Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Gratuitous Footage
By M. Giant | Season 14 | Episode 10 | Aired on 04.26.2009
Tammy and Victor arrive at the terminal, and all the teams are kind of watching each other as Team Family Law goes to the VIP ticket counter and busts out the Mandarin. "We are competing with the ones standing over there," Victor says, pointing to the sisters. "We have to sit in front of these two." "That's an advantage of speaking the language. You get special privileges," Jen complains. Yes, from people who don't have anything for Jen but a "dumb look." Somehow they figure out what Tammy and Victor are up to, so they return to a counter to ask for tickets up near the front of the plane.
Jaime and Cara meet up with Margie and Luke and learn about the first flight at 5:10. And the other race going on ends up with Team Family Law in row five and Kisha and Jen in row eight. Riveting. Tammy laughingly asks the agent in Mandarin if the other two teams behind them can be stuck in the back of the plane, and is told there's nothing left up front anyway. All this Mandarin flying around doesn't escape the other teams, but once Team Family Law is clear of the counter, Tammy realizes what they're in for: "Oh, my God, if we don't survive the Beijing leg, we will bring shame to our families." "No, we will bring shame to the Chinese people," Victor corrects. At least non-Chinese Asians will come out okay, because other races aren't so well represented this leg, either.
Later, all the teams save Jen and Kisha are hanging at a cluster of seats, wondering where Jen and Kisha are. "Let them talk about us," Jen is saying in a splitscreen." Margie is still sticking to her version of what happened at the Pit Stop, "When Luke was mad and they started to laugh at him." Cara is shocked, and Victor confirms around a mouthful of apple that it was a bad scene. He does point out that Kisha apologized and says that wasn't what she meant, but Margie isn't letting it go. She maintains that Kisha was laughing at Luke's signing. They've moved on to talking about the cold weather in Beijing by the time Jen and Kisha come along. Kisha joins in, but when the boarding call comes and everyone gets up to go to the gate, Jen informs us, "I don't make small talk. It's fake." Much better to pout like a five-year-old and keep it real.
The plane touches down at the Beijing airport at 8:05 PM, in full darkness. Tammy and Victor are, unsurprisingly, the first off the plane, followed by Kisha|Jen and Margie|Luke. Tammy tells a cabdriver as they get in his taxi, "We're going to Jian Gup Men outer street. There's a Liangzi foot massage place." In your face, closed captioning! They're happy with how quickly they got out of there. Team Go Team is just now getting off the plane. "Stuck in that last row," Jaime complains. Although I'm sure she was very quiet and patient while waiting for the passengers in the rows ahead of them to disembark. Margie|Luke and Kisha|Jen are racing for cabs now, and Luke carelessly careens into Kisha, yelling for his mom the whole time and never looking back. "Ass," Kisha says. Seriously, dude, watch where you're going. They do seem to get a cab marginally more quickly, and Luke signs to his mom, "We kicked Kisha and Jen's ass!" Yes, partially by crashing into them. I'm starting to think Luke's new strategy for the race is to play it like bumper cars. As for the sisters, Kisha observes that Luke has a grudge, and Jen says it's all up to the cab driver now. I think she should rephrase that as "for now."