Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The one with all the eating
By Miss Alli | Season 7 | Episode 3 | Aired on 03.14.2005
Up in front, Rob and Amber are hunting for Puente Viejo, and it looks like to get there, you go past the bridge and turn back to it, because Rob sees the clue box on the bridge as they pass. Then we seem them stop the car and hop out, as Amber reminds Rob that they have to go to the Yield mat first. Phil takes this opportunity to explain how the Yield works, and how you can stop someone else from racing, blah dee blah. Only three on the whole race and so forth, and you can use it only once, but presumably, the same team could be Yielded by different other teams multiple times. Rob and Amber step on the Yield mat and tell us that they choose not to use the Yield. Not being dumb. They next rip the clue, which is a Detour called Paddle or Pedal. In Paddle, you inflate a raft and ride it down a seven-mile stretch of river with a couple of guides. In Pedal, you ride mountain bikes along a trail that follows a set of railroad tracks -- also seven miles. Rob and Amber choose to do the boat. As they head for the raft, Lynn and Alex are arriving. My favorite part is where Alex says they're not Yielding anyone, and he hastily adds, "It's too early in the game." Such a lot of hooey. Your boyfriend just explained that you were saving your Yield for Rob and Amber lest you be judged lacking in eggs, and now because you got here behind them, it's suddenly about it being too early in the game? It's like people forget that they're on TV, and there's a permanent record of the stuff they said before when the little thingy with the lens on it was making that sound like, "whirrrrrr." At any rate, they read the clue and choose Paddle. Rob and Amber are ahead of them getting into the boats. Once both teams are in, they both head out. "My arm is dying," Amber says with a grin. Lynn and Alex, meanwhile, are fiercely concentrated on -- you guessed it -- beating Rob and Amber. Only this time, to their considerable credit, they're fiercely concentrated on it in perhaps the one kind of [racing] situation in which obsessive personal animosity might be productive.
Meredith and Gretchen are making their way toward the clue box, followed by a frustrated Brian and Greg, who have noticed that Meredith and Gretchen? Yeah, not exactly speed demons. I don't know if they're driving with the turn signal on, but they're otherwise sort of embracing the driving-behind-your-grandpa stereotype. The boys pass the couple, and both teams arrive at the Yield, both declining to use it. The boys are the first (and, it will turn out, only) team to choose to Pedal, while Meredith and Gretchen take Paddle. Helmets are strapped on. As they boys take off on their bikes, they take note of how it's "just like when [they] were kids." Maybe they were always trying to outrun their aunts and uncles or something. Meredith and Gretchen get into their raft.