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A second leg in Dubai begins and ends in the water, as teams first row (or in some cases paddle) to a yacht in the harbor to get a watch that's supposed to help them open a briefcase. This stumps the Globetrotters for some time, putting them in last place. Then the Detour is a choice between fiddly little pieces; either assembling a dozen hookahs out of kits or measuring out half a million dollars worth of gold based on constantly changing exchange rates. Both options prove frustrating (especially for Brian and Ericka, who attempt both). Team Two Pair turns out to have half a brain between them after all at the gold Detour, but they can't catch up to Meghan and Cheyne before the water slide Pit Stop. A water slide that threatens to be Mika's downfall, combining her fears of water and heights. Fortunately Canaan is on top of it, with his ability to be a complete asshole to her about it. She's unable to pull it together, allowing the Globetrotters to catch up, finish freaking her out, and recover from their Road Block failure, coming in second to last while Mika ends up walking back down the stairs, to her and Canaan's Philimination.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Phil welcomes us back to Dubai, over shots of skyscraper porn that rival The Apprentice. "It's hard to believe that only fifteen years ago it was an ocean of sand dunes." Yes, that is hard to believe, looking at it now. Warmongering bigots who say they want to turn the Middle Eastern desert into glass? Dubai is way ahead of you. "Today, it's a booming modern city, and a playground of the Arab world." We get a high-altitude shot of the Palm Jumiera, an amazing man-made peninsula shaped like a palm tree growing horizontally out into the Persian Gulf (which I had to look up, thanks, Phil), and Phil reintroduces us to Souk Madinat Jumierah. "This Arabian-style luxury resort was the fifth Pit Stop in a race around the world." Because all the Pit Stops have to be impressive in either a historical, religious, or economical sense. You never hear Phil saying, "This backward, rinky-dink little hole in the wall was the fifth Pit Stop in a race around the world. We're really sorry. Watch your step, okay? And your head."
Meghan and Cheyne, who won the last leg, are leaving at 8:17 AM. As is usual lately, we have no idea what time they actually arrived. When they open their clue, it tells them to pick out a briefcase. Phil's narration interrupts them, and over some James Bond-style electric guitar twang, we see eight locked briefcases waiting on the stone deck, one for each remaining team and one extra. Howie Mandel is nowhere in sight, fortunately. Phil tells us the teams will each have to grab one of them, take a taxi to the Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club, and find the clue box waiting on the marina's boardwalk. Meghan and Cheyne nab the second briefcase from the right and head out. "I feel like a businessman," Meghan says, before hailing a taxi. Clearly it's casual Friday. In an interview, she says she's never been this stressed out in her life. Cheyne helpfully points out that stressed out is pretty much her default state. In their taxi, Cheyne gives us a little travelogue of Dubai, comparing it to an "island Vegas. It is very fabricated and it's extremely hot." But it is in no sense an island. I'm just saying. "They get their tans in the wintertime when it's like eighty," Meghan "jokes." Insert obligatory reaction shot of their cab driver, who doesn't look like a person who gives much thought to tanning. It's an Arab country, after all. In fact, Arab is quite literally this country's middle name.
Meghan and Cheyne are already sweating by the time they reach the yacht club, and ask their taxi to wait while they run onto the grounds with their briefcase. The clue box is easy to find, to a fleet of very small inflatable rowboats. We're at a Road Block already, and Phil narrates that one person will have to row an inflatable dinghy out to a yacht anchored a few hundred yards off the dock. This really shouldn't have the Faux-Bond music, because there's no way that even 007 could look cool in that little tiny boat, even without the giant orange lifejackets they'll all have to wear. On the aft deck of the yacht, a "sheik" will give them a watch, which according to Phil is "following the Arab custom of hospitality." Is that the real custom? That sounds more to me like a custom of passive-aggression, the message being, "You're late again." But then most of what I know about other cultures is what I learn from this show, so don't listen to me. Then the person doing the Road Block will row back to the dock and open the briefcase. The combination to the briefcase is the time on the watch, which is set at 8:35. And their clue is, naturally, inside the case. Cheyne's ready to do this one. In a post-leg interview set in front of some kind of giant fish tank (as almost all of this episode's interviews are, because it's so damn exotic), Cheyne says he has some experience boating. As he rows out, he calls back to Meghan, "Bye! You love me?" She just laughs uncomfortably and looks away. Which I'm sure means nothing. Hey, you know how he always has to pretty much wrestle her into submission to get a kiss? I don't know why I thought of that just now.
Brian and Ericka are leaving at 9:59 AM, which tells us that Meghan and Cheyne's Fast Forward last week made a big difference. Almost two hours, in fact. Brian jokes that second place is "first runner-up" to Ericka. Whose hair is looking pretty fancy for someone who's about to spend a day racing around in a scorching desert climate. "I start off with makeup and good hair," she explains before the beginning of the leg. "By the end of the day, it's all melted off and it's a mess. But you gotta start fresh and clean. You got to try." Especially if you're on TV. In their taxi, Brian says they haven't enjoyed being in the back, and they want to stay in front. I don't know what he's talking about; they've had plenty of good legs, while we've got a whole crew of chronic stragglers who haven't even shown up yet in this episode.
"Row, row, row your boat gently down Dubai," Cheyne sings, as Meghan stands on a shaded veranda, watching him battle the current and the wind out to the yacht. "Barely moving," she says. You'll never believe this, but she's kind of stressed out.
Flight Time and Big Easy are leaving in third place at 10:42 AM. In their taxi, "Sweet Georgia Brown" gets cued up for the first time in a few weeks as Big Easy soliloquizes about how hot it is. "I'm just gonna keep saying the word 'hot' because it's hot," he concludes. A speech is nothing without a powerful conclusion..
Cheyne reaches the yacht, and a couple of guys help him up from the swim platform. In the shade of the aft deck, that "sheik" in shades and plain white clothing wordlessly presents him with the watch in its case. He thanks them, and casts back off. Hurry, the watch is ticking! Okay, actually it isn't. Although I think it would be awesome if the first thing everyone did when they got their watch was set it to the correct time.
Gary and Matt are leaving at 10:45, in fourth place. On their way to the taxi with their briefcase, Gary jokes that it should be handcuffed to their wrists. Matt interviews that this is "the longest we've ever been together in my entire life, and it's been going really well." Even if Matt keeps saying things like that? And apparently the same appearance-conscious producer who interviewed Ericka earlier has also noticed that Matt's sideburns are touched up, because he admits that he brought some hair dye along for a touch-up. Are roots really an issue when you're never seen without a green bandanna around your hairline? "I never thought I'd ever be helping my son dye his hair, but we are getting very close on this trip," Gary adds, chuckling as though he made sure the carpet matched the drapes.
Cheyne gets back to the dock, meets up with Meghan, and sees that his new watch reads 8:35. They quickly get the briefcase open with the combination 835, and they have their clue. That tells them to take a cab to Abra Station, which Phil tells us is "a water taxi port in the old Souk section of Dubai." There's an old section of Dubai? Wouldn't that just be the ocean of sand dunes? Meghan's ready to go, but Cheyne wants to put his socks and shoes back on first, refusing to do it in the car as Meghan suggests. "It's gonna take me two seconds," he says. "Time's up," she says, 1.74 seconds later. Yes, I timed it. In their cab, Cheyne says the boat will be a challenge for some teams, since the rowing wasn't easy for him. He doesn't know the half of it.
Brian and Ericka arrive at the marina, and Brian takes the Road Block. "This one does not do water," he says of his wife, who appears to have a growing list of things she does not do. She'd better get them eliminated soon or else she's going to have to do another Road Block at some point. But then Brian gets in the boat and immediately starts struggling with the oars. "He's strong, he can do it," Ericka tells herself from the viewing area. I don't think strength is the issue. A bull is even stronger, but I don't think it could row an inflatable dinghy much better than Brian can.
Sam and Dan are leaving at 11:43, in fifth place. They interview that they're "still working really closely with Maria and Tiffany." Dan claims it's working to their advantage: they get help when they need it, and if it comes down to a footrace, they can outrun them. That's one of those theories that gets tested on the same night it's voiced, just so you know. In fact, Sam thinks the only team they can't outrun is the Globetrotters. "We're sick of them doing well. We want them out," Sam says. Wishing ill on Harlem Globetrotters? Do these two want America to hate them? In the taxi, we get an interesting insight into how Sam's brain is wired when it goes right from "maybe we'll have to ride on a yacht" to "Maybe we'll be in a music video." Hard to believe the poker chicks haven't caught on yet.
Ericka is still acting as Brian's cheering section, telling us, "He likes a lot of encouragement. He's so cute." He's on the boat and in possession of an expensive new watch, too, which makes just about anyone cuter.
The Globetrotters' taxi has dropped them off at the entirely wrong place. "This is Dubai Marina Yacht Club," one of the polo-shirted doormen out front tells them. They get back in their cab, yell at their driver a bit, and get back on course, rubbing their heads as though that will make the cab go faster.
Brian gets back to the dock, and they get their case open as quickly as Meghan and Cheyne did. Except Brian seems to have opened a small blister on his left thumb from the rowing. Or maybe he just pinched himself in the oarlocks, given the grace with which he was handling that little boat. "Just a rowing injury," he assures us in their taxi en route to the clue. "Mama's got you, though," Ericka says. "Got" in this sense means "Give a Kleenex to." Clearly Ericka doesn't do first aid, either.
Big Easy is sure they're in last place now. "We can't even stop to drink water," Big Easy says. "You get thirsty, drink your sweat." We could do without Flight Time's demonstration, though. There are few occasions where slurping is appropriate, and this is not one of them.
Gary and Matt reach the marina, now in third place as a result of once more benefiting from other teams' directional misfortunes. Gary tries to get his dinghy moving. He's even worse at it than Brian was, which is surprising. Doesn't he have some experience from home that relates to this? He's never been to any of Montana's yacht clubs? He ends up pivoting his boat helplessly in the water until he gives up on the orthodox method entirely, rolling over to lie face-down in the bow so he can paddle with one oar. "I'm a canoer, not a rowboater," he tells us. If this is how he rows a canoe, he's only half right.
Meghan and Cheyne are pulling up to Abra Station, and Cheyne sees the clue box. "No you don't," Meghan says, which is a whole level beyond saying she can't see it. She has the grace to look embarrassed when she spots it herself, though. The envelope contains a Detour. No it doesn't! Okay, it does.
"To the naked eye," Phil narrates over more skyscraper porn, "Dubai is the epitome of the modern world. But in this ancient market," he continues as the view transitions to an older wooden structure, which may date as far back as the 1980s, "teams must choose between two materials that have been around as long as mankind itself. The choice: 'Gold' or 'Glass.'" For Gold, the teams have to find a jewelry store (which looks about as ancient as Lady Gaga's career) and use a scale to weigh out exactly five hundred thousand dollars in gold. The good news is that they'll be able to see a giant flatscreen monitor that tells them, among other things, the current gold exchange rate. The bad news is that the rate changes in real time, so there's no time for lollygagging. The worse news is that it calls for division, which will prove to be entirely beyond the capabilities of at least one team. In Glass, the teams have to find a spice market and tear open one of the giant crates, which are filled with packing straw and all the pieces for twelve glass hookahs. Phil makes sure to tell us they'll need to use all the pieces, and the only instructions they'll have are three hookahs that are set out for reference. When all twelve are correctly assembled, they get their clue. Meghan and Cheyne are doing Glass, calling the exchange rate "confusing" and Cheyne adding that "my ass is on fire." I'm not sure that second fact is relevant, but it's not something you leave out of a recap. They'll even get to take a water taxi to the spot. Cheyne marvels at the old and new Dubai on opposite banks of the waterway, while Meghan waves at some locals on a passing boat. Some of them wave back, which is probably good for her fragile peace of mind.
"Not traditional rowing, but I'm here," Gary says as the yacht attendants pull him in by his oar. After getting his watch, he gets back in and heads back the same way. Anybody who rows like that shouldn't get a Rolex but something out of a cereal box.
"Please, Jesus, let us leave Dubai," Tiffany says before ripping the clue at 11:47. Seems to me that will definitely happen, one way or another. I think Tiffany says they have $144 dollars for the leg, and in their taxi, she likes the James Bond aspect of their task. "We have a briefcase we have to take to some location," she says excitedly, stretching the analogy to its limits. Well at least now we know she can bluff. "Although I don't think that I've ever seen James Bond sweat," she adds, revealing exactly how much she knows about James Bond..
Finally, Mika and Canaan are off, unsurprisingly in last place, at 11:54. Almost four hours behind Meghan and Cheyne, in other words. Good luck catching up. In an interview, Mika confesses, "Canaan is a little more competitive than me. I've never played team sports, I've ever really ran in my whole life, so Canaan has to push me along a lot." I apologize for comparing her to Adrian Monk last week. At least Monk did track in high school. In their taxi, she adds, "We've got a lot of practice being in the back trying to move forward." Yes, but practice implies you're getting better at it.
Gary gets his and Matt's case open, so they're still in third place when they leave the marina. "Can you see ol' Big Easy riding in that raft?" Gary asks in their cab. "No, he'd sink it," Matt says. Whereas Matt has the grace and physique of a ballerina.
The Globetrotters have at last arrived in the right place, still in fourth. Big Easy straps on his lifejacket doubtfully, wondering if they made the right decision. I'll save him some time: No. Big Easy does not in fact sink his dinghy when he gets in, but he's as inept at navigating it as Gary was. Flight Time has to call out not only encouragement, but instructions for turning by using one paddle at a time. Big Easy says he doesn't have experience with this, because in case you haven't heard, he's from the projects in New Orleans. "You got the Mississippi River but it's dirty so you can't go in there." But sometimes it comes to you. Watching from the veranda, Flight Time mutters, "I should have did this one." Big Easy is living up to his name, because in comparison to himself, he is making his dinghy look very small and very difficult.
Meghan and Cheyne arrive at the market and quickly find the Glass Detour. They pry open a crate, making sure to pick one that's in the shade, and start unloading it, putting the pieces on their rug and the straw to one side. They have a lot of pieces when they're done. In fact, if I had to estimate, I'd guess there are the number of pieces in a hookah times twelve. They check out the completed ones set out as guides ones and start uncertainly assembling. "It's kind of tough," Cheyne says. "These all look..." "Identical," Meghan says. "Different," Cheyne says at the same time. That is not a good sign. Also not a good sign? Meghan asks how something goes together and he snaps, "Relax. You're freaking out." Helpful. Nice how he gets to play the mellow, laid-back one when he can just blame any frustration he may be experiencing on Meghan. That works out well for him.
Ericka's feeling the pain of driving through these market areas without being able to stop and shop. They get their detour clue at Abra Station and agree, "Go for Gold." Well, when they put it that way, what else were they going to pick?
"Way to go, baby! Swim out there!" Flight Time calls out to Big Easy. You'd think that would be unhelpful encouragement, but in fact Big Easy has abandoned the use of the oars entirely and is simply using his hands. Which aren't much smaller than the oar paddles anyway, so he's making good progress. "You're going down in history as the biggest man ever in a lifeboat made for a five-year-old!" A five-year-old could probably row it better.
Sam and Dan are now arriving, and this is the first time any teams have actually met each other this whole leg. I guess this is what happens when everybody doesn't start the leg by all getting on the same plane. Dan is like, "Should I do it?" nearly having a panic attack when Sam doesn't answer fast enough for his liking, but he ends up taking it. Dan gets in his dinghy and starts hand-paddling Big Easy-style. "He looks ridiculous right now," Sam laughs. Which is true. Part of it is the fact that he's wearing sunglasses and a deadpan "look how awesome I am at this" expression. James Bond, not so much. Meanwhile, Big Easy boards the yacht.
Way up ahead at the Glass Detour, Meghan is getting frustrated, even when Cheyne tells her not to. "Meghan got really flustered partway through and that's just how she is," Cheyne says after the fact. Meghan nods like this is something she has to work on by herself, because apparently Cheyne's James-Franco-in-Pineapple-Express eyes have her totally convinced that he wouldn't have an uptight bone in his body if not for her.
Ericka and Brian find the mall that contains the gold shop, she remarking, "I don't know a lot about gold, but I do like to wear it." Once they locate the shop and find themselves at a counter covered with all sizes of gold ingots and coins (shiny!), Brian announces, "Math time!" He sees the price of $934.75 up on the screen, and figures they have to come up with $500,000 based on that. "This is going to be some tricky math," he says, getting ready to execute some long division with a pencil and paper. Which, admittedly, is not how I'd want to do this, working with a three-digit number that has two decimal places. But we'll soon see that's not their only obstacle.
Dan gets his watch as Big Easy is on his way back, now lying on his stomach like Gary but still paddling with his hands, forward-crawl style. "Do it for the hood!" Flight Time cheers him on. "Do it for the suburbs, Dan!" Sam calls in response. Big Easy reaches the dock and rolls up onto it with his dinghy on top of him somehow, the very picture of grace. Especially with his pants slipping down as he heads up the dock to meet up with his partner. "Pull up your underwear!" Flight Time calls down. "Forget 'em! For the 'hood, remember?" Big Easy yells in response. Nice callback.
Maria and Tiffany have arrived at the dock. "It might be physical, you're faster," Maria understates, demonstrating a continued affinity for Road Blocks that rivals Ericka's. Looks like it's up to Tiffany again. Dan is back on dry land by now, and Big Easy is closely examining his watch. "Eight...seven...is that a two?" As he fails to get his case open with a combination of 872, we hear him interview that he thought the code was the number the small hand was pointing to, the number the big hand was pointing to, and whatever was in the tiny little date window. To be fair, a real analog 8:35 would have the hour hand about halfway between the eight and the nine, not smack on the eight like it is here. As Flight Time tries to offer advice, Dan gets his case right open, so he and Sam have got their clue in fourth place and are on their way. "Like we said, we wanted to finish early and have the Globetrotters eliminated," Sam says in their cab. I think they're getting a bit ahead of themselves. Again. Flight Time gives an increasingly frustrated Big Easy encouragement. And Tiffany turns out to know how to handle a rowboat better than anyone we've seen so far. "Woo hoo on my rowing skills," she interviews. I have to give that to her. Along with the watch she just got.
Mika and Canaan finally arrive at the marina, to the Globetrotters' chagrin. "We stay here long enough, Lance and Keri might show up," Flight Time cracks. Ha! Obviously Canaan is doing this. "I'm pretty scared of water," Mika interviews. Yes, we've heard. He rows out, meeting Tiffany coming back. She's back on the dock by the time Canaan gets his watch and heads back. Big Easy is still nowhere. Tiffany gets her case open immediately, so that's them in fifth place, and the Globetrotters dropping on down to sixth. Big Easy puts the case down for another look at the watch. "Don't give up," Flight Time says. Big Easy assures him he never does. Even, presumably, if he has to crush the watch into a prybar with his bare hands.
Meghan|Cheyne and Mr. & Mrs. America are struggling with the slowness of their respective tasks, plus Meghan and Cheyne have the sweat in their eyes to contend with. I've never seen a team on this show that can sweat like they do. They are champion sweaters. They are Cosby sweaters. Meanwhile, Brian's math turns out to be even trickier than suspected, because he's come up with an answer of five thousand something, which is off by a factor of ten. Sounds like someone forgot to keep his columns straight. Of course, with my calculator, I can tell you that the correct answer is 534.902 ounces, but like just I said, I have a calculator. They're still debating whether Brian "overcalculated," to use Ericka's term, when the number on the screen flips to 941.25. Ericka protests, "It should not be changing by the minute." She laments the lack of a calculator. "My American education's dumbed me down to use a calculator for everything," she says. Coincidentally, I think that was the exact same comment that helped her win the Miss America crown. The judges just ate that up.
Flight Time begins to wonder if Big Easy is on the wrong track. "Does a Muslim clock work different?" Mika asks Canaan. Yes, Mika, it's got a big electromagnet inside it that hauls you to the ground when it's time to pray and a compass that points to Mecca. Canaan wisely ignores her, and the 835 combination gets their case open and puts them in sixth. The Globetrotters helplessly watch them leave, In Team Nashville's taxi, Canaan remarks that they just passed the team that left third this morning. He doesn't say, although I will, that this is the closest to the front they've ever been. "To see the Globetrotters struggle was kind of nice," Mika admits. "We get those out of the race, that just makes it that much easier for us to move on to the top." The commercials come before Big Easy can open the case, or before Mika can list all of the other teams that will have to be eliminated before they can move on to the top.
Big Easy's still stuck after the ads, but he interviews that he thought, "What would Flight do? He'd stick with it and figure something out." As unlikely as it is that WWFTD will ever catch on as anything other than a mistyped URL for a floral distributor, Big Easy finally figures it out and opens the case. Flight Time tells him, "Don't worry about it, let's go," saying they'll catch the rest of the teams. He really doesn't seem worried about it at all, which is nice. On their way to the clue, Big Easy blames himself, saying, "Talking about for the 'hood...the hood's mad at me now." I wouldn't want a 'hood mad at me, either.
Meghan and Cheyne are wrapping things up -- or so they think, as the camera zooms in on a little pile of leftover parts that Meghan thinks are "extra." This isn't a Lego set, Blondie.
"It should not be this hard," Brian says, now trying to solve for X with a new price of $928.50. He interviews about having to "find the formula," and he suggests switching to the hookahs. Ericka doesn't think so, so he gets back to it without any argument. "You're really smart at this kind of stuff," she says. Which I guess is why she's not helping. That would only confuse things.
Meghan and Cheyne call for a check of their work, and the local who's judging the task looks over their twelve hookahs-- and their half-dozen leftover parts on the edge of their rug -- and shakes his head. Meghan reacts with a predictable level of equanimity (i.e., none).
"I am much better at spending money than counting and keeping it," Ericka says, trying to get me in trouble with gender stereotypes instead of racial ones tonight. She does keep me on my toes, switching it up like that. Maybe time she'll come at me with dated tropes about Floridians and people who wear yellow. "I'm sure glad I married up," she says as she helps him load the scale, which is a surprisingly modest thing for a former Miss America to say. Satisfied, Brian rings the little bell and calls over the gold merchant to have a look. He's got both a rotten poker face, but still takes his time shaking his head no. "How much longer you want to do this?" Brian asks Ericka mildly as he gets ready for another crack at it. She doesn't answer, but maybe a good time frame would be as long as it takes to figure out the right amount of gold for every possible price level.
Matt wants to build hookahs. As they wait for their water taxi to depart, Matt explains to Gary what a hookah is. "We used to call it something else," Gary chuckles. Hey, don't be shy about drawing on Matt's experience back in Montana building bongs out of tractor parts.
Meghan thinks their problem is that they have a couple of the tongs in the wrong trays, but even after switching them, they still have leftover parts. "Fudge," Cheyne mutters when they get another head-shake. Meghan thinks it's "close enough," and Cheyne tells her to settle down. That's a really healthy dynamic they've got going. They'd better pull it together soon, or they're in danger of actually seeing another team for the first time since Burj Dubai.
Brian and Ericka are ready for another try. "This guy's got a heart of gold," Ericka says of her husband in their post-leg interview. "Too bad he doesn't know how to count it." And then she gives the kind of belly laugh that makes me want to cut her some slack for being about as helpful during this task as I am, watching it months later on the other side of the world. On their second try, the judge shrugs and says, "Sorry, guys." Of course there's no way to tell how far off they are, but I'm pretty sure they're off the five-thousand-ounces path, unless 312 pounds of gold is a lot smaller than I think it is. Whatever the case, they decide to ditch it in favor of the hookahs.
Meghan and Cheyne might have had a breakthrough, as Cheyne has spotted the "extra" pieces and begun wondering if they might not be included for some specific purpose after all. Meghan runs over to look for that part on one of the guide hookahs, and realizes they do indeed need a washer beneath the plate. Cheyne gets right to work taking one apart. "Listen. To. Me," she says. "Well, if you would show me," he grumps back. This is what having a lead of less than an hour does to people. Although, to be honest, I have my doubts about whether the other teams are really as close behind as the editing makes it seem. They get the last few pieces in place and get the thumbs-up, and their clue. Still in first. Obviously. "Make your way to Aquaventure," the clue begins.
But according to Phil and the subtitles on the screen, they're going to "Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai." An overhead shot of a sprawling water park accompanies Phil's narration that they need to find the "Leap of Faith," a water slide that Phil describes as "a six-story plunge at a nearly 90-degree angle through a shark tank." Oh, Mika's going to love this. Maybe she has a love for sharks that will overcome her phobias. The clue box is waiting in the shallow end of the pool at the bottom of the slide. Meghan and Cheyne are on their way. "That was so stressful," Meghan says in their cab. I wonder if she could grade exactly how stressful that was by giving us a number on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 equals maximum stress and 9 equals her standard stress level.
Brian and Ericka reach the hookah task, and Brian quickly breaks the lid off their crate so they can get right to work. Sam and Dan, meanwhile, reach Abra Station and decide to do Gold. The sun's beating down on Brian and Ericka, to the point where when he accidentally touches the stone instead of the rug that serves as their workspace, he burns himself. Hopefully not on his rowing blister. Ericka expresses her regret that they didn't do this first. She'll get over that.
Team Inside Straight decides to do Gold. "Mo and I know how to handle money," Tiffany says in their water taxi. And if all else fails, they can just pile all the gold onto the scale and say, "All in." Brian and Ericka are down to the hosepipes on their hookahs. "I don't think the colors matter," Ericka says as they work on attaching them. But they get a no. "It's gotta be something so miniscule," Ericka says. Like maybe the color of the hosepipes?
Mika and Canaan reach the Abra Station clue box. She opens the clue, dropping pieces of the envelope everywhere and ordering Canaan to pick them up. They decide on Glass. She'll need to get better at not dropping shit, then.
Gary and Matt are approaching the market, as Ericka tells Brian to try another combination of pieces. She talks about their frustration as Matt and Gary get to work unpacking the straw in their crate. "This smells familiar," Gary says, showing once again that there is literally nothing new to them in the entire world. "Should we take some home for the horses?" Dude, you want straw? Come to my house and pick up the two dozen bales we bought to use for M. Edium's birthday party. I thought buying straw in the city was hard, but getting rid of it is harder.
Sam and Dan arrive at the jewelers, and Sam nearly hurts himself trying to pick up a block of gold the size of a Velveeta. "Those things are heavy," he gasps. Judging by the percentage of the gold it comprises in shots of the correct amounts later on, I'm guessing it's about 24 pounds, which would be startling for something that size. Assuming it's real gold, of course. Hey, here's a formula for Brian to find: how many cameras in the room does it take to make up for the security risk of a bunch of cash-motivated Americans tramping through here with backpacks? Assume X is the number of cameras and Y is the number of pockets on each person's bag. Anyway, according to the monitor, the exchange rate is now $941.25 an ounce. "What does that mean?" Sam wonders, as Dan sports his dopiest look of what is turning out to be a rather expansive repertoire of dopey looks. But unlike Brian and Ericka, they at least have a calculator with them. They interview about how they outfitted themselves at Wal Mart and said, "Oh, a calculator for two dollars, let's throw that in there." But you still need to know how to use it, which I'm not sure they do, even before the rate changes to $928.50. "I just don't understand their exchange rate," Sam says. Oh, dear.
Lucky for them, Maria and Tiffany are approaching. The brothers are still standing there in confusion when Team Inside Straight enters, Tiffany tossing off a jaunty, "Hi, boys." "Hi," Dan Ross Gellers right back. One of the judges directs the women to an adjoining room so they can do the task on their own, and Maria asks to borrow the brothers' calculator. "If you guys get it, you gotta tells us," Dan says. "Okay, give me the calculator please, thank you," Maria snaps. She quickly divides $500,000 by the current price, $928.50, and gets 538.502. I assume they're given a little leeway, because I don't see any thousandth-of-an-ounce coins there on the counter. But then I wouldn't, since this show doesn't film in HD. They call that out to Sam and Dan as they load their scale. The guys seems to get the right amount just as the number flips to 934.75, so it's no good. Dan calls to team Inside Straight that the number just changed, and Maria waves her hands helplessly. What did her daily thirty-second window of usefulness just close?
The Globetrotters are deciding to do Glass. "Somebody's gonna still be in there working on them hookahs," Flight Time encourages as they head down to the water taxi. In fact, Mika and Canaan are just now starting, joining Mr. and Mrs. America and Pinky and the Brain. Canaan seems to be doing most of the assembly, while she does the unpacking. Hey, unpacking is important, too. In an interview that looks to have taken place before this leg, he uses Lance's African wildlife metaphor, saying they're seen as the zebras. Don't flatter yourself, Canaan. "But I grew up with four older brothers," he says, "and to lose just... I hate it." As for this task, he says, "It makes sense once you figure it out."
Maria calls out a new number to Dan: 534.9 They load their scales, ring their bells, and get their clues. Sam says, "The alliance with Maria and Tiffany really helped us out today." Can't argue with that. It's like the story of the friends who go fishing, but one only has the pole and the other only has the hook. Only by sharing their resources can they both meet their goals. Except in this case, the pole is the calculator and the hook is a handful of functioning brain cells. They're on their way in second and third place, respectively.
Off to the Palm, and the Atlantis resort. In their cab on the way there, Meghan rereads the "Leap of Faith" clue. "That's kind of scary," she says. The leaping part, or the faith part? Because I can see her having trouble with the latter. They approach the slide with some trepidation, seeing as how it's pretty much a major landmark, coming down one steep side of a fake Mayan pyramid. Afterwards, she interviews, "We don't love heights--" "We're afraid of them, come on," Cheyne laughs. But after changing into their swimsuits, they walk across the shaded deck at the top of the slide to the entry. Looks like the whole thing has been closed off for the day, which is something I often notice but rarely remark on. There's a lifeguard stationed at the top of the slide, and you get on it by sitting on a short, level section and push yourself down by swinging under a handlebar that's mounted overhead. I don't normally spend so much time describing the settings of these places because these recaps are long enough as it is, but I thought I should go into some detail just because we're going to be spending a lot of time here later. The lifeguard instructs them, "Cross your legs, hold your arms." That's the only thing that scares me about these high-speed water slides; I'm nervous about any situation where the only safety equipment in effect is the position of my limbs. What would happen if someone went down in spread-eagle position? Do you arrive at the bottom as a bloody torso, with pieces of you following behind in the artificial surf like a miniature reenactment of Saving Private Ryan? But perhaps this is a conversation best had with Mika.
Anyway, Cheyne goes first, and it starts as a very steep slide, then it goes level as it turns into a clear Plexiglas tunnel that runs through the aforementioned shark tank, before he finally comes out in a pool at the bottom. Still topside, Meghan asks if those are real sharks. Of course they are. She doesn't really get how the shark tank part works. She interviews that she decided not think about it and just do it. And then she just does it. Although at the bottom, she hurries to the edge of the pool, telling Cheyne, "There's sharks in here!" like one of them is going to follow her out the slide and take a chunk out of her. They proceed to the clue box standing in the pool, and Phil tells us they're going to Dolphin Bay Beach, which is apparently right on the grounds of the resort, on the edge of the Gulf. "This is the Pit Stop for this leg of the race," Phil tells us from the beach, wearing the dorkiest sun hat I've ever seen on him. This is the price of fedoras being over, people. "The last team to check in here may be eliminated." Meghan and Cheyne jog along the grounds, still in their swimsuits. "That was scary," Meghan says. They get to the beach where Phil is standing in front of the mat with a greeter that they clearly drafted from the ranks of Atlantis resort employees. He's in his work uniform and everything. He welcomes them and shakes their hands, and Phil tells them they're team number one. They hug, and Cheyne picks Meghan up and drags her into the water, despite her laughing protests. "Okay, okay, what do we win?" Cheyne says, wading back up to the mat. It's personal watercrafts this week. They interview that this is the best experience of their lives. "Every step of the way it's getting better and better," she adds. Yes, it's easy to enjoy the race when you're a frontrunner, but I didn't really get the sense that the second time they got an F on their hookah-building was better than the first time.
Brian and Ericka are still battling frustration, while Canaan seems to be battling his poor shave. Gary watches Matt move on to a different group of hookahs. The Globetrotters are arriving outside, as Brian fiddles around with minor adjustments. "Oh, hell," Ericka says as the Globetrotters show up. "It's on now!" one of them yells as Ericka stares death-beams across the courtyard at them. Brian calls for another check and gets waved off again, and Ericka just about loses it, yelling at no one. Commercials!
As usual the commercials are what it takes to create a breakthrough. Brian and Ericka start walking through it patiently. Meanwhile, Matt and Gary are missing a set of tongs, and are now rifling through their straw, having another look for it. "The proverbial needle in a haystack," Gary remarks. I'm glad to see Gary isn't as prone to misusing the word "literally" as Phil is. Big Easy proposes switching tasks, pointing out, "Everybody looks stuck." "We got to do mathematics and all that kind of stuff," Flight Time protests. And Matt abruptly runs out of steam. "I'm sorry, Dad, I'm about to pass out," he says. "Sit down," Gary tells him, like it ain't no thing. He's actually quite cool about it, like, "Don't worry, I got this." No wonder Matt missed him growing up. Matt all but collapses against a planter. The heat is also telling on Mika. And what it's telling us is that she isn't doing anything. Matt is surprisingly eloquent about the effects of the heat, considering he must be experiencing tunnel vision and dizziness: "The heat just twirls your world and you don't know what's up or what's down or what's going on." Mika is rather more blunt: "I wish I were naked right now." Well that doesn't sound very sexually pure.
Brian has figured out their problem: "The striped bases need a striped hose," he whispers to Ericka, apparently giving the karma thing a rest for this leg. They switch stuff around, and Brian confidently calls to the judge, "My man!" The judge, who looks a lot like last week's Pit Stop greeter to me, nods and smiles, and the Americas are on their way in fourth place.
And the Globetrotters make the task switch. Flight Time reasons after the fact that since Brian and Ericka had been two hours ahead of them, "we should probably weigh some gold." I wonder if he would have come to the same conclusion of he knew Brian and Ericka had already attempted that.
Maria and Tiffany head down the water slide in their mismatched bikinis (the former coming close to experiencing a splash-related wardrobe malfunction) as Sam and Dan are arriving outside the water park. The brothers are not far behind, but when they get to the beach and run to the mat, Maria and Tiffany get the unprecedented (for them) thrill of being told they're team number two. They're still on the mat when the brothers come running up in their matching red trunks, which Team Inside Straight says looks like Baywatch. Tiffany interviews about how good they looked, and they all have a group hug in the water. Those poor girls still don't realize, do they? And even worse, the only way I can see them finding out is on some mat somewhere, as the boys first beat the girls to the mat in a footrace for last place, and then come out to them as they're being Philiminated. That will be the day that all of Team Inside Straight's luck in this race to date will come due.
"Sweet Georgia Brown" accompanies the Globetrotters, as they do something no other team has: they ask the judges for a calculator. "He was like, 'Sure, here you go,'" Big Easy interviews. Watching this at home, Brian and Ericka are like, "What!?"
Gary is still searching for the missing tongs. Canaan is feeling good about his progress, and Gary finally locates the tongs and gives them to Matt, who appears to have recovered. They're done, and they leave Mika and Canaan in their dust. "I hope it's huge," Matt says of their upcoming leap of faith.
A hope that Brian and Ericka do not share as they approach the resort in their taxi. "The problem is I'm scared of heights, she's scared of water," Brian says. And that's what makes them a team. Once they get there, she wants Brian to go first, but he insists she go ahead. "I don't know if she would have went," Brian interviews. With Brian watching, she goes down screaming. "She had a blast, trust me," Brian says before following, also yelling the whole way down. However, to their surprise, neither of them dies. "That was actually kind of fun," he says when he catches up to her at the bottom. She disagrees as she opens their clue, but they reach the Pit Stop as team number four. You think they might have won this leg if they'd thought to ask for a calculator? No, me either.
The Globetrotters are in the midst of loading their scale when the price changes from $928.50 to $934.75. At least they don't have to start from scratch every time. If they were done, they should just be able to scoop off 3.ounces and call it good. One other thing: does anyone else notice how the same prices keep popping up over and over? And that the judges seem to be able to tell if it's wrong or right at a glance, as though they have a conversion chart in their heads? I'd suspect the numbers of being fake, but if that were the case the price would be shuttling within a few cents of a thousand dollars per ounce so as not to make it too hard.
Mika is now helping out with the hookah-building, probably invigorated by having rolled her pants all the way up. They actually get it on the first try. "Take a leap of faith to receive your clue," Canaan excitedly reads to Mika, like this is great news. Have they met? In their taxi, she says worriedly, "This is going to be like some kind of crazy ride or something?" "Just jump off something," he breezes, obliviously draining his bottle of vitamin water. She looks at him for some kind of emotional support. It's like looking into the abyss itself.
And now we flash back to Cai Be, Vietnam, where we learned that Mika has a fear of water. And to Burj Dubai, when we learned about her fear of heights. So if this were a water slide that you had to run down, this would pretty much be her perfect storm. "Just feel like pukin'," she tells Canaan in real time. We don't hear his response, so as far as we know, he tells her to do it out the window.
Gary and Matt do the water slide, and Gary says the water felt good after the heat. "It doesn't get any better!" he dorks happily to Matt in the pool at the bottom. Well, they could be a higher rank than fifth when they get to the mat. That would be better.
Canaan reminds Mika that she brought her "floaties." Excuse me? He adds, "You have to do it." They get out of the cab and head up to the Leap of Faith, and the we see of them is Canaan marching impatiently up to the top of the slide, ordering Mika, "Hold my hand." Stamping her foot and wearing inflatable armbands, Mika says, "Don't tell me what to do." Between those three things, she's not exactly creating the image of a grown-ass woman. He's got no patience for her, and snaps, "We're not losing this race because of this. Get your butt on the slide. Let's go." Well, look who's the big daddy.
The Globetrotters finish up, and Flight Time kisses their judge on the cheek as they leave. "They think us old dumb athletes can't do mathematics, but we got it," Flight Time says on the escalator out. In the cab, Big Easy figures they'll have to jump into some water. He's not yet aware that they may also have to cross a line.
Meanwhile, Canaan is still yelling at Mika. "It's water and it's a slide. Get in the water!" She's in tears, and he's literally says, "Get a grip! Come on!" Good God, is this ever the wrong way to handle this. He says it's for a million dollars, which everyone else in the world besides him knows they're never going to win anyway, and offers to walk her to the slide. "Take a breath, you're freaking yourself out!" He walks her over and tries to get her to sit down, and she begs him, "Can we calm down?" Which of course means, Can you calm down. That's a negatory, obvs. He tries to get her to sit down, starting all patient-like but then trying to force her when the proximity to the slide freaks her out and she starts to resist. "Help me! Help me!" she screams to the lifeguard at the top of the slide, who so didn't sign up for this. You can tell, because he doesn't make a move. She might as well be appealing to help from the Lincoln Memorial. And it's not like anyone on the camera crew is about to intervene. She tries to squirm free of Canaan until he lets her go and yells in her face, "You're gonna make us lose the race!"
And that right there is the point. What he doesn't get, even though she has literally told him this, is that right now she doesn't care about the race right now. As irrational as it is, she thinks on some level that if she goes down that slide she will die. Her reptile-brain has taken over. And rather than trying to address that and calm her fears, Canaan just discounts them, so of course she's going to dig her heels in. Now, in subsequent interviews, Canaan has claimed that he tried everything during the 45 minutes they were up there, from being nice and patient to what we actually see, and I usually try to take the editing with a grain of salt, but I have trouble imagining that he was able to pull off "nice and patient" all that convincingly. He clearly just thinks she's being a baby. So he attempts to physically impose his will on her, which even fucking O.J. Simpson is on record recognizing as a no-no. Yes, she's unprepared for the race, and yes, she should have known to expect shit like this, but that doesn't make it okay for Canaan to try and force her. In a way, this is even worse than the whole shoving thing with Jonathan and Victoria back in the day. As heated as things got then, the debate was pretty much between "Jonathan is an asshole" and "Jonathan is a giant asshole." But at least that was way back when this was still Miss Alli's gig so I didn't have to recap that episode OH WAIT I TOTALLY DID. But now there people out there who think Mika is entirely at fault for what's happening here. The tragic thing is that one of those people, as far as I can tell, is Mika.
She's still up there after the ads, but at least now she's standing in the ankle-deep water at the slide's entrance. Canaan, sitting to it, says all she has to do is sit down, which is not helpful. She's just going to hear that as, "As soon as you sit down, you will plummet uncontrollably to certain doom." He offers to sit behind her, and she tells him not to force her. "Why do people want to do this stupid stuff? This is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid." So now she's mad, but at least she's working through her Kübler-Ross. She tries to sit, but can't do it. "You will regret not doing this," Canaan says. I'm sure that what he's trying to say there is that if she backs down, she will always wonder what could have been, and will look back on this for years, if not decades, as a missed opportunity to face her greatest fears and come out the other side stronger than ever. It's totally a coincidence that it sounds like a threat.
The Globetrotters are in a pretty good mood despite being in last place. Big Easy says the other teams are "praying and wishing" for that. Mika, however, is just praying for God to hear her, as she manages to set her ass in the water at the top of the slide. Canaan's some ways off, so that's good. But after another quick check-in with the Globetrotters, he approaches her to "give her some tips," which scares her all over again. And who could blame her for being leery? "Mika, trust me," he snots, like he didn't just try to throw her down before. And then he tells her to close her eyes and sits down behind her, again trying to force her down with his body, and attempting to pry her fingers from their death grip on the handlebar. She screams in panic, and where the fuck is the lifeguard right now? Isn't this a safety violation? Canaan backs off, and Mike tells him over her shoulder, "I hate my life right now." Well, then going down the slide solves her problem, either way.
The Globetrotters are getting out of their cab outside, as Mika continues freaking out. Then they're checking the map of the water park. "Canaan, why do you hate me?" she asks from the top of the slide. "Because you're being a complete moron," Canaan says sensitively. And then he lies down on the deck as the Globetrotters show up in their trunks, all ready to go. Canaan tells Mika, "You have two minutes. Your life is gonna change in two minutes." Now, again, that sounds like a threat, but in this case, that's because it is. An interview explains what he means by that as Canaan clarifies a point in the rules: only one team can go at a time. If a team arrives while you're still there, you have two minutes to work up the nerve to take the plunge. If the clock runs out, you have to let the other team go ahead. Mika sits there mournfully splashing water on herself as Canaan finally figures out how to encourage her: "I promise you are gonna be so proud of yourself. It's gonna be worth it." Where was that supportive attitude 45 minutes ago? She seems to be actually winding up to go when Big Easy suddenly yells out, "Don't do it!" Canaan tries to tell her not to listen, but Big Easy keeps it up. "Don't hurt yourself, baby!" Canaan's like, "That's not cool, y'all," as if he's an authority on cool at this point. Finally the lifeguard says her time's up. "Step aside." Mika gets up, and Flight Time goes down without hesitation. Canaan tells Big Easy as he heads down, "Thought you were decent, Big Easy. You're a piece of crap, man." That's got to sting from a guy who tried to push his girlfriend down a water slide twice. Big Easy doesn't take the time to respond, but he interviews after the fact, "I don't like to see her cry, but it's a race." They're in sixth place now, and Canaan tells Mika he's going down without her. "Canaan, please," she begs, but he abandons her up there. "Come on, Mika," he says down below to the empty slide as the Globetrotters leave the pool. "I wish I was in Nashville," she tells the camera. "Doing anything but this." Canaan tells us, "With fear, you psyche yourself out." Look who's an expert. Finally Mika heads back down the stairs, saying, "He's gonna hate me." She should be so lucky.
The Globetrotters reach the mat in sixth place. "This is one of the most dramatic finishes we've ever had," Phil observes, like he's been getting a live feed or something. Somewhat defensively, Flight Time says they were willing to do whatever it took to stay in the race. "Mika threw us the alley-oop, she was running point, and we slam-dunked it." I don't know what that means and I'm not good with sports metaphors, but let me try to construct one of my own: Mika was headed for the basket with seconds left on the clock, was about to make a shot that she was likely to miss anyway, and Big Easy stuck his foot out. Okay, I'm not saying it was illegal, or maybe even unethical, but it wasn't classy, either.
Mika shamefacedly meets Canaan down by the pool. Finally they get to the mat, and Phil tells them they're the last team to arrive. Normally I'd hope for a non-elimination leg that would force Mika to go back and do the slide to stay in it, but Canaan ruined even that for me. And then they get Philiminated anyway. Mika looks nervously over at Canaan and whispers, "Sorry." He shrugs, like he can't even talk to her now. Phil asks her how she feels. "Feel like I let Canaan down. And myself," she says, squinting through one eye at the sun. But as Canaan puts an arm around her, we hear his final thoughts o the matter: "I don't hold it against Mika. That could have been me up there. I could be the one just crippled by fear." Great, nowhe gets that. Because make no mistake, this was his failure as much as hers. There was a right way and a wrong way to handle this situation, and he overshot wrong by several exits. And now he gets the last word, having the nerve to act all beatific and serene now that the crisis is over: "There's freedom in forgiveness and there's freedom in, like, understanding that people aren't perfect and neither are you." Big of him, isn't it? I hope he's referring to the forgiveness he's hoping to get from Mika for being such a pushy, insensitive cocknozzle.
Oh, and guess what? They're still dating. Awesome.
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