Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | 498 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT I'm a Guay? No, Uruguay!
By Miss Alli | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2004.07.06
Charla and Mirna have collapsed into serious meat melodrama. "Charla, please help me, God help me," Mirna whines. "I'm tryyyyyying! You're not leeeeetting me!" Charla whines in return. Mirna despairingly voices over that the beef was disgusting, and that she doesn't eat meat anyway, let alone raw meat. Well, you don't have to eat it, dear, you just have to move it. I don't eat grass clippings, but I can move a bag of them if it's potentially worth a million dollars. Charla picks up the packs as Mirna continues to struggle with the cow. "This is so heav-eeee, [Phyllis]," Mirna gripes. Charla tells Mirna that if she can carry both packs, Mirna can carry the meat. Mirna discards the gloves, only to have Charla tell her she has to put them back on. Mirna says she can't, and she will just go ahead and "get mad cow disease." I'm starting to think she already has mad cow disease. She certainly has something. Finally, Mirna just throws down the meat. "God help me," she moans. "Oh, God help me." As Charla runs ahead with the packs, Mirna paces in misery, unable to move the meat. (Ew.)
Commercials. Sarah Jessica Parker totally colors her hair at home in the sink, just like you. No, she does.
Mirna tells Charla she just can't carry the beef anymore. "You're a strong girl!" Charla yells. "You're stronger than these other girls!" Bleh. Mirna insists in an interview that she used up all her energy in trying to handle the meat. I think we've all been there.
Alison and Donny drop off their beef. They get a clue that says that their next clue is "across the street from the blue and white hotel at this address." They're headed back to Punta del Este, where, as Phil tells us, they will indeed find a clue across the street from a blue and white hotel. See how easy that is? Alison and Donny scoot. Second to drop off the meat? Linda and Karen. Nice showing, ladies. Third? Bob and Joyce, now cooperating at least a little in carrying the meat as they finish the walk.
Charla and Mirna, those independent women, have decided to get help from some of the locals to finish the walk. Mirna instructs the guy they track down not to carry the meat (which probably would have been a rule violation), but to carry their packs for them instead. Charla then announces that Mirna should put the meat on her shoulders. For some reason, Mirna protests that Charla can't do that, which seems stupid, given that we have already seen Charla carry Mirna on her shoulders, and Mirna weighs more than 55 pounds. Anyway, the meat is hoisted onto Charla's shoulders. And then you see it -- the iconic shot of the first episode. Charla, in white coat and plastic hair covering, carrying a side of beef on her shoulders while Mirna runs uselessly alongside her. Every once in a while, you need a shot that just makes you go, "Huh. There's something you don't see every day." Mirna cheers Charla on by telling her she's the strongest woman here. Unfortunately for them, in the great tradition of this episode, they walk right by the butcher shop and keep going. What I really wish is that they had gotten separated, and that Mirna had had to walk up to a bunch of people who don't speak English, trying to figure out how to ask them if they've seen a dwarf in a plastic hat running with a dead cow on her back. They'd be all, "Crazy Americans," and then they'd go back to whatever they were doing.