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Going to Beijing, Tammy and Victor look forward to extending their linguistic advantage. Kisha|Jen and Margie|Luke claim to be ready to put things behind them, but there's still a lot of tension between the teams before they even leave Guilin. The Road Block is a torturous foot massage that takes everyone ten minutes, so all of the position changes take place with the taxis. Then the Detour is a choice between synchronized diving and a 400-meter swim relay. The swim is the option of choice for Margie and Luke and Team Go Team, while Team Family Law bails on the dive after multiple attempts. Both options threaten to be game-enders for the sisters, due to Jen's fear of drowning. But Victor's debilitating leg cramps might just allow them to catch up. At the Pit Stop, Jaime and Cara nearly shit themselves reaching the mat first for the first time, only to have Phil hand them the dreaded You Are Still Racing clue. To be continued! And, denied!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome back to Guilin, y'all. "First settled in 100 B.C., this city is known throughout China for its breathtaking scenic beauty," Phil says. Too bad the race was there on such a dreary day, then. In any case, we're now at the ninth Pit Stop. The arrival clips from last week are oddly yelling-free (although there was plenty of that in the previouslies, which I'm still not recapping), and the thing we know, Kisha and Jen are opening their clue at 1:48 PM. There is just literally no way of knowing how long these rest periods are any more, is there? Kisha is, for the first time I can remember, not wearing a bandana around her head. It makes her look oddly formal. As she reads that they must fly to Beijing, China, Phil's narration breaks in to tell us that that's over a thousand miles, and to remind us that Beijing was also the home of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Like even my four-year-old doesn't say "Olympics!" when he gets a look at the Bird's Nest stadium. But I'm glad to see the city will be getting a little extra use out of some of that stuff they built. Phil's voiceover gets almost conspiratorially quiet as he says that once in Beijing, the teams will need to go to...Jian? Gup...? Oh, fuck this, I'm turning on the closed captioning. Rewinding...okay, the "foot massage spa." Thanks for nothing, closed captioning. Anyway, in an interview, Kisha and Jen say that they're ready to move on from what happened with Luke and Margie during the last leg and that they're over it. I'll believe it when I see it. At least they're looking forward to the leg, when there will be only three teams. I think that assumes that they'll be one of them.
Victor and Tammy are taking off at 1:49, and Victor comments of the instruction to fly to Beijing, "We can do that." Well, one would hope so. But what he actually means is that they can do Beijing, not just fly there. As they start dashing out of the park, they interview that they were just in Beijing for the Olympics, and they've both been to China several times before. "Having been here before, having a geographical knowledge of places, knowing how the streets work ["Wait for the bicycle!" Victor sings to Tammy, by way of demonstration, when more ignorant Americans presumably would have had to finish their race around the world with a tire up their ass], being familiar with the culture and language in China gives us a huge advantage." In other words, they have no excuse not to win this leg by several hours, right? With that, they've run all the way to a travel agency to the park, where they learn that the flight to Beijing is at 5:10 that afternoon. And judging from their conversations in there, clearly I'll be using the Mandarin-indicator italics again a lot this recap. Or should I say Mandarindicator?
Margie and Luke are leaving at 1:50, in third place. And what is their attitude about what happened last week? "I'm done, I'm not going to talk to them," Luke says through Margie in an interview. They get in a cab to the airport as Luke continues that he's going to focus on the game and getting to the final three. "Kick their ass," he finishes. Well, good thing he won't have any focus problems.
Tammy and Victor already have their tickets, and take off from the travel agency to get a taxi. "Please drive fast, we're in a race, they tell the driver. They forgot the part where they're racing against foreigners.
Cara gives out a little whoop as she rips her and Jaime's clue at 2:12 PM. That's not terribly far behind, when you consider that Mark and Michael left literally hours behind everyone else. They learn that they have $40 for this leg. As they load their backpacks into the trunk of a taxi, Jaime interviews about their frustration at not having won a single leg yet. Yes, I've noticed that about them. In fact, they're the only team left who hasn't. That does not bode well for them winning the Race, or indeed surviving the Philimination.
Kisha and Jen's cab is stuck in traffic when Margie and Luke arrive at the airport. They get to a ticket counter and are in the midst of booking themselves passage on that same 5:10 flight when Margie spots Kisha and Jen just arriving outside. The sisters get in line behind Margie and Luke, and the music wants us to think there's about to be a conflagration, but there's just a lot of studious mutual ignoring going on. While Margie is getting ready to pay, Jen tries to get the agent to theirs to acknowledge her by asking, "Are you available?" twice and "Can you help us?" three times. When this gets them nowhere, she and Kisha start laughing about the "dumb look" they get, which Jen says is "patented in China." Kisha is offended that the locals can't even be trained to say, "Me no speak English." Uh, is it not already apparent? Margie joins in, comparing them to zombies. Sure, now she thinks it's okay to laugh about a language barrier. Just then, an agent says that their credit cards are no good there, so they'll have to go to a different counter. Of course Kisha and Jen overhear this, as well as the directions sending them to a different counter, so they head over to the counter in question while Margie and Luke are still packing up. "They're not sticking with the order that we came in?" Margie says passive-aggressively when she sees that they've lost their spot in line, as though that's how this Race usually works. Maybe if she showed Kisha and Jen the section of the Amazing Rule Book that specifies when and how another team can pass you, and how transferring to a different line is not one of those times. "Not cool at all," she adds as they wait behind the sisters, and Jen cackles. We see more of the interview in which Luke says he wants them out, which of course occurred before this even happened.
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."
So with Team Go Team in a taxi, it becomes a four-way cab race to the clue. The cheerleaders spot the sisters up ahead, and get their driver to pass them. He also passes Margie and Luke's cab, their hazard lights on the whole way for some reason. Margie wonders aloud why the cab has its flashers on, but I was just assuming that it was the driver's way of warning the world, "Caution: Jaime on board." A shot of the speedometer tells us he's going 120 KPH, or about 75 MPH. If that doesn't make Jaime happy, I don't know what will. Margie and Luke laugh ruefully about their recurrent bad taxi luck, although Margie's the only one laughing. Luke is just rueful.
B-roll of downtown Beijing, including the Bird's Nest and any number of other brightly illuminated landmarks that just scream, "Earth Hour can't come soon enough." In their taxi, Tammy is telling us about her dislike of feet, and how she hopes she doesn't have to give someone a massage. Victor taunts her by turning his hand into a puppet of a foot and saying, "Tammy! We're waiting for you!" in a high voice. Which, I'm sorry, is hilarious.
Jen and Kisha are now behind Margie and Luke, and they get worried when Margie|Luke's driver exits the freeway and theirs doesn't. They can only hope they're the ones going the right way.
Team Family Law's driver isn't sure about where the place is, but again, at least they can understand him saying that. She asks him to turn around, and so it's Cara and Jaime who reach the spa's Vegas-lit marquee first. They enter through a swanky lobby and find the clue box tucked inside a narrow hallway. The Road Block question is, "Who's feeling manipulative?" "Me," Cara says. Phil narrates, once again using his quiet "spa voice," that "after racing around the world for ten grueling legs, one person must take part in a traditional Chinese curative to heal the weary body: a foot massage." First they have to drink a cup of medicinal tea, then submit to a ten-minute massage. Only, as Phil says, this massage "walks a fine line between pleasure and pain." This over footage (hee) of a knuckle being gouged into a foot's sole while someone (Cara, I assume) screams in pain. So apparently it only walks that line in the one step it takes to cross it perpendicularly, and then it keeps going. After ten minutes of this, it's another cup of tea and then their clue. They can cry "uncle" at any time, but then they'll have to start over. So it's probably not worth it to cry uncle, unless you're really enjoying it and you want another ten minutes.
As Cara goes into the massage room while Jaime waits outside, they agree that Cara hates massages. She doesn't like the tea much, that's for sure. Outside, Jaime complains, "I bungee jump 800 feet, and she gets a foot massage. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a foot massage." Okay, that bungee jump was like two and a half months ago, and it was before anybody could even tell which of you was which, so it doesn't count. Cara settles back on the couch, warning the masseuse, "I'm super ticklish." That's going to be the least of her worries.
Margie and Luke's driver has to stop for directions, but Kisha and Jen are still en route and hoping for the best. And when they stop to ask a hotel doorman where they're going, he doesn't have to say a word; he just gestures across the street to their destination. Easiest part of his day, I'd guess. Plus now we know which of the two cabs went the right way. As they enter the spa and find the clue box, Jen volunteers to take it, but Kisha wants to, so Jen lets her. "I don't want people touching my feet anyway," Jen says. Kisha likes the tea even less than Cara does, but she chokes it down while the cheerleader is still having her feet dried after a quick rinse. Cara laughs when the smiling masseuse gets to work, but it quickly turns into an owie-laugh, if you know what I mean. Like when you slip on the ice, and you know it just looked hilarious, but you suspect that pain in your shoulder is still going to be lingering well into spring? That kind of laugh. Not that I'd know. "It sounds painful," Jen observes from outside. to her, Kisha is noticing that Cara is writhing around on the couch. "If you say uncle, I'm going to hurt you," Jaime calls inside. Shouldn't she say, "hurt you more"? Kisha informs her sister in surprise, "Jen, it hurts!" which is funny because the only way she knows this right now is by watching Cara squirm like a suspect on 24."I love it," Jen says. Tell me she doesn't have a mean streak. Kisha is starting look nervous at Cara's performance, which even includes blurred curse-words, for which she immediately apologizes. "Sorry," Cara adds. The masseuse is just smiling through the whole thing, as will all of them, as though they're all auditioning for the part of the chest-waxing lady in a remake of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. When Kisha's massage starts, she bites down on a piece of her jacket or something and asks if they're the only two teams there. From the hallway, Jaime confirms it.
Tammy and Victor arrive in third place, and Victor decrees that Tammy will do this one. As she's getting set up, she can't miss what's going on across the room. "I feel like having a baby's gotta be easier than this," Cara laughs through the tears. Jaime covers her ears, because we know how much she hates noise. Tammy deals with the pain like a Lamaze student, while Cara's all but rolling around and commenting on how "Zen" Tammy is. "And here I was, scared of massaging other people's feet. I'd rather do that now," Tammy laughs. Jaime is unsympathetically ordering Cara not to say uncle, until Cara actually tells her to shut up. Most people don't wait until they're in excruciating pain before wanting to say that to Jaime.
Luke and Margie reach the clue box in fourth place, and Luke insists that he wants to take this one. "It's gonna hurt," Victor warns Margie as Luke takes his place in the chair to Tammy's. Margie tells Luke that he can "time out" if he needs to, but then he'll have to start over. "So don't time out, okay?" Nice of her to tell him about his options. He and Tammy make "be strong" gestures to each other.
By now, Cara gets finished, with the "ding!" of a bell on the soundtrack. She wipes her eyes, drinks her second cup of tea, and gets her clue. "Have fun walking, 'cause it doesn't feel good," she tells the others as she leaves.
They're going someplace that's even more of a mouthful now, as a close-up of the clue shows a large block of transliterated Chinese with English words like "Natatorium" and "Sports Technology School" tucked in there. Phil helps out by saying they need to find their clue at Guangcai Natatorium. Off they go.
The bell signals the end of Kisha's massage. "My feet hurt," she says as they head for the exit. "No one has died from this foot massage," Victor assures Margie as they wait for their partners outside. Tammy and Luke are clasping hands to get through it. Let's hope the signs for "please let go now" only require one hand.
The two lead teams are now outside, making their way along a taxi stand and looking for a driver who knows where they're going. Tammy and Victor get their clue, and a nasty bruise on Tammy's right knee is visible as she laces up her shoes. Wonder if that's from the spill she took in Jaipur, or if the foot massage was so intense its effects rippled halfway up her leg.
The search for a cab continues outside, while inside, Luke continues to suffer through his massage, both saying and signing, "Ow," while chewing on the bill of his cap. Margie asks if he's going to stop, and he says no. She says, "It's hard to see him in pain, but I really wanted to do this one and he jumped in there, so..." So, now it's funny, because she appears to be laughing. She signs for him to breathe.
The frustration is getting to Jaime, as frustration always does, because it lives in her backpack. "You look like you're frickin'...[bleep/blur]," she says to one of the drivers. And Jen and Kisha realize they're about to approach a cabbie they've already talked to. "They all look alike!" Jen says. Oh, my God, the last thing you want to say in China, if only because of the cliché value. Tammy and Victor join the search, and offer to "find it together, or you guys got it?" "No one knows it," Cara says. As Luke finishes his massage in last place, Kisha and Jen finally find a driver who nods that he knows where it is, so now they're in first place. "Nothing amazing about that massage," Kisha says. "That was crazy."
Jaime is talking to a cab driver, when Tammy comes along and repeats the question in Mandarin. And then she tries to get in that cab, which Jaime quite rightly shuts her out of, although of course she's more rude about it than necessary. "Not going to happen, sister," she says as she hops in with Cara. Victor and Tammy get the cab, and she asks their new driver, "Do you know Guang Cai Ti Yu Guan-Bei Men You Yong Guan?" Boy, thank God for those subtitles. Up ahead, Jaime is complaining about Team Family Law's constant "trickery." "It gets tiring, but we just keep fighting." Which apparently involves ignoring the fact that her partner is suddenly dying of consumption to her. Victor's take is, "I was a little annoyed that Jaime and Cara stiff-armed us in the cab when we told them in Chinese where to go." Yeah, maybe be more careful with the language from now on. Just because you can use it doesn't mean you always should. "I don't want to get in a fight with Jaime, though," Tammy says. "She scares me." Victor agrees. As would anyone, up to and including Cara. Margie and Luke are just now getting a cab. And in the lead taxi, Jen is deciding she doesn't much like the sound of the word "natatorium," which she thinks has to do with swimming. Which is not something she's good at, so she's already nervous.
Tammy and Victor watch Team Go Team's cab up ahead of them, which stays in its lane while they enter a turn lane to go to the north door, like they're supposed to. "Don't look at them," Tammy says, as though a taxi with a million-watt camera light burning inside it will escape the other team's notice. But it does, and only one of the teams is on the way to the right door. Tammy and Victor get dropped off and run onto the grounds, collecting Mandarin directions from bystanders as they go. "My feet do not feel good," says Tammy, running duck-like. But they find the clue box right inside the door, and are officially in first place.
Naturally it's a Detour, and equally naturally, this being a natatorium, the options are "Sync" or "Swim." Cut to Phil standing on the edge of a pool while divers plunge off the springboards behind him. "Teams must tackle some of the same extreme challenges faced by world-class athletes," he says. For "Sync," Phil says that teams will "try to master the skill of synchronized diving." Except all they have to do is hit the water at the same time, jumping off twin three-meter springboards, which is a pretty loose definition of "master." No flippy-flippy of any kind will be required. When they get a five from each of the two judges, they'll get their clue. For "Swim," Phil says that "teams must change into the revolutionary Speedo LZR suit, the same type of suit worn by Michael Phelps when he won eight gold medals as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games." That's some sweet product placement Speedo's getting tonight, yes? Well, hold that thought. Once duly attired, they'll have to swim a 400-meter relay, "Competing against Michael Phelps's world record time in the 400-meter individual medley." Which is shown on the screen as 4:03:84. Phil is careful to say that they don't need to beat that time, but they do have to finish to get their clue. Phelps's time just goes up there to further embarrass the Racers, apparently.
Tammy and Victor are doing the synchronized jump, since Tammy can't swim, and Victor adds that neither of them are terribly aquatic. Tammy confesses that she took a lesson before coming on the Race, and she was the only adult who had to learn to put her face in the water. "Swimming is not my strong suit." But at least they look good in the diving suits. "This is like, skimpyland," Victor grins about his Speedo briefs. He doesn't look like he entirely regrets his decision not to pick the Detour option that allows him to wear a suit that goes to his ankles.
Both all-female teams have arrived, but Jaime and Cara have gone to the wrong door (running past a clock that reads 21:34, for what that's worth), just as Team Family Law hoped, while Kisha and Jen are already inside. "I can't read this, I don't understand," says the guy Jaime shows their clue to. The sisters are also choosing Sync on the grounds of not being great swimmers. "I just think of drowning automatically, so I won't put myself in situations where I would drown," Jen interviews. She says she's nervous as they enter the locker room to change. Meanwhile, Jaime gives up on the local and they go running around the outside of the building.
Tammy and Victor watch a single diver demonstrating a feet-first jump, which they think will be easy. We'll see. Kisha and Jen, now changed into the provided black one-pieces, watch as the siblings climb up to the platform ("three meters is tall," Victor obviouses), and walk out to the springboard. Victor does a single bounce and a mighty leap while Tammy's still up there, and she yells, "Oh, shoot!" and follows him down. Too late, of course. And it's too bad Jen's too nervous to see the humor. Fortunately, I don't have that affliction. The idea, Victor, is to do the dive together, not race each other down. I know this show isn't called The Amazing Do It At The Same Time, but just try to adapt.
Team Go Team has finally found the right entrance, and Jaime says they'll do "Swim." "We have more control over it," she explains. As they walk to the locker room, Cara says, "We're going to try to beat Michael Phelps's time." Jaime snaps that they'd be in the Olympics if they could do that. "Okay, just try," Cara agrees reasonably. Fair enough.
Tammy and Victor get their scores: matching ones out of five. They watch another demo, and then give it another try, while down on the deck, Kisha reads to Jen from the clue that flotation devices are allowed in the other option. On the siblings' second attempt, a freeze-frame camera shutter effect signals the exact moment when Tammy's feet hit the water, and then when Victor's do a fraction of a second later. This time they got twos. They offer to let Kisha and Jen have a turn, but Jen's not ready. Victor wants to try again right away, but Tammy wants to see another demo first. "I have no idea what we're doing wrong," Tammy argues. Well, when we see Victor once again jumping off his board while Tammy's still standing on hers, I can tell. This time, even Jen thinks it's funny. Matching ones again, but I think that's only because the judges don't have zero cards.
Jaime and Cara are squirming into their racing suits, which apparently involves a lot of sucking in various parts. Did Michael Phelps also wear his suit over a black women's one-piece? If so, maybe his speed was a result of trying to escape his own wedgie.
After watching another demo leap, Jen and Kisha mount the platform. "Okay, I'm gonna drown, I'm gonna die," Jen interviews by way of telling us what she's thinking at this moment. And up on the springboard, she looks over at her sister and says, "I can't do this." It's kind of too bad that there's all this footage of her being interviewed after the leg, because it takes away all the suspense as to whether she's actually going to survive.
Back from the ads, Kisha asks Jen if she wants to switch, and Jen does. So they climb back down the platform, leaving it to Tammy and Victor.
Jaime dives into the water, and for no possible reason, a green line precedes her the length of the pool at roughly twice her speed while she's still submerged. "Michael Phelps' speed, 2008 Olympics," reads the helpful chyron. Jaime surfaces, and shows off some terrible form, windmilling her arms and never putting her face in the water. Watching, Cara says she's a good swimmer, but it's going to be an exhausting swim. That pool is pretty big. One might almost call it "Olympic-size."
Margie and Luke are already struggling into their suits. "They were so tight," they say in an interview. The sisters are also trying to get into theirs. "I don't think this is made for somebody with these thighs," Kisha says. Speedo starts thinking, "Hmm, they aren't making this look very fun, are they?"
Jaime returns to the starting block, and Cara dives in for her first leg of the relay. As Jaime climbs out, her time for the first 100 meters is compared to Phelps': 00:54.92 vs. 2:17.70. At least the accompanying sound effect is a "ding!" instead of a "wah-wah." At least on my TV. I don't know what Speedo hears on theirs.
Tammy and Victor make another leap, and this time they hit the water only a single frame apart. But two fours won't get them a clue. "We're close," Victor says as they swim to the edge.
Jaime returns to the starting block as Cara does a leisurely elementary backstroke, 192 meters into their swim at the point where Phelps finished his 400. "Phelps wins gold," the chyron dings. The "cheerleaders, not so much" part goes unspoken. Jaime yells at Cara to get out of the way so she can jump in, either not confident in her ability to clear her partner while jumping from the starting block or reluctant to let an opportunity to yell at someone slip through her hands. In another lane, Luke jumps in moments after her, and passes Jaime with a fast crawl, complete with a racing turn at the end of the pool. Jaime matches Luke's turn by...resting. Kisha climbs on the starting block in the first lane, asking, "I don't know how to do this. Anybody going to teach me?" Clearly not. "Go!" yells the William Hung-looking coach, and Kisha belly-flops into the water. "Mama still ain't name her Grace," Jen quips.
Luke finishes the first lap and Margie jumps in. Phelps beat Luke by less than a minute for the first hundred. 0:54.92 vs. 1:54.50, to be exact. Maybe it's the slower backstroke that Luke finished up with. Way to pace himself. He's out of breath, and interviews through Margie, "After swimming that distance, I had a lot of respect for Michael Phelps." Who knew swimming in the Olympics was hard? Margie meets Jaime coming back, and Jen's now in a life jacket, watching Kisha reduced to the point where she's pulling herself along the floating lane marker. Speedo is like "Oh, HELL no." Jen's already prepared to give up, as Jaime climbs out the pool, 300 meters done for her team. "I knew we should have done the other thing," Jen complains. Wasn't she the one who wanted to switch in the first place?
Tammy and Victor are not improving their scores, even though they're counting off before leaping now. A two and a three is not encouraging. "This is hard," Tammy realizes, but Victor insists they can do it. Uh-oh. Stubborn Victor is not winning Victor.
Kisha continues to struggle in the pool as Jen tries to get some guidance from her coach as to whether she should do a front or back crawl. "Okay," is all he'll say. "Okay, okay, okay." Not encouraging. Luke jumps in for his second lap, and Jen has to watch Margie complain, "I can't breathe with this suit on," and Jaime sitting and panting, "Oh, my God, it hurts, which also can't be encouraging. Especially to Speedo, who by this point is wondering when they stopped being the official swimsuit of the Olympics and became the official swimsuit of respiratory distress and extreme discomfort. Still. Jaime's not too tired to hurry Cara along. "I was freaking tired, but not hanging out at the other end all day," she yells down the length of the pool.
Kisha finally reaches the far end of the pool, and Jen calls out to her, "We should have done the other one." Not helpful. Kisha doesn't bother responding, and instead starts hauling herself back along the lane marker. Luke's back in the pool for his second lap, and Margie doesn't fail to notice that he's slowed down quite a bit. "He's awfully slow," Margie chuckles. Cara climbs out of the pool, and they've finished with a time of 9:53.30, compared to Phelps's 4:03.84. And right here's where I get it" this isn't a product placement by Speedo, it's a product placement by Michael Phelps. It's his way of saying, "See? It wasn't just the suit, fuckers." But the point is that the cheerleaders have their clue. They're still in their suits as Jaime rips the clue open and quickly reads, "Make your way to the Pit Stop: North gate at the Drum Tower, Gu La Min. And suddenly we're at Drum Tower, which just happens to be the scene of a random murder of a prominent Minnesota businessman during the Olympics last year. But Phil leaves that part out, preferring to concentrate on facts of less recent vintage: "Built in the thirteenth century, it was where drums were beaten to announce the time of day in ancient Beijing. It is now the Pit Stop for this leg of the race." But when did the thirteenth century become "ancient?" I can think of a few octocentenarians who might take issue with that. Jaime says they're rushing out without even changing. So they just get to run off to the Pit Stop in those five-hundred-dollar swimsuits, then? Okay, maybe after this display, the suits are worth more like three hundred.
Kisha continues dragging herself through the water as though through a swamp. Luke slowly finishes his last lap, and Margie dives in. Finally Kisha returns to the starting end of the pool, and Jen says they need to switch tasks. Kisha's too tired to do anything but agree, even if she wanted to, which I'm not sure she does.
Jaime and Cara get in their cab, and Cara excitedly says, "We just swam like Olympic champions! We channeled our inner Michel Phelps." I'd say the reception on that channel was pretty staticky.
Margie and Luke have finished in 8:05.30, less than twice Phelps' time (by about two seconds, but still). "I just want to get this suit off," Margie says as they read their clue. The Speedo LZR: the most advanced swimsuit you'll ever loathe.
Despite being in first place, the cheerleaders aren't resting on their laurels. Quit the contrary, in fact. "Our luck with taxi drivers is never good. We could leave in first and end up in fourth," Jaime says. That's all true, except the part where they could leave in first.
Tammy and Victor score a three and a four, and then Jen and Kisha make their first attempt at the synchronized dive. There's a wide gap between them, so they rate a pair of twos. They clumsily swim back to the edge, Jen looking like she's in imminent need of rescue at any moment.
"We swam great!" Luke celebrates on the way to the Pit Stop with his mom.
Back at the diving board, Jen wants to let Tammy and Victor go again, because she's not ready for another shot. "This is, like, our twenty-thousandth dive," Victor says as they ascend. I think he's exaggerating, unless he's counting each dive as two. In which case he might not be far off. They get another close one, but at three and four, it's not as good as the one before. "How do we get a five?" Victor asks Tammy in Mandarin. "It's hard," Tammy agrees. So clearly trying to get on the judges' good side by speaking their language couldn't hurt. After watching another demo dive, the sisters make another leap. "What'd we get?" Kisha asks from the edge of the pool, spitting a big foamy loogie into the water. Two and three. Tammy and Victor's turn again, while Jen leans against the wall saying she can't do it. "We're getting better," Victor insists after he and Tammy post another seven-point score. He tells her to decide, and they go back to look at the clue. Meanwhile, Kisha encourages Jen, "You've done stuff harder than this, all right?" Jen is, by this point, actively crying. And Team Family Law decides to make the switch. Kisha tells Jen nobody will let her drown (thanks for ruining the suspense again, some more), and they get back on the boards for another try.
"Go!" yells the swimming coach, and Tammy jumps into the pool feet-first to begin her first lap. Speedo: "Oh, for fuck's sake."
Kisha and Jen make another jump and barely make it to the edge of the pool alive before seeing they got a 2 and a 3, which is pretty generous if you ask me. "We're not gonna get this," Jen says. Over at the lap pool, Victor tries to offer encouragement to both Tammy and himself. Jen is still in tears as Kisha asks what she wants to do. Tammy finishes her first lap (2:31.30). And now Jen is sitting on the floor in he hallway outside the pool area, with her back against the wall, as Kisha crouches in front of her asking what she wants to do. "I want to go home," Jen sobs. Kisha says they've come this far, but Jen isn't hearing it. "Jesus, help her," Kisha murmurs. Obviously, Jesus is not going to appear, or else that probably would have been spoiled in the preview.
Jen is still in meltdown mode after the commercials. Out in the pool, Tammy has finished her third pool length and pauses at the far end to ask Victor if the sisters are still there. Victor says they are. "We should have just done this the first time," Victor says. He's getting better at admitting his mistakes, but he still needs to get faster at it.
Kisha encourages Jen to pull herself together and get to the swim task. "I want to finish strong, come on...even if it takes forever." Jen would prefer to finish crying, thank you very much.
Tammy and Victor finish up in 10:29.30, a spectacular demonstration of what a thousand dollars worth of swimsuit can do for people who don't swim. While leaving, they go through the same hallway where Kisha and Jen are still sitting, Tammy loudly calling back to Victor behind her, "I've got the clue." Kisha again tells Jen to "finish strong," and helps her to her feet. Or possibly drags her to her feet.
Jaime and Cara are still hopeful about making it to the Pit Stop, "If this guy knows where he's going," Jaime can't help adding. She's practically in tears herself as she mumbles that she wants to be first. "Be calm," Cara tells her. Oh, Cara. If Jaime did calm, she wouldn't be Jaime.
Margie and Luke are still congratulating themselves on how well they did in the swim. "Jen and Kisha, bye-bye. They're tough on land but in the water, they're nothin'," Margie says, which, I'd like to think she wouldn't be so mean if she knew how much trouble they're having. In fact, the sisters are still getting back into their LZR suits, which are now the official swimsuit of crying.
Tammy and Victor run for their cab, and Victor's leg is cramping. "Jennifer can't swim," Tammy points out, "So I knew that we could do it before them." Unlike Victor, however, Jen can probably run with both legs.
Inside, a distraught Jen puts on her cap, goggles, and life jacket and jumps in, flailing down the length of the pool. Apparently Kisha's first hundred yards counts against their total time, so at least they don't have to start over. As she goes, Kisha says, "I'm glad she's finishing strong. I think she feels like she let me down but she didn't. I'm proud of her right now," she says, tearing up herself. Kisha explains that like Jen, she's wearing a life vest of her own in solidarity. I suspect that the life jacket, which is helping keep Jen near the surface, is reducing her drag a hell of a lot more than the micro-engineered swimsuit she's wearing is. Aw, cheer up, Speedo. Maybe time you can product-place flotation devices.
Victor has to slow to a walk, now that he's got cramps in both legs. Jen finishes her first length, and as Tammy and Victor try to get into a taxi, Victor suddenly lets out a bellow of pain. He can't even get his legs in the cab, they're cramping so bad. I know I really should be laughing at the noises he's making, but what's happening to him right now? Has happened to me. Multiple times. My calf muscle would spasm so badly that it looked like I was walking around with a subcutaneous Rubik's Cube in there. Except I wasn't so much "walking" as "flailing helplessly like Cara during a Chinese foot massage." It happened to me a lot more during my twenties, but eventually I gave up movement of all kinds and it hasn't recurred since.
By now, Jen has finished her first lap. Victor's calf is still seizing up, as though to provide some suspense while Kisha finishes her second lap, again telling Jen to finish strong as she jumps in and starts back-floating down the pool. Victor lets out some more musical howls and has to stand up outside the cab. Finally he manages to cram himself inside behind the driver, who doesn't even move his seat forward. "The race is humbling," Victor says in an interview. "Even though we had a communication advantage, we're still at the mercy of the local taxi cab driver knowing where to go. And Road Blocks, and challenges that we're not too comfortable in." And cramps that make you sing like a eunuch choirboy. "Let's hope we're not the last," Tammy says in the cab.
Kisha and Jen have finally finished with a cumulative time of eighteen minutes and nineteen seconds flat. Which I suspect means that on Monday morning, eighteen Speedo marketing employees were fired and nineteen were shot. As Jen climbs out, we hear her narrate, "I just had to push through that. Kisha knows my weaknesses, and I'm glad she was there pushing me. I'm sure lot of other people would have just let me quit, like I wanted to. Luckily I had my sister there." Right there with her, as they walk out of the Natatorium in last place. They get in a cab, looking as unhappy as Speedo executives.
It looks like a race to the Pit Stop between Team Go Team and Margie|Luke, all of whom are stressing out at the traffic and the red lights. We cut back and forth between the two cabs as they both seem to be approaching the high, lit-up tower. But it looks like Jaime and Cara are arriving first, and they rush out of their cab and through the north entrance, where Phil is waiting by the mat. Jaime's already like Halle Berry on Oscar night, and they both nearly lose it when Phil says that they are "the first team to arrive." Uh-oh. Of course, they've never won a leg, so how would they know that if all were well, he would have told them they were team number one? And furthermore, do they not notice his grave expression? The lack of a greeter? Of course not. In fact, they're still jumping up and down like loons when Phil interrupts, "But guys?" At least he didn't say "However." He has reached into his back pocket for a clue, which he holds out for them. "This leg of the race is not over. You are still racing. Here is your clue." Jaime buries her face in Cara's shoulder, but neither of them makes a move for the proffered clue. To be continued! Man, that's got to hurt, to win their first leg and have it be this one. In fact, Phil? You might just want to step away from Jaime before she fully comprehends what you just told her.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com
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