Previously on Phil Me With Your Light: Teams left Denver, Colorado and immediately went to a whole different country. Fran and Barry and Danielle and Dani realized that motorcycle assembly is harder than it looks, while BJ and Tyler and Eric and Jeremy realized that in a weird way, they are all the same guy. John and Scott and Lisa and Joni left themselves at the mercy of their cab drivers, while Ray and Yolanda felt a little resentful toward the ass-ogling locals. Wanda and Desiree? Delightful. Dave and Lori? Same. Lake just wasn't the same without James Stockdale, and Monica and Joseph dug a spiritual hole by giving themselves a doofy nickname. In the end, John and Scott couldn't recover from a combination of bad luck and bad decisions, and they were the first team out. For the most part, it didn't seem like keeping them around would have made the show any less annoying, if we can put it that way.
Credits. Okay, fine. Don't take my advice about getting rid of the creepy head-turns. I've never been right about anything else, like, say, the entire season, have I? No. No, I'm sure I haven't, so feel free to blithely continue including creepy head-turns. I'll just be over here. CRYING.
Commercials. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy having a fancy car, but I swear, some of these commercials make me feel like it's just too much car for the places I usually drive. Like, wouldn't a car that powerful suck the lady at the drive-through window at Starbucks right out into space through the sheer force of its libidinous will?
Sao Paulo includes buildings and fountains, but not in the same way Vegas does, and Phil explains that it's the largest city in the southern Hemisphere. (Eat it, Australia!) Phil says there are "20 million fans of soccer" here. I'm sorry, but I suspect there is at least one dissenter. One person with a "FUCK FUTBOL" shirt, one person walking around in a Lakers jersey, one curling devotee. Somebody in Green Bay doesn't give a shit about the Packers, you know? Anyway, he further explains that the "city's heart beats" at its soccer stadium. God, I was wondering what that infernal thumping was all about. Said stadium was the first pit stop, Phil explains as we see him for the first time. Now who did not straighten Phil before this shot? His shirt is all tilted, like it's bunched up under his left arm. Does no one look after Phil except for me?
We are reminded that all the teams arrived here for their "mandatory rest period." Phil wonders whether Fran and Barry will overcome things like not seeing the clue box 20 times in a row and picking the Detour option most likely to kick them in the ass, and whether Lisa and Joni can avoid last place.
5:34 AM. Eric and Jeremy, suspiciously tagged as simply "the first to arrive," are leaving. I think Jeremy's jacket says "Iceland," which means there are a lot of people in Reykjavik right now who are like, "The hell? We'll own Bjork, but nobody here has ever even heard of this dink." The clue tells them to head to Edificio Copan, which is two and a half miles away. There, they'll find "Bloco F," which I am pleased to report is not a holding pen for drunks. Eric and Jeremy decide to wait for BJ and Tyler, who are just behind them. I received a delightful email this week pointing out that Eric and Jeremy and BJ and Tyler really could both be referred to as Team Choad, which would make things confusing, except that they spend so much time together that they can just be referred to as the Choad Family, which is so handy that I hereby steal it. In an interview, we are informed that girls are "on [Eric and Jeremy's] brains." Poor girls. Talk about winding up in a very small room with nowhere to sit. Eric adds that if they can "get some sex on the race," and then Jeremy says, "Or dating, or something," and Eric goes back to "or sex, then, you know it's good." Wow. You know, if there's one thing you can say about guys who talk about getting some this much, it's that they always, always can back it up with true prowess, not to mention amazing stamina and sheer naked beauty. I'm thinking they can pleasure a woman for two hours without even pausing for a drink of water.
5:36 AM. BJ and Tyler are leaving, but not before squealing to each other "Here we go!" and "Do it!" They clearly have a serious case of Robin Williams Disease, in which it is impossible not to be "on" for even one moment while a camera is running, and while that's charming for an hour-long standup special or a movie in which you play a professional nurturer, it is something I find impossibly tiresome in a race team. They run off the mat. And one of them says to Eric and Jeremy, "Let's go, muscles from Brussels!" That's...not funny, you know? There is no resemblance between either of those guys and Schwarzenegger, and that's what makes it shtick and not wit. It's not responsive to the situation. BJ and Tyler explain in voice-over that they have "both a competition and a brotherhood with Eric and Jeremy." Yes. The Brotherhood Of The Choad. Tyler tells us that while they're from "two different worlds," they "have a fundamental understanding of each other." See? They are the same guy. This is what I've been trying to tell you. The Choad Family gets into a pair of taxis.
5:45 AM. Wanda and Desiree. Desiree is wearing glasses, which stokes the demographic that already thinks she's hot to almost unbearable degrees of agitation. She explains in an interview that coming in strong in the first leg really made them much more confident, so that now, they know they're "true competitors." She says the boost will help them enormously. They grab a taxi.
5:49 AM. Dave and Lori. Dave says that the fact that they're in love is going to be "the glue" that helps them be successful. In one of those moments that completely cuts different ways for different people, they stand and give an interview in which he says, "She's my hottie boom-body with the naughty Pilates." Or thereabouts. What makes this adorable to me is that she is laughing in this way that declares that (1) she has heard him say this before; (2) she always cracks up and loves it; and (3) she cannot believe he's saying it on television, because it's so incredibly stupid. They get a cab.
Eric and Jeremy are in their taxi when they note the presence of a couple of prostitutes. Eric comments on the nice ass on one of them, and then Jeremy points out that it's a man. Of course, Jeremy thinks this is the most hilariously shocking thing EVAH!, and while I do always think it's a little amusing when Homosexual Panic Guy admires a man's ass, going after the overcompensation that these guys are displaying is so easy that it's not even that much fun. It's not like everyone doesn't wonder whether the smooth-chested guy who constantly tells you how much he loves the ladies does not, in fact, love the ladies, but even focusing on that gives them more credit than they deserve, in some vague way I can't even put my finger on. Like, if it's a closet, it's a closet they've moved into and will remain in for life, and the world's gay men are mostly like, "And STAY in there." The irony is that nobody's team really wants these guys. Sexually speaking, they're like an eBay auction with zero bids that's only going to last for another two minutes. Ahem.
Upon arriving at their destination, BJ and Tyler holler.
The four lead teams all arrive at Edificio Copan close together, and they discover that the building doesn't open until 8:00 AM. So there's your bunching, and while not everyone is a fan of it, it's certainly better to have it at the beginning of the leg, rather than at the end, where it negates everything up until the last ten minutes of the show, which was the horror of the last couple of the normally formatted seasons. Tyler, of course, reacts to this news with a theatrical, exaggerated "Oh, crumbs!" I seriously would have smacked him by now, I'm not kidding.
6:10 AM. Lake and Michelle. He announces that they have only $23 for the leg. Michelle tells us as they leave that Lake is "a Type-A personality." Ah, yes! He's intense! He has a Type-A personality! He's competitive! He's driven! For additional synonyms for "asshole," please consult your copies of A Racing Thesaurus: Language Without Meaning. Michelle says she's in charge of wrangling his obnoxious behavior and calming him down. Which I'm sure is awesome for her when they're fixing someone's teeth. "Now, honey, she doesn't have a chipped tooth on purpose; we could give her a little anesthesia, couldn't we?" They get into a cab, and she is already telling him to calm down, so they are off to a great start for the day.
6:13 AM. Joseph and Monica. She explains that they were perfectly happy to finish in sixth place, considering that they were on the last flight out. Generalized pabulum about never giving up follows. They arrive at the building at close to the same time as Lake and Michelle, and they all realize that the building is still closed and they'll have to wait.
6:47 AM. Ray and Yolanda. Yolanda says that they're "floundering" at the moment, and that makes her uncomfortable. Ray, looking to be optimistic, compares it to a marathon, saying that what matters is how you finish the entire thing, so they're just going to move on. There's a way in which this is kind of the opposite of true, in that in a marathon, they don't stop every two miles and throw the person in last place out of the entire thing, but I would never step on anyone's attempt at perseverance.
7:06 AM. Fran and Barry share a smooch on the mat and open their clue. This is where we get Fran's interview in which she explains that she's a breast cancer survivor, so good for her. When people aren't very good at racing, I like to hear back story that makes it seem likely that they can keep it in perspective. She says that she wants to prove she's in as good shape as she was before, which is very understandable. Barry speaks well of her strength and so forth. It would be great if they were better at the whole "racing" part, because I don't think I would find their personalities disagreeable if there weren't so much talk of losing and near-losing.
7:19 AM. Danielle and Dani. In an interview I kind of like, Dani pretty much owns up to the fact that they started off thinking that their "femininity" (read: sex appeal) was going to carry them a long way. Their impression now, post-motorcycle-shop, is that this is not so true. "It's really just about how bad you want something and how far you're willing to push yourself." I'm not crazy about these girls yet, but I did respect the fact that they were able to recognize after one leg that the way they intended to approach the thing wasn't going to work. I also respected the fact that this demonstrates to me that for them, "femininity" was an actual strategy, meaning that they abandon it if it doesn't work, as opposed to simply the way they've done everything all their lives to the point where they know nothing else. With people like Heather and Eve, I don't think they would have given up the "using our girliness," at least not explicitly, because that's still the image they want. They want you to think that they're so hot they can get whatever they want from men -- whether it works or not. These two seem to be more like, "Huh. Okay, well, that didn't fly, so I guess it's going to be 'work real hard,' then."
7:28 AM. Lisa and Joni open their clue, and they shriek. That is not a good start. Lisa says that the race is much, much more difficult than she thought it was going to be. For her part, Joni says that Lisa tends to get down and quiet when she gets unhappy, so Joni tries to keep her upbeat. Now, it wouldn't work with my sister to constantly talk about peeing in my pants, but we may be unusual in that regard. Every family is special, you know.
The trailing teams arrive at the building to find plenty of people there to tell them there's no hurry. We enjoy some lovely shots of time passing in Sao Paulo, and then it is 8:00 AM, and everyone is running up to the roof. BJ and Tyler are the first to the clue box, followed by Wanda and Desiree. Teams read the clue, which is a Roadblock. As Phil climbs a long, exterior spiral staircase, he explains about how Roadblocks are for one person only -- he doesn't mention the no-slacking-Kim-and-Christie-and-Nicole rule at the moment -- and says that this Roadblock requires the person to climb all the way up one of three fire escapes. When the person gets to the top, he'll be harnessed and rappel down almost 400 feet. Bleh. Four hundred feet of stairs is not going to be any fun, I'll tell you that much. When they're done with the rappelling, they'll get another clue. You can choose any fire escape, but when you get to the top, the people at each one will rappel down in the order in which they got there. I hope you sat and enjoyed the footage here, because that is a freaking honkload of stairs, y'all.
Roadblockers: BJ, Desiree, Dave, Jeremy, Lake, Joseph, Ray, Fran, Joni, Danielle. Desiree heads up what the captioning fairies are calling "Stairway #1." Jeremy follows. Ray follows him. And up to this point, it makes sense, because Desiree was the first to go, and Ray and Jeremy both have reason to believe that they might be able to get to the top ahead of her. Danielle, on the other hand, should not be heading up Stairway #1, as she is, because she's going to wind up behind at least a couple of these people, and probably should have started somewhere else. Bad call, Danielle. Fran, too, is not thinking straight. You don't need to go up as the fifth person when there are ten teams and three staircases. That makes you wait in line unnecessarily. Dave, meanwhile, is all "Fuck Stairway #1," and he is the first person up Stairway #2. You don't even need to be a nerd to figure that out. Lake and Michelle come over and check, and when they see that only Dave is going up that way, Lake follows him. Joseph does, too. Again, wherever you go, you have a decent chance of being with a couple of other people, so everybody who went up third or earlier, I forgive. Joni, however, goes up Stairway #2 fourth, which is completely goofy of her. Again, that's going to make you wait in line, most likely.
BJ goes up Stairway #3, and you will not be surprised that rather than just going up the stairs like everyone else, he starts by jumping over the railing. Do you see how he's so much wackier than everyone else? It's a little something called sucking the marrow out of life, people. If the crowd ever stops looking at you, you die. Tyler comments quite correctly that he's surprised there aren't other teams there. Indeed. It speaks the opposite of well of other people that anyone wound up at a staircase where they were the only ones there.
Eric yells up at Jeremy to start running. Dani yells up at Danielle to beat Jeremy. Eric gets all, "Hold on, sassy filly!" at her. "You've got to make the girls feel good," Eric says, "so you can get in their pants later." Wait, wait -- make that three hours that he can pleasure a woman. I mean...way to hit those duh-ble entendres, dude. ["I have chosen, for my own sanity, to believe that he's being at least partly ironic about this stuff, because a world in which someone is that dense that he thinks that's acceptable is not one in which I wish to live." -- Sars] In fact, Jeremy gets to the top of the stairs first, followed by Ray. Desiree and Danielle are farther down, fairly near each other. Joseph is #1 at the second stairway.
Jeremy begins his rappel. Joseph does, too. Lake has arrived at Roof #2, meaning that he passed Dave. Boo! BJ, of course, is the first to his roof. He starts to head down. Danielle and Desiree have now arrived at Roof #1 and have plunked down to wait. Jeremy finishes the rappel first, and as Eric salutes him as "the best fireman ever," they open their clue, now in first place. It tells them to head to the bus station, where they will pick tickets for a bus to Brotas. The available departure times are 10:15 AM, 11:15 AM, and 12:15 PM. Then, they'll bus it 150 miles to Brotas, where they'll choose a VW Beetle (old kind, not new kind) and pluck a clue from it. They leave.
Joseph finishes the rappel. "Okay, babe, let's go," she says. A-ha! They are the "babe" team. There's always one. At least. BJ finishes the rappel, and they leave. Lake rappels. "Hay-ll, yeah!" he cries. SHUT. UP. Yolanda hollers for Ray as he rappels. Lake is the to finish, and then Ray, so those teams are on their way. Lake and Michelle are traveling via bus rather than taxi, which is an interesting choice. I sure hope nothing goes wrong! Lori cheers for a rappelling Dave, who is slightly ahead of a now-rappelling Desiree. This is all kind of like recapping challenges on Survivor, by the way: "This happens. That happens." I can't really help it unless I start making things up. Which, come to think of it, wouldn't be a bad idea. Anyway, on the roof, Danielle is beginning to flip out a little bit about the rappel.
Dave, then Desiree complete the Roadblock, and both their teams take off.
Danielle tells us that she hates heights, which...would seem to make this not the best Roadblock for her, but I wonder if they did it based on their relative ability to handle the incredibly long stair climb. Because...that was a lot of stairs, y'all. Edited, it started and then it was over, but if you look at that building...I mean, 400 feet is, on average, about 40 stories. Climbing the stairs in a building to the 40th floor is imposing. Anyway, my point is that I wonder whether Danielle and Dani decided to have their best aerobic endurance person do it, not accounting enough for the heights business.
On the roof, Danielle talks to Fran about her tremendous anxiety and wonders aloud why she ever agreed to do this. Fran advises her to breathe. Her freak-out takes us into…
Commercials. Wait, the team that won that T-Mobile "play hard" thing last week was Fran and Barry? Who missed the clue box? God. Once again, I am out of step with America.
When we come back, Fran is still trying to comfort Danielle in her hour of losing it. In the manner of the grandparents Fran and Barry promised never to be in the first episode, Fran gives her a hug and tells her to relax. Obviously, it's win-win, because Danielle wants to get down, and Fran wants to get her down so that she herself can go. It is kind of nice, still, because I think there is a rule only giving you a couple of minutes in these situations to do the task before you lose your spot, so Fran could have just left Danielle to wig. I think it's also genuine sympathy, and she does a good job of steadying Danielle. Fran tells her to just look at the wall, which I think is always the best advice with this stuff. Asked if she's ready, Danielle says she's never going to be ready, but she's doing it anyway. On the ground, Dani calls her "so tough it's not even funny." Fran cheers for Danielle as she starts the rappel. Joni is now rappelling as well. Once Danielle gets the hang of it, she completes the rappel pretty well, and is followed by Joni over at the other staircase, who explains that she's just letting her ass bring her down, basically. When they're both done, they get taxis, and Fran is the last one to do the rappel. She finishes at last, and she and Barry go.
The Choad Family and Monica and Joseph are arriving at the bus terminal. Also arriving are Ray and Yolanda, suddenly in the hunt with the lead teams. Everyone runs inside, and in the chaos of trying to find the right terminal and the right location, it is Ray and Yolanda that get hosed and wind up missing out on the first bus, which turns out to hold only three teams. It couldn't have been any of the boys? Boooo!
Lake and Michelle, meanwhile, learn that they have come to the wrong bus station. Mwah-ha-ha! They get a taxi to take them to the right one. Between that screw-up and the non-reading of the entire airline-ticket clue from the first episode, they are suffering from a severe lack of sharpness. It's practically the only thing I like about him so far that he has managed to avoid the trap of many guys of this type that we have seen, in that he hasn't blamed her entirely for everything that goes wrong. Well, that we've seen.
Dave and Lori and Desiree and Wanda get to the bus station. They both grab tickets on the 11:15 AM bus, so basically, all my favorite teams are now on the same bus. I sure hope it doesn't crash. It's like having everyone who knows the formula for Coca-Cola riding on the same plane. After pulling their departure times, Desiree and Lori share a high-five, which looks very genuine and reflects well on both of them and makes me feel happy. I always want all the nice people to like each other. It's so affirming.
Danielle and Dani arrive and find nothing but 12:15 departures available. When they run into the Choad Family, they ask when the guys are leaving, and somebody says, "Two hours before you guys." Eric tells Danielle that he's heard she has "guns," so she peels off her jacket and shows off her bicep. That is a bodybuilding bicep, y'all. That is a gym girl, so it's no wonder she did all those damn stairs. Of course, not content to admire her arm, Eric turns her around and stares at her ass, saying, "Let me see this, then." She smiles, not that she had much time to think, and then he says, "I'm going to touch it a little." And then he does. It's that ownership that I think is so fucking creepy. That's why I hated BJ and Tyler with the "Can I call you 'Great Big Tits'?" thing in the opener. The fact that she has a cute ass or big boobs doesn't make it, or them, yours. I find it particularly unsettling that this is Eric's reaction to seeing a woman with a lot of physical strength. She shows off that she has big muscles, and he immediately -- immediately -- goes directly to a way to insult her, by grabbing her ass without permission. She laughs, but again, it really doesn't make it okay, because it's not like it's the first time this kind of thing has ever happened to her, and you really don't have a choice. You laugh, or else they walk away and mutter that you're probably a lesbian. That's who these guys are. That's what it is to think that you have a claim to other people just because you're hot for them. Showing off her bicep is not an invitation to turn her around and stare at her ass, and letting you stare at her ass is not an invitation for you to grab it. It's gross. It's not a matter of where the line is, even -- it's a matter of who draws it, and it's her, not you, so don't grab people in public, okay, dipshit? You can grab all the asses you want, and it's not going to make you any more of a stud than you already aren't.
Wait, what I totally meant to say was: three and a half hours.
Fran and Barry get on the last bus. Lake and Michelle do, too, noting that they're here after every team but one. And that one? Lisa and Joni, who finally arrive and get their ticket.
At 10:15, the first bus leaves. The teams enjoy the scenery, although I'm not sure Eric and Jeremy are very much a part of that, since this isn't the kind of scenery they give a shit about. At 11:15, the bus full of likeable teams goes. At 12:15, the bus containing this weird mix of teams -- Danielle and Dani, Fran and Barry, Lake and Michelle, and Lisa and Joni -- leaves.
Now, Brotas. The teams pile off the first bus. BJ and Tyler make a wacky noise as they tear their clue open. Aren't they exhausted yet? I know I am. It's like waiting for a four-year-old to get over a Ding-Dong high. The clue reveals this week's Detour, which offers Press It and Climb It as your options. In Press It, you travel to a plantation where you use a press with rollers to extract the juice from raw sugar cane. Then, you distill fermented juice into ethanol, which you pour into your VW. I liked this Detour, partly because I like tasks that remind you of fairly basic facts of life that may be different in different places -- here, the fact that lots of other countries are better at using alternative fuels than we are. In fact, Brazil's heavy promotion of ethanol is a major current events sort of thing that it's nice to see fit fairly smoothly into an episode. It's the kind of apolitical world awareness that the show has sometimes been really good at -- an actual Currently Relevant Thing About Brazil, much more than the way Survivor likes to be like, "Look! There used to be pirates here! Arrrr!"
Anyway, the other Detour option is Climb It, in which the team travels to a waterfall, which they climb using ascenders. Having seen ascenders previously, I swore that if I ever were to find myself in a reality-show competitive situation involving ascenders, I would immediately give up and admit defeat, so I can tell you what option I would be taking. When both members of your team have finished the climb, you get your clue.
The entire Choad Family and Joseph and Monica are climbing. "Back to our roots in these VWs, huh, buddy?" says Tyler. Because they're hippies. Do you get it? Do you? They're afraid you might have missed it. In case you did, BJ responds with a stoner "Yeah, maaaan." Tyler runs into a store to ask directions, and when the guy starts talking to him in Portuguese, he looks kind of dismayed and surprised and disappointed and says, "No comprendo." So apparently he assumed that the guy spoke English? Without asking? I don't know. Outside, as Eric and Jeremy watch Monica run from her car to check on the directions, Jeremy says, "Too bad she has a boyfriend." Eric replies, "Yeah, I'd spank her butt, too." Wait -- four hours, totally, without one muscle cramping up on them. ["I…they can't be serious. They just can't. I mean, a spanking reference?" -- Sars]
Finally, all these dorks get moving, complete with "punch buggy" blah blah cliché-cakes. In the MoJo car (oh, OKAY, it's at least shorter), she says that she knows she might be a little slower than he is today when they're going up against two teams of guys, but she's going to do her absolute best. Good for her. All three teams arrive at the waterfall, and all start climbing. One person per team at a time, but teams can climb simultaneously. All three teams act basically as you would expect. MoJo is mutually supportive, BJ and Tyler are show-offy, and Eric and Jeremy make yet another mention of wishing there were girls in swimsuits. I'm now starting to think that they are so good in bed that the woman would have to take special stretch classes ahead of time to fully appreciate the experience. They just plain love breasts, and they make women scream, and they don't care who knows it.
Middle bus. "I totally did that experiment in school," Dave observes about the ethanol as he and Lori choose Press It. I'll bet he did, too. I tested my own blood type once. Wanda and Desiree also choose to Press It, but Ray and Yolanda are taking the Climb.
BJ and Tyler are the first to finish the climb, and much to my surprise, it's the pit stop already. At only 28 minutes into the show! The good news is that the certain front-running nimrods are soon going to vanish from the episode. Anyway, Phil explains that the teams now will drive 20 miles through the country looking for a coffee plantation where the pit stop is located. Last team may be eliminated. When BJ and Tyler are gone, it's Eric and Joseph on the ropes, and Joseph is much, much better at it than Eric. (I'm sure this is the only thing Joseph is better at than Eric, though. I mean, Joseph hasn't talked one time about how much he loves, say, grabbing his girlfriend's ass. He just talks to her and likes her and is hot, which means he's probably not the kind of guy it would be enjoyable to sleep with at all.) Eric, for the most part, is just dangling in a dorky fashion, largely unable to figure out the ascenders using his pea-sized brain.
BJ and Tyler yell, "Hippie power!" Dead to me.
Fresh from the climb, in the car, Monica comments to Joseph, "I'm filthy. And I love it." Hee. He laughs. Yeah. He should ask Eric for some sex lessons, definitely. Jeremy does the climb now, and he's substantially less clueless than Eric, anyway -- not that this is a ringing endorsement, really.
Lori and Dave are headed to the plantation, and Yolanda is already "hot as hell" and looking forward to getting wet in the waterfall.
Third bus. Fran and Barry decide -- get this -- that because the motorcycle was too hard, they shouldn't once again try to do the mental task (!), so they're going to do the climb. They fail to recognize that the motorcycle was the complicated mental task up against a simple, non-physical task that just took longer. That Detour was Tortoise/Hare, where the mental task was the Hare; this is Tortoise/Hare, where the mental task is the Tortoise. They didn't err by picking a mental task last week; they erred by picking a very hard mental task they didn't know anything about. Boiling sugar water isn't hard. You've got to watch the show enough to know that almost always, one of the tasks is not one that anyone is going to wind up unable to do. It might take a while, but you'll be able to do it eventually. Climbing with ascenders is not that task. Neither was assembling a motorcycle engine. Get it, Fran and Barry?
At any rate, Lake and Michelle pick the Climb, as do Dani and Danielle, but Joni and Lisa take the sugar. As the teams drive off in their Beetles, Lisa complains to Joni that the car sucks, and that she can only drive it by keeping the clutch in all the time. She pressures Joni to tell her where to go, because she's only in charge of the driving. She grinds the gears as she frets that they had a deal that she would drive and Joni would navigate, and she can't do both. This is not going well for them. Killer Fatigue should not be hitting in the second leg.
Commercials. I'm not sure that Failure To Launch is really what I'm looking for in a date movie. I could list the reasons, but that would add a page and a half to the recap. Suffice it to say that they start with my inability to identify with Sarah Jessica Parker, ever, to the point where usually, I want whatever character she's playing to wind up unhappy.
When we return, Lisa and Joni are still struggling to figure out where they're going. They stop and ask a guy for directions, and it seems like he's helpful.
BJ and Tyler are hunting for the pit stop, as are MoJo and Eric and Jeremy. In fact, Eric and Jeremy and Danielle and Dani pass each other going in opposite directions. "I hope our girls do good," Jeremy says. "I hope they don't get eliminated," Eric contributes. "Then what are we going to do?" Jeremy continues. "Hook up with hippies?" I tell you, women drop dead from the force of their orgasms. I am not joking. These guys are a health hazard. They are a danger to the community. Get the orange cones, get the yellow police tape, and stop them before any more women are injured. This is a public health crisis.
The Choad family is reunited and finds a guy to follow to the pit stop. MoJo is snagging some directions as well.
Elsewhere, Dave and Lori have arrived at the plantation to do the Press It thing. Hilariously, the show keeps cutting to these incredibly severe-looking people in white coats and goggles who are apparently in charge of distilling ethanol, but who look like the undead. I have no idea why somebody decided to make the sugar scientists look menacing. Dave and Lori start grabbing sugar cane stalks, noting that they have to squeeze the juice out of fifteen stalks. They start feeding the first stalk through the crusher, which is a little bit like a manual pasta machine that you operate with a crank. They finish the first stalk and go to the .
Ray and Yolanda find the waterfall. Wanda and Desiree find the plantation, realizing that they initially went the wrong direction and missed it the first time. Ray goes up on the ascender; Dave and Lori finish the sugar juice. As several of the EEFPs pointed out, there's a step missing here where the juice they squeezed gets swapped out for the fermented version you need in order to make ethanol, because otherwise, the part of the Detour would have taken weeks. At any rate, they put fermented juice onto a Bunsen burner and light it. "The spirit of Mr. Wizard is with us right now," Dave comments. As they're finishing that up, Wanda and Desiree are arriving. Mom cranks the first stalk.
Ray finishes the climb. Yolanda starts, as Ray interviews that Yolanda's legs are stronger than his. She does have those really powerful-looking legs. Maybe she'll kick Eric later. Back at the other Detour, Dave says it's "kind of nerve-wracking" watching the ethanol drip into the beaker one drop at a time. Finally, those drops add up to a full beaker, and Dave and Lori wish Wanda and Desiree luck as they finally leave with their container of ethanol. They pour it into the VW and open the clue about driving to the pit stop. Over at Climb It, Yolanda finishes climbing, and they leave for the pit stop as well. Wanda and Desiree finish extracting the juice and sit down at the burner. "This is karma for all the times that I passed out in chemistry class," Desiree notes. I hope she's talking about the falling-asleep kind of passing out, because if you're just randomly losing consciousness during school, that is something you ought to have looked at, even if it is happening during chemistry class, which I admit is as good a time as any.
Fran and Barry are on their way to the waterfall. Fran says, "We're better at climbing than figuring out how to turn raw sugar cane into ethanol." You know, I haven't seen the wording of the clue or anything, but I somehow doubt that they would make you essentially invent ethanol. I'm not sure if they didn't read that clue very well, or if they interpreted it stupidly, but everyone else seems to have understood that you just had to do the process; you didn't have to figure out what the process was. Lake and Michelle are on their way to the waterfall as well. Danielle and Dani find themselves stuck behind a truck. Lisa and Joni are having much less fun than anyone, even the sugar scientists, and Lisa is complaining hard about how much the driving is killing her. She's also explaining out loud that it's ridiculous to think they would or could enjoy the scenery right now. Which is a shame, because it really is very pretty, all green and pastoral. Instead, she's thinking she might pass out from the exhaust fumes. Not that you can't simultaneously enjoy scenery and pollution.
Finally, Wanda and Desiree finish with their ethanol, get their clue, pour the ethanol into their car, and leave.
The Choad Family is losing confidence in the guy who's leading them, because it seems like they're driving an awfully long way. A rift develops in the family as Eric and Jeremy decide that they've just gone too far, and they're going to pull into a service station and ask. BJ and Tyler just continue following their guy. When Eric and Jeremy ask the gas-station guy, he tells them that the pit stop is right up the road. About a kilometer. Meaning that they are getting the worst of all possible news, which is that they lost their nerve and stopped driving right before they were going to get there. Huh. I wonder if they're not quite as good in bed as I thought. As they get back in their car, they fret over how they could have been in first place and so forth.
Pit stop. Horns of Perseverance, the full version. If you've ever wanted to hear it, it plays all the way from when we first see the sign for the pit stop, through Tyler calling Phil "Philip," which: stupid, through when they land on the mat and learn that they are number one. They also pretend to be shocked -- shocked! -- at the news that they have won a trip to Tahiti for being the first team to get there. They try to execute a "hilarious" maneuver in which BJ jumps up on Tyler, but they flub it and sort of galumph down onto the ground, which ruins the effect just a little.
Here come Eric and Jeremy. As they run to the mat, one of them says, "Phil, do you know how cranky I am right now? I'm going to smack you, woman!" Yes, he just called Phil "woman." Could they be hotter? Phil demonstrates his disapproval as they cut to a shot of his eyebrow hopping up to the middle of his forehead. Ha! It's like they've finally figured out that Phil should do something besides explain where they are, and they're letting all the personality come from that eyebrow. Which is a pretty good idea, honestly. The idiots step on the mat and are told that they are team number two. Phil asks about their obsession with chicks, and they say they're always like that. They can't help it, Phil; they just love women.
Welcome MoJo, you are team number three. They give a happy little hop.
Fran and Barry arrive at the waterfall, followed by Lake and Michelle. Fran starts up on the ascender, but she immediately has trouble operating it. I still don't understand how those things work, really (don't email me!), but the only person I've ever seen look entirely comfortable on one was Colin, which doesn't make me think they do a good job of measuring any skill that would mean anything to me. Fran complains that she isn't getting anywhere and isn't picking up how to do it, as Barry looks at the ground.
Commercials. I really don't think toothbrushes form societies this complex.
Back at the climb, Lake and Barry encourage their respective wives. Fran seems to at least get enough of the hang of it to move somewhat. Michelle finishes, and Lake starts up. Fran does get there before Lake, so it doesn't look like they lost all that much time by taking this Detour, although I still think it's the wrong one for them, and their logic in choosing it was sort of ridiculous. Lake and Michelle get their clue and head for the pit stop.
Dave and Lori are approaching the pit stop. Welcome, Dave and Lori, you are team number four. Welcome, Ray and Yolanda, you are team number five. Ray and Yolanda are not all that happy about this, but they recognize it as better than how they did last time. Wanda and Desiree arrive , and they're very worried about their position, on account of having gotten lost. As soon as she jumps onto the mat, Wanda looks at Phil, points with both hands, and says, "Smile to us." He tells them they are team number six, and this is very, very good news to them. Desiree first covers her mouth, and then she sort of demurely puts her hand over her heart and says, "Phil." Adorable. There's a way to love Phil without molesting Phil, and that's the way it should be done.
Danielle and Dani arrive at the waterfall as Barry is on his way up. Danielle immediately passes Barry, but he does finish not long after she does. Fran and Barry get their pit stop clue and leave.
Lisa and Joni? Lisa is still complaining and freaking out. The car stalls out, and Lisa restarts it. They are finally at the Press It option. "Pretend you're giving birth to a child," Joni says for some reason as they operate the cranking machine. "I didn't; I had a C-section," Lisa frets. Heh. It doesn't make any sense, but at least she's not complaining.
Dani finishes the climb. They really do seem to have handled that climb pretty well. I think those girls are pretty fucking tough, actually. To the degree they're that weird combination of cupcake (with the pink sweats) and bad-ass, I kind of am...beginning to like them a little bit. I need to hear them talk more, and I don't want to see them finding it charming when Eric acts like a fuckwit, but other than that, we'll see.
Lisa and Joni keep working on the Detour.
In Lake and Michelle's car, he says, "Don't expect me to ask anybody! I am over -- done! -- with Spanish." "It's Portuguese," she corrects. "I can't understand it," he mutters. They wander in search of directions. This is kind of the way I feel about the whole confusing of Spanish with Portuguese -- it's wrong, and it shows a lack of familiarity with Brazil, but what's more important to me than whether you make that mistake is whether you act like an asshole about it. It's okay not to know everything; it's just not okay to be an obnoxious dipshit.
As Fran and Barry drive toward the pit stop, their car spontaneously drops dead. Lake and Michelle, on the other hand, find a guy to guide them to the pit stop. Fran and Barry try to push-start their car, and while they're doing that, Danielle and Dani come across and pass them. "We like Barry and Fran, but this is -- it's a race," Dani says. Which has a nice combination of not being overly gloaty while not pretending to be particularly sorry to see somebody broken down when you know you're in the back part of the pack. The fact of the matter is that anyone would be relieved, and lying would just be unseemly. "We're done," Barry says. "What a way to get eliminated," Fran says. Two weeks, two declarations that they're sure to be eliminated. This is already so, so old.
Lisa and Joni finish with the ethanol and leave for the pit stop.
Lake and Michelle's guy has to pull in and stop for gas, which does not make Lake happy at all. I'm not sure very much does make Lake happy, other than a root canal.
Dani and Danielle get directions.
Fran and Barry get a replacement car, as Phil voices over that the rule is, as always, that a car that breaks down for reasons that aren't your fault, you can get a new one, but you don't get a time credit. Bad luck is bad luck, and because they don't give time credits for other pieces of bad luck, they can't really correct for this, which I totally agree with. You happen to have your car break down just like you happen to have your plane break down, and sometimes, things go bad and it isn't your fault.
Now, Fran and Barry and Lisa and Joni are both on their way to the pit stop, and they seem to be the stragglers of the day.
Danielle and Dani and Lake and Michelle are arriving at the pit stop at almost the same time. The cars stop, and both teams hop out. For whatever reason, Lake and Michelle get there first, although the sequence isn't really edited to show you why that happened. But anyway, they are team number seven, while Danielle and Dani are team number eight. To his credit, Lake is perfectly happy with being seventh and does not throw a moody fit. At least about this.
Later, it is dark, and both of the remaining teams are hunting for the pit stop. While the suspense is being cranked up as much as possible, Fran and Barry's car appears to have the blue of early evening outside, while Joni and Lisa's car has the blackness of total nighttime outside. So it is no surprise to me when Fran and Barry arrive at the pit stop in ninth place. Their exuberance at still being in the race is nice, but I really, really want to hear them stop complaining that they're eliminated all the time.
And here, at last, are Lisa and Joni. Lisa is fretting over not being able to drive the car, and Joni is telling her not to worry about it -- it was both of them, together. They step up and are Philiminated. Lisa does not take this well, and she breaks down crying immediately. "I wanted to do this so bad," she says, and Joni tells her that they did do it. Lisa outs herself as a fan of the show who has always wanted to try it, and I feel for her in that regard. Joni tells her not to worry about it. Lisa interviews that Joni was great giving her encouragement, and Joni interviews that they had a wonderful experience, and "there's no way a million dollars could ever buy that."
Executive Producer? Jerry Bruckheimer.
week: Moscow! Awesome! Nesting dolls. Dancers. Wanda apparently struggles with a deep-water Roadblock. Nooo!