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Everyone flies to the island nation of Seychelles, where the Detour is a choice between racing oxcarts full of coconuts or racing tortoises. As simple as it sounds, Miss Team USA screws up by losing a single coconut and Brent announces he's quitting, Steve and Allie leave their backpacks behind, and Carol and Brandy have to switch tasks after being cursed with an intractable reptile. They also make the same mistake Brent and Caite (and the Cowboys) did, which is not a good sign for them because they were already in last place. Up ahead, the Road Block requires racers to dive for a submerged bottle containing a puzzle they have to then carry ashore and assemble into a map. After doing this, the newly unencumbered Steve and Allie win their first leg. When the Detectives and Miss Team USA arrive at the mat together, there's a lot of crap-talking about the lesbians, which Brent claims is "anonymous." But Carol and Brandy catch a break in the form of the Cowboys making another mistake and leaving a clue behind on their way to the mat. They have to swim back for it and make it back to the mat in last place -- but it's a non-elimination leg, so we haven't heard the last of the Heroic Cowboy Theme.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Phil welcomes us to the Champagne region of France, pronouncing it like Christopher Walken as The Continental. He speaks vaguely of the vineyards and estates, including this one, "L'Orrca," the sixth Pit Stop in the race. Louie and Michael, who arrived first at 12:35 PM, get to leave at 12:35 AM. Middle of the night, and it's pissing rain. An auspicious start. Michael reads their clue sending them to "the island of Mahe in the...Say-chillies?" Phil narrates that they'll be flying 5,000 miles to the Seychelles, "a chain of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Phil assures us, "Due to its remote, exotic location, teams will all be traveling on the same flight." A charter? After they land on the island, they'll have to search for a "kiosk" -- actually a glorified clue box with numbers 1 to 6 hanging from its front -- and grab a number from the front and a clue from the inside. That's it? Land and then find the clue box? They'd better hope this isn't a very big island. Michael complains about everyone flying together (thus eating up their whole lead) as they walk to their car. Louie interviews that they're racing smarter. "I'm almost sick of hearing Michael go, 'read the clue again.'" Michael jokes that it's an even trade for putting up with Louie's snoring. Louie throws it right back at him. In either case, when it comes to snoring, they both look like they'd be champs.
Carol and Brandy are leaving in second place but almost an hour later, at 1:28 AM. Brandy is excited to be going to the Seychelles, which she can at least pronounce correctly.
Steve and Allie are leaving at 1:57 AM, in third place. Allie reads the clue, and although they don't know where the Seychelles are, they're happy to be going there. Steve, the professional baseball coach, interviews that the race "is as close as you can get to being in a World Series." Those are strong words, coming from someone who actually has been in a World Series. But he gets to watch his daughter and be proud of her at this one. Like he couldn't have had her pitch an inning against the Rays or something.
Jet and Cord are the fourth team to leave at 2:36 AM. They also don't know where the "Say-chillies" are, but are game to find it. "Good thing we're not driving [there]," Jet says when Cord guesses that it's an island. Hard to disagree with his assessment.
Dan and Jordan (now the only Jordan in the race, which makes my life easier) are leaving a whole hour later, at 3:36, in fifth place. Damn, how long did that champagne-glass tower take them to build, anyway? Like most other teams, they've never heard of the "Sey-chellies," but are ready to go. The rain's coming down for real now. Driving in their car to the airport, Jordan reads the clue to Dan about finding a kiosk with numbers on it, and explains how that means it will be to their advantage to get to it quickly. Dan looks like he really didn't need that explained.
And here go Brent and Caite at 4:36 AM. Hate to say it, but after a few legs without any bunching at all, I think some bunching was in order. Six teams are four hours apart, and that's no fun. Caite mispronounces the name of the island nation with a Spanish flair: "Seh-jilless." Some people don't have maps. Caite interviews how frustrating it is to be in the back of the pack. "Our lack of detail and focus is what's killing us right now," Brent says. Caite adds, "You can tell who were the bad kids in school," then gives an evil but complacent grin. "I wasn't bad in school," Brent says. Caite gives him a skeptical look. I'm with her; just because he's the brains of this particular operation doesn't mean I believe him.
By the morning, everyone's at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. The Cowboys suggest to the Detectives that they eat before checking in, which the soundtrack doesn't seem to think is a wise idea for some reason. Meanwhile, Brent and Caite make their smartest move of he race thus far, using a self-check-in terminal to pick seats near the front of the plane. They end up with aisle seats in row seven. Using a ticket agent, Steve and Allie get seats in row 10. Dan and Jordan end up in row 15. But Carol and Brandy, who left the Pit Stop in second place, are in row 25. Brandy's worried about it, but Carol assures her, "Dude, it's fine." Famous last words.
As the Amazing Red Line makes a non-stop trip from Paris to the middle of the Indian Ocean, cutting across the horn of Africa as it goes, Phil narrates, "All teams are now making their way to the island of Mahe in the Seychelles." When they land, arriving in what looks like the morning, those seat assignments definitely do come into play; Miss Team USA, Steve|Allie, and the brothers are already on the tarmac while other three teams are still waiting to get off the damn plane. The "kiosk" turns out to be right there in the airport somewhere, in a small outdoor picnic area. Brent and Caite get number one and read the clue, which is telling them to ride a helicopter to what Caite calls the island of "La Diague." "La-Deeg," Brent says, correcting her pronunciation by what I suspect is pure luck. Phil says that the first three teams now get to chopper right over to La Digue, while the other three teams will leave an hour later. "Once they arrive, they'll find their clue." Brent interviews about how nice it was to be ahead and start the day on a positive note. Meanwhile, Caite sits to him, staring directly into the camera with a creepy half-smile on her face. I have the shivers now.
Steve and Allie get number two, followed by Dan and Jordan, who realize how lucky they are to be in the first group of three teams. The rest of the teams who will be leaving an hour later are Michael and Louie, followed by Carol and Brandy, and finally Jet and Cord.
After everyone's been waiting for a little while, sitting under picnic shelters to stay out of the rain that apparently followed them five thousand miles, three helicopters swoop majestically down toward the helipad, one for each of the three lead teams. Brent and Caite lift off first, and are treated to some spectacular scenery. In fact, as Brent pronounces, "The views are sick." Steve and Allie follow in their helicopter, and are similarly impressed. Allie is even inspired to holler a prayer of gratitude into her headset: "God, just thank You, I feel so blessed to be here and experience this beautiful place You created with my dad." Steve helped God create the Seychelles? He's even more accomplished than I thought. Then off go Dan and Jordan, and Jordan's reaction is classic Jordan: "We got a rainbow following us!" Every day is a magical storybook day when you're Jordan.
The other three teams wait tensely back at the airport. "The three strongest teams were in fourth, fifth and sixth, and I think Brent and Caite got lucky today," Brandy says. News flash: you're only as strong as your current ranking. And also, Brent and Caite actually made a good move, as opposed to letting themselves get plunked down just anywhere on the plane and telling each other, "Dude, it's fine." Brent and Caite are saying roughly the same thing about how far ahead they're going to get, as the pilot is mirrored in Brent's shades. "I just want to get the mean lesbians out," Caite declares for the umpteenth time. But Caite, who do you want to get out of the race? They set down on a helipad by the shore of La Digue Island, and quickly find the clue box a short distance inland across a brick path. Read and marvel at the subtitle reading "Brent & Caite -- Currently in 1st Place" as they open the clue for the Detour: "Turtle Toddle or Ox Trot." Oh no, is an ox going to get broken?
Over ever more spectacular scenery, Phil narrates, "Sitting nearly a thousand miles from the nearest continent, La Digue Island is about as remote and as laid-back as a place can be. And coping with this sluggish pace will be the real challenge for teams who have to decide whether they want to perform Turtle Toddle or Ox Trot." For Turtle Toddle, teams get a banana and a giant tortoise, which Phil claims is "over a hundred years old and weighing about five hundred pounds." The tortoise, that is, not the banana. The banana will be used to lure the tortoise down a racing lane marked out in chalk on a grassy lawn. Then, in a touch of unrelated randomness, each racer will have to carry a bunch of bananas a mile and a half down the road to the harbor and deliver them to the fruit merchant in exchange for their clue. For Ox Trot, the teams wheel a big old oxcart -- about the size of a Little House on the Prairie covered wagon without the cover -- into an area filled with piles of coconuts. They then have to load all the coconuts, "without losing any cargo," Phil specifies over a dramatic slo-mo shot of a coconut bouncing off the railing of the cart and landing on the grass, where it lies helplessly like an abandoned baby. "Then the ox-hand will attach an ox to the cart, and teams must deliver their cargo to the harbor, where the fruit merchant will give them their clue." Brent and Caite opt for Ox Trot. They run off, find their cart in the cart-park, and wheel it over to the coconuts. Before starting with the loading, they put their backpacks in the cart, which is their second and final good move of the leg. They start throwing the coconuts in two at a time, while the camera tilts up and zooms in on the second helicopter just now arriving overhead. So despite the hour break between groups of three, the teams within each group clearly aren't leaving simultaneously, but then that's how it should be. Even if there were more than one helipad back on Mahe.
So here come Steve and Allie, and Steve wants to do Turtle Toddle, on the old tortoise and the hare logic. Not that there's a hare in the other option, but it doesn't matter to Steve: "I've never met an ox that I could trust, and turtles are cool, man." I'm not sure I've ever met an ox at all. But anyone who's seen Finding Nemo would have to agree on the second part of his statement.
When they reach the turtle lawn, there's a whole local music group and dance crew performing away, as there always seems to be this season. Steve shimmies back at them a little as he and Allie head to the tortoise paddock. They pick one out and open the chute to let him out, but they're off to a poor start; the tortoise isn't moving, and Steve drops what Allie keeps insistently referring to as "our one banana." But can't he get another banana? No, it's their "one banana!" Meanwhile, the brothers' helicopter lands, and Jordan lets Dan pick Ox. Sticking with the skill > luck concept, I see.
Louie and Michael are airborne. "That's what I'm talking about," Michael says of the scenery. Carol and Brandy take off in fifth place, followed by the Cowboys. Looks like you can't wear a helicopter headset with a cowboy hat, and they must not have been allowed to forgo the former. Cord says, "I'm not giving up till Phil tells us to leave." I wish that went without saying, but we've already seen two teams this season fail to do that.
Caite tosses a pair of coconuts onto the nearly-full cart, but one bounces of and hits the grass, in a suspiciously close-up shot. Of course neither of them notices it happening. I think I've said this before, but if I ever find myself on the Amazing Race, I'm going to watch my camera crews very carefully. While the ox-hand guides the ox into the traces and bridles him, Caite and Brent have plenty of time to check their area and make sure they got all the coconuts. But if they did that, they wouldn't be Brent and Caite, would they?
Allie is holding out half a banana, and the tortoise is now out of the pen, making its slow but determined way after it.
Brent and Caite set out, each of them holding one of the reins, which is like sharing the steering wheel of a car. Of course they're unaware that there's still a coconut on the ground behind them. There may not be any hares in this race, but there are certainly some hare-brains.
Allie still has that tortoise tearing across the lawn at top speed, which I would estimate at about 100 feet an hour. Hope he's got an airbag!
Brent is trying to get Caite to keep her one rein taut, to keep the ox from crashing them into a tree and flipping them over. They call each other "dummy" and "frickin idiot." They might be kidding, but then they don't seem to enjoy it very much.
Allie gets their tortoise across the finish line, and rewards him with the rest of the banana. Afterward, the thirstiest man in the race interviews, "That's what her mom does to me, but it's usually maybe a beer or something." Now they have to run over to the rack hung with giant banana bunches and each grab one so they can head down the road to the fruit merchant. Which they do, while a split screen shows their backpacks still lying on the ground to the turtle racecourse. Oops.
The brothers load coconuts. Meanwhile, Brent and Caite are trying to get their ox moving again, as it seems to have stopped for reasons known only to itself. Or possibly for the same reasons millions of viewers have, which is that they need to go. Steve and Allie, laden with bananas, walk right past them on the road. "This is what I was afraid of," Brent says. Allie interviews that it was a challenge to carry the bananas, and she got banana mush all over herself. She does look like Pac Man threw up on her. "This is what it's like, I guess, to have a two-year-old or something all day and lugging it around," she says. Steve remarks that would be a very large two-year-old. Indeed; her banana bunch is about the size of my five-year-old, except my five-year-old knows how to hang on and only throws up when he's on my bed.
Brent and Caite are moving again, but he's pissed at Steve and Allie's tortoise for being so speedy. Damn you, Steve and Allie's tortoise! You were never meant to experience the Doppler effect!
Dan and Jordan are just about done loading their cart, and interview about how they made sure they didn't lose any before moving on. Because that's what you're supposed to do.Louie and Michael land on La Digue in fourth place, and decide to go with Ox Trot. Up ahead , the brothers are getting situated on the seat of their full oxcart, which is very close to the back end of the ox. I normally wouldn't notice that, except for how Dan suddenly realizes in horror, "Oh, there's ____ coming out of his ___. Like right now. That is ___ gross." The pixels protect us from seeing it, but we certainly et to hear it. It's been quite the season for bovine excrescence, has it not? Usually it's that other show where I have to wade through this much bullshit.
Brandy and Carol land, and Carol votes for tortoise. "Okay, let's go," Brandy shrugs resignedly as though she means, "It's your funeral." Dude, it's fine.
The brothers' ox has some speed, as opposed to the one that Miss Team USA is stuck with. Jordan of course wants to name it, and decodes to call it "Box, for our didsters." "Didsters?" Afterwards, Jordan explains that this was in honor of their dad, who owns a packaging company but modestly says he makes boxes for a living. I'm fine if my son turns out gay, even as gay as Jordan, but if he ever calls me "Didsters" on national television there's going to be a discussion.
Jet and Cord decide to go with ox, figuring it'll be faster than the turtle. Meanwhile, Louie and Michael start loading up coconuts. "We control our own destiny, right?" Michael says. Keep telling yourselves that.
Carol and Brandy arrive at the tortoise race course, and make note of the abandoned backpacks lying on the ground. They pick the tortoise that they think looks most active, but once Carol opens the chute, it doesn't seem interested in the fruit at all. "We can not switch tortoises, either, "Carol says, now that it's too late. How ironic that it's the lesbians who learn that not every creature can be enticed by waving a banana in its face.
Jet and Cord join the coconut loading task, and Jet says it's like being at home, only they load feed, "instead of whatever these things are." Not many coconuts in Oklahoma, I take it.
Allie and Steve make it to the fruit stand first, and the Damon Wayans-looking merchant hands them their clue. "Hit the waves!" Allie reads from it. "Swim to one of the marked schooners." Good thing they're already right by the harbor, with a number of boats anchored a few dozen yards offshore. Phil explains that each team will ride its own boat to a place near St. Pierre Island, and the captain will give them their clue. Steve and Allie wade and swim and climb aboard their boat, which starts up as soon as they're both on board. As the stuntmen learned a couple of seasons ago, boat pilots on the Amazing Race do not do luggage checks.
Brent and Caite are still moving slowly, and realize that the brothers are approaching behind them. Jordan tells Box to pass them. Which Box does. Anything to not be called "Box" any longer than I have to, Box thinks. "We have the slowest ox out here," Brent complains. But then theirs probably isn't crapping in their faces, as the brothers' is once again doing. "Ew, that's a wet one. Don't wag your tail!" Jordan tells Box. They get to the fruit stand and get their clue in second place. But when Brent and Caite finally get there, wanting their clue, the merchant takes one look at their cart and says, "It's not enough coconuts." Obviously the fruit merchant has been in touch with the producers at the other end of the course, because how much fun would it be if he had to unload all the coconuts and count them before sending them back? Okay, a little fun. Caite is clearly not in the mood for this kind of fun, though: "What the f-- what are you talking about? We did the whole pile!" she protests. The merchant insists it's not enough. Meanwhile, Dana and Jordan are heading down the beach to the boat. Spotting them from theirs, Allie asks her dad, "Wait, why do they have their backpacks?" Uh, because they're on the Amazing Race and you carry all your possessions on your back? "Our backpacks are gone," Steve says. Allie is horrified, and we get to enjoy an amusing shot of their turtle enjoying his banana to their abandoned luggage. He's like, "I tried to tell them, dude. This banana is awesome, though." Meanwhile, Brent is so pissed at the fruit merchant that he says, "I quit, then." Steve holds up their Amazing Purse to show Allie that they at least have their money and passports and can go on if they need to, but Allie says, "I can't do that. I really want my backpack back." Steve asks her if she wants to go back. And back on shore, Brent quits three times more. It's a double-cliffhanger!
Brent's still quitting after the ads. Meanwhile, Steve is trying to convince Allie they shouldn't go back for their bags and take the risk of losing the leg. Given what happens later, there's not much danger of that, but he has no way of knowing that. But I think there's one thing that we do know, and that's that there is absolutely no beer in those backpacks. "It's just clothes," Steve says. "I mean, you look good. Look at you." The gong on the soundtrack hasn't failed to notice the banana pulp still covering her from ankle to boob, even after a dip in the ocean. She interviews that she's used to having her makeup and her brush. "It'll just strip me down and I'll be raw and--," Steve says she's cute enough not to need it, I think because he thought he should cut her off before he network censors did. "It'll make us faster, that's for sure," she says. And this after making into the lead with the help of an animal who carries its whole house on its back.
Dan and Jordan are in a good mood as their boat sails cross the ocean; they worked well together, and as Dan says, "Everywhere you look, it's just crystal clear water." They interview, "We're in Africa, but like tropical beautiful, paradise Africa, which you never even knew existed." Does this still count as Africa? I guess it does in the sense that Hawaii is part of North America, or the Lone Islands are part of Narnia (just to frame it in terms Jordan can relate to). They kill some time on the boat by slapping each other's bare chests. Which is the gay one again?
Brent has decided to un-quit, so now they've back on their cart, riding back to the coconut grove. "I don't even want to play any more," Caite third-graders. "This is so stupid." She's fighting tears of frustration as Brent interviews about losing their hard-won lead and going back to where they've been stuck. "This is so unfair," she all but sobs. Oh, calm down. Either someone else will make the same mistake and you'll be find, or they won't and you didn't deserve that lead in the first place. Guess which one it turns out to be?
Louie and Michael finish loading their coconuts and get on their way. Carol and Brandy, meanwhile, are just now getting their skittish tortoise moving. But as soon as he's out, he turns to the side to get away from them. It looks pretty evil, snapping at that banana and possibly also Brandy's hand. Carol should be the one luring the tortoise; I get the sense that she's the one more accustomed to being snapped at.
Steve and Allie look to be in the ocean between islands when the captain hands them a clue and a diving mask. As they open the former, Phil talks about the Seychelles' history of shipwrecks, and how "treasure hunters are constantly trolling these waters in search of their great find." Perched on the side of a boat, with a diving mask pushed up on his forehead, Phil says, "Now teams must head underwater, on their own search for a very different kind of treasure map." With that, he lowers the mask onto his face and flips backward into the ocean, which is maybe six to ten feet deep there. The camera follows him to a wooden crate full of glass bottles, tethered about halfway between the surface and the ocean floor. Bubbles come out of his mouth like he's trying to talk as the subtitles read, "One team member must find a submerged case of seven bottles...." Fortunately he runs out of air before the joke gets old, and he continues narrating in the normal way midsentence: "...figure out how to untie them, and then bring one of the seven bottles up to the surface." As we see hands busying themselves on the beach with the contents of a bottle, he continues, "With that completed, team members will work together to assemble a map." That's a pretty rough map, made out of what look like primitive Colorforms on a small leather sheet. "Once on shore, the map will lead them along a path to their most valued treasure." Which is Phil himself, of course! Oh, wait, he means the Pit Stop. The Pit Stop sign reads Praslin, Seychelles, in its latest effort to confuse us. "The last team to check in here," Phil warns, "may be eliminated." Or they may not. Phil has no idea. He'd tell you if he could, honest.
Steve is doing the Road Block. As he takes off his shirt, we cut back to Carol and Brandy, and their messily-eating tortoise. "Does anyone have a napkin to wipe his mouth?" Carol wonders plaintively. Hurt by this aspersion cast against its table manners, the tortoise starts wandering even further afield, so they decide to switch tasks. Over to Ox Trot they go, making Steve and Allie the only team to successfully complete this Detour. As long as your definition of success does not include leaving with your luggage.
Steve flops over the side of the boat into the water. Despite his rather graceless dive, Allie tells us he's a great swimmer, habitually spending hours in the pool at the gym. After swimming out to the buoy he dives down, takes a long minute to free one of the bottles from the knotted rope over its neck, and surfaces. "Come back!" Allie calls, but first he takes the time to stuff the bottle down the front of his trunks. Which is probably how he swims at the gym anyway.
Meanwhile, Dan and Jordan are nearby in their own boat, opening their clue. "'Time to take a deep breath.' That's me," Jordan says. As he jumps in and strikes out for the buoy, Dan says he doesn't like swimming. "I mean, I can do it, and I'd be fine to do it, I just think Jordan's probably better at it. Confidence in my partner." Jordan dives, but can't get the bottle loose before he runs out of air. He comes up to breathe, and while Dan calls out encouragement, he snits, "You need to wait a second. It's really deep." "It says, 'time to take a deep breath,'" Dan chortles at us. Jordan narrates after the fact what we see, which is him going back down, getting the bottle free, and then dropping it. So now he has to go back down to get it, "actually on the bottom of the ocean floor," which is about four or five feet below the crate, as opposed to the Marianas Trench it might sound like if you weren't watching it at the same time. It's also fair to say that this is the closest they come to making a mistake this leg.
Brent and Caite's ox now has one driver, which is probably how it should be done. The meet the detectives coming the other way, which makes Michael wonder whether they failed to find the place. What would be worse than being lost in an oxcart? You get lost in a car, you can drive somewhere else fairly quickly, but in an oxcart you'd have plenty of time to get no less lost. As they pass the detectives, Caite and Brent explain how they didn't have enough coconuts in their cart. "Hopefully we didn't make the same mistake," Michael says, riding on the back with the cargo. When Brent and Caite get back, there's a local guide standing to the poor abandoned coconut, pointing wordlessly down at it like a parking lot attendant indicating en empty spot. For a Matchbox car, that is. They retrieve it and turn around to leave again, with predictable bad grace. Meanwhile, Jet tells us as his and Cord's cart gets almost full that "I've driven a lot of things, I never drove and ox." But apparently their brother once had a buffalo. I think we've all had brothers who had buffaloes, haven't we?
Carol and Brandy arrive at the Ox Trot task just as Brent is getting his and Caite's ox moving again. Watching them go, Carol and Brandy mock them behind their backs for probably having screwed up. "Like, duh." Better hold off on those comments until you've completed the task yourself, ladies. Jet and Cord are done -- or so they think, even as a camera zooms in on a lone coconut they left behind. Their ox gets tied up, and Cord thinks to ask what the ox's name is (it's Red Bull), because the Cowboys realize that animals might have names even before they meet them. They're on their way, talking about how confident they are that they didn't drop any, even as the camera shoots their backs from a low angle -- right over the coconut they left behind, in fact. Behind them, Brandy realizes they're in last place. "Son of a bitch," Carol says, which I always imagine would be my most oft-used curse if I were on the race. If not my most oft-used phrase, period.
Steve and Allie look to be a fair distance offshore when they have to jump off and start swimming. Steve interviews about how well Allie has come through tough situations as we watch them strike out for shore. I'm thinking the worst is still ahead for them.
Carol and Brandy are tossing coconuts into their wagon, and Brandy accidentally wings Carol with a stray throw. Brandy apologizes, Carol snaps, Brandy snaps about it being an accident, you know the drill.
Steve and Allie come ashore and open their bottle. Steve interviews about their disappointment; they thought they were going to see Phil, "And you open the thing up and there's a dang map and you go, it's not over yet." Allie's the one assembling the map. Meanwhile, the brothers' boat is approaching. Steve thinks he knows where to go based on the still-incomplete map, but Allie tells him to wait. Dan and Jordan have jumped in by the time Allie feels ready to run for the Pit Stop. "I feel dizzy, I feel like I'm going to faint," she says. She doesn't, though, which is good because she can't afford to get her clothes any dirtier. Steve leads her around a pool and through a grove of trees, and there's Phil, standing to a shirtless local with dreadlocks, who welcomes them to Praslin, Seychelles. Steve fist-bumps him, and Phil tells them they're team number one. As he hugs his daughter, Steve hastens to say that's official; "We have no backpack, we have our passport, we have our money." He tells the greeter he'll be hanging out like him, shirtless. The greeter looks a little embarrassed for him. Luckily, Allie doesn't claim that without her hairbrush, she'll soon be looking like the greeter as well. Phil asks if they noticed the "seven" theme for this leg, which I didn't. But in keeping with this nonexistent theme, Phil says this week's prize is from 7Up. Tired of being shown up by its fellow sponsor Travelocity, 7Up is giving them an oceanside dinner, a massage, seven thousand dollars each, "and all the 7Up you can drink." Allie says, "God has a plan, he wants us to learn, he wants us to grow, and however much longer we're I this race without a backpack, that's totally worth it to me." Steve agrees. That's easy for them to say this close to the Equator; as warm as it may be here, it's still December and they might find themselves back in the Northern Hemisphere before long.
Dan and Jordan arrive at the mat, and Jordan hopefully holds up two fingers. Phil looks at that -- or else he's just grinning mockingly at their bare chests with the slap-marks on them -- and holds up two fingers of his own. Big hug for team number two, their highest ranking yet.
Michael is feeling sympathetic toward his and Louie's ox: "He's like, look at the size of you two fat bastards, why do I have to pull you, why can't I get the two skinny girls?" The smiling fruit merchant produces their clue with a flourish, and down they go to the beach.
Brent narrates that at leas they're still ahead of the Cowboys and the lesbians. That is, until the Cowboys catch up and pass. "NASCAR with bull, "Caite says with typical eloquence.
Carol and Brandy 's pile is getting smaller, but unbeknownst to them, there's one stray coconut under the frame of their cart. It's like, "duh!"
Brent and Caite are passing the cowboys right back, clipping their cart as they go around a curve. "That's gotta be a penalty," Jet jokes. Brent and Caite get their clue. But Jet and Cord do not. "No, you didn't load all your coconuts," the fruit merchant says. I'm beginning to wonder if that's the only English he knows. It would certainly explain how he got cast.
Louie|Michael and Brent|Caite seem to be getting on their respective boats at about the same time. As they ride out, Michael says they made sure they had all the coconuts. "We overshot a few, but we made sure we picked them up." But now it looks like the models' boat is gaining. Yes, I too have to keep reminding myself that Caite isn't the only model on her team. Maybe Brent is a hand model.
The Cowboys realize they have to go back. Jet interviews, "I wanted to grab him by the collar, and show him that cart right up close and convince him that we had enough coconuts. I think that would have been against the rules." But in keeping with his black cowboy hat. In either case, they're on their way back, one "Oh, my gravy" later.
Carol asks their ox as it gets hitched up, "Are you going to cooperate?" "Probably not," Brandy says. As they pull out, she adds, "We still have time to catch up. Somebody has to make a mistake somewhere." Right on cue, there's a close-up of the coconut they left behind. So yes, she is correct, but not in the way she thinks she means.
On the boat across the water, Brent narrates their status while Caite seems to be trying to wring her boobs dry in the background. "It's all about luck," he claims. "I'm glad we got wet, thought," Caite says saucily. "I felt dirty." Then she flips her wet hair back, possibly in the belief that viewer votes will play a role in her fate. Then there's some ranking subtitle hijinx as Brent and Caite's boat passes Louie and Michael's in midstream. Michael stops talking about controlling his own destiny when that happens.
Carol and Brandy spot the Cowboys coming the other way. "Road-hog!" Carol jokes. Jet interviews they knew they were in last place." "We're caught right between a rock and a hard place," Cord says, although he doesn't say what's the rock and what's the hard place. Brandy and Carol tell us what they think happened, which is that the Cowboys dropped one. "I hate to say it," Carol lies, "but that bodes well for us." Assuming she and Brandy didn't make the same mistake, that is. Which she doesn't think to add. Jet and Cord retrieve their coconut from its spot to the ever-patient coconut pointer. And Carol and Brandy get to meet the fruit merchant, who in his smiling way says, "You didn't load all the coconuts!" They're stunned and in denial. We're done, we're done, we're done," Carol says. It's not every week two teams find themselves in the same cliffhanger.
After the ads, on their way back, Carol figures one must have gotten thrown over the cart. "I think when you threw some in, you threw them over the side," she says. Brandy's understandably like, "Moi?" Carol says they'll find out when they get back. Which, actually, they won't. "Place all the blame you want," Brandy says. Carol says she isn't. "It is what it is," Brandy says. And what it is, if one is using the word "you" twice in a sentence where one is speculating about what went wrong, is placing blame. I know I'm usually on Carol's side, but trying to pin it on Brandy when neither of them knows what happened is kind of tacky. Especially when she pretends she's not trying to pin it on Brandy.
Out on the ocean, Caite spots the buoy, which Brent identifies as a dinghy. Oh, there's a dinghy here, all right. They get their clue, and Brent will be doing this Road Block. He jumps in with a life jacket, which he takes off just long enough to dive for the bottle and then sort of drapes under him to swim back. Caite's mood is much improved as she awaits his return. Louie and Michael's boat arrives just in time for them to see Brent starting to climb back on board. "The bastid," Louie says. Brent is impatient with her not helping home out of while he's got his hands full with his life jacket and his bottle. But on the other hand, her hair's not gong to finger-comb itself.
"Take a deep breath, that's me, baby!" Michael says. Indeed, that's kind of a no-brainer given Louie's tendency to find himself short of breath after something is strenuous as a long cab ride. After Michael retrieves the bottle and returns to the boat with it, either he or Louie drops the bottle on the deck and it breaks, making me very nervous to see Louie standing amid the broken glass with no shoes on. But then I look at those Hobbit-feet and feel a little better. "We're gonna open it up when we get there," Michael says. Yeah, I think you have a head start on that.
The Cowboys meet the lesbians yet again. "I would have paid you to pick up the one that we apparently left behind, "Carol tells them. Cord says they found the one they left behind. Which must be encouraging for Brandy and Carol to hear. Less encouraging is the fact that they have time for this whole conversation while passing each other. "There's still hope, man, there's still hope," Cord says.
They get their clue in fifth place. Then they hit the beach, and change into board shorts (which Cord calls a happy medium between jeans and Speedos). They're on the boat, putting their hats back on as they re-read the clue. Obviously some unseen production assistant must be transporting the teams' stuff from shore for them -- those teams that brought stuff from shore, that is. "We can't load coconuts to save our lives, but we can swim," Jet says hopefully.
Brandy picks up their errant coconut, and they're sure they're last. I don't know why Carol got off the cart at all.
The models and the detectives hit the water at about the same time for the long swim ashore. Brent's up ahead with Michael, while Caite hangs back with Louie. But she gets ahead f him before too long. He's not hard to pass; he swims like an inner tube with a mustache.
Cord will be doing this Road Block, and he seems to manage it without any trouble. But then he gives their bottle to the boat's captain for some reason, which is trouble.
Carol and Brandy get their clue, swim out to their boat, and get out of there in sixth place, lamenting their loose coconut that put them behind the Cowboys. It's like, "Duh!"
Brent and Caite make it to shore , while Michael impatiently encourages Louie along. Which is like yelling at a piece of driftwood to come to shore. When the Detectives finally arrive, Louie offers to work together with the models. Brent agrees, even though they've finished their map already and don't need any help. "We didn't want them kicked out. We wanted some other teams kicked out," Brent interviews. "It's more strategy that we wanted them to make it." Strategy? To help the team that has one more legs than any other team so far? This is a very mysterious strategy. The four of them run down the beach together.
Jet says he and Cord are excited to be getting to the Pit Stop. Behind them, Brandy offers to do the Road Block , and Carol happily hands it over. Carol claims, "In the heat of competition, we do a little bickering, but we then get over it and then we just move on with the task that's in front of us." Brandy dives in, gets her bottle, and hands it up to Carol. Carol has a point; I didn't see any bickering at all while Brandy was underwater.
Brent and Caite lead the way to the mat, followed by the Detectives. Phil tells them they're teams number three and four respectively. Fist-bumps all around. Watching Louie pant, Phil cracks, "By the time this race is finished you might actually be fit." Louie responds by flexing everything he's got, and Phil concedes the point, impressed. "We're here to the end," Louie says. Phil asks who else will be there. "These two," Louie lies politely, pointing to Miss Team USA, "and the Cowboys." Phil asks who they want out, and for some reason the Detectives also have it in for Carol and Brandy. "They got chips on their shoulder," Michael says." They're negative people, and negative bring negative waves. You want to be negative, be somewhere else." Whoa, I never saw that coming. From Brent and Caite, sure, but not Louie and Michael. Caite is of course quick to agree with them, because she's still nursing a pissy little grudge about their tiara joke way back at the beginning of the race. You know, maybe she and Brent will race faster if she stops carrying that around. "All I have been is nice to them and they just keep being mean to me," she whines. Trying to look wise, Brent puts in, "From what I heard, it's pretty anonymous, amongst the teams." Phil looks at him in confusion, and asks, "Unanimous?" Brent laughs at himself. You can tell who the bad kids were in school.
Jet and Cord jump overboard to swim to the Pit Stop island, the camera zooming on the bottle they left behind on the boat. Carol and Brandy urge their boat's captain to hurry. Jet and Cord hit the beach, and wander along the shoreline until they find the Pit Stop. I can see why they always wear their hats; their heads look a little small without them. Phil tells them they're the fifth team to arrive. Then he lets them waste a little time talking about the stinking coconut that brought them to this, while he pops an eyebrow at them. "So how did you guys find the Pit Stop?" he asks casually, which is just about the last question you ever want Phil to ask you. They lamely say they had a feeling. Phil asks if they didn't look inside the bottle. Jet says, "There was a leather pouch in there but we had a terrible time getting it out. I'm sure it was the directions to the Pit Stop." Phil's like, yup! And he tells them they need to get the bottle back, and bring what's in it to shore before he can check them in. They stare at him in blank shock. No Heroic Cowboy Theme this time.
After the ads, they react a lot more quickly, turning and running back to the beach as soon as Phil's done speaking. You know, this is the third time this season someone has found the Pit Stop by accident. Maybe they should start hiding them better. Jet narrates after the fact, "We get to the beach, and we spot our boat." There's a shot of a boat, almost at the horizon, which fortunately is not their boat. How much would it suck if it were already on its way back to La Digue? Which I know wouldn't make sense, because five of those boats still have backpacks on them. Jet says their boat was "a good three hundred yards from the beach, so, there really wasn't any other option than...swim to that boat." Off they go. And about halfway out, they see Carol and Brandy sailing in. "But I'm not giving up until Phil says you have to go," Cord says again. Carol and Brandy jump overboard, and Cord climbs back into their boat and retrieves the bottle while Carol and Brandy are still on their way in, at least according to the editing. But not for long, because they reach the beach soon after the Cowboys are back in the water. Now Carol and Brandy have to put together the map, while the Cowboys have the advantage of knowing where they'll be going as soon as they land. But even with the advantage of the finished map, Carol and Brandy start going the wrong way while Jet and Cord are wading ashore. Even so, it's too much of a lead to blow, and Carol and Brandy are the team to reach the mat. Phil gives them a long look. "Bring it on, bud," Brandy says. Phil tells them they're team number five, and they're both happy and incredulous.
Finally the Cowboys run back to the mat. "Good to see you again," Jet says, and hurls the sodden map-pouch down onto the middle of the mat. I knew he was the evil one. Phil tells them they're the last team to arrive, and adds, "I'm sorry to tell you that...the leg of the race is going to be pretty tough." Non-elimination leg, of course. You don't commission the Heroic Cowboy Theme for a team that gets cut halfway through. Phil tells them, "You're still in the race, but you cut it pretty close." Cord checks his watch for some reason and says, "Cut it pretty close? I thought we was gonna drown." Phil warns them about the Speed Bump awaiting them in the leg -- the same kind of Speed Bump that took two legs to finally get rid of Jordan and Jeff -- and they say they're up to it. In their post-leg interview, Jet says, "Champions aren't necessarily the people who ride the most bulls. They're' the people that can get bucked off, and can still pick their self back up and go get on another one...when you hit bottom, there's only one place to go, and that's up." Sure about that? Cord tells Jet to write a country song. "I should," Jet says, and plays a little air-banjo.
So it was almost like an old-school non-elimination leg, where one team was stripped of all its possessions. Except this time it was the lead team instead of the last one, and they did it to themselves.
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