Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Take Two
By M. Giant | Season 18 | Episode 1 | Aired on 02.21.2011
Christina thinks she's done, so she and Ron head over to the sailing club. Vyxsin and Jet are still decoding. The two dad teams meet Team ASL/Go Team coming back, and they swap the completed phrase for directions to where they're going next. Meanwhile, Jet also thinks he's done, even though he's only decoded one line, using the back of his train ticket for scratch paper. Vyxsin also makes an early exit, later describing their strategy as, "Okay, I sort of solved it, let's run away!" Okay, points for self-mockery.
The commodore hands out the next clues to Christina, Mel, Cara, and Margie, in that order. I'm not thrilled that more teams who didn't do the work are getting clues, but at least they're waiting behind the ones who did. They've all cleared out by the time Jet and Cord show up at the dock. The commodore confirms that they are in the right place, but asks, "Have you got the other part of it?" "My part of it?" Cord wonders. Jet realizes they're missing something, and they head back. Back on the horse!
The Goths run past the beach and quickly get the phrase from Margie just as she's about to hop onto her skiff. Margie diplomatically interviews, "It just makes sense to maybe have a team that we feel like we might be able to beat at the finish line." And it just makes me annoyed that almost half the teams are getting to proceed without actually having completed part of the task. But I guess I can't stop the re-racers from helping each other out, no matter how loud I yell at the TV. Which is not to say I didn't try.
Team Go Team is out on the bay, and as the boat is tacking, or whatever that thing is when the sail swings over and everyone ducks under the boom (get me with the nautical lingo!), it swings too far and capsizes. "Flip us back, flip is back," Jaime says, but soon she and Cara are hanging in the water beneath the overturned hull as it's coming down on them, while the two-man crew scrambles around on the keel -- which is now the top --trying to right the craft. "I hate to rush you boys, but we're in a race," Jaime calls up from below, as patiently as I've ever heard her. One of the crew tells them, "Head down and hold on." A moment and a dunking later, they're back upright, with Jaime desperate to make up time.
The three parent/child teams sail along, pretty close together. Jaime and Cara clearly didn't lose much time, because they grab a clue next. Jaime yells at one of the crew guys, "Off my foot, off my foot, off my foot! Thank you!" Did they give her the most incompetent crew on purpose? And more importantly, is that going to keep happening throughout the race? Because that would be awesome. Ron gets the next clue, followed by Margie, then Mel.