In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
It's all about pettiness this week as the teams make their way around Australia. BJ and Tyler kick things off by confirming that they indeed did threaten to Yield anyone who didn't give them money, so there goes the effort to give them the benefit of the doubt. Eric and Jeremy then break new ground in This Isn't That Kind Of Show sabotage when they call and cancel Ray and Yolanda and BJ and Tyler's taxi reservations. Karma whaps them upside the head when their taxi doesn't come either, but because the only cab that shows is Joseph and Monica's, BJ and Tyler and Ray and Yolanda concluded that MoJo must have been the cab-cancellers. BJ and Tyler, in particular, are so convinced that this is the case that they do in fact Yield MoJo when they're the first team to get there and MoJo is the second, which is (as previously explained) the stupidest possible way to use the Yield. You know, if you're going to use it for reasons of personal vindictiveness, it's a good idea to check and make sure you know what the hell you're talking about first. At any rate, MoJo waits around for the hourglass (and then some), and then chooses the better Detour, meaning that they catch up to the two teams of boys on the way to the pit stop. After a surprisingly surging Ray and Yolanda get their first taste of first place, the other three teams wind up in a footrace to the mat. Eric and Jeremy wind up in second, while BJ -- who foolishly (for a few reasons) decides to do the footrace with no shoes -- and Tyler are last again, but they're not eliminated again, because they're incredibly lucky again. Sigh. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Closer To Fremantle: Teams left Oman, either with money or with idiotic TTOW shirts, but not with both. BJ and Tyler got free cash from a few pliable suckers whose names rhymed with "Stan and Mary" and "Gray and Frolanda," but they got no love from MoJo or JerkJerk. Nobody was happy to see BJ and Tyler barely make the flight to Australia, but weary overnight travelers paid them handsomely to shut up and read the in-flight magazines instead of running up and down the aisles playing demolition derby with the beverage carts. MoJo bickered, while Ray and Yolanda finally stopped bickering, and both teams found that their fortunes changed surprisingly little as a result. Fran and Barry's reserved taxi wasn't so reserved after all, or else their driver picked up someone else named Fran and Barry and took off. The Roadblock sent various team members running into Fremantle prison to search among the rock hammers and Rita Hayworth posters for a way out that did not involve swimming in sewage. Everyone was a little slow and unimpressive, really, and Fran wasn't able to make up much ground, so she and Barry were eliminated. Hey, just like they kept saying they would be! You know, they may be eliminated, but it must at least be satisfying to be right. Now, we're at final four time. Who will be eliminated...? And as to the suspense of this particular episode and its ending, who...has seen this show before?
Credits. If you took Muppets made for a sketch about hippies, and you went to a mad scientist to create people who would be the human forms of those Muppets, the people you would wind up with would look eerily like BJ and Tyler. [BOMP.]
Commercials. Sure, Duracell batteries saved your kid's life, but did you know they're also boffo in MP3 players? Priorities, people.
Something that sounds like the love call of the Australian Staccato Bullfrog as interpreted by a Moog synthesizer brings us back to the pounding surf of Perth, which Phil explains is very important, despite being even more in the middle of nowhere than Australia is generally. (Just kidding, Australia!) A small collection of women go running into the water with some urgency, like it's part of Jaws V: Opposite Day. It's all becoming quite the tour of beachy grandeur, when all of a sudden Phil reminds us that we are at the human-infested anti-capital of actual beachy grandeur: a sailing club. At least he looks good, even though he's in a conservative button-down in the one locale where a silly Thurston Howell shirt might have actually worked. All I really care about is that the pants-related malfunctions of the past seem to be behind us. He tells us that this was the ninth pit stop, and he reminds us how the last thing that happened was that teams arrived here at the end of the last leg. It's like he knows we've been watching other things in the interim, and he feels the need to remind us that we didn't leave off with Nnenna being unexpectedly booted, or with Trump making Bill Rancic his bitch, or with Katharine McPhee flashing her goodies at the crowd. Phil promises that the four remaining teams "have no idea what's in store for them." Could be sophisticated bank transactions! Arena football! Competitive eating! The things that are preoccupying Phil this week include whether the animosity between MoJo and BJ and Tyler will continue, and also whether Ray and Yolanda can improve their performance after noodling around in the neighborhood of last place since the days when mankind emerged from the primordial ooze.
11:47 PM. Eric and Jeremy, who were first again last week, are first to leave. Jeremy has decided not to wear any hilarious or ironic shirts this week to start off with, so that's an auspicious beginning to a leg. The clue tells the teams to head for Swan Bells, and although that sounds like the title of a tween soap about summer romances at a resort being operated by a lovable but dictatorial owner, it is in fact a tower 15 miles "across town" from the pit stop. This is a six-story tower that...well, towers over the Swan River. Not, I would note, the Swanee River, although if my father had been watching this episode with me, that's the song he would have sung during the reading of the clue. The tower holds bells that England gave the city of Perth for the Australian bicentennial. So it turns out that the appropriate gift for a 200th anniversary is bells. That's good for Australia, which still remembers how mad it was when it learned that the appropriate gift for a first anniversary was convicts.
Eric and Jeremy chitchat in voice-over about how people are edgy, how BJ and Tyler and MoJo have this stupid thing going on between them, and Eric says that he finds the fighting "pretty fun." It's amazing how, as other people become obnoxious, people who are blank slates become more and more appealing.
11:48 PM. MoJo. She has certainly not let her hair slide, in terms of starting to wear it in practical, workmanlike styles. She has not let go of the poodle, stylistically speaking. I'm also amused by how her shorts are entertainingly too short, while Joseph's are entertainingly too long. Their love is like Goldilocks. My final comment on appearance is that she appears to be racing with very little...support, and to me, you would only do that if you were a really slightly built lady, which she is not. I'm not so much saying it's unflattering as I am that I can't imagine it's comfortable with this much running. "We're gonna beat these damn hippies," Joseph says as they leave the mat. Joseph notes that teams are getting mean, and Monica swears that they would never be "this vindictive" in non-race situations. She would, however, wear just as much pink. They run into Eric and Jeremy, and both teams borrow a handy cell phone to call a pair of taxis.
11:56 PM. BJ and Tyler. They do a Funny Clue Opening, taken from their book, 10,000 Jokes, Toasts, And Clue Openings, and then they finally actually read the Swan Bells clue. The teams are getting $70 for the leg, and BJ and Tyler are back in the money-getting portion of the game. "We told Monica and Joseph that we were going to Yield them if they didn't leave us any money," Tyler says, making me pretty damn stupid to have tried to give them the benefit of the doubt last week, because they in fact did exactly what detractors accused them of doing. Of course, there's nothing rule-breaking about threatening to Yield people who don't give you money, but it's just another reason why both the Yield and the money-taking are stupid -- it adds a bunch of dynamics that are irritating but not interesting. It also seems to me that if you're BJ and Tyler, it's embarrassing to have to try to threaten teams into giving you free money. They need to do something about this entire business of taking money and giving money and using the Yield to try to extract money...I like it best when people are trying to figure out how to complete tasks quickly and cover distance quickly. The scheming to thwart other teams is always the least interesting part of any season, unless the people being thwarted suck so much that their suffering is its own entertainment, in which case I'm never happy they're on the show in the first place.
BJ and Tyler come up on Eric and Jeremy and MoJo, and they try to get information about the location of Swan Bells. "Did you guys find out where the Swan Bells are?" Tyler asks. "Yep," Jeremy says. "Did you really?" Tyler repeats. "Nope," Jeremy says. Heh. "You guys waiting for a bus here?" Tyler adds, because he still really hates doing his own work, and Jeremy (I think) says, "Yep." Because he isn't so crazy about doing Tyler's work for him, no matter how hard Tyler tries. And then the taxis arrive, demonstrating that the teams are not so much waiting for a bus. And because the taxis are reserved in the names of the teams who called for them, they pick up MoJo and Eric and Jeremy. BJ and Tyler initially get that MoJo has a cab in Joseph's name, and tries to get that driver to order two more cabs, but they quickly learn that the other half of the Choad Family was in cahoots with MoJo and didn't tell them the truth about buses and so forth. Once the other teams are gone and can no longer be sponged off of, BJ and Tyler approach a guy, borrow his cell phone, and call a taxi for themselves, which they could have done earlier if they hadn't been standing around to see what the other teams were doing. The accusation that they are followers is, I think, a pretty fair one. And after he calls the taxi, Tyler says, "T-Tow." We are put through the speech again about how it's the "circle of life" and their "power word." It certainly has the "power" to intensely annoy, that's for sure. And as for "circular," if that can somehow be related to the idea of mind-numbing repetition and boredom, I vote yes. They get in their taxi.
12:23 AM. Ray and Yolanda. As they leave the mat, Yolanda reminds us yet again that this is the longest time they've spent together, so they're still learning lots of things. She says she's learning things like, "Oh, that is the noise he makes when he brushes his teeth." I found that very interesting, because you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of time in a row with people in order to learn something like how they brush their teeth. I could certainly describe dental hygiene habits of people with whom I haven't spent more than a few days in a row, although I suppose that may have to do with the compulsive and therefore reliable nature of said dental hygiene habits. Not that I'm against flossing. What was I talking about? Oh, right. Ray and Yolanda find a taxi dropping someone off and get right in. Which I guess is okay if you want to do it the easy way.
MoJo arrives first at Swan Bells and hops out of the cab. "This has got to be it; I see swans," Joseph observes. Sharp boy. They pass what appears to be a metal swan sculpture. Monica restrains herself from quacking at it, which is officially one way in which she is a far better person than I am. (I know, I know -- "Swans don't quack!" I would do it anyway.) They discover that the tower isn't open until 8:00 in the morning, so they're in for a nice long nap before they can do anything. They wander around, and Monica walks up to a guy and says, "Is there a cheap place to stay around here?" Because sleeping up against the door, as people used to do as a matter of course, is apparently a lost art reserved for practice by the overly nostalgic, kind of like churning your own butter or getting search warrants. "Cheap place to stay, love?" the guy says to her. "You can stay at my joint for free!" She chuckles and turns around to look at Joseph. "That's all right, man," says Australian Hustler, "I'm just joking." And then there is a hilarious comedy pause, and he adds, "No, I'm not, but I saw you," indicating Joseph. That guy is already funnier than any contestant this season. Strap him to somebody's backpack! Bring him along! He won't take up much room! Come on, Australian Hustler! Let's go!
Just then, Eric and Jeremy approach. It's hard to tell for sure, but I believe that when Eric and Jeremy get out of the taxi and Monica and Joseph wave to them, Australian Hustler says, "More of them?", which also struck me as totally hilarious. He's like, "How many himbos do you travel with, sister?" MoJo breaks the news of the opening hours to the boys, with Monica using the classic construction, "8:00 AM in the morning." BJ and Tyler arrive , using their traditional and incredibly hilarious greeting, "What's up, ladies?" to try to insult the guys that are sitting around. It's fascinating how they, in fact, are the ones who talk like prototypical frat boys much of the time, in spite of their personas. Monica shares the news with them, too. Ray and Yolanda arrive and get the news. Eric sits and chats with MoJo about how "Ray's on a short leash." "My leash is about five feet long," Joseph says by way of comparison. Monica protests that she doesn't have him on a leash, thereby pulling on the leash, and he immediately backs down, admitting that there is no leash, which he only says because the leash is really cutting into his neck. "I don't let Jeremy out of the house," Eric says. Well, sure.
Over at the BJ and Tyler bench, Tyler says that Eric is flirting with Monica, and BJ adds that maybe they can exploit that to make these teams fight. There are so many things wrong with that dumb theory that I hardly know where to begin. First of all, I guarantee you that Joseph is used to the fact that guys like Eric hit on Monica from time to time. Second of all, just the way Eric normally talks comes across as flirting, so it's not like there's much to make of it. Third of all, MoJo hates BJ and Tyler. Why would Joseph get suspicious of Eric over something BJ and Tyler tell him? Fourth of all, just run your own damn race, would you? Lying on the bench, Tyler says, "T-Tow, huh?" "T-Tow," BJ answers. So that's three times so far. And really, when you say "T-Tow" while wearing your "TTOW" shirt? It's kind of like wearing the shirt of the band that you're seeing, if the band that you're seeing were incredibly lame and hated you.
The morning at 7:30 AM, Ray calls and reserves a taxi for himself for 8:00 AM. He gives his name, and says to make sure to wait for him specifically, identifying himself as "a black male." Tyler calls and reserves a cab as well. Meanwhile, Eric and Jeremy call on a different phone and reserve their taxi in the name "Doug Brubaker." And then Eric and Jeremy decide to call back and cancel the other cabs. So first, they call and cancel the one under Tyler's name, and then they call and cancel the one under Ray's name. As Jeremy explains that they're doing this, Joseph is watching over their shoulder with a smile, so that may explain why Joseph's wasn't cancelled -- Joseph may have caught them, more than anything else, and decided he didn't care as long as they didn't cancel his. "So that will give us a little bit of a jump on everybody else," Joseph says agreeably. As the plot concludes, Eric notes, "Man, they should have used their fake names. That's their fault."
And again, it's just not the show I really signed up to watch. If you hate the teams it's being done to, it's kind of fun to see shit like this happen in a short-term way, but short of that, it's just a lot of nonsense and fighting, and I don't really want teams to have to start making reservations under fake names and stuff. Isn't the logical step canceling each other's flight reservations? This is just dumb, and it's for that reason that if it's not against the rules, it probably ought to be, as should bribing drivers to keep doors closed and so forth. I think you could implement a few rules -- you may not ask or pay service people to deny or impair service to other teams, you may not cancel or interfere with other people's existing reservations for planes or cabs -- without getting into anything that would be overly difficult to enforce. Just tell the teams to run their own races. I'm not morally offended that they did it, but I'd enjoy the show more if the time that was spent on this foolishness were available for something else.
At 8:00 AM, the teams run into the tower and head up the stairs. BJ and Tyler, Ray and Yolanda, MoJo, and Eric and Jeremy find the clue in that order. Phil tells us that the clue tells them to fly 1700 miles to Darwin, which is "named after famed naturalist Charles Darwin," where they'll find marked cars and drive to what Phil refers to as a "crocodile farm." It's so great when you learn that a new thing exists. It's like, "The teams will now drive to a vegetable zoo." Like, oh, they have a place where you can go and pet cabbages? Of course! Why wouldn't they? Sheltered American! At the farm, they'll walk into a pool of crocodiles to get a clue. There are several very menacing shots of crocodiles here, like, "THEY. MAY. DIE." Which isn't so much true, but, okay. They do look scarier than the typical scary animals they use on this show, which often look sleepy, bored, or recently sated. And this is the part where you should have, obviously, Steve Irwin saying, "Never taunt these by driving a stick up their noses, like I'm about to do here." And then he'd make his wife hold the bag, which always strikes me as such a grand metaphor, you know?
So now, we are back out in front of the tower. BJ and Tyler flag down a red taxi. They say simply, "We called for a taxi," and they get inside. Then Eric and Jeremy come up and ask the driver if he has a name for the party he was supposed to pick up. "Under Joseph," the driver says. Just then, MoJo runs up, with Joseph protesting that BJ and Tyler are trying to get his cab. "I'm Joseph," he tells the driver. What I love is that Eric is totally on board for screwing BJ and Tyler, because he agrees, indicating BJ in the cab, "That's not Joseph." They open the door, and initially, BJ refuses to get out, saying simply, "We're in this taxi." "Get out," Joseph repeats. He tells the driver again that he is Joseph. He offers ID, but the driver pretty much tells him it doesn't matter, which Joseph and BJ and Tyler all apparently take to mean that the driver wants the hippies out of the cab -- plus, Tyler is already out anyway. MoJo puts their luggage in, gets in the cab, and leaves for the airport. BJ grumpily wants to know why Tyler ever got out of the cab at all, apparently thinking they could have held firm, in spite of the fact that Joseph was about to show ID to the driver proving that he was the person for whom the taxi was called. What you want to do, of course, is tell the person on the phone that the driver should ask for ID before picking up anyone -- this lesson goes back quite a way, to the fourth episode ever, to boys who didn't have multiple seasons of the show to use for reference, either. At any rate, Tyler insists it just wasn't worth it to start something. "Right, it's not worth a million dollars to piss somebody off," BJ spits. That doesn't seem very American Bedouin of him! It's so curious how the "I love the world and all its children" bit comes and goes with BJ.
Meanwhile, Ray and Yolanda discern that their cab is not present, so they head back to call again. Funniest of all, however, Eric and Jeremy also find that...their cab is not present, either. And there don't seem to be any free ones. "At least our canceling worked," Eric says. "Yeah," Jeremy agrees. "That was good. I think we canceled ours in the process." Oh, I do hope so. When Ray calls about the cab, he learns that someone canceled it, and he tells Yolanda. When she runs into Eric, who seems to be -- and is, in a sense -- in the same boat she is, Yolanda says, "They called and canceled our taxis." The conclusion being reached here is totally logical, though...wrong. She continues: "We called for one." Not officially lying, which is a little bit awesome, Eric says, "We called for one, too." Ray says that it certainly looks like it has to have been MoJo, since everybody here ordered a cab and nobody here has a cab, and MoJo got theirs and left. Yolanda quickly spreads this news to BJ and Tyler, not explaining to them how she knows. BJ uses this as another opportunity to sarcastically rip on Tyler for getting out of the cab: "I'm glad we didn't offend Joseph now." As Ray and Yolanda and BJ and Tyler, the only actual victims of this scheme, walk along the road, Ray remarks that what just happened makes the game feel a lot more personal.
BJ and Tyler find a cab, and then Ray and Yolanda. Eric and Jeremy, however, still do not have one, so they are the last ones stuck at the place where they canceled everyone else's. Jeremy doesn't understand how it can be this hard to get a cab. "I think it's called karma," Eric observes. It's good that he recognizes it, at least. Jeremy adds, "This is the worst thing ever," in a way I shouldn't find quite as amusing as I do. "Karma bit us in the ass," Eric says.
Commercials. America voted for BJ and Tyler. Again, I am an outlier.
We come back to find Eric and Jeremy hunting for a taxi, still, and being told that they should try looking for one at a hotel. I would think that would be fairly standard taxi-hailing etiquette, no? Not that their intelligence is "standard," of course. It really is pretty delicious that their efforts at sabotage went quite that hideously wrong. In the cab they finally pick up at one of the hotels, Eric laughs, a little bit embarrassed but not really, about the fact that BJ and Tyler and Ray and Yolanda think that it was MoJo who did the cab-canceling.
Speaking of MoJo, up in their cab, Joseph is talking about how the game is "getting dirty." Unaware that their reputations are taking a dive right now, they're just happy that they kept BJ and Tyler from stealing their cab. "We weren't about to let them get away with that," Monica says with a smile of satisfaction. Joseph makes some kind of yelp of victory, but I kind of don't get it.
Tyler: "Apparently, Joseph had canceled everyone's cabs." I understand how you'd reach that conclusion, certainly, but it's not like you know this for sure. "If Joseph had called," Tyler says, "then when Yield season comes along, then Joseph and Monica are going to be the hunted." Of course, whether they canceled the cabs has absolutely no rational relationship to the intelligence of Yielding them for race purposes, so that's just uncut stupid.
In the Ray and Yolanda car, Ray is talking about the pleasure of seeing MoJo in a crocodile pond. Ray thinks that a crocodile might choke on the "plastic Barbie doll" that is Monica. I'm not sure I think that's the best joke he could have come up with, you know? Help me out here, Ray. It's Monica, you know? I think it's more that she would be nothing but an amuse bouche. For her part, Yolanda says that "black people wouldn't be stupid enough to get into a pool of crocodiles." And then she pauses. And then she says, "Or would they, because that's what we're about to do." Heh. Ray thinks that for a million dollars, the rules kind of change.
First to the airport are Monica and Joseph, and they go and ask about the fastest way to Darwin. Joseph also tells the ticket agent they'd rather nobody else find out about it. The agent, who looks a little bit like a Stephen Root cousin and is operating at a level of seriousness that's difficult to discern, says, "What's it worth?" Joseph and Monica assure him that it's worth a million dollars. Idiots. Saying what everyone else in the room is thinking, the agent says that what he meant was, what's it worth to him? Making themselves look even dumber than they already do, MoJo says that Monica will give him kiss. Okay, see, when you're just sucking up, you can offer to give the guy a kiss. But when the guy wants to know how much you're going to bribe him, that is not a "give him a kiss" situation. The agent looks back at them, and his face expresses the following thought rather eloquently: "How did you get all the way from America to here without absentmindedly swallowing your tongue?" Go on. Freeze-frame it. I'll wait. That's what his face is saying.
BJ and Tyler come to the airport and wind up to Joseph and Monica at the Qantas counter. "MoJo," Tyler calls out, thinking he's cool. "What happened to those other taxis?" BJ is more specific, saying that "there's a rumor" that they canceled all the cabs. "That sucks," Joseph says noncommittally. Tyler asked if they did it, and according to the editing, Joseph just keeps facing the window -- probably wracked with guilt because he stood and watched Eric and Jeremy do it and isn't sure whether to rat them out -- but Monica shakes her head. So Tyler smugly says to BJ, "They did it." , Ray and Yolanda arrive at the airport, and when they get to the counter, Ray conspicuously directs some remarks in MoJo's direction about the canceling of the cabs. Then Joseph turns around, losing any claim to the high ground by saying, "Somebody canceled y'all's cab?" like he's surprised. BJ and Tyler say that's the scoop from Eric and Jeremy. "Sneaky bastards, they're telling them that we did it," Joseph mutters to Monica, a tiny bit amused. Obviously, my level of sympathy for them is somewhat limited by the fact that while Joseph didn't cancel the cabs, he was standing there and knew about it, and he was enjoying the "jump" he knew he'd get from it. Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
And now, Eric and Jeremy are at the airport. When they get to the line, Monica confronts them. "You told everybody that Joseph was the one who canceled…" Eric hops in with his most mischievous smile, insisting that he didn't say anything of the kind. Now, if BJ and Tyler were here and paying attention, they'd immediately see from this exchange that it was Eric and Jeremy, not MoJo, behind the cab-stealing. Eric's non-denial denial makes that perfectly obvious. BJ isn't done stirring shit, so he says to Eric, "You know, there's a rumor going around that you and Monica are getting kind of close." Right. Because to weaken men, you know what you do? You get them to fight over girls. This is where you learn that the progressive granola-eating is all completely faux, because this bullshit about "He's trying to steal your girl" is retro, sexist claptrap. It's Girl As Property, and it's not attractive. It's also something that is a pretty sensitive topic for a lot of people; the idea that they're not being respectful to the person they're with. I'm not sure I would actually try to cause problems in somebody's real-life relationship using things I knew were bullshit, just on the off-chance that it might distract them enough to gain me a competitive advantage. It just seems...low.
The agents issue everyone tickets on a flight leaving at 12:15 from here and getting in at 7:10 this evening. So the teams are all tied again, all on the same plane to Darwin.
thing you know, it's 7:30, and all the teams are landing in Darwin. (Twenty minutes late, and you'll never be the fittest with those kinds of statistics, Darwin-bound flights!) The first thing the teams say when they hop off the plane is how hot it is. MoJo makes it to their car first, and as Monica salutes the vehicle as "pimp daddy," Eric and Jeremy are behind them, followed by BJ and Tyler (who've decided to follow) and Ray and Yolanda.
In the MoJo car, Monica reminds us that they're on their way to Crocodylus Park. They are not surprised at all to get there and find a friendly sign announcing that the place will not be open until 9:00 in the morning. Other teams follow. As the teams sit around, Monica complains that the bugs are bothering her, and Eric says they're attracted to her. "Just like you are," Tyler says with groundbreaking witlessness. "You and Monica are getting kind of close, huh?" Monica rolls up the window. Tyler puts his arm around Eric and says, in the most unsubtle manner you can imagine that does not involve hitting people with frying pans, "What's going on with…" Eric, not interested in rising to the bait, says, "I'm going to put some meat around Joseph, so that he gets attacked by crocodiles. Then my plan will be in full effect." Ha! Yeah, your mind games are very successful, Tyler. I never thought I'd live to see Eric outwit anyone, but that's basically what just happened. He's like, "Yeah, dude, it's a plot. I'm all over her. Hilarious."
The morning, it is 9:00 AM when the doors are opened and the teams stroll purposefully down a wooden walkway, presumably toward a bunch of crocodile ponds. There is a sign that warns you that crocodiles move quickly and probably hate you. (I'm paraphrasing.) Clues dangle dramatically over snapping jaws. Teams begin to slip into tight rubber pants. "This is how you practice safe sex," Eric says. Oh, there's the obvious boy I remember. Yolanda hopes that these won't be as tight as the lederhosen. Heh. BJ and Tyler's guide tells them to slide their feet along, rather than lifting them up. Eric and Jeremy's guide fills in this piece of advice by clarifying that if you step on the crocodiles, they will turn around and bite you. Which you do not want to happen. And Ray and Yolanda's guide tells them something that you almost never want to hear: "No sudden movements." In the great spirit of being a total douchebag, BJ is doing this task in a top hat. Now, would that be a top hat that he somehow got to keep in spite of supposedly having to give up all his possessions? Or is it a top hat that someone happened to give him during the leg? Because if it's the former, I would like to register a complaint. You're supposed to lose your stuff, even if your stuff is allegedly entertaining. And if it's the latter, I would like to tell him that he's stupid, because why are you bothering to pick up a top hat and schlep it all over the place at this point? Tyler has a big hat, too. They sure have a lot of stuff for a team that recently lost all their stuff. The teams step into the pens. One by one, they collect the clues that are hanging. As they're leaving, Tyler says, very awkwardly, as if it's been rehearsed four hundred times, "See ya, wallets -- I mean, crocodiles." That's what he came up with? Was "wallets"?
When they're done, BJ and Tyler read a clue that tells them to drive to Batchelor, which is more than 50 miles, and where I really wish they had been required to participate in a rose ceremony. But in fact, in Batchelor, all they'll find is an airfield. Oh, and -- "Caution: Yield ahead." Phil explains the Yield again, and I dread where this is going. Behind BJ and Tyler are MoJo, then Eric and Jeremy, then Ray and Yolanda, but all the teams are soon on their way. Scrambling into cars ensues. Once they're on the way, BJ and Tyler agree that they'll Yield MoJo. Now, you'll notice -- they say that they'll Yield MoJo regardless of where anybody is situated, provided they're ahead of them at the Yield mat. Which is how you know that he Yielding is personal, not strategic. If it were strategic, it would at least matter where various teams were. MoJo passes BJ and Tyler, in part based on a conversation in which they agree that BJ and Tyler will probably Yield them if they get the chance. When Tyler asks if BJ should try to pass back, Tyler says that they're going "over 120," which is obviously in kilometers, and is only about 75 miles an hour, so...it's not so fast that you'd think you couldn't do it at all, so I'm wondering if there was some kind of a speed recommendation by production or something.
In any event, BJ and Tyler pull into the airfield just behind Joseph and Monica. Basically, what happens is that Joseph and Monica find the parking where you're actually supposed to park, it appears, while BJ and Tyler just stop driving and leave their car along the little road into the airfield. It's not by much, but BJ and Tyler get to the Yield mat first, and they immediately Yield MoJo. Now, we've discussed before why, as a general matter, Yielding the team right behind you is actually the least intelligent thing you can do -- it literally minimizes the value of the Yield to use it this way. There's no one you can Yield where it will get you less of a racing advantage than you'll get from Yielding people who are landing on the mat an instant after you do. You should use it on someone who at least might be in last place, although obviously, you'd have to guess between two teams in this particular situation. Furthermore, the only way I can think of that you might think it was a good idea to use it on anyone other than a potential last-place team would be to use it against the strongest competitors...who are clearly also not Joseph and Monica. In other words, both of the ways it seems rational for BJ and Tyler to use the Yield give you the same result: Yield Eric and Jeremy. And if they were paying any attention to the airport exchange between Eric and Monica, they now know that Eric and Jeremy were the cab-cancelers, and Eric and Jeremy didn't give them any money either, so even the irrational, dumb reasons would suggest Eric and Jeremy. In fact, this leg kind of demonstrates my point about whom you do and don't Yield, because assuming everything else went the same way it ultimately will in this leg, had BJ and Tyler Yielded Eric and Jeremy here instead of MoJo, then Eric and Jeremy would have been last instead of BJ and Tyler. (MoJo would have finished a half-hour ahead of BJ and Tyler instead of in a tie, but Eric and Jeremy would have finished a half-hour behind them -- as has become clear by now, using the Yield on a last-place team rather than the first-place team makes you less likely to come in first, but also less likely to come in last.) So, let's see: would it have been better for BJ and Tyler to take all of Eric and Jeremy's money and keep all of their own money, rather than doing what they did, which led to losing all their own money and leaving intact all of Eric and Jeremy's money, all because they dislike MoJo personally? This Yield, I'm saying, makes no fucking sense except as an exercise of personal pettiness, and the ill-advised use of it here has actual negative effects on them at the end of this leg. It's just plain bad racing, and had they used it differently, they wouldn't have come in last.
What's particularly gross is that Tyler calls out, "Sorry, guys!" as they leave the mat, as if they were forced to do this for some strategic reason and didn't do it for personal reasons. Which they did. MoJo stand to sweat out their Yield.
BJ and Tyler tear open the clue that's out at the airfield, and Phil explains that this is your basic skydiving Roadblock -- in tandem with an instructor so you don't die. BJ takes it. Back at the Yield mat, Monica is venting her frustration, and Joseph is taking it as actual complaining, which seems to be the pattern for them. She is particularly frosted that they got to the airfield first, and that they were aced out because of the way the parking went. "That is not fair," she says with frustration. Joseph keeps telling her to stop being upset, which is...that's not helpful to someone who's upset. It's really not. As they stand there and mope, Eric and Jeremy come running up to the mat and note the Yielded MoJo. Eric throws them a cursory "Sorry, guys, that sucks," as he runs off. "We'll get 'em, guys," Jeremy promises. Now, Ray and Yolanda run up and note the same thing, but without the encouraging words. Monica keeps grumping, and Joseph tells her it's "nothing to cry about," to which she points out correctly that she's not crying. YET. Of course, once he condescendingly lectures that she needs to "act a little more grown up," then she starts crying. They are just backwards from where they need to be right now, communication-wise.
Eric and Ray take the Roadblock. Yolanda couldn't even do the skydive? Ack. By my count, that's all the Roadblocks Ray can do, if indeed he can only do six. Joseph is still telling Monica not to cry, and it's still not the right way to handle her at all, because -- as she rightly points out -- he can't actually tell her how to feel. She tells him that she's not saying he has to be upset; she's just saying she's upset. And as to this part, I do agree with her. You can't always just will yourself not to be upset in a stressful situation, and I'm not sure he's being very helpful.
Commercials. I do not understand what a Lincoln Zephyr has to do with a buffalo, but that's why I don't work in marketing.
We come back to Monica, now crossing over into what would get old in a hurry, which is saying -- again -- that it's "not fair." Joseph assures her that the Yield is not going to matter. I'm sure he's quite aware that it's sure to be non-elimination, for one thing. Elsewhere, BJ suits up for the skydive. Tyler pulls this total bullshit line about how "intense" it is when you Yield someone, and how awful he would feel if it were him. Talk about talk being cheap, man. You really can't play a vindictive card on somebody and then claim that you feel sympathy. It's just not convincing. And as BJ wanders off for the jump, one of them says "T-Tow." Again. "T-Tow, my ass," Monica mutters at the Yield mat. Well, exactly. How sick of that shit do you suppose the other people are by now? BJ's plane goes up. Eric's plane goes up. "Hopefully, your chute opens, dude!" Jeremy hollers. Ray's plane goes up.
Monica cries at the mat. Joseph instructs her to cheer up, which still isn't helping. She tells him she's fine, and that if he would stop talking to her, she'd be less upset. Which, reluctantly, I also think is often true, despite the fact that at this point, she is definitely into "toughen up" territory.
BJ jumps. T-Tow count during the jump: 2. "He's so damn corny," Yolanda says on the ground. And...exactly. And the second "T-Tow" definitely comes off as "Did you miss the first one, camera guy? I got another one for you!" Jeremy, sort of bored, says, "They both have their unique personalities." This seems to bring to mind the idea of flirting with Yolanda, and Jeremy hasn't hit on anyone in a leg or two, it appears, so he tells her that if she weren't with Ray, he'd be all over her. "Oh, yeah?" she asks, not entirely unamused, but...still entirely amused, if you see what I mean.
BJ lands. Jeremy admits that "that was pretty cool." BJ and Tyler open the clue, which tells them to drive about 20 miles to a wildlife park and find something called the Magnetic Termite Mounds. That is a mouthful. I have no joke, because there are too many concepts. It's like, "Hey, that sounds like a wooden statue of Jessica Simpson's chest with, uh...magnets on it." I can't even begin to imagine. Phil explains that the idea is that termites have built these mounds, and they all point toward magnetic north. That officially gives these particular insects a better sense of direction than I have. Not that I particularly value a sense of direction, given that one of my friends called me this week from another state and led with the line, "First, we have to figure out what city I'm in." Oh, yes, I'm serious. ["And no, it wasn't me. For once." -- Sars] Anyway, at the termite mounds, they will find another clue. As BJ and Tyler leave, Tyler tries to throw some kind of a thumbs-up to MoJo, which is...you know, if you're going to do it for personal reasons, then just own it, dude. Joseph is having none of it, and lets Tyler know. In the car, Tyler mocks Joseph for being angry. Again, own it, you know? Don't act like taking offense is beneath you when you did it out of spite.
Joseph asks Monica if she's getting all ready to jump, and she says, "Yeah, I'm pumped," and he makes fun of how she doesn't sound pumped, and he calls her a brat, and they continue to bicker, and thanks to the very smart camera guy, we see that their hourglass runs out while they're standing there arguing, and they just keep arguing. Finally, he notices, and she takes the Roadblock, giving him a smooch as she goes.
Eric jumps. He does not say "T-Tow." They get their clue and go. Ray jumps. No power word for him either. As he lies on the ground with the instructor still tied to him, Yolanda coos, "Oh, that's so sweet; he's holding you and everything!" Ray mutters, "It's not funny." Heh. Oh, come on, Ray. It's a little funny. They get going.
BJ and Tyler reach the termite mounds and ultimately find the clue box. As they run through the mounds, BJ calls out, "Don't touch them! Termites will eat all the wood in your body!" And Tyler comes back with a panicky, "My peg leg!" Which: funny. Because: not "lookee meeeee!" nonsense. GET IT? When they pull the clue, they find this week's Detour, where the choices are Dry and Wet. In Wet, you drive six miles and then hike and swim a course down a river full of spiders and "poisonous plants." In Drive, you go six miles of regular road and six miles of off-road, and then you proceed into the jungle and pick out a didgeridoo. Then you follow the sound of other didgeridoos, and you make your way to one of several aborigines. When you find the one whose didgeridoo has the same markings as yours, you let him teach you how to play a note, and when both team members have played one, you can go. In other news: I now know how to spell "didgeridoo," and I am pleased to see that Microsoft Word does, too.
BJ and Tyler choose Wet, on the theory that it can't possibly take all that long to go a mile, and that if they got there and found that they couldn't play the note, they'd be screwed. I think Tyler is reading this as a Tortoise/Hare where the didgeridoo is the Hare, because it might be hard to learn to play the note, and I think the didgeridoo is actually the Tortoise. It's the river that's unpredictable -- the playing of the instrument is just a matter of plodding down there and getting it done. So Tyler means to pick the safe one, and he's not doing it.
Monica crosses herself, then she jumps. She hollers with delight. Joseph notes that he can hear her screaming from the ground. When she lands, they get their clue and go. To their credit, they seem to be over being Yielded now. She just needed the skydive to improve her mood.
Eric and Jeremy choose Wet, on the theory that it's physical and it's faster. Ray and Yolanda choose Dry, because Yolanda can't swim. Meanwhile, in the BJ/Tyler car, BJ announces that he might do the hike in his underwear, presumably because of the water. Tyler, on the other hand, says he doesn't own underwear. Underwear is an instrument of The Man, I always say. When they park and run toward the river, Tyler says, "Feel that rush of adrenaline in your head? That's first place!" Oh, Tyler. They say "G'day" to their guides, then they put on helmets and gear and get into the water. Eric and Jeremy follow. "Let's catch us some hippies," Jeremy says. You know, it's remarkable how these guys are...not growing on me, exactly, but...as the race goes on, people who don't bitch, don't get nasty, and don't take themselves seriously tend to really rise in my estimation. Self-righteous hypocrites just never wear well, and people who can laugh at themselves generally do. Eric and Jeremy's failure to throw fits about the fact that they were whapped in the ass by their karma back in the cab situation really did kind of...endear them to me, in this small way. I don't like them, but I don't dislike them as much as I used to. Not having women around for them to hit on definitely helps.
MoJo is heading for the park where the Dry option is found. Monica is unhappy about somebody being a good half hour ahead of them. "This is probably going to be it for us," she says. Oh, cram it, lady. That's not helpful, and it's the one place you haven't taken all your worry and crying, so don't do it now.
Commercials. Oh, Gillette Fusion. You are too much razor for my weak girl legs. I need something pink.
In the MoJo car, Joseph notes that they can get ahead if they make a good Detour choice. Monica, on the other hand, is still bitching about the Yield, calling the mere use of the Yield "sleazy," which she says BJ and Tyler are. Certainly, she doesn't like being Yielded, but as long as the show provides for a Yield, using it is not "sleazy," to me. Using it personally is stupid, but you're obviously within your rights to use it however you want -- including counterproductively, as BJ and Tyler did. It doesn't make you sleazy, just dumb.
BJ and Tyler continue to go down the river, with Tyler pretending that he enjoys the part where he keeps falling. Eric and Jeremy note that it is taking much longer than they thought it was going to take to get a mile down a river.
MoJo finds the termite mounds and gets the clue. They think that Wet sounds hard, so they decide to do the Dry. They head out. Meanwhile, Ray and Yolanda arrive at the Dry Detour. Yolanda notes that Ray was in band, and Ray says, "I did it all. Musically inclined!" They head for a barrel of didgeridoos. They pick one and follow the sound, and indeed, there is a guy there playing one. The one he's playing does not, however, match theirs.
BJ and Tyler are headed down the river, and indeed, they have encountered one of the promised giant spiders. Tyler warns BJ away from a big spider, because that's what friends are for. Well, good friends, anyway. Jeremy does the same for Eric. Those two are starting to wonder whether this is longer than a mile.
Ray and Yolanda find the correct didgeridoo. Ray tries to blow a note, and it sounds kind of...farty, which makes Yolanda giggle. Ray receives instructions, and she just keeps giggling, but he soon gets the hang of it, and he's done. Yolanda sits down to play, but every time she blows into it, it makes her laugh. She's wasting time, on one hand, but again, I'm happy to see anyone happy. She gets done eventually, and they collect their clue. Phil explains that this clue sends them to the pit stop at Lake Bennett. And then Phil says, "The last team to check in here," and we cut to a guy doing all kinds of complex things with whips right to where Phil is standing. And then we look at Phil, who is kind of...cowering from the whip, which I love. And then he adds, "…may be eliminated." Seasoned viewers add, "But won't be." Ray and Yolanda leave for the pit stop. In the car, Yolanda says, "Ray doesn't need a didgeridoo to make those noises. He does that all the time!" It's kind of an obvious joke, but also funny, because...hey, there's a reason a classic is a classic. Ray acts kind of stone-faced, but I sense that's sort of his MO as a general rule. As when he humorlessly says, "That's funny."
As Ray and Yolanda are leaving, MoJo is arriving at the Dry Detour. Yolanda is very happy to see anyone that far behind them.
Over at Wet, all the boys are frustrated at how long the Detour is taking. Eric and Jeremy are catching up with BJ and Tyler.
In the Ray and Yolanda car, they're happy about the fact that they picked up a map earlier, and it shows tourist destinations including the Lake Bennett place that they're going. They need, as Yolanda explains, to find their way to the Stuart Highway, back toward Darwin.
MoJo parks. They pick a didgeridoo and start to follow the sound. At least as advertised, they find their guy on the first shot, and it doesn't take them too long to get the hang of the thing, although Monica kind of lets Joseph show her how to do it rather than letting the actual aborigine show her. Kind of strange.
Monica thinks that they made a good Detour choice as they get on their way.
BJ and Tyler, then Eric and Jeremy, finish the Wet Detour at last and leave for the pit stop. They take off at almost the same time.
Ray and Yolanda find the Lake Bennett Wilderness Resort. They run up to the mat as the guy does his whip tricks. Welcome, you are team number one! They win...kind of a so-so prize, which is year-long leases on Mercedes vehicles. Eh. Once you pay the taxes, you might as well just lease yourself something a little more reasonable. Ray makes Phil promise that the Mercedes will have the steering wheel on the correct side. Heh. Phil says that Ray seems happy, and Yolanda notes that this is about as demonstratively happy as Ray ever gets. Phil tells her that this stoicism should be thought of as part of Ray's appeal, and she wholeheartedly agrees.
MoJo heads for the highway. On the highway, BJ and Tyler and Eric and Jeremy are just in sync. None of them really know where they're going, so Eric and Jeremy flag down an ambulance, which gives them directions. As they get those directions, BJ tells Tyler to get out and ask, too. Tyler responds by getting out and asking Eric and Jeremy, rather than asking the guys they asked. That is...really goofy. And the part where Tyler's like, "Wait for us"? Since when is there "wait for us" in racing? BJ hassles Tyler about why he asked the guys instead of the locals.
Just then, here comes -- seriously -- MoJo. MoJo squeezes in behind BJ and Tyler, who are behind Eric and Jeremy. Eric and Jeremy, for their part, are smart enough not to be happy that it's MoJo behind BJ and Tyler -- they were all counting on somebody being way behind from that Yield who would protect them from being in last place. Incidentally, you can do the math for yourself, but the reason Eric and Jeremy are unhappy about MoJo being back there is the same reason you don't Yield a team that isn't in last place -- the idea is always to put somebody as far behind you as possible. Joseph flips off BJ and Tyler, which is nicely obscured by pixels, but which BJ and Tyler apparently do not miss.
Up ahead, Eric and Jeremy lead the group onto the Stuart Highway. Al three teams are still in a clump. Everyone notes that this could mean that Ray and Yolanda are in front of all of them, meaning that whoever loses in this little scrum will be last. And now, they're all approaching the Lake Bennett resort. "It's going to be a mad footrace to the finish," says Joseph. And then Eric says -- nota bene -- "Got your shoes on?" And Jeremy answers in the affirmative. "I don't know if I can beat the hippies, Joseph," Monica frets. "Yes, you can," he assures her.
Phil is at the mat. Whip Guy is at the mat. Whip Guy whips, and it still looks like Phil is not thrilled. The teams park and jump out of their cars. As they head away from the cars, BJ crosses in front of Monica, and he has no shoes on. They dash toward the mat, Eric and Jeremy in front, then Tyler and BJ, and then Joseph, and then Monica bringing up the rear. By the time they come around the corner, Eric and Jeremy have the first spot locked up, and it's between BJ and Tyler and MoJo for last place. Basically, Joseph and Tyler are running together, so it's now between BJ and Monica. Monica is way behind at this point. BJ decides to get cute (unsurprising), and instead of just running to the mat, he pauses to consider whether to cut across the rocks rather than run to the walkway like everyone else. And then he does, in fact, try to run across the rocks rather than follow the beaten path. His "shortcut," like so many, gives Monica time to pass him, and she ultimately beats him by about two steps, owing entirely to his decision to outsmart the situation and show off how clever he is. Had he just followed the damn group onto the walkway, he'd have beaten her easily. That's got to feel silly.
"We got here before you! You Yielded us!" Joseph hollers. Heh. Snotty, but I think he's hardly the only one among us who wouldn't be able to resist, all things considered. Tyler wants to shake hands, and Joseph does shake hands, but Monica -- who spent the early part of this leg having seventh-grade locker-room bullshit said about her, you'll recall -- wants no part of it. Phil checks in Eric and Jeremy as team number two, MoJo as team number three, and BJ and Tyler in last. However, they're not eliminated, once again. Phil wants all their money. BJ is in just underwear or a bathing suit or whatever, and he doesn't even have shoes. Phil asks about the way the race is going here at the end, and Monica says that she and Joseph, at least, aren't trying to play "mind games," or "starting rumors and being nasty." Tyler starts to try to address this, but since it's all true, he can't, really, so BJ jumps in and says "there were no mind games." And...dude. Starting shit between her and her boyfriend over another guy just to stir up trouble is what "mind games" means in this context, and again, if you're going to do it, just do it, and don't act like you don't do it. Monica insists that being Yielded just "lit [their] fire" for the race.
BJ gives a brave speech, but he still is a man with no shoes.
Executive Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer.
week: Thailand. Monkeys! Monkeys eating! Breaking clay pots! MoJo bickering and getting frustrated! Home stretch, y'all.