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The race moves to Italy, which gives BJ and Tyler an opportunity to talk in funny accents, because where don't people love that? The Detour is yet another choice between a punishing physical task and a task almost entirely involving luck, making needles and haystacks the icons of the season. The Roadblock requires assembling a statue, with the "twist" being that there are pieces left over, so the excitement of the task comes from being intentionally vague about what the instructions mean. The Choad Family finishes the race ahead of everyone else, as usual, and the ending comes down to a battle between stragglers Dave and Lori, Danielle and Dani, and Ray and Yolanda. For once, the Yield actually makes a difference, as Lake and Michelle bump Danielle and Dani, who are edged out by Ray and Yolanda and finally Philiminated. So of the first four teams eliminated, three of them are the only three all-female teams who were cast. In other news, BJ and Tyler do their first actually funny thing of the entire race, Fran tries to redeem her "I'm great at putting things together!" skills, and Dave learns that there's a time to help and a time to stop talking about the thigh. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Fairy Tale Horror Stories: The Day Sneezy Was Buried Alive: Teams headed from Moscow to Germany, where they faced the horrors of the passenger seat and then rescued gruesomely abused Travelocity gnomes. The Detour offered a choice between performing a supposedly precise traditional folk dance and hitting each other over the head, which is probably the most traditional folk dance of all, really. Fran and Barry were allowed to finish without doing either. After making loopy circles on the Autobahn for a good while, Wanda and Desiree and Danielle and Dani had only each other left to battle as they tried to stay out of last place. In the end, Desiree's weak gnome-finding skills doomed her and her mother to a sad exit, although it didn't appear as though additional time spent with them would have been as much fun as early time was. Now, there are eight teams left. Who will be Philiminated...?
Credits. Wait, Lisa and who? [BOMP.]
Commercials. Thank God Travelocity bought some advertising time, because I would have forgotten all about them otherwise.
Picturesque views of Munich, Germany welcome us, and Phil explains that this thousand-year-old city is "known for everything from banking to beer." Well, that's one letter of the alphabet covered. And this was the fourth pit stop, according to Phil. Which is a complete lie, of course, because it was actually only the third pit stop, because the mat in Russia was not a pit stop. You'd think Phil would know these things. Only the third pit stop, only the third "mandatory rest period," things like that. Will Lake and Michelle keep doing well, dadgummit? Will Dave and Lori's "solid relationship" be of any value?
2:15 AM. Eric and Jeremy -- who, we learn, gave their gnome quite a lot of love after landing on the mat last time -- are preparing to leave. They are a bit omnivorous with the affection they hand out. Locals, gnomes, the occasional inanimate object -- I'm thinking it's not their first time, you know? They rip their clue, which Jeremy reads as requiring them to fly to "PAL-ermo, Italy." Phil, as he does, corrects him by saying that, in fact, they are flying to Palermo, Italy, adding that it is on the island of Sicily (motto: "Come To Justice Scalia's House-O-Stereotypes"). Once there, the teams will take a taxi to the Teatro Massimo and get another clue. In a massive understatement as they leave the mat, Eric tells us that he and Jeremy are "in a great position, 'cause [they're] not overanalyzing." I don't think they could "analyze" the directions on a box of Hot Pockets, so this is probably true. Oh, and Jeremy reminds you that he and Eric are still "getting chicks." In that phrase, the words "restraining orders taken out against us by" are silent. Eric hopes aloud in their car that Dani and Danielle will "pull their heads out of their fine little asses," presumably so that the previously claimed "tongue-wrestling" can continue. I have this overwhelming urge to make some kind of "The [Something] Store called and they're running out of you" joke at these guys, but then I realize that it is one of the saddest things about the world that you never run out of guys like this, no matter where you are.
3:04 AM. BJ and Tyler. They rip their clue and start trying to figure out which way the airport is. BJ explains that they "both believe in karma in terms of personal relationships with people." He says that they get people to help them by "using humor." This is illustrated by the fact that they do a Silly Walk away from the cab driver they've just asked for directions. I don't know about you, but I somehow feel confident that the cab driver there did not walk away from them saying, "Clownish Americans are delightful." Surprisingly, the rest of the episode does suggest that he didn't immediately speed up to run them over.
3:09 AM. It appears as though Lake and Michelle's clue tells them to go to Rafael Palmeiro, Italy, according to Lake's pronunciation. They run and catch up to a waiting BJ and Tyler, and as Tyler and Michelle high-five, Tyler says, "Mamma mia!" There's nothing the Italian people like better than an American yelling "Mamma mia!," I'm sure, so I hope he keeps that up. I recommend he add, "That's-a spicy meatball!" In a voice-over, Lake says that Michelle has "room to grow" as a navigator. I hope that she turned to him when they watched this episode and said, "I'll keep it to myself where you have room to grow." And I hope it was in front of their friends. Lake then gives a weirdly disembodied interview where he says that Michelle's maybe been right once, while he's been right three or four times, and that he's "still the leader of this team." It's weird how, when he narrates himself, it's like he feels obligated to say asshole things, even though he isn't an asshole most of the time.
At the airport, Eric and Jeremy go to the information desk, where they ask about flights to Palermo. The nice information lady tells him that they'll need to change planes in Rome, but that the first flight out is an Alitalia flight leaving at 6:35 AM. It will get them to Palermo at 10:15. Of course, the nice information lady isn't being let off the hook that easily. "You girls have hickeys?" Eric asks. "Somebody been kissing you? Is that why you have the scarves on?" The women say no, sort of out of politeness and obvious boredom. The women are wearing the fake smiles that easily fool guys like Eric and Jeremy, who have absolutely no ability to gauge whether women's responses are genuine or not, even in circumstances far more significant than this. I think I've figured out why they're mooching beach bums, by the way: nobody's going to hire you when you look like you just got here from the opening scenes of an instructional video called Don't Touch That!: A Cautious Employer's Guide To Preventing Sexual Harassment. Anyway, finally, Eric and Jeremy let up with the obnoxious personal comments and proceed to the Alitalia counter, where they park themselves and wait. Back at the information desk, the women undoubtedly turn to each other and mutter, "Retards."
BJ and Tyler, on the way to the airport. They get there, along with Lake and Michelle, and head inside. When they all find Eric and Jeremy, the boys are in the middle of practicing wheelies in airport wheelchairs. "Just like we hoped -- that y'all broke a leg!" Lake "jokes." Michelle asks if there's internet availability anywhere, and she and Lake head downstairs. I wondered at first why Jeremy seemed to know where the internet terminals were, but then I remembered who Jeremy is, and it seemed highly logical that he would run for the internet even if he didn't intend to use it for business purposes. So Lake and Michelle go down to the terminals.
Back upstairs, the Choad Family has decided to engage in wheelchair races. Well, they are all lame. (Rimshot!) They wheel through a course made out of the posts that are used to corral the ticket lines. Eric beats BJ on the first round, although they're both pretty good in wheelchairs, which will come in handy when they're both eventually beaten senseless by people who share my worldview.
When this is over, BJ and Tyler decide to head downstairs and see what Lake and Michelle are doing. Down in the internet room, Michelle is apparently struggling with the fact that the page she's looking at is in German. There's been a lot of talk about whether Travelocity or Expedia pages will automatically render in the right language, but I don't think that's her problem. I think she's stuck at whatever the welcome screen is for the system that the Munich airport uses. She doesn't even seem to have a travel service up. I think all her screen is telling her in German is where the bathrooms are. BJ and Tyler, on the other hand, find an "English" button wherever it is that they're looking, and start hunting for flights to Palermo. They buy their tickets online, on that same 6:35-10:15 route that was described to Eric and Jeremy earlier. They're certainly lucky that they followed Lake and Michelle's idea of using the internet, not that they would ever see it that way. Michelle is now getting the pages she wants to come up, but she can't seem to book the flight. Tyler comments on how "sweet" it would be if he and BJ booked the last seats on that flight.
5:03 AM. Fran and Barry. Fran says that, in every leg, they're learning not to make mistakes they've made previously. Which I guess means no more motorcycles. Or assembly. Or climbing. Or looking for clue boxes. Or folk dancing. It's pretty much "drive around with a map." That seems to be the one area in which they excel. If this whole race could be executed without people getting out of their vehicles, Fran and Barry would be golden. They get in their car and leave.
5:28 AM. Dave and Lori. In an interview, he talks about how "deeply in love" they are, and how they're just taking it one leg at a time, not worrying about the competition too much. The nerd music builds to a crescendo as Lori tells Dave that they need to "be smooth like butta." It is safe to say that is not what will occur on this leg, in case you are in any suspense.
5:52 AM. "Fly to Paller, Mo, Italy," Monica reads to Joseph. She irks me with the interview in which she gives the notorious reality-show explanation that people always think she's a "dumb blonde" when they see her. I know what she means, but it's...a little too close to "I am so blindingly hot that nobody can ever believe I'm also smart." Also, she pronounces it "Paller-mo" again in the car, so it's maybe not her best day to take a stand for her smartitude. ["Furthermore, it's been my experience that actually smart people are smart enough not to project stupidity." -- Wing Chun]
BJ and Tyler and Lake and Michelle rejoin Eric and Jeremy at the Alitalia counter, where BJ and Tyler recount their success in getting on the 6:35 flight. When the ticket counter finally opens, the guy breaks it to Eric and Jeremy that the first flight is actually...full. You know, they do race well, but could BJ and Tyler be any luckier? There's room for exactly one team? Right after last week, when they happened to be standing in front of the window that opened, and that flight also didn't have enough room for the people who showed up before them? They do great for themselves, but they also benefit from repeated, preposterous doses of good luck. ["Silly-walk karma, maybe? -- Wing Chun] Lake frets to Michelle that they let this happen, and she looks at him and slowly says, "Okay...can you read German?" Well, seriously. Not that I wouldn't love to hear him pronounce it. They head off to try to have better luck at Lufthansa. Eric and Jeremy decide to stick it out at Alitalia and ask about standby, but the guy says that he won't know until closer to departure whether they're going to be able to get on. At Lufthansa, Lake and Michelle learn of a 9:30 AM flight that gets into Palermo at 2:00. They book that ticket.
Fran and Barry get to the airport and go to Lufthansa. They are told that the flight leaves at 9:30 and gets in at 2:00. Barry asks whether they can connect on any other airlines that would get them to Palermo faster. They are told of an option to get in at 1:25 PM instead. That's an Alitalia flight, so apparently, Lake and Michelle didn't ask about other airlines, and got the Lufthansa connection, rather than the connection. At the news that they can get to Palermo earlier, Fran flaps her arms in a truly embarrassing fashion. The ticket guy explains to Fran and Barry that their arrival will be a half-hour earlier than what he just gave to Lake. Because Lake isn't crazy about anybody else finding the Lufthansa flight, he comes up and asks, "Barry, you think anybody saw you? I don't think anybody saw you guys." Fran gets all Mean Librarian, holding up her arms as if she's being violated and saying, "Please, step back. Step back." Lake tries to explain to them that he's not spying; he's already got his tickets. "I know," says Fran, because she can't stand to admit that she flipped out for no reason. "Just step back. Please." She is seriously the most unnecessarily rude person ever. You're not the proctor of the airport, lady. You can't really tell people where they can and cannot stand. You may think politeness dictates standing well back of other people buying tickets, but I haven't seen any rules posted anywhere saying that people have to give you a twenty-foot perimeter, so how about chilling the fuck out? God. Lake asks her why she's acting like this, when he hasn't started any shit with her, and Fran -- because she has no answer to this perfectly fair question -- just goes, "Please," and holds her hands up, again with the self-defense-class posture. She's one of those people, you can tell, who thinks that if she makes a big enough display of how offended she is, it will somehow prove that she has good reason to be offended. Which, in this case, she really doesn't. Why so nasty?
Eric and Jeremy are still trying to get on the allegedly full 6:30 AM flight. BJ and Tyler are boarding. Will Eric and Jeremy get on? Oh, yes. They will. So it turns out that the members of the Choad Family are all on the same flight to Rome, which is nice, because they can all bond. Choads of a feather and so forth.
Dave and Lori arrive at the airport and ask about Palermo. They are set up with the 9:30-1:25 route Fran and Barry are on.
6:48 AM. Ray and Yolanda. Ray tells us that he can "see what Yolanda's made of." If you haven't been paying attention, the answer is "muscles." He is talking, however, at least in part about her perseverance and her "own way of thinking." Gee, it's like he thinks that's a good quality, Lake.
"Paller-mo, Italy!" Monica is calling out as they run into the airport. When they get up to the counter, however, Joseph asks for tickets to "Palomino." So while her pronunciation may not be ideal, he is doing even worse, since her chosen destination is a mangled city, while his is a horse. The ticket guy looks at them with puzzlement, accentuated by the tubas on the soundtrack, which share his conviction that Americans are stupid. Monica corrects Joseph -- it's Paller-mo, silly! The ticket guy still kind of hates them, but at least now he knows what they're talking about. He sets them up on the 9:30-1:25 deal.
7:28 AM. Danielle and Dani. They correctly interview that they're "hanging on to this race by a [streaked] hair," but they also insist that they won't give up. They're hoping that "slow and steady" will do it for them. They should hope so, because otherwise, I don't know how many options they have. I'm not sure they're going to come up with bursts of speed.
The 9:30 flight to Rome leaves with Lake and Michelle, Fran and Barry, Dave and Lori, and Monica and Joseph on board. Lake frets over being stuck with everybody else, unaware that, very soon, he will wish he was stuck with these very same people.
Ray and Yolanda get to the airport and get a flight that will get them to Palermo at 2:00. Not bad. Danielle and Dani are right behind them, and they get the same thing. There is a certain resigned, "Sucks, huh?" kind of vibe between these two teams when they greet each other, as if they're well aware that, in all likelihood, they're going to have to fight it out to stay out of last place.
In Rome, Eric and Jeremy look at their tickets for the first time (good one!) and notice that they're getting into Palermo after BJ and Tyler, because they didn't get the same connecting flight. They'll still be ahead of the rest of the teams, but not with BJ and Tyler. The members of the Choad Family take off for Palermo in two shifts.
And then we are in Palermo, with Italian flag flying. BJ and Tyler get a taxi to the Teatro Massimo.
Now, we are in Rome with the middle group, where they'll all be connecting to Palermo. Lake and Michelle figure out for the first time, however, that they aren't on the same connecting flight as everyone else. Lake tries to get on the earlier connection, but it turns out to be full. Once the other flight to Palermo leaves, he sits and curses himself over the lost opportunity and the fact that they're going to be on this flight all alone. "There's not one of those sumbitches on this flight, dang-it," he says, making colorful use of his patented fauxfanity.
Commercials. Nope, still not going to see King Kong.
When we return, Michelle is comforting Lake at the airport gate by telling him that somebody else will make a mistake, but that they won't. "'Cause I have you as a partner, and you don't mess up," she says, trying to be comforting. I'm not sure he's amenable to being comforted. Lake and Michelle are then joined by Ray and Yolanda and Danielle and Dani, who apparently got a later flight to Rome but the same connection to Palermo. This trailing pack takes off.
Palermo. BJ and Tyler begin their Italian Stereotype Theater with "How we gonna get-a this-a clue box?" Then they open the box, take out the clue, and are all, "Aaaaay, andiamo!" The clue tells them to drive to Castellammare Del Golfo, where they'll find a clue. (I think that's "Golf Castle" in Italian, by the way. It's a bitch trying to get the ball through the clown's mouth.) There will be a fortress with a terrace, which will have the box with the clue.
Eric and Jeremy. In a taxi. In Palermo. "This is more like our flavor. Nice warm weather, and Italian women." Does anyone use "flavor" that way anymore? Isn't that pretty much just Seth Green in Can't Hardly Wait? Do they need some goggles with that?
Now, the flight arrives in Palermo with the middle teams -- MoJo, Fran and Barry, Dave and Lori. And then, the flight with the teams bringing up the rear -- Ray and Yolanda, Lake and Michelle, and Danielle and Dani. Everybody in cabs.
As Eric and Jeremy prepare to drive to Castellammare Del Golfo, Jeremy fixes his hair. Eric tells him it looks fine. And with that, they are officially women. Well, they are not actual women so much as they are their own vision of women. It's like the universe is collapsing on itself.
BJ and Tyler find the terrace and the clue box, which sends them on this week's Detour. As Phil strolls in a charming neighborhood, he explains that the choices here are Foundry and Laundry. Foundry involves hauling a 110-pound bell around, into a little golf-cart/truck thing and then up some stairs. Laundry is a needle-in-a-haystack task in which you look for a special tag on one of sixteen marked items out of 2400 pieces of laundry. Excuse me, 2400 pieces? Making your starting odds 1 in 150? Is it riveting to watch teams look through 150 pieces of laundry? The prominence of needle-in-haystack tasks this season really seems unprecedented to me. It's really boring to watch, especially since, as I've pointed out before, they really never show you how long it's taking any particular team. If I wanted to watch a search among random items for little benefit, I'd watch myself trying to get some real change out of what suddenly seems to be a purse full of Canadian quarters. Anyway, once you find your marked piece of laundry, you have to bring it to a woman Phil calls a "laundry lady." Am I just being obtuse, or...what's a laundry lady? Is she just sitting there in a black dress, so she's the laundry lady? Because there's laundry? Nearby? And she's a lady? Because I wouldn't mind introducing myself as the TiVo Lady. Or the Diet Coke With Lime Lady.
BJ and Tyler take the Laundry option, so they run off in search of the clotheslines they need to find. They find them, and they start pulling the lines to bring things over to them so that they can look for red-and-yellow tags.
MoJo hits the Teatro. They get their clue and leave. Fran and Barry arrive , and then Dave and Lori. Dave does the same dippy, distracted thing he did once before, where he reflexively takes an envelope for himself after Lori takes one, and she has to shoo him to put it back. "Pay attention!" she hollers as he laughs. He kind of laughs like a girl when it's at himself, which I find very endearing. These two teams get going, right along with MoJo. Fran picks on Barry's driving, and he says, "Drivin' like an Italian, man. I love it." Barry is not convincing using the word "man" that way. Or the word "drivin'." Dave and Lori fret over the traffic, and I do believe she uses the frustrated expression, "Jeeeeminy." Hee.
BJ and Tyler find a pink shirt with a special tag. "Bella, bella!" Tyler says in his "hilarious" Italian. "That-a didn't take-a long at all!" You know what people think is incredibly charming? When you make fun of their accents. People love that shit. Go down south and do your exaggerated Hee Haw routine. Or, you know, go to China and reverse all your Rs and Ls. They think that is high comedy. When they go to the local who's acting as "laundry lady," BJ keeps the accent going as he says, "I have found this-a piece of clothing for you, laundry woman." Hey, she's just part of the giant theater of your personal hilarity, right? It's not like she's anyone you'd need to worry about or greet normally like a regular person. I wonder if they'll ever wish they had just graciously talked to people along the way, rather than shouting in everyone's face and performing constantly. At any rate, the clue she (overly generously) gives them tells them to go to "the ancient town of Segesta," where they'll find the "archeological zone" and hike a mile to a theater. This "ancient Greek amphitheater" will hold the clue. This is the first time I notice that BJ and Tyler's shirts say "BOWLING" and "MOMS." Which is just random and goofy and understated enough to actually be funny. That is genuinely, truly funny, and I salute them. Oh, and the clue reads, "Yield ahead."
Eric and Jeremy work on getting themselves to the terrace. The trailing threesome of teams is just getting to the Teatro Massimo for the clue to the terrace. Dani and Danielle are having serious issues with the stick shift all of a sudden. They seem to have made it this far, so I wonder if this is a more confusing stick shift than some. Cars do vary, I find. Lake and Michelle arrive at the clue box a little later than the girls, but they get ahead of them as a result of the shifting problems.
Eric and Jeremy get the Detour clue and choose Laundry. Which...who is Foundry for, if not for them? They say it sounds "easier," but if it's not faster for them to do the bell, why would it be there for anyone, you know? Maybe they know they just have gym strength, not man strength. ["I only have gym strength (and not much of it) and I still would have done Foundry. Even if you stop every three steps to rest, it probably will still be faster than looking through 2400 pieces of clothing." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, they go. They start hunting through clothes. As Eric holds up a black shirt, he says, "This is one of Phil's turtlenecks." Heh. Yeah, I'll give them that one. Although if it had been an ugly sweater, it would have been even better.
It turns out that MoJo had their taxi lead them to the terrace, so they're getting there now and opening the Detour clue. They choose the church bell.
Meanwhile, Eric and Jeremy think they have another of Phil's shirts. I can see why they get long with BJ and Tyler, really, in terms of the repetition without interruption of exactly the same joke. They finally do find the special shirt -- not Phil's, but the one with the tag -- and get their clue. As they run off, they contemplate whether BJ and Tyler would Yield them. Them? Only if BJ and Tyler are stupid. Or, a different kind of stupid.
BJ and Tyler find the hike to the theater, and they start walking. Phil explains about the Yield, and about how you can only do it once, yada yada. BJ and Tyler step on the Yield mat and do a big, exaggerated, "We...choose...NOT TO YIELD!" You know, I once ran away from guys like this at parties, because they were boring. Now, I run away from them because if I don't, I'll ultimately beat them with a shoe and go to jail. They open the clue, which asks who's good at "piecing things together." Phil explains that, in this Roadblock, the Roadblocker will put together a replica of a Greek statue from pieces. They aren't told that there are two extra pieces that don't go into the statue. Meh. I'm not crazy about that as a "twist." I don't see that as challenging people to "think outside the box" or whatever; that's just hoping people misunderstand the directions. If I tell you "use these six pieces to make a perfect square," some of you will think that means you have to use all the pieces and some of you won't, and that doesn't make either group of you any smarter. They could just as easily have made the task such that you did have to use all the pieces, and people might be fooled into thinking the statue was complete when not all pieces had been used. It's just random, to me, whether you interpret it one way or the other. We're not given the exact wording of the clue, but the fact that you can write instructions badly enough that they can't be clearly understood doesn't necessarily prove a whole lot. Anyway, Tyler goes to build the statue.
Elsewhere, the members of MoJo make their way to the location of the big heavy bell. Monica has a little trouble keeping up with Joseph, but they effectively carry the bell down the hill to the little vehicle in which they will drive it to the set of stairs. Fran and Barry come by, not having even read the Detour clue yet, as Joseph is loading the bell into the vehicle, and Barry notes how absurdly heavy it looks like it is. Meanwhile, MoJo gets some help getting on the way with the bell. They find the drop-off point, and Joseph hoists the entire bell onto his back. Monica protests in a way that sounds reasonably sincere, but Joseph wants to just go, so he heads up the stairs with the 110-pound bell.
Fran and Barry park. They talk about how there apparently isn't a clue box here anywhere. Once again, the camera guy manages a shot where we actually watch them walk right by the clue box on the terrace. You'll recall that the clue reportedly told them to look on the terrace, so I'm not sure what their damage is. At least this time, while they're walking right by it, they're not so close that they almost have to walk around it to keep from tripping over it like they were the last time this happened. It's merely embarrassing, and not mind-boggling.
Monica calls Joseph "Hercules" as they approach the priest who will accept the bell and give them their clue. Well, she can probably afford to give him that. They get the clue and head for Segesta. "I knew I would love Italy," she says happily when they are back in their car. I don't see how she can be really enjoying it -- she's not even mocking the local accent! She should be having more of a wacky good time by doing performance art for unwilling locals!
Fran and Barry run right by the clue box for the second time. Then, at last, they spot it, turn back, and come to it. I wonder if she's going to claim again this time that it wasn't there when they looked before. They read the clue and conclude that the bell will be too heavy, so they make the unusual (for them) step of choosing the more sensible Detour and head for the laundry. When they find the laundry all hanging, Fran comments on how it's "like the old days." "I wonder if these young teams know what a clothespin is," Barry snots. Yes, you predate washing machines and the cotton gin and other fancy doodads, and bully for you. ["Also, 'a clothespin'? An item that's still in use today, on a line in my basement, as I type this? It's not like the clothes were tied to the lines with sanitary-pad belts or buttonhooks or something." -- Wing Chun]
Dave and Lori hit the Detour clue and take the Laundry. "We're not the athletic people," Lori says. "Yeah, no kidding," Dave agrees. Heh.
Barry finds the Amazing Tag. They get their clue and leave for Segesta. As they're leaving, they run into an approaching Dave and Lori.
Ray and Yolanda find the Detour clue and choose the bell. Seriously, they should. Any clue with "find" in it is one they should avoid. Lake and Michelle pick the Laundry. Danielle and Dani take Laundry as well. "We are always last," they mutter. Dani says to Danielle (I think), "We're two girls. We're twenty-two, we just graduated from college. All these people, they've traveled all over the world...calm down, we're doing good." Aside from that icky "we're girls" comment, she's sort of right, up to a point. I do think young people who haven't traveled extensively are at something of a disadvantage, not that it hasn't been overcome on occasion. I do think this is the farthest anyone has ever gone when both members of the team sport words on their asses.
Ray and Yolanda haul their bell to their little vehicle, and he lifts it into the back.
Over at the laundry lines, Dave and Lori are getting a little frustrated, as he isn't even sure what they should be looking for. Fast approaching are Lake and Michelle, who barely avoid a very embarrassing moment when she stops him from just starting to look through the laundry of some perfectly nice Palermo resident who put out the wash at the exactly wrong time. "Baby, people live there," she says. "That's their stuff." Heh. Now that would have been a Detour -- running away from angry locals after you start pawing through their underwear. They should have made that the Detour option, just so we could hear Fran and Barry say, "We'll take Strange Panties." Danielle and Dani, however, manage to find the laundry before Lake and Michelle, and their arrival is unhappily noted by Dave and Lori. Lake and Michelle soon join the group, and they're off.
"You having fun yet?" Lake asks as they all hunt through clothes. "No, I want to kill myself," says either Danielle or Dani. It's safe to say that would be an overreaction. Dave, for his part, sounds half-dead and is starting to doubt that there even are any Amazing Tags to be found. "Come on, we've got to give it a shot," Lori says gently. "Try a different line." Dave is not looking convinced.
Commercials. I have a feeling I'm not going to be seeing The DaVinci Code, either. It feels like Tom Hanks's hair does more and more acting for him.
Laundry chaos continues. Lori reminds Dave to hang the clothes back on the line after he takes them off, and he's all "I know that," which is what makes it funny that there are several pieces of clothes on the ground behind him at that precise moment. Maybe those are the things he decided to keep. You know, a pair of pants here, a shirt there -- it's a long race. Lake and Michelle give up on the lines they've been searching and head for another balcony.
Ray and Yolanda finish the bell Detour just as MoJo did -- he carries it up the stairs solo. I think it's really awkward to hold that thing between two people and coordinate the walking, so it might be easier this way, even if each person is plenty strong enough to do his or her share. Yolanda takes this opportunity to say, in a voice-over, that Ray is "everything [she's] looking for in a partner." That's nice. It's a little odd that they chose this moment to point it out, but...all right. ["Maybe she's been waiting all her life for a bell carrier." -- Wing Chun] Yolanda reminds Ray not to drop the bell on the priest's feet. Hee. Never injure the clergy; that is a pretty good rule of thumb. They get on their way with the clue.
Suddenly, Dave and Lori are saved when she finds an Amazing Tag. They get the clue for Segesta and leave. They aren't sure whether they want to Yield anyone.
Ray and Yolanda, for their part, are off asking for directions. As you will learn, asking for directions makes up a major part of their recreational activity. In fact, one of the EEFPs noted this week that it might be that the reason they don't see each other very often is that they spend a lot of time fruitlessly looking for each other. They're heading for their car as Dave and Lori are leaving. "We're coming!" Yolanda lightly taunts. "That's awe-some, good for yo-ou," Lori playfully mutters in the car. Ray notes to Yolanda once they're on the way that this was his "workout for the day." These two teams are both heading for Segesta, in theory, but quickly, Ray and Yolanda admit that they don't know where they're going.
At Segesta, Eric and Jeremy are on their way to the mat, while Tyler is up in the amphitheater working on his statue. When he's finished, he has his work checked, and the guy gives him his clue. Of course, Tyler hugs the local without ascertaining whether the local wants to be hugged. I really hate that. I realize it's meant well, but there are a lot of places where randomly throwing your arms around strangers -- particularly when you smell as bad as these people do -- is not considered great manners. At any rate, the clue tells them to walk to the pit stop, which is at a temple Phil explains is about a mile away. And the last team to check in may be eliminated.
As BJ and Tyler run down toward the pit stop, Eric and Jeremy spot them from a distance. BJ and Tyler land on the mat in first place. When Phil says he has good news, Tyler continues his Idiot Tour Of Cultural Stereotypes by saying, "We get...pizza pie!" Phil explains that they get, in fact, a "digital imaging package" that includes a camera, printer, computer, and batteries. Nice that they threw in the batteries. "Whoooooa! Digital imaging!" Ugh. God.
Eric and Jeremy choose not to Yield anyone. They get the Roadblock clue, and Eric takes it. Jeremy decides to offer to take off his shirt and model, which...you know, I really, really don't like this whole area of teasing the horndogs about being gay, but it's like they're begging me to. "Check me out, dude," Jeremy says. And he poses. It's all very...odd. Let's just say it's odd. ["I'm not teasing when I say that Eric and Jeremy really are the last two people alive who don't know that Eric and Jeremy are gay, and if they could just come out and realize that then they could kiss and hold hands, they would be a lot happier. And less tired from the strain of pretending to mack on girls all the time." -- Wing Chun]
MoJo gets to Segesta and starts walking toward the Yield mat.
Eric puts the top half of his statue onto the bottom half as Jeremy comments, "As soon as Dani meets one of these guys, she's probably going to leave me." You know, I now feel like this whole thing ceased to be funny before I was born. Eric takes note of the extra pieces, but he has the thing checked out and learns that it is indeed finished. They get the pit stop clue and leave.
Monica and Joseph reach the Roadblock clue. Monica takes it.
Down at the pit stop, Eric and Jeremy arrive and, upon seeing the greeter, they exclaim, "Holy hottie!" Okay, it stopped being funny before my grandparents were born.
Back at Laundry, Lake and Michelle and Danielle and Dani are still struggling, but Michelle is the one who finds the tag first. When she does, Lake says, "Kiss me, darlin'!" in the same cadence you'd use for "I'll be damned," which I thought was cute, kind of. And then he adds, "Sugar blossom!" I wouldn't mind the occasional "sugar blossom." Just something to keep in mind. They get their clue for Segesta and leave.
Dave and Lori are driving through Italy. In the Lake and Michelle car, he asks if she thinks they need to Yield, because they know at least the girls are behind them. "Only if you want to," she wusses.
Finally, Dani finds the Amazing Tag, and they can leave. They note on the clue for Segesta that the Yield is coming. "It could be worse," they say in the car. "We could be in Russia." Heh.
Ray and Yolanda? Lost. Getting directions from construction guys.
Fran and Barry walk up toward the Roadblock, where Monica is still working. Fran and Barry do not Yield, but take the clue. "Who's good at piecing things together?" Barry asks. "We know who that is!" Yeah, she was a big help with the motorcycle engine. I'm envisioning her all, "What's an arm?" Fran starts in on the statue. Monica has finished hers, but she's worried about the two pieces she has left over. Finally, she just calls over the archeologist, who tells her that the statue is done. When Joseph sees her get the clue, he bounds over the edge of the wall he's up against, which is kind of charming, because he's so surprised to see that Monica's already done. They get the pit stop clue.
Fran finishes the statue, surprisingly enough, and she and Barry leave for the pit stop as well.
Dave and Lori, for whatever reason, have lost enough time on the way to the amphitheater that Lake and Michelle have caught up with them. When the teams start up the path to the theater, Michelle notes that they want to get to the Yield before Dave and Lori. Which is a good point. Dave and Lori find the uphill hike pretty challenging, and she has to stop for breath. As it turns out, Lake and Michelle took the wrong way up to begin with, so they've lost a little time on Dave and Lori.
Joseph and Monica hit the pit stop. Welcome, you are Team #3. I like the way they're racing right now -- steady, not too frantic, pretty consistent. In a season not involving the Choad Family, they'd be strong contenders.
Lake and Michelle come up and find Phil standing at the pit stop, so they've taken another wrong turn. They know enough to know that this is clearly not what they're supposed to do. As they go back down, they run into Fran and Barry, and they ask where the theater is. "Can't tell you," Barry says. And of course, there's nothing wrong with not telling, because you're not obligated to help, but the tone is totally unnecessary, as is Fran's bitchface, as is the fact that they don't even look at Lake and Michelle. You're on the way to the pit stop, you know? You don't need to be an asshole. What's wrong with, "Can't tell you, but hey, good luck"? Or with giving them the slightly sheepish shrug? It's just...I think Fran has convinced herself that Lake did something bad to them back at the motorcycle shop, and she has yet to recover. It's so stupid, because if you think somebody else is going to do the entire task for you, you're responsible when that doesn't turn out quite the way you're hoping.
Welcome, Fran and Barry. You are Team #4, and you are the least sympathetic old people ever.
Ray and Yolanda? Oh, they're lost.
Danielle and Dani park and start up the hill to the Teatro, where it seems like Lake and Michelle are just now getting pointed in the right direction. Dave and Lori, meanwhile, look very out of breath on the way there. "This is stupid, Lori," Dave pants. "Please stop saying that," she comes back. Finally, they get to the Yield mat and choose not to Yield anyone. Lori has a theory that what goes around comes around. Which, of course, it could, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't use the Yield if I thought I needed to. Lori takes the Roadblock and gets to work on assembling the statue.
When Lake and Michelle get to the Yield mat, they aren't so concerned about what goes around coming around, so they Yield Danielle and Dani. "I'm so sorry, girls," Michelle says. And I think she is, mostly. I think she'd rather not have that in the game, probably, but when it's sitting there, what do you do, you know? Fairly soon, Danielle and Dani get to the Yield mat and are absolutely stunned to learn that Lake and Michelle have Yielded them. "That's pathetic," Dani says. Which...not really. As I've said before, I don't like the Yield, but if it's in the rules, it's not "pathetic" to use it.
Lake and Michelle decide that he has to do this Roadblock also. Which makes four in a row for him. Racers have discussed in the Insider videos, although the show has not mentioned it, that they still have to roughly split Roadblocks between the team members, meaning nobody can do more than six. Knowing that, Michelle can't so much as put a puzzle together? It's like she has absolutely no confidence in her ability to do anything; she just freezes in horror at the thought that she'll screw up and they'll lose. There's no long-term plan here at all. Maybe he plans on buying a blonde wig.
Back at the Yield mat, Danielle and Dani complain about being Yielded. They discuss how Lake and Michelle must feel threatened, and so forth.
Dave calls out to Lori that Danielle and Dani have just been Yielded, and he cheers Lori on. They're still in the honeymoon stage of this particular Roadblock. She fairly quickly finishes assembling the statue, but she can't get past the fact that she has extra pieces. She interprets the clue, however it's written, to mean that you have to use all the pieces.
Ray and Yolanda park at the bottom of the walk to the Yield, and they're aware that there are way too many cars there, so they are not in a good position at all.
Up at the Yield mat, Danielle and Dani complain about being chosen for Yielding when Lake and Michelle knew there was another team behind Dani and Danielle. It's kind of true, but not. From the drawing of numbers, Lake and Michelle would have known there was another team back there, but they wouldn't have necessarily been certain who it was. There's no reason they'd know for certain that it was Ray and Yolanda, and if you Yield the wrong team, you waste your Yield. It seems to me that this was the only thing Lake and Michelle could do. Dani decides to bitch that Lake and Michelle did this because they're "hicks from the south." It's so sad when people fall into that shit, because they've been pretty appealing throughout, so why would they want to turn into this, you know? Besides, not all hicks from the south would Yield you. Some of them would just spit tobacco juice at you and run you over with a stock car. Just kidding!
Lori continues to struggle with the two pieces that she can't place. Dave thinks one of them looks like it would logically come from the thigh. ["Me: 'Some geek she turned out to be.' Glark: 'Geeks like rules.'" -- Wing Chun] Lake and Michelle get finished, though, because Lake didn't worry about the extra pieces. After they're gone, the sand runs out in the Yield hourglass, so Dani and Danielle can leave. They get started on the Roadblock while Lori is still working and Ray and Yolanda aren't there yet.
Lori is still miserable. "It doesn't fit anything," she says. "That's gotta be part of the thigh," Dave opines again. "I know, but it doesn't fit!" she hollers. That is some Killer Fatigue, people, seriously. We're just getting to the part where you start to see it, and there it is.
Commercials. I kind of want a Pontiac all of a sudden; how about you?
Lori is in Roadblock hell. She's at that point where you can feel yourself coming apart, but you don't know what else to do. There's a moment when she's squatting down, and she puts her arms out and drops her head between them, and boy, have I been there. It usually involves my computer, actually, but it's the same thing. She can't figure it out, and she can't stand to think about it for another second, but she knows she has to. It sucks so bad. Finally, she puts it together again, and they agree that it does look right, so they ask the archeologist, who gives her the clue. She's extremely frustrated that she put it together three times the same way before she thought to ask whether she had it right. Unhappy but unbeaten, they head off down the hill toward the pit stop. Aw.
Lake makes his Random Blowhard Remark of the Week comment when he unnecessarily snots, "We've got fat Dave behind us, and the girls." Lovely. "Don't be ugly," Michelle scolds. "Well, I mean, he's bigger than me," Lake says, defending the factual assertion rather than noticing that she's asking him not to be ugly in the way he talks, rather than it really being her point to argue that Dave isn't fat. They run into Ray and Yolanda, who are on the way up, and Lake yells encouragement. Michelle promises them that they can still maybe make it if they hurry. Lake and Michelle run to the mat, him carrying her. ["'Subtext: 'Let's see fat Dave do that!'" -- Wing Chun] On the mat, Lake puts Michelle down, and then he drops to his knees. "Rise, my friend," says dryly hilarious Phil, who never gets nearly enough lines like that. Welcome, you are Team #5. They're pleased.
Ray and Yolanda assign the Roadblock to him. So now, he's working on the statue, and he explains that he's using Yolanda's legs for inspiration while working on the thighs. Heh. Dani gets her statue checked, but it's not right. It's something about the thigh, and I think she maybe has a couple of pieces turned around wrong. It looks like they're just not arranged neatly enough, but I don't think that's what it is -- I think they're actually not aligned right.
Dave and Lori trade "I love you"s on the way up to the pit stop. But they're quiet ones, you know? Kind of muttered. And I'll never get mad at people for that, because it's a hell of a lot better to say it too often than not at all. Welcome, you are Team #6. Phil comments on the seriousness of the "workout program," probably because Dave's so sweaty. Dave is so tired and so frustrated that he gets a little broken up explaining that they got really short with each other, and that he doesn't like it when it gets like that. "We're okay," says Lori. They hug. "We'll work it out," she tells him. "We're still in it."
Ray and Dani are close to done. Ray starts to tease: "Come on, Danielle...'cause I'm comin' like Christmas." And he is, too. Even sooner than that. Dani asks again whether her statue is right, and it still has the same problem. Ray, however, asks and finds out that his statue is done, so he and Yolanda can go. They run for it. Finally, Dani arranges the pieces in the leg so that they're right, and finally, she gets the clue.
It seems like a foregone conclusion, given that, in all likelihood, Danielle and Dani are not going to catch Ray and Yolanda in a footrace. But of course, for the sake of suspense, Ray and Yolanda are stopped, looking at a map. It's easy to feel like that's stupid, but you remember how Lake and Michelle kept running the wrong way as well. I think it's kind of a complex of buildings, and I'm not sure it's as obvious as it looks which one is the one you want.
Pit stop. Phil. Greeter. Typical shots of suspense, including a nice one of the shadows of whomever is stepping onto the mat. Aaand...Ray and Yolanda, you are Team #7, and you are not eliminated, and you are quickly dispensed with. And then, here come Danielle and Dani. You're the last team; you're eliminated. Dani says that they tried their best and feel good about how they did. Danielle talks about how proud she is of the things she did that she'd never have thought she'd do. "I would say," Phil says, not really interested in those sentiments, apparently, "that you guys have the most successful connections with the opposite sex ever on The Amazing Race. That was a pretty quick hookup with Eric and Jeremy." Dani looks over at Danielle. "We had fun with Eric and Jeremy," Danielle says halfheartedly. "We're going to stay friends forever," Dani adds. I so wish we hadn't had to go there, to the "wink wink, you girls sure did give it up easy" place. Because talking about successful "connections" is one thing, but when you go after the speed of the "hookup" to a pair of women, it unavoidably comes off like you're calling them sluts, and considering that the guys were referred to with the word "casanovas," it's especially gross to see it turned into something kind of sneering and icky. For one thing, as has been pointed out by me and others, we've seen nothing more intense than hand-holding between these people, except for the fact that we haven't even seen hand-holding. We've seen, like, (1) walking around; and (2) a lot of talk, all of it from the guys. This entire scarlet-letter routine is just a little unnecessarily precious, it seems to me.
On a voice-over about how much they learned, Dani and Danielle are dismissed.
Executive Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer.
week: stress! Monica fighting! Barry's bare shoulders! Hyperbole!