In the first half of the season finale, Boston bungled a bit of navigation, Wil was bested by a yellow insulated lunchbox, and Tara breathed red fire, but Blake and Paige donned their asbestos Izod shirts and landed at the very last pit stop in first place. As the final leg started, Wil and Tara found themselves without their clue, and when they failed in their attempts to buddy it out of Boston or beg it from the Teeth, they resolved to just fly to Anchorage and follow someone around for a while like a couple of whiny four-year-olds asking to be taken to the zoo. Will it work? Can they recover from this potentially fatal mistake? Will Tara be mad at Alex for refusing to hand over the clue? Will everybody just keep their shirts on already? And, once and for all, who is going home with the big toy check?
A few rather spastic beauty shots of Hawaii welcome us to the second hour, and then we see all three teams board their flights in the general direction of Anchorage, starting with a long haul from Honolulu to San Francisco. Thanks, Amazing World Map! Where would I be without you? Or, I suppose, how would I know where I was without you? Phil helpfully reminds us that once they get to Alaska, the teams have to find Rust's Flying Service and instruct the pilot to fly them to Trapper Creek.
Cut back to the plane, and a priceless shot of Wil and Tara sitting, slumped and defeated, in their seats. Never has justice been so beautifully presented. Wil is actually clutching his forehead miserably over their insanely inept screw-up on the heels of twelve legs of relatively good play. Ha! He looks like he's had fourteen glasses of bad beer and a sound beating. I only wish. Phil wonders aloud whether they can recover, or whether Boston and the Teeth will find themselves in an Esquire/Danza-style two-team sprint to the finish. I certainly wish we could end this race like we did last season, with one of those Amazing Editor moments where we cut back from the finish line to Wil, tied to an anthill in the middle of the leg and still trying to finish the task, and then being handed a clue telling him it's all over. Unfortunately, I just don't think it's in the cards.
Wil interviews on the plane that "it's going to be really hard to continue in this game without a clue." You know, the number of "clueless" and "without a clue" and "no clue" jokes being presented by this storyline are just knocking me over. It doesn't feel sporting, though -- it's like hunting squirrels with a Sherman tank. Furthermore, this shot of Wil is taken from about two inches from his face, and I really do not appreciate that. I do not need to see up his nose. Anyway, the very haggard Wil vows to get an Alaska guidebook of some kind so he can try to figure out where they're supposed to go. That's it! Persevere, Wil! Yours is a noble struggle! Well, it's not "noble," but the "struggle" part is kinda funny. Meanwhile, Tara and Alex nuzzle and rub noses, apparently not concerned about the clue controversy. I'm not sure whether it seems really healthy or really bizarre that neither of them seems to care about the fact that she pressured him to give her the clue, or the fact that he said no. I suppose it's unique to the situation. Hardly worth questioning these people's sanity now. Wil stares straight ahead miserably. Boy, is this what bringing a man to his knees looks like? I'm not sure I was ready.
San Francisco, 2:04 PM. The plane touches down. Everybody runs through the airport, and then Wil and Tara duck into a bookstore to do some research. (And that's research in the sense of actual research, as opposed to research in the sense of "strategizing.") Wil picks up a book about Alaska. He holds it up to the camera with a look that appears to be grim determination. Or else the airplane food was a little gamey. I'm always suspicious of those little crackers. Anyway, Tara browses, looking at a different book. She explains that she's trying to see whether anything rings a bell. I'm thinking she must at least remember that they were looking for a place with planes, because I can't believe she's looking at everything in Anchorage.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is Blake's Moment Of Greatness. Blake shows Boston a little craft project he's been working on. "I felt kinda bad," he explains, "because Wil lost his route info. So I made him some new route info." He reads from a little piece of paper he's tucked into his clue folder. "Route info: Fly to Siberia, and find the most desolate place possible." HA! He laughs at his own joke, and quite honestly, he deserves to. Chris and Alex can't help laughing, even though they look like they're trying not to because they normally think Blake is sort of a dork. I know how they feel, because seriously, when Blake unleashed that particular piece of snark, he jumped about twenty points in my estimation. Yay, Blake! When it comes to Wil, Siberia humor is always in order.
Wil and Tara look through Alaskan guidebooks, looking for something that will tell them what the hell it is they're supposed to be doing when they arrive. I don't know how long it took her to find it, but the name "Rust's Flying Service" sounds vaguely familiar to Tara. Damn. I have to give her credit, though -- it's a nice save, as much as I was hoping it wouldn't happen. She calls up Rust's and basically seems to say something along the lines of, "Are you the ones who are having a bunch of teams show up there as part of a big TV show?" Hmm. There's something about that that strikes me as not fair, or at least very much not in keeping with the spirit of the game. If we go down this road, then I would think that season, once you land in a city, if you're stuck there overnight, you could make phone calls to all the local hotels and attractions and stuff, asking them whether they know anything about this show coming through town, even if they aren't your first destination in the morning, and then you'd have an idea of what might be in store the day. It just chips away at the way it's really supposed to work, which is that you follow your clues from one place to another, rather than relying on the meta-fact that it's impossible to execute a big production like this without providing a lot of advance warning for people. In other words, even though they're on TV, I almost think it's incumbent upon the Racers to pretend they're not, you know? Fortunately for Tara, though, nobody seems concerned about this except me, and the flying service confirms that indeed, they're the ones she's looking for. She gets off the phone and gives the Weasel a big thumbs-up. But of course, when he comes over and wants to share some high-five style moments with her, she wants no part of it. No hug for you! As they walk along the concourse, she points out that they still have no idea where they're supposed to tell the pilot to go when they get to Rust's. Wil immediately just says they'll follow everybody else. The man certainly does downshift from Arrogant Snot to Pitiful Hanger-On without much difficulty. I wonder if he gave himself whiplash.
Wil and Tara walk up to Boston and the Teeth at the gate. Wil approaches the other teams just to crow that they're "back in the race," in exactly that snotty, superior way that he has that doesn't even hint at how many fuck-ups he's been responsible for already. Reminders: "Return to your partner." Losing the clue. Endless problems getting various vehicles in gear. Diving for lunchboxes. Losing your way on the way to the wildlife refuge because you didn't read the clue. Pissing off the taxi driver in Thailand so much that he left you by the side of the road. And that doesn't even get into the endless quitting. I mean, really, need we go on? Furthermore, Weasel, you're not exactly "back in the race" without an asterisk by your name, because you're still planning to follow one of these other teams. Not unreasonably, Blake and Paige look ill. Chris looks disgusted. As Taraweasel walks away from everybody else, Tara very accurately points out to Wil that he's being unspeakably obnoxious. "The kid's a joker," Chris says angrily as Wil walks off. "Joker" I don't know about, but the "kid" part is right on. Chris also immediately understands what's going to happen once they're on the planes. "They're going to end up trying to follow us," he says to Alex.
Plane in the air. Plane landing in Seattle. As the Teeth walk through the terminal, Paige voices over that when they all got off the flight to Seattle, they went for their Alaska flights and discovered that the Adultery Ex-Alliance had a flight to Alaska ten minutes earlier than the one the Teeth had, so they're running a tiny bit behind.
At 7:20 PM, the Taraweasel/Boston plane leaves Seattle. At 7:30, the Teeth plane follows. Two Amazing Yellow Lines -- one just a bit behind the other -- make their way from Seattle to Anchorage on The Amazing World Map. The Adultery Ex-Alliance plane lands at 9:35, and they make their way through the airport, looking mighty tired. It's starting to be really obvious that these people are wrecked. Taraweasel grabs a cab (she's really quite polite, incidentally -- it's one of her nicer moments), and then Boston grabs one as well. Both cabbies seem to know right where to find Rust's. Alex asks his driver to try to stay away from the Taraweasel cab to avoid the inevitable following that's to come, but I think that's rather a tall order, considering that they're starting at the same place and going to the same place. Not a whole lot the cabbie can do.
Taraweasel is first to arrive at Rust's, with Boston right behind them.
The Teeth plane lands at 10:05, so it looks like their flight was delayed a little, because their lag has increased to half an hour. They run out of the airport and look for a cab.
Back at Rust's, Boston climbs into their plane, and Chris tells the pilot as quietly as he can to take them to Trapper Creek. Wil, on the other hand, just directs his pilot to follow Boston. "Follow that plane," he says. (Did he just instruct his pilot to take him to Trapper Creek, as the clue reportedly requires? I think you could argue that he didn't.) On the Boston plane, Chris says that he and Alex are hopeful that Wil and Tara don't know the destination -- they don't, of course, not that they're going to pay any kind of price for it. "It's kind of like a bad movie, where you say 'follow that cab,' except we were following the plane," Wil says helpfully. Thank you so much, Wil. I never would have made that tricky connection without you. When can I stop watching this man on television? Oh, yeah. In about an hour.
The Teeth pull up to Rust's. They hop in the plane and get on their way.
Boston's plane lands, and Chris explains that they have to find and follow some flags. Unlike what they've been doing for the last four weeks or so. Wil and Tara land just after Boston, having successfully hitched on to Boston's highly developed ability to perform complex tasks like not losing their clue. Phil explains that the teams now have to spend the night in an igloo, and then, in the morning, put on a pair of snowshoes and walk a little trail through the snow. This sounds so familiar, doesn't it? Will the flashlight batteries be dead, too? Furthermore, those lame white shoes that everybody ran around in for the last two episodes of last season are back. Uch. Yeah, yeah, I know -- they're functional. That's what everybody always tells me about the hats, too. Wil and Tara collect the clue that tells them this, and they share a little moment of happiness at being back on track with a clue in hand. Of course, they're only here because they made that suspect phone call and followed Boston, so their entire race has a big black mark on it as far as I'm concerned. If they'd played clean, they would have had to quit in Hawaii. Of course, if they played clean, they might have been eliminated a long time ago -- like in Bangkok, where they so very illegally took a taxi instead of a bus. Ah, what might have been.
Boston and Taraweasel converge on the igloos and then gather around a campfire. It's like Cub Scout camp, but not as intellectually developed. Chris and Alex stare into the fire, thinking about that million bucks. Wil and Tara, of course, start in as usual. "Now we have clues. We're not clue-less," Wil says, thinking he's funny. He's not, obviously. But you know that by now. "No," Tara says, stealing the line spoken on her behalf by all of the TARflies, "some of us are still clueless. But we have clues." Wil: "Who would that be, you?" He cackles at his own hilarity. Oh, yeah. That's some hilarity. Wil certainly is the Chuckles The Clown of this season. "Oh, God, you're such a jerk," Tara says, constantly shocked. "You're just such a jerk." Let me get this straight. She can come right out and call him clueless, and that's perfectly fine, but when he turns her comment around and says he thinks it applies more to her than to him, he's a jerk? That's some complicated behavioral judgment matrix she's got going. I think it must have a lot of footnotes.
The Teeth's plane lands, and they approach the igloo/fire gathering. Back at said gathering, Tara is at full throttle. "You have no social skills," she says. "You have the social skills of a gnat." I think she said "gnat," anyway. It's not a great line -- she sort of choked, because she's really angry. I'm also not sure we really know whether gnats have social skills or not -- they're certainly less annoying than Wil is, so they might actually resent the comparison. "You just treat people like dirt all the time, and you expect them to treat you nicely. I've been telling you this since the day I met you." Wil has his reply all ready: "Are you a nice person, Tara?" Tara: "Yeah, I am a nice person." "Are you a nice person to me?" She says she's been nice for years while he's been a jerk. We can't know whether that's true or not, of course, but she certainly hasn't been very pleasant to him for the last month or so. Go home, you two.
And here's the most intriguing moment yet. "I don't want you to get one penny," she says. "Of what?" he asks. "Of any money that you could win," she snots, as if she's just been so noble for so long that she can no longer bear it. "I'd rather not win the money so that you can not win the money," she says. Considering how the race ends, that's a mighty interesting comment, but honestly, I don't really think she means it. It's just more of her self-flagellating, cry-me-a-river, Joan-of-TARc routine. God, shut UP. She doesn't, though. (Do they ever?) She tells him again about treating people like dirt. She calls him a jerk again. Wil, because he has not observed anything that has occurred in his own life in the past thirty days, is confused. "Up until today, I thought we were getting along fine," he says. (TARflies: "Baaaaah!")
The Teeth approach the Adultery Alliance, having missed out on most of The Amazing Fireside Spat. They check in with the greeter (it's not a pit stop, but it has a cute greeter anyway), who welcomes them to Alaska. Back over by the fire, Princess Bitchety-Bitch is telling Wil how much more important to the team she is than he is. "I got you here, Wil. I've gotten you to every pit stop." She disappears into the igloo, her work all done. "Tomorrow's another day," an obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable Wil says to Boston.
Commercials. I must be hallucinating, because I thought I saw a commercial for the Honda Android. Somebody pinch me.
Teams strap on their snowshoes and take off across the tundra. When they reach the end of the little trail, they pull the clue. It tells them to get into a "Sno-Cat," which is like a big bulldozer, only for -- well, snow. (It's shocking how good I am at keeping up, isn't it?) They have to drive this monster thing across a frozen lake to the marker. Everybody climbs in pretty much simultaneously. Blake, Tara, and Chris are driving. Tara tells Wil she's driving the thing as fast as it goes, but he voices over that he was trying to get her to speed up a bit, because she was "a little bit slow, like a granny." He points out that Boston and the Teeth both passed them. (TARflies: "Yaaaay!") For whatever reason, Tara really seems to be genuinely unable to get her Cat to go any faster. "I have my foot on the gas!" she screams at Wil. "Whatever, Tara, whatever. I'm sick of you," he responds. Then he takes off his clothes, whistles "Yankee Doodle," and puts his fingers up his nose. Okay, he doesn't, but it would make as much sense as anything else he does in this sequence. "Your little buddies," Wil continues, "they're like fat, overweight, roly-poly pigs, and they've got like a ten-minute jump on us." I really don't know where to start. Chris and Alex are many things, but fat is not one of them. Also, Wil is being extremely redundant. Also-also, what would being fat roly-poly pigs have to do with being ahead in a bulldozer-driving race? I'm begging you, Wil -- shut up. I'll give you the million myself. One buck a week for a million weeks, if you'll just shut the hell up. "We'd be fifteen minutes ahead of them now if you weren't stupid," he rails. "This is your fault we're in last place," he finishes up. You know, just when I think she's just as bad as he is? He finds the stairs that lead down from the sub-sub-basement of annoying behavior in which they're currently living in sin.
The Teeth approach. They find the flag and head inside, where they pick up their tools.
Boston 4x4. Alex enjoys a refreshing sandwich while Chris continues to drive. Oh, and Chris also enjoys a refreshing sandwich. Enjoy a refreshing sandwich, won't you? They head across the gorge. Soundtrack, and specifically The Strings Of Mounting Tension: "[Bump-bump ba-da-da-da.]" After they cross the big nasty bridge, they reach a spot where there are three big ice globes on ice pedestals. They pull the clue, and it's a Roadblock. Pop quiz, hotshot: How many people can perform a Roadblock? That's right -- one. Because Phil tells us so, and Phil knows all. He explains that this time, the clues are frozen inside the ice globes. In order to get the clue out, the person who does the Roadblock is allowed to use all the tools they brought, which include the blowtorch, a saw, a chisel, a little hammer, a drill...methods abound. Now, notice that the Roadblock clue actually says that the person who does it "should be able to chip away at a challenge." If you were smart, you could take that as a hint. Chris takes the Roadblock. He straps on the big face mask and goes to work with the hammer and the chisel. He takes a few big whacks at it with just the little hammer, but when that fails, he goes back to chiseling. This seems to be the way to go, because big chunks quickly start falling off of the globe. In what looks like a reasonably short time, he reaches the middle and is able to pull out the clue. The clue instructs them to go to Oakland and then proceed to San Francisco (described as "the final city"), where they'll have to find Landmark #97, at the corner of Broadway and Jones. Phil explains (with some help from the drunken careening cameramen) that the landmark in question is the Atkinson-Escher House. Alex, incidentally, has picked up one of those horrible floppy hats like Rob wound up in last year at the end. Ugh.
Controversial, Fateful Boston Choice. Chris explains in the 4x4 that he and Alex have decided to go to Fairbanks rather than Anchorage to look for flights, because they've decided Fairbanks is a little bit closer. Alex goes all beer-blast as he waggles his head and says things like "finish line, baby" and "San Fran" and a lot of crap I'd rather not recall. They speed down the road.
Taraweasel shows up at the ice globes. When they read the clue, Wil takes it on. (Good move, Tara -- give him flames and sharp objects. Actually, never mind -- I don't actually want either of them to have flames or sharp objects, so it's all the same, I guess.) Now, you know how much I love the editors of this show, and you know what a crazy job I think they do with specific funny edits. But I have to say that this is one of the best-cut sequences they've done, just for pure humor, suspense, and pacing. It's really quite brilliant from this point up until everybody peels out of the parking lot.
And here we go. Wil dumps out the bag of tools. He immediately swings the hammer, giving a dramatic but very ineffectual whack at the globe. Tara tells him that he needs to put on the face mask and the goggles. He can't find the goggles, so Tara helps him. Then he can't find the face mask, so Tara helps him. She giggles at his ineptitude. "Shut up, man!" he yells, seeing absolutely no humor in this situation whatsoever. She isn't apologetic enough for him, so he tells her he's going to go sit on the bumper of the 4x4 until she shuts up. He actually is on his way over to sit down. Boy, he certainly is determined. [Eye roll.] "Do it, man!" Tara screams. (Why do I have a feeling they've had this conversation before?) After an adequate period of pouting, he finally goes to work, with goggles and face mask on. "Shut up!" he yells again, sort of at random. "What?" she says innocently. "You're like -- you're like --" He walks up and whacks the globe with his little hammer. Whack whack whacky-whack. Nothing doing, Weasel.
The Teeth approach. In the back of their 4x4, Blake says that he thinks Wil's attitude is hurting his team. Paige, no dummy, adds that she's not sure Tara's really any better. "I see her scream at him the same way he screams at her," Paiger intones, "and I don't really think that she's that much better than Wil." (Sizable subgroup of TARflies: "Wooo!")
Ice globes. Wil, of course, goes for the nastiest tool first, so he's trying the fire. When he lights the torch, he creates quite a big firehose-spewing-fire effect. He aims the fire at the globe. "Nice, nice!" Tara says. Of course, we don't really know how hot the fire really is, but it doesn't seem to be very effective on the globes. Of course, Wil doesn't stick with it or anything, so it's hard to say whether it would have worked once everything got nice and warm. Now Tara tells him to move the propane tank away from the fire he's spewing -- ooh, good point! He bends down to move stuff, and as he does so, he drags his plume of flames over toward his tools, and he winds up setting all his stuff on fire. No, really. The little tool bag is burning. Tara screams at him to turn it off. Cut. Now Wil is attacking the globe with the drill. He makes a nice long, very narrow hole. Which does nothing. Now he wails on it with the hammer some more. WHAP! WHAP! He insists he can't see with the face mask on, so he strips it off. (Which probably should be a penalty, but oh well.) thing you know, he's got it on again, so I think somebody stepped in and told him he needed to use the safety equipment. He keeps it up with the little hammer.
Heeeere come the Teeth! They pull up to the globes and hop out.
Wil continues to drill very tiny, very deep holes in the ice ball. Ha! Keep it up, Weasel, it's working like a charm! Blake, meanwhile, is running up with his bag of tools. Man, this Roadblock is PERFECT for Blake! The planning, the wild maneuvers, the eight ways to accomplish each step...no wonder he's giggling about how much fun it's going to be. He dumps out the stuff, throws on the goggles and the mask, and goes to work. He tries about two blows with the hammer, and immediately switches to the chisel. Wil, on the other hand, is getting some kind of a sexual charge from that drill, because he just does not want to put it down. He's actually managed to take a big bite out of the side of the globe, but he's getting nowhere.
Back at the Teeth Globe, Paige breathlessly says, "Oh, yeah, Blake. You're almost there. You're almost there." (Yeah, I know. But I'm leaving it alone, because I met their mom. And...normally, I try not to let that kind of thing affect the recaps, but...I met their MOM. What do you want from me?) Cut back to Wil, who is whacking the globe with the hammer. Frustrated, he tries shoving the globe off the stand onto the ground. Hee! Tara comes over and shows him where exactly in the globe the clue is (she probably shouldn't have done quite that much interfering, in the sense that she, the non-Roadblocker, actually lays hands on the globe), and Wil whacks it with the hammer some more. She recommends -- relatively gently, for Tara -- that he use the chisel. "No!" he yells. "Yes!" she yells back. Then they start making out. Just kidding.
Blake, chiseling. Wil, taking Tara's advice and using the chisel, and thus knocking half the globe off with one blow. "There you go, see?" she says. "I don't know why you never listen to me." Back to Blake, chiseling. (TARflies, chanting: "Blake! Blake! Blake! Blake!") Wil, looking at the globe on the ground. Tara is telling him that the clue is really close to the surface of the ice. "Can you get it?" she asks. "No," he says sadly. Blake, on the other hand, gives a couple more whacks and his clue comes right to him. Of course, he called it "baby," so what choice did it have? (TARflies: "WOOOOOOOOO!") He and Paige rip it open and rush to their 4x4 to head for the airport. Back at Wil's Ice Follies, he finally manages to pry the clue out of the ice, handing it immediately to Tara. "San Francisco, baby!" she says as they get into the car. Paige, in the Teeth car, is saying basically the same thing.
Wil, in the back of the Taraweasel 4x4, needs a backdrop of swelling violins for this sequence. He explains that he was raised in San Francisco. He even says his heart is there. Yes, Wil made some kind of a "heart in San Francisco" joke, I think, which is so vile I can't even tell you. He adds that Tara's dad was brought up there. Wow, this is getting spookily similar to Frank and Margarita's discussion in a very similar ice-traversing SUV last season about how great it was to be going back to New York. Watch out for the home court kiss of death, Wil!
We look in on the Teeth briefly, where Blake is getting his map out. Then it's back to Taraweasel, where she brings up the possibility that Fairbanks might be the better choice. "No," Wil says, "Anchorage." God -- I don't really care whether they go to Anchorage or Fairbanks, but it would be nice if they could manage to have a conversation about it that actually had something to do with the merits of the situation. In the Teeth car, Paige asks Blake whether he thinks Chris and Alex could have gone to Fairbanks instead. Blake says there's no way -- "You'd be crazy to go that way."
In the Boston 4x4, they're reevaluating their plan, even though they're now about halfway through it. Chris wants Alex to tell him that they did the right thing for sure, because Fairbanks was significantly closer. Alex looks at the map, and breaks the news to Chris that in fact, it looks like they were about halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks. This sort of makes their plan look bad, because the supposed proximity of Fairbanks was the entire point. They drive by a sign saying that Fairbanks is still one hundred forty-eight miles away. They're not sure they did the right thing. "Man," Chris sighs. They agree that it was a "real tough call," and they're just going to have to hope for the best. Alex explains the strategy one more time, as if willing it to be true: "Anchorage is a bigger airport, but I think Fairbanks is a little close-ah." I have to say, even knowing how it turned out, I think this was a lame move. Given the realities of bunching, the likelihood that they were going to get to Fairbanks soon enough for a flight that would leave before whatever flight the other folks got out on? Seems very, very small. It seems enormously more likely that they'll screw themselves. But then, what do I know? I never win anything. Alex looks pensive and chews his finger.
Commercials. The key to your child's health? Processed cheese.
Night. Fairbanks Airport. Boston pulls in. Chris voices over that they were about the same distance from Fairbanks and Anchorage, but since Fairbanks was an international airport, they were hoping they might get a direct flight to Oakland. I guess the idea is that the international airport will have long flights, but it also seems undisputed that Anchorage is the bigger airport generally. Dumb move, guys. (I'm assuming they know that Fairbanks to Oakland wouldn't be an international flight. They know that, right?) They notice that practically nothing is happening anywhere in the vicinity as they walk into the airport. Inside, strangely, they walk past a stuffed and mounted white dog-wolf thing on their way to a ticket counter. I think the budget for airport security might be a little bit limited, so they rely heavily on scaring you into behaving yourself. Once there, Boston inquires about the fastest way to get to Oakland. They know of one flight, but they'd like the nice ticket lady to check for any others. She says it's pretty much just that one. "So no one else in Alaska can get to Oakland before we get there," Alex tries to clarify. The lady replies that he's right -- except for anybody who might leave from Anchorage. D'oh! She asks whether any of the people he's trying to outrace could be in Anchorage. "Possibly," Chris says unhappily. "Most likely."
Speaking of Anchorage, here comes Taraweasel toward the airport, with the Teeth right behind. Wow, Blake has busted out another killer outfit. Hat! Jacket! Khaki shorts! Blue tights! I haven't seen this very, very bad shorts/tights look since last season when Kevin pioneered it. You know, it was wrong then, and it's wrong now. Taraweasel runs up to the counter and occupies both of the ticket agents, so when Blake and Paige show up, Wil tells them to go stand in line. Fortunately, I think Blake is intelligent enough to notice that Wil and Tara are unlikely to get the very last two seats anywhere, so he can probably just listen in and let them do all the work. In fact, Taraweasel might have been better off to encourage Blake to do his work at the same time they did, rather than after them. At any rate, they're routed from Anchorage to Portland (aw! Hi, Portland!) and then Portland to Oakland, arriving in Oakland at 9:02 in the morning. The Teeth get on the same itinerary.
Boston, in the Fairbanks airport, is inches away from confirming a Fairbanks-Seattle-Oakland route when one of the agents double-checks and notices that they can get there faster. How? By getting on a plane to Anchorage, and then going Anchorage-Portland-Oakland. Heh. Sure was a lot of driving for nothing, eh, fellas? (I kid, because -- well, like they care what I think now.) Turns out that by flying back to Anchorage, they get to Oakland at least half an hour earlier. Boy, if the gate agent hadn't caught that, I have to think they would have been entirely hosed, so...I hope they sent her a tip or something.
They board their plane from Fairbanks to Anchorage. Back at the airport, Taraweasel checks their backpacks, planning to just abandon them on the plane once they get to San Francisco. Interesting plan. They certainly don't need them anymore, I suppose. Wil also has noted the absence of Chris and Alex, and expresses his happiness at the fact that it's now down to just him and Tara and Blake and Paige. He declares that he now has a "fifty percent chance of winning this cash." Right on cue, Boston's plane lands outside. (Such a good show. Such a very, very good show.) As they de-plane, Alex voices over that they expect to find all the other teams inside, waiting for the same flight to Portland that they're on. He also hypothesizes that the other teams are probably full of predictions about where he and Chris have disappeared to. "It's gonna be interesting to see what's goin' on right now," he muses.
The Teeth and Boston spot each other in the airport. Neither is happy -- especially Blake. "We're not happy to see them at all," he voices over plainly, and who can blame him? Same with Wil, who can only say, "Damn it, man." Who is happy to see Boston? Tara, of course. She and Alex hug and nuzzle against the wall. Feh. For the nine millionth time, we see The Wallflower Wil Boogie as he complains bitterly that because he and Tara are partners in the race, she shouldn't be rubbing up against other teams. Wil? I heard you. I heard you the other twenty or thirty thousand times you've made this point, and you've been full of it on each and every occasion. I get it. You don't enjoy watching her make out with this guy. I don't blame you. Stop torturing yourself; she's not going to stop it, so you might as well roll your eyes and read a magazine. And stop pretending it's a problem with strategizing when it's actually a problem with "strategizing," if you know what I mean. And I am absolutely certain that you do.
The Anchorage-Portland flight takes off. Man, I miss Portland. Especially the fact that you can't drive three blocks without running into an espresso bar. No, you really can't. Anyway, The Amazing Yellow Line on The Amazing World Map shows us the flights, and before you know it, they've changed planes and they're approaching Oakland. Blake voices over that he believes that "the race is in fate's hands." Alex does the San Francisco variation on the copyrighted Esquire New York Insecurity Mambo, talking about how screwed they are by the fact that Tara and Wil know San Francisco and they don't. Wil tries on some overconfidence, talking about how no one can beat him in San Francisco. You know, this episode really does echo last year's finale in an awfully large number of ways.
Flight lands in Oakland. Everybody runs through the airport. Run, everyone, run! When they get outside, they all start screaming for cabs. Wil, instead of waiting in the taxi line, tries to grab one that's just in the process of unloading and is, therefore, scheduled to be sent over to the regular taxi line. Wil refuses to walk over to where he's supposed to stand, so he keeps trying to get the guy to take him out of turn. The Teeth, meanwhile, obediently go to the taxi line and wait. Wil and Tara continue arguing over this one cab. I have a feeling that if they had just not made a big deal out of this one particular cab, they could have been in line by now and avoided this attitude-induced delay. Back in line, Blake and Paige get their taxi, and they're away from the airport first. (TARflies: "Yaaaaay!") Blake sends the guy in the direction of San Francisco, and says, "I'll tell you the streets when we get there." Hmm -- Blake is going to try to navigate. Interesting choice. Chris and Alex are set up to get a taxi , while in their cab, the Teeth congratulate themselves on their calmness and courtesy. Okay, you're not as irritating as Wil, but seriously -- go floss yourselves.
Taxi Stand Hero scene. Wil and Tara bitch that the taxi stand guy is intentionally not getting them a taxi, because they acted so incredibly annoying before. "I'm not doing nothing on purpose," he says plainly. "We're in a race for a million dollars," Tara snots insufferably (in what we've been told by Team Jeebus is an unambiguous violation of a basic game rule). "I don't care," the taxi stand guy says. "I'm not gettin' it." HA! (TARflies: "Yaaaaaaaay, Taxi Stand Guy!") You know, I have waited and waited for some civilian to do this. Some of the teams are constantly, constantly playing the "I'm in a race" card, like everyone is going to fall over and kiss their toes just because they stand to win money. This guy is more like, "What have you done for me lately?" and they are forced to admit that the answer is, "Not a damn thing."
Very tense music ensues as Boston jumps into their cab. Alex tells the cabbie to go to "Boardman and Jones." That's Broadway, jackass. Is "Broadway" really that difficult to remember? Is "Boardman" easier? Alex makes my head hurt. In the cab, Chris strokes his chin pensively. Alex blathers about how everything matters, yak yak yak.
Wil and Tara are back at the taxi stand. Pssst -- c'mere. You know what? This is where they lost. No, really. They really did do better in the city than the rest of the teams. They were right on that count. I also think they were right that the taxi stand guy didn't exactly bust his ass to help them. And that means that if they had been polite and patient and gotten a cab at the beginning, they would have been out in front by the time the teams found the clue. In short, these two just gave up a million bucks because they couldn't be polite for thirty seconds. Hope they enjoyed yelling at the cab stand guy, because they paid $500,000 apiece for the privilege. Man, this is a great show.
Commercials. Kirstie Alley says not to breathe. But it's probably just something she picked up in Scientology, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
It was somewhere around this point in the episode that I, at my table at the Manhattan Chili Company, heard a great screech of delight come up. It was our early pack of Racers -- Brennan, Kevin and Drew, Danny and Oswald, and (I think) Nancy and Emily. Therefore, much of the ten minutes or so of this episode was basically lost to all of us, as the insane flood of people clustered at the top of the stairs and about four hundred pictures were snapped in a period of five minutes. More about all this in the upcoming TARcon recap, but...man, even if you think you know how much fun they are, you really don't.
Anyway. Wil and Tara, at the taxi stand. Wil has this pained expression that I could swear he's wearing just to fill my heart with joy. It works. "We were here, but the taxi guy decided to send the taxi on its way," Tara says. Too bad, so sad. "We just wasted about five or six minutes," she goes on to point out. They certainly lost by much, much less than that, so...would you care for a second helping of poetic justice? Let me warm a little up for you. We've got gobs and gobs of it.
They finally get a cab, and they take off, with Wil telling the driver that he'll give directions when they get there. You know, even in a place I've lived all my life, I wouldn't necessarily assume I know the way to a particular intersection better than a cab driver. I mean...the cab driver probably lives there too, doesn't he? Maybe not an Oakland airport cab driver, but still. Tara offers the driver money for his cell phone. Huh? What's to call ahead for? Don't they only know the Atkinson-Escher House thing? I'm confused.
Drunken cameramen careen around San Francisco. In the Teeth cab, Blake is giving the driver directions. Again, it makes no sense to me, but...I mean, especially because it's Blake, you know? I have such a fear that he will devise a tricky shortcut, and the thing you know, it'll be, "Welcome to Denver! You are the only team to arrive." Behind the Teeth is Boston, as they whiz across the Bay Bridge. (As opposed to "whiz off the Bay Bridge," which would be different. But also funny.) In the Taraweasel cab, Tara tries to compliment the driver, but of course Wil is having none of it. "We've got to make some time up," he gripes. (TARflies: "Shut UP, Wil!") Blake gives his driver more directions. Alex, once again, tells Boston's driver to take them to Boardman and Jones. I have no idea what Boardman and Jones are -- maybe it's a pair of soul singers he likes. Weird tense music takes us back to the Taraweasel cab, where a crazed Wil is giving directions. Tara once again compliments the driver, because in this type of situation, she is slightly superior to Wil. Wil congratulates himself for all the time he just saved.
Cable cars run over the drunken cameramen. It does nothing to slow the careening.
The Teeth bicker very, very gently in their cab about where to go. For whatever reason, Blake has the cabbie pull over at the Cable Car Museum. The hell? When he gets back in the cab, he says that essentially they stopped and looked just because it looked like an important building, and they thought they'd just make sure there wasn't a flag there before they went all the way to the place where the flag actually is. Yeah, okay. Once again, Blake's logic escapes me, but isn't that always the way?
Meanwhile, Boston hops out at the Atkinson-Escher house and pulls the clue. It tells them to go to Municipal Pier. Now, several things to keep in mind. First of all, they have to leave their cabs and proceed on foot. Second, it's not clear that there's actually a single Municipal Pier -- the one they're looking for seems to be Pier 39, but I must admit that it all became rather hard to follow at this point. Chris and Alex run along a residential street. Blake and Paige are approaching the landmark, but -- crap! -- Taraweasel gets there at the same time. They all de-cab, but initially have trouble spotting the clue box. When they do, they all dash for it at once. They tear open the clues, and they're off.
Boston runs up to a pleasant man, and Alex asks him, "Sir? Where's Municipal Pier?" "Which one?" the man asks in response. "There's only one, isn't there?" asks a horrified Alex. "No, there's like fifty of them," says Nice Directions Guy. Eek! "Fifty of them?" Alex repeats in a tone filled with dread.
The Teeth are running down a street, calling out the same question. Everybody wants Municipal Pier. Wil, on the other hand, claims to know where it is. He and Tara make a left and keep running. She asks if he's sure. "Yeah, dude," he says. "Dude"? Shut UP, Wil. Back to Boston, running. Everyone, incidentally, has now abandoned their packs, so it's just a lot of running. Boston keeps running. Taraweasel, running. The Teeth, running. Of course, the Teeth can't just run. Blake has to motivational-speak his way through it. "Everything you've got! A million dollars!" Paige hasn't exactly shown herself to be a wimpy girl, so I certainly hope he's talking to himself. In which case I would ask him to talk inside his head and not out loud, because he's annoying me.
Boston, still running. "Municipal Pier, is it down he-ah?" Alex asks. The Teeth, running. Taraweasel, running. You'll note, incidentally, that Tara is already dragging significantly behind Wil here. However, when we cut briefly to the Teeth and then back to the Weasel, Tara is actually out ahead of him. They're on the pier now, and they reach the clue box first. (TARflies: "Booooooo!") The clue tells them to go to the bottom of Murray Circle at East Fort Baker, and then to follow the race flags to the (gasp!) finish line. They run off. Wil, He Who Knows Where Everything In San Francisco Is, asks some passing folks where Fort Baker is. Then, he decides he knows where it is after all. Boston approaches, just as Taraweasel grabs a cab to scoot. Again, Tara is out in front of Wil, and she looks absolutely packed with energy at this point. Wil, of course, shrieks at everyone not to tell the other people. Tell them what, moron? And how dare you shout orders to strangers!? Who IS this idiot?
Taraweasel discusses their desperate need for a taxi and their great difficulty in locating one just as Boston runs up to the clue box. Chris is really, really, really tired, and completely out of breath.
Taxi Grabbing Sequence. Taraweasel stands in the street, screaming. Hearing Wil yell in desperation gives me much more of a sense of personal well-being than I really think it should. Boston stops and asks a cop where Fort Baker is, and he tells them it's across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Here come the Teeth, just approaching the clue at the pier. "We can do it, Paige!" Blake yells. "We can do it!" Thanks, Tony Robbins. As he runs by a few spectators, Blake asks whether they're the first team to run by. "No, third," the guy tells him. Ow. That kinda hurt. They pull the clue, and go to try to get a taxi.
"We shoulda gone to Fisherman's Wharf," Wil bitches. "But we didn't!" Tara says, reasonably enough. "Come on!" "Tara, we're making a wrong decision!" Wil whines. She relents, and they go. You'll notice that she's way out ahead of him again. They approach a taxi and offer the people inside fifty bucks if they can have their cab. Now, see, you can imagine how money might come in handy. You throw around fifty bucks, and some people will say yes, and some will say no. If you had five hundred? You'd have that cab. Don't laugh at frugality -- it's going to win somebody this race one of these days. Anyway, this particular person apparently doesn't need fifty dollars, because they don't get the cab. Heh. Boston tries the same thing -- begging the patron of a passing cab to climb out. Of course, if the person inside doesn't see the cameras and doesn't get what's going on, they're really going to find all this a little scary. I wouldn't get out of the cab, either. Boston, completely out of breath, spots another one and runs over to it. Blake and Paige, meanwhile, are running up a hill, and he's telling her some more that she can do it. Yeah, she KNOWS. Boston successfully begs the older gentleman standing to the cab they've just seen to give it up. Gasp! Progress!
Wil is inside a store, actually giving up and calling for a cab. Tara runs over to him just to tell him that Chris and Alex just got a cab. What's her point, exactly? What does this accomplish? It interrupts him, and it doesn't do anything to get a cab. So quit it. "They just got it, Wil, you're an IDIOT!" she screams. Yep. Very nice. Meanwhile, while she was bitching, he has actually gotten a cab, and at his bellow, she comes over and hops inside. "They're in one, too!" she complains. "You need to haul ass!" she yells at the driver. Don't you wish you could wait on these people in a restaurant someday? I know I do. She instructs the driver to run the red light. If I understand the rules correctly, I don't think she should really do that, but I suppose it's all water under the bridge now.
The Teeth find a friendly cabbie that tells them where Fort Baker is, but he can't drive them, because he's already occupied. Dang. It was at this point in the race that I realized that, weirdly...I was rooting for the Teeth. I was so, so weary of Boston and Taraweasel and their crap and their rule-stretching and their arrogance that I was sort of hearing a tiny voice in my head going, "Teeth! Teeth! Teeth!" Sigh.
In the Taraweasel cab, they note that they've actually wound up just ahead of Chris and Alex. Boston decides to stay on Taraweasel's tail all the way to Fort Baker. When Tara and Wil notice this, you'll note that Wil is the first to say, "We can't beat 'em in a footrace." Tara agrees. She tells the driver he's got to stake her and the Weasel to a bit of a lead going into the inevitable run at the end. Boston stays right on their tails.
Aww, the Teeth finally get a cab and hop in.
Again, Tara and Wil note that Boston is successfully staying right behind them. "We're never gonna beat 'em in a footrace," Tara says, repeating what Wil just said. So, of course, he yells at her. "Why are you giving up?" he demands. "Because I'm pissed at you, because you're constantly making bad decisions," she complains. "How can you blame me?" he asks, reasonably enough. "Why is it my decision?" She snaps back, "Because you know this city!" "But I don't know where the taxis are going to be at that fucking moment!" he yells. And Wil? Is exactly right on this one particular point. Blaming him for the cab fiasco a few minutes ago is utterly ridiculous. Tara takes a suck off an inhaler. Uh-oh.
In the Boston cab, a clearly exhausted Chris notes that they've already run several miles. In the Taraweasel cab, Wil is demanding that Tara "get some confidence." God, that is a really insidious and horrible piece of behavior. Look, you can EITHER tear her down, OR you can lecture her on her lack of self-esteem. You really can't do both. I mean, I don't want to go out on a limb here, but I'm thinking that the fact that you constantly call her stupid isn't doing wonders for her confidence, you know? Tara reiterates that Boston will beat them in a footrace. "I don't care," Wil says. "Run your ass off. Run your heart out. It means everything." Just a little pause here to say...no, Wil. It doesn't mean everything. It means winning a game show and a pile of money. Take it from me -- it does not mean everything. When she doesn't respond the way he wants her to, Wil sits back in his seat and suggests that they quit. Oh, super. She says AGAIN that Boston is going to beat them in a footrace. "No, they won't," Wil says, trying for an air of confidence.
Teeth cab. Blake reassures Paige that there's no way the other teams can be more than ten minutes ahead. Eek. That's...kind of a lot at this point, isn't it? Sigh.
Wil notices that his driver has a slight lead on Boston, and tries to get enough of a lead to lose them. Doesn't work. Wil starts giving random directions to his driver, trying to shake Chris and Alex. He lays out his plan as follows: They're approaching a place where he's going to tell his driver to pull over. Then he and Tara will wait for Chris and Alex to jump out, and then they'll speed away. Wow. What an impressive plan, Boor-is and Not-tasha.
The more interesting conversation is in the Boston cab, where two race strategies are being debated without their even really knowing it. Alex basically knows that they're going the wrong way, so he just wishes they hadn't followed Wil and Tara. Chris, on the other hand, believes that it doesn't really matter whether it's the right way or the wrong way -- what matters is that they stay with Wil and Tara, because they've got to get out of the cab sometime, and when they do, it'll be a footrace. I think there's a small hole in both of these teams' strategies, which is BLAKE AND PAIGE, but I suppose if they know how far behind those two fell, it might not be that big a deal. Still risky, though. Wil has his driver pull over. Alex and Chris are looking around to see whether this looks like it could be a circle at a fort. They're dubious from the beginning.
The real problem with Wil's plan is that he didn't think it through. He needed to make his ruse more complete, and if he had, it might have worked. They bungle it immediately, though, by failing to jump out of the cab. "We're going to get out like we're going," Tara says to the cabbie as Wil climbs out. "You need to back up and turn this bad boy around." They casually get out of the cab, and that's why Chris and Alex aren't fooled. "Get back on the bridge, get back on the bridge," Alex says. "Yeah, they're fakin' it up, man," Chris adds. So in a sense, this plan "worked," in that Boston stopped following Wil and Tara. But in the sense that Wil intended to fool Boston into thinking this was the fort, it didn't work. I think that, for one thing, Chris and Alex are thinking about the Teeth and realizing that they can't screw around with Wil all day.
Boston stops to ask directions to East Fort Baker, as Wil and Tara take off for the fort on foot. Huh? What seems to happen here is that from where they were, Boston gets directions and gets a cab to Fort Baker, whereas Wil and Tara start running up a big hill, because Wil thinks you can just run straight to the Fort. Wil quickly realizes that this is not the case. Tara yells that he's an idiot. Again. He screams for her to shut up. Again.
(I don't really remember when it was, but I slid my chair over to lawtalkin' guy at some point during the later stretches of the episode and said into his ear, "Are they going to win? Seriously, are they going to win? They are, aren't they? They're going to win." He was unable to make me any promises one way or the other. ["Across the room at around the same time, I began praying aloud that Bruckheimer just wanted us to think they were going to win, and that they therefore would not. Which worked out for me, but it was a dicey few minutes." -- Sars])
Boston asks directions from a guy in a truck, which seems to be one of their primary race strategies. Meanwhile, in the Taraweasel cab, she's berating him, which we know is one of her primary race strategies. "Was that really a smart move?" she snots. Well, actually...sort of. They fight some more. "You're stupid, though," she says to him. "I mean, I hate to say it, Wil, but why would you put us at a dead end?" First of all, she doesn't hate to say that he's stupid. She loves to say that he's stupid. She says it all the time. If she hated saying it, she would just not say it. Second, it wasn't THAT bad of a move. She was the one telling him constantly that there was no way they could win if it came down to a footrace, so he tried to find a way to separate the cabs. I mean, the fake-out thing was stupid, but I'm not sure it was all that wrong for him to try to do something.
In the Teeth cab, Blake is delivering a chin-up speech to a clearly distressed Paige. He tells her she "did unbelievable," and she smiles. They have a little hug and agree that it was a hell of a trip. Aw.
Boston catches up with Wil and Tara. Wil and Tara duck down, hoping Boston won't see them and know it's them. Too late. Boston knows it's them. I actually think both of these teams are disappointed, because they both thought they might have ditched each other successfully. Taraweasel's cab gets a bit ahead of Boston's as they approach the fort. She's thinking about how much of a lead she needs to avoid being passed by Boston. "You give me 200 yards, I can maybe do it, if it's not a long distance," she says. Both teams fly down the road toward the fort. The Teeth are on their way as well.
Taraweasel's cabbie assures them that Boston is almost half a mile behind. They spot the flag and get ready to run. They start running. Chicka-wacka-chicka-wacka music starts to play as they start running up a long road. (TARflies: "Noooooooo!") This time, Tara is lagging from the beginning. Boston jumps out of their cab, and now they're running too. Up on the road, Wil is now way, way ahead of Tara. She's yelling to him that she can't make it that far. Wil continues to run way ahead of her. (Danny: "Run, Weasel, run! Run, Weasel!") The camera is on Wil. Then it cuts back to a wide shot of her, substantially behind him. Then it sliiiiiiides back along the path to pick up Boston, dashing into the picture. (TARflies: "Wheeeeeeee!") Cut to Phil, up on the mat in his dashing long black jacket. Mmm, Phil.
Now, it's time for The Incredibly Fakey Other-Teams-Cheering shots. I don't know why, but a bunch of these shots of the other teams up at the mat look extraordinarily, hideously phony. It's impossible to explain whether the light looks wrong, or they're...making funny faces? I don't know. It just doesn't look genuine. But there are Deidre and Hillary, and Norm and Hope, and the Grannies. Hi, Grannies! Wil, running. Tara, lagging behind. Boston, gaining on them! (TARflies: "Wooooo!") Wil, way too far ahead. (Danny again: "Ruuuuun, Weasel!")
Hey, look! The Teeth! They hop out of their cab. Cut to incredibly phony Xerox shot. Then one of Jeebus that might be genuine. Then back to Boston, running up the hill. "I can't, Wil," Tara says to him defeatedly. "I can't do it, Wil, they just passed me." And indeed they did. (TARflies: "Wooooo!") Wil yells at her one last time, but it just ain't happening. Boston catches up with Wil as they ascend one last set of stairs. (Though I think it's fair to say in Wil's defense that if he didn't know Tara was way, way behind him, he might have been able to stay ahead of Boston.) Cut to Mary and the Fruit, cheering. Aww, hi, Fruit! Very fake shot of Thunk, very fake shot of Cha-Cha-Cha.
Aaaaand coming up the row of flags, it's Boston. Up the path, past the teams, onto the mat, BAM! They dive on each other and fall on the mat. And then they start making out. Just kidding. They're really, really happy, though, for obvious reasons. Wil walks up toward the mat unhappily. HA! Phil, up on the mat, congratulates Boston on their victory. They hug Phil. Aww. When Phil tells them they've officially taken home the million, Chris picks up Phil like a bride being carried over the threshold. Phil chuckles. Marry me, Phil. Let's ditch these dummies and see the world.
Wil looks on in agony. What this reminds me of is 1991, when Duke beat UNLV in the Final Four -- very, very unexpectedly. I still have that game on tape, and I still watch it occasionally. And although I love everything about it, there is nothing I like more than the very end, after Duke won, when CBS gave me a long, lingering look at a weeping UNLV cheerleader. Ahhhhh, that's the ticket. I feel the same way about watching Wil suffer. I realize it's very, very mean, but he truly and honestly earned every bit of it. He didn't deserve to win, and he didn't win, so from my corner of the world? All is well. When Tara appears, they can't resist taking up the blame game. It starts, of course, because she realizes that this looks like it was sort of her fault, so she quickly points out that he was the one with the non-brilliant Dead End Plan, which is true. He points out that they passed Boston after that, so the Dead End Plan is not to blame, which is also true. Neither of them really wants to discuss the fact that their joint behavior back at the taxi stand is a large part of the issue, because they're equally responsible for that, so where's the fun in sharing the blame? "We could've had ten minutes on them," she counters. Oh, really? How's that? They were following you, dear, right up until the admittedly stupid Dead End Plan was implemented. Where were you planning to get ten minutes?
Stealing liberally from Esquire on the mat last season, Alex delivers a speech almost identical to Rob's about how great the competition was, and how it motivated him, blah dee blah. That's nice, but really, man -- write your own speech time. Tara and Alex hug, Chris and Wil hug, and they all pretend they don't hate each other. Isn't that sweet?
Aww, and here come the Teeth. Valiant effort, kids. (Blake told me they were behind by about four minutes.) Paige voices over that they loved the race, they got to do the whole race, and they're not disappointed. Blake interviews about how much he looooves Paige. Which is cute. And scary. Just kidding. They hug. And then they start making out. Just kidding again. (Hey, I didn't meet their mom for THAT long.)
Wil interviews about how he'll eventually get over coming in second. I try really, really hard not to enjoy it, because he's so sad. I hate gloating, so I try really hard not to do it. But, you know...heh. Cut to Tara, being hugged and loved by Boston. Wil talks about wishing he could "make one different decision" (I would suggest, "Day One: Do Not Act Like A Giant Prick"), and then he cries. Wil, I just...don't care. He goes on to say that he and Tara are done (oh, really?), and now he wishes her luck and so forth. In what is revealed to be the joint interview where he's saying this particular thing, she pats his arm. She goes on to say that she doesn't feel bad about anything she did, except maybe some of the names she called Wil (although I hear it was really all editing), and she's not disappointed with the way the race turned out. Yeah, very moving. ANYWAY.
Russell hugs Wil like Wil has an untreated case of head and body lice.
Alex and Chris interview about how incredibly difficult the race is. Alex, quite gracefully and quite accurately, chalks a lot of the win up to fate, pointing out that there was a lot of dumb luck involved. And there was. They talk about what a great team they were, but unfortunately, neither of them says "I did it with my best friend," so I feel a little deprived. Alex ruins my affection for the final moments of the race by actually returning to the theme of Amazingness. "That's the only word to describe it -- amazing," he says. Ugh. He talks about how frustrating it is, how up and down it is...and Chris, sitting right there in the "I Won The Big One At The Rambler's Roost" shirt, looks on with an air of satisfaction. He has nothing to say about amazingness. Thank you, Chris.
Group shot, pull back, and we are out of here.
So, did Tara dog it at the end? I will admit that just as the race ended, I leaned over to whoever it was that was near me at the time and said, with some shock, "She threw it! She threw it, didn't she?" Whoever it was shrugged, as I recall. But when I saw it again, it just didn't look like she could have. She was much too obnoxious to the cabbie. She was much too stressed out when they didn't get where they were going. And there was, of course, that inhaler. For all the crap I've given her this season -- and I think she deserved most of it -- I don't think she let Boston pass her on purpose. Now, having said that, I'll say this as well: she didn't fall back on purpose, but she also didn't have the burst of energy that I think teams can get at critical moments when they can feed off each other in a positive way. Had they been having more fun, had she trusted Wil more, had they had more of a joint sense of purpose, I certainly don't dismiss the possibility that she could have dug a little deeper down the stretch. Did she dog it consciously? No. Did the negativity that hangs around their necks like twenty-pound rocks affect her at the end? Probably.
And one other thing. I've heard a lot (and said more than a little bit) about how certain aspects of this ending resemble last year's. And I can see where all of it comes from, but I have to say this much -- if you think these people are Esquire and Danza redux by any stretch of the imagination? Forget it.
Executive Producer? Jerry Bruckheimer -- and The Amazing Bert.
You know, it's still just a really good show. Sometimes, it's a little maddening, but it's so strong technically that even when things go a little awry (I think the teams weren't as compelling as personalities this go-round), it's great to watch. Thanks again to all involved for a good, good season. And sometime soon, stay tuned for the TARcon recap, where you will hear all about the TARflies making a joyful noise in New York. ["Rumor also has it that there's an interview in the offing with some old friends." -- Sars] So don't go away just yet.