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This week takes the racers to India, where they bunch up and the leads of last week are forgotten. Kent and Vixen soon encounter the Speed Bump they earned by coming in last in the leg, and it requires them to go do some yoga, where Kent is totally hot for Vixen's bendy body. Totally. The other teams, meanwhile, go straight to the Detour, which leads some into poster-pasting nightmares and some into flower-stringing...well, nightmares. Ron and Christina fight, Nate and Jen fight, TK and Rachel don't fight...same as it ever was. By the time Kent and Vixen get back from the Detour, they're in last place, and what develops is a two-way race between them and Nate and Jen. The last task of the day is the Roadblock in which someone has to haul heavy cans of propane around and collect receipts. TK breezes through it and he and Rachel win the leg. Nick almost dies of dehydration, but he and Don come in second, followed by Ron and Christina, who don't suffer for allowing Hernia Ron to carry the heavy propane. Jen forgets a receipt, Kent messes up the paperwork in a novel way of his own, and in the end, Kent and Vixen come in last and are eliminated. So long, pink hair! Adios, twee cowboy hats! Goodbye, weirdly hostile self-proclaimed cartoon characters! Thus ends the saga of the self-proclaimed Goths, and thus do we head for the late stages with four teams made up of two you might have expected and two you almost certainly wouldn't have. It's the elderly's best race ever! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on De Plane! De Plane! Sees...Nothing!: Everybody went to Tuscany, where TK turned out not to have such sharp eyes, and Nick and Don needed plenty sharp needles in order to get the tattoos that won them the Fast Forward and the victory on the leg. Meanwhile, Kynt was the first person to make big Liza Minnelli glasses really menacing, as he turned into one big yelping jackass and harangued Vyxsin while she complained bitterly about how long she'd gone without sleep and graciously refrained from snapping him like a twig, which you know she could have. Not all little kittens are friendly, you know. They came in last, but they weren't eliminated, which set off righteous indignation in the many viewers who put aside what Phil said on the air at the beginning of the season in favor of what the internet said somebody said a CBS guy said at a party in someone's garage while the music was kind of loud and everyone might have been drunk. Kynt and Vyxsin learned that in this leg (this one that's coming up), they'd face an extra task that would be their punishment, replacing past unpopular punishments including money-stealing, money-and-stuff-stealing, and that stupid conditional half-hour penalty. Five teams left. Who will be eliminated...?
Credits. The water closed over that Jason and Lorena team, didn't it? My brain has them in the same drawer as obscure Party Of 5 characters, where it's like, "Wait, who was Grace? [think think think] Oh, Graaaace, right." [BOMP.]
We are in Florence, Italy, where I don't want to judge, but I'm going to just say that some of the statues have forgotten their pants. That is embarrassing. Apparently the "birthplace of the Italian Renaissance" is also the birthplace of streaking. Way to go, Italy. Anyway, we are at the sixteenth-century garden that served as the pit stop. These five teams have no idea what's in store! Phil wonders whether TK and Rachel can stop being bumbling screw-ups, and whether Kynt and Vyxsin can overcome the Speed Bump.
10:12 PM. Nick and Don. They rip the clue, which tells them to fly to Mumbai, India. Oh, India, India. How you do always put our teams to the test. Phil points out that Mumbai is The Artist Formerly Known As Bombay, and says that the teams, once there, will take auto-rickshaws (The Artists Elsewhere Known As Tuk-Tuks, It Seems To Me) to a particular newspaper stall, where they'll buy a newspaper and search for a clue inside. Looking at the close-up of the clue, I wonder whether we really needed the racers to be told, "Chauhan is pronounced as Chow-Hahn." Is that hard enough to require explanation? I mean, if it were "Chauhan is pronounced as Sha-SHEF-ski," then maybe. But somehow I think they could have muddled through here. Nick interviews that on the one hand, Don's strength is that he's so driven, but on the other hand, he doesn't always appreciate what his limits might be in a situation. In other words, "My grandpa can do 80% of what he thinks he can do, which is pretty amazing, but that 20% is kicking my ass." They find a place where Nick hops on the internet and locates a flight that will arrive in Mumbai at 10:30 PM on Air France. He then finds a phone and calls Air France, where he reserves his tickets. Because they're not leaving Florence until 6:50 in the morning, they return to the hotel to get some sleep. I just love the fact that the advantage of having an older person on your team appears to be that you have an excuse to go back to bed when everyone else goes to the airport. Grampa needs his rest!
11:55 PM. Nate and Jen look pretty pleased about going to India, so that's good. In an interview, Nate says their relationship is improving, and Jen tells us that she just needs to think about how "embarrassed and disgusting" the relationship moments were earlier, and while she's not doing well with parallel structure, she's dead-on with the concept. They head directly for the airport.
1:06 AM. Ron and Chris. We learn that the money allotment for the leg is $105. They quickly conclude that they should call the airlines right now. Ron says he hopes this Renaissance city will be, as he puts it, "the Renaissance of me." Here's a hint, Ron: KEEP YOUR PANTS ON. They wind up calling for reservations on that same Air France flight that Nick and Don reserved.
2:11 AM. Man, these teams were really spread out. It's a good thing they can edit the show and keep timestamps off the screen, or last week's episode would have been extraordinary in its lack of suspense. TK and Rachel are, of course, all psyched about India, and you can believe they probably actually are. TK tells us that they seem to have spent a few legs just desperately trying to stay out of last place. Rachel adds that while they intend to remain "mellow" (as if they have a choice), she definitely senses the hovering pressure of increased competition.
And at 3:23 AM, Kynt and Vyxsin. Vyxsin talks about how the last leg feels like a "bad dream," because it never happens that she and Kynt "aren't totally in sync," which is her reference to the part where he shrieked at her like she was a noncompliant four-year-old -- a moment we are treated to once again in black and white. Kynt and his pink lipstick explain again about the Speed Bump, the extra task they'll have to do in this leg that nobody else will have to do, which is their punishment for coming in last in the non-elimination leg.
When Nate and Jen arrive at the airport, they find that it's closed, and she starts complaining about everyone catching up. "Who would think that the airport would be freakin' closed?" he wonders, and I resist the urge to quietly raise my hand in memory of a particularly traumatic trip to Spain during which I and a bunch of other high-school juniors missed a charter flight, found the airport closed, and wound up sleeping on the floor of a conference room at the local Marriott before spending two more days in New York before we could get to Spain by connecting through Paris, which is now notable because it is the only time I have ever been to Paris. I think I missed my chance at a big lawsuit-based payday, I have to say. When Ron and Chris arrive, they receive the news of the closed airport smoothly enough that it doesn't give away the tickets they have, and the two teams agree that the missing Nick and Don were probably smart enough to go back to sleep after leaving the mat. TK and Rachel and Kynt and Vyxsin arrive as well, and Vyxsin (I believe) says everyone's "in a clump," so it's all just fine. Of course, Ron and Chris are in a clump with tickets, and Nick and Don are asleep with tickets, so it's not quite as fine as she thinks.
At 4:30 AM, the airport opens, but much to the consternation of everyone involved, they run inside only to find that the Air France counter doesn't open until 5:30 AM. Boy, that's a tease. Elsewhere, Nick and Don finally leave their hotel to head for the airport, where Ron and Chris are in the check-in line, TK and Rachel and Nate and Jen are in the ticket-buying line, and Kynt and Vyxsin are in line at Lufthansa, presumably in lieu of being third in line to buy tickets at Air France. If any of these teams without tickets were as smart as all of them seem to think they are, they'd be calling places, and I really don't understand why they aren't. Jen sees what Kynt and Vyxsin doing and dismissively/nervously says that they're up to the usual "mischief" like actually going to different ticket counters and asking questions. Different counters? Questions? They are witches! Buuuuurn them! Over at Lufthansa, Kynt and Vyxsin are told that there's a flight leaving at 10:00 AM that would get them to Mumbai at 1:00 AM. Armed with this information, they head back to Air France. When Nick and Don pull up at the airport, everybody grumbles inwardly about how they slept in while everyone else dogged it at the airport. TK concludes that "somehow," they've got reserved seats along with Ron and Chris. And "somehow," in this case, means "by phone." Jen grumps to Nate that she doesn't see why they can't reserve seats like other people do. I think she could use a refresher on the difference between "can't" and "don't." Ron and Chris and Nick and Don successfully retrieve their tickets.
When Air France opens, Nate and Jen are able to get tickets on the good flight to Mumbai, which connects through Paris. The arrival time, as stated previously, is 10:35 that night. When TK and Rachel step up, though, they learn that this has filled up the flight, so they can't get tickets, and neither can Kynt and Vyxsin. So the first flight takes off, carrying Nate and Jen, Ron and Chris, and Nick and Don. At the airport, Kynt and Vyxsin are looking for something better than the 1:00 AM arrival on Lufthansa. They learn that there's a flight on Northwest (booooo!) through Amsterdam that will get them to Mumbai at 10:50 PM. I'm surprised that flight isn't connecting through Minneapolis and using the gates out at the very end of that one concourse with, like, two miles of moving sidewalks and the Friday's and that thing that's like a kiddie playground...okay, now we're dealing with my past traumas. Let's move on.
TK and Rachel take the 1:00 AM Lufthansa flight. Kynt decides that if TK and Rachel look, he's going to act all upset, voicing over hilariously that they're using "performance art." Oh my God. Every time I think that dude has maxed out pretentious crap, he finds some more. Pretending to be upset is not "performance art." When someone gives you a Christmas gift you dislike and you pretend to like it, that's not "performance art." The point of art is for it to be art and to express an artistic viewpoint, not to fool someone into thinking you have bad airline tickets. I can just imagine real performance artists being like, "Oh my God." This is just being sneaky, and it's actually a decent idea, but I cannot stand the way a perfectly nice, pedestrian example of trying to trick people into not asking about better tickets has to be transformed into "performance art" to serve the stupid persona he's trying to project. The only evidence we have that it's working is Rachel's disembodied voice saying "they look frazzled," which could be from God knows when, but I wouldn't doubt that this might be a good way to preempt TK and Rachel -- who aren't the brightest bulbs, necessarily, though they're affable and seem cool -- from getting the flight they're getting. Ultimately, TK and Rachel do get on that Lufthansa flight, and Kynt and Vyxsin get their flight.
As it happens, the Air France flight is delayed leaving Paris, which results in Kynt and Vyxsin being the first team to actually make it to Mumbai. They get their auto-rickshaw, and in a camera shot presented in Vaseline-O-Vision, we see them whooping it up on their way to the newspaper stand. The Air France flight lands , and everyone gets going. When Kynt and Vyxsin get to the right spot, however, they learn that the stall doesn't open until 6:00 AM, so if they arrived at 10:50 or so...yeah. Not soon. In Ron and Christina's rickshaw, she seems utterly delighted by the experience, grinning openly about being "on three wheels on the highway." Nate and Jen, however, are having the annual Discussion Of What India Smells Like, and all things considered, given the smiles, I think they're having the most good-natured discussion you can have. I mean, I've never believed it was out of line to notice that something has a smell that's unfamiliar or unpleasant, even if the unpleasantness and unfamiliarity are related. It's not like they're saying, "These people are disgusting; they stink." It's more like, "Wow, that's...a smell." Ron and Chris, Nick and Don, and Nate and Jen join Kynt and Vyxsin at the newspaper stall to wait it out until 6:00 in the morning.
At 1:05 AM, TK and Rachel finally land in Mumbai. Watching them arrive at the newsstand to learn that everybody's in a big bunch, it occurs to me that when so little was said about why, exactly, they didn't check with Northwest, I should have known it wasn't going to matter very much. If this were going to get TK and Rachel booted, you'd have seen a story of how they managed not to miss that flight that was more fully developed than "Kynt made a frowny face."
6:00 AM. The doors on the newsstand open, and the papers are offered up to the paper-hungry racers. The teams open up the paper and start looking for their clue, most likely in an ad. Nick decides that he and Don should linger near someone else (it turns out to be TK and Rachel), so that when that team finds the clue, they can see where they are in the paper and get a hint. No, no, Nick. Early in the race, yes. Early in the race, you can play for staying with the pack, but at this point, you're really on your own. You can also tell that Nick distracts himself by looking half at his own paper and half at what TK and Rachel are doing. Everyone else looks, while Nate and Jen figure that arguing about how to look through the paper is the best strategy. Kynt and Vyxsin find the clue first, seeing that they are to head to Chauhan (that's pronounced "WUSS-ter") Alternation Tailors to find their clue. They hop into their rickshaw, with Vyxsin noting that staying far ahead is going to be important, since they're going to hit this Speed Bump thing at some point. Ron and Chris are to find the clue and leave. As Nate and Jen search the paper all hunched on the ground, Jen has a little fit over an overly friendly dog -- one of those overly friendly dogs that India apparently has in large numbers -- and Nate gets mad at her for freaking out, which he hasn't yet learned is not the way to help her be less freaky-outy. TK and Rachel find the clue and go, and Nick seems to think he can use where they were as a hint to where to look. Jen wants to move somewhere else so they can look more effectively, and Nate whines that they can't keep moving around when they're supposed to be looking. Of course, Nick and Don find the clue ahead of Nate and Jen, so this leaves Nate and Jen hanging around in last place. Naturally, they react to this urgent need to step up their efforts by starting a big fight and talking about being in last place a lot.
Commercials. Why are these people singing "My Favorite Things"? They are none of my favorite things.
When we return, Nate and Jen are still in last place and still not finding the ad. They're so distracted at this point that their efficiency is clearly approaching zero. Meanwhile, other teams are looking for the tailor shop. Kynt and Vyxsin, Ron and Chris, and TK and Rachel are driving around looking, but here are Nick and Don, first to the tailor shop, where they see the Speed Bump sign with Kynt and Vyxsin's picture on it, which means this is where they'll stop and do the extra task. Nick and Don's clue, when they pick it up, tells them that it's time for the Detour, and the options are Paste 'Em and Thread 'Em. In Paste 'Em, you go to a marked underpass and glue up a six-panel Bollywood movie poster, which you have to align carefully so it's neat. If you mess it up, you'll have to start over. In Thread 'Em, you go to a flower market and find a marked stall where you create a flower garland by threading 108 flowers in a pattern. When you're done, you deliver it to a nearby bridegroom (?) and get your clue. Phil tells us that threading flowers is "delicate," but if you have "deft hands," it might go fast. Nick and Don choose the pasting task, and once again, Don has some professional experience -- when he was in printing, he used to do big multi-panel posters like this. I'm not sure that will speed up the pasting, but I suppose the familiarity won't hurt. I do love the ongoing theme that no matter what the task is, Don has done something in his life that's relevant. "Make up a rap? I was actually a rapper in Korea in the '50s." Chris and Ron also select the pasting. I don't think I'd want to sit with Ron trying to thread flowers on a needle, either. Ron + sharp objects + frustration = bad day for everyone.
Jen and Nate are still looking for the clue, but she's spending so much time talking about how frustrating it is that...well, you've seen them go through this before.
Kynt and Vyxsin are lost looking for the tailor shop, it appears. TK and Rachel, on the other hand, find it. As you know they would, they choose the flowers. Hey, it's not like hippies were ever called "pasting children." In fact, it seems that Rachel works with garlands and flowers and thinks that although this will take some time, she can do it quickly compared to other teams. Finally, Kynt and Vyxsin reach the tailor shop, but before they can get that clue, they have to deal with the Speed Bump. As Phil explains, it requires them to find a yoga master (a particular one -- it's not like, "Are you a yoga master? Are you a yoga master?" although that would have been funny) and perform a series of moves. As they head to the location, Kynt camera-talks that things are so stressful that he thinks stopping to do some yoga will be great. Yeah, very relaxing, I bet. Fastest yoga ever!
And finally, finally, finally, Nate and Jen find the clue in the damn newspaper. Nate voices over that being in such a bad position in this leg, when the leg is almost surely an elimination, is no fun at all.
Nick and Don's driver seems to have the wrong underpass on the first try. Ron and Chris, on the other hand, find the posters. There aren't any directions, so they lay the panels down on the ground to look at them. Meanwhile, TK and Rachel are searching for the "marked flower stand." They find it and get moving, with him laying the flowers down in order and her stringing them. You know what I like about TK and Rachel? They're a type, but they're not phonies. You can tease them about that goofy hippie affect, but it's not an affectation. They're not acting like this because they're trying to control what you think about them, and they're not doing it because they're attention-seeking. I probably have about as much faith in their genuineness as I've ever had in a Race team. Ahead or behind, this is how they behave; they just pull it together, and while they have been known to bicker, you realize over time that when he says, "Can you stop talking now?" to her, that's literally all it means. It means, "This isn't helping me." It doesn't mean, "Oh my God, shut up, you fucking asshole." I'm about 98 percent sure they'd be delightful to have...not a beer with, necessarily; maybe a whole-wheat pizza?
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Ron and Christina's scene with the pasting is, I have to tell you, one of the most subtly depressing things this show has ever thrown out. I mean...he's not abusive in the same way as Jonathan or one of those really yell-and-scream people, but as soon as they get started -- a process he makes much harder by starting the panels so high up that he can barely reach them -- he starts hollering at her about being "cheap" with the paste and fucking everything up, and no matter how many times he has said he wants to behave differently, he apparently doesn't know any way other than berating her. I'm not even talking about being authoritarian; I'm talking about being belittling. She seems like such a lovely person, and he can't even enjoy what a good kid he has, because he's so busy putting her down. She tries to give him a crate to stand on, and when it collapses, he bitterly blames her, despite the fact that all she did was try to solve the problem he created by starting the panels so high. I'm not sure why he thinks it's important to start way above his own head, but all she did was try to fix that, you know?
Kynt and Vyxsin's adventures in yoga are ready to begin.
Nate and Jen find the Detour, and they choose the flowers. I'm not sure why they want to get involved in a lot of close, precise work together after the hunt for the newspaper ad, but there you go. Let's see where this goes!
As the yoga progresses, Kynt interviews that while it was difficult, "any chance to see Vyxsin twisting, turning, and contorting her body was always a highlight for me, and I think it was a highlight for the instructor as well." He is totally dating her. Totally. I don't know about you guys, but I am utterly convinced. He is toooootally hot for her.
Nick and Don make it to the pasting task and find Ron and Chris already in progress. They start pasting. Over at the flower stand, TK and Rachel are threading.
Kynt and Vyxsin are led through sticking out their tongues and humming. Oh, yoga. You are so embarrassing. In their rickshaw, Nate and Jen are bummed as Jen says she's just sure she's in last place, because Kynt and Vyxsin probably are already done with the Speed Bump, since they have "supernatural powers." I'm not sure where she got that. But in fact, Kynt and Vyxsin are done with the yoga, and they can now return to the Detour starting point at the tailor shop.
Ron wanders off in search of something to stand on, and when Christina calls out to him, he turns and hatefully spits, "I need a stool; you think you can lift me up?" I swear, the way he turns on her when he's angry is so goddamn creepy. In an interview, she calmly points out that her dad started the poster too high and then wouldn't listen to her. I do not understand how she maintains her cool in these situations, and it makes me really sad for her, like she has a little callus where the capacity to be wounded by her own father's words should be, and you wonder how long it took to build that up. Nick and Don, on the other hand, have started right at eye level and are having little difficulty. TK and Rachel are still threading flowers, and she's insistent that the poster couldn't have been faster than the flowers.
Kynt and Vyxsin get the Detour clue and pick the flowers (duh). "Vyxsin, look at how dark the interior of our cab is!" Kynt says dramatically. "How do you feel about this?" "It's very cozy; it's like being in a coffin!" she says. My read on that scene, if I had to guess, is that they said that without the camera on and were made to repeat it, which is why he sounds so much like he's in a play, and in which case they really could have tried a little harder to deliver it less annoyingly. Furthermore: OH MY GOD SHUT UP ABOUT COFFINS.
Nate and Jen find the flowers. Nearby, Chris has taken over the poster and is trying to fix it as her father continuously berates her. Finally, she says, "Stop yelling at me!" God, it's about time. Nick and Don are all finished, and they get the nod and get their clue. The clue sends them to a traffic island, and it ends, "Caution: U-Turn Ahead." Phil explains again how the U-Turn works. We return to see Ron and Chris continuing to struggle with getting the poster straight.
"I don't understand how you can't do this, Jen, you're a girl." "I didn't understand how you couldn't row a boat. You're a guy." I'll just let you supply the context. And the predictions for the future.
TK and Rachel are finished with the garland and have it approved, so they head off to hand it to the bridegroom. They find him, and he hands over their clue. They read the clue with the U-Turn at the end.
Kynt and Vyxsin get to the flowers, and Nate and Jen aren't happy to see them at all. Vyxsin, in an interview: "We were shocked to see Nate and Jen at the flower challenge. To be honest, we thought, 'These teams have blown us away.'" Kynt and Vyxsin thread flowers; Nate and Jen argue. Vyxsin smugly interviews that Nate and Jen were all struggling and upset, while she and Kynt had just done yoga and were therefore "focused and calm." I don't think it takes yoga to be calmer than Nate and Jen. I don't think it even takes chamomile tea.
Ron and Chris are still arguing. When Chris tries to clarify something with the judge, Ron starts yelling at the judge, which is kind of hilarious, considering how he lectured Nick early in the race about being rude, and it has become utterly clear that the graciousness of Nick's little finger trumps the graciousness in Ron's entire body. I bet you forgot that Ron tried to make himself the Manners Police, didn't you?
Nate and Jen are now arguing over how they're arguing, with him telling her that he can trade low blows with her all day and her telling him that he doesn't have to bring up how she's a girl.
Chris makes an executive decision to take the whole poster down and start again, which is basically the decision that saves their asses.
Commercials.
We return to find Vyxsin and Kynt threading flowers, as she says, "It's comforting that they're still here. We thought everyone else would be miles ahead of us." Keep it in mind that she said that.
Chris tells her father to sit down and shut up, basically. In an interview, he admits that she was right, as he's done before, and he should listen to her more, and so forth. He will not do this, of course, because...he just won't, and we know this now. They get finished and get on their way.
Nick and Don are a bit lost, so TK and Rachel are the first ones to hit the U-Turn mat. Of course, they don't U-Turn anyone, because TK thinks that it's bad to make enemies. What exactly an enemy can do to you when there are four teams left (as there soon will be) and there are no more U-Turns, he does not explain. (Hint: nothing.) They get a clue sending them to what Phil tells us is a "propane gas depot" for another clue. I really hope there are no massive explosions in our future, by which I mean to say that I hope the propane depot people will be maintaining control of the propane depot. Nick and Don and Ron and Chris then arrive at the U-Turn, with Nick and Don slightly ahead and Ron and Chris slightly nervous about what Nick and Don will do. Nick and Don pass up the U-Turn, though. When Ron and Chris get there, they debate using the U-Turn. She figures it isn't worth using it on Kynt and Vyxsin after the Speed Bump, and she thinks Nate and Jen might be ahead of them. She interviews that had they beaten Nick and Don, they'd have U-Turned them. But they didn't, so she and her dad choose not to use it at all. The bit about Kynt and Vyxsin, of course, is their big error. You exactly want to use it on someone who's already behind. You exactly want to take somebody who's an hour behind and make them an hour and a half behind (or whatever). There's no "they're already behind; no use making them further behind." You not getting eliminated depends on creating the biggest space possible between yourself and last place, not making yourself, say, safely second instead of third. These two teams, anyway, head for the propane.
Nate and Jen and Kynt and Vyxsin are still working through the garlands, contrasting post-yoga tranquility with being-Nate-and-Jen non-tranquility.
Propane. Hey, the first team here is Nick and Don. They pull the clue, which leads them to a Roadblock. Phil explains about the Roadblock, saying that in this one, the chosen team member has to load up a bicycle-cart contraption with six propane tanks, the person will deliver three tanks to each of two addresses, retrieving a receipt each time. They have to turn in at the end both their order slips and their receipts, and then they get their clues. Presumably, they have to turn in both so that the person giving over the clue knows that they delivered to the right addresses. The clue for the Roadblock says "strong back and good navigational skills," and while Nick looks like both halves of that clue fill him with dread, he's the one who takes it. In an interview, Nick says he's in charge of "carrying and navigating," and Don says he does "little stuff" and tries to look good. Ha! Incidentally, my favorite thing I read about Nick this week was from this article, in which Nick says: "I was turned on to Robbie Fulks [music] when he accidentally impregnated my mother." To quote a friend of mine who uses this as the highest compliment: That nerd's all right.
TK and Rachel and Chris and Ron arrive . TK takes it for his team, which: sure, but then Ron takes it for his team. Christina asks him repeatedly whether it's really a good idea for him to carry heavy things with his hernia, and Ron insists it's fine. Wow, I...do not know about that one.
Nate and Jen finally finish their garland just as Kynt and Vyxsin are agreeing that 65 plus 24 equals 90. (Well...close enough.) So they're close to done. But Nate and Jen stall as soon as they leave, just kind of holding out the garland, not having read the part of the clue about finding the bridegroom. My absolute favorite part is where Jen comes across an elephant, apparently decides the elephant is the "bridegroom," and hangs the garland on its trunk. Genius! The elephant, unfortunately for us all, does not eat the garland, but just allows her to take it back and eventually deliver it to the actual bridegroom. (Not that The Elephant Bridegroom doesn't sound like a great Tim Burton movie.) Nate and Jen get going, followed closely (it appears) by Kynt and Vyxsin.
Nick drags a tank to an apartment, only to find it's the wrong one. Nate and Jen and Kynt and Vyxsin sweat the possibility of being U-Turned. Ron asks for directions. A guy jumps on board to help navigate, and now Hernia Joe there is pedaling six propane tanks and another dude. TK has someone with him whose sense of where he's going seems to be vague, while Nick has found the right building and is dismayed to learn that there's no elevator and the place he's going is on the fifth floor. It seems that TK has an address in the same building, but his is only on the third floor. That's...hardly fair. Shouldn't they all be roughly equal, if part of the task is the lifting? Again, this is like the navigating tasks, where I don't like it when they build in that they're not all the same task. At any rate, Nick finds the apartment and drops off the first tank. He meets TK, who's heading up with all three tanks at once. "Macho man," Nick comments. He now feels the pressure to bring the last two to this address in one trip. TK drops off his tanks and gets a receipt. That was kind of bad-ass, honestly. Nick brings up the other two tanks -- to the fifth floor without an elevator -- and, now drenched in sweat, he takes the receipt. Meanwhile, Ron and his guy have gone in a big circle, so...that's not so good.
Nate and Jen; Kynt and Vyxsin. Approaching the U-Turn. They both pull up and stop and pay their cabs. Kynt and Vyxsin, shockingly, are first to get there. He wants to know whom they're U-Turning. "Well," she says, "we don't know who's behind us, except maybe Nate and Jen. Maybe Nate and Jen are behind us." Here, Vyxsin has put her finger on exactly the right answer, which is, "The evidence suggests that no one is behind us, but the closest thing to a logical possibility is Nate and Jen, who are the only team we've been close enough to that we could even spot them since we were shoved to the back of the pack by the Speed Bump." I mean, the last time Kynt and Vyxsin saw anyone else was before they did their entire extra task, right? That's why they said, while sitting at the Detour, that they were so relieved that Nate and Jen were there, because it means they're not insanely behind everyone. Thus, the logical answer to the U-Turn is...Nate and Jen. It doesn't even require 20/20 hindsight. It's the only team they've had in sight, and because they did a whole extra task and they'd gotten lost on the way to the Detour/Speed Bump to begin with, they have every reason to believe that the out-of-sightness of the other teams is because those teams are way ahead, not way behind.
But at any rate, as Vyxsin is still saying, "We don't know that anyone's behind us," Kynt emerges with the photo already chosen, apparently without her input, and says, "Right, but I have a feeling that they are." We check in on Nate and Jen, and then we return to Kynt and Vyxsin, where he's apparently told her what they're doing. "Are you sure?" Vyxsin asks, obviously utterly perplexed. "Yes," he insists.
Commercials.
When we get back, Kynt and Vyxsin are discussing the U-Turn, clearly before the part where he took out the photo, which was aired before the commercial. Confusing. Anyway, we're back at the part where she resignedly says they don't have reason to think anyone's behind them except possibly Nate and Jen. She suggests they U-Turn Nate and Jen "in case they're behind us." Kynt excitedly says, "But we could U-Turn somebody and make sure we sink 'em! Somebody we know is behind us, like Gramps and Nick!" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for some reason, Kynt has categorized Nick and Don as a team they know are behind them. Because...I have no idea. Seriously, I have no idea. In the cab, Vyxsin looks miserable and irritated, having apparently had nothing to do with that decision, as Kynt insists that there's a better chance that Nick and Don -- who have been out of sight since Time X, since which they've done one fewer task than Kynt and Vyxsin -- are behind them, simply because they're slow generally. Not good thinking, there, bud. It's not about who's slow overall; it's about who's slow at what. Nick and Don are actually pretty good at the methodical, non-navigational tasks where there's nothing particularly physical, which is what that Detour was. Nate and Jen were wildly frazzled the last time Kynt saw them, and they weren't far enough ahead to put them out of reach, and at least they were within sight recently. He's just not thinking about it in the right way, it seems to me.
My favorite part is when Nate and Jen get to the U-Turn and see that they're not U-Turned. Jen's like, "Yay! Wait...WHAT?" Nate tells her not to worry about it, and in the cab on the way to the propane, she's still trying to figure it out, and Nate's trying to get her to forget all about it, which is right, and focus on what they have to do . I love the fact that Jen is so hyper-critical that she's upset about something stupid that someone else did even though it's helping her.
TK makes his second set of deliveries and goes. Nick does the same. They both fetch their receipts. Meanwhile, it looks like Ron has found his first delivery.
In a surprisingly endearing little moment, Nate has his arm on Jen's arm, and he says, "I love you." With tension but not a lack of affection, she says, "I love you, too." And then she turns to him, and it's like he's going to give her a smooch, but instead, he kind of cracks up and says, "We are just not good at stressing out." Hee. If they can start laughing at their own ridiculous behavior, that's going to go a long way toward making me dislike them slightly less.
TK hands in his receipts and forms to the foreman, and he and Rachel receive the clue that sends them to the pit stop. And I will say on their behalf: WOO! Because they'll just be all, "Groovy." Phil explains that the teams are now headed to Bandra Fort, which is the pit stop for the leg. Last team to check in just might be eliminated, possibly. They get a cab.
Nick returns and hands in his paperwork. He and Don leave for the pit stop. Ron gets his second receipt. In their cab, TK and Rachel are excited, but in Don and Nick's cab, Nick looks like hell after dragging those tanks, and he's saying that he badly needs water. Ron finishes up and returns to Chris, and they leave for the pit stop.
Kynt and Vyxsin reach the Roadblock, and at the mention of the strong back and good navigational skills, they immediately assign the Roadblock to...him. Really? Isn't she clearly more physically powerful than he is? Because...I think she is; I really do. Nate and Jen appear at the Roadblock, and Vyxsin says to the camera, with total resignation of the "I can't believe I didn't say anything to stop that nonsense" variety, "We should have U-Turned Nate and Jen; we U-Turned a team that is probably ahead of us." Well...yes. You did. And they are. And not just "probably." The funny thing is that after the fact, they had this whole explanation where they figured that they, and Nate and Jen, were AHEAD of the pack instead of BEHIND the pack. Which this utterly belies, because her despair here indicates that she doesn't for a minute believe that this is the case, and nothing about being behind Nate and Jen makes a difference in that calculus. They knew they were running close with Nate and Jen; if they thought Nick and Don were behind both teams, there's no reason Nate and Jen showing up would change that, you know? I mean, don't get me wrong -- they're not the first team to rationalize their departure. At any rate, Jen takes the Roadblock for herself and Nate, and she's off.
Nick, looking like hell, makes the cab pull over so he can throw up, but I think it's really just dehydrated retching. He needs some water, for reals. He looks...gray.
TK and Rachel pull up at the fort and run up to the mat. Welcome, you are team number one! They win a trip for two to St. Maarten. Nice! One to Japan and one to the beach; that's pretty awesome. Rachel tells us that being one of the final four teams is really amazing for her. TK says that a million dollars "would be freakin' awesome!" And he looks extra-stoned while saying it.
Kynt crashes his cart into a wall, at which point someone finally shows him where the brake is. Oh, Kynt. He does round up someone to lead him (in theory) to the address he needs to find. Meanwhile, tiny Jen makes her first delivery to the second floor. She gets an elevator. She does not get a receipt. Dun!
Nick and Don land on the mat. They're team number two; they fist-bump.
Hilariously, Jen yells at someone that he needs to move, because she's about to crash into him, because -- guess what! -- no brakes. At least not that she knows of. She and Kynt are now delivering to the same building. When she arrives, he's in the elevator with two tanks. She tells him that if he's only taking two, she's getting on with her two. "No," he tells her, "I'm getting mine and taking them up." Jen obediently stands there. Dude. No. GET ON THE ELEVATOR. PRESS THE BUTTON. I don't have any idea why she's doing this like this. You don't need permission; it's an elevator. Get on! She doesn't. She stands there while he goes outside, gets his third tank, gets back on the elevator, and closes the door. When he's gone, she says that since he's only going to the second floor, the elevator should be right back, so it's not worth it for her to take the stairs. She says that while he's on his first delivery and she's on her second, she's still nervous. She starts hollering up to him that he needs to close the door upstairs so that she can get the elevator. Apparently, the deal here is that Kynt's decided that by leaving the door open, he can hold the elevator until he's done, rather than releasing it for her to use while he drops off his stuff. I'm not sure the advantage here is very great, but I think what he misunderstands is that he believes he has to stand around getting signatures, which he doesn't, so he thinks he's stuck in the apartment for a few moments. Eventually, Jen runs up the stairs, yelling at him the whole time, and closes the door herself so she can call the elevator downstairs. She hucks the tanks onto the elevator and heads for the fifth floor. She drops off the tanks. Super-fortunately for her, as she's leaving, the woman she delivered to gestures to the receipt and reminds her she's supposed to take it. This causes Jen to realize she never got the first one. I will give Jen this much -- even though she realizes she forgot the receipt, she's still gracious as she leaves, thanking the woman politely. I don't give her credit really often, but I'll say that it impressed me a little that, rather than totally lose her shit here, Jen kind of refocused herself and didn't spend all her energy on panic.
Welcome, Ron and Chris, you are team number three. They seem very relieved.
Jen runs back to the first place she was and runs up for the receipt as Kynt heads for the fifth floor of wherever to do his second delivery. We note here that Kynt is telling the woman who receives the stuff that she keeps one of the copies (!) and signs the other one (!). Everybody else has just grabbed the receipt -- which appears to be a Post-It -- and left. I'm not sure there's any signing. Jen returns with her paperwork and hands over her receipts and order slips. They get the pit stop clue and leave, but somebody tells them -- or they understand somebody to be telling them -- that they can get there on foot.
Meanwhile, Kynt returns with his receipts, but he has left the order slips behind, which isn't what the clue said to do. So he has to go back to the places he delivered to and retrieve the original order slips. Meanwhile, Jen freaks out when she realizes that the directions to run to the fort were not so good. "He told us THE WRONG WAAAAY-UH!" And then she tries, "Nate, this is so im-port-tant right now!" Because apparently, stressing the importance to Nate is the way to go? As Kynt works on getting his order slips back, Jen and Nate get the bad news that they do need a cab to the fort. Kynt and Vyxsin get in a cab. Jen and Nate get in a cab. In the cab, Nate wonders how Kynt and Vyxsin always show up, and Jen attributes it to "witch powers or something." Hee hee. On the way to the pit stop, Nate and Jen's driver seems confused, and they argue about how to respond to that, of course.
Pit stop! Running racer's POV! Phil! Greeter! Aaaaand...Nate and Jen. Wow. Asked if they know who's in last, they say they figure it's Kynt and Vyxsin, but Nate says Kynt and Vyxsin have been beating them all over the place today, so nothing would be a surprise. Heh.
Welcome, Kynt and Vyxsin. Having given away the race twice in the second half of the show, they are in last place and eliminated. Phil is sad to see them go, and calls them "the most fashionable couple ever on The Amazing Race." Kynt calls them "Goth kids" again, which...THEY ARE 29 AND 31. It is time to stop calling yourself "Goth kids," guys. Find another identity that you don't mind taking into your thirties, and try one without "kids" in it. As they stand looking out at the water trying to figure out how to put their arms around each other and make it look natural (seriously; look at it), Vyxsin voices over that as long as she has Kynt, "the adventure will never end." Yes. The adventure of yelling. The gift that keeps on giving.
EP? JB.
week: TK and Rachel go off alone, while Nick picks up the slack for his tired grandpa. The best part is where they show Nick taking Don's pack, as if Nick hasn't carried Don's pack for much of the race.