Miss Alli
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Credits. In the credits of my imagination, Freddy drops her. I'm just saying. Not so that she gets hurt or anything. Just so she's doing double-time with the Water Pik for the two weeks, getting the sand out of her teeth.
Commercials. Now what do you suppose "color-resist technology" is, in the lip products field? I'm anxious to know, because when I think about what's really comfortable to wear on your lips, the first thing that comes to mind, for me, is "industrial-strength sealants."
Loud drums confirm that we are back in Sri Lanka, the home of buses, fabulous buildings, and one really, really pissed-off monkey. Seriously. That monkey is bad-ass. That monkey will cut you. Specifically, we are at Lion Rock, or at least the Ramada at Lion Rock, where teams landed, dripping wet, at the end of the last leg. And there's that monkey again! Man. Phil wonders whether Hayden and Aaron's endless bickering (which he generously calls their "frustration with each other") will hinder them, and whether El Hornio and Rebecca will just kiss already. (Not really.)
11:59 PM. Kris and Jon. With a smile, she reads the clue that tells them to fly to Shanghai, China. Phil explains that this jaunt is more than 4000 miles, and that when they land, they'll head for Yu Yuan Gardens, where they'll find a clue. Or, in the case of some of the teams, try desperately to get a clue. According to Kris, they have $142 for the leg. Not a palindrome! How unusual. Kris voices over that they sense the race getting more intense, and they "really have to be at the top of [their] game." To beat people like Hornio? Eh. Unless they get really crappy luck, they only need to be in about the middle of their game, I sense. They get themselves a taxi. "To the airport!" Jon says as he throws the door closed. I have an urge to shout, "Andale!", but I don't know why.
“ Dear Rebecca: When Friends stole that joke, it was already covered with the dust of pulverized dinosaur bones. Now, it just wants to die in peace. Don't prolong its suffering. Thank you. ”
12:04 AM. Aaron voices over that he and Hayden are almost to the final three, and adds that Hayden is "bull-headed." You know you're annoying when your own boyfriend uses "bull-headed" as a euphemism. They take off in their cab. To no one's surprise, Hayden seems pissy already.
12:05 AM. Freddy and Kendra. Now Kendra says that they have $141 for the leg, in accordance with the accepted palindrome. Did Kris and Jon get an extra dollar? That seems impossible. I mean, I would give them one, but unlike me, the race logistics types don't typically play favorites. Kendra asserts that she and Freddy are getting stronger (at least intestinally speaking), although she characterizes all of the remaining teams as "super-competitive." They get a cab as she makes with the "buckle down and stay focused" talk that she learned while playing field hockey in eighth grade.
12:06 PM. Hornio. Rebecca says that they "never give up." Unfortunately, this appears to be true. Give up, Hornio! Give up! Sigh.
Kris offers her FM-jazz version of haranguing her taxi driver by stating, "We're kind of in a hurry, my friend." So harsh! Kendra, meanwhile, says that Shanghai is supposed to be "remarkably beautiful." And Rebecca says she's wanted to go to Shanghai ever since she saw Sean Penn and Madonna. Yes, in Shanghai Surprise. This is the part where the people I was watching with formulated a theory about Rebecca, which is that in this sequence, she is drunk. Certainly, her out-of-place, strange little "yah-hah-hah" cackle at the end of her double-hilarious Madonna line would suggest it might be true. Elsewhere, in the Nuance cab, Freddy says that the Model Alliance is still at work, trying to push itself up and "some of the other teams back." Uh, dude? Four teams is a lot too few for alliances to remain in effect. You are a goof, and I don't think it's just the do-rag anymore. And speaking of goofs, Possibly Drunk Rebecca is back in her taxi saying that, if they eat Chinese food in China, it won't be Chinese food, it will just be food. She slays herself. She is Rebecca the Rebecca Slayer. Dear Rebecca: When Friends stole that joke, it was already covered with the dust of pulverized dinosaur bones. Now, it just wants to die in peace. Don't prolong its suffering. Thank you.
Everyone hops out of taxis at the Colombo airport. Kris and Jon are the first to ask about and locate a Dragonair (name of my Go-Gos cover band) flight out at 7:45 the morning. The Model Alliance follows, and then Hornio is trying to negotiate, with El Hornio saying that he wants to buy the tickets and Possibly Drunk Rebecca saying, in this exaggerated, semi-slurring way, "Just let me deal with it, honey." She even makes some weird faces while she elbows El Hornio away from the ticket counter. She's lucky she didn't get arrested, like one of those people on Airline who show up at the airport on the wrong side of eight giant tankards of Leinenkugel's.
The Amazing Yellow Line shows all the teams flying to Shanghai together via Hong Kong. And then we are in Shanghai, which actually looks quite a bit like Vegas, only with better architecture and less of a bustling on-street sex trade, at least judging by the video available here. Not that tourist footage of Vegas usually shows the on-street sex trade either, come to think of it. The teams all land and head out of the airport, with the exception of Hayden and Aaron, who have to stop in the airport to exchange their money. Outside, the teams trying to hail cabs are finding that being in China and not speaking Chinese is a little bit harder than being in, say, France without the ability to speak French. Jon says that there's a "communication barrier" trying to even get the cab in the first place. "It's not their fault; it's our fault," Kris says simply. "We're in their country, and we don't know how to communicate with them." She terms it "very frustrating." She needs some Ugly American lessons, stat! She's not the kind of person who's going to support the spread of democracy to the heathens, if you know what I mean, and I think you probably do. Inside, Hayden wants to know how many yen she can get. Aaron's like, "It's not yen," because it's not Japan, not that Hayden would be expected to know the difference between Japan and China, I guess. As Freddy and Kendra are leaving, Rebecca comes over and quizzes them about the exchange rate. "The poor little ones," Freddy says in the cab. "They are so clueless and lost." He explains that Rebecca's pattern seems to be to attach herself to someone else and just watch everything that person does, rather than doing her own work. "Poor [El Hornio] is not assertive enough to do it on his own," Freddy muses.
As Hornio hunts for cabs, Rebecca calls him "honey" again. What is with that all of a sudden? She doesn't even like him. She was meaner to him when she hated him less than she does now. Whatever.
Kris and Jon get a cab, and then Hornio does, too. Hayden and Aaron are the last to get out and on their way. It appears that Hayden and Aaron's cab driver wants $250, which doesn't make any sense, because Jon and Kris's just agreed to $24. Maybe there would be a scam, but by a factor of ten? I don't know. That seemed suspicious. Possibly Still Drunk Or Possibly Just So Tired She Perpetually Seems Drunk Rebecca slobbers in the Hornio cab about how the other teams are all around, but she's not sure where Hayden and Aaron are. She doesn't yell "rock and roll!" and make devil horns the way I kind of expect her to.
Where Hayden and Aaron are, in fact, is back at the airport trying to get their cab on the way to Yu Yuan Garden. Hayden chatters and chatters about how they're being ripped off, until Aaron turns around and says, "Oh, shut up, Hayden." In the cab, she is still on it. "Aaron, we got ripped off. You get ripped off when you give cab drivers money, and I don't want it to happen anymore." She whines that she's the one who has to ask for money when they run out, and he tells her to shut up again. He's starting to sound just like I do. It's like he can hear me through the TV. Man, everything the Farscape people ever said to me was true. She tells him not to tell her to shut up, so he switches over to, "No more. No more. No more." Which is basically the same thing, after all.
“ The morning, people ride bicycles. Parts of Shanghai look like Epcot. Ducks (I think) hang in a window, not looking so lively. A man roller-skates with red fans in his hands. As you do. ”
The morning, people ride bicycles. Parts of Shanghai look like Epcot. Ducks (I think) hang in a window, not looking so lively. A man roller-skates with red fans in his hands. As you do. Tickets are purchased and the four teams rush into the gardens. It appears that they don't have much to go on in terms of where they're supposed to find the clue box, because they all wind up wandering around like they're just randomly looking for a clue box somewhere in the gardens. Nuance is the first to finally find it, and when they do, it says that they have to get to Yincheng Road and search around the Huaneng Union Tower for a clue. Oh, and "Caution: Yield ahead!" Phil explains that this, again, will require the use of a taxi, and then we get the dramatic shot of the green clue box, and we are -- out!
Or we're back to Nuance, getting ready to leave. For some reason, I hate that edit -- when they come back to the team that was reading the clue at the end of the description of the clue. After they're gone, Kris and Jon are to find the clue and read it. Then Aaron and Hayden. Outside, Nuance looks for a cab, as do Kris and Jon. The teams at first have trouble even finding anyone who will take them, so it's not clear whether those cabs are already assigned or what.
Meanwhile, Hornio finally finds the clue, and when Rebecca sees it, she says, "We're so Yielded." She reminds us that they Yielded Nuance at the instruction of Spazpants in a prior leg, and now she's not sure that was such a hot idea. Wait, you mean Jonathan's advice sucked? Inconceivable! Outside, Hayden is telling Freddy and Kendra to use the Yield. Why don't Hayden and Aaron use theirs? That makes no sense. Unlike last week, when I announced that there were no more Yields, there actually aren't any more this time, so I'm not sure why Hayden would want to hoard hers. Nuance and Hornio hunt for a taxi, while we see that Kris and Jon already have one. How "lucky" for them. As Hayden tries to get a local to hail a cab for her, Kris sits in the back seat and points out gently that they're not moving. Like, at all. El Hornio is lectured by Rebecca that the way he talks "comes off rude-uh." Hayden asks her local if the taxis are snubbing her because she's American. Freddy and Kendra finally get a little green cab to stop for them, and they hop in. Kendra opines in the cab that the empty taxis that wouldn't pick her up may have been "discriminating against" her, or there may be some taxi service nuance (heh) that she's not picking up. Maybe Dakar sent word.
Hayden tries to convince a cab to stop. No dice. Finally, she grabs one, brings Aaron over, and gets going. Hornio is still stymied, as Rebecca wonders what other "force working here" is keeping her from getting a taxi. Maybe relationship therapists all over the world sent word.
Commercials. If somebody doesn't hit the Sprint guy with a shoe really soon, I'm going to.
When we return, Hornio finally snags a cab (whew!) and gets in, as a lot of locals stare with apparent amusement. And, probably, horror at El Hornio's hair. Seriously, it's hard to remember anymore that those horns are still new to a lot of people. Remember how scary you thought they were at first? Right. Meanwhile, Kris and Jon are still stuck in traffic, where Kris is fretting that with the Yield ahead, Freddy and Kendra are likely to hit them with it if they get the chance. "But our cab driver is our worst nightmare," she offers, in a line that certainly sounds like it has a clunky cut between "is our" and "worst nightmare," so I'm not sure she actually said anything quite that rude.
In the Nuance cab, Freddy is explaining that while he and Kendra considered using the Yield strategically against Kris and Jon, because they're a stronger team, they've ultimately decided to employ it spitefully instead, figuring that Hornio is deserving of "payback." Oh, and in the Hayden/Aaron cab, she's saying that Nuance should wait for her and Aaron time, because they had such a bad time getting a cab. And why would they do that? And how would it help? She's such a goofball.
Freddy and Kendra get out by the base of the tower and start hunting around for the clue. Hayden and Aaron arrive , and then we watch as Freddy and Kendra step on the Yield mat first. Phil reminds us how one team can make another team stop and stand around for a while. But you can only use it once, so you have to choose carefully. And he totally appropriates "most advantageous to go for it" from the old Fast Forward patter, and that's just lazy. And it makes me nostalgic. ["He also 'appropriated' some of his poorly-fitted pants from a season for this episode. Boo, wardrobe." -- Sars] At the mat, Freddy equivocates about whom to Yield, saying that they might be better off Yielding Kris and Jon, but Kendra pulls Hornio's picture and smacks it on the board. Neither Nuancer makes any effort to justify the Yield here as anything but revenge, so at least their motives are clear. And in fact, in the Hornio cab, Rebecca already knows this is likely. Anything that can make Kendra seem like she does things on purpose and can make Rebecca seem like she understands what's going on is certainly worthwhile, I suppose.
Kris and Jon's cab is still not moving, and she suggests getting out and running, but he's not sure where they'd even go. It seems like they still don't entirely know where they're supposed to wind up.
Once they've passed the Yield, Freddy and Kendra hit the regular clue box, which reveals a Roadblock. And...to whoever decided that putting Phil in a black harness over his white pants was a good idea? Not so much. It's a little bit not-that-subtle, kind of one step above a big sign with a red arrow pointing to his crotch, all, "LOOK HERE." Anyway, harness-wearing Phil explains that the Roadblocker here has to get to the top of a 40-story skyscraper and lower herself on a window-washing chair to a marked window, wash the glass with a squeegee, and take note of the message that is uncovered when the window is washed. Then they'll lower themselves to the ground, pass on the message to the "supervisor," and get their clue. Freddy immediately tells Kendra that she's going to have to do it, and she explains as they get in a taxi to the correct tower that she wants to face her big fears, and this will be a great opportunity, since she totally hates heights. Not an approach that ever makes sense to me, the intentionally doing things that you hate, but...okay. "This will be no problem for you," Freddy assures her. Well, if your boyfriend says it, it must be true. That's what I always say.