Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Philimination, Where Is Thy Sting?
By M. Giant | Season 13 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.28.2008
Also eschewing the color-coded look are Anthony and Stephanie, because Anthony might have some commitment issues. And who can blame him, because no sooner has Phil introduced them as having dated for four years than we hear Stephanie's first words: "I want to get married soon! If it doesn't happen soon we'll have to go our separate ways." As we see them frolicking on a beach, Anthony adds that Stephanie is a bit of a control freak. We got that, thanks.
With their matching clouds of gray hair streaming behind them, Anita and Arthur would be recognizable as a team even without the tie-dye they're both wearing. They're married beekeepers from Oregon, and Anita claims that there's more to them than their aging-hippie looks. We see them harvesting honey and basically being gentle and soft-spoken, qualities that always work out well in this race. They do claim that all the stuff they do on the farm has given them the strength they'll need. But they'll also need speed, which they probably could have cultivated by working the hives without their bonnets on.
Kelly and Christy are in royal blue, and Phil says they are "friends -- both recently divorced -- from Texas." I don't know yet which is which; there's a brunette one and a redhead, so at least they're less interchangeable than Marisa and Brooke are. We see them power-walking in their power suits, and jogging through the park, as they say that getting through their awful marriages gave them skills that will transfer to getting them through the race. Yes, because when things go wrong and they have to start sniping at each other, they will be able to get those gloves off so fast.
And there's Terence and Sarah, "newly dating," from New York City. Sarah looks like she was sent over from central casting to play the nice, bespectacled Jewish girl who becomes smitten with the hunky, sandy-haired athlete. Except central casting only did half its job, because Terence insists on wearing his sandy hair in a pair of dorsal sausage curls. He looks like a rooster who has begun to fray on top. As for his athleticism, well, more on that later. She calls him "the most quintessential free spirit I have ever met in my life." Oh, that's always a good sign. We see him doing things like indoor rock-climbing and cooking while Sarah types on her laptop at the kitchen table. In other words, she has a job. Terence interviews, apparently in answer to the question, "So what do you do then?" that he only does things that make him happy, but earns money by coaching runners. As we see Terence walking Sarah to the door of her office building and handing her a sack lunch (a beta-male signifier if there ever was one, and I can't believe Terence agreed to participate in its staging), Sarah talks about the differences between them, which "could either be the best thing going for us on the race, or be the thing that kills us." From what we see later, Sarah should appreciate all the ways she's different from Terence. In fact, we should all appreciate the ways we're different from Terence.