The first thing you should know is that I watched this episode with the lovely folks who came to the New York City TARcon, which was frankly even crazier than last year. Racers, posters, and some kind of a kissing/glitter theme pretty much guaranteed that the thing is now officially an institution, for better or for worse. I'll have more to say about it on another day, but there aren't enough thanks in the world for the generosity, enthusiasm, and warmth of the people who made it a great event for everybody who showed up. My absolute, bottom-line, absolutely no-kidding thanks to all the TARflies, the Racers...eh, if I try to do this now, it will take twenty pages and it will be me at my most overwhelmed and girly, so we'll just say, "More to come."
Previously on Have Big Honkin' Issues, Will Travel: Phil launched the race in the Nevada desert with a relatively straightforward run across the sand to your backpack, but everything just got a heck of a lot more complicated from there. Deidre and Hillary got us off to a flying start with a highly emotional exit, and Norm and Hope followed by being just as appealing and just as bounced. The Grannies discovered that New York is not a good way to get from Rio to Johannesburg. Team Xerox tried not to look down, but sand is deep and hard to drive out of. Cyndi and Russell bungled the water taxis just when I was starting to get used to their earnest Midwestern charm. The Fruit was an appealing concoction, but she lost her cool in Hong Kong and choked on some herbal tea, and it was back to the hot rollers for her. Gary and Dave golfed themselves to death, and Danny and Oswald, fabulous as they were, couldn't quite ride their Zen into the finals. No one liked Wil. Boston was made up of That Guy and That Other Guy. Blake and Paige screwed up again and again (and again), and somehow managed to avoid elimination anyway. Meanwhile, Alex and Tara chicka-bamped across South Africa, and Boston and Taraweasel had an unsteady on-and-off alliance that seemed to involve plotting to screw each other more than actually offering each other help. Blake and Wil intermittently threatened and complained about each other like a couple of seventh-graders arguing about who butted into the lunch line. Wil thought Tara was stupid. Tara thought Wil was stupid. Everyone else thought they were both stupid. The Horns Of Perseverance got a real workout. Whose dream will be ful-Philled tonight?
Credits. One last time: "Note! To! Self! For sake of men-tal health! Don't start some tor-tured thing! Like writing words! To! Sing! You! Will! Find! It can't be left! Be-hind! You'll have to still...do it...and then...do it...again!...and so...no! More! Tricks! time the pro-mise sticks! No gimmicks! [BOMP.]"
Commercials. Did you know Barry Manilow is cool again? Yeah, I didn't either. I'm not sure CBS isn't trying to put one over on us. I'm not sure he really is cool again. I know the Carpenters are, but I hadn't heard anything about Barry Manilow. Do you know anyone cool we could ask? Yeah, I don't either.
Ardmore Airfield in Auckland, New Zealand. Drunken cameramen careen right up to the wing of a plane before Phil appears, like a spiky-haired oasis in a desert of chaos, to restore order. He explains that there are these two-person teams, and they're racing around the world, and this is one of the so-called "pit stops" in that race. He also explains that the box you're staring at is called a "television," and he's not really inside it, and he's not really talking to you. It's just a moving picture of him that you're seeing. Teams arrived here at the end of the last leg and so forth, and there's probably eating and resting. They don't know what's in store, because they didn't watch the last couple of episodes of last year's race, and furthermore, they won't get anywhere unless they figure out that the whole thing has something to do with those damn red-and-yellow flags they keep seeing everywhere. Apparently, there's quite a rush to get through the preliminaries this week, because The Exposition Hands are in speeded-up mode, like they've had twenty-six cups of coffee.
As Phil sets up this week's intrigue, we do get a bit of mingling footage from what was apparently The Mandatory Partially-Naked Rest Period, and which evidently included a Gidget-style beach party. (It's the first mingling we've been made aware of in a while, unless you count sex as a form of mingling. Which, incidentally, I do.) Tara throws a Frisbee really ineptly, not that anyone cares. The cute blonde is allowed to throw it like a dork. If she were the brunette, they'd never speak to her again. (Issues? Issues? Not at all, I'm just saying.) Blake and Paige pose for the July layout in their upcoming pictorial calendar. They smile. "Ding!" goes the bell on the soundtrack in my head. Chris rubs some sunblock on himself. Oh, stop it. I'm certainly not giving in to that sort of shallow manipulation now. In fact, I feel a little insulted. Do these people think they can just take everybody's shirt off at this point and somehow worm their way into my heart? Not. I'm a deep, serious person, and I require the slow development of shirtlessness over time in order to become truly attached to a contestant. Phil wonders aloud whether Wil can "continue to work effectively with Tara." (Entire viewing audience: "'CONTINUE'?") More shirtlessness, more tense questions from Phil, more Frisbee, Chris walking in a purposeful manner through the frothy waves as if on his way to an important appointment (okay, now they're just trying way too hard).
1:03 AM. Taraweasel. They look like hell. Seriously, her hair is just not practical for travel. They tear open the clue, which tells them to find John Logan Campbell, the "father of Auckland." As Phil explains in his inimitable way, this is a reference to Campbell's tomb, which is an Auckland landmark. They ask their cab driver whether he knows who Campbell is, and he tells them right away about the monument. As they ride along in the cab in the darkness, Wil voices over that he and Tara have had a "rollercoaster ride," which is an interesting description of something that's looked from the outside a lot more like the world's longest uninterrupted scrape along the bottom of the barrel. It's like watching the log flume ride when there's no water. At any rate, he hopes they'll do well and come in first. I don't. Just one more way in which the Weasel and I do not see eye to eye.
3:30 AM. The Teeth open the clue and the $50 they get for the leg. Blake looks surprisingly normal today, with his checked shirt and jeans. He probably has Team Mycoskie underwear on, but hey, who am I to complain? If I don't have to look at it, wear whatever you want. As they drive toward the monument, Blake explains that their strategy is still to just be sort of mellow and toothy and try like hell to hang in there. They discuss the fact that Chris and Alex are probably the strongest competitors, essentially because Wil and Tara are likely to eventually consume themselves and each other in one final fiery fit of unpleasantness before the whole thing is over. "Wil will probably defeat himself," Blake says. Pretty smart for a guy I think probably has eleven thousand failed inventions in his basement. (I imagine him giving me a little tour: "Well, I'm working on this over here, which would let astronauts play ping-pong on the space shuttle. And then I just started working on this over here, which is kinda like a cross between a radio and a bread machine -- it cooks with sound waves, y'know? And then I invented this -- it's like a Segway, but it runs on nail polish remover. The first two prototypes of it caught on fire and my hair got a little singed, but this trial run, it's the most crucial moment in my career as an inventor. It all comes down to the Mycoskiemobile, that's the whole ball of wax...")
Tara asks the Taraweasel driver to speed up, and the Weasel contributes that he "has a meeting" with the monument. Shut UP, Wil. They get to the tomb, which Tara calls a "mini-Washington Monument." They run from the car. When they pull the clue (which she doesn't read quite quickly enough for him to refrain from hassling her about it), it tells them to go to Maui, Hawaii. Careening cameramen inspect jumbo jets and then go on a quick and inebriated tour of Hawaii as Phil explains that the teams have to get themselves to Maui, and then follow a map to the ruins of an old sugar mill. Phil says it's a "secluded place." Hey, at least it's not a confusing maze. Back in the cab, Wil notes that they're continuing east on their way back to the U.S. Good, Wil. You've mastered that whole the-earth-is-round concept -- keep going east, and you'll eventually get home. I approach downtown Minneapolis the same way.
3:58 AM. Boston. They take off in their newly minted businesslike manner. Chris interviews that they thought at first that they'd be a great team, and then they had some problems and -- EEK! Chris is being interviewed naked. Okay, he might have pants on, but he might not. My brain is going with "not." (Hey, I don't run things up there; I just go along and hope for the best.) At any rate, his hair is all wet and he's kinda cleaned up and I am not made of stone here, people so can we just move along? Thank you. He says that barely avoiding elimination several times was "totally humblin'." They get in their cab. Chris continues that "now, it's time to get cocky again." Hmm. Interesting strategy. I'm not saying no, it's just interesting. In the cab, Alex says that "time is of essence [sic]."
Taraweasel de-cabs at the Auckland airport. Everything's closed. Ha. She gets on the phone and works on flights, and as she tries to sew up the deal, Wil comes and starts kibitzing. "I'm doing a fine job," she says to him as she covers the mouthpiece on the receiver. "I know, but I can handle it better," he says. (TARflies watching at the TARcon: "Boooo!") They bicker, he's obnoxious, she's passive-aggressive, she rolls her eyes, he gets his way, do-si-do yer partner, whee!
The Teeth jump out of their cab at the monument. They pull the clue, and as most things do, it makes them go, "Woo!" In fairness, going to Hawaii is probably one of the more woo-worthy things they've encountered. It's certainly more woo-worthy than, say, kissing a big tree, which they also went "woo!" about. In the cab, Paige says that going to Hawaii will be great for them, because there's no foreign language to speak. They flash their equally shiny teeth. She knows they haven't been speaking a foreign language during their lengthy sojourn in Australia and New Zealand, right? Yeah, I'm sure she does. Blake wants "the first freakin' flight out of town," so they head for the airport, where said first freakin' flight will presumably be freakin' found.
Wil tells Tara that he has lined up a flight that connects through Tonga. "We're cutting off a whole day," he crows.
Chris and Alex arrive at the monument and retrieve the clue. They're happy about the idea of returning to the U.S., and they don't mind the thought of some good healthy airport bunching, either. Speaking of the airport, the Teeth de-cab and head inside. They spot Taraweasel at the phone bank, where Wil is still on the phone. Wil is being told that his brilliant Tonga plan is going belly-up, because although the flights exist, there aren't actually available seats for them to occupy on those flights. He could presumably offer to tie himself to the wing...in fact, I'd kind of like to see that. ["Me too. Except for the 'tied' part." -- Sars] The Teeth, meanwhile, locate a guy who tells them that, subject to availability, they might try flying to Sydney and then on to Honolulu. They'll have to wait until the ticket counter opens to make sure they can do it.
In their cab, Alex promises to hang on tight to the clue. Chris assures him that even if he were to lose it, Chris has a "photographic memory." Heh. I'm not sure he has that, but he does have The Amazing Purse, which may very well have magical powers. So he's got that going for him, which is nice.
The Air New Zealand counter opens. The agent tells Taraweasel that the Tonga plan is indeed not happening. No space, Weasel. Blake works on the Sydney route, and indeed, that turns out to be the best way to go for everybody. Paige is concerned about whether this is really the fastest flight, but Blake knows that Tara and the Weasel booked the same flight, so he assures her that it must be the right one. (And after all, even if it isn't, they won't be behind.) A long line has formed at Air New Zealand behind these two teams while they've been booking, and here come Chris and Alex. Alex politely asks the people in line whether they might cut in, and the people in line politely say no. Hee. Well, it was worth a try, Boston. Tara goes over to hang out with Chris and Alex (mostly Alex) in line, which of course annoys Wil all over again. With them smoochety-smooching in the background, Wil talks to the camera about how her mind isn't in the game, blah blah blah she's-kissing-someone-other-than-me-cakes. In line, Alex warns Tara that Wil won't like the fact that she's "fraternizing" with them. (The "is that what the kids are calling it these days?" joke is so easy I can barely approach it without shuddering.) She responds that she's already been told not to "speak to the little maggots." Maggots? Nice. Wil certainly does have a delicate touch in trying to get his way, doesn't he? When Tara detaches herself from Alex's face, she and Wil bicker a little more on their way to the gate about who plays how, whose head isn't in the game, who does what, who wrote the book of non-love, and who's buried in Grant's tomb. Or something equally interesting. The highlight is when Wil asks her whether she wants him to play like she does, with his "arms around Chris and Alex." Now that would be a development. ["And, according to the authorities I consult on matters gaydar, one that's long overdue." -- Sars]
Commercials. Off! Botanical bug spray will make you hallucinate that plants are walking up to you and offering their natural chemical combinations for your own selfish purposes. Or something.
At the Auckland airport, Chris and Alex are getting their tickets, and Blake and Paige are buying a book about Hawaii. The Teeth and Taraweasel board the plane for Sydney…and then Boston boards right behind them. See, cutting in line wasn't even necessary -- and bunching triumphs again. The Amazing Yellow Line on The Amazing World Map hops from Auckland over to Sydney, and then makes the long drag from Sydney over to Honolulu. On board, Blake is studying his book, probably trying to figure out how to cut an hour off his time using some complicated plan involving riding a unicycle, dressing like a woman, getting a pie in the face, and being struck by lightning. God bless him. Elsewhere on the flight, Alex and Tara are canoodling, which starts out entirely nauseating, but becomes a little bit funny when they cut to a close-up of Chris, only half-looking back toward where they are before saying to the camera, "Prime time back they-ah." Then he grins. Hee. Nice smile. He's still a punk, but...nice smile. Wil sits alone, biting his nails and reading. I could almost feel sorry for him if it weren't Wil. Alex gives the camera a little speech about how he's helped Wil and Tara over and over again, and although Tara's been fine (and when I say fine, I mean fine), Wil is never any help to him at all. Well, for God's sake, Alex, how many times did the guy have to screw you before you figured that one out? What has Wil ever done, with the single exception of taking them through Bangkok, to advance Boston's interests? Not a damn thing. He's a weasel, Alex. Take it out of neutral.
Everybody lands in Maui. They're all happy to be in the United States again. Blake claims that the airport "smells like America," and Chris agrees that it "smells different." Um, okay. All the airports I've ever been in smell like Starbucks and newsprint, but I suppose if that's America to you, then so be it. (It's actually not so far out as a concept, now that I say it out loud.) There's a rush for taxis. Everybody winds up with one, and everybody has to give their driver directions to the sugar mill ruins, which are, they discover, not exactly a well-known local landmark. They use their little maps, and because it's dark outside, when they get to the general vicinity of the ruins, they have to hunt around with flashlights to find what it is they're actually looking for. This is this season's episode-of-COPS sequence, what with the dark and the flashlights and the chaos. No shirtless drunks, though, and no friendly transvestites. Hey, this isn't COPS at all!
Everyone eventually locates the ruins and hunts for the flag. Tara and the Weasel find it first. It tells them to pick a 4x4 and head for the water tower at the Pauwela pineapple field. The drunken cameramen careen around the pineapple field. Taraweasel takes off, with her in the driver's seat. Boston is close behind, while the Teeth continue the hunt. When the Teeth come up with the clue, everyone is on their way, and they all have to start by getting directions to the field. You can see that the sky is just beginning to show the edges of the sun coming up.
In the Taraweasel car, Wil asks to see the clue, and Tara tells him he's being really condescending. Which he is. I'm so tired. She also isn't sure what side of the road she's supposed to drive on. In the Boston car, Chris wonders the same thing. Heh. I suddenly am envisioning a dramatic car crash...okay, I admit that that would be kind of sad. All three teams converge on the pineapple field. When she sees it, Tara says, "Look at all these pin-apples. Pin-apples, pin-apples, pin-apples [sic]." Wow, you know...that's really not a hard word. They pull the clue, and it's a Detour. (Many TARflies, in unison: "A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons.") In this week's Detour, you hunt the pineapple field as follows: On a bike, where you look for a single red plastic pineapple; or on foot, where you look for one of four yellow plastic pineapples. I'm sort of disappointed that they resorted to plastic fruit, because it sort of defeats the purpose of being in the big pineapple field in the first place, doesn't it? I mean, you could just as easily hide plastic pineapples in a cornfield. Ah, well. You can't have everything. As so often happens, the Detour explanation provides the week's best view of assorted anonymous feet. They're the Detour Feet -- Exposition Hands's cousin.
All three teams think the Detour presents a pretty easy choice, and decide to walk and look for the yellow pineapples. I particularly like Alex's line -- "Walk it, dude, there's four yellows!" Lots of running down the paths ensues. Tara comes up with the brilliant notion that Wil should boost her up on his shoulders, which will give them a wider view of the whole field. She voices over that this plan worked brilliantly, because they found the pineapple soon after. Actually, considering that it appears that these pineapples are right by the side of the path, I don't think it offered that much advantage. I think it was a good idea, in theory, but it looks like she and Wil mostly just stumbled on the clue first. Furthermore, with her up so high, it's very easy for other teams to follow them, which is exactly what happens. When Wil and Tara grab the clue and run, Chris and Alex run over to where they were and find it pretty easily, or so it appears. The clue sends Taraweasel and Boston to the dock at McGregor Point. Phil explains that it's fifteen miles to the dock, and then a five-mile boat ride to the route marker, which is a floating buoy with a clue attached to it. The Ex-Adultery-Alliance piles into the cars and takes off.
The Teeth continue hunting for the pineapple. Blake spots it, and they head out. They know the other teams only have a little lead on them, so they remain optimistic, as always.
Taraweasel hits the dock and gets a boat out toward the marker. Wil is rude to the boat guy. They should give Wil some kind of Frequent Nitwit card, so that he could get free miles every time he's a dick to someone who works in the travel industry. Then after he's a nitwit for 30,000 consecutive miles of travel, he could spit on a taxi driver for free. Boston follows, and also gets a boat. In the Taraweasel boat, as the soundtrack tips its hat to Hawaii Five-O, Wil says "surf's up" and some other ridiculous crap I can't be bothered to repeat, and then he sticks his tongue out and waggles his head and generally acts like an overstimulated poisonous lizard, making himself even less appealing than before. Man, some buckets just have no bottom.
The Teeth show up and grab a boat, and now all three boats are streaking toward the route marker. We get to hear Alex call Chris "Luca" some more, which would be sort of cute if it weren't so completely consistent with the image I have of them (thanks to Sars) sitting around on Sundays watching TV and eating wings while wearing sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off. When Taraweasel and Boston pull the clue, it turns out to be a Roadblock. (TARflies: "A Roadblock is a task that only one person can perform...") This particular task involves snorkeling. You have to grab a box that's tied down underwater, and you have to somehow free a clue that's trapped inside it. This is sort of an interesting Roadblock, but I would have liked to know what the trick is to how the box is sealed, and what you actually have to do to free it. From the way things progress, it looks like all it takes is The Amazing Yank. (Oh, grow up.)
Wil, in a fateful decision, agrees to take the Roadblock for Taraweasel. He gives a very cocky wave as he goes over the side. Oh, Weasel. How little you know of what's about to happen to you. Alex takes the task for Boston, and just as he finishes getting his clothes off, Chris basically hurls him into the water. Snerk. Alex finds his way to the underwater clue cases pretty easily, but Wil doesn't. Wil swims around aimlessly while Alex starts working on the box. Tara, at this point, is still being moderately supportive, telling him to try swimming over where Alex is. (She doesn't quite yell, "Follow my boyfriend!", but that's what she's thinking.) Wil arrives at the boxes, and now he and Alex are both trying to open them. Alex comments that in addition to trying to open the box, they had to deal with diving underwater and then having to surface again so that they could, you know, exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide and everything. Tara yells encouragement to Wil (if you can really ever call it encouragement when you call someone "Weasel"). Chris comments that Alex is going to "beat this sissy Wil." Now, that's good, in the very limited sense that I'm glad he doesn't save the word "sissy" for gay men, which would be even worse. On the other hand, he's still a guy who favors "sissy" as an insult to hurl at men, which is not exactly my favorite thing. You know, Chris is about two-thirds a guy I absolutely can't stand, and about one-third a guy I totally dig. Flip the proportions, we'd be good to go.
Wil complains to Tara, yelling to her from the water as she perches in the boat, that he just can't open the box. She tells him to keep trying. He and Alex keep up the fight.
The Teeth approach. Blake has tied some sort of scarfy thing around his head in preparation for this quest. He grabs the clue, agrees to do the task, and he's quickly in the water. So now all three men are yanking on these yellow things that sort of look like insulated lunch coolers floating underwater. Heh -- I love this show. "What's the problem there, A.B.?" Chris yells in the general direction of Alex. Cracking these boxes is, it appears, not easy, especially when you can't be down there for more than five seconds without coming up for air. Paige yells to Blake that he rocks. He pops his case (ew, no, literally) and the clue floats up and out. (TARflies [appropriately enough]: "Wooo!") As Blake returns to his boat, Tara wonders aloud how Blake came up with it before Wil. Well, because you're hitched to a guy who really isn't all that coordinated, Tara. "Blake got it!" she yells angrily at Wil. This is where Tara begins to become the absolute worst version of herself. It's like The Hulk -- you can see her get all green and scaly.
Alex manages to free the clue and heads back toward his boat. "Wil! Everyone got it but you!" Tara yells oh-so-helpfully. I'm sure that's going to really speed up the process. Now he'll be really able to concentrate and put his nose to that underwater grindstone. As Blake clambers over the side of the Teeth boat and pulls off his snorkel gear, he triumphantly yells, "That's what I'm TALKIN' about!" Oh, good. Now he can go eat wings with Boston on Sundays. "Come on, Wil, everyone got it but you!" Tara screeches. "Tara, stop it!" Wil yells back at her, and not without justification, I'd add. Chris is highly amused at Wil's meltdown, which on the one hand is mean, but which on the other hand Wil totally deserves. Tara and Wil yell some more -- she comments that he's "suckin' it up again." Blake gets a little kiss from Paige (no, no, the okay kind), and Alex gets congratulations from Chris. The clue they retrieved tells them to go to a boat ramp and then drive to the pit stop, which is at the Huialoha Church. This will involve, among other things, locating what Phil calls a "little-known access road." Boats streak back toward the ramp.
Wil is still trying to open the box. "I can't do it," he calls out to Tara. "Well, get in there and do it, man, do it!" she screeches. (I use the word "screech" again only because it is so depressingly appropriate. I hope she was suitably chagrined watching this on television.) She yells that he always quits, which is true, but I don't know how she can possibly believe the approach that she's chosen here is going to help. "Get in there and do it, the other folks already took off!" she yells. "How can you not do it? Everyone else did it!" You know, you could make this segment into a piece for Sesame Street if you were ever trying to teach the word "berate." "You were the first one there!" she screams.
Commercials. If you're doing so much housecleaning that you're imagining footprints spontaneously appearing as you work, then you need to open some windows and release the fumes.
Back at Waterworld: The Domestic Turmoil Years, Wil is still trying to get the clue out of the box. He tells Tara that it won't come open. "Rip it off, Wil! Everyone else ripped it off!" she yells. You know, at this point, just the fact that these people have only a few minutes of fame left is such a relief to me. Wil dives again, and finally, finally, this torture is over. And when I say torture? I'm talking about torture. But the most irredeemable moment for Tara is actually yet to come. When he is back on the boat, having retrieved the clue, she feels the need to inform him that everyone else did it much faster than he did, and to generally continue her campaign to convince him that he should pretty much go back in the water, tie himself to the bottom, and wait to die. In summary? Any belief I ever had that she wasn't just as bad as he is was pretty much obliterated in that sequence right there. That was one of the worst sequences of behavior I've ever seen from anybody on this show, and that includes both seasons and all forty-four contestants. And the peripheral characters. Ugh.
Boston and the Teeth, all still scantily clad, fly over the water toward the boat ramp. Blake flashes the Community Chest as he and Paige land. Boston is right on their heels. Wil and Tara approach just as the other two teams drive off, so Wil notes that they aren't actually very far behind. Tara is having none of it, of course, because it is one of her little recreational activities to resent Wil and how very, very put-upon she is because she has to be associated with him. The last thing she wants is to have any of the burden lifted.
Chris and Alex are having trouble with navigation. Chris is driving, Alex has the map. It's a little tense.
Taraweasel get in their car. "I want you to apologize," he says. She responds that for a month before they came on the trip, he told her that he was going to have to do everything, because she sucks. Can I just ask why in the hell she came, then? I'm serious -- the girl needs to put down the violin she's using to play her sad song, because unless she was blindfolded, stuffed into the back of a van, and forced to show up in the desert of Nevada, she came on this thing voluntarily, she teamed up with Wil voluntarily, and it's time to stop acting like a beleaguered victim and own up to the fact that she's playing an equal role in this nonsense that goes on between them. Nothing that's this kind of ugly ever goes down without equal participation from both parties to begin with, and certainly this is no exception. Suck it up, dear -- you own half of this relationship, so for God's sake, stop seeking sympathy. You're an adult. Get a divorce, cut the guy loose, and get on with it, already.
They fight some more. He says he did his best. She's her usual dismissive self, which he sort of deserves, but which she still shouldn't -- never mind, I'm about to rewrite that same paragraph all over again.
Blake and Paige have what I actually think is a pretty impressive conversation where he points out on the map exactly where they are, what they did wrong, and how they need to get turned around to wind up where they need to be. They screw up a lot, I'll admit, but they have a really good routine with the driving and the navigating. Paige keeps her head very, very well when she's doing one of these difficult driving tasks, and Blake seems to be pretty good with the map, so hats off to the Teeth for this particular piece of their game.
Alex and Chris are still a little bit lost. They, too, have a good routine -- Chris is driving, but he's also telling Alex not to panic. "Take your time, don't worry," he tells him. Everyone drives around, but no one is sure where they're going. Chris stops to ask directions from some old guys. Unfortunately, the guy they wind up talking to is a little hard for Alex to understand. His version of "pointing" does indeed seem a little vague -- he kind of points in both directions while telling Alex to go "that way." He also tells Alex, in response to a question about the distance to where they're going, that it's "a little bit far." "A little bit fah?" Alex repeats. "What's a little bit fah?" Hee. He's getting nowhere. The guy eventually says it's about a mile and a half, but he sounds like he might be making it up. Chris is in the car biting his nails, commenting that "everything is a mile and a half in this country." Say, Chris, what country would that be?
Wil spots a little arrow sending them down the famous "little-known access road." The Teeth spot it, too, and Paige does a cute little shtick -- seriously her only one of the entire race -- about how she takes full credit for her brilliance in spotting the arrow, despite the fact that she stumbled across it completely at random. Heh. So now, Taraweasel and the Teeth are on the road to the pit stop. In the Taraweasel car, Wil is hypothesizing that other teams may have screwed up and missed the arrow -- he's basically trying to convince Tara that his lengthy struggle with the yellow insulated lunch bag may not really be all that big a deal. Meanwhile, Alex and Chris think they've spotted the road, but they're wrong. They drive up it anyway. They wind up driving up a big dirt hill, and they realize pretty quickly that they're not where they should be. Man, I think CBS owes some hapless property owner some money, because they are tearing up the turf.
Taraweasel and the Teeth are on the road to the pit stop again, and Wil is trying to convince Tara not to be upset at him again. This is such a sad display. He's so awful, and then she's so awful, and then he actually tries to get her approval, and she withholds it, and he punishes her later...uch. Make it stop.
Chris and Alex abandon The Road Of Irrelevance and get back on the highway in search of the road with the little arrow. They discuss the fact that they haven't really made a lot of mistakes up to this point, which I'm not sure I entirely agree with. They've certainly gotten lost before, much as they did today. They finally see the arrow and get going in the right direction.
Taraweasel is being tightly tailed by the Teeth. They pull up to the pit stop location at basically the same time. "We're going to run it, Wil, it's a footrace," Tara says in a fairly bossy fashion. (Oh, the irony! Doesn't it make your head hurt?) Everybody out of the cars, and now they're running. Blake takes a highly comical leap over some shrubs (TARflies: "Bwaaaah!"), as Phil and the greeter wait to see who will reach them first. Taraweasel approaches from another direction. Taraweasel. The Teeth. Taraweasel. The Teeth. And it's -- Blake and Paige, landing on the mat first! Phil tells them they're team number one. He also tells them that they've won a European vacation for edging out Taraweasel to win the leg. (TARflies: "Wooo!") Blake and Paige hug. (It's all very innocent.) Taraweasel step up to the mat -- they're team number two. They give each other the world's lamest high-five. Really. The world's lamest, I kid you not.
Boston, still trying to get to the pit stop. Alex comments that the race provides "the highest of highs, lowest of lows," and that right now, they're at a low point. No kidding. This is...what, three consecutive finishes behind the Teeth and Taraweasel? Chris comments that tomorrow is, of course, more important. They finally bail out of the car and run for the mat. When they get there, Phil tells them they're in third place. But they're still in the race! "No, eliminate us, dude. Eliminate us," Chris laments. Heh. "We don't deserve to be in the race anymore," Alex adds. "Just eliminate us -- I'm sorry, I'm so upset right now," Chris clowns, turning away from the camera in mock-despair as Alex laughs. He really is a little bit funny.
As they walk away, Phil voices over that Wil and Tara were given a one-minute credit for a "minor production difficulty," so they also got the European vacation. Bastards. Luck! Of! The! Evil! (Miss Alli's Mom: "Oh, goody. They can still travel together.")
The sun sets.
We reset as the teams rest at the pit stop. Blake mentions that everyone is within an hour or an hour and a half, which would indicate that Chris and Alex are an hour and a half or so behind the Teeth and Taraweasel, who are presumably tied. Alex says he hopes for a physical contest at the end, which he thinks will favor him and Chris.
Phil says that after a mandatory rest period (during which unspecified activities presumably ensued), the teams are ready to get on the road again. Wil and Tara and Blake and Paige are tied, and are leaving at 11:13 PM. The clue tells them to get to Queen Kaahumanu's birthplace, another local landmark. First, they need to drive to Hana Bay. They get one dollar for this leg of the race. Ha! Cute. "Make sure you've got the maps," Tara says as she and Wil go to their car. Foreshadowing circles overhead, squawking.
"Paiger," Blake says in their car, "we really made it this far, huh? The final stretch." Oh, shut up, Blake. Seriously. Congratulations on the final leg and everything, but SHUT UP. Taraweasel is first to reach the bay. They borrow headlamps and start climbing up in search of the flag. The Teeth follow. Taraweasel reaches the clue box. It tells them to fly to Anchorage, Alaska and get themselves to Rust's Flying Service. (Miss Alli's Mom: "While they're in Alaska, they should look for the Guidos. They might still be there.") The Teeth pull the clue. "I sure didn't think we were going there," Blake says gamely.
Tara and Wil decide to go to a hotel rather than to an airport that's certain to be closed. (Well, he decides. She refuses to decide anything.) They proceed to the hotel, where the people are very accommodating about letting them use the phone.
12:39 AM. Boston. (Look at that time difference -- they really did screw up the driving in that last stretch.) They note the rather skimpy funding for the leg. "It's all or nothing, it's showtime," Alex interviews. In the car, Chris bites his nails. (He bites his nails a lot, you'll notice. Chris! Stop biting your nails! And don't sit so close to the TV!) They get to the beach and find the Anchorage clue.
At the hotel, Tara and Wil confirm their flights on United (hey, those are the folks who took me to the TARcon! Thanks, United!), and they head for the airport.
Speaking of the Maui airport at 2:40 AM, here we are, with the Teeth. "It's a beautiful morning in Hawaii," Blake sings. Yes, sings. Blake? It's 2:40 in the morning. In the airport. SHUT UP, or someone will come along, strap you to a luggage cart, and roll you down the escalator. They snooze at the counter at Hawaiian Airlines.
Boston arrives at the airport and parks. Inside, they start calling around to look for flights. Taraweasel arrives as well. Soon, Chris and Alex and Tara are all using the phones to work on their flights. Now, while she's on the phone, Tara says the following to Wil: "You can get rid of the maps. Not the clue, but get rid of the maps." This implies, of course, that the clue is with the maps, does it not? It does. Wil grabs the maps and stuff that Tara has.
It gets to be 5:00 AM. Blake and Paige and Wil and Tara are both working on flights. It sounds like Tara and Wil have already booked everything from Honolulu to Anchorage back at the hotel, but they're working on getting the first flight from Maui to Honolulu. Alex explains that he and Chris have booked to Honolulu, and then to San Francisco, Seattle, and Anchorage. (Anchorage, via San Francisco and Seattle? How…familiar.) He further exposits that Taraweasel and the Teeth are trying to get on a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu fifteen minutes earlier than theirs, but they're taking standby, and Boston has decided to be better safe than sorry, so they've confirmed the slightly later Aloha flight. (If they're going to be on the same flights from Honolulu to wherever, I don't get why it matters, but...all right.) He also says "the pressure is immense." Hmm.
Wil explains that the ticket agent for Hawaiian Airlines helped them get on the slightly earlier flight. Blake and Paige seem to be on it, too. Now, Tara checks to make sure Wil has the clue. Wil says he doesn't. Tara starts looking for it, but she knows she doesn't have it. "She lost the clue," Wil immediately says, like the blaming-everyone-else dickweed that he's been from day one. "Why do you blame it on me?" she demands. He insists that she had it. She insists that it was "in the book," which he had. What happened to The Amazing Purse? Isn't that the point of The Purse? So you don't lose the stuff you really need? "I'll get it from Chris and Alex," she says simply. Pretty nervy of her, I'd say, assuming they're just going to hand over the clue. Wil points out that Boston isn't currently available. She says she'll ask Blake and Paige, which is extremely comical, in my personal opinion. Wil quite correctly says that there's no way in hell that the Teeth are going to bail out Tara and Wil's foolish asses. She blames him for the fact that the Teeth hate them. He blames her some more for losing the clue. He wants to know whether she remembers the name of the place, and she doesn't. I contemplate throwing my margarita at the television.
Side note: If you want one comparison between last season and this season, there wasn't anybody last season who lasted for any length of time who was stupid enough to lose their money or their clue. These people have been able to get away with a lot more sloppy play, because there aren't consistent teams in the race who never screw up who hold your feet to the fire. There's been speculation in the forums that any of the last three teams in the first season would have, over the course of a thirteen-leg race, eaten any of these three teams for breakfast without even chewing. Frankly, I think it's probably true. Just a note for the curious.
Given that Alex and Chris aren't in sight, Tara decides to try Blake and Paige. "We were over here talking on the phone, and we left our clue," she says. "What clue?" Blake says, unable to believe that they mean they lost the clue. "Our clue to the...where we're gonna go," she says. "Can we just jot it down?" Wil asks. Is he out of his freaking mind? Why in hell would Blake and Paige help them? Blake says he needs to go finish making reservations, because right now, all they have is their flight to Honolulu, so he heads for the phone. Wil downplays the whole thing, just sort of making it sound like it's a technicality -- "can we jot it down?" -- instead of a crucial piece of information that they just plain don't have. Blake and Paige stand at the phone bank, and Wil and Tara walk away, pretty confident they're not going to get the clue from the Teeth.
Paige voices over, "I guess Wil and Tara lost their clue or something..." Cut back to Blake and Paige, trying to keep their composure. They both spontaneously crack up, which is the funniest and best Teeth moment of the entire race. I don't begrudge them this for one single minute -- Wil has been an unmitigated asshole to them from literally the first day, and he lectured Blake on that very first day about how he would so obviously kick Blake and Paige's asses. They have every right to find this funny, and good for them. "They chose the wrong people to be mean to the entire trip if they want favors," Paige says with a grin. "Yeah, we're not going to give them the clue. It's crazy," Blake says. Right on, Toothy.
Elsewhere, Tara tries another tack. She approaches Alex. "My clue's gone," she tells him as they walk along with their arms around each other. "What clue?" he asks. "Your clue clue?" Heh. She confirms. "Will you give us the clue? Otherwise, we're just gonna quit." Oh, super. She's smirking. Seriously, she should not have done this. This puts him in a really difficult position if he actually likes her, and I really don't think she should even have asked. Especially not like that, with the "otherwise, we're just gonna quit." Sigh. Alex says he needs a minute to talk to Chris, which is the right call. While Boston discusses it, Wil pouts that he won't go to Alaska if they don't know where they're going. Over at the Boston summit, Alex says, "Do we want to give them the clue?" He pauses. "I say no," he finishes, which was, again, the right thing to do, because he really needs to answer first. Chris immediately agrees, "No," because that is the only logical answer. I suspect Chris was trying to feel out whether Alex wanted to give it to Tara, and once Alex said he didn't, Chris's answer was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Tara and Wil didn't get unlucky, they screwed up. Why would you help them?
Alex goes to explain the decision to Wil and Tara. He leads, logically enough, with the fact that there's no way in hell that Wil would let Alex and Chris copy the clue if the situation were reversed, and that is a fact for sure. Tara interjects that she would have, and Alex says he knows that she would want to, but he also knows Wil would keep her from doing it. Boston breaks the news -- they're not giving up the clue. Wil starts whining, as usual. "Your buddies, who were supposed to hook you up, didn't," he says to Tara, sure this proves his point once and for all that she never should have befriended the neckless wonders. Wil, sweetheart, please. You fucked up. Stop piling idiotic self-justification on top of it. Tara responds, as she always does, that it's not her fault, it's Wil's fault. Neither of them wants to accept the fact that Chris and Alex probably wouldn't give the clue to anyone, because it is a move that's entirely antithetical to the entire "race" concept. It's like asking the guy who just passed you in the Indy 500 to stop and help you change your tire. It's not happening. Nor should it. Wil keeps bitching, and Alex sticks to his guns, just as he should. Nothing to feel bad about, my dear. "I hope you feel good," Wil snots as he walks away. "I do," Alex says. Heh.
A desperate Wil (just those three words are music to my ears) now tries Blake and Paige again. Hey, he's got nothing to lose but the remaining shreds of his dignity. On the way to see the Teeth, he and Tara fight some more about Chris and Alex. She insists they're still her friends, and he insists that they "dicked" her. She counters that they only dicked Wil. (Jeez, isn't this network primetime?) Actually, dopes, they didn't dick either of you. They just didn't bail out your clue-losing asses. He insists that she's an idiot, and she insists that he's to blame. I can't stand either one of them, so I actually look forward to a little more of their humiliation at the hands of Blake and Paige. Blake points out to Wil that he (Wil) told him (Blake) early in the race, "I will never help you." Good move, Weasel! "Why would I give you the clue?" Blake quite reasonably asks. "I'm just gonna have to follow them, I don't have a choice," Wil says in that sad-clown way he occasionally adopts when he isn't being abusive and insulting. Oh, how the "I'm so much better than Blake" have fallen.
Will Wil and Tara find their way to the flying service? Will Blake sink his teeth into Wil's neck and do him in for good? Will Tara find anything new to scream about? Will Phil jump on the mat at the very end and claim the million for himself? Will Chris grow a neck? Will Alex reveal that secretly, he talks like one of those British guys on Masterpiece Theater? The suspense is really all too much, isn't it?