Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Look Back in Angkor. Wat?
By M. Giant | Season 13 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.26.2008
And here's one of those teams. Aja and Ty finish fueling up their truck and are on their way. And Kelly and Christy board their boat. Looking out at the water where people are working on boats neck-deep in the lake, they're moved to philosophize, "It just absolutely broke my heart to see the level of poverty that these people are living in... And at the same time the culture here and the work ethic is amazing. It's really incredible." This while we see shots of people doing things like harvesting fish from traps, moving boats with poles, etc., going about their daily lives, while meanwhile the two businesswomen from the United States are trying to win themselves a million dollars. Oh, was that too much perspective? Sorry.
Dan and Andrew at last board their boat. "Kho Andeth! No excuses!" Dan says, which I'm sure they'd love to appropriate as a slogan. As indeed would any self-respecting Cambodian restaurant.
Terence and Sarah sight Kho Andeth out ahead of them, and are quite aware of the boats carrying Nick|Starr, Toni|Dallas, and Ken|Tina in their literal wake. Suddenly that wake is choked with black smoke pouring from their boat's inboard motor. The driveshaft slows down, and the engine vomits a quantity of lake water onto the deck and quits. The good news is that passing through the engine appears to have made the water considerably clearer. Their pilot opens up the access panel to see what's going on while Terence demands, "Can I have the stick? Give me the stick!" He plans to start poling the boat along. Sometimes in this race, you just need to punt (please don't fire me). "We're so close," Sarah complains. "Oh, my God. Broken boat." Meanwhile, Terence begins poling the boat in the direction of the restaurant. They're lucky the lake is as shallow as it is wide. Nick and Starr sail past them (regaining the lead that Starr's uptightness briefly cost them), then Dallas and Toni, then Ken and Tina. Terence calls out each team to Sarah, who responds each time with a despairing "Oh, no." He calls desperately up to her, "Tell me how much further I've got!" Well, at least he's not just standing there whining about his bad luck; he's taking positive action and doing something about it. While whining about his bad luck.
Back from the ads, Sarah tells Terence, "You're doing a really good job of rowing our boat," and then cracks up. In the truck on the way to the harbor, Ty is hoping -- successfully, one might add -- that some other teams are having problems. Terence again asks Sarah for a progress report, and Sarah just tells him he's doing awesome. "Row the broken-down boat to the next challenge." The restaurant looks to be a few hundred yards behind Sarah in the background, but at least there's a guy poling on the bow as well. I don't see what they're complaining about; they were the ones who wanted the race to get more physical. If they wanted it to get more physical for the other teams as well, maybe that's something they should have specified.