Cab Fair

S17E07

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The race stays in St. Petersburg, but the racers are joining the circus. In a Detour, they have to either spin ten plates on poles or learn to play a song on the accordion (neither of which end up being as hard as they sound). From there, a tricky Route Info requires them to walk around in search of the Church of Spilled Blood. That's a bit of a scramble, especially in the sense of how a few teams break the rules and use taxis. From there, they have to head to the Fortress of Peter and Paul, the final resting place of Peter the Great. That's the venue for a round of gorodki, a Russian form of bowling using a club instead of a ball, and using Phil instead of pins (at least in the demo). Nat and Kat keep it together and win their third leg, followed by Brook and Claire (who went back to retrace their cab ride on foot), while Michael throws a long succession of gutter… clubs. Some of the teams have trouble paying off their taxis before proceeding to the Pit Stop, especially Chad and Stephanie, who try to check in second-to-last without paying their fare first. While they go back to rectify that, Michael and Kevin arrive at the mat, only to learn they have an hour penalty. Which is longer than Chad and Stephanie's half-hour penalty, which means that this leg ends not with a sprint but the ticking of a clock. As does Michael and Kevin's race.

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Phil welcomes us back to St. Petersburg, "The fourth-largest city in Europe and the home of thousands of renowned and ornate buildings." Because of how they don't blow them up, as noted last week by well-known architectural historian Nick. One of these buildings would be St. Isaac's Cathedral. Phil says it was "forced to become the Museum of Atheism during the Soviet era," but that's all over, and now it's a church again. But even better, it was the sixth Pit Stop of the race. Presumably the racers spent the night sleeping in the pews.

Jill and Thomas are leaving the Pit Stop at 8:30 AM, having won the leg. Looks like a chilly morning, going by their winter jackets. "Join the circus," Thomas reads from the clue. Phil says they'll need to cab it from St Isaac's to Avtovo Circus to find their clue. As Jill and Thomas get started on doing that, there's a pre-race interview in which Thomas describes himself as "extremely competitive, extremely outspoken," which is normally the kind of thing you hear a racer say at the beginning of the season that's shorthand for "I'm an asshole and you will hate me." Jill agrees that Thomas has a tendency to talk at her rather than to her, but Thomas claims they work well together. They certainly are a convincing pair of synchronized mouthbreathers in the cab to the circus.

Brook and Claire are starting the leg at 8:35 AM, and Brook's pretty excited about getting to go to the circus. "That's where I belong!" she chirps. They hop into a taxi, in which Brook says, "I hope I get to wear a leotard." Claire does a double-take and asks her, "Who says that?" "Me," Brook duhs. I'm going to spoil not only the plot but Brook's morning by saying right here that there will be no leotards.

Here go Michael and Kevin, at 8:40, and they seem to be doing well so far; not only is a cab right there, the driver knows were the circus is. An auspicious beginning to the leg for them. What could go wrong now?

Jill and Thomas also know where the circus is, because they're there. They run to the front gate and find a hand-painted sign with the word "CLOSED" and a weeping clown on it. It's hard to say which of those two things is more upsetting. Thomas alerts us, "Other teams are starting to arrive." Here indeed are Team YouTube and Team QVC, and suddenly we're in a cab with Nat and Kat (who are pronouncing circus as "seer-kiss"), and then Chad/Stephanie, and Gary/Mallory. No more departure times for us this week? No, and there'll be more on that in a minute.

While waiting for the front gate to open, Jill and Thomas at least get to watch a little show of clowns clowning around in the courtyard, including one driving a guy in a bear suit around in a motorcycle sidecar. It's a scene of highly concentrated wackiness. Finally the gate is opened, and in rushes everyone. We haven't yet seen Nick and Vicki, who probably still haven't left and should have a Speed Bump ahead of them this leg. Right? Everyone opens the clue at pretty much the same time and learns that it's a Detour. Over shots of more clowns inside the circus tent, Phil says, "The circus has been a fixture of Russian culture for hundreds of years," so this Detour is a choice between "Circus Band" and "Circus Clown." For the former, both team members will have to learn how to play a Russian folk song on the accordion to earn their clue. For the latter, they'll do a plate-spinning bit where they have to keep ten plates spinning simultaneously on poles for at least ten seconds. Easy to explain, hard to do, on both counts. At least it seems that way. Jill and Thomas decide on the plates. While the other teams are deciding, clowns are sticking foam-rubber clown noses on their faces for them, just to help them get into the circus mood (or, alternatively, to make them look ridiculous for the cameras, because there's a first time for everything). Michael and Kevin decide on the plates, as do Brook and Claire. Nat and Kat opt for Band, Chad/Stephanie and Gary/Mallory decide on the plates, and Nick and Vicki (who have shown up after all) also go for plates.

But where's Nick and Vicki's Speed Bump? I have to admit, I completely forgot about it until after I submitted the recaplet for this episode, and it's not like the show went out of its way to bring it to our attention. But according to Reality Blurred, rumor has it that Nick and Vicki were victims of a judging error at the Classical Music Detour in the last leg (i.e., they made a correct guess and were told it was wrong), so they made it a non-elimination leg on the fly and wiped the slate clean at the beginning of this leg by keeping the circus gate closed until noon or whatever. And now that I think about it, I don't remember Phil specifically saying they would have a Speed Bump this leg after all. It would be nice if we didn't have to do our own research to find that out, especially since I prefer to stick with what's onscreen. But the Speed Bump is conspicuously not onscreen, which I initially thought was because all of the other stuff that happens this leg is so interesting that they edited it out. And by "interesting," I mean "interesting to the editors." I was glad to learn that it was just because somebody fucked up.

Into the big top, where even more clowns and jugglers are goofing around while the racers try to figure out how to get their plates spinning atop pointed poles. Jill keeps tipping hers off the end of the pole, and Thomas snaps at her for it, which doesn't seem like a wise thing to do to someone who's holding a long, sharpened, wooden stake. Michael seems to get the hang of it so quickly that I'm tempted to make a bad pun about China (yes, I know, Michael is from Taiwan). In this task, they first have to get a plate spinning on a handheld pole, and then transfer it onto a stationary pole positioned on a rack of ten. It's all about not only balance but angular momentum, so if the plate stops spinning, it falls. As you can imagine, plates are hitting the ground pretty fast (and they must be shatterproof, because later in the episode we don't see racers wading through ankle-deep drifts of crockery shrapnel). Brook and Claire seem to get the hang of it quickly. Chad tries to walk Stephanie through getting a plate started, with his typical level of supportiveness (which is to say zero). Nick, however, seems to have a quick knack for it; it's the atmosphere that's freaking him out. "My grandma had a clown room, growing up, that we would all have to sleep in as kids," he interviews, "so when you woke up at nighttime, you'd just see a clown face on the wall, and it'd scare the crap out of you." In the present day, Nick tells one of the Russian clowns," Don't touch me." Oh, Nick, they're more scared of you than you are of them. Okay, maybe not.

Out in the courtyard, amid even more highly saturated levels of madcap tomfoolery, Nat and Kat are working on translating the accordion tune into a numeric code, because with Jonathan and Connor gone, they're the reigning nerds in the race now. Across the courtyard, Mallory's picking it up quick. Apparently she's the musical one, but. Gary's keeping up well.

Michael and Kevin have a bunch of plates up and spinning, but Kevin's discovering their maddening tendency to slow down and fall off just as you're getting the tenth one up there. There are more troubles for Stephanie and Chad, too. Outside, Nat and Kat have the first phrase of the tune down and are surprised to learn there's more. Stupid Russian folk songs, going on and on. Gary and Mallory are also surprised at this news, even though Mallory is musical. Inside, Jill and Thomas are still struggling. He decides to try taking over the spinning from Jill, and almost immediately drops the plate and says, "Let's go." Sure, now that it's too hard for him as well. Did he miss the day they taught plate-spinning at Notre Dame? As they switch tasks, we hear his theory that, if the challenges are right to each other, it's worth giving the other one a try. They seem to feel a little more comfortable with the accordions, at least at first. "Piece of cake," Thomas says, squeezing his in and out while holding his fingers down on a random chord. He's kidding, but I've seen Detours where that would be good enough to earn a clue.

Nick tries to coach Vicki through transferring one spinning plate up onto the stationary pole, but it tips over on her, to his frustration. In fact, he calls her a "Dumb-ass," because when he promised never again blow up like he did in Ghana, he didn't say he'd stop calling her names; he's just saying them quieter. It's at this point that it first becomes apparent that these are trick plates, with a deeply concave underside to accommodate the pole (that's what she said). I'm sure it's still tricky, but not as difficult -- not to mention as dangerous -- as it would be with the flat-bottomed plates you and I have in our cupboards. Brook and Claire interview that they can do anything if they focus and don't panic, and that seems to be the case here; they're the first to finish. They hug and dance with the clowns before Brook remembers to ask for a clue, which she rips open amid a huddle of curious clowns who want to read over her shoulder. "Time to solve a Russian mystery," she reads. So they're going to find out what the deal was with Nick and Vicki's Speed Bump?

Phil explains that the thing is for the teams to "figure out that they're looking for Bank Bridge, the canal bridge guarded by four creatures with golden wings." Don't worry, they're only statues, but they're still a bit of overkill for a short footbridge across a narrow canal. The clue box is in the middle of the bridge where even these people can't miss it. Brook and Claire head off, cheered on by the clowns, and high-five in the cab. In first place, again. For now (again).

Kat's having trouble keeping her clown nose on, but they're ready to go play with the "band," which is a couple of guys with giant bass balalaikas. They play it so slowly, one note at a time, that it's hardly recognizable, but one of the band members says, "Yes, it's good," so they're done in second place, and pretty happy about it. Gary and Mallory are close to done, although as Gary remarks, the clown nose makes it hard to look down at the keys while you play. Jill and Thomas, meanwhile, have learned the first phrase, but when they learn there's more, there's a lot of high-pitched whining. And Jill isn't happy about it either. Inside, Chad and Stephanie decide to switch tasks. "I think this is stupid," Chad says with his usual diplomatic phrasing when describing something he can't do, and a minute later they're sitting down with their accordions. "It's like Guitar Hero," Chad says. It's really not.

Nick and Vicki finish the plate spinning, and Vicki lets out such a long, high scream I can't believe it doesn't shatter every plate in earshot. I don't care if they're shatterproof, they must be bulletproof to withstand that sonic onslaught. They're off to the clue in third place, which would be pretty good for a team that started in last if everyone didn't effectively begin this leg at the same time anyway.

Jill and Thomas, meanwhile, are getting nowhere, as Thomas realizes there's a third "song." And now there's three times the whining. Gary and Mallory try with the band, and have some fun with it as they finish the Detour in fourth. Michael and Kevin finish the plate task, so they're soon on their way in fifth place.

Brook and Claire are still in first when they get to Bank Bridge, and the clue begins, "The mystery continues." This is a pretty charitable use of the word "mystery," if you ask me. But anyway, Phil says they'll now have to travel by foot to "this historic building," which the subtitles identify as 1 Vladimirskiy Prospekt Tower," and which the producers have identified with a little Amazing Flag hanging from the awning. Phil specifies, "They may ask locals for help, but may not pay a taxi to lead them." Now why would Phil mention that unless someone was going to do the exact opposite of that? Once they reach the building, a maximum of two racers at a time will be allowed to climb up to the tower atop the building, probably because it looks like it's ready to collapse at any moment if more than two people go up there. It's one of those things where you have to scan the skyline for your clue, but in this case, there's also a clue in the tower: a little figurine of an elaborately minaretted structure called The Church on Spilled Blood -- which just happens to be visible from the tower's wraparound balcony. Then they'll have to walk to the church for their clue. Now why would I put that word in italics unless someone was going to do the exact opposite of that?

Brook and Claire clear out of there, and Nat and Kat arrive at the bridge soon thereafter, followed by Nick and Vicki and then Michael and Kevin. Michael reminds Kevin, "Read the clue, Kevin. Don't miss a word." And the second, we see Kevin asking their cab driver, "Show us," in clear violation of the clue's instructions. That would be more ironic if the echo from the audio on Michael's request didn't make it obvious that he said it at some other point in the race, when they were inside. Either way, they're still breaking the rules as they start jogging unencumbered behind the cab that's illegally leading them to the spot, with their backpacks in the trunk. Gary and Mallory get to the Bank Bridge in fifth and start hoofing it like they're supposed to.

Back at the circus, Stephanie is suggesting a numeric code to Chad to help guide him through the song. "We're gonna get it before Thomas and Jill," she says confidently. That certainly seems to be the case, as Jill and Thomas are experiencing nothing but frustration. And the act ends with a close-up of a creepy clown statue and a creepy clown cackle, because it wasn't scary enough without them.

After the ads, Jill and Thomas decide to switch again, and aren't happy to see that everyone is gone from inside the tent. Jill's bummed, but Thomas figures that means the task is actually possible. He gives her a hug and says they can do it. Wow, a positive attitude!

Outside, Chad and Stephanie are making a run at it with the band. Apparently Stephanie has some musical background as well, about which Chad says, "I knew I would be the lone straggler." Of course, the difference between the two of them is that when Chad's a drag on the team, Stephanie calls it good teamwork. They finish in 6th place. "We should start a band," she says as they head back to their cab. Sure, if they want to argue like Oasis all the time. Trying to convey the idea of the Bank Bridge, Chad mimes wings to their driver, who looks at us blankly. But once they're underway, Stephanie says she was proud of Chad, who overcame his tone deafness. "And my sausage fingers get in the way," he adds. Wow, what a catch.

Team QVC has found a local to guide them to the building and get their kiss count up to nine. Soon there's going to be one of those Amazing Subtitles updating us on that number. I hope it's a numeral inside a pair of red cartoon lips. "Look in every doorway. It's gonna be marked. We'll just keep looking," Brook chatters as they jog right on past the Amazing Flag hanging from the awning. Team @ are still looking for it when they encounter Nick and Vicki, who are also still searching. Michael and Kevin are jogging along behind their cab, while Michael voices doubts about whether this is the right direction. Wouldn't it be awesome if it turned out they were not only breaking the rules, they were doing so to be led the wrong way? Gary and Mallory are also searching, Mallory doing her usual desperate praying. Jesus is like, "Fine, put it on the pile."

Back at the circus tent, Jill and Thomas finish the Detour at last (and in last), and they know it. Didn't take them long to drop the whole way down the field, but at least they still have time to recover. There must be no more chilling feeling in the race than realizing that seventh place isn't going to cut it any more. While the field shrinks, so does the margin of error.

Team @ and Nick/Vicki are sticking together, and Nick interviews that Nat and Kat are the strongest team in the race. "They're very smart and they're athletic," Vicki agrees. I guess they got to know each other during the doctors' visit to the back of the pack. Sure enough, they soon find the right doorway and head inside. Because the maximum occupancy of the tower is two, only Kat and Nick head up the ladder to the top of the crumbling turret, where they both head straight out to the outer balcony and start scanning. They see nothing, because they went right past the window with the mini church sitting in it. "Maybe we're overlooking it. Maybe we're overthinking this right now, "Nick says, with the mini-church sitting in the window right behind him. Something tells me that overthinking is not something that Nick is often accused of.

Jill and Thomas find Bank Bridge and get their clue. Meanwhile, Michael and Kevin have been led to the right building, and they head inside to wait their turn. They can't go up until Nick and Kat come down, after all. Brook and Claire are still down at street level, until Brook somehow spots people up in the tower several blocks away and hurries them off in that direction. I'm not sure whether to be more amazed that Brook sighted the tiny figures from so far away or that they wandered so far from it in the first place after being led right to it. Soon they arrive, noting the cabs waiting outside. "That's not fair at all," Brook complains, as though whoever cabbed it over here isn't doomed to have it bite them in the ass. Inside, Kevin greets them, "You guys are carrying your bags?" Brook says that's what they were supposed to do. Kevin suddenly looks worried, although it's obviously a random shot from some other moment just dropped in there.

Up top, Kat and Nick are still seeing nothing, except a pair of chimneys marked with graffiti of a crude rendering of Munch's "The Scream" and the legend "DS-13," whatever that is. Nick doesn't think that's obvious enough; "When you see them, you know that's it." Says the race expert who doesn't know how Fast Forwards work. Suddenly Nick notices the figurine behind them and says, "Look at this, look how dumb we are." What's this "we" shit? If Kat's dumb, it's only from several minutes of concentrated exposure to Nick. They figure out where they're supposed to go, and Nick suggests they pretend to the teams waiting below that they don't know anything beyond the "DS-13" thing. He comes down the ladder chattering to the second group of teams about DS-13, even walking out saying, "Let's go find DS-13." There's such a thing as overselling, but Kevin buys it. "I don't think Nick would lie to us, cause he's awesome," Kevin says, which is odd, because Kevin is awesome, and yet when he called Nick "awesome" he was clearly lying. In any case, he and Claire head up to have a look of their own. They also miss the figurine at first, and Kevin suggests giving up and going to DS-13, but Claire doesn't think that's a great idea. I guess she could invite him to go on ahead, but they don't really seem to play that way. Or else she just forgot that she was up there with someone besides her partner.

Walking montage. Chad and Stephanie are the last to get the Bank Bridge clue and they start walking to the tower. Team @ and Nick/Vicki are walking, not cabbing, to their destination. Jill and Thomas are running around asking for directions. Instead of finding anyone who knows where they should go, they run into Gary and Mallory. Soon the four of them are running around together, the blind leading the blondes.

Up at the tower, Kevin's saying to Claire, "I hope it's not something obvious," which is the kind of remark the Amazing Editors just love, because it means they can show the figurine three feet from the back of his head. Finally Claire turns and spots it, so they figure that's where they're going: the matching, life-sized place on the horizon. On their way down, Kevin remarks, "I think Nick may have lied to us, though." Down on the street, the two teams decide to try describing the building to their cab drivers -- which they aren't supposed to be using. So Brook warned Kevin about the no-cab clue, and then broke it herself. Usually the reverse happens.

Time for the third pair of racers to climb the tower, and this time it's Thomas and Mallory, who have found the place before Chad and Stephanie did. Thomas is sure they're looking for a red and yellow flag somewhere on the skyline, failing to notice the figurine just like everyone else. Chad and Stephanie get some directions on the street, and finally Thomas notices the figurine behind hem. "My gosh, we're so dumb," Mallory says. Look, it happened again! All four of them head out of the building on foot with Thomas in the lead, telling the other three, "It's, like, that way." They run past Chad and Stephanie, which makes them happy to know they aren't last any more. More running and jogging, and soon the two lead teams (that being Nick/Vicki and Nat/Kat) are in the shadow of the church, which Nick reverently describes as "that big son of a bitch." In front of the church, they find and open the clue, which Team @ reads in harmony as though they're still performing a musical task: "Where am I? Peter the Great is buried inside me." Phil says that would be the Peter and Paul Fortress, an impressive structure on the river that from the air looks like a six-pointed ninja star. The clue is at that facility's "gorodki courts," whatever those are. The two lead teams asks some locals -- including a guy at an information booth, who apparently isn't allowed to give information that's not about the church -- where Peter the Great is buried, and come up empty. Why not look in Peter the Great's tomb?

Team YouTube and Team QVC pull up to the church in their illegal taxis, which the other teams see while they're waiting to get on a tour bus. "Did you guys lie to us?" Kevin yells at them across the street. Nick plays dumb, and pretty convincingly, but Kevin isn't fooled. Except Nick claims to us that he doesn't know what Kevin is talking about, so it's possible he actually did forget. Now that Kevin has righteously confronted the wrongdoers, they head over to the clue box and open it up, agreeing to continue to work together and trust Kevin's "really smart" taxi driver. Obviously that taxi driver didn't get a gander the clue. Across the street, Nat and Kat have stepped onto a tour bus just long enough to find out from the guide where Peter the Great is buried, so now they have a destination. Nick wonders what they're waiting for, and they split up to go back to their taxis. Which Nat and Kat pretty much have to do anyway, since their backpacks are still in theirs. While Kevin rides to the destination, he says they want to beat Nick and Vicki to show them that lying doesn't help them. You know what does help, Kevin? Reading the clue.

Chad and Stephanie have found the tower, and Stephanie climbs up while Chad hangs back and tells us, "I'm trying more and more to let her make decisions and let her do things without me." Big of him. What else does he "let" her do? Up above, Stephanie's having the same problem everyone else did, which isn't surprising.

Nick and Vicki are having trouble hailing a taxi. "Why won't they stop for us?" Vicki wonders. Well, you're both a little scary-looking. Take out a piercing or two and see if you don't have better luck. She leads them back to where their original cab was. Team @ has already returned to Bank Bridge and their original driver, who's all ready to drive them to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nick and Vicki arrive a bit later, out of breath, only to discover that the taxis there are waiting on other people. Following her, Nick bitches about this "brilliant Vicki idea. Get off the main road to go into a ditch." He yells some criticism at her, then mutters, "Moron." The subtitles are certainly helpful there, as I'm sure they will be when Nick and Vicki watch this at home. Meet the new improved Nick, everyone.

Meanwhile, in the cab to the Fortress, Claire has just looked at their clue and how it says, "You must walk to your destination." Which they are emphatically not doing. Brook realizes that means they have to go back to the tower, and although the driver doesn't look happy, he turns them around anyway. What, do the taxi meters in St. Petersburg unwind if you retrace your route? Up ahead, Michael and Kevin realize that Team QVC are no longer behind them. Brook says that Michael and Kevin are going to get penalized, and they feel bad enough about it that it causes a commercial break. My question is, how come hardly anybody ever double-checks their clues like Claire just did? I get that the only practical time to do that is when you're crammed into the back of a cab with your partner and your sound guy, when the last thing you want to be doing is rooting around in your paperwork, but we've seen so many people screw themselves out of the race by missing an important part of the clue, while hardly anyone ever gets eliminated as a result of accidentally elbowing someone.

After the ads, Brook interviews of Michael and Kevin's predicament, "We had no choice. Even if we'd wanted to help them, it would have been extremely difficult." So they didn't want to help them anyway? That doesn't seem to be entirely the case. Still, between that and Awesome Nick's Awesome Lie, Team YouTube must be feeling a little alone right now.

Back at the tower, Stephanie descends the tower ladder, having given up and asking Chad to go up and look. She seems pretty frustrated. Brook and Claire are dropped off back outside the tower, now on foot, and they start hoofing it back to the church. Up top, Chad's not finding anything right away, either, but he soon spots the figurine in the window ledge. "It was right in front of your frigging face!" he hollers down to Stephanie. "I love it when he rubs it in," she tells us. Must be a lot to love. They get into the cab and Chad laughs in her face. Charming as always. I guess I should be happy that he isn't yelling at her like he usually does when they're in last place, but maybe he should stop mocking her for being an idiot when he clearly hasn't read the clue that says they shouldn't even be in this cab right now.

Nat and Kat arrive at the gorodki courts outside the fortress and open the clue, whose opening question is, "Between the two of you, who is the real player?" Could that be any less specific? Maybe a question like, "Which of you wants to do the Road Block?" or "Who metabolizes food and breathes oxygen?" Whatever the case, Kat's doing it, and she reads, "Master a centuries-old Russian game to receive your clue." Do they get centuries to do it in?

Suddenly Phil's at some kind of outdoor game court, informing us with the authority of a born Kiwi, "Americans love their bowling. But here in St. Petersburg, everyone from Peter the Great to Josef Stalin played a difficult Russian version of the game that could take the teams quite a bit of time--" While he's saying this, he steps up on a short little stool of sorts that's set up at the end of a marked lane. And a dude hurls a club from the other end of the lane which knocks the legs out from under the stool, sending Phil stumbling to all fours. Not even he looks cool doing that. "--to master," he finishes from a half-crouch, smiling sheepishly in a way that makes him a better sport than half the people on the race. Then we see other people playing the game of "gorodki," which involves knocking a group of "pins" (actually short, fat wooden dowels) that are set up in different patterns out of a marked area. They have two tries before the pins are reset and they have to start over, "just like in American bowling." What else does it have in common with our version? Do some Russians vaguely remember a show called Gorodki for Rubles? Does the Russian cartoon character Homer Simpovich carry a club instead of a ball, making him even more dangerous than our version? These are the kinds of things I want to know but Phil never tells me. Anyway, after the racers have cleared three different configurations, the gorodki coach will give them their clue. Kat gets started, and knocks out all but two, leaving herself what looks like a gnarly split. She picks up the spare, though, because that bat is about four feet long. On to the one.

Nick and Vicki finally get a cab. "It was a third-grader mistake," Nick tells her unhelpfully. But far be it from him to blow up at her. Jill/Thomas and Nick/Mallory have found the clue box outside the Church on Spilled Blood, and they continue to stick together while not finding anyone to help them.

Brook and Claire are back at the church for the second time, and jump into a cab to get to the Fortress. "Okay now we have followed the rules," Claire confirms. "Yep!" Brook agrees. It seems to be a load off their minds.

Jill/Thomas and Gary/Mallory now know where they're going, but still don't have any cabs between them. Or their bags, because those are still in the cabs they left behind. This must be a pretty small neighborhood these three landmarks are in if people can keep walking back to their cabs and everything. Over at the Fortress, Kat knocks down another gorodki cluster. Michael and Kevin arrive, randomly running past a bride and groom on their way to the gorodki courts, which I'm sure makes the Amazing Producers feel like they missed some kind of opportunity somewhere. Michael's doing this one, and although he can certainly hit the pins, he doesn't hit them hard enough to clear them out of the area like he's supposed to. "Maybe it looks easier than it is," Kevin winks diplomatically. to arrive are Brook and Claire, somehow still in third despite having to retrace a chunk of the leg on foot. Brook's doing this one, and she starts throwing them wide, babbling to Claire, "It's not as easy as it looks." Claire keeps telling her to focus, which may be her polite way of saying, "I was counting on five minutes' peace while this kept you busy, and by God I plan to get it." Kat seems to be hung up on her third one, which is better than how badly Michael is still hung up on his first. Kevin says he wishes he'd done this, but he's done four Road Blocks and Michael's only done two and they were trying to balance it out. Also, he adds, "I didn't think this would be that hard." Well, it may only be that hard for Michael, because Kat gets her third grouping, and their last clue: "Enter the Fortress and make your way to the Pit Stop," they read, because apparently they're not actually inside the Fortress's walls yet. As we get to see an artillery cannon being fired, Phil says the teams will now need to find "this bastion, the Pit Stop for this leg of the race." Which raises the obvious question of how many of the racers even know what a bastion is. As usual, the last team to check in may be eliminated. Or they may not, in which case they may or may not have to do a Speed Bump in the leg. I don't know, ask Nick and Vicki. Nat and Kat head inside.

Chad and Stephanie get out of their cab outside the Church on Spilled Blood. "Look at you go, girl," Chad says as she sprints ahead of him to the clue box. We get a look at the clue, in which we also learn that, "The writer Dostoyevsky was imprisoned within me," but who cares about writers. The very first group of people they ask know about the Peter and Paul Fortress, so they're soon on their way, smiling like they're not in last place at all.

Jill and Thomas get in a cab to the Peter and Paul Fortress, Thomas pointing it out to the driver on a tattered street map that looks like he bought it in the Notre Dame student bookstore the first week of his freshman year. Gary and Mallory also find a taxi.

Inside the Fortress, Nat and Kat soon find the bastion. Phil gestures to them as they approach and gives the greeter -- a tall man in the uniform of a modern Russian naval officer -- a questioning look. "Eh, not bad," the greeter seems to nod. He welcomes them to the Fortress and shakes their hands, and Phil tells them they're team number one, and they've won $5,000 each. Someone forgot to go shopping again. "You feel like you've made a target of yourselves by performing so well?" he asks them. Kat says they're afraid to be eliminated if they don't go all out. "It's too late, we can't take the target off, so now we just better stay in front," Nat adds. Hard to argue with that plan.

"It's taking a while but I know he'll get it," Kevin assures us as Michael continues to not get it. Brook, however, does, sending not only the pins in her first group flying, but also the cheapo-camera that's been positioned at the corner of the area she's supposed to clear, which gives us a look at what a gorodki pin sees as it's flying across the ground. Michael's saying he can't do it, but Kevin promises he can. Claire gives us an update on Brook's progress, which is nothing we didn't know except for how, "She's already got a fan base there watching her." That would be a trio of pubescent boys watching from a nearby park bench like they've never seen a skinny blonde American chick in tight clothes playing gorodky before. Brook does a little dance for them while waiting for her bats to be brought back to her, getting way too much encouragement from Claire. She and Michael both take a few more bad shots, and another gorod-kam takes one as well. Brook gets the second one done, while Michael continues to fail and Kevin moans, "please, please, please" and gets more and more frustrated. Brook picks up a spare on her third one, and as usual they celebrate before getting their clue. "Let's go back to get our bags," Brook suggests, and they run back out toward the taxi stand. Kevin is trying to stay positive: "Hopefully we'll get one before another team shows up or else we might be out."

But what if two teams show up, because here are Nick/Vicki and Chad/Stephanie. Nick and Stephanie are doing it, and freaking Kevin out. Vicki tells us she's glad Nick's doing this; "He can take his aggression out on this." That's not creepy at all. Nick cleans up, taking an early lead over the other two teams still there. Michael knocks out all but two, then misses clearing them out on the second toss and gives a nervous laugh. "I don't think this is funny," Kevin says, like that's the only reason Michael ever laughs. Michael agrees with Kevin that it isn't. "We're gonna get last 'cause of this," Kevin says. Well, not exactly, even though Nick has just knocked down a second group.

Jill and Thomas arrive at the bastion in sixth place, and Thomas announces he's doing it. Stephanie throws her club clear off the course, but Chad isn't too worried, seeing how badly Michael's doing. Nick gets his third grouping in two shots, so they're done with the Road Block and get to head to the Pit Stop. Unless there's still a Speed Bump between here and there. No? No. Meanwhile, Thomas knocks out his first group.

Brook and Claire make it up the stairs to the Pit Stop, and it turns out that going back to their cab nearly ate up the whole lead they had on Nick and Vicki, who come in right behind them. They're team number two and three, respectively. "You guys corrected yourselves, didn't you?" Phil remarks to Team QVC. Brook starts telling their whole story, mercifully capping it off at the end by simply saying, "It was brutalizing." No, listening to Brook's entire detailed account of it would have been brutalizing.

Gary and Mallory arrive at the Fortress in last place, wisely carrying their bags, and Gary's doing the Road Block. Watching Thomas from behind, Jill coaches, "A little more to your left." He takes the time to stop what he's doing, turn around, and snot at her, "Thank you, Jill," like he doesn't spend all of her Road Blocks hollering at her. It would serve him right if he missed his second grouping, but he knocks it down. Gary turns out to be a savant at this, getting a strike on his first throw. "Look at Gary crushing it over there!" Chad calls out, because every time he compliments his girlfriend he has to compliment another racer at some point in the leg. Michael is having a breakthrough; he gets all but one of his pins out, then picks up the spare with his second throw, so he's finally got one done, much to Kevin's relief. Stephanie also finishes her first one. Gary, meanwhile, is hurling his bat hard enough so that every throw is a strike. "You're just an athlete today!" Mallory tells him happily. Thomas finishes up, so he and Jill are in fourth place as they head out to pay their cabbie. And Gary finishes up, but since he and Mallory have already paid and are carrying their bags, they get to go straight in to the Pit Stop, making them team number four. Even at the very end the rankings are changing.

Speaking of changing ranks, Kevin moans that they got there in second place and now they're in last place, it being down to Michael and Stephanie. Michael knocks down a group of pins, but it takes his second toss to sweep them clear, so he's got two done. "On the first try, after taking an hour on the first one," Kevin points out. Now that's a learning curve. Or a learning backwards-L, as the case may be. Stephanie gets her second one, too. But Michael's gotten his third, so they're done. "Michael and Kevin just left, so I think we're in last place right now," Chad says, surprisingly calmly. Stephanie misses by a mile. "It's either one side or the other, it's never in the middle," she says like it's funny.

Thomas is trying to pay off his taxi, but he's not accepting the amount that Thomas is offering. He tries to grab Jill's bag as a hostage, I guess, with Jill still strapped into it. "Give him the money," Thomas says, separating them. Michael and Kevin are also coming up short, with their cabbie demanding 10,000 rubles (that's about $326.50). Kevin offers all the cash they have, but they soon find their bags being dragged toward a trunk, as well. Dude, Russian cabbies are not to be fucked with.

Back at the gorodki court, Stephanie isn't hitting much more than the camera. I think the show's just doing it on purpose now "Come on, damn!" Chad rages. "That's not helping me," she says.

Stephanie misses again after the ads. "It's like I'm trying to avoid it," she says. Chad doesn't seem amused. Outside, two teams are still trying to get their cabbie to take what they have, and Jill realizes she has a stash of American dollars. Thomas shoves sixty bucks (a paltry 1,800 rubles) into the driver's hand and they take off. "Jill, you rock!" Thomas yells as they run back in. Kevin is trying to get their driver to take three thousand. "We have to go, we're in last place," he whines. Maybe he'd be able to cover the fare if he hadn't illegally used the taxi twice in this leg. Jill and Thomas run past Chad and Stephanie, happy to still see them at the task. And then on up to the Pit Stop mat, where they stand there licking their lips while waiting for Phil to tell them they're team number five. Quite a roller coaster for those two this leg.Michael has found $40 USD in his Amazing Purse, which seems to satisfy their driver, so they're running back to the fortress, Kevin telling him to "run like you've never run before." Which is how Michael always runs anyway: like he's never done it before.

Seeing them go by, Chad whines, "Stephanie, please." She says she's trying to focus (translation: shut your yap), and her shot succeeds. They get their clue in last place, and Chad wants to just run straight in and abandon their bags with their cab driver. "I'm just gonna follow your lead. I'm tired as hell," Stephanie pants. Which may be the secret to why she's still with him. Inside, Michael and Kevin are wandering around looking for a bastion. Chad begs Stephanie to hurry, and after the obligatory mat-approach shot, the second-to-last team is... Chad and Stephanie. Phil looks at them and remarks, "I notice that you've turned up without your backpacks. Have you paid your cab?" Chad sys they haven't, and Phil tells them to go take care of that before he can check them in, clearly disappointed that he has to deal with such idiots.

And here are Michael and Kevin, who smile hopefully at Phil until he tells them, "You guys broke a couple of rules." "We did?" Kevin gasps. Phil reminds them about the taxi that led them to the tower, and then the taxi they took from the Tower to the Church on Spilled Blood, both of which were forbidden. Two penalties at 30 minutes apiece means they'll be waiting an hour before they can check in. Yeah, they're not going to recover from that. They go back down and sit on some steps to wait, but unless Chad and Stephanie spend a whole lot of time chatting with their cabbie, they're not waiting for anything but Philimination. You know that clock that appears onscreen whenever someone has a penalty to wait out? It's not even bothering to show up for this. "Call me when there's some suspense," it says, and bops itself on the snooze button.

Chad tells Stephanie, "Maybe we should hustle. We might still be in it. I mean, anything can happen." That's some high-octane optimism right there, but the hell of it is that it's not unfounded. They get their backpacks from the driver on the street, pay him off, and head back inside. Meanwhile, Michael and Kevin are still sitting on the steps. Kevin has just reread the part of the clue that states, "you must walk to your destination." "I didn't see that," Kevin groans. "You didn't read it," Michael chuckles. Again, Michael laughs at everything, but I can't help thinking he's got to be a little amused that in the end it's come down not to his physical infirmities but Kevin's failure to RTFC.

Chad and Stephanie arrive at the mat, already thinking they're in last place when Phil asks them if they know they broke a rule. Right, remember that taxi from the tower to the Church on Spilled Blood? Chad was being such a condescending ass during that ride that I forgot it was also against the rules. So that's a 30-minute penalty for them. But then, in the same grave tone of voice, he adds, "Michael and Kevin, they're waiting out a one-hour penalty, which means that you are officially team number six, and you are still in the race." So it ended up being not about who raced the fastest but who broke the fewest rules. Chad and Stephanie hug and cry, and Stephanie says, "I thought I lost it for us today." She interviews that Chad was great and supportive during this leg. By Chad standards, maybe, but the fact that that's good enough for her proves that her real talents lie not in music or even teamwork but in denial.

After they've cleared the mat, Phil calls Michael and Kevin back up to officially Philiminate them. Michael's philosophical about it, but Phil notices that Kevin doesn't look happy. Put on the spot, Kevin rallies and says, "I'm happy with how we did and, uh, I'm really proud of my dad for doing this race for me." He says Michael has always been his role model. Over a sepia montage of special Team YouTube moments (the tiny boats in England, the one wheelbarrow in Ghana, the ice chairs in Sweden, their penalty stairs just now, the fishing boat in Norway) Kevin says he's learning to not get frustrated and be positive, which is strange, because this leg was the most frustrated and least positive we've seen him. Michael says he knows his son a lot better than he did before the race. "When the kids turn into teenagers they think their parents don't know anything, and I feel like Kevin's become a stranger to me, but I think this race is going to pull us together again. I'm really proud of him." It's nice for Michael that he was eliminated here rather than Ghana. If it had been the latter he probably would have been too exhausted to be that articulate.

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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