Personal Dynamics A-Go-Go

S01E04

Previously, on Please, Bruckheimer, Don't Hurt 'Em: Team Guido matched, from their smug little smirks to the shoes we all can only hope will one day be on the other foot. Uh, feet. Anyway, Loud Pushy Frank called other people "jerks," at which the National Coalition On Prohibiting Petty Insults was so offended that it temporarily lifted its longstanding ban on "takes one to know one." Karyn took it one step too far -- about six consecutive times. A train station either was or wasn't the site of deception and betrayal, depending on which side you took during the Most Agonizingly Long And Drawn-Out Debate An MBTV Forum Has Ever Conducted ["With The Possible Exception Of 'Whether Another Slayer Got Called'" -- Sars], May It Rest In Peace, Lest It Come Back To Life And I Lock It In A Closet Forever Without Food Or Water. The EDG alliance wheezed like a congested marathoner. Pat and Brenda said a classy goodbye.

Credits. It occurs to me that this thumpety-thump-bwah-dah music sounds like the theme song from a movie about espionage. Well, maybe a porno movie about espionage. (Espionage porn! Maybe it's the big thing!) On the visual side, the highlight is Team Guido sitting in front of the fireplace, clinking wine glasses and undoubtedly saying, "Gentlemen, to evil!" (tm Mikey).

Les Baux de Provence. (I suppose that's French for "Crumbling Castle At The Top Of A Big-Ass Hill" -- Team Guido could tell me for sure.) Phil explains the rules again -- yellow flag, clumsily written clues, sealed envelopes, you know the drill. This week, the first task the teams face is to find a guy in a red hat standing under a sort of mini-Arc-de-Triomphe. Problem? The teams aren't being told what country the guy is in. They have his picture, and they have the country's flag, and they're told to start by taking a boat from Marseilles. In other words, they know the guy they're looking for, but they may have to travel great distances and suffer many hardships before they locate him. (Hey, what a coincidence! If you add "they will undoubtedly attempt contact with several moody bastards and a couple of cute musicians before they find him," those would be the rules of Miss Alli's Boyfriend Hunt!) As usual, everyone has to rot at the pit stop for twelve hours after they show up. I like to imagine that someone takes out a harmonica and entertains the group while they're waiting, or maybe that they play Scattergories.

3:53 AM. Kevin and Drew are first to take off, having made it in first yesterday with the assistance of the Fast Forward Of Oregano-y Tea. Phil gives the frat boys the info, and tells them they're "free to go," which has an odd sort of we-don't-have-enough-evidence-to-arrest-you feeling I'm not sure I like. Don't treat Shower-Fresh like suspects, Phil. Phil is wearing what looks like a green vinyl parka with greenish-brown furry trim that appears to have been taken from twenty rare and carefully-bred camo squirrels. Through with Phil for now, Team Shower-Fresh takes off for the Port of Marseilles. As he did yesterday, Drew explains how much he likes having all the other teams staring at his behind. I think Rob likes that, too, but that's a little different.

4:07 AM. Frank and Margarita. (Ouch -- Team Shower-Fresh didn't get a very big lead from that Fast Forward, which means that Frank's view of Drew's behind is an extreme close-up.) Team Danza ditches Team Esquire, which is stuck a couple of minutes behind them and has still been making some noise about continuing the shaky EDG alliance. Loud Pushy Frank has had it with the cooperating and the pretending to like people and the gaining big advantages from other people's work and knowledge, and he's just not going to put up with it anymore. As they take off down the road, the Danzas are obviously feeling pretty comfy about their decision to ditch the lawyers.

4:15 AM. Speaking of the lawyers, good morning, Team Esquire! Rob is resplendent in his circa-1986 lumpy down parka, while Brennan is doing his best Mike Boogie, complete with visor (albeit right side up). Look, if it's cold enough for Rob to be wearing a knit hat (as a bunch of the other people are as well), it's too damn cold for Brennan to be wearing a visor. That's beachwear or golfwear or possibly tenniswear, dink. It's not for bobsledding. Anyway, Rob thinks the flag they've been handed might be from China. (Not. Although, admittedly, they're both red fields with light patterns on them, so Rob's not as far off as he might be.) The boys work their way down the mountain, and voice-over that they called ahead the night before for a taxi. Said taxi arrives at the bottom of the hill, where Frank and Margarita -- just a few minutes ahead of Esquire -- attempt to steal it. When the taxi driver clarifies that he's responding to a reservation, Frank, who knows perfectly well that he has no reservation, tries to tell the cabbie it's he and Margarita who called for the cab. Fortunately, the taxi driver -- who gives better customer service than my bank -- actually checks ID, which means Rob and Brennan are able to make it down and claim their ride. Frank and Margarita ask Esquire's cabbie to call another cab for them, which Brennan tries to talk him out of doing. Margarita strikes a highly offended pose, telling them that it's "screwed up" for them to try to prevent the cabbie -- who wouldn't even be there if Rob and Brennan hadn't arranged for him to be -- from helping Frank and Margarita. Unlike the attempt Frank just made to steal the cab in the first place, I guess, which was entirely appropriate. Welcome to the Team Danza House Of Moral Surrealism -- be sure to visit the souvenir shop.

More bickering between Esquire and Danza ensues, in which Margarita -- so full of baloney she could change her name to Oscar Meyer -- tells Rob that she and Frank were not trying to ditch them. (Ooh, Rob, beware! It's a trap!) "It wasn't about not working together," she lies through her teeth, creating a hopelessly dodgy grammatical construction that has "prevarication" written all over it (and, thanks to my seventh-grade vocabulary book, spelled correctly). This Margarita comment also instantly calls to mind the best double-negative television ever gave us -- Tami's classic "It wasn't! Not! Funny!" from the L.A. season of Real World.

After Esquire pulls away in the cab, Rob explains that after their experiences with Danza the last couple of days, he and Brennan have finally given up on EDG. Thus endeth this show's most enduring "official" alliance. Meanwhile, back at the bottom of the hill, Frank self-righteously complains that Rob and Brennan are "liars," even managing to make the "lawyers/liars" joke that was only about five hundred years old when a Jim Carrey movie put it in the mouth of a precocious tot several years ago. Frank, when you find yourself making a creaky old precocious-tot joke, it's time to look for new writers. Margarita comforts herself with the fact that obviously Rob and Brennan weren't really her friends anyway, because they hadn't talked to her and LPFrank last night about ordering two cabs. Hmm. That is an interesting question, although certainly as of Avignon, Esquire was still playing along, yes? Those lawyers are tough to figure.

5:04 AM. Team Guido rips open the clue. They look at the flag and think it's from Morocco. (Bzzzzt. Though, again, reasonably close. The Moroccan flag is red with a gold star. Incidentally, thank my copy of Geographica's World Reference for all these flag facts.) The Guidos still match, which just chaps me more than I can tell you. In an interview, the guys tell us that the competition is becoming "more cutthroat." Joe elucidates as follows: "It's about winning now. It's about winning and not letting anybody else win." I immediately write this down, so that later on, I can trace it in pencil onto a needlepoint canvas and make it into a pillow to throw on my couch. Bill is wearing a floppy khaki hat with "Team Guido" on it, and I now see that their matching yellow knit polo shirts say "Team Guido" as well. What is this, their entire freaking clothing line? Guys, here's a rule of thumb: you are really only allowed to wear self-promoting clothing if there is someone else in the world who might be interested in wearing clothing promoting you. Your mother doesn't count. Bill orders a taxi. He speaks French, you know. You may not have heard.

Frank and Margarita finally get their taxi, so they at least can move their round of whiny-ass complaining to a new location, even if they aren't likely to change the content much.

5:47 AM. Dave and Margaretta take off. "Hold this, love," Margaretta says, handing something to Davey while she opens the clue. (When the Boyfriend Hunt is over -- which it now appears will be sometime after The Amazing Race concludes, and possibly even after all of its contestants' grandchildren have graduated from college -- you will know, because I will say things like, "Hold this, love.") Davey thinks the flag is from Turkey. Wrong again, but really close. "David and I have been married for forty years," Margaretta explains in an interview. "We're just doing our normal thing. There's nothing on this trip that will make or break us." Watching them walk down the mountain, it's clear that she's right.

At Marseilles, Team Shower-Fresh runs into Team Danza. Drew has apparently met an Algerian woman who told him the flag is Algerian. Not! The Algerian flag has the same shapes, but instead of a red field, it has a green and white field. Quite different. She either doesn't know her flags so well, or she's jerking Drew around, and that would just be wrong. Margarita, meantime, has been speaking French with the locals (and man, oh, man, am I ready to see the French language vanish as a constant, unrelenting pain in the behind) and has been told that the flag they have is that of Tunisia (ding ding ding!). At first, the frat guys are skeptical, but eventually, they come around, essentially agreeing to follow Frank and Margarita onto the Tunisia boat, a step that will prove unnecessary as the crowd gathers.

6:47 AM. Paul and Amie. They tell us that they, too, ordered a cab the night before (making them not quite as dumb-as-dirt or non-strategic as they've seemed at other times), and they're expecting to encounter it at the bottom of the mountain. They take a few wrong turns, though, and have to wander for a minute, which brings us to…

6:48 AM. Lenny and Karyn. She tells us in an interview that after their argument in Paris, they had some kind of conversation about meeting each other halfway, but the footage of them in the cab looks grim indeed. Karyn says she thinks it's all going to make the relationship stronger. Cue nationwide eye-rolling.

6:49 AM. Nancy and Emily. Nancy tells us how happy she is that she and Em are being given the chance to bond through all this extravagant travel, which is a nice change from the first episode, in which it certainly appeared to many observers that they'd made a horrible mistake that would one day lead to separate Thanksgivings. Em agrees that it's all going pretty well.

Paul and Amie are still desperately seeking their missing cab. Amie, finding something she has in common with the non-dearly-departed Light Hair and Dark Hair, mutters, "I hate France." What that has to do with her inability to find her transportation, I'm not quite sure. At any rate, by the time Paul and Amie locate a cab, it's being boarded by Nancy and Emily. Nancy says to the driver that both teams ordered a cab, and only one has showed up, so there's some confusion. Amie looks horrified, unable to believe that she is once again having cab difficulties. (She does not, however, call Emily a "fat bitch.") In fact, she's having such bad luck with cabs that I think if I were her, I'd switch to bicycles or roller skates or something. The silver lining is that the cabbie calls for another car, although this doesn't stop Paul from hurling something in frustration. Hey, Paul, don't take out your frustration on the French mountainside. Give le hoote, don't pollute. Once the environment has been adequately violated, Paul and Amie get to swearing a lot as Nancy and Emily reclaim the cab and take off. Paul is once again threatening to quit because Amie is so upset. He explains to the camera that he never wanted to do the race in the first place, and let me just say this: If you don't really want to do something like this, you shouldn't do it, because this is what will happen. All your little petty feelings that you don't really want to be there will leak out every day, which is what Paul is doing. He may not want to be there, but he came, and he should now suck it up.

Nancy, in an interview, says that she is having a hard time with the language she's hearing from some of the other contestants cough Paul and Amie cough. She also mentions the issue of "backstabbing," which again makes me really think I'm right that they didn't poach the cab, because if they did, she's so going to be struck by lightning. Nancy thinks Emily would be mortified if she knew her mom was saying these things, but frankly, I think a certain amount of that from your mom is expected. Your mom is supposed to be a little less wild than you are -- it's the nature of things. (Yeah, yeah, your exceptions are noted, Cher and Grace Slick.)

In their cab, Margaretta tells Davey she thinks she's handling things well. "You're doing extremely well," he agrees plainly. "You were brilliant last night, honey, thinking about having this cab waiting here for us. Absolutely brilliant." Margaretta leans on his shoulder and smiles. Meanwhile, Paul and Amie have EXACTLY the same argument they had in the cab after the Taxicab Skirmish -- he wants to quit, she wants him to stop threatening to quit, quaaaack quack quack. In an interview, Paul says that he would rather have Amie than a million dollars. The producers of Antique Roadshow immediately call to offer Paul a certain appraisal they think might be of interest to him.

Team Ensure's driver clears up that the flag isn't from Turkey, it's from Tunisia. "We're going to Tunis?" Davey asks. "I didn't know that was Turkey. Turkey's not Tunisia." You know I love you, Davey, but…huh?

Paul and Amie are looking for a boat to Turkey. Man, these people are inept. I'm surprised they don't cook their clothes and dry-clean dinner.

Bill and Joe are getting the skinny on the flag, and I am not joking when I say this: Joe looks at the guy they're talking to and says, in English with a slight accent of indiscriminate origin, "This is Tunisian flag?" What the hell? I think everybody ate some funny mushrooms at the chateau last night.

Kevin waves down at Nancy and Emily from a high window as they arrive at the Port of Marseilles. Momily (tm somebody -- claim your tm and I'll get you time) are trying to figure out how to get up to where he is. Nancy's voice says, "We are extremely fond of Kevin and Drew. Those two guys are just great. They're so good to us." Once the teams manage to meet up, Kevin greets Emily with a big hug. "Plenty of time, plenty of time," he reassures them as he curls an arm around Nancy and drops a kiss on top of her head. Kevin: "Nancy and Emily, they're like family at this point in time, and we've been with them since the very beginning. Drew and I have sort of adopted them as the mom and the little sister." , Drew's slightly more pragmatic view is heard: "We do have a motive helping them out. I'd rather have Nancy and Emily in the final leg than have to go against the attorneys, and Guidos…" I suspect both of these things -- affection and self-interest -- are at work.

Now we enter the Intrigue section of this episode. Margarita comments that alliances have already been made and broken (namely her own, as far as we know), and Kevin says that "you can't trust anybody." Rob says that although everybody is playing hard, people have to understand that this is a game. (DRINK!)

Commercials. Watch the Emmy Awards -- do it for your country. Um, yuck.

Back at Suspicion Central, a.k.a. the Port of Marseilles, the teams note that they are literally all in one place for the first time since the beginning. Rob bitches that you can build up a six- or seven-hour lead and then see it evaporate, and then goes on to say that there's "almost no use in being a better team." Two things: First of all, the bunching is inevitable when you're putting people on planes and trains and boats. It's a race, run under semi-real travel conditions, and planes and trains and boats only leave every so often. It's not an unfair cheat of the game; it's just how travel works. You want a bigger lead? Get farther ahead. Not far enough ahead to leave on the plane/train/boat that leaves before the one everybody else is on? Too bad. Second, he's completely wrong that there's "no point" in how you've done so far. Three teams have already been eliminated, and you're not one of them, silly boy. Take note: These teams may all be in the same room, but they are not tied. Some have a FF left. Some have alienated everyone. Some have become well-liked. Some have seen their relationships get stronger and have learned better ways of working together. Some have learned that they can't cooperate under stress. Most of all, they've all managed to avoid elimination. In an interview, Drew knows all this, but allows as how he's also bummed that their Fast Forward lead didn't last a little longer.

Dave and Margaretta cuddle while everyone else glares at one another. She waxes wise: "You have people who are reacting to stress, and normally wonderful people who wouldn't be this way are starting to let it get to them, and they'll take it out on anyone around them."

Right on cue, here's Lenny and Karyn's dumbest fight yet, literally involving whether she said "please" before she took the clue from him so she could look at it. Oh, come on, people. He goes on to do a really painfully shrewish imitation of her. I'd like to be able to smirk at it, but it's really rather sad. In a voice-over, he agrees with Paul that he'd rather have his sweetie than a million dollars. Prediction? He's going to wind up with neither, in the end.

Team Guido arrives at the port. Bill says he "could see that there was a lot of animosity in that room." Yeah, nice catch, dude. Joe and Bill go right to the ticket counter and wait until a guy shows up. As Margarita explains it, Bill takes control of the ticket-buying as the rest of them stand by watching (including Brennan, still in his dorky visor, and Rob, now in his idiotic backwards baseball cap). Bill tells us that he wanted to make the arrangements so that he and Joe could get a private room, "strategize" more (is that what the kids are calling it these days?), and get some rest. Apparently, the agent (who gives better customer service than my bank) told Bill he could give the teams a group rate. Frank whines in a voice-over that although Bill did buy them all tickets in a group, he would have screwed them and gone off by himself if he could have. It seems to me that this is Frank's general approach -- whenever anyone does anything that's helpful to him, he dismisses it by saying that they would have screwed him if they could have. Shut up, Loud Pushy Frank. (DRINK!)

Bill tells us that when the tickets showed up, Margarita started "screaming at [him]," and we get a cut to Margarita asking insistently for her ticket, but not screaming. (All-too-common insult directed at women: all strong statements constitute "screaming," "screeching," et cetera. Just a note, from me to you.) Bill is patronizing the hell out of Margarita, who just wants him to stop holding everybody's ticket and let them all have their own. In other words, Bill (who presumably has taken everyone's money to pay for the tickets) has grabbed physical possession of the tickets and is holding them hostage, but Margarita wants hers in hand, as she should. Bill is waving his hands and acting like she's being completely unreasonable. Bill, in an interview, snots that if he had wanted to, he could have ripped up everybody else's tickets and thrown them away. For God's sake, Bill, could you be more impressed with your own petty power struggles? You're not Gordon Gekko, so just pipe down. Back in the port, Joe joins the fun, holding up a hand in this incredibly annoying and (again) patronizing way, as if he's everyone's second-grade teacher. Margarita voices over that the mood is turning pretty "anti-Guido." No kidding, and furthermore, no wonder.

And here's Bill's Moment Of Ruin. In his interview, he says: "Control the game, period. Play the game our way. Group Guido arranged the whole passage." Note that, as far as we know, the "arranging" consisted of telling the agent how many of them there were, and perhaps collecting the money. There's no indication that without Bill, they would have had any trouble getting on the boat. Back to Bill: "No one can leave without this ticket [holds up ticket]." I would venture to say that if Bill had taken money from other teams as part of paying for group transportation, and then had refused to hand over the tickets, that would have constituted cheating, as much as if they had gone around the airport canceling other contestants' flights. Bill, again: "I controlled the group, intimidated the whole group by speaking French for two hours to the people that were there, also leaving doubt in their mind what I was doing. The other contestants? Of course, we're playing them like a violin, you know?" He grins. I throw up, and this is the point where Team Guido becomes unambiguously the villains of this tale as far as I'm concerned. It's not the takeover of the ticket-buying that annoyed me so much -- the other teams could and should have stepped in and put a stop to that, so that much is partly their own fault, especially since they've all learned that Team Guido cannot be trusted. What annoys me much more is this self-inflating attitude these guys have in which they always make themselves out to be these incredibly clever manipulators, when in fact they're just acting like dicks. When you leave a room full of people hating you, and when you leave them more committed than ever to the shared goal of doing whatever you can to make sure you don't win, not to mention rolling their eyes at your delusions of grandeur, you may have gotten your own way in the narrow sense. You may have aced them out, in a way. You may very well be beating them in the game. But you are not "playing them like violins." "Playing them like violins" would have been if you had managed to buy the tickets and make them LIKE you for it. Richard Hatch played some of the people he dealt with like violins (with the fish-catching, for instance), but you, Team Guido, are no Richard Hatch.

Once the teams actually get on the boat, it seems to be a brief happy interval for everyone. Paul and Amie look remarkably content as he comments that he enjoys the cruise part more than he did the jumping-off-cliffs part. Davey and Margaretta snuggle some more as they look at the scenery. "You gonna give me a kiss here?" she asks. "Ohhhh, yeah," he answers, and he does. Even Frank and Margarita look happy, and talk about feeling a little better about each other than they were there for a while. They'd both like to get it together to provide a family for their daughter.

Cut to dinner, where Rob voices-over that "unfortunately, Team Guido is the team to beat." Shut up, Rob. (DRINK!) Brennan explains that he finds it rather strange that Team Guido originally told the other teams that they wanted to prove to America that gay guys are "honorable, stand-up guys," and here they are, making everybody hate them because they play dirty. Okay, PSA: It is not Team Guido's job to play nice in order to make America more comfortable with gay men. Team Guido's job is to run the race in whatever way they see fit. If somebody (including me) objects to their methods, it isn't (or it shouldn't be) because they're gay. There are gay guys who are wonderful, and gay guys who are creeps, and if I think Bill and Joe are acting like creeps, then they are joining a great and long tradition of creeps of all races, genders, religions, and sexual orientations. I'm going to make fun of them for wearing matching outfits, because they wear matching outfits. I'm going to despise them for being smug, because they're smug. But they're not Goodwill Ambassadors for the Gay Community, either successful or unsuccessful. Neither Team Guido nor the gay community (which arguably sort of doesn't exist, in that it doesn't have a pool or a party room or a secret handshake or anything) benefits from such an analysis. End of PSA.

Anyway, everybody is having dinner together except Team Guido, which is taking its matching-black-turtlenecked meal alone. (God, they dress like bad poets I knew in college.) After Brennan gets through complaining about the Guidos, Lenny says, "I want to rip their heads off and show them their hearts." Eek, Lenny -- that's a little bit too Mike Tyson for comfort. Rob, rather matter-of-factly, relates that the Guidos are "your friends to your face," and then they "do whatever it takes to stab you." That's about right, and I don't even think the Guidos would deny it. But then he says the boys "don't play like sportsmen, but they're playing to win." Rob, with his "just a game" and his "playing like sportsmen," is apparently having difficulty figuring out whether he thinks niceness should count or not.

Phil walks around in what we will later see as the El-Jem Coliseum, speculating about whether the teams are really prepared for the "strange and unusual things" they'll find in Northern Africa. (Yes, that's where Tunisia is.) We see random footage from Cameramen's Day Out in this week's Exotic Locale. The "strange things" the teams are likely to encounter apparently include people and buildings. Don't quote me, Phil, but I think they can handle the shock.

Rob voices over that the stress level of the game is increasing, and we are given a random, completely gratuitous shot of him in his stateroom without his shirt on. Mmm, shoulders. Unfortunately, he just keeps talking, and now he's babbling about how the clues and locations are getting more difficult. Worst of all, he's wearing his sunglasses both backwards AND perched on top of his head. That is not good, Rob.

Frank tells us that everyone else is afraid. He can see it in their eyes. SHUT UP, Loud Pushy Frank. (DRINK!)

Dirt-beige-filtered shot of Tunisia. Phil explains again about the red-capped guy they have to find at the mini-Arc now that they're getting off the boat. The teams disembark, running for transportation. Once in a cab, Margaretta shows us the mysterious man's picture again, referring to him as "the dude." Hee! A couple of cabs nearly collide, and Amie actually looks like she's enjoying herself. Will wonders never cease? Karyn encourages her driver not to commit vehicular manslaughter -- something you'd think all teams would agree on, but we'll find out later that not all of them do. For what feels to my weary brain like the five hundredth time, Bill sits in the front seat of his cab, pumps his fist, and sings "Yeeesss!" I'm too tired to tell Bill to shut up. I need to pace myself and conserve my energy for future efforts in this area.

Mini-Arc. Drew tries to figure out what he owes the cab driver, and Nancy almost knocks herself over putting on her backpack. Team Ensure runs. Paul and Amie are almost flattened by Drew (now that would be serious comedy). Bill, up ahead of his cameraman, spots Frank and Margarita and calls back over his shoulder to urge said cameraman, and presumably Joe, to "keep running." Margarita runs smack into a lady and apologizes profusely in French. The lady undoubtedly makes a note to sue CBS, and name Dan Rather personally. "C'mon, Mom!" Emily calls. Lots of running.

Phil explains that when they get to the mini-Arc, the teams get a clue giving them a choice of two tasks. When I see that the first one says, "Full Body Brew," I'm thinking I'd take that one. But then it turns out to be a coffee shop. Ah. Not the brew I had in mind. Anyway, they tempt me to change my mind again when the other option turns out to be "Full Body Massage." Both options involve finding the right location, with the help of a map, in a crowded, busy marketplace. The problem with the massage, of course, is that you actually have to lie down and get the massage itself, which could be time-consuming. Although, hey -- you get a massage, so what's not to like?

Karyn gives us another view of her fatal weakness in this game as she asks Lenny to tell her which option they're taking. (If he chooses the wrong one, we now know, she will berate him forever.) Amie, weighing the options, mentions that she "could really use a massage right now." God, couldn't we all? Seriously, wouldn't it be great, in light of the tensions of the last month, if we all just gave a backrub to the person to our left? It would be like Hands Across America, only with backrubs. Let's do it right now! Look, see the guy to your left? Go give him a backrub! What? Well, what does he smell like exactly? Oh, that's probably nothing. Don't be a baby. Oh, fine. If you insist, give it to the person on your right instead. What do you mean, your right or my right? Your right, of course! I just said your right! My right would be your left, and you already said you wouldn't touch that guy because he smells like salami and feet! Damn it, give me a backrub and don't spoil the mood!

Aside from Paul and Amie, most of the other teams are turned off by having to wait on the massage, though the massage place -- unlike the coffee place -- is marked on a map they have. (This is how they tend to structure these two-choices situations, like the wildlife-park thing in Africa and the pendulum/Hunchback dilemma in France -- one of them is easy to find and takes longer, the other might be hard to find but goes quicker once you find it.) Rob and Brennan ask two girls for help (Esquire knows its target demographic, at least), while in a similar development, Nancy and Emily meet up with a bevy of young men who flock around to help. Nancy voices over that she suspects this stroke of luck has something to do with Emily's cuteness. Gee, Nance, you think? They start running through the streets, with Emily urging the boys to stick by her. (Amount of urging required: very little.) Meanwhile, Drew and Kev run into a guy who agrees to take them to the shop, and this entire series of encounters brings up a clever point brought to me by Snowmobile Boy, who has suggested that a smart team would recruit a TV-spotlight-craving local in every town right off the bat, and use them as an escort the whole time. Good idea, no? Dave and Margaretta keep an eye on Kevin and Drew.

Paul and Amie are the only ones to seek out the massage, but they're having trouble finding their way and deciding how to start to figure it out. "Make a decision," he says. "Why don't you make a decision?" she whines. Apparently, every fight Paul and Amie had in the first two episodes had one of those triangular recycling symbols on the bottom, because we certainly are seeing them all again. They do, however, eventually find a kid to lead them to the "Turkish Bath" where the massage can be found.

The only things I can say about the Frank and Margarita scene that follows are that he's rude, and that she calls him "Frankie." That? Is creepy.

Margaretta says she tends to make everyone get out of her way. She and Davey run through the streets, and she protests a little that he's perhaps going a bit too fast for her. "You're killing me," is what she says, technically.

Everybody runs for the coffee shop (except Paul and Amie, who run for the massage). Margarita actually says, "Frank, come ON," in a way that I don't like all that much better than the way he talks to her.

Commercials. Great Clips wants to cut my hair.

Tunisian Marketplace Atmospheric Establishing Shots. More running, and now we're at the café at last. Kevin and Drew get there just before Rob and Brennan, and both teams fetch the clue, which is a little cigarette lighter.

Paul and Amie find the massage. They get naked and wrap up in towels. She proceeds to get a really nice massage, which makes her smile goofily, and he proceeds to get a really mean massage, which makes him grimace like he's being stung by bees. Paul gets his neck yanked and his back stepped on and his face mashed. It's surprising where the comedy comes from sometimes.

More coffeehouse arrivals. This whole sequence is narrated by Team Guido, for reasons that escape me, because they have nothing interesting to say about it. They basically describe the order in which they spotted the various teams, and unless the producers are trying to make the show's entire viewpoint First-Person-Guido, I'm not sure I care.

Phil explains that the teams have to get to El-Jem, which is the home of the ancient Roman coliseum 200 miles away. It's possible to go by taxi or by train. Taxis are expensive but fast; trains are cheap but slow. Emily's Love Posse brings her and Nancy back to where the cabs are gathered, while the Rob and Brennan Estrogen Brigade recommends the train.

Ah, the Vehicular Manslaughter scene. Nancy and Emily are huddled with Emily's Love Posse in the middle of the street, which is otherwise blocked with cars. Team Guido's cab gets stuck behind the Love Posse's big going-away party, and Bill and Joe both urge the driver to just go ahead and drive. Into the crowd, that is. I realize they're wound up, but I have to think that if the Guidos' cab had run over any pedestrians, that would have (1) slowed them down; (2) increased the likelihood of criminal charges; and (3) reduced their chances of getting commercial endorsement deals. Eventually, the crowd parts, and the Guidos are off. Nancy tells the Love Posse that their mothers would all be proud of them for being such good boys, and they say their goodbyes.

Drew and Kevin grab their cab, and they bid farewell to the guy who helped them. "Merci, my friend, you're the best," Drew offers. Then they give the guy an authentic New York thumbs-up. You know, whether that sounds stupid or not, they're at least trying to be -- well, you know, guys who do things in an affable and friendly way, and I appreciate that. (I'd say "not like in New York," but I think New York is the current world epicenter of going way beyond affable and friendly, so screw that.)

In their cab, Shower-Fresh examines the lighter. On one side, it says "El-Jem," and has a picture of the Coliseum, and on the other, it says "Go Here" (in case the clue is otherwise too subtle). Drew comments that he originally thought it said "Go Home." Hee! He also thinks the Coliseum looks like "a hotel." I suppose so -- in the same way the pyramids look like the Luxor. Kevin notices that what it looks like is, of course, the Coliseum. Nancy and Emily repeat basically the same information from their cab. In one subtle and funny moment, Nancy asks Emily whether any of the information on the map they have is in English, and Emily sort of sighs and says, "Oh, no," in a way that isn't nasty at all, but lives somewhere between "oh, yeah, right" and "Don't we wish."

Davey and Margaretta are looking for a cab to El-Jem. They meet up with a guy who helps out by taking them to a car. Thanks, Helpful Guy! I sure hope this will turn out to be a good cab to be in! Margaretta is so grateful that she kisses him. Once they're on their way, they have a conversation centered around Davey's feeling of relief that they didn't spend big bucks at the kasbah shopping for cute stuff. Margaretta reiterates that she doesn't mind not being first, but she doesn't want to be last. I don't want her to be last, either.

Status update: Out in front are Team Shower-Fresh, Team Guido, and Momily. Teams in the middle are Team Ensure and Team Danza. Teams lagging are Rob and Brennan, Paul and Amie, and Lenny and Karyn.

As Paul and Amie leave the massage place, he comments that they ought to use oil for those massages. "They were rippin' my skin off," he says resentfully. "Really?" Amie asks, fantasizing about spending another hour on the table. "Mine was pretty nice." Heh.

Danza cab. Frank is giving Margarita some kind of very un-Frank-like pep talk as she stares wistfully out the window. She tells us that she's spending a lot of time thinking about her seventeen-month-old daughter, and that when she stops thinking about her daughter, she feels guilty later. She feels selfish for doing the race, but she wants the money for her daughter. Chin up, Margarita.

Paul and Amie debate taxi/train and settle on a taxi. Given that they're running behind from the massage break, this is probably a very good idea. In Cab Shower-Fresh, Kevin and Drew discuss whether Amie and Paul went for the Turkish Bath (which I think comes to their minds because Paul/Amie is the only team they didn't see at the coffee shop -- but it's possible they weren't referring to anyone in particular, but only to the possibility that someone took the massage). "It's their own fault," Drew scolds. "You saw what that was like in Midnight Express." Again, hee!

Lenny and Karyn and Rob and Brennan are boarding the train. As Rob and Brennan bid farewell to the Estrogen Brigade, they give a cheek-kiss, although the camera cuts away too fast to see whether it's a kiss-kiss. If it were, I might have to change my opinion of the lawyers entirely. The train pulls out of the station, and we're on our way to El-Jem.

Dave And Margaretta's Encounter With Disaster. The car they had, which was supposed to take them to El-Jem, unexpectedly stops, and they are handed off to another driver. Furthermore, the new driver doesn't want to take American money, and Team Ensure doesn't have any dinar. From what I've heard, refusal to take American money is unusual enough that this entire situation has "scam" written all over it, especially when the cab drivers claim not to know the exchange rate (come on, now). You stop, you strand people who really need to go somewhere, and then you try to get them to ridiculously overpay you in order to get you to take the only kind of money they have. It's a bummer, too, because all the other people we've met along the way (the Estrogen Brigade, the Love Posse, all the other cab drivers, et cetera) have been so nice. Anyway, Dave and Margaretta try a nearby bank, but it claims to be closed.

Those on the train realize that a taxi would have been faster. Oops. Speaking of taxis, Kevin and Drew look out the window of theirs and realize that they're driving to a truck full of camels. "That's the first live camel I've ever seen," Drew says. Hasn't Drew ever been to the zoo? For cryin' out loud, I'm not that worldly, and I've seen a lot of live camels. (Reread that sentence. Chances I'll ever have use for that sentence again? Zero.)

Dave and Margaretta desperately try to resolve their currency problem. Eventually, a nice guy wanders by and does some combination of changing some money for them and just handing them a few dinar. Once they pay the fare and get going, Margaretta voices over that Dave is the eternal optimist, and he's always sure things will work out. "If this is our last leg," she says to him in the cab, "it's our last leg. Kick back and enjoy it." "It's a day like all days, and we were there," Davey remarks, and even though it's swiped from an old TV show, if that's not a workable philosophy of life, I don't know what is. Seriously, I've been carrying this remark around all week, ever since I heard Davey say it. Every day can be described that way: a day, like all days, and you were there. Sigh.

Commercials. Drivers wanted. Hey, watch that Wolf Lake show. It has partial nudity. Yeah, baby. I love me some naked wolves.

Coliseum. Phil explains this week's roadblock, which is somewhat hard to follow. This week, it goes a little something like this: Carrying a big torch, you walk clockwise around the outside of the Coliseum until you get to a dark and creepy little stairwell, which you take down one level and wander around down there. Then you find your way to a bunch of swords hanging on ropes over what Phil ominously calls "the Pit of Death." (Which sounds like it would still give better customer service than my bank.) You untie one of the swords, and you take it with you back out to the main part of the Coliseum, where you and your partner put the sword into a scabbard on a table, and that's the end. Last to place the sword is eliminated. The other trick to this particular roadblock is that the team members remain within shouting distance while the task is performed. You can't see your partner, but you can yell to him or her.

Team Guido is first to the roadblock. (Damn 'em.) The clue about the roadblock (meant to guide you in deciding who should do it) says, "Not for anyone who is afraid of the dark." Bill and Joe read the clue, and Bill says, "I don't care [who does it]." Joe hesitates as if he doesn't care, but then he emphatically calls out, "You do it!" Heh. That's all right, Joe, I don't like the dark either. Nancy and Emily are second to arrive. They have a little trouble deciding who should do it, but Emily eventually takes it on. This is one of our first good views of the really unfortunate cornrows Emily has in her hair -- well, they're kinda too thick to be cornrows, so maybe I should just say "braids." However I refer to them, they're not working for her. When Emily says she'll do the task, Nancy has a really funny moment of grinning and mouthing "thank you," because you know what? She didn't want to go down in the caverns. Heh. She can huddle with Joe.

Emily lights her torch, and Joe points, saying, "Billy went that way. That's clockwise." "Billy"? Aww. Okay, that's cute. Once Emily has wandered off, Mom yells her encouragement. "Come on, you can do it!" Emily, meanwhile, finds her torch cumbersome and kinda scary, what with all the fire and all. A voice, which I think is Joe's, yells out, "The first circle inside the big concentric circle!" Miss Alli's Mom, who happens to teach math, agrees with me that there's no such thing as "a big concentric circle," because "concentric circles" are by definition plural, but that's neither here nor there. Bill finds the swords, which are hidden behind a sort of a big iron gate. The choices with the gate seem to be either to climb over it, or to use a long pole to pull a sword toward you and then weasel it between the bars.

In one of those unintentionally comedic moments you couldn't plan, no matter how hard you tried, Emily realizes that she has set the wall of the Coliseum on fire. She kicks at the little flames on the wall (it's very kung fu). "Oh, my gosh," she says. "Oh, my gosh, stop!" Her mother would be proud of her language. For some reason, I just find that scene really funny.

Drew has the torch, and he tells Kevin to give him the lighter so they can light it. Inside, Emily is confused. "Crap, I don't know where I'm going, damn it." Now her mom is slightly less proud of her language, although hey -- it could be worse. You should hear me talk about the customer service at my bank. Drew takes off clockwise. Bill, who's been confounded for a while by the gate, finally manages to get a sword through and untie it. "Over near the tallest wall, one level in!" Joe yells to him helpfully. Heh? Emily, still wandering. Nancy, outside, understandingly says to the camera, "She's lost. But she'll make it." "Mooooooooom!" Emily yells, as she wanders a long cavernous corridor.

"Emily!" Drew yells. (Yay! Drew to the rescue!) "Yes!" she answers back excitedly. Drew: "Where are you?" Emily: "I'm down here!" Kevin, outside: "Drew, where are you?" Drew: "How do I get down there?" Emily: "There's, like, a little staircase!" Kevin, quietly, to Nancy outside: "I thought I heard him. You can't miss that mouth." Heh. Drew: "Kevin!" Drew, again: "Emily!" Emily: "Yes!" Drew: "I'm gonna just jump down there, because I don't know the stairwell!" Kevin: "Is it safe?" Emily, to herself: "I don't know where to go." Nancy: "Imily! Drew! Work together!" Emily: "Drew, did you find it?" Tense music: "Bum, bum, bah da da."

And that sequence, my friends, is what you get for having Jerry Bruckheimer as your executive producer. It's too fast, it's too full of slam-cuts, and it's totally overdone, but it's not boring.

Team Guido are the first ones to put their sword on the table. (No, literally. Get your mind out of the gutter.) "Team Guido, reporting for duty," Joe says insufferably. They jump up and down and hug. Whatever.

Drew finds the stairs. "I found it, Kev! I found it!" Emily is still lost. Drew realizes he has some idea of where he's going, but he's still going to have a hard time figuring out how he's going to get back out. (That's just how I feel when I drive into downtown Minneapolis. Everybody tells me "In on 5th, out on 6th," and I still get lost every time.) "Ask Emily what the swords look like!" he calls to Kevin. I'm not sure I get what he's asking or why, particularly, but I still love Drew.

Drew and Emily find the swords. "Oh, my gosh!" she yells. She also figures out that perhaps they can use "those pole things" to grab the swords. "Drew!" Kevin yells. "Drew!" "Yeah, we got 'em, Kev, we got 'em!" Drew and Emily carefully pull two swords through the bars.

Frank and Margarita run up to the entrance. Well, Margarita runs. Frank asks her, "Is there a reason why you're running?" She inexplicably decides to say, "Because I feel like it," rather than the more obvious, "Because it's a race, you dope." Honestly, what happened to Mr. Move-It? When did he become Mr. Casual-Stroll, anyway? Frank takes the torch.

Paul and Amie show up, and I realize that, in some incredibly strange way, I have developed a weird affection for them. I'm stuck with this grudging admiration for the fact that they screw up over and over again -- they NEVER seem to do the right thing at the right time, and they get screwed with the constant cab problems -- and yet here they still are. It's like they endure forever, no matter how much bad stuff happens to them. And that is why, with great appreciation for yolliebear, the poster who said this long before I would ever have thought of it, I christen Paul and Amie "Team Cockroach." And I mean that with great affection. My giving them this fabulous name means, of course, that they will be eliminated week.

It appears that, rather than untying the swords like everyone else did, Drew and Emily burn through the ropes with their torches. Hey, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Then we get the best teamwork shot yet, with Drew and Emily running side by side, him with both torches, her with both swords. "Take the elevator to the Coliseum floor!" Kevin calls out with a grin. I love Drew, but I think I double-love Kevin. Drew and Emily are reunited with their partners, who rejoice and congratulate them. They turn in their swords. "Welcome to El-Jem," they are told. Kev and Drew are named team number two, and Nancy and Emily team number three. Kevin rubs Drew's head. "We don't care [who's second and who's third]," Emily grins as she and Drew clasp hands and then hug. The two teams have a big group hug, and right now, I'm just loving these four folks to death.

Here comes the train. Lenny and Karyn and Rob and Brennan all scamper from it and head for the Coliseum.

"Pit of Death, here I come," says Loud Pushy Frank. Don't tempt me.

Paul and Amie open the clue. "I'll do it," she immediately says. A visibly relieved Paul, who is apparently as afraid of the dark as he is of heights, says in his obligatory way, "Are you sure?" and she says she is. "I gotta pee," she says, "but I'll do it." Paul points out that if she's in the dark, she can pee. In the Coliseum? Geez, Paul, you've already littered in France; does Amie have to urinate on a landmark in Tunisia? I shudder to think what you're going to do week. I mean, I know he's kidding, but…eww. Team Cockroach almost has some sort of torch-lighting mishap, and then Amie takes off clockwise. "Olympic torch, kiddos!" she yells. How did Amie start growing on me? What is happening to me? Maybe it's me that's been eating the funny mushrooms. Anyway, Paul voices over (correctly) that he did the Eiffel Tower AND the steaming raw sewage, so Amie's going to do the dark stanky caverns. She and Frank are both wandering, as the suspenseful music stalks them. Frank finds the swords and climbs over the gate. He does not, however, fall into the Pit of Death, although he suffers the slightly less serious fate of getting his shirt caught on the spikes. "How're we doing, Ame?" Paul asks. "Not good, babe," she calls back with surprisingly little of the whiny-ass quality she's shown so many times before. Pushing his luck, Paul asks her whether she might be going the wrong way, and she says, "Shut up, please, you're not helping me." Ah, there's our Amie.

Frank and Margarita turn in their sword. "You are number four," they are told. Having apparently recovered from Frank's desperate need to be first (partly because the Bunching has made it clear that it doesn't necessarily matter), they seem to be happy with this news.

Here come Rob and Brennan, lawyering their way up to the Coliseum. When they get there, Brennan takes the torch. "All right, brother," Rob says as Brennan leaves. "Good eyesight. Take the shades off." Heh. Good point, Rob. No sunglasses in the dungeon, for a variety of reasons related to both safety and avoiding becoming a completely ridiculous dork. Lenny and Karyn, of course, are having a petty argument over who's going to go. I swear, I'm going to be happy to see these two go sometime, if only because when they're gone, I won't have to listen to them verbally conking each other with wiffle bats anymore. He says he'll go. "You sure?" she asks. He says he is. Oh, Lenny. You have taken your life in your hands yet again. For some reason, as he leaves, the flame from Lenny's torch seems to be lunging in his direction with particular vigor. Perhaps it, too, is tired of all the fighting.

Amie finds the swords. "There they are. How do I get it?" she wonders ungrammatically. Brennan walks up beside her. He says something hesitant about climbing over the gate, which motivates Amie to say, "Oh, yeah? Watch." She goes over, and Brennan obediently follows. Dude, the guys at Bally's Total Fitness are really going to give Brennan hell about that moment the time he's trying to relax with a carrot-soy smoothie between intervals at the free weights.

Lenny is totally in the wrong place. God help us all.

Amie and Brennan get their swords and run. They're both struggling to find the way out. Brennan actually gets out first, but as he runs up to the table to place the sword, Rob (from off-camera) calls him back for some unknown reason. (Do they have to finish together? I don't know.) While he and Rob are huddling, Amie and Paul sneak in to finish ahead of them. "You are number five," the guy tells Team Cockroach. Amie gives a big "woo!" and Paul lifts her up.

Rob and Brennan finally finish. I don't think they're too happy about being sixth.

Karyn yells instructions to Lenny. Meanwhile, Dave and Margaretta finally make it to the Coliseum, and open the clue. Davey takes the torch and sets off, with a warning from his lovely wife not to burn up the clue in the leaping flames. (Hee! Good point.) As Davey starts walking, a million voices from around the world shout in unison, "Davey! Clockwise! Clockwise! You're going COUNTERCLOCKWISE! Noooooooo!"

Another interlude in which Karyn yells at Lenny, and he finally finds the stairway.

Davey figures out he's walking in the wrong direction. Sniff. He turns around.

"Where are you, Len?" Paul yells. Hey, maybe there's more to this Paul/Amie/Lenny/Karyn Underdog Alliance than I thought. Karyn is sitting with Amie, too, so it appears there is indeed. Lenny, at the gate. Apparently helped by info from Team Cockroach, Karyn instructs Lenny on how to use the pole to grab the sword (which is weird, because Amie just climbed over and grabbed it). A dismayed Margaretta begins to see the writing on the wall. Lenny, with the pole. Davey continues to walk around, and Margaretta comments, "We're so close, I just want him to come up here fast…I want to go on. I don't want to be eliminated here." Lenny, untying the sword; Lenny, on the move. thing you know, Lenny and Karyn turn in their sword, and you know what that means.

Margaretta and Davey finish the task, but she counts the swords on the table, and she knows. As the sun starts to set, he returns. "Here, honey," he says, handing her the sword. "You do it." He knows, too. They place the sword on the table. The guy behind the table gives them the bad news. "You are number eight," he tells them. Quite spontaneously, applause breaks out from the teams that are still there -- Paul/Amie, Rob/Brennan, Lenny/Karyn, and Frank/Margarita. (The three lead teams seem to have left.) "We tried," Dave and Margaretta say, hugging each other. Phil pops out and says -- realizing that, given the hugging and the applause, he's irrelevant -- "David and Margaretta, you're the last team to arrive at this leg. You've been eliminated, I'm sorry to tell you that." He means it, too, and everybody is still clapping. "And I'm sorry to hear it," Davey says, "but I want to tell you, this is a tough group to compete against, and I don't think it's any disgrace to lose to them. They're all great people, and we did our best, and we wish them lots of luck." Awww, Davey! "You get lots of respect from me, I'll tell you that much," Loud Pushy Frank calls loudly, as he continues to applaud. You know what? He's totally not full of it. LPFrank is serious, and so are the rest of them. They're happy they weren't eliminated, but they know these people kick butt, and they know they'll be lucky if they're anything like Team Ensure when they're sixty. Furthermore, a warmly grinning Phil clearly loves Dave and Margaretta as much as everybody else does.

Much hugging and talking. Frank wraps his arm around Margaretta as she instructs him as follows: "You hang in there for another forty years." Now that's grandmotherly advice, if ever there was some. She goes on to hug Rob and Brennan. Lenny kisses her. Everybody stands around for quite a while, laughing and talking. When it wasn't the week of tense standoffs, this was sort of the week of unexpected niceness. Go figure.

Executive Producer? Jerry Bruckheimer.

week: Sand. Sun. Spinning wheels. More freakin' Lenny/Karyn bickering of what appears to be EXACTLY the same kind they do every week. More Paul/Amie bickering, of what appears to be a slightly less self-destructive kind than they've been doing every week. Everyone seems to be going nowhere, which is a lot like trying to get customer service from my bank. Rob and Brennan seem to have some kind of difficulty, although past history with previews would suggest that means they're perfectly safe.