Previously on God To Racers: "Stick In The Mud? Not My Fault" -- Mirna and Charla led their sheep Brandon and Nicole astray, but when Brandon and Nicole righted themselves rather than following the flock on the path of righteousness until it merged into the road to Cleveland, Mirna became enraged, because people who don't follow you in the wrong direction are disgusting. Later, Mirna's battle with Marshall and Lance threatened to unseat the 1999 World Series as The Historical Conflict In Which It Is Most Tragic That Both Sides Cannot Have Their Asses Kicked. Jim and Marsha flubbed it at the airport, and although they gamely made their way through rounds of paragliding and chocolate-chomping, they were sadly Philiminated, and Jim went home to have his kneecap, currently in the custody of LAX security with a tag tied to it that reads "Property Of Older Gentleman With Snippy Daughter And Camera Crew," reattached. There are eight teams left. "Who will be eliminated ?" What, Phil, no pause? But that's when I get a drink. Wait, is this an intervention?
Credits. I think that tiger is left over from the first season. He must be getting hungry, because given his excessively calm demeanor at the time, I doubt he's mustered the chutzpah to eat anyone since then. Which is not to say I advocate the eating of monks. [BOMP.]
Commercials. I'm sorry, but the theory of camp requires that the number of layers of cheese be odd, not even. Rob Lowe plus Vegas is thus not acceptable. A Charo cameo, however, would rapidly bring things back into balance, provided nothing further, like a theme by K.C. and the Sunshine Band, is added.
We zoom back into San Carlos de Bariloche, which the music would have you believe is a major center for the manufacture of blaring horns. Phil explains, while looking oddly uncomfortable as Mirna stands off camera threatening to lick his neck, that we are at the third pit stop. And what are we here to do? Eat! (Look! Charla and Mirna are going through the buffet line, and no one is helping them!) Sleep! (Look! Brandon and Nicole are baking in the sun, really suffering through this harrowing experience!) Mingle! (Look! Colin is lecturing the room and everyone is pretending to care!) Phil wonders whether Chip and Kim will ever find their way out of last place, and whether Brandon and Nicole will keep making alliances that are mutually opportunistic and transitory. Those bastards. When will they learn that there's no "I" in "win"? There's a great shot of Brandon here accompanied by some snake-like music, but...the guy is just not threatening. It's the hair. It's like he's the evil King Mophead the Mellow, and he's here to surf the crap out of you.
3:10 AM. Colin and Christie, working the dorky headlamps. You know, I got one of those as a gift last year, and I primarily thought of it as a funny gift, until I managed to come across it during a power outage. I now think of it as having been an awesome gift, which everyone should own, in the event you ever have to go spelunking in your own closet. They rip the clue, and it tells them to find the battleship Aurora in St. Petersburg, Russia. Yikes. Phil explains, however, that this isn't all. First, they will have to drive themselves into town and travel 20 hours by bus -- 20 hours by bus -- to Buenos Aires, and only there will they get flights out. That's 8000 miles by plane, by the way, after the bus ride. Which is 20 hours. C'mon, everybody, sing! "Three million bottles of beer on the wall, three million bottles of beeeer..." Okay, maybe not. Once they're in St. Petersburg, they'll find the battleship to get the clue, if they can still remember to do so, considering that they'll be arriving in Russia in approximately a year and a half.
Colin and friends visit a travel agent, who quickly realizes that he has just hit the jackpot and is about to sell sixteen last-minute tickets to Russia and can probably retire to the South Pacific. The agency staff works on their flight plans from Buenos Aires to St. Petersburg. A flight is located, and Colin says to reserve those, and then keep looking for something faster. The guy agrees. I'll say this -- Colin kind of creeps me out, especially when he's eating the props, but he does have remarkably good strategic planning capabilities, in that he constantly searches for a better deal than whatever he has -- that's how he got the better bus, that's how he's handling the flights, and that's how he and Christie got on standby for the 9:10 flight in the last leg. I would kind of admire him if he didn't have the eyes that make my blood run cold.
At 9:30 AM, Charla and Mirna, the Moms, Bob and Joyce, and the Twinkies take off in the Slow But Early bus. A Twinkie complains that they have "no cell phones, no internet service," and presumably no way to work on getting their tickets. "We don't have any control over our situation right now," she says anxiously. Which is what happens when you slack off, as they repeatedly have. As much as I hate to make predictions due to my tendency to be totally wrong, I do think that if there's one pattern you can start to pick out over the seasons as far as who does well over the course of a season, it's the Extra Step teams. They get a flight, but they take one more step and look for a better one. Or they befriend locals on buses to get information about getting places, or they investigate ideas that aren't obvious, like buses that are faster than trains. I have yet to see much in the way of extra steps from the Twinkies, Moms, Bob and Joyce, Mirna and Charla, or Chip and Kim, whereas Colin and Christie and Brandon and Nicole do it constantly, and Lance and Marshall do it at least sometimes. It's not the only way you can advance yourself, but it's one thing I find myself watching for.
And here, I am collapsing into Race Theory, which is horrifying. Shut up, it's been almost 100 episodes. For me, that's like forty million pages of recaps, so it's all got to come to something productive. There are no graduate programs in this area, unfortunately.
The Fast But Later bus folks, meanwhile, are back at their travel agency, and are discussing the fact that there is the opportunity for one team, but not more, to get an earlier flight to St. Petersburg than the rest of them. Lance proposes that Colin and Christie should get it, based on their leading role in the way this all developed. The group agrees. At noon, their bus departs, with Marshall briefly interviewing that they feel good about already having tickets in hand that will get them all the way to Russia.
Where was I? Oh, yes, Christie and Her Looming Boyfriend. Marshall and Lance clap for her. Aw, that was nice. What? It was. "Oh, God," an exhausted Christie says, leaning back in her seat as if she's just been bitten by a poisonous sake. Or, actually, ravaged quite delightfully. It's surprising how much similarity there is between those looks. Uh, I've heard.
Christie is still all sniffly as Colin reads the clue and they leave. Mirna continues to harangue Charla. "Concentrate on what you're doing. Put the damn thing in your mouth. Shove it." Entire North American Continent: "YOU SHOVE IT, HARPY." Charla eats. Nicole? Not so much. "Ugggghh," she moans.
Chip and Kim arrive at the pit stop palace. She runs toward it, but he lags behind. "Oh, the caviar! The caviar!" he calls unhappily as he runs behind her. Hee. I love Chip. And yes, that stuff was nasty, you can tell. Chip is a big guy, and you can tell it just about laid him out as well. They climb a long set of steps and arrive on the mat, where Phil is waiting with the greeter. "Welcome to Pushkin, Russia!" the greeter says. Phil tells them that they are team number one. They "woo!", and Chip gives Phil a big hug. Okay, seriously, people, the handling of Phil has got to stop. Don't make me talk to all of you about boundaries. I will admit that Phil looks delighted, though. Hmm. Maybe he doesn't get enough love. Chip interviews about how great it feels to be number one at last.
And then, we are looking at a truly horrifying shot of Lance shoveling caviar into his yap. Man, that is gross. I didn't really need a guided tour of his nostrils. And why is his caviar green when everyone else's caviar is black? I don't really want to know the answers to these questions, I don't think. Nicole still looks...well, coincidentally, she looks green also. "I just feel so sick," she says. Brandon comes around behind her with a glass of water. She, however, crawls off her chair and curls up on the floor with her head on her backpack. "I feel like I'm about to pass out." And yes, when I first saw that, I was eye-rolling, because...I mean, it's food, so suck it up, girlie, and all of that. But then we looked up the nutritional information suggesting that two pounds of caviar contains as much salt as you should have in a week. A week. It's about two tablespoons of salt, which is one more tablespoon than the old wives' tale would tell you is appropriate to induce vomiting. Not to mention about 2800 calories (probably twice as much as these women usually eat in a day) and 180 grams of fat (four or five times what they probably usually eat in a day). Could that make you sick? Oh hell yes. Pile it on top of sleep deprivation, a twenty-hour bus ride, and a murderously long series of flights that probably already had you dehydrated? I say again, oh hell yes, that could make you sick. Nicole tells Brandon she's "so dizzy," and I believe that, too. "I'm here with you," Brandon tells her.