Previously on Caviar Emptor ("Let The Buyer Throw Up Fish Eggs For A Week"): A remarkably long leg started with a punishing bus ride and another chapter in Mirna's continuing efforts to alienate as many people-o as possible. The complexities of reconciling the concept of racing with the desire to politely refrain from letting on that you were impolite enough to butt in line were unconvincingly addressed. God was invoked, and did not appreciate it. Bolting vodka off a sword proved to be easy, swallowing two pounds of caviar proved to be difficult, and a lot of very nauseated people pulled up to the pit stop and immediately ran into the bushes to share a private moment with an open patch of dirt. Seven teams are left. "Who will be eliminated...?"
Credits. Dear Chip and Kim: Can I live in your house? [BOMP.]
Commercials. I just really don't understand the Philip Morris information about how smoking gives you cancer. They aren't even allowed to advertise allergy medications unless they warn you that you might get swollen ankles. I doubt they would let you run ads that say, "This pill has no beneficial effects, and will make you die." I'm aware that incongruity and the tobacco industry often do the watusi until the wee hours of the morning, but...still.
Snow! Vastness! Decorative uses of gold, everywhere! Phil reminds us that we are at Catherine's Palace, which he calls "a luxurious country estate" outside St. Petersburg. It turns out that in the great tradition of boys showing off, Peter the Great built it for his wife Catherine, most likely after forgetting her birthday. (And you thought the Russian winter was cold! Hotcha!) This was the fourth pit stop, and there was eating, sleeping, and mingling. I am almost certain that there was also agonized stomach-clutching and the belching of salty air, but they don't tell you that. By the way, during the "eating" segment, there appears to be one empty seat, and would you like to know where it is located? Between Mirna and the Twinkies. Yeah, I wouldn't sit there either. Because when your radio is involuntarily tuned to K-TWIT, the least you can hope for is that you won't receive it in stereo. Phil wonders briefly whether Chip and Kim will hold on to their lead, but the pondering is kept to a minimum as we hop directly into pit stop departures.
9:11 AM. Chip and Kim are getting ready to go. The clue instructs them to go to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, which Phil explains is a train ride away, and is "one of the world's largest museums." Their task when they arrive will be to walk around, followed by a curator, until they find a Rembrandt painting called The Return of the Prodigal Son. Number of works at the Hermitage: three million. So you probably won't want to stop and point at all of them, although if anyone were ever going to try it, this would be the season. Once they find the painting, they'll get their clue. And incidentally, they're getting $123 for the leg. As Chip and Kim leave, he voices over that they "feel awesome" about leaving in first place for once. Yeah, go bottom-feeders! They go to get a cab, and you get your first glimpse of one of the episode's best running jokes as they ask for the train station and Kim gives a hearty "Choo-choooooo!"
9:42 AM. Colin and Christie read the clue and leave. Colin interviews that they're "working as a very cohesive team," and while they occasionally "bark at each other," they ultimately have "worked together perfectly." They get a cab, and appear not to say, "Choo-chooooo!" Because they're professionals, people. Extremely intense people don't say "choo-chooooo!" Although interestingly enough, they do chew. (In fact, sometimes it's kind of a thing.)
10:09 AM. Marshall and Lance. As they go to their cab, Marshall explains that his knees are very, very sore, and that they're rapidly getting worse. He says that this morning when he woke up, he could hardly walk. I wonder if $123 is enough for a great big box of black-market cartilage.
10:13 AM. Mirna and Charla. Mirna voices over that she and Charla are "committed to this race," and that they will push each other. And by "push each other," she means, "yell, 'ruuuuuuuuun, Charla!'" They ask a guy by the gate where they can get a taxi, because with these two, it's never too early in the leg to have no freaking idea what you're doing. He points and talks, but they don't understand him very much. "Eh, train, choo-chooooo!" Mirna says. And then she repeats "train" with a rolled "R" sound, because as we've learned from countless racers past, using a funny accent when you speak English helps the international audience understand you. The guy doesn't react (surprisingly enough), and they leave. I love Charla a little bit when she says, with a certain weary tone reminiscent of trying to run a three-legged race with a drugged-out chimpanzee lashed to your ankle, "One question at a time for the people, Mirna." Every now and then I get the feeling that I would have no objection to Charla at all if she weren't with The Other One. "He had some good gold teeth, though," Mirna adds as they leave. Well, Mirna, maybe you should have hugged him and gotten it out of your system so you can stop molesting the host at the end of every leg.
Chip and Kim are arriving at the train station, and Kim is saying -- you guessed it, "Yeah, choo-choo." It occurs to me that trains don't go "choo-choo" anymore, but I realize I am being uncooperative, and there isn't really a good train noise anymore, unless you want to use the sounds of encroaching obsolescence, whatever they may be. ["I imagine that would sound a lot like the last Eric Clapton album." -- Wing Chun] They thank their cab driver and head inside, asking for tickets into St. Petersburg. They get on what is helpfully labeled "1stTrain." Thanks, caption guy!
11:50 AM. Brandon and Nicole. So they're leaving more than two hours after Colin and Christie, and more than an hour and a half after Mirna and Charla. As they leave, Brandon goes on a bit about how awesome "Nikki" is, and what a great girlfriend she is, and so forth. He speculates to her that the train station might be within walking distance. "No, I want to get a cab," she says flatly. "Okay," he answers. Heh. Never argue with a woman who just swallowed thousands of fish eggs for you. I think that's in the Bible, actually. After an adorable shot of a guy pulling a kid on a sled, Brandon and Nicole get a cab, and Brandon says to the driver -- wait for it -- "Choo-chooooo!" In the cab, Brandon sheepishly (and I'm not just talking about his hair) allows that "this would have been a long walk." Heh. Nicole's like, "Duh," but refrains from saying, "Didn't get that memo from God about walking this time, huh, 'baby'?" Which is what I would have done.
Charla and Mirna are wandering aimlessly, as they do. They apparently are unable even to establish contact with a taxi, a task that seems to have presented absolutely no problems for anyone else. They throw in a little "choo-choo!" at a guy standing along the road.
At the train station, Colin and Christie get tickets and get on the second train to St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, the first train is bringing Chip and Kim into St. Petersburg. They get off the train in town.
12:14 PM. Linda and Karen. They get a cab.
12:50 PM. Twinkies. They talk about how the Bowling Moms are ahead of them, and how the Twinkies "want to beat them." I'm glad they're getting the hang of it. It's only taken four legs. We also see the Moms in a cab talking about being in a "horse race" with the Twinkies, but of course, they left the pit stop a half-hour ahead of them, so it's hard to call that a squeaker, at least this early on. I'm having a little trouble getting into the whole "Twinkies versus Moms!" tension thing they're trying to set up here, because...I can't stand the twins, and I'm bored by the moms for the most part.
Charla stops a guy on the street with a rendition of that hit that's making its way up the pop charts -- it goes a little something like this: "Choo-choooo!" He doesn't appear very responsive, as Mirna whines that they can't find a taxi and can't find the train station. She voices over that their hair froze while they were walking. Oh, please, big deal. That happens to me multiple times every winter. The best reason to blow dry your hair in Minnesota in January? So it doesn't get broken. They wind up walking the entire way to the train station, and when they get there, what do they have to say? "Choo-choooo!" Yeah, you're already there, so you can quit that now, because you're really going to be sad if they put you on a steam engine. You know what's admirable, though? The show didn't explicitly comment on everybody saying "choo-choo." They just showed it, and they trusted you to get it. On your run-of-the-mill idiot show, you'd have an interview where somebody said, "It's very difficult when you don't speak the language, so sometimes you have to improvise something that you think people will understand, and that's why we kept just saying 'choo-choo.'" Here, they just show it. They know you're going to get it, and get that it's funny. Every once in a while, I like to see a TV show that doesn't think I need embedded audio and video CliffsNotes.
At the Hermitage, Chip and Kim are arriving. They are, of course, "Currently in 1st Place." Inside, they meet Sergei, who will be their curator. They start walking through the museum, and Chip voices over that he could "feel its historical greatness." And he actually says this with some sense of excitement, which is part of what makes me like him a lot. Most people who speak of the historical greatness of a museum are doing it out of a sense of obligation and the fear that history teachers past will rear up and smite them if they don't, but Chip seems really jazzed. "This is awesome!" he says.
"This sucks," says a snarkily edited Lance as he and Marshall get on the third train to St. Petersburg. One of them has the following to say about the current crop of "useless foreigners": "The Russians might be the most miserable people on this planet. They're angry-looking...the freezing cold temperature in St. Petersburg probably doesn't help them any." While that remark is obnoxious, it's also a little bit funny, particularly because it's edited with some really entertaining shots of grumpy-looking Russian people on the train. I don't think it's because they're Russian, because I will tell you that when it gets to be about 20 below in St. Paul, you will see some grumpy-ass people here, also. Extreme cold weather makes you mean. That's how I got this way. ["I spent my formative years north of North Dakota, and...word." -- Wing Chun]
Colin and Christie arrive at the Hermitage. Inside, Chip and Kim are approaching various people and asking them whether they know where the painting is. Chip walks by a couple of folks saying, "Return of the Prodigal Son? Return of the Prodigal Son?" And then it becomes a song: "Return of the Prodigal Soooon!" Hee. He is as cute as a fuzzy bunny, and he makes his wife laugh too. I sort of imagine people all over Russia going, "What is that nice couple doing with all those irritating jackasses?"
On the fourth train, Mirna (to her credit, bleh) asks a lady about Rembrandt's painting, and the lady tells her it will be located on the second floor. Wow. I can't imagine finding a lady on a train who can tell you the location of a specific painting in a museum. If you ran into me on a bus in Minneapolis, you would be lucky if I could tell you where the bus was going, even though I would, by definition, be on it. Of course, Mirna pronounces the name of the painting using the non-word "prodijal," but she's still ahead of Ronald Reagan, who (I am told) once famously used the non-word "paradijm."
Colin and Christie review a map of the museum and see where they think the painting should be. But when they get there and point at something, they're told that isn't it. Christie looks around, all, "The hell?" Yeah. The museum does tend to get kind of confusing. It's like the way Bruce Willis keeps walking by the same pinups in Die Hard -- maybe the painting is at the end of the exhaust vent. Start crawling.
Marshall and Lance arrive at the Hermitage. And, really, who cares?
And on the fifth train into St. Petersburg are Brandon and Nicole. They share a tiny smooch on the train. "You're sweet," he says. "You're sweeter," she comes back. Now, I'll grant you, that is pretty schmoopy. But on the other hand...I mean, it's not like they were making out or something, so it's not some kind of get-a-room issue. Second of all, I see nothing wrong with the occasional schmoopy exchange, provided you're not subjecting other people to it too loudly and you're not bragging about it. Brandon voices over that he can imagine marrying Nicole, and that she's "everything a guy could want." Aw. (Oh, shut up.)
Meanwhile, Lance and Marshall point randomly all over the place, asking where the painting is. Elsewhere, Chip runs into a guy who does seem to know where to find the Rembrandts. (Yes, make your joke about the opening credits of Friends, and then move on, people. 1996 was such a long time ago.) Chip explains that he and Kim are "staunch Christians" (hmm), and that because they know the story of the prodigal son, they were visualizing what the painting would look like. It's a nice idea, but do I think it helped them find the painting? Er, no. Although maybe they could eliminate landscapes. But it would have been really funny if Rembrandt were an abstract artist and Return of the Prodigal Son had turned out to be a giant blue blob on a green background with the word "COW" written on it in purple crayon.
Still elsewhere, in one of my favorite moments, Colin excitedly whispers to Christie, "Hey! Isn't the prodigal son...Jesus?" Hee. It's not that I think it's unforgivable not to know about the prodigal son, or to think that it's Jesus, but it's very funny to see a guy who's so hyped up come running up to his girlfriend having just come to a great "discovery" that's quite that...loopy. Christie's like, "Um, okay," and then they start looking for pictures of Jesus. Christie notes that there will be quite a few pictures of Jesus in a museum of this size. (And some of the more recent ones might have the word "COW" scrawled across them.) Colin's all excited now, saying that this will clearly be a painting about "the return of Jesus." Yes, yes, I think I remember that...and they killed the fatted calf on Easter, and they put it on the Ark, and then it turned into a pillar of salt, and then it ate the sparrow that was adorned in the coat of many colors, and then it turned out that Jesus was Keyser Soze. Oh...blessed are the non sequiturs, for they shall inherit the "Whaaaaaat?"
Chip and Kim wander among the paintings until she finally locates the right one. They point it out to the curator and they receive their clue. They're quite excited to read it and see that it tells them to go to the top of the Tower of Cairo. Phil explains that this will require them to travel about 2000 miles to Cairo. When they get there, they'll have to find the 600-foot observation tower. Chip is beaming as he walks out of the museum repeating, "Cairo, Egypt!" They get in a cab and ask for the airport.
Linda and Karen pay their taxi driver at the train station and head inside. They discover that they've just missed a train, and will have to take the one. They hypothesize that the Twinkies will catch up with them. "Dang it," they note. They're going to have to work up a better fit of anger than "dang it," or they're going nowhere. Indeed, the Twinkies approach and catch up at the train station. Linda notes to Karen that this will put them in another "footrace with the twins." Less footrace! More brainrace! Sigh.
At the Hermitage, music of determination follows Colin and Christie as they stomp purposefully around the exhibits. Colin finds himself a Rembrandt and points to it, despite the fact that it is a painting of a guy writing in a book, and looks nothing like the return of a prodigal son, or especially the return of Jesus, unless Jesus is auditing a class in accounting. Colin is informed that this is not the right painting, but realizes that he's probably on the right track, since he's probably reached Rembrandt Country. Before long, he finds and points to the right painting. The curator hands him the clue. As they leave, Colin is already talking about finding a travel agent.
Marshall and Lance wander around, and one of them (I am not good at telling their voices apart at all, unfortunately) says that they should just point at all the pictures at random. Yeah. With only three million works in the museum, that'll go by in the flash of a passing glacier. They do get themselves into the vicinity of the Rembrandts, and start pointing. Point! Point! Point! Finally, they find the right one and take the clue. They go outside and get into a cab, saying the crucial words, "International airport?"
Inside, Charla and Mirna are looking for the Rembrandt. Brandon and Nicole arrive behind them. Charla and Mirna find the painting. "The wonderful pyramids that I've always wanted to see," Charla says happily, and I like her, right up until Mirna butts in with "I can't wait." Everything she says annoys me now, even if it's not inherently annoying. It's like she's contaminated with my irritation at all her past wrongs.
Back at the museum, Brandon and Nicole find the painting. "Woooo!" Brandon whoops inside the silent gallery. Nicole shushes him in horror. "Oh, sorry," he says, covering his mouth. Hee hee. "Gosh!" Nicole says harshly as they receive their clue. They are weird and funny.
Chip and Kim are delivered to the international airport. (Lucky them.) Inside, Chip asks for the fastest way to Cairo, and he is directed to the Lufthansa office. Colin and Christie, meanwhile, are back in St. Petersburg at their travel agency. In a well-done sequence, Chip and Colin are shown making the same request -- the fastest way to Cairo -- and getting slightly different results. Colin and Christie will get in at 2:25 PM tomorrow; Chip and Kim will get in at 3:15 PM. Score one for the middle man, earning his paycheck. Colin and Christie, tickets in hand, get a cab to the airport.
"What up?" asks Lance at the airport. I really, really hate it when Lance says "What up?" It's wrong for Jeff Probst, and it's wrong for Lance. It's pretty much wrong for everyone who doesn't have a time machine in which to go back to the days when Flava Flav ruled the earth. Chip explains about Lufthansa, and the fact that 3:15 PM is the earliest arrival time. As Lance and Marshall go off to get tickets, Chip notes to Kim how Marshall is walking like he's in total agony, and speculates that Marshall will not be doing a whole lot on this leg. Except, of course, for mincing. Because Marshall will be doing quite a lot of that. At Lufthansa, the Brothers Pizzamazov get tickets to Cairo with the same 3:15 PM arrival time.
For once, Charla and Mirna throw an actual bit of correct language at their driver as they thank him in Russian at the airport. Hey, even a stopped clocko is right twice a day. They join Lance and Marshall in the Lufthansa ticket office. As the four sit around awkwardly, Mirna encourages Charla to do a little dance to entertain everyone. Lance voices over that he and Marshall are not crazy about the girls, and would probably not hang out with them under normal circumstances. One might add, "At all." When the guys get their tickets and leave, Mirna and Charla step up and ask for the same tickets. Incidentally, Mirna throws "bellissimo" at the ticket lady again, and seriously, it's Russia. What is with all the Italian? Maybe I'm missing something, and "bellissimo" secretly means "Thanks for the tickets" in Russian, but I would think that would be something more like, "Thanksski for the ticketsov," so I'm not sure I get her point.
Brandon and Nicole arrive at the airport, hear the scoop on tickets from other teams, and decide just to get the same flight everybody else is on and let it ride. Hmph. That's not like them at all. Perhaps they wore themselves out with the schmoop. Lance and Marshall, meanwhile, wonder if the reason they haven't seen Colin and Christie is that they went to a travel agent rather than coming straight to the airport. It appears that the fellas are at least making some additional effort, however, as they approach Air France about a flight. They are told, however, that the ticketing office is closed, so there is no way to get on. Back out in the airport, they run into Colin and Christie, and everyone catches the snap that Colin and Christie's tickets are fifty minutes better than everyone else's -- including Colin, who -- of course -- smiles wickedly, like he's really excited about the tickets. Or he's really excited about eating your cat. "Currently in 1st place," Colin and Christie board their Air France flight, which will take them to Cairo via Paris.
Chip and Kim, Brandon and Nicole, and Lance and Marshall all sit around together, waiting for their flight out. Mirna and Charla are nearby as well, but as Lance or Marshall notes, the Moms and Twinkies are nowhere to be found at this point.
At the St. Petersburg train station, the Twinkies bail off the train, followed by the Moms. Both teams head into the museum. The Twinkies, fortunately for them, run immediately into a bookish-looking Russian girl who apparently adopts them and takes them directly to the painting. Unfortunately for them, Linda and Karen are not similarly adopted. The Twinkies' Fern is much, much too happy about hanging out with them, and even hovers over their shoulders going "Wooo!" while they read their clue. I think their Russian friend is among the...let's say "over-invested." I'm also sorry to say she looks a little bit like the pre-makeover portion of The Princess Diaries, only taller and more...Russian. On their way out, the Twinkies encounter the Moms, who are discouraged to realize they're now firmly in last place. The Twinkies, on the other hand, are very happy that Russian Fern is taking them to a travel agency. And what do they find at the travel agency? The flight to Cairo landing tomorrow at 3:15 PM.
Linda and Karen continue struggling to find the painting. Ultimately, they do find it, but by then, they appear quite disheartened. When they get in their taxi, they appear to ask their driver for the "airport." In fact, Linda says, "airport" twice. It's not impossible that they said "international airport" and we didn't see it, but it looks at least possible that what's about to happen to them is partly their own fault. And what's about to happen? Well, the thing we see is them being dropped off at...the domestic airport. When they approach the ticket lady and ask about Cairo, the lady's like, "Um, yeah, not so much."
The Twinkies, however, do get to the international airport. They are in a bit of a crunch to make the flight to Frankfurt, as the rest of the teams are preparing to board. Chip and Kim, Brandon and Nicole, Mirna and Charla, and Lance and Marshall are all on the plane when they catch sight of the twins coming down the aisle. Nobody is happy to see them. Including me. The Twinkies interview that they almost missed the plane...but they didn't. They certainly do have a remarkable ability to almost get screwed, and then...not. And then...on the plane...they look at each other, and...oh, good God. They hold up their little index fingers, crook them at each other, and crinkle their noses, like, "Score!" Now that really is disgusting. Where is Mirna's indignation when you really need it? That's like something out of Mean Girls. Ew.
The flight takes off from St. Petersburg on its way to Frankfurt. In a cab on the way to the international airport, Linda and Karen lament their situation. When they get to the airport, they learn that there aren't any more flights out tonight. Ohhh...uh-oh.
Commercials. Look! Tile flooring! Amazing! Okay, the theme doesn't work for everything.
Linda and Karen receive instructions to head for the "yellow building," famous in this episode for containing Lufthansa. There, they learn that they cannot get out tonight -- but they can get out in time to catch up with the other teams in Frankfurt before the flight heads from Frankfurt to Cairo. "Like your friends," the lady tells them, and they're very, very excited. They high-five, but do not squeak. I think that brutal last leg took some of the squeak out of them, which means it may not have been an entirely bad thing. Phil reviews the flights, but the sequence isn't that tricky right now -- Colin and Christie in front, Linda and Karen dragging, everybody else bunched up in the middle.
Colin and Christie's flight lands in Paris. And what do the frontrunners do while they're waiting for their flight to Cairo? They run around looking for a better flight to Cairo. And for their hustle, they are rewarded with a flight that lands in Cairo fully twelve hours before the one they were scheduled to take. Zoiks. And they don't have much time to make the new flight, either, so it looks like they cut their layover from about twelve hours to about nothing. Very impressive. Moreover, it's a quality advantage, because it will put them into Cairo at 2:35 in the morning rather than 2:25 in the afternoon, which is genuinely far better, since it gives you the entire day to work rather than only the last few hours of it, and even if you can't get started until morning, you're still way ahead of the game. They look very happy with themselves, as they should, getting on their flight from Paris to Cairo.
Meanwhile, in Frankfurt, the flight from St. Petersburg lands with most of the teams on it. A social hour ensues in the Frankfurt airport, in which Brandon and Nicole, Chip and Kim, and Lance and Marshall sit around chatting, because fortunately, they have nothing pressing to do. Mirna and Charla, however, go in search of an earlier flight to Cairo, because while they are racing annoyingly at times, they are at least racing. They're not able to gain an advantage of the size of Colin and Christie's, but they do get a flight that's better by about fifty minutes. They resolve not to let anybody else find out that they're doing anything different. There seems to be little risk of anybody else finding out, since the rest of the teams are apparently lolling about like it's spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, only colder.
Charla and Mirna are hanging with the other teams, interestingly, apparently to throw them off the scent. (Clever.) Mirna whispers that they can't take off and go to their new gate until everybody is asleep. And indeed, once the other three teams are sleeping (and Kim has rolled her hair, with which you know Mirna can sympathize), Mirna and Charla sneak off (accompanied by sneaky-sneak music) to get their other flight.
At 2:35 AM, Colin and Christie's flight lands in Cairo. They get to the Tower of Cairo, but its hours of operation are 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, so they'll have to wait until morning. Still, they are very happy, because this will still leave them a substantial chunk of their lead. About seven hours, by Colin's calculations -- which, by the way, he performs by grinding his teeth rhythmically, just like the ancients did. He and Christie find a spot to lie down and sleep until it's time to head for the tower in the morning.
Meanwhile, all the way back in St. Petersburg, Linda and Karen board their flight to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, the three sleeping teams wake up and wonder about the whereabouts of Mirna and Charla. Kim hypothesizes that they'll show up just in time to get on the flight, but Marshall voices over that as much as they dislike Mirna and Charla, they know they're not dumb, so they figured there was a good shot that the cousins had scampered off and found a better flight. Indeed, there are Mirna and Charla now, boarding the Alitalia flight to Cairo. Mirna notes that everything on the plane is green, and she refers to green as her "lucky colors." Yeah. Not sure why green is plural, and not sure why Mirna doesn't seem to own anything green if that's her lucky...um, colors. It might be time to rethink that "not dumb" as it applies to the broad conduct of life activities. They fly from Frankfurt to Cairo, scheduled to arrive at 2:25.
Aaand here come the Moms in Frankfurt, just in time to catch up with Brandon and Nicole, Chip and Kim, and Lance and Marshall at the gate. Brandon notes in an interview that everybody was on the plane together now, except "those sneaky cousins." And that meddling dog. (Sidebar: I recently found out that my five-year-old nephew recently discovered old Scooby-Doo episodes, and has been watching even the late ones after it got gimmicky, and that as a result, he is the only five-year-old in America who thinks Don Knotts is really funny. He also knows who Carol Channing is, and thinks the one with Sonny and Cher was just the best. Disturbing? I think so.) That flight takes off, Nicole voicing over that as far as she was concerned, they were all tied for last place. Uhh...good catch, Nicole. It's a shame they're removing the talent competition from the Miss America pageant, because you could have used that.
At 8:55 AM, it's almost time for Colin and Christie to storm the Tower of Cairo. They wake up, and Colin notes drowsily that waking up staring at the Tower of Cairo is not a bad way to start the day. They walk up to the top of the tower, happy that no other teams are there. When they rip the clue envelope, they find a Fast Forward. Phil explains that there are only two FFs on the entire course this time around, but the usual rules apply -- only the first team to get to it can use it, and the same team won't be able to use it both times. Blah blah blah, "most advantageous to go for it." He explains that in this FF, the team will have to find a sarcophagus at the Pharaonic Village. They'll then transport the sarcophagus by ferry to a temple and deliver it to a priest who will provide their clue. Colin and Christie talk about whether they want to use the FF or not, and Colin says, "Might as well, we're in first place." Normally, that would be a very bad idea. In this case, though, it's probably the right call, because if there are two FFs, the time it comes up, the first person to find it is going to take it knowing it's the last one, so if you're behind, it won't be there for you to find anyway. They call a taxi to head for the village.
When they get there, Colin rereads the clue that says to get the sarcophagus "from outside the village." The sarcophagus -- sarcophagi -- whatever -- are leaning up against the wall outside the front entrance. They ask a guy who tells them that the sarcophagi are on the island, and they have to get on a boat. Christie notes warily that she hopes this is right, because she doesn't want to have to come back and redo it. Colin says something about guaranteeing where it is or isn't, although it's hard to make out what he's saying. They boat to the island, where Christie notes that they haven't yet found a sarcophagus. It appears as though they then ferry back across and look outside the entrance, where they find what they need, heave the sarcophagus, and get moving. As they get on the boat, Colin says, "Don't drop the dead body." Heh, but also...shudder. They ferry to the temple, and as they walk there, Christie remarks, "You know, you never trust me, and I said the sarcophagus was on the other side..." "Hey, you know what, Christie?" he says. "We stopped over there because you wanted to stop over there. We were coming to the ferry. And then you changed your mind, and you decided you wanted to stop over there." They bicker for a bit, and we cut to the priest, who would appear to be shaking his head, which is probably apocryphal, but still awesome. Egyptian priests really hate bickering, especially when you're carrying a pretend dead king. As they deliver the sarcophagus to the priest, Christie voices over that because of their lack of trust, she and Colin wind up making mistakes. But in any event, the clue they get from the priest sends them to the pit stop. And where's the pit stop? It's at a little place you may have heard of, called the Sphinx.
As he and Christie get out of their cab near the Sphinx and look around at the pyramids, Colin calls it "one of the most incredible places on the planet Earth." He elaborates that it is "absolutely breathtakingly astonishing," and I can't argue, even though normally that would be the adjectival equivalent of a thirty-six-car pileup, and I would not approve. They walk across in front of the Sphinx, crossing in front of it on the way to the mat. They walk up and are greeted by Phil, who tells them that they're team number one. Obviously, they are happy. I have to say, my first reaction to that moment was that when this show was originally conceived and dreamed of, I have to think that a team marching across in front of the Sphinx and landing on the finish line for the leg was precisely the kind of thing they hoped they were going to get, so seeing it is really pretty damn cool. I mean, that's what you tell your friends in a bar about the great idea you have for a show. "And they'd finish at, like, the Sphinx!" (If you worked for Fox, you would add that at the Sphinx, they would pick up an Egyptian wife who they would have to take home to live with them. If you worked for ABC, you would add that they would have to eliminate landmarks one by one over a series of weeks, until they narrowed it down to the landmark they want to spend the rest of their lives with. If you worked for Mark Burnett, you would add that just as they reached the Sphinx, they would be forced to decide amongst themselves which of them would be thrown into a tomb for all eternity. Hey, I could do this all day.) Christie voices over that they're happy to be ahead, and they're "crossing their fingers" that they can hold on to their huge lead. Yeah...not. I still think the FF was the right thing to do, but...really, not. You have not developed an unbunchable lead, by any means.
At 2:25 PM, Mirna and Charla land in Cairo. They hop in a cab. The thing you know, they're at the top of the tower, reading the clue. It tells them to get themselves to the Giza Plateau, which is fourteen miles away. It's on the border of the Sahara desert, and is "the home to three great pyramids." Phil claims that teams will need to follow a series of yellow rocks (awww, yellow rocks!) to the clue box. They get moving.
At 3:15 PM, the stragglers land. They all jump into cabs. On the way, they cross a river, and Chip asks the driver whether it's the Nile. He's excited to hear that it is. Chip notes in an interview that this is the home of Moses saying "Let my people go." Which, actually, is true. (And no, smarties, he did not say Moses parted the Nile. Pay attention!) In an interview, he goes on excitedly about being in the spot where biblical history was made. I feel the same way every time I walk around the third floor of the Mall of America, where I got lost on the weekend it opened. Don't get me started on the giant Lego bird, because I still have post-traumatic stress responses to it. But now it's all just "history."
Brandon and Nicole ease past Marshall and Lance in their cab, and they thank their driver. Hey, always thank your driver. Taxicab karma is a terrible thing to waste.
Giza Plateau. Mirna notes that the pyramids are "huge." Very good, dear. week, we'll do addition and subtraction.
Of the teams on that last flight, the first to the tower are Brandon and Nicole. They compliment their driver behind his back as they head up the tower. Marshall and Lance are just behind, followed by Chip and Kim. Clue-reading ensues. Chip, for some reason, reads "Giza Plateau" as "Giza Plaza." Which is where the Giza Casual Corner is, I believe.
The moms and Twinkies, again, are straggling when they get to the tower, the Moms slightly out in front. Everybody in cabs, with the twins asking their driver to "haul butt." And haul butt he does, passing the Moms on the road to Giza Plateau. They thank him, and he gives them a smile that's 50% "I would like a large tip, please" and 50% "Do you two ever, you know, go on dates together?"
Marshall and Lance and Chip and Kim arrive at the Plateau, with Chip giving a whistle and a "Here, yellow rock!" Lance comments sadly to the camera that Marshall can barely walk, and that they're hoping that their lead over the lagging teams is enough to keep them in it. Seriously, Marshall is doing that walk that's either the result of excruciating knee pain or the sudden onset of intestinal distress.
Mirna has gotten way out ahead of Charla, and is yelling at her to hurry. Charla protests that she has a hard time running in the sand. "Well, do a little bit better, please, it's going to get dark in an hour." Okay, that is so crappy. Running is literally the only thing I've seen Charla do where she is actually at a disadvantage, and it seems to me that Mirna standing there berating her for not being fast enough is kind of...awful. I don't doubt that Charla's doing her best. Anyway, they finally get to the Roadblock, which is titled, "Who's up for going down?"
Um.
Yeah, everybody's got a dirty mind, but that one doesn't even need a dirty mind. Anyway, so -- hey, Exposition Hands! -- we are told that the Roadblock will require someone to climb down ladders to the bottom of a shaft (hee, "shaft") and pull a satchel out of a sort of pond of disgusting water. They'll give the satchel to an Egyptologist who will give them another clue. (I can't think of anything dirty to associate with the word "Egyptologist," although I'm sure I could, if given enough time.) Mirna claims, unsurprisingly, that she can't do the Roadblock, claiming claustrophobia. Charla's like, "Okay, fine, Princess DeadWeight, I'll do it myself, AS USUAL." Although she uses other words. "I'll get the bag and I'll come back up," Charla says as she heads into the hole. "Take your time, honey!" Mirna yells into the hole. Yeah, you're a big help.
The Twinkies start looking for the yellow rocks. The Moms, for whatever reason, decide to follow them. Yeah, brilliant plan. As Linda and Karen try to follow the twins, Linda steps in a hole and falls. Karen comes back and asks if she's all right, and Linda says she isn't, actually -- she's twisted her ankle. Uh-oh. Oh, so vivacious. And so hobbled. Speaking of which, remember when Miss Alli's Mom broke her foot and walked around the zoo for hours? I have an update. She's got a removable cast on her foot right now, and she can walk around with a cane. The other day, she was detouring around the sleeping dog (!) when stubbed her toe on her cane (!!) and broke her little toe (!!!). That's on the good foot. So I appreciate all of your good wishes for her speedy recovery, but I'm afraid that they were somehow misunderstood by the universe, which read a loud clamor of voices calling out "Get well soon!" as a rowdy crowd yelling, "Cool! Break something else!"
Commercials. Oh, local tainted meat, how you do keep turning up.
We return to the pyramids, where Linda remains on the ground. Karen gives her a hand getting up, but it's clear that she did give her ankle a twist right there and isn't quite at full speed. "That hurt," she moans. My mom didn't moan, incidentally. She was actually laughing when she told me about her toe, because she pays more attention to absurd humor than to broken bones, which is pretty much how I like everyone to be.
Mirna is calling to Charla down in the cave, as if Charla needs her yelling. "I was stubborn, and I made Charla do it, and now I feel bad." Yeah. The time for the realization is before you wimp out, not after, when it's worthless. She watches the hole anxiously. We, on the other hand, are inside the hole, watching Charla climb down the ladder -- which, obviously, is not scaled for her legs, which are her littlest part, so I'd think this would be a little bit awkward. "Perfecto!" she yells. Which is kind of funny, because there's not even a random international person to hear her. "As long as you don't look doooown, you'll be fiiiiine," she singsongs to herself. Hee. "It's a beautiful day in Egypt," she continues to chant. She then notes, however, that it's hot. Mirna, outside, finds it "a little bit scary" having Charla down there. In the shaft, Charla goes after the satchel, which is at the bottom of maybe a foot and a half of nasty-looking water. She hauls it out. Outside, Mirna mutters, "I should have given her the whistle to signal for help." All right, Mirna, enough. She's not your kid, so knock it off. Charla, not really thinking, "Gee, I wish I had a whistle to yell for help," slings the satchel strap over her head and goes back to the ladder. She says that getting back up with the "wet and heavy satchel" hanging off of her was "more complicated than [she] thought." See, that's what I'm talking about. I do think each shot up that ladder is harder because it's not proportioned right. If you look, when she stands on the ladder, the rung she has to step to is almost even with her waist. I'm not sure how that's affected by the fact that she has short legs, but it looks to me like it's an even tougher grind if the ladder doesn't really fit you. Anyway, she stops for a breath. Mirna frets outside. Finally, Charla emerges with the bag. Mirna: "Oh, my gosh, Charla, you're the hero here!" Charla, silently: "No shit." They get their big rolled-up clue.
Phil explains that the Egyptologist is giving them a map of the Giza Plateau. Their satchel contains a bunch of puzzle pieces. If you place the assembled puzzle over the map, it has a hole in it that's essentially wedge-shaped, that points at the place you're supposed to go. Hey, that's almost like a clue! Shocking. Anyway, Mirna and Charla (mostly Charla) empty out their satchel, and then they (mostly Charla) assemble the puzzle. "Honestly, I don't have a clue," Mirna says. Boy, there's an inadvertent meta-statement if ever there was one.
Chip and Kim, Brandon and Nicole, and Marshall and Lance are all on their way to the Roadblock clue. Marshall is lamenting that he can't run. Because of the knees, and the mincing. Boo hoo. ["Seriously? What ever made Marshall think he could do this race? It's the fifth leg and he's already completely useless, physically. I know that there are many larger people who are strong and fit, but he's obviously not one of them, so...maybe Big Brother would have been a better reality show for him to go on? With the sitting?" -- Wing Chun]
Mirna asks whether Charla thinks the hole in the puzzle is relevant. "Yeah," Charla says. "If you put that whole thing..." She quickly figures out that you lay the puzzle over the map to mark where you're supposed to go. Smart girl. See, I think that Charla, I kind of like. And once she bundles Mirna up in a carpet and throws her into the back of a truck on its way to Siberia, she and I might get along fine.
The Twinkies and Moms are running around looking for the yellow rocks. None are apparent.
Brandon and Nicole and Chip and Kim arrive at the Roadblock and rip the clue. "Who's up for going down?" Nicole says, with what I'd like to think is a slightly mischievous twinkle. She tells Brandon it would be down into the pyramids. You know, in case he was wondering. I mean, if he doesn't even believe in touching his lips to vodka...well, anyway. He looks very nervous about doing this, and in an interview that's almost too good to be true, he says that he's afraid "of the crevasses." No, really. Brandon's afraid of crevasses. Remember when Chuck was "hot and tight"? Yeah. They don't miss a single one of these in the editing room. Not one, ever. Especially since there is chicka-wocka music playing, and especially especially since Brandon looks at Nicole with this really funny smile and puts his hand over his mouth. He discusses his fear of holes (hee, snerk, snort), and then we watch him and Chip descend into the cave. "Okay, big B, show me how it's done, doctor," Chip says. Somehow, I suspect that under my interpretation, it is Chip who would be the teacher and Brandon who would be the student.
Elsewhere, Mirna and Charla search for the clue. Mirna manages to spot the clue box, and when the get to it, it's a Detour. The options? "Rock and Roll," or "Hump and Ride."
Excuse me, Hump and Ride? Were these all written on Take Your Twelve-Year-Old Cousin To Work Day? But, you know, pros and cons, blah dee blah, says Phil. He explains that in Rock and Roll, you use a platform and some logs to transport 600 pounds of stone about 100 yards. It's basically the thing where you roll the platform, and then you go and get the log in the back and move it to the front...it's like wheels, if you didn't know about wheels yet. This task is physically demanding, but you can move at your own pace. In Hump and Ride, you have one hour of hot monkey sex in front of a group of lecherous camels. No, not really. Actually, you ride a pair of horses leading two camels along a trail. So you're not riding the camels, but you're still stuck with how fast they, and the horses, can go.
As Mirna interviews that they probably can't manage pulling the rocks, she and Charla discuss the Humping and Riding. Their immediate problem is that the hours of operation for the camels (who are in the union) are 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and it's currently 5:27 PM. Charla looks at the distance to where the camels are, and insists that they won't make it over there in three minutes. Mirna ignores her and insists that they can make it. "If I can make that, then you can make that," she says. And I think that's rude, because as stated previously, Charla kicks ass at many things, but she is not as fast running as somebody with legs three times as long as hers, and acting like she's being a baby about it is pretty shitty. How's Charla going to feel if Mirna runs off without her and she's dragging behind and doesn't get there in time? That's going to be embarrassing and demoralizing, in addition to a waste of time. I understand that Mirna's all hot and bothered to Hump and Ride (ew), but I think the call on this should probably have been Charla's.
Down in the hole, Brandon is going for his satchel, saying he "kind of felt like Indiana Jones." Heh. He pulls the bag, as we watch Marshall and Lance pull the Roadblock clue and Lance grump, "I guess I'm doing it."
"Charla, they're leaving!" Mirna shrieks across the desert. "Charla, run!" Oh, my God. HATE. I have yet to see Charla give less than 100% to anything, and it is increasingly irritating how this harpy is taking advantage of her long legs to act like a bossy drill sergeant. Gross.
Brandon emerges from the hole (hee) and Chip heads down. He pulls the satchel out. Up at the top, Lance gets his harness on and heads in. Brandon and Nicole pour out the puzzle pieces. "Are you good at puzzles?" he asks her.
Mirna blows her whistle as she and Charla approach the camels. I tend to doubt that the guys running the camel task stay because of the whistle, but that's what the sequence suggests. Charla now says that at she was running to the horses, it struck her that the horse is big, and she hasn't ever ridden a horse before. So, of course, she starts whining and needs Mirna to tell her to ride the horse. Oh, no. She DOESN'T. The guy lifts her up on the horse, and she's sort of taking an attitude like, "Oh, well, I guess this is what's ." Mirna tells her she looks "like a true jockey." Oh, cram it. They ride off on their horses, impressed with all the natural beauty.
Brandon pronounces himself "baffled" by what to do with the now-assembled puzzle, as Lance emerges from the cave with the satchel. When the teams compare, Chip and Kim and Brandon and Nicole notice that they've got identical slivers out of their puzzles, so that's obviously on purpose, and it presumably represents where they're supposed to go. These two teams, and Marshall and Lance, take off.
Mirna blathers about being in Lawrence of Arabia as they ride their horses. It's a beautifully shot sequence, but I really wish she would stop talking.
Lance has located the Detour clue, and he waves his arms to bring Marshall and the other teams over. They all note that the Humping and Riding is over for the evening, so they'll apparently be doing the rock hauling.
The Twinkies, while they have not successfully managed to follow the path, notice the open shaft that's presumably lit up with TV lights in the approaching dusk. They walk over to it, and read the clue. Kami goes down to do it, and she calls back up, "Karli! What does the satchel look like?" Yeah. There are two possible interpretations. One is that Kami is worried that there will be bunches of satchels down underground, and she won't know which one to bring back up. The other is that she doesn't know what a "satchel" is. Any guesses?
The sun goes down as tense music follows us back to the Charla/Mirna horse and camel parade. Charla marvels about viewing the pyramids from a horse, and I'm quite prepared to agree that that would be remarkable indeed. They get off their horses and pull a clue that tells them to get themselves to the Sphinx. Charla and Mirna run for it.
We now return to the 600-pound blocks atop the rolling platforms. Chip and Kim and Nicole and Brandon get there together, and both the guys take the task of pulling, assigning the women to the task of taking the back log out and moving it to the front. Nicole, in an interview, calls this a "little train action."
Charla approaches the Sphinx, talking about how she "always wanted to see the pyramids." I sort of wish she hadn't added the smurfy line about "another one of [her] dreams [that] came true," but hey, nobody's perfect. "Oh, my gosh, this is the Sphinx!" she adds. They walk up to the mat. They're team number two. Mirna hugs Phil, which he no longer seems to find adorable. I do think he likes Charla, though. "How amazing is this, huh?" he asks her. "I rode a horse...I had a great time," she says, nearly giddy. Phil grins at her. She interviews about being "capable of doing anything," blah blah blah, and now that she's not been quite so beg-for-help-ish over the last leg or two, that bothers me a lot less. And honestly, she is breaking stereotypes, in the following regard: At this point, I kind of don't care that Charla is short, although she is, and when it's relevant, it's relevant (i.e., running). However, my primary read on this team at this point has nothing to do with that. To me, they're not short person/tall person, or cousins, or whatever. They're an obnoxious, nitwitty albatross and the pistol who's stuck dragging her ass around. They're most interesting to me not because Charla is unusual-looking, though she is, but because I kind of want her to sucker-punch Mirna right in the solar plexus. And that's the way we all grow in our humanity.
Nicole tells Brandon she thinks that dragging the logs might be the more physically demanding of the two roles in the task, which...I doubt, but I think they're both tough. They and Chip and Kim, though, seem to have the hang of it, which looks like it surprised the newly arrived Lance and Marshall. "How the hell are they doing this?" Lance wonders. He then asks Marshall not to get distracted. "Stop looking at the camels," he orders. And then we pan over to said camels, the footage of which suddenly speeds up so that they scurry off the screen. Hee. Cute and funny.
Down in the hole, Kami is still wondering what a satchel is. "My God, it's right in front of me, I know it," she says. Linda and Karen are finding the lit-up shaft as well. Kami pulls the bag out of the water. When she emerges, she and Karli empty out the bag. "Maybe this is for something else," they say of the puzzle pieces, as one of them shoves the pieces off to the side, accompanied by the Creepy Music of Screwing Up. They look at the map, having no idea where they're supposed to go. Without reaching any particular conclusion, they just decide to go somewhere on the map, since apparently, maps are just there to lay out all the possible places one could choose to go, and you wouldn't be expected to find any particular location. "Karli and I do not have a plan; we have no idea where we're going," Kami says as they take off anyway. "We're clueless," she adds, just as we go to commercials. Hey, you said it, not me. Well, actually, I said it too, but now we've both said it.
Commercials. That Fruit of the Loom commercial with the firemen is totally turning someone on, somewhere, you just know it. And it's not someone you want to meet.
Pyramids! Sphinx! We're back! The Twinkies continue to have no idea what they're doing. They're basically wandering aimlessly. The moms, meanwhile, are coming upon the Roadblock, which Karen takes on account of Linda's ankle.
Back at rock-hauling, Lance and Marshall are struggling through. Chip and Kim, on the other hand, are doing well. "We're working like a well-oiled machine now, lady-girl!" he says happily. Brandon and Nicole, however, are not so well-oiled. They've pulled their rocks right off the tracks. "Hey, Chip," Brandon says. "Can you help a brother out real quick?" And, yeah, "help a brother out" is pretty twee, but it's obvious that these guys have been developing a friendship (as when Chip called him "Big B" and "doctor" a little while ago), so I didn't find it particularly off-putting. Chip does head over and help Brandon and Nicole get back on track. That one, I think, was probably a good call, in that Brandon and Nicole are pretty good-quality allies, and that friendship might be useful, not to mention pleasant, in the future. Chip interviews that he helped them out primarily because it's just the kind of person he is. "My nature is to help," he says. And I tend to believe that.
Karen emerges with the satchel. They pour out the puzzle pieces and assemble the puzzle, catching on to the whole "hole" thing. They go off in the direction of the corner of the pyramid where the clue box is, as we see that the Twinkies are still completely confused as to what to do.
Brandon and Nicole bicker over whether she's lining up the logs to take them in the wrong direction. Amusingly enough, they both continually use the word "baby," even when they're arguing. Elsewhere, Chip comments that he "respect[s] the heck out of the Egyptians" if this is how they built the pyramids. Heh. ["You'd think that someone as conversant with the Old Testament as he would know that...you know, it wasn't the Egyptians who did the hauling. But never mind." -- Wing Chun] He and Kim give their rocks a final pull over the line, and you can see that Brandon and Nicole are basically right with them. They get the pit stop clue and leave, followed closely by Brandon and Nicole. Brandon does the dorky thing where he turns to her and sort of nervously says, "Sorry, baby, do you love me?" She gives him an impatient peck. "Are you mad at me?" "No," she says, kind of eye-rolly, "I'm all right." Hee. I think he generally knows when he's being kind of twerpy, and as long as you have that level of self-awareness, there's hope for you. They take off.
Even more tense music takes us to follow Chip and Kim as they run into the Twinkies on the way to the Sphinx. "We're going the wrong way, aren't we?" the Twinkies ask. Chip asks them whether they found the place on the map, and when he realizes they didn't, he literally points on the map to where they need to go. It looks like where they need to go is back toward the Sphinx, because Chip and Kim actually allow the Twinkies to follow them. Chip voices over that of course, there's been bad blood between him and the Twinkies over the cab incident. "Kami, let me tell you, I love you guys," Chip says as they walk. A Twinkie voices over that they were ultimately straightened out by Chip and Kim. As they split off, Chip dramatically calls out, "Forgive me now, Kami!" "All right, you're redeemed," she snots, as if there were anything to redeem. She's not smart enough to know how stupid she was about that whole thing, so I guess it shouldn't grate on me that much to have her "forgive" him. But it kind of does. The Twinkies reach the Detour clue, and on their way to the rock-hauling, one of them falls down. Eh. Good, but not as good as if she'd been dumped on her face by a donkey.
Brandon and Nicole head for the pit stop, in front of Chip and Kim due to the stop Chip made to help the Twinkies. Brandon and Nicole, you are team number three. Chip and Kim walk up , as he talks to her about how cool it is that "a South Central L.A. boy and a Compton girl makes it all the way through Russia, and the Sphinx...this is unbelievable." They land on the mat, and are team number four. Chip interviews that he was like, "Hmm, fourth." He's aware that helping the Twinkies let Brandon and Nicole get ahead of them. He doesn't care, though. "I'm not going to stop being me," he says.
Linda and Karen rip open their Detour clue and resign themselves to rock-hauling.
Marshall and Lance are still working on the rocks, while wondering where the last two teams are. The Twinkies show up, all snotty and "Having fun?" about it. Lance: "Yeah, wait till the fun starts." Heh. Yeah, I'll give him that one. "Your fun hasn't started yet," Marshall adds. The Twinkies start to try to pull the rocks, and their first comment is that they "hate this." Well, sure. And also, "This is stupid." Yeah. Pretty stupid. It's only how they built the Pyramids, ass. Marshall and Lance finish the pulling. They get applause and their pit stop clue.
Linda and Karen show up for rock-hauling. Marshall and Lance approach the Sphinx. The Twinkies finish the rocks. Marshall and Lance check in as number five.
Tense footage. The moms and Twinkies appear to be fairly close -- close enough to see each other -- walking to the pit stop. Linda and Karen, running! Twinkies, running!
Sigh. You know where this is going, right? Sure you do. As usual, the Twinkies manage to come in just before last place. They can thank Chip. Do you think they will? Yeah, me neither.
Linda and Karen come up to the mat. They're told they're last. But, it's non-elimination, so they're not eliminated. But, there's a catch. They're being stripped of all their money, and they get none for the leg. So...they're broke. Phil tells them they're "hanging on by a thread." He wishes them luck, which isn't quite a hearty "screw you," but it's close. Linda voices over that being broke in Egypt, not exactly a center of wealth among the masses, won't be easy. But guess what? They won't give up. Yeah, I'm not surprised.
week: Begging for dollars. Shirtless Brandon. Happy Nicole. A smackdown between Colin and Christie and Charla and Mirna over a taxi. Greeeat.