cochin to Mumbai at 8:30 AM. The clowns get themselves on the same flight. See? When there's no illie-May, everybody gets along just fine.

The Chipsters are, at this point, just heading for the domestic terminal. They're presumably still in search of that Madras-Kuala Lumpur flight.

As they take the long walk to domestic, Millie has come to the truly remarkable conclusion that their current situation is -- you guessed it -- Chuck's fault. Nice. Moreover, her opening is, "I'm so tired of worrying what everybody's doing." Oh, really, Madam Foot-In-The-Door? Is that a fact, Miss Toe-tal Recall? You think so, Lady Sole? (Okay, I'm done.) "Well, that's what we did the whole time," Chuck correctly points out. Millie: "I feel like I have to make the bulk of the decisions, and then if it doesn't go well, you get mad at me." Wow. Can I ask how "I have to make the bulk of the decisions" goes with her earlier claims that he doesn't trust her? Oh, right. It doesn't, at all. He insists he's not mad at her. She doesn't believe him. Blah blah blah. Rarely do people seem quite this divorced who aren't married yet.

When they arrive at the domestic terminal, Millie follows up on how tired she is of thinking about other people by yelling out to Al and ClownJon and asking what flight they're on. He tells her. Chuck voices over that the clowns are good guys, and he and Millie trust them. Apparently, the Amazing Editors think I'm not going to notice that Millie's hair is up half the time and down half the time through this sequence. Very disorienting. And it's not that crucial a sequence -- why would they need to mix up the shots? Booooo.

Meanwhile, the Chipsters are asking the ticket agent for help with a booking from Madras to Kuala Lumpur. The guy tells them no; he can't do the booking from there. Chip voices over that the folks at the airport were really only interested in helping with bookings on Air India or Jet Airways. Continuing to Chip away at the problem, he asks whether the agent can get a travel agent for him. Before you know it, a travel agent appears and tells the Chipsters that he can make the reservation they want, but not from the airport -- they need to do it from his office. Reichen explains that the travel agent invited them to go to his office with him to do the booking, but his office was -- dum dum duuuuum -- an hour from the airport. He tells us that if the booking worked, they would land in Malaysia ahead of the other teams. As they leave the airport in the cab, Reichen says that he and Chip are doing their own thing and not worrying about the other teams. Yeah. Uh, congratulations on your originality, and...leave a trail of bread crumbs in case you never return to the airport and CBS security has to go off looking for you. They'll appreciate the head start.

The Cochin-to-Mumbai flight takes off at 8:30 AM, carrying the clowns, Millie and Chuck, BuffJon and Kelly, and David and Jeff. Meanwhile, Chip nervously explains in the taxi that after "a lot of research," he and Reichen decided not to take the Mumbai flight and instead try for the route through Madras. He clarifies, however, that they still don't actually know whether they can get on the flight. When they arrive at the travel agent's office, moreover, they find that it's all closed up, even though, in theory, it was supposed to be open. The agent gets on the phone with his boss, presumably asking him to come in and take care of the crazy Americans with the camera guys. Chip laughs ruefully as he explains that they're a little screwed here. "You have to do it now," he tells the agent. Hey. Back off, Chipster. Don't spit on the service economy. "We'll do it. You don't have to worry about that," the agent assures him. The Chipsters look dubious.

Commercials. Buy Crest Night Effects, and you can blind strangers with your smile. Quite literally.

Back in Cochin, at the PL Worldways Limited travel agency, the Chipsters are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the boss so that the agency can be opened. Chip asks the agent what they're going to do if the boss doesn't come, and the agent assures him that the boss is on the way. Finally, the boss does show up, and opens the doors of the agency. The Chipsters explain what route they want to take to Kota Kinabalu, but the boss looks on the computer and breaks the bad news that there are indeed no seats available on the key flight. "We made a mistake," Chip mutters flatly. "So we're going to get eliminated." Way to have that hang-in-there attitude, man. A strange, brief interlude of what would normally be The Honking Horns of Wacky Hijinks pops up before we leave this tense scene. Beware -- I believe this tense travel drama is about to erupt into a cream pie fight.

Meanwhile, at Mumbai International Airport, the flight carrying all four of the other teams is landing. The teams don't stay together, but instead take off for assorted parts of the airport. BuffJon and Kelly find a guy who explains to them that if they want to leave right now, the only option is to go on Air India from Mumbai to Singapore, and then to Kota Kinabalu. It appears that BuffJon expresses some interest in Kuala Lumpur, but the guy is telling him Singapore. Elsewhere, Millie and Chuck snag the same route through Singapore. These two feuding teams wind up on the same flight to Singapore. ClownJon and Al, meanwhile, are back at the Mumbai airport booking a route that goes through Kuala Lumpur. Before he makes the final booking, ClownJon looks his ticket agent in the eye and leans down on the counter. "Is this the fastest way to get to Kota Kinabulu [sic]? Are you sure?" The guy smiles and nods. "Shake?" says ClownJon, holding out his hand. The guy, still grinning, shakes his hand. "Book it," Jon says resolutely. See, that's more evidence for my old theory that I'd heard way back when that they couldn't book flights and then change them. See how he wanted a commitment from the guy before he said to book the flight? Why wouldn't he just book it and then keep poking around looking for better flights? I'm so confused.

The Mumbai flight to Kuala Lumpur takes off, carrying the clowns.

Back at Mumbai, the non-airport-gifted David and Jeff are being told that they should grab a route through Singapore. They then have a direct flight set up from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu. They board their flight to Singapore and off they go.

At the Cochin travel agency, the Chipsters are continuing to suffer, but their travel agent is hanging in there with them and trying to make something happen. Playing a familiar tune, he's suggesting they try to find a route through Singapore. Then, however, he locates a better option -- a flight that goes straight from Cochin to Kuala Lumpur (without the hop to Mumbai that has seemed all but inevitable until this point), connecting to Kota Kinabalu -- presumably on the same flight that the clowns are set up to take. "We'll just do the best we can, and hope somebody else made a mistake along the way," says a demoralized Chip. I'm surprised it doesn't occur to him, knowing that the other teams were hopping to Mumbai first, that he might be fine, given the fact that this route takes him directly from Cochin to Kuala Lumpur. In other words, he knows that the other teams have at least the stopover in Mumbai to contend with, so he's not stopping any less than they are -- had he had more time to think it through, I think Chip might have come up with a better assessment of their situation. They book the route and leave, profusely thanking the personnel at the agency. I'll say one thing for the Chipsters -- they have a good record, at least lately, of thanking people who help them. It is evening by the time they get their flight from Cochin to Kuala Lumpur.

Now arriving at the Kuala Lumpur airport are Al and ClownJon, as well as the Chipsters. When Millie spots the Chipsters, she is overjoyed to see that they're still there. It appears that she assumed they'd gotten the jump on everybody when they fled the airport with the travel agent. Interestingly, they're just as relieved to see her as she is to see them, and Chip explains in an interview that he was very happy to see two other teams that he was "stacked up" with. Funny to think, too, that they're both so relieved that they're not stuck alone in last place, when they're in fact in the lead pack at this point. The Kuala Lumpur flight to Kota Kinabalu takes off, carrying the International Society of Clowns and Virgins as well as the Chipsters. On the flight, ClownJon takes yet another stab at pronouncing the name of the city, this time going with "Kota Kinabula." Heh -- not. Sound it out, there, buddy. It's actually kinda like it's spelled.

Meanwhile, at the Singapore airport, Kelly and BuffJon and David and Jeff take off. We return to The Amazing World Map, where two Amazing Yellow Lines drift from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to Kota Kinabalu, with the Kuala Lumpur line in the lead. It is on the AWM as it is in life, of course.

Look! Malaysia! First to arrive is the Kuala Lumpur group. The clowns and Chipsters and Millie and Chuck all run out of the airport and hop into cabs. Phil explains that they're on the way to the Monsopiad Cultural Village. There, they will receive a "traditional Malaysian good luck blessing" and their clue. The clowns are the first to arrive at the village, and when they spot the village, they have their driver make the turn. Close behind them are Millie and Chuck, who pull up and stop, and who then actually manage to pass the clowns as they run into the village, accompanied by a guy with a shield whose job is apparently to stick right on their tails in spite of their attempts to lose him. Heh.

The Chipsters are approaching the cultural village as well, but their driver manages to miss the turnoff, and once they realize it, it's too late to go back. The road is one-way, so they're going to have to take a circuitous route of some sort to get to where they need to be. Chip's face suddenly breaks into frustration. "Oh my GOD!" he screeches, clapping his hand to his head, and then his hand drops, his face goes straight again, and it's like it never happened. Wow, freaky. I wonder how long his longest temper tantrum was. I'm thinking around 2.6 seconds.

In the village, a gong sounds. An older woman dressed in a black robe and wearing a headdress approaches a nervous Millie and Chuck. Her acolyte (or equivalent) hands her a tree frond dipped in water. Millie mutters, "This is really funny," and chuckles. The woman performing the ceremony doesn't seem to be going for comedy, but I suppose everyone is entitled to an interpretation. She turns around to ClownJon, looking for sympathy. "It's kinda scarin' me," Millie says merrily. "Shhh," ClownJon scolds with a solemn expression. As the woman touches the leaves to Millie's shoulder and speaks, Millie appears in an interview: "As Christians...it was just a little unusual. I mean, what could they be saying? They could be putting a voodoo chant on us!" Okay, look. I'm not all hyped up over the giggling or the "scarin' me" or whatever, because I realize that she's under stress and it's hard to downshift to serious mode that quickly. But given time to reflect, it's disappointing that she would first of all make the geographically and culturally ignorant "voodoo" reference (not every ceremony you don't understand is voodoo, dear) and, even more so, that she would react with such suspicion to the ceremony. "Putting a voodoo chant on us" sounds to me like she was envisioning some kind of a curse, as if "unfamiliar tradition" = "Ouija board." I mean, why would a stranger employed by a cultural village put a "voodoo chant" on you? ["She saw the dailies?" -- Sars] Anyway, Millie survives the good-luck blessing without bleeding from the ears or anything, so she and Chuck are able to grab their clue. It tells them to head for the Kota Kinabalu boat jetty. Once they get there, they'll hop in a marked boat and be driven to a fishing trawler, where they'll get yet another clue.

Meanwhile, the clowns are busy being blessed. ClownJon says the blessing was awesome -- a way to stop and take a moment and think in the middle of all the chaos. "It was special for us," he says. "It was excellent." He doesn't mention whether he felt that any sort of whammy was put on him during the blessing. When it's over, they give a little bow to the woman giving the blessing, they grab the jetty clue, and they're off.

Now arriving at Kota Kinabalu airport are Jon and Kelly and David and Jeff. They do the taxi dash and head out.

Finally, the Chipsters, having made some kind of big circle to return to the entrance, make it to the village. Reichen says, probably given the anniversary, that it was "a moment" for him, and that it felt like getting married all over again. It sounds like a weird remark at first, but with the priestess standing in front of you, and you and your partner standing up at this sort of altar, I can see where he got the analogy, for sure. He says it gave them "strength and energy" for the rest of the leg. I guess that's what you get when you don't worry about whether they're putting a curse on you. The funny part is that Reichen also makes reference to how he "kept smiling," but we actually only see him give a teeny smile at the end. Because he is Reichen, Man of Wax. They grab the clue and hit it.

Boat jetty. Millie and Chuck are the first to get there, and they run up and jump in a boat. "This boat good?" Millie asks the driver. "Yeah, yeah," he says. "No break down," she says, apparently in the hopes that mangled grammar will make her English easier to understand. He assures her they're fine, and they take off.

Team Who, meanwhile, is just arriving at the village, and get all blessed. David has this to say: "The priestess actually kind of reminded me of my grandmother...she was very old, but still very, very with-it." Hee. I enjoy the description of the priestess as "with-it." Incidentally, I don't understand how they mangled this word into "princess" in writing the episode title, because he says "priestess" clear as day. They grab the clue and scoot.

As Jon and Kelly pull up at the village, they're sad to see that David and Jeff are already done with the blessing. "Bye, guys, have a nice day!" David yells out the window, laughing as he and Jeff drive off, and Kelly watches them drive off with a smile. I'm not sure what was funny there, but something clearly was. "Those baaaastids," Kelly chuckles in what is perhaps a borrowed Jersey accent.

At the boat jetty, here come the clowns. "Wa-hoo!" they yell. Mm-hmm.

Millie and Chuck ("Currently in 1st place," as the captions just have to remind me) pull up to the fishing trawler first. They snag a clue off the side of the boat, and it's the Detour. This week's very uncreatively-named choices are Net or Trap. (They seem to have dropped the effort to give them stupid names like "Seek Out/Freak Out," which I appreciate. That's like naming your twins Andy and Randy. Yuck.) Anyway, in Net, the teams will go to a fishing platform with marked fish pens, and will grab fifteen fish out of one of the marked pens using a pole net. As Phil explains, it's not physically demanding, but catching those little suckers is tricky. In Trap, they go to a lobster boat, where they'll haul a weighted lobster trap up out of the water. It's not tricky, but it's damn heavy, so you'll have to have a certain amount of brute force to apply.

Millie and Chuck choose the lobster trap for some reason, and they tell their boat driver to take them to the lobster boats. When Jon and Al grab the clue, they also pick the lobster boat.

Kelly and Jon get their blessing. Kelly says that she thought the blessing was cool and she was "moved by it," and she thought it was embarrassing that BuffJon kept looking at his watch. Heh. It actually looks like BuffJon doesn't look at his watch too much, but having attended several lovely classical music concerts with The Professor during which he fell asleep, I know what she means. After the ceremony, BuffJon says that he "doesn't know what [the priestess] said, but it was really nice." "That was nice," Kelly agrees. They head for the jetty.

Speaking of the jetty, the Chipsters are just getting there.

Millie and Chuck, however, get off their boat to discover that they've been brought to the fishing platform. I love how Millie looks over at their boat guy and, pointing down into a rectangular pen in the water, says, "Lobster boat?" Well, does it look like a lobster boat? They pretty quickly realize they've been brought to the wrong spot. Rather than cry over spilled lobsters, however, they make the wise decision to just go with the flow and do the fish task. It may have been better for them anyway, the way this worked out. They start trying to pluck fish out with their nets, but it's difficult, because they can't really see the fish very well. Fish are very mysterious. That's why I'm convinced there's a fortune to be made in electronic sea bass beacons.

In the land of lobsters, however, ClownJon and Al are putting on work gloves and preparing to haul up the heavy trap. They pull. They grunt. The lobster trap is heavy. "UUUUHHHHH!"

The Chipsters get to the trawler and pull the Detour clue. They direct their driver to the lobster boat.

Millie's new fish-catching plan is to get right in the water with the fish. I'm not sure I think that's such a brilliant plan, but...okay. They get in the water with the nets and try to grab them that way. It strikes me funny that Millie thinks that she has pioneered a new way to catch fish with pole nets. I mean, obviously this isn't how the pens are meant to be used, and why wouldn't the people who are native to the place have discovered the right way to use the nets? It just strikes me as obvious overthinking on her part. As she tries to stuff their fourth fish in the bucket, it gets away from her. "'Shoot!" she yells. The fish is like, "I'm freeee!" and then it bonks into the side of the three-foot-square pen and bursts into tears.

More grunting clowns. They finally get the lobster trap up far enough to grab the clue. A very out-of-breath ClownJon reads that they're supposed to have the driver take them to Manukan Island, where Phil explains that they will follow a path to a clue box. The clowns, now in first place, take off for the island.

The Chipsters, much to their dismay, also are wrongly taken to the fish after asking to head for lobsters. This did make me worry about the quality of the instructions given to the hired drivers of the marked boats they picked up at the jetty. I have to think with two of them getting it wrong, somebody's signals got crossed as far as what they were supposed to do. Anyway, unlike Chuck and Millie, the Chipsters choose to leave the fish behind and be transported to the lobsters instead. They hop back in the boat. Probably not the right decision, but it's hard to say.

Millie, meanwhile, is having trouble picking the fish out of the net and getting them in the basket after Chuck catches them.

The Chipsters get to the lobster boats in what seems to be a jiffy. They start pulling, employing the old "one, two, three, AIIII!" method of physical exertion.

Back at the fish pens, Millie decides that she needs to drain some of the water out of the basket in order to continue putting fish in it. The particular charm of this scene is the way that there's a caption at the bottom that says "Millie and Chuck: 8 Fish Caught." As Millie tries to dump out some water, she also manages to dump out one of their hard-won fish. "Millie!" Chuck says with frustration, showing more emotion in one moment than he has for the rest of the race. Just at the instant the fish goes back into the water, the caption clicks to "7 Fish Caught." I love this show so much. "Come on now, don't do that!" Chuck says as Millie tries to snag the lost fishie. "Chuck, you're the one who didn't drain the water," she says, blaming him instinctively. "We have to drain some of this water, they're splashin' out!" she insists, and once again she dumps water out of the basket.

The Chipster trap comes up and out of the water, and they pull the clue from it that leads them to Manukan Island. "Wooooo!" they yell as their boat takes off. You know, this season hasn't really had enough "wooo!" so I'm willing to let it slide.

"Count," Millie is ordering Chuck as he, down in the water, hands her a fish in a net. "You count," he comes back. Millie then decides that the thing to do is move the basket of fish from one part of the pen to another, so she's walking around the edge holding this big basket full of fish and water. "Don't drop 'em, baby," Chuck says. "Please." Right on cue, Millie falls into the water, holding the basket, undoing all their work. "It was a nightmare," she voices over. Not to laugh at anyone else's nightmare, but...hee. I would be lying if I denied watching her fall in the water several times.

Commercials. As long as you have the right computer, no one in college will be able to tell that you're stupid.

The clowns race toward the beach, followed by the Chipsters.

Millie and Chuck, however, who were the first to the Detour, are still struggling with the fish. They finally get to fifteen, and they go and get their clue. I think that task was exactly what I think is so goofy about Millie's racing strategy -- she's all "go-go-go" and no thinking. If they had just done that task calmly, without the jumping in the water and the dropping the fish and the draining the water, I think they would have been fine. It's all the frenetic nuttiness that made them lose time.

Al and ClownJon deboat at Manukan Island, and they head up onto the beach. There, they grab the clue from the box. It's time for the Roadblock, and the big question is, "Whose skills are the most on target?" Jon agrees to do the Roadblock. Phil explains that this will consist of completing three stations, basically, involving shooting a target with each of three different "traditional Malaysian weapons": a bow and arrow, a blow pipe, and a spear. At the end of the Roadblock, they'll just run up the beach along a path to the pit stop.

ClownJon starts shooting the bow and arrow toward a fairly small target comprised of two short logs hung horizontally, one on top of the other. "It's very difficult," he voices over.

The Chipsters run to the Roadblock clue box. Chip takes it. Millie and Chuck are right behind them, and (to no one's surprise), Millie orders him to do the Roadblock. As ClownJon continues shooting and missing, Al watches with some concern. Reichen voices over that before long, all three guys -- Chip, Chuck, and ClownJon -- were just shooting arrows at the target, waiting to see who'd be first to move to the task. "You're good at this, Chuck," Millie says, hoping that her word will make it so. Millie is about to find out that only God has that power. And even God would have trouble making Chuck "good at" arrow-shooting.

Back at the boat jetty, Team Who is just arriving. They hop in a boat and take off for the trawler, followed closely by Kelly and Jon. "As fast as you can go, buddy," Kelly encourages her driver.

THWAP-THWAP! We hear arrows whizzing by targets over on the beach. Or at least we hear very lifelike reproductions of same. That was a great little cut and a great music cue, incidentally. "You're getting closer than anybody else," Reichen says to Chip. "Chuck, you can do it," Millie says. "Don't let them worry you," she says, patting his stomach in that way that always makes you aware that the more people tell you not to worry or feel stressed out, the more they're envisioning you tied to the railroad tracks in an old silent movie. In a quickie interview, Millie watches Chuck while saying that he'll do fine as long as he doesn't "get threatened." ClownJon is apparently not threatened, because he finally gets his arrow to hit the target, albeit just barely. The log has a flesh wound, if I may make the analogy. He and Al take off for the blow pipe, and there, ClownJon starts to...well, blow the pipe.

"Come on, baby," Millie says miserably as Chuck continues to work with what is probably the worst bow and arrow form I have ever seen. Basically, Chuck is pointing the bow upward, with his elbow dropped down, which makes the arrow fly upward into the air. Furthermore, he's barely pulling back on the bow at all. Basically, the arrows seem to take this very discouraged, loopy-looking path off toward the target, and he has almost no ability to aim. ["I'm no archery medalist, God knows, but Chuck handles it like it's a Gameboy." -- Sars] Chip, meanwhile, hits the target using a more conventional stance in which you actually sight along the arrow. The happy Chipsters take off, leaving a depressed Chuck to stare after them.

ClownJon hits the blow pipe target, and he and Al run off in their clown-like way toward the spear game.

Poor Chuck is now talking to himself in an effort to get himself to get the stupid arrow to hit the stupid target. "Come on, Chuck, get it," he says, with just about the same lack of emotion he shows the rest of the time. Millie voices over that she was "agonizing over every lost arrow." Well, exactly. And I think her agony shows through quite clearly, and he's quite aware of it. And it's really, really not helping. "I was so scared he was going to get in that downward spiral, and...not be able to perform." She didn't just say "not be able to perform," did she? Sigh. Chuck shoots another arrow, which leaves his bow, um...limply.

Team Who reaches the fishing trawler and pulls the Detour clue. They decide to do the fish, and they ask their driver to take them to the flagged pens. Jon and Kelly grab their clue last, and they choose the trap. Apparently, BuffJon thinks he is very strong, or Kelly has underestimated the toll that the last three weeks or so has taken on her, because she doesn't look like she could pull a little red wagon at this point.

ClownJon has moved to the spear-throwing, where he has to throw a spear into a vertical chunk of tree that they're using as a target. Chip, meanwhile, takes another shot at the blow pipe. Chuck is still back at the bow and arrow, and he actually says, "It's crooked," as he pulls back the bow in that same wacky way. He misses again. "Oh, come on, Charles," Millie despairs under her breath. See, I realize Millie's trying to keep from acting tense, but I think what she needs to do is actually be less tense. That's really the only thing that's going to work, because she telegraphs her anxiety very clearly.

David and Jeff hop off at the fish pens. Jon and Kelly hop off at the lobster boat. "Is it heavy?" Kelly asks as she puts on the gloves. Jon, already wearing his gloves and already holding the rope, tells her to hurry up, because she needs to help pull the trap up.

Back at the fish pen, The Piano of Wacky Hijinks (same one, I'm pretty sure, from when the Bald Snark kept falling off their punt) follows David and Jeff as they choose a part of the fishing platform and start hauling out...minnows. No, really. The other teams were catching big, dinner-sized fish, and these guys are counting out small, snack-cracker-sized fish. The big fish swim nearby, in the pen with the yellow and red flag on it. Ah, sweet memories of Who...running by the clue box...getting lost on the way out of Dodger Stadium...it's nice to know some things don't change. Anyway, when they have fifteen sardines, they take them over to the fish guy, who tells them the bad news. In an interview, Jeff says, "We were...'We think we caught our catch,' and they're like, 'No.'" Hee. Pretty cute, actually. They head back and find the marked pen. Just like it says on the clue, there, fellas. They start pursuing the big fish.

Chuck. The bow and arrow. The agony. The ecstasy. Oh, never mind -- not the ecstasy. "Don't get stressed, babe," says Millie, dripping with stress. She voices over that she thinks Chuck is weighed down by "constant worry and tension" and internalizes it. Gee, I wonder why. "It fuels me, and it kind of wears him out," she says. I'm sorry...is what's wearing Chuck out right now an "it" rather than a "who"? Er...okay.

Kelly and Jon are on the lobster boat, struggling to pull up the trap. "Work together, work together," she says as they start up again. "Oh, my gosh, this is heavy!" she says as she pulls.

David and Jeff continue fish-fetching. They run the fish they have over to the guy and find that they need five more.

"Come on, Kel," Jon says as they work the lobster trap. "Kel, you've gotta get a grip," he tells her. She tries to pull. Kelly now voices over that her biggest fear in the race is letting Jon down and not being able to pull her weight. Considering that from this shot, it looks like her weight is about 62 pounds at this point, I'm not sure she has much to worry about. Girl has gotten skinny.

"Take your time, don't rush," Al says to ClownJon, who is throwing the spear. One misses by only a foot or so. "Oh, my GOD," grunts a frustrated Jon. "Come on, man, they're right on my ass. If I don't do this, I'm an idiot," he mutters.

Chip's aim is true with the blow pipe, so now it's safe for him and Reichen to go. He catches up with Jon at the spears, and they both are throwing.

And Chuck? He's saying, "Come on, Chuck, please," as he pulls the bow back for yet another try. Finally, he hits the target, and looking almost shocked, he runs off with Millie toward the blow pipe.

Chip hits the spear target first, so he and Reichen actually run away from the Roadblock ahead of the clowns. The Chipsters, however, immediately become confused about where exactly they're going. They reread the clue, which just says to "check in at the pit stop," and instead of continuing down the beach (which is where Phil actually is), they run off into a picnic area. Hey, back off the tourists, Chipsters. ClownJon, meanwhile, finally gets his spear in the target, and he and Al immediately tear right down the beach in the right direction. Reichen looks over and sees the clowns running down the beach, and he and Chip go over and fall in a bit behind them. "That's no fair!" Chip says in frustration. Hee. Not just "not fair," but "no fair." And then he places his last scrap of dignity on the scrap heap by yelling, "Jon! Let's win it together!" Heeee hee. Poor Chip. He's like the girl who was an RA in my college dorm who told us we couldn't play bridge in the lounge anymore because other people felt left out, so we could only play cards if we played someone everyone could play. Like Go Fish, which was her suggestion. Anyway, the clowns are running toward the mat, and while they get there first, they do seem to wait for the Chipsters before stepping on the mat. Phil is having none of the double-cruise-awarding, however, and tells them that the clowns and Chipsters are teams one and two..."respectively." He awards the cruise of the week to Jon and Al. Ah, too bad, Chipsters. But all four guys say, "Woo!" so apparently, everyone is happy.

Blow, Chuck, blow! He's actually good at the blowing. (Insert "he'd better be" joke here.) "Spear!" Millie yells. As he tosses spear after spear, Chuck explains that all of the racing and trying and failing "can be very draining emotionally." "It's embarrassing," he mutters on the beach.

David and Jeff are finishing up the fish Detour. They seem to have put a system in place where Jeff catches a fish and then hands the net to David, who throws him the other net and takes the fish to extract it and put it in the basket. It's a good system. Very logical. Zzzzzz...you are getting very sleepy.

Jon and Kelly, meanwhile, are struggling with the lobster trap.

Team Who finishes the fish and takes off toward the beach.

Kelly puts Jon on notice that she can't pull the lobster trap anymore. He tells her he's got it and she can rest, but when she lets go, it slips away from him. "Come on, grab it!" he says angrily, and she starts to, but she then says she can't, and he says, "Let it go." They let it drop. There is swearing. "It's too heavy," Kelly says. "I'm sorry." More swearing.

Commercials. You know, my dog eats out of the trash. I don't think he needs food that's crispy on the outside and soft on the inside in order to be happy.

Kelly is still apologizing to Jon on the lobster boat, but they quickly get their boat back and head for the fish, having run out of steam with the lobsters. "There was no other choice," she voices over.

David and Jeff are on their boat to the island, and Jeff repeats what they're doing, with the special addition of the pronunciation "Manakoo Island." Don't know what he's hooked on, but it ain't phonics.

Kelly and BuffJon pull up at the fishing platform. They start to work on the fish. "Push 'em over here to me," Kelly says, lying along the side of the pen.

Chuck is still spear-throwing. "It has to stick in, Chuck!" Millie says. Damn that malfunctioning Double-Entendre Avoidance Device. I don't want to accuse anyone in the cutting room of anything, but they certainly don't seem to leave any of those out. At least I'm assuming they don't. Because how many, really, could there be? Chuck misses, again, some more.

Kelly and Jon are still working on the fish, and one of them jumps out of the basket and gets back in the water. "He jumped out, that's not fair!" she says unhappily. She goes over and squat-sits on the basket of fish to keep them from jumping out, but Jon disapproves of her technique. "I need you to help, Kel...I mean, farting on the fish is not helping too much." See, again, he almost found a joke there, but then he didn't. It got away. Much like the fish. Wow, I just found a metaphor, right there.

"Rock and roll," says Jeff, as they head for the beach. I'm sorry..."rock and roll"? Yeesh. Anyway, they are soon at the beach, and they run to the Roadblock clue box. They are gaining on Chuck, who is waiting for his spears to be retrieved so he can take another shot at the final target. Jeff takes the Roadblock for Team Who.

Kelly and BuffJon finally snag that fifteenth fish, and she happily says, "Yes!" They hop back on the boat and head for the island.

David and Jeff arrive on the beach -- having gained back through the tasks almost all the time that Millie and Chuck gained on them with Millie's midnight airline maneuvering -- as Chuck continues to try to throw the spear. "Don't think about them...focus on you," Millie says. "You can do it; you're good at this," Millie says. All evidence to the contrary. Just then, Chuck does manage to sink the spear into the tree. Leaving their bags on the beach, they run for the mat. Welcome, people who can barely stand each other right now, you're team number three. They do a weird thing where Millie wants to hug Chuck, and then Chuck goes for a hand-clasp, but then he kind of puts his arm around her awkwardly...yeah, all kinds of big love going on there. It's like the cover of a romance novel, if the people on it were fully dressed and glaring at each other.

Jeff works with the bow and arrow. He shoots one, and David fairly casually says, "If you get just a little bit higher, you're gonna hit it. Overshoot it." Jeff aims and fires, and...boom! He gets it. This makes David cackle out his congratulations. He is definitely growing on me.

Kelly and Jon streak across the water in their boat. "I'm betting the race on non-elimination right now," BuffJon voices over -- it's not clear, of course, exactly when he made this remark.

Jeff completes the blow pipe. He moves to the spear-throwing. He gets throwing the spear in such a way that he's really throwing the back part of the spear so hard that it comes up underneath and upends the front part as it flies through the air. "You need to come over the top like a football," says David, actually completely correctly. The Pizzicato Plucks Of Nagging play. Jeff, in an interview as we see him throw spears and miss: "I had him telling me the whole time, 'A little more trajectory,' 'come overhead,' 'get a little stride,' 'run and jump,' and I'm like...shut up." Hee hee.

Kelly and Jon in their boat.

Jeff takes another shot with the spear. David voices over that he felt helpless and nervous standing there watching, sure that Jon and Kelly were about to show up in their boat anytime.

Speaking of which, here come Jon and Kelly, landing at the dock and running to the Roadblock clue. "Whose skills are the most on target?" Jon reads. He smiles gamely. "Kelly is!" he says with great enthusiasm. Nice word choice. And that one's not even hard. She smiles nervously but gamely.

Jeff manages to graze the spear target about as lightly as one possibly could, but the contact is there, so he's allowed to run off. They high-five and run down the beach. "Welcome to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia," says the pretty greeter. "So that's how you say it," David comes back. Phil tells them they're team number four. I still say that aside from getting the flight wrong, they're doing pretty well most of the time.