You Just Made Me A Millionaire

Previously on My Entitlement To Victory Is Broken! This Is Bullshit!: Colin and Christie won practically everything, with the exception of the Mr. and Ms. Congeniality banner. Chip and Kim were "bottom-feeders" who blew the first leg by failing to read the clue. Brandon was all Psycho Jesus Boyfriend Guy, and then he kind of pulled it together and Nicole started to suck, and she didn't even do funny dances. Linda and Karen screamed a lot. Like, a lot. Scumbag! Bitch! Door-blocker! Taxi-poacher! Jesus-liker! Midget! Hulk! Muppet drummer! Baby! Booby Cooper! Twinkie! She's not a student! He's a criminal! I'M PACKIN' IT! Mine keep having sex! I can't do the tango with a gentleman! And of course, proving to the world how much you can do. And how annoying you can really be.

Credits. Sars and I had a discussion this week about how remarkable it is that by this point in the race, we have almost forgotten all kinds of people who were around at the beginning. Marshall and who? Who are those blonde girls who look alike? We have concluded that we forget people really quickly. [BOMP.]

Commercials. The first sign that your family is really in trouble is that it occurs to you for even a moment that going on television to be manhandled by Dr. Phil might actually be a good idea. Oh, and also? The first episode ofSurvivorVanuatu couldn't have sucked any more ass if it were trying to remove the poison from a rattlesnake bite without access to medical equipment, so don't try to promote it as if anyone liked it. I don't suppose it's possible that you forced your show to cannibalize itself during Rupertmania '04, do you? Wow. If only someone had warned you.

The music is very much pounding on our heads as we return to Manila. Bum-bum-bum- horse-building- girls-water- cars-bum-bum-bum! Phil welcomes us to the Coconut Palace, "built as a tribute to Pope John Paul the Second." Ah, yes. John Paul II, The Coconut Pope. They call him that because of his penchant for suntan oil, if I am still on top of my theological history. Phil says this was the eleventh pit stop, and we review Chip and Kim's excited, whooping arrival in first place, followed by everyone else. Phil reminds us that a dirty, sweaty, Yielded, depressed, mentally unstable Colin and Christie came in last, but were not (ack) Philiminated, due to the last (ack) non-elimination point. (You know how Kevin and Drew were the Saddest Philimination Ever? Well, this was the Saddest Non-Philimination Ever.) And what I noticed this time that I didn't before is that after they're told they're not eliminated, while Christie is hooting and jumping up and down, Colin is turning and pointing at someone. And you know who I bet it is? Chip. Just a guess. Colin and Christie did lose all their money, but they can get more. They can probably sell the ox meat that Colin has stuffed in his backpack. (Here, you may picture Colin singing "See My Vest," if it suits you.) ("Seeee...myyyy...socks? They're an ox! That I beat with twenty rocks!")

Eat/sleep/mingle features a bit of post-Yield intrigue, as we see Colin go in, still beat-up from the leg, and "amiably" "hug" Chip. Chip tells Colin that he had to do it, because he knew he and Kim would never beat Colin and Christie straight-up. Colin acts gracious, but voices over that it was a bad idea ever to work with Chip and Kim in the first place, because they're "not a trustworthy team." I totally agree. The Vikings are having the same problem with the Bears as of this writing. We're all, "We trust you," and then they're trying to pass and rush and shit. Those bastards. And then, we see Chip go over and put his arm around Christie, but she pulls away from him. Chip is shocked that she's seriously going to be pissed off about it. "Ohhhhh!" he hollers in disbelief. "You can get it from him. You're not getting it from me," Christie steams. And by "it," I suppose she means "a response indicating graduation from seventh grade." Christie interviews that she regrets her and Colin's "navet." (Which she pronounces "nave-a-tee.") She is sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose. Kim, meanwhile, says she hopes Colin and Christie won't have enough money to get through the leg. Probably a little overly optimistic, that. Although it would be a glorious ending indeed to see them get the Guido edit. Just make sure there are no sled dogs around this time, because I wouldn't want to see Colin drop-kick one of them through the door of a musher's lodge. ("Arf! Arf! Ow!")

Colin and Christie beg around the Coconut Palace, harassing people about not having enough money to get to the airport. A few people pony up a little cash, including one guy who gives them twenty dollars and then asks Christie to kiss him. Which she does. Yuck. It's so gross for the guy to offer to help them out with money and then ask her to kiss him, at which point she sort of has little choice, being in a financial bind. I actually thought she was the one going around going, "Do you want to kiss me for twenty dollars?" when I saw it from the bar, and she wasn't. I mean, sure, she could have gotten all "I am not a prostitute!" about it, but...whatever. It's more that that guy is a jackass. Anyway, as they head off to sleep, she voices over that they feel good about the leg, and that they've managed to get the money they think they're going to need.

3:46 PM. Chip and Kim pull the clue. It sends them to Luneta Park to find a statue of a philosopher, and that's where the clue will be. I like the idea of a philosopher statue. You get so many military heroes among the statue population; it's nice to see them throw in a few liberal arts majors. Chip and Kim hop in a cab, and as they go, Chip makes it clear that his days of being nice are behind him, and now he will be...well, slightly less nice. As he puts it, the old days were Chip time, and now? "It's Kim time. Go for the jugular." Hmm, "It's Kim time" could come in handy in the future. I might have to add that to my vocabulary. ["Yeah, me too, for when Glark asks me to help him do anything, like put away groceries, and I'm like, 'You're gonna do it regardless. It's Kim time.'" -- Wing Chun] Kim adds that they've been doing well, and that if they stay focused, she's convinced they can win.

3:54 AM. The Moms leave. Linda voices over that they're happy about being the last women's team in the race, and they're not even stuck at the bottom. She wants to "win this damn thing." She's certainly got the perk for it. They initially see no taxi. Of course, now the screaming fails them.

3:57 AM. Brandon and Nicole. As they leave, Brandon voices over that he's happy they're still in it, and then Nicole interviews that that kind of talk drives her crazy, because she didn't come here to finish third. No, sirree. She came here to win, and if Brandon isn't going to show a little more drive, she might have to start doing Roadblocks herself. Don't think she won't do it, either. They hop in a cab. The Moms get a cab, too.

4:02 AM. Not leaving very far behind everyone else, here go the trailing Colin and Christie. He makes a painfully weak joke about how someone evidently forgot to put their $17 in the envelope (yes, it's a $17 payout they're missing, so...big whoop), after which you can almost see Colin looking at the camera guy like he's supposed to laugh. (Camera guy: "[Sound of camera whirring].") Colin and Christie go. Colin interviews, as they grab a cab, that Chip and Kim, the team they helped the most, turned out to be the team that caused them to fall behind and lose their money. He repeats the already-old crap about how Chip and Kim "stabbed [them] in the back" and so forth. I think when they put up a picture that says "Courtesy Of" and has their smiling little faces on it, that actually qualifies as a stab in the front, but whatever. Colin says that he wants to show that even though Chip and Kim Yielded them, he and Christie can still beat them. And that part is understandable. He always comes much too late to the sane part of every rant. On the other hand...don't we all. "Revenge would be sweet," he adds in the cab. You know what else is sweet? Class. "Sweet," however, does not translate to "likely." In other news, I think Colin's khakis and Christie's Tex-ass shorts are capable of running the rest of the leg without them, because how ripe must those suckers be? Oy.

Chip and Kim turn in at the park. They run to the statue and pull the clue, which tells them to catch one of two charter flights to El Nido. The flights will leave at 10:45 AM and 11:30 AM, each holding two teams. And assuming that none of my nightmares about teeny planes come true, the charter flights will arrive in El Nido as scheduled. There, teams will have to get to a boat dock and choose a marked boat. The driver will take them out to a buoy to find a clue. Chip and Kim get back into their taxi and head for the airfield.

Brandon and Nicole pull up to the statue for their clue. As they're leaving, Linda and Karen are showing up, and Brandon and Nicole are further sure that Colin and Christie can't be too far behind. Indeed, just as Linda and Karen are leaving, Colin and Christie are showing up. "Faster, faster," Linda urges their driver, as she fans herself with her clue like a swooning southern belle. The really sad thing is that their driver barely misses an opportunity to run over Colin. ("Seeee myyyy pumps? They were grumps! And I hit them like speed bumps!") Right on their heels, Colin is telling his driver the same thing -- "Fast, fast fast!"

Chip and Kim arrive at the charter and are the first to sign up. (TARcon crowd: "Woooooo!") Kim voices over that signing up for the first charter flight felt very good. She's just hoping that Colin and Christie will have to take the second flight. Chip even gives a little "Yeeeeah, baby" as they talk about it. He's getting excited, heh. As the other three teams approach the airport, Nicole is urging her driver to hurry up, Linda and Karen are happy about how fast theirs is going, and Colin thinks his guy is just plain good. Apparently, taxi karma does not spread around the world for everyone the way it has for some people.

And the first team of these three to arrive at the counter is Brandon and Nicole, who snag the second spot on the plane with Chip and Kim. Linda and Karen come close behind them, but are disappointed to see that they will be battling it out with Colin and Christie on the second flight, as they feared. When Colin and Christie arrive, they too are disappointed -- but not surprised -- to see that they're still in fourth position. The teams all rattle around in the waiting area staring miserably at each other, Christie observing that their fifteen-minute lag time behind the first-place team has now become forty-five minutes. "I know," he says unhappily. Ah, yes. The ever-popular anti-bunch.

Later that morning, Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole hop on the 10:45 AM charter. Brandon swears he's "not counting any chickens before they hatch." (As opposed to eating chickens before they hatch, which is the new pastime at the have-I-mentioned- the-sucking Survivor Vanuatu.) My favorite part, though, is how Chip and Kim are holding hands across the aisle of the little plane. Aw. Kim says it's "a blessing" that they've been able to "take Christie and Colin off their game."

Off their game and back on their heels indeed, Colin and Christie share the second flight at 11:30 AM with the Bowling Moms. Linda voices over that the leg will amount to a race between them and Colin and Christie to avoid being eliminated, and you know she doesn't think that's good news. Christie, for her part, voices over that she and Colin are "very close to being eliminated." Tense music! People looking out the windows! Can you stand it? BRRRUMP!

Commercials. Oh, Rob Lowe. If you needed money...well, never mind. You actually couldn't have asked me.

The first plane approaches El Nido, with the second not far behind. And with two Amazing Yellow Lines to make sure you do not become confused. At 11:45 AM, the first flight lands, to the greeting of happy music and frolicking locals. Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole actually share a jeepney to El Nido harbor, which is where they're headed . As Chip looks out the windows all wide-eyed, Nicole comments on how "amazing" El Nido is. She's charmed by a little Baptist church (or "mosque thing"), and by the huge mountains that surround the town. Does Nicole have...lipstick on? My goodness. And here the teams are, pulling up to the marked boats in the harbor. They split up and pile into two power boats, with their drivers heading for the buoy. Brandon and Nicole get out with a very slight lead.

At 12:20, the second charter lands. The teams run to catch jeepneys, and...inside her vehicle, Linda is shrieking. As usual. They go zooming off from the parking lot, neck-and-neck. They remain in a tight battle as they head toward the harbor, both teams hassling their drivers to hurry up. As these things tend to go, Colin and Christie manage to squeeze out a lead by the time they get to the pier.

Elsewhere, Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole reach the buoy in their boats. The clue tells them to use their binoculars to find the three nearby islands that are marked with flags. Only one of the flags is the actual national flag of the Philippines. They're to go to that island, where they'll find a clue. But if they pick the wrong island, they'll have to try again. The travel time between islands is about twenty minutes, so you really don't want to guess wrong. Man, if only I had paid more attention during the flag unit in fourth-grade social studies. Oh, and, as Phil explains, there's no asking for help from your boat driver, smarties, so don't try anything. Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole peer at the islands looking for flags, and -- brilliantly -- Brandon is looking having taken only one of the lens caps off the binoculars. So they're monoculars, in his case. My favorite part is how they want to make sure you don't miss Brandon's screw-up, so they use a shot supposedly through the binoculars (not) that looks just like the typical "two circles" faked-up binoculars shot, except that...there's only one circle. Hee hee. Editors are funny, and by the end of the season, they don't like these people very much, either. Chip and Kim don't know which flag is for the Philippines, but they pick one and go, which is all they can do. Brandon and Nicole decide to follow.

When his boat gets to shore, Chip hops out and runs up to the flag to get the clue. Brandon and Nicole stay put on their boat, hoping that if it's not right, they can get a jump on going toward another island. Indeed, when Chip pulls the envelope, it tells him he'll have to try again. They all head off to another island, Brandon and Nicole never even having gotten out of their boat. "Follow them, follow them," Brandon tells his driver.

Elsewhere, the jeepneys pull up at the pier, and Linda and Karen and Colin and Christie hop on boats. When Colin gets a tiny lead, he again feels the need to do the finger-horns. I swear, he's like every bad ex-boyfriend anyone has ever had, all in the same guy. Bad hair, finger-horns, yelling, overinvestment in extreme sports, tangling with the police...throw in some ugly bachelor pad furniture and a drinking problem, and he qualifies as an archetype.

Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole approach another island. Chip says to Kim that he's been considering acting like they didn't get it, in order to try to fool Nicole and Brandon. "He needs to get off the boat and look for himself," Kim says, quite correctly. "If this is the flag," Chip tells us, "we may act like it's wrong." "That's how you play the game," Kim puts in. The Chip/Kim boat pulls ashore, and Chip hops out. He runs up to the flag and pulls out the clue. "Should I get out?" Brandon asks. Nicole tells him not to. Chip pulls out the clue, which starts with the word, "Congratulations!" Chip looks around. "Shucks!" he says loudly. Yeah. He said, "Shucks." Shocked at his display of vulgarity, Nicole asks whether it's the right one, and Chip turns around. "No," he tells her. Nicole and Brandon start to send their boat to the last of the three islands. But then Brandon says, "I hope he's not just saying that, Nikki." "Chip! Is that it?" Brandon hollers, making Chip tell them one more time. "No!" Chip yells back. And then Kim quietly asks him, "Did you read it? What did it say?" And Chip mutters back, "Congratulations." Hee hee. Phil explains that the clue that Chip just recovered tells the teams to work along the shoreline of the island until they find another clue box. There, they will put on snorkel gear and search the bottom of the water for one of four big pretend clams that have clues in them. Then you dive and retrieve your clue.

As Chip and Kim putter along the shoreline, Kim voices over that they're not going to tell Brandon and Nicole that it was the right flag, because -- you guessed it -- "it's a game." And also because they're not Brandon and Nicole's field trip chaperones, and it's not really their job to tell them where to go. Brandon asks Nicole whether she's sure they should just take Chip's word for it. She chews her lip thoughtfully. "Chip!" Brandon calls out again, but Chip and Kim are already leaving. Brandon smells a rat. "Hey, I'm getting off," he says (snerk), and he jumps off the boat and swims to shore. When he pulls the clue and gets back to the boat, they note that it does indeed say "Congratulations," and that it tells them to look along the shore for a clue, which they do. "Chip and Kim flat-out lied to our faces," Nicole says in some disbelief, apparently thinking they were entitled to sponge off other teams while hanging back in their own boat. Unbelievable, really. "That makes me mad," Brandon says. And...whatever.

Meanwhile, in his boat, Chip comments unhappily that he's already got Colin despising him, "so why not try to do a pair, and then we'll do three of a kind?" he wonders. Oh, the poker of hating. Remember, Chip: if you can get three men and two women to hate you, it's a full house. Or five people from the same reality show is a flush. Uh, for example. If you were hated by people from various reality shows, which I'm not saying I necessarily am.

Speaking of hate, Colin and Christie are arriving at the buoy right now. Christie chuckles her "I have no idea what the national flag of the Philippines is" chuckle as she reads the clue. Linda and Karen pull their clue off the buoy as well. They wind up following Colin and Christie, whom they can see heading for one of the islands. Colin starts to get frustrated that he and Christie don't have a travel book that would show the flag. "If we had a travel guide, are you kidding me?" he gripes. At first, I thought he meant a "guide" in the sense of a person, and I was really wondering exactly how much gear he expected to be included along with the clue envelope, but he apparently means a book. Hey, I was drinking a little bit at the time.

Chip and Kim find the flag on the shoreline that will lead them to the clam task. As they read it and start to put on their snorkel stuff, Brandon and Nicole are right behind them. As Brandon voices over, this is the first time the teams have seen each other since Chip told his big lie. Brandon then voices over that if Chip wants to play the game that way (with the lying), that's fine; it's just not Brandon's "style." Right. Because really, you don't have to lie if you're the mooch and not the mooched-upon. Brandon adds that he won't trust Chip again, which I suspect is actually okay with Chip, if it means "I will not attempt to follow Chip and avoid doing my own work." In fact, I would say that was kind of Chip and Kim's point. I don't really think Chip is going to beg Brandon to continue following him.

As Chip and Kim put their flippers on, Kim points out that she doesn't swim, and Chip tells her just to paddle around, then. ["Oh, so Kim's of no use on this task, then. What a surprise." -- Wing Chun] Chip adds in a voice-over that they actually have a swimming pool, but that she still doesn't swim. I'm kind of amazed that she did the sledging, if that's the case. Similarly, Brandon goes into the water with great gusto, but Nicole is kind of fiddling with her snorkel mask prettily, as if she's trying to get it nice and snug without messing up her hair. She looks partly like a beauty queen and partly like an ostrich. When she finally gets out into the water with everybody else, Nicole does manage to find a clam, but she's not going to go under for it, so she just bobs up and down at the top of the water and yells for Brandon that she found one. As she bobs, however, she also calls for help, and then calls for help again. Chip is swimming nearby, and swims over to her. As he explains in the voice-over, she sounded like she needed help, and he wasn't just going to let her drown. "Are you okay?" he asks her. She says yes, and voices over that she knew Chip was just there to snatch their clue away. "Hey, Chip, beat it," Brandon snarls. Chip protests that he wasn't bothering Nicole, he was just checking on her. But honestly, Chip could have and should have grabbed the clue, and that would have been perfectly fair and just. The task isn't to see the clam, it's to grab the clue out of it. If Nicole is going to float around uselessly at the top of the water and refuse to dive for the thing, then if somebody else is nearby who is willing to dive for it, that's entirely appropriate. In that sense, if you're not going to dive for it, you might be better off just to float around and not be a clue-locating beacon, because you're as likely to help another team as you are your partner.

But anyway, Brandon dives under the water and gets the clue Nicole found. Chip and Kim them find themselves a clam and they also locate the clue. Both teams get out of the water and read about the Roadblock. As Phil explains, the Roadblock will involve pulling yourself 150 feet up the side of a cliff using an ascender. The ascender is kind of hard to explain, but it involves pulling yourself straight up a rope, and from the looks of it, you have to pull up with your arms, and then you can kinda push up with your feet. It's a fairly undignified motion, if you don't like looking like you're practicing airborne squats. When you're at the top, you get a clue and rappel back down to the bottom to your partner. The problem Brandon and Nicole run into is that the clue for the Roadblock just says, "Have vertigo? Don't go." When they read it, Brandon turns to Nicole and says, "What's vertigo?" She looks surprised that he would even ask her. "I don't know," she says impatiently. "But you're doing it, right?" Pfft. First of all, "vertigo" is not a hard word. That's embarrassing. How do they understand the warning labels on prescription medications? Second of all, it's brilliant that she doesn't know what the clue means, but she knows Brandon has to do it. What if "vertigo" was "fluffy hair"? Chip and Kim read the Roadblock and determine that Chip will do it. ["Another shocker!" -- Wing Chun] Nicole, meanwhile, whines, "There's no way I can beat Chip at anything!" Goodness. You can tell Nicole's Killer Fatigue is festering, because she just did not used to be that defeatist. She used to be sort of sunny and positive, remember? Both teams hop into their boats to head for the climbing wall.

Colin and Christie are searching for flags. Colin notices that one of the flags has a clue box to it, as if the planners are so stupid that they would only put a clue box to the right flag. He hops out of the boat and runs up to the flag. Unfortunately for him, this is not the correct flag. Interestingly, even though they see Colin and Christie leaving, and even though Colin tells them it's not the right flag, Linda still hops out to check the clue for the Moms, anticipating the Chip Maneuver even when it's not actually underway. When they see it's not the right one and they're back out in the water, Linda makes the very good call that they should head for the other island besides the one Colin and Christie are going to. It's the right choice, because as Colin himself points out on his boat, if the Moms follow Colin and Christie and they guess right, then the Moms will still be behind them. If Colin and Christie have guessed wrong, then the Moms will make up a big chunk of time. Because they're not interested in a last-minute foot race to the finish line with Colin and Christie, I think this was the right thing for the Moms to do. Colin runs down this logic in an interview that's surprisingly cogent for a guy I still expect to start foaming at the mouth and chanting "Redrum, redrum" at any moment. Honestly, of all the stuff I believe about this team, including that he's got a terrible temper, he's obnoxious to the locals, and some other major malfunctions, I don't really believe they're as cocky as they sometimes seem. That was a fairly lengthy uncut clip of Colin explaining the Bowling Moms' strategy, and there wasn't a lick of "they're screwed because we're so much better." He just said that if the Moms followed him, he'd probably stay ahead of them. He doesn't discount them at all, at least in the part we saw. Like I said, I think he's an ass, but I think the cocky aspect isn't as bad as it looks from, for instance, Christie's "the other teams suuuuuck" comment (about which, I will tease you right now, I will have something to say in the party recap).

Anyway. Colin and Christie and Linda and Karen zip toward their respective islands. Colin hops out of the boat. Linda hops out of the boat. They run to the clue boxes. "Congratulations," says Linda and Karen's clue. (Crowd: "Yaaaay!") "Try again," says Colin's clue. "This isn't it," he says, one of the few times he has sounded truly concerned in the entire race. "Now, we're in trouble," he adds. "Third try out of three. That's real bad."

As Linda and Karen celebrate in their boat, Colin self-flagellates in his. "It's our fault," he says. "We should have a guide or something that shows us the flag. It's our fault." Linda and Karen try to keep themselves from getting too excited as they head for the clam task. Colin? Still self-flagellating. "There is no excuse for this," he is saying. "Almost every other place we've had guidebooks, and we should have one now." I wondered at this point whether their lack of money influenced the fact that they didn't buy a guidebook at the Coconut Palace, although I guess they could have bought one when they first got to the Philippines, before they were mugged by Phil. "It's our own fault," Colin says, yet again. Oh, Colin. You're so charming when you hate yourself. It makes me feel like we really do have something in common.

Commercials. People who get this excited about Target gift cards kind of worry me.

When we return, Colin and Christie are zooming toward the third and last island in their boat. "The ocean is my element," Colin says, pointing at the water. "Flags? Are not." And then he adds, "Too bad I'm an ignorant American." I find it fascinating that he pegs himself as an ignorant American for not knowing the flag of the Philippines, which isn't all that ignorant, when he didn't seem alarmed at himself for making "you can bring the president of your country" remarks. Because that really was ignorant. He voices over that he didn't know what the flag looked like, and was mad because it was "something [he] could have controlled." Hee hee hoo hoo. Hulk control flag! Hulk hate not being in control! That how Hulk become Hulk! (Couch Baron and I recently decided that making Colin talk like the Hulk is exactly the same as "Barbara Hershey," in that it amuses us to a degree that's almost unseemly.)

On the Chip/Kim boat, she is explaining that she hopes that the task on the other side doesn't require anything overwhelmingly physical. Aw. They're so cute when they're really, really wrong. Brandon and Nicole bother their guy to drive faster. They ought to get some "JWDF" bracelets, is what I think.

Karen and Linda get to the clam task, worrying about how sure they are that Colin and Christie are somewhere right behind them. Sure enough, Colin and Christie have arrived at the right flag, and are retrieving their clue. They head for the clams, as we watch Linda locate a clam and dive for it. As the Moms are leaving, Colin and Christie are arriving, and Colin notes how close it is. Unfortunately, when the Moms read the "vertigo" clue, they don't know what it means, either. Man, I've seen some people who needed foreign language dictionaries on the race before, but never so many people who just needed the regular kind. They agree, however, that Karen will do it. Karen and Linda urge their driver to go "quickly, quickly" as Colin and Christie snorkel it up. In the boat, Linda is excited to know that they're still carrying a big lead into what is probably the last task of the last elimination leg.

When Chip spies the ropes that go up the wall, he is just a little intimidated. "God, do we have to climb up there?" he wonders. He interviews that when he first saw the climb, he was rather concerned. "I was just freaking out," he says. Brandon, too, finds the height of the climb to be of concern, despite Nicole's helpful comment: "You're going to do great." He explains to us that he's not crazy about heights, but that he just put his head down and resolved to go. Because it's not like passing it off to Nicole is an option, you know? As he and Chip try to get the hang of the ascender, Nicole cackles to herself. "Ha-haaa, Chip hasn't left yet," she snorts. I'd really like to see her do something before she spends quite this much energy on mockery of a guy like Chip who has taken on almost every physical challenge in the entire race. She's all, "Use those muscles, you sexy thing!" to Brandon, which I'd like to find cute, except that she's just really, really working my nerves as we get toward the end here. Chip does start to make his way up the rope, trailing Brandon somewhat.

Linda and Karen head for the wall. Colin and Christie snorkel. They have a tougher time because (I believe) of the four clams, only one now has a clue in it, so they have to do a little more looking. Anxiously, as they fly across the water, Linda asks Karen whether she sees Colin and Christie, and Karen spins around and says no. You can tell that they're really, really trying not to get excited, and that they really, really want to. Colin, however, is just now finding his clue.

Brandon works his way up on the ascender. Chip does the same. We get a spot-shadow on Chip and Brandon so that we can see how Brandon is quite a little stretch ahead of Chip by this point. As Kim watches Chip, she says she doesn't think Chip really has the feel of the ascender, and I agree. Nicole chortles about the hard time Chip is having. Again, LET'S SEE YOU DO IT. Jesus. And then she adds a snotty little "That's what you get, Chip." It still amazes me that she could possibly act like this over the foiling of her efforts not to do her own work. I mean, if you think about it, even if she can't pull herself up with her pure upper body strength, she could certainly do things like hop off the boat to check the clue. It's not her reluctance to do the big things that bugs, it's her reluctance to even do half of the little things. Whatever. She bugs me. Kim calls out encouragement to Chip, who pauses on the rope and says to himself, "I'm just tired." Brandon continues to work his way up, as Nicole comments that it looks really tiring. "I feel bad I don't do anything," she grins in a way she thinks is adorable. "I won't feel so bad when I have that check in my hand!" she chirps. Mm-hmm. Go ahead, dearie. Count that money.

Chip asks Jesus for help. Brandon gets near the top, and Nicole says, as if it somehow reflects on her, "He's so good! I mean, come on. There's just no competition." And there's no competition for her in the competition to be Loveliest Accessory. In a way, I even prefer Christie, because...damn, at least she seems invested in what they're doing. Nicole is spending way too much time just being pulled along from one place to another. On the other hand, Christie is kind of mean and scary. It's a toss-up.

Colin and Christie pull the Roadblock clue. They at least act like they know what vertigo is, so that's good anyway. Linda and Karen are now approaching the wall, noticing how it appears to be a very tough climb, judging in part from the visible figure of Chip, dangling from the rope. Brandon, doing better, gets to the top and receives his clue, and he's told to read it when he gets down to the bottom. As Brandon drops down the rope, he passes Chip. "Hi, B-Dawg," Chip says as he rests on the rope. "Keep going, Chipper," Brandon says. And with that, Chip and Brandon have made up. Exhibit A in Why Being Friends With Guys Has Its Advantages. It has its disadvantages when it comes to Talking About Your Feelings Without Simultaneously Playing Nintendo Or Comparing Everything To Something From A Comic Book, but when it comes to ending fights? It's a breeze. At the bottom, Brandon and Nicole open their clue as they, and Kim, note the approach of the Moms. Kim is happy, however, to continue not to see Colin and Christie. Up on the rope, Chip mutters his notice of the approaching Moms. Nicole reads the clue that sends her and Brandon to a two-person kayak to paddle themselves to the pit stop. Phil explains that the last team to get there will be Philiminated.

Karen is strapped into the climbing gear. She has a little trouble getting the hang of the technique, as well, and as she starts off, Kim continues chanting, "No Colin and Christie, no Colin and Christie." "It's killing me," Chip whispers to himself, "but I got to do it...for a million dollars." Hee. I love that Chip is motivated by Jesus, and also by the big toy check. Karen gets a little way up and, as Linda urges her on, she says, "I'm so tired, Linda." "Karen, you're already halfway," Linda calls back. "No Colin and Christie, no Colin and Christie, hallelujah, hallelujah," Kim chants, looking out at the water. Colin and Christie approach on their boat, with Colin loudly hoping that the Moms will at least still be at the wall when they get there.

Here are Brandon and Nicole, paddling toward the pit stop.

Back at the wall, Linda is trying to get Karen to do three pushes on the ascender at a time, which is actually a pretty good idea. Chip continues to pull, and he finally gets to the top. He gets his clue and starts to drop. Linda cheers for Karen, and Karen says in a raw voice, "I'm trying, Linda." "I could not do this. I could not do this," Linda quietly says at the bottom. "So if she does it, she's Superwoman." Aw. Karen takes another pull. Down at the bottom, Kim notes that she sees a boat approaching that she suspects is Colin and Christie. Not good news for anyone waiting at the dock. On the boat, Colin can see the folks on the wall through his binoculars. Chip drops to the ground, passing Karen on the way. A tired, tired Karen tries for another pull. It occurs to me that part of what happened to her is that she never really felt comfortable with the motion, so I don't think her strokes were very efficient in moving her up the rope, which made her more tired. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, this is clearly hard as hell, and I wouldn't armchair it for anything, because I have absolutely no doubt that I could not do ten feet of it to save myself from a snarling bloodthirsty cougar. Just saying. Colin and Christie approach. Chip and Kim leave in their kayak for the pit stop.

And here are Brandon and Nicole now, running up to the mat. They are welcomed by the friendly greeter, and Phil tells them that they're team number one. And moreover, they've won a vacation to "the sunny Caribbean." Where Nicole can refuse to do anything except float around in the water.

Back at the wall, Linda is doing her best "Go, Karen, go!" as Colin and Christie arrive. "Linda, that's all I can do," Karen says, resting on the rope. "She's resting," Colin says hungrily as they get off the boat. "I'm gonna pass her." Colin gets his gear and his helmet on. In a moment I found completely barfy, Christie gives him this big "I love you, there's no one I'd rather be here with than you" speech, which Colin completely ignores, because he's thinking about climbing, and does not require encouragement. Near tears, Christie's all, "You can do it, you can do it." Enough, seriously. There's just not enough distance between this and the ox for this to have any credibility, at least to me. Unsurprisingly, Colin takes to the rope-climbing like...well, a crazy person climbing a rope. He starts to fly up immediately, to which Linda comments miserably, "Oh, my Gawwd." Heh, word. I mean, he's such a jackass in so many different situations, but you can't argue with the fact that he unleashes some kind of Intensity Monster at moments like this. If he weren't so very, very difficult to like, he'd be very, very easy to admire.

In one of the most hilarious moments of the episode, if not the entire season, Christie watches Chip and Kim paddle off and haughtily says, "Chip obviously had a difficult time and is just now leaving. I sure would have loved the Moms to pass them." She then waxes philosophical: "There's a little something called karma, and what goes around comes around. And he will get it." Here, I envision the ox, the ox handler, the Tanzanian taxi driver, Sam the police station guy, Mirna, Charla, and forty-six million fish eggs all standing around shaking their heads, like, "Boy, it's like she gets the concept, but she doesn't know how to apply it to the situation."

Colin continues up the rope. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Even knowing how it's going to end, it's hard to stop rooting for Karen to find one more speck of energy and hold off his obnoxious ass, but it ain't happening. "I can't even hold on, Linda," Karen sniffles as Colin gains on her. And of all the frustrating, difficult things I've ever watched anybody do on this show, I cannot think of anything that would make you feel more helpless and frustrated than not having another drop of gas in the tank and watching this irritating blowhard pass you by while you hang on the rope, having made it up to the last fifty feet of a race everybody would have called you a cinch to lose in the first five legs. I'm not mocking Karen at all; I really, really felt for her here. You can tell she has absolutely used herself up, and I admire that a lot -- it's like athletes say about leaving everything on the field. I think Linda and Karen, as much as anybody, ever, absolutely gave up every molecule of energy they had.

Karen tries to grind out a few more pulls, but it ain't there.

In happier news, Chip and Kim come up to the pit stop. Welcome, you are team number two. They share some compliments, and a smooch. Love!

Colin passes Karen on the rope. "Linda, I'm sorry," Karen says. At the bottom, Linda gives a little exhale as she figures out that, at this point, it's probably over. Colin retrieves his clue and slides down the rope. "I'm so happy!" Christie says. [Vast majority of TARcon crowd: "Booooooo!"] Colin reaches the bottom and is all "Yee-hah!," and, like, shut up. Seriously. Linda shrugs. "Nothing we can do," she says. "We gave 110 percent." I usually hate that expression, but it's kind of true. And one of the great things was that a real swell of applause went up in the party crowd right about here, just trying to get her up the rope, and really wanting her to finish, and not punk out like other "I have bad knees" weenies we could name. Karen indeed works her way up to the clue guy, telling him how tired her arms are. Man, no kidding. "Your kids are gonna be SO PROUD OF YOU!" Linda shrieks, and right there, the shriek? Was love. And you can see right there that Linda snaps herself into the other mode, where she knows they're going to be booted, and she's absolutely determined to keep Karen from suffering any more than is already inevitable, and that is a very generous, very loving thing for a friend to do. It's like the opposite of Flo.

Colin and Christie open their clue. As he joins her in the kayak, they tip over and fall out. [Crowd, even knowing it probably won't matter: "Yaaaaaaaay!"] They hop back in the kayak and go. Meanwhile, Linda gathers up the life jackets and gets ready to go when Karen comes back down. "We're going out fighting," she says. "There she goes, come on, Kareeeen!" Linda hollers happily as Karen slides down the rope. As Karen hits her feet, Linda is running up to her, giggling and shouting and "Woohoo!"-ing and giving Karen big hugs. "Great job!" she laughs. "You okay?"

Evil paddles to the pit stop. Welcome, you are team number three. And you still suck. Booooo! (That wasn't the crowd. It was just me.)

As Karen and Linda paddle their kayak, Linda tells Karen not to participate: "You can rest. You can rest, you worked hard enough." In an interview, Karen, both crying and still suffering from a largely lost voice, says that she's spent twenty years as a full-time mom, and now her kids are ready to leave. "I'm going to have to start a new chapter of my life," she says. "And this has shown me, there's so much out there that I can do." As she and Linda paddle, Karen gets a little splash of cold water. "Oh, that felt good," she says. Linda obligingly splashes her with a little more water. Linda interviews that Karen is "an awesome friend." "She puts up with me like my husband does," she adds. Hee. "And I love her," Linda says. They run up to the pit stop. They graciously accept the greetings of the...um, greeter...and then Phil tells them that they're eliminated. "I'm proud of her...that was a hard last one," Linda says. Phil makes a lame bowling joke which is really quite beneath him. When Karen says something self-deprecating about her efforts in the last task, Linda cuts her off. "No. No, no, no way. I couldn't even make it up that thing, don't you dare say that. Don't you dare." Karen interviews that she's glad she got to do this great thing with her friend Linda. Who she will love forever. SNIFF! "We did it," she says quietly on the mat as they drip water and sweat.

You know, it's one of the special bonuses of this show, for me, that I really do believe that it's transformative, in particular for some of the women who go into it not entirely certain how much of it they're going to be able to do. These two are a great example, but I also think especially of Margarita at the end of my favorite episode of all time, and Nancy, and Margaretta, and Teri, and Jill...it's not that I'm trying to make the show political, but like I said, it's like a little extra bonus. Anyway, good show, Bowling Moms. I wish you'd gotten to hear the cheering in the bar, because we were with you the whole way.

And now we move to the pre-final-leg interviewing, in which Christie says that everyone wants to win, and acknowledges that the other teams are strong before emphasizing that she and Colin are nonetheless stronger. Kim says she and Chip will do whatever it takes, and that they're behind each other 100%. Brandon thinks they'll win if God wants them to. Chip finishes this out by saying, "It's on like Donkey Kong." HEY! Loud Pushy Frank shout-out!

Commercials. I am skeptical of what kind of "private island" they are offering me the chance to win, I must say.

We return to the Philippines, where Phil strolls on a big, flat rock, explaining that this island was the final pit stop. He also calls the South Pacific sun "unforgiving," which I'm sure it does not appreciate. It is not unforgiving. That's just the editing.

At 3:16 AM, Brandon and Nicole are the first to leave. The clue tells them to head for Calgary. ["YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Canada." -- Wing Chun] First, they'll take a charter flight to Manila, and then there will be an 8000-mile trek to Calgary. There, they'll go 80 miles to Lookout Mountain, put on snowshoes, and hike 1000 feet to the top of the Continental Divide. Goodness. That's a lot of instructions in one clue. At any rate, the first step is to travel by marked boat to El Nido, where they will presumably get the charter. Brandon voices over, as they board their boat, that they really want the million dollars, but that they're still trusting in "the will of God." He calls this "the biggest advantage that we have." (God: "Don't look at me; I wanted you to shave your heads.") Brandon and Nicole get to El Nido and sign up for the charter, Brandon saying that it will be "a good leg."

At 3:40 AM, Chip and Kim leave. They get $630 for the leg, so there is some self-financed transportation in the offing, one would think. Kim says they're still in the race as a result of having "stayed focused." Chip says that they're winners no matter where they finish, but that he'd prefer to be "a winner with a million dollars in [his] pocket." Heh. I heard that, Chipper.

At 3:46 AM, Colin and Christie leave. Colin points out in a voice-over that they're the strongest team, blah dee blah. Christie says that she wants them to be the winners. "I do not want it to be Chip and Kim," she says, still bitter. She really, really needs to stop carrying on about this, because it's getting very silly. The Yield is in the rules, which means that using it is not cheating, and not dishonorable, and not anything else. The other thing is that even if Chip and Kim had chosen not to Yield Colin and Christie, somebody else was going to. It didn't make any difference. She just...she needs to put it down.

In the Chip and Kim boat, Chip notes that Colin and Christie have made a lot of mistakes recently, and that he thinks the Yield put them into "a tailspin" that they seem unable to quite recover from. And frankly, I agree. I think the combination of the Yield and the ox broke their concentration, and they really have made more mental errors since then than they were making before that. Chip and Kim get to the charter and sign in. Close behind are Colin and Christie. The three teams wind up sitting around waiting for the charter and staring at each other, and when it leaves at 6:30 AM, Christie notes that they're all now thoroughly bunched, so the lagging from the Yield is finally done with. Yes, the long national nightmare is over.

The charter takes the teams to Manila. Colin voices over that the teams all wound up on the same flight going all the way to Calgary, so apparently, there will be no airport drama there. The Amazing Yellow Line makes the broad sweep across the Pacific and lands in lovely Canada. Look, snowboarders! They're the national bird of Canada, so you're not supposed to shoot them. The flight lands, and the teams pile out and hop in taxis. Colin and Christie get out first, followed by Brandon and Nicole, then Chip and Kim. Kim comments that last place "has pretty much been Chip's and [her] history." Heh. Bottom-feeders.

Colin and Christie are the first to arrive at the gondola at Lookout Mountain. Unfortunately, this serves as an opportunity for a voice-over from Colin about his penchant for "extreme sports." Like, presumably, plowing. And how he and Christie are "not scared of anything." Yes. Yes, you're the toughest tough guy who ever toughed, there, tough guy. They hop in a gondola, and Brandon and Nicole are close behind them. Chip and Kim? Still driving. And in the cab, Kim is talking about the unexpected trip to a cold climate, and the fact that they weren't really mentally or physically prepared for that. They get dressed in their warm clothes on the way out of the taxi, as Brandon and Nicole and Colin and Christie get dressed in their gondolas. When they hop out at the top, Christie tells herself to concentrate, while Colin notes that it will probably be a pretty substantial hike. Um, yep. Just behind them, Brandon and Nicole arrive for the hike.

Chip and Kim, meanwhile, are just getting to the gondolas.

Colin and Christie strap on their snowshoes, grab poles, and go. He remarks on the thin air, and Christie says she's not sure if she's going to be able to do it. Yeah, she's not exactly doing a ton of demanding physical tasks herself, there. Colin gives the very helpful advice that she should breathe. I'm sure she's like, "Oh! Well, that's what I was forgetting. I'm fine now!" Brandon and Nicole take off too, as Chip and Kim ride in the gondola. Kim eyeballs the hill and says she can't climb if it's straight up the side of the mountain as it appears to her. "Baby," Chip says calmly, "don't say what you can't do." Aw. ["Pfft. I'll say it." -- Wing Chun]

The snow blows. Look -- there's Team Guido! (C'mon, I kid because I love.) Colin notes to Christie that Brandon and Nicole are just behind them. Nicole and Christie are both openly struggling with the hike. Nicole and Brandon stop, and Christie wants to take that opportunity to stop herself. Colin? Not so much. My favorite part is where Brandon tells Nicole to "picture Jesus up there, like, he's got his arms wide open, and you're running to him." I'm surprised Nicole didn't hit him, honestly. He's nearby, she's got a pole...I think it's the obvious response. So do the people editing the show, who throw in a little shot of the blue sky and clouds, which has no purpose but to make you chuckle. "Picture that in your mind," Brandon says. I really, really get the sense that she wants to tell him to shut up, but she can't, because he's talking about Jesus. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of Nicole's less polite impulses, though.

A snarky cut takes us directly to Colin, using a slightly different motivator. "One million dollars," he says. "Okay? It's the last leg. We've got to just go." Christie continues to struggle; Colin continues to tell her to hurry up. She stops. "Oh my GOD!" he yells. (Crowd: "My girlfriend is broken! This is bullshit!") "Christie, they are going to catch up to us! Turn around and look!" And back there are Brandon and Nicole, with him doing a "Blessed is he who trusts in the lord" thing.

Chip and Kim -- now wearing the red, maple leaf-shaped "CANADA" hats that all the teams have apparently been given ["or bought at the gift shop in the Calgary airport" -- Wing Chun] -- are heading for the hike, talking about just wanting to catch up. I like how Chip and Kim are wearing theirs, and Brandon will be seen wearing his, but Colin and Christie would rather die than be seen wearing something that non-extreme. It's a shame, because I'd love to see him lose it while wearing a red, maple leaf-shaped hat. Speaking of catching up, as Colin and Christie wait for her to get her breath, Brandon and Nicole are gaining. We fade out on a shot of Christie adjusting her goggles, wondering whether, in fact, it's her boyfriend that's broken.

Commercials. Hee hee, dogs playing basketball. Awesome.

We return to find Colin chastising Christie for not dying. No, really. "Baby, you're not even, like, dying," he says. Meanwhile, Brandon is loudly praying for help. Brandon comments to Nicole that Christie is clearly struggling. In fact, she's struggling enough that Colin is offering to let her hang on to his poles (not a euphemism) while he pulls her up the hill. They actually wind up doing that, but I maintain that it's inefficient. That always seems to me more like a psychological boost than one that actually saves anyone any work. I suspect that she could have finished that hike herself.

Chip and Kim start the hike. Colin and Christie make it to the top of the hill and hit the clue box. The clue tells them to get to the base of the Olympic cauldron. As Phil explains, this is an 80-mile trek to Canada Olympic Park. There, they'll find the cauldron and get their clue. As Colin and Christie start down, Brandon and Nicole get to the top. They get their clue and start back down.

As Colin and Christie head down, they pass Chip and Kim, and of course, Colin has to show off by doing a somersault and yelling and that sort of thing. As Kim points out, this is pretty obviously Colin's clever attempt to rub Chip and Kim's noses in it, which is fine. Because...well, Christie explained karma so well back in the Philippines that I really can't improve on her description.