Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT What Happens in Vegas
By M. Giant | Season 15 | Episode 11 | Aired on 12.06.2009
Outside, they all open the clue sending them to Mandalay Bay, way back down on the other end of the strip. They all jump back in their waiting taxis. Sam mentions Meghan's grab for his clue, and Sam's like, "You're really gonna complain about that right now?" Brian and Ericka are on their own route, hoping for the best from their driver. Because that always works out for people on this show, especially them..
But surprise! They're the first ones to reach Mandalay Bay, which is one of those typical millennial Vegas hotels with three towering, gold-windowed wings radiating out from a central point so they look like the letter Y from space, where they are almost certainly visible. "Who's ready to climb down the mountain?" Brian reads from the clue in the lobby.
And then that may or may not be Phil, standing under the giant Mandalay Bay sign just below the top, sixty stories in the air. He says, "One team member must perform a terrifying face-first rappel six hundred feet down the side of the building." Even Phil sounds amazed that someone's going to be stupid enough to try this. This works out well for Brian, since Ericka was going to do the Road Block anyway and he's terrified of heights. "He can barely get on a ladder," Ericka tattles. He walks her onto the elevator and lets her ride up alone, all the way to the sixty-second floor. Out on the roof, six instructors are waiting to help, presumably two for each racer, because it's not like the production is going to limit the number of people who can go at one time at this late stage. "Oh, my gosh," says Brian, as he exits the building onto a closed-off patio and looks up at the building looming over him. Ericka has no such qualms. "Today, I'm fearless," she says. Yes, fear is not going to be the emotion that gives her problems today. "I would be peeing my pants right now," Brian confesses. Sounds like they picked the right person to do the Road Block, then. They get her strapped into a spandex shirt and pants, harness, and helmet (with built-in camera, of course), and as she waits on the edge, an instructor tells her, "Once you swing that next leg over, you're committed." "Yep," she says calmly. I'd be hearing that as, "Don't swing that next leg over unless you wish to become street-pizza."
Meghan and Cheyne arrive in second place, and Cheyne's doing it. But when he opens the main clue and sees he has to go to the roof, he gets very nervous. You might recall from the water slide episode that he and Meghan are both afraid of heights, if it were possible to remember anything from that episode other than the great Mika|Canaan meltdown.