Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Taxiing Their Patience
By M. Giant | Season 13 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.05.2008
So everyone's on the 6:45 flight, which means that one available seat on a plane turned into at least forty (ten teams and their camera/sound crews). That must have been a much bigger plane. Or the original flight was on a helicopter. One of the Belles decides to reward her ticket agent with some sweets, like he's in kindergarten or something. She interviews, "A cute smile, candy...bribery never hurts." "You like American candy?" she asks the guy at the terminal, handing over a couple of mints or something. He just laughs at them, and the awkwardness of the gesture. As well he should.At the gate, waiting to board, Tina's got her face pressed up against the cracked-open jet way door, talking to an unseen airline employee about how the agent said they could get on first. For some reason, Mark is objecting to this from a few spots behind her in line, insisting, "No way, dude. No way." Tina insists that "what's fair is fair," and then claims that no one would even be on the plane if she hadn't gotten them to change it. Terence takes exception to this, and damn him for making me agree with him. Ken, behind Terence for some reason, backs Tina up, and Terence basically calls them both liars. Further back in line, Starr reports to Dallas, "Terence is being an ass to Tina." Things get quietly tense between Terence and Ken, enough to justify a commercial break. Honestly, can we get some kind of ruling on whether this could have actually been Tina's doing? Maybe if only one of the racers a) had ever worked in the airline industry, and b) felt like making himself useful.
Back from the ads, Tina assures the people behind her that she isn't going to fight anyone over a seat, since it isn't worth it. Still, she's not about to give up her place at the head of the line. She remarks to someone of Terence, "He bumped his head, that's why he's a little crazy." She pats his arm mock-sympathetically, but he takes her at face value and apologizes to Ken for raising his voice at his wife. As opposed to apologizing to the person he raised his voice at. But even that is one of those weaselly non-apology apologies, in the form of "I apologize if that offended you in any way." Rather than pressing the issue, Ken responds, "No, I apologize, honey," and kisses Terence on the cheek, completely breaking all the tension in the line. Which is, I must confess, rather awesome of him. "You got me to blush," Terence says through a sheepish grin, and Ken says he's just happy to have made him smile. "I actually smile a lot, people just don't realize it," Terence says. Well, then, maybe you're doing it wrong.