Previously on Your Loins In The Fountain: After a record-breaking seven legs in Europe (the longest stretch on any continent in the show's history), it was time to go to Kuala Lumpur and play with digital cameras. When that was over, it was off to Singapore to meet some mermaids or, in the alternative, a strange man with a great big mole. Flo and Drew continued the plodding flirt, while Zach at last started showing signs of a long-overdue slow burn. Kenny flipped Flo's switches just to see what lights and sirens would go on. Kodak got a PR boost, while the YMCA took a rhetorical slam, but landed a practical advantage by not actually having to accommodate Flo. After sliding a bit in recent legs, Derek and Drew resumed their winning ways, and finished first. Teri and Ian blew an early lead, but in the end, they managed to land on the mat ahead of John Vito and Jill, who were Philiminated and rode off into the sunset. "Who will be eliminated..." Trent Lott apologizes several more times. "…tonight?"
Credits. The word "harpy" comes from the Greek Harpyia, a reference to winged, clawed creatures with the faces and bodies of women. Boys are widely believed to have a better sense of direction than girls at young ages. Zagat's has called New York's Proof a "win-win" location, particularly complimenting its "cave-like" downstairs lounge. [BOMP.]
Weird time-lapse sky footage brings us back to Singapore. (Hey, there's Kevin, face-down in the gutter! Shout-out!) Phil explains that Mount Faber was the tenth pit stop. Unfortunately, the shirt Phil is sporting is a weak, dirty brown. People, people -- blending Phil into the ground like this will not make heartbeats accelerate. Eat-sleep-mingle looks like it was oodles of fun at this pit stop, if only because they had dinner at Pee Wee's Playhouse. Or at least it looks like they did, judging by the brightly-colored cartoon chairs. I can't help but notice that the table is getting pretty small. That may seem unimportant, but it's the kind of thing that used to make the Big Brother houseguests contemplate their own mortality and stuff. Ah, thoughts of the Big Brother houseguests' mortality...good times. Anyway, clues and sealed envelopes and crack-monkey Exposition Hands all participate in explaining the rules of the game. Over a shot of an allegedly seductive Flo lolling about while swathed in white sheets, Phil wonders whether the tension between Zach and Flo will do them in. He also wonders whether Teri and Ian, who he tells us again are the oldest team ever to get this far, will rise from last place or be booted.
10:22 PM. Derek and Drew. They open the clue, which tells them to go to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and find a statue of Bac Ho (who Phil explains is the same person as Ho Chi Minh) in Rex Square. The twins count their money, which turns out to be one hundred dollars for the leg. They voice over that their sense is that everyone is trying to get rid of them, because everyone watched the last two seasons, and everyone knows that according to lore, the young and buff shall inherit the big toy check, if you know what I mean. And I think you do. They hunt for a cab to the airport.
10:33 PM. Ken and Gerard rip open their clue. In what's really a rather funny development, they explain that they ordered two cabs to be there when they were leaving, in case Derek and Drew -- who they knew would be leaving ahead of them -- poached one of them. When Derek and Drew encounter one of these cabs, however, the vigilant and excellent driver says, "Mr. Ken?" The twins are incredibly inept liars, as they admit in a voice-over, so rather than claiming to be Ken, they try to bribe the cabbie to take them, but he won't. He's really very dutiful, so props to the cabbie. Elsewhere, however, Ken and Gerard pile into what is presumably their other cab. As was pointed out on the forums, this makes you feel kind of bad for the vigilant cabbie who fended off Derek and Drew, because presumably he got completely hosed for sticking to what he was supposed to do and not just asking for an extra ten bucks to take the twins to the airport. As the twins continue hunting for a cab, they basically bicker over how stupid they are for not just lying and pretending to be Ken. Aw. It's like an O. Henry story, isn't it? Gerard and Kenny got an extra cab so that Derek and Drew could try to screw them and steal it, and then Derek and Drew couldn't bring themselves to screw them and steal it...it's like any traditional holiday story, only with more scheming and mistrust. And more big shiny teeth.
10:34 PM. FloZach. They open the clue and leave. Flo is wearing a flower in her hair. Yeah, that'll be cute, until the guys in airport security think you're using it to conceal stolen microfilm and you wind up spread-eagled on somebody's Samsonite soft-sided Pullman, crying your eyes out. "Run, Zach!" she commands as they leave the mat. Interestingly, "Run, Zach!" is something I have screamed at my television many times this season, so I'm happy that for once, Flo and I are seeing eye-to-eye. Zach, in a voice-over: "Sometimes Flo screams at people. Yells at people. I'm looking forward to never having Flo yell at me again, because I hate the way it feels." Hmm. I wonder what that means. It certainly doesn't sound like it bodes well for their future friendship, because if he's ever going to see her again, one would assume she's going to yell at him. Maybe he's moving to Antarctica to research penguins or something. At this point, you couldn't blame the guy. They run and look for a cab. As they're looking, Ken and Gerard drive by and wave. "How did they get a taxi?" Flo wonders. Well, by calling one, pumpkin head. Derek and Drew, meanwhile, stop to borrow a cell phone from some young women. Ah, the Estrogen Brigade lives! This time, however, they're not a curse, so Derek and Drew wind up just having the girls call the cab for them directly.
Ken and Gerard borrow their cabbie's cell phone so that they can start checking up on flights. Elsewhere, Zach goes upstairs somewhere to call a cab. "Zach, hurry up," Flo says impatiently, fanning herself with her clue. Boy, with the flower behind her ear, she does look like quite the peevish princess. Peel her a grape, dammit! Derek and Drew, meanwhile, grab their cab at last.
Gerard opens the flight investigation by asking when the flight is from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City. There's nothing direct available anytime soon, so he starts asking about possible connections. He learns that there's an 11:30 PM flight to Kuala Lumpur (which I think is Klingon for "lumpy koala"), where they can presumably then look for a flight to Vietnam.
10:45 PM. Asshat. They read the clue, and Ian explains in a voice-over that he was in the military during the Vietnam War. He says that he was happy to come home, and has mixed feelings about going back. Can't blame the guy for that.
Flo is trying to flag down a taxi, but the one she tries to nab is actually already carrying Derek and Drew, so it keeps going. "We should have stopped," Drew laments to Derek as they zoom off, although of course there wouldn't have been room in the cab for another team and its crew, so that would have accomplished nothing. Flo yells after the cab. Inside, Drew seems to think Flo might have wanted something (chicka bamp!), but Derek points out that she was obviously just after the cab. In an interview, Drew says, "I like Flo because she knows what she wants, and she goes after it." I suppose if "going after it" means "complaining and yelling and threatening to cry until someone gives it to you," he might be right. Derek, on the other hand, interviews that he's working on keeping Drew focused, because "this really isn't the best time to be courting someone." Courting? Golly. Flo will be the first girl in "courting" history to drop her white glove and scream, "Pick it uuuuuuuup!"
Flo and Zach get a cab at last. They also beg the use of the cabbie's cell phone to work on flights. Teri and Ian are leaving right behind them, and after being passed by FloZach's cab, they luck into a taxi, too. And sure enough, they also use the cabbie's cell phone to nail down flights. It's awfully suspicious to me that they all did this at the same time. I have to wonder whether they talked about this strategy or clarified whether it was all right or something, because prior to this episode, they've been waiting to get to the airport to check on flights, and now everybody is all over the cell phones. Maybe this is where I should become a conspiracy theorist. I demand a Congressional investigation! FloZach and Asshat both book flights from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, though FloZach's is at 6:00 AM and Asshat's is at 6:50. Ian left the fifty extra minutes so that he could yell "Come on!" at Teri three hundred times.
Derek and Drew, interestingly enough, are not pursuing the cell phone option. They're like the Buck Weaver of the cell phone ticket-buying conspiracy.
Zach is discussing the available flights on the phone, and it comes up that there's an 11:30 flight out of Singapore. Flo points out that it's 11:00 already, so they have no shot at the 11:30. Elsewhere, however, the Bald Snark are discussing the same flight, and they're holding out hope that they may get on it. They know it's going to be extremely close, so they're planning to hurl themselves enthusiastically out of the cab when they get to the airport. They thank their driver for doing such a great job getting them to the airport, and when he pulls up, they indeed engage in the aforementioned self-hurling. Unfortunately, Kenny starts into the airport still clutching the fare in his hand. Heh. Gerard calls him back to pay the driver. When they get there, they find Malaysia Airlines and note happily that Derek and Drew are not there yet. The Bald Snark voices over that they have absolutely no interest in being accompanied to the finish line by the Four Big Arms if they can avoid it, because as Derek and Drew stated earlier, the Four Big Arms have a way of crossing the finish line first.
At 11:03, Derek and Drew arrive outside. Inside, Ken and Gerard are making arrangements to get on the 11:30 flight. At 11:05, the music thumps ominously as the plane prepares to take off. Inside, Derek and Drew wander. At 11:07, the Malaysia Airlines lady tells the Bald Snark to shake a leg, because they're closing the gate for the flight any time now. They take off running through the airport, while Derek and Drew talk to a ticket agent about the lack of direct flights to Ho Chi Minh City tonight. At 11:09, we see the plane's engines start to roar. (Oh, it's probably not actually their plane, but...who really cares?) At 11:10, the Bald Snark is running for the plane. Run, Ken and Gerard, run! After Derek and Drew are turned away at the ticket counter, they look at the Arr/Dep board, which shows the 11:30 flight. "There's no way anyone got on that," Derek scowls.
Cut to the plane rising into the sky, going from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Inside, Kenny kisses the top of Gerard's head. Yay, Bald Snark! They're very happy to be on the plane with no one else in sight.
In the FloZach cab, they're arranging their flights. "Ask her to hold seats for the twins," Flo urges as Zach works the phone. Oh, ew. There are only four teams left, dear. It's much, much too late to go that far in the pursuit of an alliance of any kind. Now she's just being stupid. Zach, however, goes along, knowing that if he doesn't, it's going to be four hours of nonstop screaming. For maximum emotional impact, we see him edgily say, "First name 'Drew,' D-R-E-W..."
D-R-E-W, on the other hand, is lining up his own flight. When he calls, however, he's told that he's already on the list. "They already booked it for us?" Derek asks after he's off the phone. "Yeah, someone must've," Drew answers with a slightly embarrassed smile, like that guy who finds out that a girl he just met the other day bought him a watch. FloZach arrives, and Flo is still wearing her flower. (No, that is not a euphemism. Yuck.) I will bet you a buck that flower has something to do with Drew. He gave it to her, or they were at dinner together when she got it, or he told her he thought it was almost as pretty as she was, or some crap along those lines. She is precisely the girl who would do that, especially for the purpose of making sure Zach saw it. Because I know enough about this show to know what the B.O. is like at this point, and I'm telling you that a flower in your hair is going to be pretty damn incongruous. Ian and Teri arrive at the airport at almost exactly the same time, and Ian is as chipper as all get-out today, even doing a little dance with the luggage cart. Some kind of wacky light jazz plays as he explains that they're trying to "savor the good moments." I suspect that part of what you're seeing here is overcompensation for how emotionally difficult he's afraid it's going to be to go back to Vietnam. For which, I might add, I don't blame him a bit. He spots the twins and seems happy that everyone is still bunched up together.
Nerd Lust meets up in the airport. Drew laughs and tells the story of calling to book their flight and learning it was already booked. Ian is nearby and takes note of this remarkably foolish move on Flo's part, while the twins say, "That's so great, thank you." Ian inquires as to the whereabouts of Ken and Gerard, and the twins offer the theory that the Bald Snark went back to the hotel to book their tickets. Heh heh.
Teri offers a bitterly-tinged voice-over to the effect that FloZach made reservations for the twins. It never ceases to amaze me how hurt and offended Teri often sounds when she talks about the way the other teams make alliances that don't include her, because I would think that having been so rude to everyone, she wouldn't care anymore. Clearly not the case, however. Ian quite correctly notes that if Nerd Lust keeps it up with the alliance, it's bound to "bite them in the butt" sooner or later. Oh, look, pigs are flying by as I find myself saying, "Ian, I couldn't have said it better myself." As Asshat walks through the airport, Ian comments that he and Teri have their tickets, so he doesn't even care if no one else will sit with them at the lunch table. He doesn't need friends! He is starting his own club and you can't be in it!
Ken and Gerard land at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. As Gerard wheels Kenny through the airport on a luggage cart, he does the same heel-kicking dance that Ian was doing. It's weird, the synergy this week. They talk about how they're relieved to be ahead of everyone, having been the only team to catch the 11:30 flight.
Back at the airport in Singapore, Nerd Lust heads for the 6:00 AM flight, while Asshat lines up for the 6:50. Ian says that he thinks everyone will be on the same flight from Kuala Lumpur to Ho Chi Minh City, so he's hoping for the big bunch. On the 6:00 AM Nerd Lust flight, Flo slumps in her seat, looking distressed (she's stuck with her partner, rather than her new flirty-flirt, which really takes it out of a girl), while both bespectacled twins try to catch a snooze. Asshat's flight takes off at 6:50. The Amazing Yellow Line makes the short hop on The Amazing World Map.
In the Kuala Lumpur Airport, Ken and Gerard head over to buy their tickets to Ho Chi Minh City. When they're securely on the flight, they check with the ticket lady about whether the other teams are on the flight as well, and she confirms that they all are. Ken and Gerard are quite disappointed by this enormous bunch, which just ate their five-hour lead. Yuck. It's a harsh mistress, you know.
Commercials. Adopting a baby? Be prepared to get out your credit card.
Kuala Lumpur Airport. Nerd Lust strolls in, with all nerd glasses ablaze. Asshat soon follows. At what is presumably the gate for the flight to Vietnam, the teams all are reunited. "They are going to rub it in our faces," Kenny says, regarding the loss of their lead. As they approach, however, Derek and Drew just turn to each other and exchange Mr. Burns-ian "Eeeeexcellent"s, which was pretty funny, actually. Ian looks on the non-bright side, as usual, by saying that he's not happy they're all together, although he's glad not to be behind.
The flight to Vietnam carries all four teams. The Amazing Yellow Line slides over to Ho Chi Minh City. When they all land, they have to go through customs -- a process we usually don't see, probably because it's generally very boring. There are several customs lines. Flo winds up in the same one with Derek and Drew (unsurprisingly), while Zach is in another one. Zach voices over that he picked one line and Flo picked another -- somehow, I suspect the fact that hers was the same one as Derek and Drew is not a coincidence, considering that she seems to have attached herself to Drew with a length of fishing line. Flo gets through customs with the twins before Zach is through, and the twins take off in a cab. Zach explains that Flo wanted him to cut in the customs line that she had been in, and he "didn't feel comfortable" doing that, and decided to stay in his own line. Meanwhile, Ken and Gerard get out of the airport and run for a cab, as does Asshat, meaning that FloZach is bringing up the rear out of the airport.
When Flo and Zach get into their cab, she slams the door as hard as she can, because Miss Flo is displeased, and she doesn't want you to miss it. As if such a thing were possible.
The cameramen careen around Ho Chi Minh City until they come to rest on Derek and Drew, who are in their cab. They're aware that they've gotten out of the airport first, and they're making their way to Rex Square. Elsewhere, the FloZach cab proceeds in silence, because Flo is working her pouting as hard as possible, and Zach is trying almost as hard to avoid getting into it with her. "You can't win this race without cutting lines, Zach," she says finally, unable to hold it in any longer. "I disagree," he says evenly. He tries to argue that they're really not that far behind, but she insists that indeed, they are horribly and irretrievably behind. "There is no reason to be in the back right now," she whines. And then Flo uncorks what may well be the most unintentionally funny line in the history of this show. Ah, screw it -- it is the most unintentionally funny line in the history of this show. She says, "I don't work all day and all night to be in the front to get screwed because of something so stupid." Excuse me, did she say "work all day and all night"? Would that be the part where she wouldn't do the rappel? Where she wouldn't do the bungee jump? Where she wouldn't carry her own pack? Where she didn't drive and couldn't read a map? Where she completely and utterly gave up when she thought they were behind and about to be eliminated? Where she has done one Roadblock out of the eight they have encountered so far? (Zach did the dolphins, the Highland Games, the soccer, the tannery, the archery, the bike, and the pretend non-Roadblock at the fountain. Flo? Sold snails.) Good grief, what does Flo do for them, anyway? She buys tickets for other teams. She makes him find accommodations, and then complains about them (the game my Administrative Law professor used to call "Go Find A Rock...Oh, No, Not That Rock"). And now she wants to claim that she works and works and works, only to have her efforts undermined by his uncooperative ass? That is jaw-dropping self-delusion, to the point where I almost feel bad for her. None of this behavior is going to improve until she's aware of it, and she appears to be unaware.
A brief interlude during which we see some other teams driving in their cabs.
Aaaand now it's back to FloZach. She is still complaining. Still. Complaining. If you look at Zach, he's doing this blinking and half-nodding thing like he's about to blow up. I keep having this weird vision where he suddenly turns to face her, opens his mouth, and exhales a gigantic fireball that reduces her head to a little lump of charcoal. And then there is this pause while Zach takes a few deep breaths. And then you hear the lump of charcoal scream in this high little voice, "And another thing!" Anyway, back in reality, Flo is still going strong. "I picked the line that finished first! I did my share!" You know, it is so like Flo to consider it "doing her share" when she did something that was entirely out of her control and didn't require her to...you know, do a damn thing. "You should've done it!" she barks. "I asked you to do it, why didn't you do it?" ("It" is presumably cutting in line.) Zach, barely holding on: "Because I told you, I didn't feel comfortable asking them. I thought it was a dick move to do to the people behind us. I didn't think it would hurt us. I still don't think it's going to hurt us." She looks dissatisfied.
Ian is looking out the cab window. "It looks, uh, very much the same as it did the last time I was here." Teri comments, "You set your mind on what you need to do, and you do it. And for Ian [note: she's not mad at him, so she says 'Eee-an'], that was coming back from a horrible experience -- I mean, he really doesn't talk about it very much -- and going on with his life." That was really cool, the way that comment started out sounding like it was about the race, and wound up being about coming home from a war. No, I'm serious -- that was cool.
Drums pound as Derek and Drew approach Rex Square. They hop out of the cab and walk up to the clue box. Music: "[DUMP-DUMP-bucka-bucka...DUMP-DUMP-bucka-bucka...]" The clue sends them into the Mekong Delta, where they'll look for a route marker at the edge of what Phil calls a "famous floating market" in Cai Be. In their cab, Derek and Drew get on the way.
Ken and Gerard get to the clue box. They offer their cabbie extra money if he can get them where they're going fast. He agrees.
Ian and Teri get to the clue box, get their clue, and go. They are followed by FloZach. From the time they pull up and stop, you can see that Flo is still in a pout over the customs thing. Truly unbelievable. They de-cab and walk to the box, and she petulantly pulls out the clue, making a great display of her unhappiness the entire time. They take the clue and get back in their cab.
On the road to the Mekong Delta, Ken and Gerard are happy to be in second place. Derek and Drew in first place, however, are struggling with a taxi driver who seems very reluctant to go very quickly. They needle him to go faster. He is concentrating hard on grinding the gears, though, so he doesn't have that much energy to spare.
Asshat, on the other hand, is pleased as punch with their driver. "Probably some land mines still out there," he comments as he looks out the cab window. He says in a voice-over that 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, and that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died. "Those men didn't die in vain," he says, clearly genuinely getting some peace from seeing that the country where he saw so much that was so bad has done well since he left. "It's sad, but it's over," he goes on to say.
Out of the deep end! Into the shallow end! Derek and Drew are still asking their cabbie to go faster. It doesn't work, though, because Asshat's excellent cab driver has gone right by them. The twins finally hit on a successful strategy, which is telling their cabbie that they need to catch up with their friends. This seems to kick the cabbie into easing up toward the Asshat cab. He passes them, but Teri and Ian pass right back. "This is what I call racing through Vietnam," Ian says, somewhat nonsensically.
FloZach. "You done?" he says wearily, apparently hoping that now that they're this far removed from it, she can shut up and move on. "No," she says flatly. She starts in yet again. "This is not a joke, Zach. Do you understand this is not a joke to me?" He looks out the window. "I'm just trying to enjoy the race," he says, actually trying to keep from throwing her out of the cab. He voices over that he's well aware that if he loses his cool, it's over for the team, because Flo certainly isn't going to hold it together on her own. But back in the cab, she's still at it. "I'm taking this seriously," she whines. "So am I," he says. "No!" she whimpers. "You're totally trivializing the whole thing." Flo, there is no such thing as "trivializing" an argument over cutting in line. And why? Because it's already trivial! There is nothing you can do to trivialize it! It's like trivializing Pez. Pez are already trivial. You can't trivialize Pez, or arena football, or the Grammy Awards. These things are already trivial, and so is an argument about cutting in line that should have been over three minutes after it happened. "You are, you're trivializing everything!" she whines. He literally squirms in his seat with seething anger. "I'm scared to offend the people in line," he says simply. "It's a feeling you have that you can't ignore, and it's so strong that you're willing to do something that might jeopardize the race." She comes back, still indignant over nothing. "It makes no seeeeense," she complains. "What kind of sense does that make? Don't try to play the moralist now." "It makes as much sense to you as your not rappelling or not wanting to bungee jump makes to me." Ooh, good one. If he had thrown in "inability to carry your own damn pack," it would have been perfect. He goes on for a word or two, but she cuts him off screaming, as usual. "No! Zach, that's so ignorant and obnoxious when you know that there's a thousand physical risks associated with bungee jumping! Are there any physical risks associated with cutting a line?"
Let me just break in here. I understand that she's tired. I understand that she's frustrated. I understand that they don't agree about the line, and I understand that she may be right about the line. But you know what? You don't use the word "ignorant" on your friends, ever. I don't care how angry you are. Tell your friend he's acting like an asshole, fine. Tell your friend he's not listening to you, fine. But "ignorant" is a word of such contempt that it just doesn't get out of your mouth in reference to anyone you care about. To me, it's one of those red-flag words that's really only used by people who have absolutely no respect for you at all. It insults not the particular comment, but the basic intelligence of your friend. In other words? Low blow, Flo. Hope you were suitably embarrassed.
She bitches for a while longer, and then -- although you probably thought she had reached her absolute limit and said the absolute worst and most ridiculous things she could possibly say -- she gets even worse. "I'm tired of having to scream," she says in the voice of a scolding parent. "I'm tired of having to override your decisions...I'm tired of it." That one should actually make you laugh out loud, unless you give it too much thought, at which point it will completely make you cry. "Okay, then let's just quit," Zach says, obviously out of answers for this completely surreal rant on which she has embarked. "If you're tired, let's just stop. I mean, whatever." Interestingly, I normally hate it when people talk about quitting, but the interesting thing is that it doesn't bother me in this situation, because I don't think Zach is saying it for effect. I think Zach is serious. I think he's seriously saying, "There is nothing I can do to make you stop yelling at me, so if you're not going to stop, we should quit."
The wind is blowing hard as the Bald Snark gets into town to look for the floating market flag. They are in first place as they open the clue box. It's time for the Detour. Phil has to yell over the boat noise this week as he explains about the two tasks and the pros and the cons. The choices this week are Easy Buy and Hard Sell. In Easy Buy, you get in a boat, explore the floating market, and find the one vendor who sells water coconuts. You buy one. In Hard Sell, you take fruit out in a shoulder basket and sell it on the street. You have to sell about $2.50 worth, and each piece of fruit is worth about six cents. When they're finished, they have to bring the money to a nice lady who will make sure they've sold enough fruit to move on.
Kenny leans toward the selling, but Gerard goes for the buying, and that's what they wind up doing.
As FloZach approaches the market, Zach makes note of the heavy gray clouds in the sky. "The storm of the century is approaching," he notes. GET IT?
In their boat, Ken and Gerard note the beginning of the rain. They try to communicate with the folks selling produce from their boats, but it doesn't go very well. Everyone is terrifically friendly, but the language barrier just appears to be a little too much.
Asshat is approaching the market as well. Happy to be there, Ian says, "Ohhh, numba-one taxi drivah!" Yeah, that's bad. That's a rickety, unpleasant stereotype, and it's not appreciated. At least by me. I'm well aware he doesn't mean anything by it, but...people often don't, if you know what I'm saying. It appears that the twins are now bringing up the rear, encouraging their not-very-fast cab driver to go faster. I'm surprised the transmission hasn't fallen out of that cab yet.
Asshat arrives at the clue box and steps inside a stand to read the clue. The twins are right behind them, so I guess they remain ahead of FloZach. Both Asshat and the twins go in search of the water coconut.
Out on the water, Ken and Gerard's hunt for the water coconut continues not to go well. They ask and ask, but they can't see very well because of all the rain, and a lot of the sellers have packed up and gone inside, not to mention covering up their wares so that you can't see what anyone is selling. They start to talk about going back. Noooo! They're not going to switch Detours again, are they? My goodness.
Derek and Drew and Asshat take off in their boats.
Ken and Gerard are fed up with being out on the water. They decide to give up and go back. Man. These guys are switching Detours almost every time now. They're turning into compulsive explorers of their options. This is how middle-aged male movie stars wind up dumping their wives and marrying their co-stars, you know. ("In this Detour, teams must choose between Faithful Spouse and Faithless Hussy.")
Commercials. If you really want good pictures of your vacation, you could even ask your driver to slow down while you take them. Just a suggestion.
As Ken and Gerard head back and Ian and Teri head out, the teams pass each other. Not wanting Ian and Teri to figure out what a hard time they had with the task, Ken and Gerard give them a half-assed "Wooo!" as they pass. Then Ken and Gerard pass Derek and Drew. "Get! Out!" Kenny yells. "The Wonder Twins have umbrellas!" And indeed they do. Heh. I have to say, they look charming and everything, but I would think that would not be a good use of backpack space if they've been carrying them for very long. Maybe they just bought them, which might not be a bad idea if they have extra money. But they look kind of like Mary Poppins.
FloZach arrives at last. "Come on, Z!" Flo yells as she gets out of the cab. The thing we see is Flo, standing somewhere dry, holding her hands out in absolute puzzlement, making this disgusted, what-the-hell-are-you-doing face. "I'm taking the bags out of the trunk," Zach tells her, "because I don't know if he's going to stay or leave." She wears exactly the expression that a mother who just told her four-year-old for the fiftieth time not to hit his little brother would wear, and she points under the tent. "Put them under this tent!" she orders. And believe me, when I say "orders," I am saying "orders." That's not a suggestion, it's not an idea, and it's certainly not an offer of help. The full sentence it comes from is "you put them under this tent right now." That's the tone. Zach voices over: "I didn't know how we were going to proceed, really. Flo and I are at each other's throats arguing, and...it was really bad." Yes, it is really bad. Back under the tent, she is complaining again. "You need to ask me-uh," she says. You know that way that twelve-year-old girls have of saying, "Why are you yelling at me-uh?" Flo talks that way. "This is so fucked up," she says, apparently angry at the weather or something. It's not clear what her malfunction is today, other than basically being an enormously spoiled brat. The best thing about that scene is that it gives you yet another opportunity to see Zach carrying Flo's pack.
FloZach and Ken and Gerard meet up as they start the Hard Sell, which FloZach has chosen. Zach tells Flo that first, he wants to grab a raincoat. "No, Zach, we don't have time-uh!" she screams. Man, she makes me want to drive a nail into my eyeball. In an interview, Zach says that he and Flo knew the Bald Snark had tried the Easy Buy and it didn't work out, so they thought they'd try the Hard Sell and stay with Ken and Gerard for a while, hoping for a better outcome. "Who am I selling this to?" she screeches as they start out. Would you like to guess who's hauling the shoulder basket? Nah, too easy.
Ken and Gerard start by trying to unload their entire load of fruit for the full 40,000 that they need to finish the task. Wait a minute...is Kenny offering to throw in a toothbrush? What the hell? FloZach starts out more modestly. Flo sells two pieces of fruit for 2,000. Then she turns to Zach, and once again, she shrieks: "We need 40,000?" I've reached a point where I'm trying to save up all my "shut up, Flo" for one really good occasion each week. I think this might be it. We're about halfway through, so it's as good a time as any. Shut up, Flo.
Elsewhere, Ian is looking for the water coconut. No luck. Derek and Drew are right behind him. No luck.
The sellers continue slogging away. Ken and Gerard try again to sell the whole lot for 40,000, but it doesn't seem to be working. FloZach, meanwhile, sell another little bunch for 5,000.
Ian and Teri find the water coconut lady at long last. Derek and Drew follow Asshat right to it. As the rain pours, these two teams collect their clues. The clue tells them to go back to Ho Chi Minh City and head to 2A Ton Duc Thang, District 1, at the edge of the Saigon River. Phil explains...well, that the route marker is at the edge of the Saigon River.
Sopping wet, Derek receives the clue for the twins.
Ken and Gerard have found an little twist to the instructions. The instructions say that if you run out of fruit, you can go back and get more. So they switch gears and go for the giant discount. They're going to be the Barnes & Noble of Vietnamese fruit-selling. They offer their entire haul of fruit for 10,000 (or about 61 cents). Unsurprisingly, at that price, the fruit starts to move. They go back for more. FloZach, meanwhile, hits 11,000 earned, and then 13,000. The Bald Snark, meanwhile, goes back for another shoulder basket, which they sell for another 10,000. FloZach hits 17,000, and then 17,500.
Asshat and the twins get out of the boat and take off. Meanwhile, Ken and Gerard pull the same move two more times and get their 40,000, so they're off as well. "The Vietnamese people were very nice," Gerard remarks gently, with some embarrassment, "to be buying fruit from us wacky Americans." Hee. He comments in a voice-over, however, that they weren't happy at all about having been first into the Detour and third to leave.
FloZach hits 39,500. "I think that's good enough, let's go," Flo says. Huh? When have you ever seen a Detour you could complete "almost"? Hasn't she seen this show? Close only counts in horseshoes, pumpkin. I cannot believe she did this. Sure enough, when they take their money back to the lady who's supposed to give them their clue, she tells them they don't have enough. "You go and sell more," she tells them quietly. "Sell more?" Flo snaps. "Yes, you not enough forty," the lady tells her. Flo immediately turns and orders Zach to go sell a little bit more right near where they are. He doesn't do it the way she wants him to, so she acts angry and pouty yet again. "I'm, like, emotionally and physically exhausted," she says. What Flo doesn't seem to understand is that everyone is emotionally and physically exhausted. Everyone is tired, everyone isn't eating or sleeping the way they normally do, and everyone is just trying to hang on for the finish now. Why she appoints herself to the position of Our Lady Of Perpetual Suffering just baffles my mind. Why is it necessary for her to be a bitch to Zach? Isn't Zach tired? Isn't Zach hungry? Hasn't Zach carried her damn backpack around repeatedly? Why unload on him?
There just are no words.
"Teri and Ian are on fire right now," Derek says as they follow Asshat back toward Ho Chi Minh City. Drew chuckles. Ian, in his cab, talks about how happy he is and what a good time he's having, even giving credit to his "lovely wife," who I can't say looks quite as thrilled with him. She actually looks like she'd like him to remove his hand from her thigh, lest he stray too far in the direction of the paper underpants, if you see my point.
FloZach is just finishing the selling. And who finished it? Zach. After they're done, he walks by her on the way out. "Why are you leaving me here?" she demands angrily. Zach spins and looks at her, and just for a minute, I thought he might give her approximately one-twentieth of what she deserves by telling her to shut the hell up already. He pulls it together, however, and says evenly, "I thought you were right behind me." She could have been right behind him, you'll notice. She's not tied to a tree. If she wanted to be behind him, she could have put one foot in front of the other until she was behind him. That's how it works. Maybe that's what she doesn't get. Her arms work! Her legs work! Her feet have toes! She has opposable thumbs! Why she would need him to invite her or ask her in this situation, I have absolutely no idea. He's right there. They walk to the lady, check in with her again, and get their clue.
Asshat arrives at the location where the box is supposed to be, and they see it right away. They stop the cab and get out. They grab the clue, and it's a Roadblock. As Phil explains, in this Roadblock, one person has to drive a bicycle taxi with the other person in it along a marked course. The course ends at a ferry boat, and they have to get on the ferry and go across the river. On the other side of the river, there's a place to park the bike, and then you run to the pit stop at the Café Thu Thiem.
When Asshat reads the clue, which says that the person who does the Roadblock should have "strong legs and a strong back," Ian reluctantly agrees to do it. Once he gets on board, though, he's relatively good at it. He pedals Teri along the street with little difficulty.
Ken and Gerard, meanwhile, are stuck in traffic.
Asshat makes it to the ferry. "Woooo!" they yell. "You numba one!" Ian yells at some more people on the ferry. Yeesh. In an interview that plays as he and Teri cross the river, Ian says that it's the first time he's been in Vietnam since the war ended, and he says he likes it. "I like the culture, I like the people." Which is nice. And if he stopped barking "numba one!" at them, I would think it was even nicer. He says "over time, the wounds will heal." Yeah. I agree. But still? That's a big no on calling people "numba-one taxi drivah."
Derek and Drew drive in their taxi past where the route marker is located. It appears from the way it's shown that when you drive to the actual address on the clue, that takes you to the area where the course is, but not right to where the clue box is, which I think is the cause of the problems here. When Derek and Drew hop out of their cab, it's actually because they see the yellow flag at the ferry at the end of the cyclo course, so they have problems already. They talk, in fact, about having seen the little yellow flags that mark the course. Of course, this would make you wonder why they didn't figure that perhaps this might be the wrong end of the course. They look around, and they show the address to people, and they are led in various directions. "This is so frustrating," they remark.
Teri and Ian, on the other hand, don't find it frustrating at all. They get off the ferry and are very near the pit stop.
The Bald Snark appears to get out of their cab right where Derek and Drew did -- where they see the yellow flag that leads them onto the ferry. So now they and the twins are running all over the place looking for the green box.
"Look out!" Ian yells. "Crazy Americans!" Heh. He and Teri continue through the streets.
FloZach gets out of their cab when they spot the flag with the green clue box. They open the clue, and then we see Zach pedaling and Flo riding. There's a shocker. "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me," she says with great irritation. Oh, I'm sorry, madam, is the free ride while you rest on your shapely fanny not to your liking? Sheesh. I believe what he says instead is, "I'll do my best." Such restraint. When I first saw it, actually, I thought he said, "You wanna drive?", which would have been cool. Heh. They spot the flag leading onto the ferry as well.
The confusion intensifies as both the twins and the Bald Snark continue to hunt for the clue. They can't find it, but they can't figure out why they can't find it. They've now hooked up so that they're both looking. I think part of this is that now that they know they're both screwed, they don't want to let the other team get away for fear of winding up on the short end of the stick. "We're dead," they all agree.
Commercials. The Gap holiday commercials...whatever happened to the ones that didn't suck? With Luscious Jackson and Rufus Wainwright and Johnny Mathis? Who are these stupid people? Maybe I'm just getting old.
The Band of Brothers is still looking for the clue box. Ken and Gerard eventually decide that the clue must be back by the ferry, so they break off by themselves and head for the boat. Derek and Drew do not choose to follow.
Teri and Ian park their cycle and take off on foot for the pit stop. They run up to the mat, and Ian actually stops and lets Teri jump on first. Welcome, Asshat, you are team number one. And congratulations on a good leg. They scream happily and hug. Which is nice, except that for my money, you're not making up for nine legs of snapping every time anything goes wrong just because you're able to not be nasty when you do well. My read on them is that it's only when everything goes well that they get along. As soon as anything goes bad, there's the blaming and the snapping and the ordering each other around. It's not that I deny them credit for what they did; it's just that it's one leg out of many, and until I see them handle adversity well, it's not really going to change the way they look to me. In short? It's easy to look happy in the sunshine. At any rate, Phil gives them a cruise. (As Miss Alli's Mom said when Wil and Tara won a cruise last year, "Oh, good. They can continue traveling together.")
Oh, and he has to yell out one more "numba one!" on the mat. Shut up.
FloZach, biking to the ferry. "At this point, we're pretty much sure we're last," Flo voices over. Meanwhile, Derek and Drew are elsewhere, wandering and looking for the clue. Ken and Gerard, on the other hand, have found their way to the ferry, convinced that perhaps they have to take the ferry to find the clue box. Flo observes Ken and Gerard, coming up to the ferry on foot. Now, if you know Flo, you know that she doesn't think strategically, ever. (Witness her reserving of tickets for the twins early in the leg.) She thinks personally. She thinks, "What are these other people doing, and how does it relate to ME?" So when she sees Ken and Gerard, she describes her own reaction as, "Get these guys off my boat." So when they start onto the boat, rather than just leaving it alone, which would be the obviously correct thing to do, Flo sneers at them, "You need your bike." Ken and Gerard apparently stare emptily, because Zach says, "You've got to go back." "All the way up the road!" Flo yells. And Zach adds, "Follow the flags back."
In an interview, Gerard basically says that he couldn't believe Flo and Zach were giving him the information he needed to finish the leg. As he points out, Flo has had an alliance with the twins for a little while here, and yet she just handed Ken and Gerard the key that's going to get them out of the mess they're in, and that's probably going to force the twins out. Now here's what's interesting to me. I'm pretty convinced that Flo just wasn't thinking about the strategic implications of what she did. It's easy for me to believe that Flo rarely thinks about the strategic implications of anything. She's too emotional, and she's too impulsive. I don't think she either meant to help Ken and Gerard or hurt the twins, and I don't think she went through a complex analysis of who was in last or in first and who would or would not benefit. The interesting question, to me, is what Zach knew and when he knew it. Would I put it past Zach to have realized he could potentially be screwing somebody else, and that it might be Derek and Drew? Nope. I suspect he didn't think of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
Ken and Gerard run up the ferry dock, and they run into Derek and Drew, who have also apparently decided that the ferry is the key to this whole thing. Derek and Drew don't make it in time to actually talk to FloZach, but they can see that they're on the ferry. So when they see Ken and Gerard running back, they figure that Ken and Gerard must have talked to FloZach. "Pretend you don't know, Gerard," Kenny says as the teams approach each other. "Are Zach and Flo out there?" Drew asks Gerard. "I didn't see 'em," Gerard says. "Are they out there?" "Yeah, they're on the boat," Drew says, confused. "Zach and Flo were on the boat. Do you have to get on this to go?" Ken and Gerard say nothing. "Did you guys get on the boat?" they ask Kenny. "No," Kenny answers. Ah, Shakespearean betrayal. It's perfect that they're all boys, because they never let girls be in Shakespeare plays anyway. If they stage this production, I think Kenny should play Flo.
The teams split up. Ken and Gerard do as FloZach said and follow the flags backward along the course. "We spent half the race with them in an alliance," Gerard says with unmistakable sadness. "And we...we just love them." Kenny: "We both expected at the very end something like this was going to happen. And then it did." Derek and Drew look, baffled, at the departing ferry, trying to figure out whether they're supposed to get on the boat. Meanwhile, Ken and Gerard find their way to the clue box at last. Derek and Drew, on the other hand, are about to go even further off course, as they decide that if Zach and Flo were on the boat, they must be supposed to get on the boat as well. They decide that perhaps the Roadblock is on the other side of the river.
Ken and Gerard have a tense start to the Roadblock, with Gerard driving. They're nervous, I assume, that the twins are going to appear at any moment. After all, had the twins gone in this direction, even by chance, they would have run smack into them and might have caught them by the ferry. Rounding the first corner, the bike tips over and dumps Kenny out onto the street. Ow. What's really strange is that as he falls, there's a sound effect that sounds like a monkey screaming. It's probably not a real monkey screaming, though. They get righted and get going...just as Derek and Drew board the ferry. "We just saw Zach and Flo go over there," Drew says good-naturedly, "and we just don't know where else to look." On the other side of the river, Zach and Flo are back on the bike and ready to head for the pit stop.
Ken and Gerard cycle through the streets. "We gotta get on [the ferry] without the boys seeing us," Gerard says. Aw. "The boys." Such an affectionate expression...sigh. They voice over that as they waited in the ferry terminal, Derek and Drew would appear at any moment. Of course, they don't realize that Derek and Drew have already taken a ferry across to the other side, so they're nervously scanning the crowd, sure that the whole thing will be blown at any moment. The ferry leaves.
Zach and Flo de-bike and run for the pit stop. Welcome, FloZach. You're team number two. Flo explains in an interview that she looked around and didn't see Derek and Drew anywhere. This clued her in that they, too, were still behind her and Zach.
Ay-yi-yi, this is so heartbreaking. Derek and Drew get off the ferry on the other side of the river. They start looking for guidance of some kind, and they spot an arrow. They're rather baffled, however, when it says, "Park Cyclos Here." Huh? Having faith in the arrow, though, they keep following. Derek is skeptical, but Drew thinks all they can really do is follow the arrows. They run toward the well-lit pit stop, and they're aware that it can't be right, but they clearly don't know what else to try. Zach sees them run by and is very aware that they've screwed it up. He makes a smirking face. "Oh, this is gonna get ugly," he remarks. "Drew, this isn't right," Derek says as they approach Phil. They walk up and stand on the mat, but Phil tells them that they haven't completed the Roadblock, so he can't check them in.
Flo interviews that she likes Drew a lot, and if she had been the cause of this, she'd be sad, but she thinks it's pretty much their own fault. Which I agree with, actually. Furthermore, even if I were being petty, the fact that she unwittingly helped do them in because she doesn't think is just as interesting and amusing as any theory that she did it on purpose. As Derek and Drew retreat from the pit stop, they go by Zach and Flo. Flo yells to them that they have to go back across the river. They run toward the ferry, and they are really lucky at this point that they're in such good shape, or they probably would have dropped dead on the ground. As they reach the ferry, Ken and Gerard are arriving. Gerard says just about the only thing he can: "Hey, fellas." Gerard explains exactly how to get to where the bike is. "You're third, we're gonna be last," Drew says simply. "They're all there already." Gerard says to them that they should finish it anyway, because it might be a non-elimination leg. Which is true. The really cool thing about this scene is that there appears to be a complete absence of bitterness or gloating on either side of it. The reality of the situation is what it is, and nobody is giving anybody any crap about it. Ken and Gerard ride for the pit stop, leaving Derek and Drew at the ferry. The Bald Snark chats as they ride, telling each other (quite correctly) that there wasn't anything else they could do, because it's a race, and this is how it goes. "I just thought of the twins," Kenny says, "and going over in that long boat ride...they had that long boat ride back." And indeed, Derek and Drew have to get back on the ferry and take it back across the river.
On the boat, Derek can't get over how it went so wrong. "I don't understand it, how the hell we screwed that up," he says. They just look so sweaty and tired...I think this is one of the saddest eliminations ever.
Ken and Gerard bound into the pit stop. Welcome, Ken and Gerard, you're team number three. "YAAY!" They hug.
Derek and Drew take the long run toward the clue box. "Come on, every minute counts if we're not eliminated," one of them tells the other. They open the box, and they take the bike. They comment on how appropriate it is that it's starting to rain again as they finish the Roadblock. Sad music accompanies them along the course, where it's now totally dark. "Oh, come on, please be a non-elimination," they say as they board the ferry with the bike. They get off the boat on the other side, and they run to Phil. Sadly, there is no reprieve: "You've both been eliminated from the race." "Damn," Drew says with a little smile. "We knew that was possible," Derek says. Possible? Boy, they really are optimists. They talk about what a great experience it was, and Drew says that he thinks they "haven't been this close since college." You will have to write your own naked picture joke. Derek talks about how proud they are to be fourth behind the top three teams that are left, which I think is a particularly classy statement. Indeed, they ran a really good race, and they managed to do the entire thing with almost no apparent animosity toward anyone, which is more than many of the rest of these people can say.
And now, The Voice-Overs Of Tension as we head into the finale. Kenny says they believe they can win. Flo says she'll miss Drew, but hey, better him than her. Ian (quite deservedly) crows a bit about how much they were sucking wind at the beginning of the race, and now they're going to cross the finish line. Zach says that among these three teams, he and Flo will win a footrace. (Not counting the footrace they just lost to Kenny and Gerard in the last episode, I suppose.) Kenny is done sharing information. Teri wants to be first.
Executive producer? Jerry Bruckheimer.
week: Splashdown! Running! Bicycling! Yelling! Walking! Crying! Planes! Boats! More yelling! And somewhere in a New York bar, one of the strangest institutions in the folklore of reality television will undoubtedly only get stranger. Don't forget to RSVP.