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After last week's Pit Keep Going, the train back to Kunming for the continuation of the leg is late enough in the evening that there's time for an inter-team basketball game -- and time for Kent and Vyxsin to catch up with everyone else. Arriving in Kunming during the wee hours, with a Double-U Turn coming up, a stop at the Flower Market leads to cab poaching. The Detour is a choice between recreating a theater performance in miniature and carrying and installing a solar water heater on a skyscraper's rooftop. Kent and Vyxsin complete the latter and arrive at the Double U-Turn in third place, seconds ahead of the cheerleaders -- and then U-Turn them right to their faces. Cara and Jaime immediately U-Turn the Globetrotters, who were already in last place. The race then proceeds to the Stone Forest, where a Road Block requires re-racers to assemble a wooden 3-D puzzle representing a life-sized dinosaur. The U-Turned teams make it there ahead of Zev/Justin and Gary/Mallory, the latter of whom use their Express Pass and get to the Pit Stop in second place, right behind Jet and Cord. Kent and Vyxsin make it to the Pit Stop in fourth place, but have to wait out a half-hour penalty that knocks them down to fifth. Justin and Jaime both get stuck and frustrated on the dinosaur, but it's Team Go Team who's out of it in ninth place. So at least now Team Asperger's is guaranteed a better placing than last time around.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!As with the last episode that followed a "To Be Continued" (a mere three weeks ago, mind you), we're dropped right into the middle of the action -- or, rather, the end of last week's action. Kent & Vyxsin, who are already in last place, once again realize on the bus to Old Town Li Jiang that they are without their Amazing Purse, not to mention the money and passports it contains. Flashback of them getting off the gondola and leaving it behind, complete with highlighting. And we also get a reiteration of Vyxsin saying that if it's on the gondola, they're never going to see it again. Where could they have left it where they would be more likely recover it? Under the wheels of the bus before it took off?
You may also remember that we left Zev and Justin while they were still doing the Horn Detour, and not at all sure they were going to be able to manage it. But any attempt to generate suspense on that score has been wisely abandoned, as we now see them arrive at the Pit Keep Going in Li Jiang. They look exhausted upon hearing the news that they're in eighth place, and still in it. "As a matter of fact, you're still racing right now, "Phil says, handing them their clue. We have no idea from last week what it says, so it's good that Zev now reads from it, "Travel by train to Kunming, China." That's the city they flew into from Tokyo last week on their way here, so now they'll be taking the 400-mile train ride back. Phil tells us that from the Kunming train station, they'll go to the Dounan Flower Market (which we see at night, making it rather less spectacular-looking) to find their clue. Zev's not done reading, though: "Warning: a Double U-Turn will appear somewhere in this leg of the race." Let's hope that makes up for the fact that Kent and Vyxsin are virtually guaranteed to catch up with everyone else before the commercial break.
The Goths are back at the gondola, where a conductor at the bottom points them up to the top. Someone must have found the Amazing Purse and turned it in, which immediately renders it even more Amazing. They ride the gondola back to the peak, pretty worried, but as soon as they get there they see an office where their lost fanny pack is sitting on a desk waiting to be collected. They run in and grab it, Kent kissing it relief before they get right back on the gondola. On the ride down, Vyxsin diagnoses, "Seriously, there's like some kind of screws loose up here in our mind." Well, recognizing it is a step in the right direction. Just make sure you have all your stuff before you take any more steps.
Margie and Luke, who won the first half of this leg, are high-fiving each other in the cab on the way to the train station. But when they arrive at the ticket window -- at 12:01 PM, a mere four hours after this leg effectively began -- they're told that the train to Kunming leaves at 7:05 PM. "[We'll] all be on the same train," Margie says ruefully. Of course. What would a non-elimination leg be if there were consequences for coming in last? Although I can't say I miss the Speed Bump, because they were mostly dumb.
Kent and Vyxsin have arrived in Old Town. They make short work of the prayer wheel with the Chinese zodiac on it (she's a horse and he's a rabbit, should you care, in which case I'm sorry), and make their smartest move of this leg by opting for the Hammer task of the Detour. "I don't want to have to navigate," Vyxsin says. As with the Cowboys on the second episode, the editing shifts deceptively into "Doomed Losers" mode as we watch them make the candy, then finish and start heading uphill through town to find Phil, while talking about what they'll be jumping off of if they get eliminated. When they reach the mat at last, Phil is appropriately grave as he tells them they're the last team to arrive. But they cheer up in a hurry as he tells them they're still racing and gives them the clue. He's also got bad news: "You chose to take an alternate flight from Tokyo to Kunming." Well, after they missed the required flight, their other choices were either staying in Tokyo or walking to Kunming. "It specifically told you what flights you were allowed to take. For that you have incurred a thirty-minute penalty and you will need to wait that out before I check you in to the Pit Stop." They take that in stride, because it's not like they're in a position to be picky right now. "Thank you for this clue, Phil," Vyxsin says, like she's talking to a boss who has decided not to fire her just yet. They open the clue and read all about the Double U-Turn, and as they run off, Phil calls after them, "Go hard, guys. You've still got a chance!" Don't remind us.
So they find a cab to the train station, and on the ride, they agree not to tell anyone about their penalty, figuring that if the other re-racers know about it, they'll want to U-Turn them. I think they'll want to U-Turn them anyway for blowing this last leg so spectacularly and then catching up in spite of it all, but as Vyxsin says to Kent, "You're so smart." So he must know something I don't, besides the chemical symbol for Bismuth.
Most of the other trams have apparently made it to Li Jiang train station. Cord narrates that the Globetrotters had a basketball with them. That's a wise use of backpack space: 455.9 cubic inches of empty air. I hope they at least figured out a way to roll socks up inside it or something. Cord goes on to say that since there's a "basketball goal" outside, how's about a little three-on-three? To make it even, the teams are Jet, Flight Time, and Kisha against Cord, Jen, and Big Easy (keep in mind that Kisha also played basketball, at the University of Louisville). All six players are wearing Globetrotter shirts, which means that Flight Time and Big Easy's backpacks must be practically empty now. There's the obligatory "Sweet Georgia Brown" on the soundtrack while the game proceeds. The show doesn't exactly keep us updated on the score, but Jet marvels, "Who'd have ever thought that we'd be playing basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters in China?" Like it's some big thing. Actually, they've attracted a small audience (five people, or about 0.% percent of China's population) and Jet adds that it was like playing basketball with trees. I think he's referring to their height, because Flight Time and Big Easy move pretty quickly to be arboreal-Americans. Jaime and Cara do a little cheerleading routine from the sidelines, using bandannas as pompoms. The game's still going on when Zev and Justin show up. "Kent and Vyxsin are on their way," Zev announces, and Justin adds, "They showed up at the Road Block, like, ten minutes before we finished." This is so the last thing everyone wants to hear that Mallory says, "Don't ruin the basketball game." Whatever, it's degenerated into trick shots anyway.
Speaking of Kent and Vyxsin, she's speculating that they might get caught up by getting to ride the same train as everyone else. "That would be so incredible," she says. Yes, that's the word I was thinking of, but I always thought it was pronounced "inevitable." By the time they arrive, most of the teams have moved inside and switched to cards. "Oh, my gravy, here come Kent and Vyxsin," Flight Time hollers out from inside as they approach. Jet remarks, "They're gonna have some explaining to do." When they join the other teams inside, even Cara and Mallory's smiles look pretty frozen. "I never thought I'd see any of you people ever again," Vyxsin says, like there's no such thing as TARcon, as they claim a neighboring table. Kent also makes a claim, that being that their car broke down in Japan so they missed the flight. Mallory asks if they were given a penalty, but Vyxsin claims that they don't know yet. I would actually buy this, because it seems a little unfair to tell Kent and Vyxsin that they'll have to wait out a penalty at the end of the leg. That has the potential to change their whole strategy for the leg, as we'll be seeing. And not telling the other teams could have the same effect, as we will also see. I'm not saying they should have had to sit out their penalty at the end of this last leg, because it would have had no practical effect whatsoever. Probably the fairest thing to do would be to drop the news of the penalty on them when they arrive at the Pit Stop. But I might just be saying that because I don't like them very much. Of course, neither do any of the other re-racers right now, going by all the suspicious looks they're getting. Jet remarks that this changes everything, overstating the case a bit. "To be continued," he says, a week too late.
Time to board the train, and the re-racers get into their tiny compartments with triple-decker sleeper berths. Zev and Justin grin down at us from their top-tier bunks, looking for all the world like they're at the top of a belfry staircase. But they feel less likely to be murdered at this altitude, at least. That's true; Jaime's not very tall.
The train pulls out, and the thing we know, we're in Kunming, China, which looks pretty busy for the predawn hours of the morning. "Off and running," Kisha says as they disembark. She and Jen seem to be the first team to find a cab, and we hear Jen say that it's 5:30. That is an early start. Ron and Christina are also underway, speaking Mandarin to their driver in what Christina calls their "home court advantage." Zev and Justin, aware of this advantage, are following them. There must be a lot of taxi-related crime in Kunming, because these cabs have so many bars and barriers in them it's like racing (and trying to shoot a TV show) inside a mobile jail. Jaime and Cara are thinking about the Double U-Turn that they know is somewhere ahead. And Vyxsin says she and Kent have got to get it together. Which his odd, because she left her eyebrows behind again.
At the flower market, we see Jen/Kisha, Zev/Justin, and Luke/Margie telling their cabs to wait. Ron and Christina are also there. The sisters are the first to find the clue box among the banks of flowers, because they're often first at the beginning or the middle of a leg when it doesn't matter. They read, "Make your way to the Golden Arches." No, not McDonald's; Phil clarifies that they actually need to go to where two monument-sized Chinese arches face each other in the city. One is known as the Golden Horse and the other is the Jade Cock, which makes it sound like the kind of place that has something for everyone to ride. Jen and Kisha head back to their cab, while Team Asperger's finds the clue box in second place, just ahead of Ron and Christina. But they still want to follow the father-daughter team. "Sure," Christina says unenthusiastically. But I guess if it really bothered them, Ron wouldn't have a problem saying so.
Margie and Luke find the clue in fourth place, and another group of teams starts arriving. Team Go Team, the Globetrotters, and the Cowboys are all clearly seen telling their cabbies to wait, but the Goths and Gary/Mallory are not. The cheerleaders find the clue in fifth, followed by the Goths and the Cowboys, then Gary and Mallory (the latter of whom says, "let's go find a cabdriver," implying that they cut theirs loose) and then the Globetrotters. Outside, Gary and Mallory grab a cab that's waiting for someone else, and the Cowboys find themselves standing to a taxi that's not theirs, but it's the only one left, so what else are they going to do but take it? Cab-poaching rolls downhill, looks like. Both teams get going. The Globetrotters get the clue in last place, and are not pleased to emerge from the market to find their taxi, and indeed all the other taxis, gone. "Somebody's still standing there trying to find a cab," Jet says neutrally as he and Cord ride off in what was probably Flight Time and Big Easy's. The Globetrotters wander around the street calling for a cab. "This is bad, Nate," Flight Time says. Must be, because we're going to commercial. But after a brief, post-commercial search, they find a new one. Must not be as hard to find a cab outside Dounan Flower Market at six in the morning as they thought, even if it is during a commercial break.
To the arches, which tower into the lightening sky. Ron and Christina find the clue box first, with Zev and Justin right behind them. "Honor the Past or Embrace the Future," Christina reads from the Detour clue. Phil narrates, "China is the world's fastest-growing nation, but its people also work hard to preserve its unique cultural history." Hence the Detour choices, which otherwise have absolutely nothing to do with each other. For the Detour called "Honor the Past," they'll "watch a traditional Tibetan performance while testing their powers of perception and memory." But how hard can it be to memorize a show that consists of Tibet being crushed under a giant boot? Actually, the "performance" seems to consist of a bunch of people in different traditional costumes parading around a stage. After watching it without being allowed to take notes, the re-racers will head into a curtained alcove to arrange miniature versions of all fifteen of the performers in the correct order. For "Embrace the Future," Phil claims that they'll take a solar water heating system from a truck, carry it to the roof of a six-story building, and assemble it. It's not as hard as it sounds, because the frame and the tank are already in place, and all they'll have to do is carry and install a couple dozen long, plastic tubes. "When every last one of the solar tubes is correctly in place," Phil says from the nighttime rooftop, "the supervisor will give them their clue." Christina announces that they're doing "Honor the Past," and Justin unabashedly tells us, "We're gonna go where they go," not even bothering to pretend that they're running their own race. Margie and Luke get to the clue box in third place and opt for the solar tubes. "It just seems like an easier task," Margie says, using words that sound a lot like famous last ones. Kisha and Jen are right behind them, but there are no elbows at the clue box before the sisters decide on the memory task. Team Go Team, the Goths, Gary and Mallory, and the Cowboys all get out of their cabs, and some (particularly the Cowboys) are briefly distracted by the McDonald's they pass on the way to the arches. Not the Golden Arches they're looking for. Somehow, despite their earlier cab troubles, the Globetrotters get to the clue box in fifth place and decide on "Embrace the Future." Unfortunately, once they get underway, they don't seem confident in their cabdriver's ability to find it. She has clearly not embraced the part of the future that has GPS in it.
Ron/Christina and Zev/Justin arrive at the location for the "Honor the Past" task, and Justin has so abdicated his team's destiny to them that he even asks Christina if they're having their cabdriver wait. "Just say, 'duh-ut,' [or something like that]" Christina advises, getting a chuckle from Justin. Once inside, they have to change into elaborate costumes of their own for some reason, the most notable feature of which are big yellow hats with wide, circular crowns that have thick yellow fringes hanging all round from them. I think the idea of those is to add a degree of difficulty to what is, essentially, a pretty lame task. They head into the "theater" (which actually looks more like a restaurant dining room), where the "performance " begins. Don't ask me how The Amazing Race got actors to wake up this early.
Margie and Luke get out of their cab, "Looking for the Great Wall of China Building." They find it and have to put on white hardhats and green solar company windbreakers before picking up one of three long cardboard boxes, which they have to schlep up six flights of stairs on their backs. This does look much easier than shuffling dolls around.
The performance ends, but neither team seems confident in their ability to do this on the first try. "I never played with dolls," Ron says, like that's a prerequisite.
Jaime and Cara are still wandering around on foot, and go back to their cabdriver, who points them in the direction of the arches. Kent and Vyxsin fall in behind them. Jaime and Cara are in sixth place as they open the Detour clue and decide on "Embrace the Future." Kent and Vyxsin make the same choice. Back in the cab, they're still worried about the Double U-Turn. That's right, did you know there was a Double U-Turn coming? I'd almost forgotten.
The two final teams, Gary/Mallory and Jet/Cord, get the Detour clue in eighth and ninth, respectively. "We'll do the mental one," Gary says optimistically. Jet and Cord will Embrace the Future. I don't know, that sounds like it might be kind of gay.
Jen and Kisha arrive at the performance, spotting the two cabs waiting outside. Meanwhile, the two lead teams are struggling a bit. Zev and Justin get a no, and the sisters, having changed and watched an encore, are getting to work. As they unpack their figurines Jen, who clearly wants to keep everything straight in her head, says, "Don't talk, don't talk" to Kisha, who was not talking.
Margie and Luke have gotten their first two boxes to the top of the building and are heading back down for the third. That done, they start cutting them open, unpacking the tubes, and start slotting them into place. It's obvious that the challenge of this task is the carrying.
Zev and Justin have figured out their mistake, and soon correct it. Past: Honored! Ron and Christina have just learned their first try was wrong as well. Zev and Justin get their clue, which contains a photo of the place they need to go to . According to the subtitles, that's the Chinese Minority Heritage Center. It also warns, "Caution, Double U-Turn ahead," in case you forgot because you're the guy from Memento. Standing to the Double U-Turn sign, Phil reminds us that two teams can slow down two other teams by making them do both Detours. I still don't love the U-Turn, but at least doubling it ensures a two-way race for last. Zev and Justin are on their way, with Kisha and Jen in second place. Soon both lead teams are back in their own clothes and out on the sidewalk, asking people for directions to the place in the photo, or indeed what the photo is. Ron and Christina get their clue in third place. When they get outside, the other two teams are still trying to figure out how to get there, so clearly their mistake was getting ahead of Ron and Christina in the first place. Christina tells her driver in Mandarin, "Yunnan Province Cultural Center," which is not the same thing the subtitle said a minute ago. Meanwhile, the Globetrotters are still trying to find the building for the solar task. "Hopefully everybody is having the same problem," Big Easy hopes, hopefully.
Jaime and Cara are not having that problem. They arrive and start carrying up one box of tubes between the two of them. On the rooftop, Luke notifies Margie of their arrival, like she didn't hear them coming. Kent and Vyxsin show up while the cheerleaders get busy installing their first box of tubes before going back down for more. Vyxsin nags Kent to go faster up the stairs as they also carry one box between them. This is what happens, Vyxsin, when you date a dude made out of pipe cleaners. Margie and Luke have already finished and earned their clue, so they're off to the Cultural Canter. Future: Embraced! They meet Kent and Vyxsin coming down, causing Vyxsin no end of frustration with Kent's slow progress. "It's a race for a million dollars, you can't walk up some stairs?" she harangues. Kent is either too diplomatic to respond or too winded. Jet and Cord are here as well. Now that they're on the rooftop, Vyxsin gets to be frustrated with Kent's apparent inability to install any of the tubes. Jet and Cord start with their first box. Jaime and Cara initiate a clever system where they each hold one end of two boxes and walk along between them. Kent is still bumbling. "Kent, just put it in," Vyxsin snaps, probably not for the first time in their relationship. The Cowboys are now on the roof and the Goths hare heading back down.
Gary and Mallory are at the theater, with her chanting, "catch up, catch up." A the solar building, Kent and Vyxsin are trying to lift two boxes stacked on top of each other, which Kent can't do. But, seeing the Cowboys pass them on the stairs while using the successful method pioneered by Jaime and Cara, Kent wants to try that method. If only Vyxsin will stop spazzing out at him long enough to explain it to her.
Gary and Mallory are working on the theater task. And here come the Globetrotters, arriving at last (and in last) at the solar building. Hopefully people weren't counting on hot showers this early. Kent and Vyxsin are still struggling with getting their boxes moved, because they could probably both fit inside one of them together. Jaime and Cara are finished, and get their clue in fifth place. And the Globetrotters are simply muscling those huge boxes up the stairs on their shoulders. In the cab, a sweaty Jaime grimly says, "We will U-Turn if we have to." Vyxsin continues to be frustrated with Kent's slowness. You know, like he did with her during the last leg when her brain kept going Blue Screen of Death, except for how he did the opposite of that. The Cowboys get their clue in sixth pace. "Pretty place," Jet remarks, looking a the photo. It's nice how they take time to enjoy the experience, if only for a third of a second.
Now it's a race to the U-Turn. Ron and Christina seem to be arriving first, although he nearly closes the cab door in her face when he gets out, eliciting an indignant squawk from her. Along with those two, the sisters and Team Asperger's are racing to it on foot, and Justin calls out, "No need to get dirty here, we're in the front." Or are they? Everyone runs around, and when there's no clue box in evidence, Christina says they need to go back to their cabs. They run past the people doing early-morning tai chi on the sidewalk (the kind of moment on this show that would look racist if it weren't actually happening) and back to where the taxis are waiting. Christina tells her driver in Mandarin, "This is Kunming Cultural Center, not the Yunnan Province Cultural Center. We want to go to the Yunnan Cultural Center." The problem is obvious: too many cultural centers. Zev, Justin, and Jen watch in confusion until Christina explains, "He brought us to the wrong place." That, they understand. Back into the cabs. "Every inch counts when there's a Double U-Turn coming up, "Justin says. Kisha just hopes the "solar people" didn't get there first.
They did. Luke and Margie are the first to find the Double U-Turn sign outside the right cultural center's wrought-iron gate, but they pass on U-Turning anyone. Moving on to the clue, which is in the box right to the U-Turn sign. According to it, they'll be leaving Kunming and traveling to a place called the Stone Forest, which looks like a rocky field marked by natural stone columns standing dramatically upright. They're back on their way, in what looks like actual morning now. Margie reiterates that they're not U-Turning because they believe they're in first place. She doesn't mention that she and Luke have enough bad U-Turn karma to last them the rest of their lives.
Back at the solar task, Kent and Vyxsin are finishing up in seventh place. In the cab on the way to the cultural center, she says, "We have a chance at U-Turning somebody, if we haven't already been U-Turned ourselves." Gary and Mallory have finished the theater task, so they have their clue in eighth place. Mallory doesn't fail to make a dramatic face at the reminder of the upcoming Double U-Turn.
Jaime and Cara are out of their cab, but they think they're at the wrong place. Jet and Cord spot them and get out. Kent and Vyxsin do the same, but they're smart enough to show their photo to their driver before they go haring off looking for it. Flight Time and Big Easy finish the Detour in last place after the sun is up. The Cowboys find the Double U-Turn sign , and also decline to use it. They read their Stone Forest clue in second place. As they're running back to their cab, Kent sees them and asks if they found it. The Cowboys, for whatever reason, agree to point them in the right direction, in a tiny moment that could have changed the whole outcome of the leg if it had gone the other way. thing we see, the Goths are in a footrace with the cheerleaders for the U-Turn. "Keep 'em behind us and we'll U-Turn them," Kent stage-whispers to Vyxsin. Kent gets to the clue box first, followed by Jaime, then Vyxsin, with Cara bringing up the rear .The cheerleaders have to step back and wait while they watch the Goths stick their own picture on the sign, in a clear signal that they're going to be U-Turning somebody.
Kent asks who they should do. If you have to ask, you shouldn't be using the U-Turn. Jaime and Cara argue for the Globetrotters. Kent asks them, "Who are you all gonna do?" In another tiny but pivotal moment, Jaime and Cara make the potentially fatal mistake of saying there's no one else behind them. Bad move, that. Kent is shuffling through the photos of the potential U-Turn victims while Vyxsin keeps saying, "Globes, they're the strongest." But Kent sticks up Jaime and Cara's photo, right in front of them. Cold! "Sorry, it's the only way we're gonna survive," he says as they leave Jaime and Cara staring disgustedly at their own picture. Remember blind U-Turns? This was an In Your Face U-Turn.
Back from the ads, Vyxsin interviews that in their first race, "One of our most fatal mistakes that we made [because apparently they were legion] was U-Turning a team that turned out to be ahead of us." Flashback to Kent (then "Kynt") pasting up Nicholas & Don's photo, and Kent continues, "and then I looked over at the redheads and I thought, "This is the one team that I know one hundred percent is behind me." Well, if nothing else, he's learned from his mistake. "With that automatic penalty, putting a bullet in the Playboy Bunny was the only thing that was gonna save us." Okay, not Playboy Bunnies. In any case, the Goths run off to read their clue to the Stone Forest. Jaime and Cara still get to U-Turn someone, which doesn't really make any sense to me; they've been U-Turned, so they should have to go back and do the other Detour before they get to proceed with the race, and as far as I'm concerned, that includes U-Turning. But it's not like the show is about to start listening to me now. Sure enough, they ding the Globetrotters, just as planned. They get back on their way, while Cara tries to stay positive in the cab.
Now it's a matter of getting to the Stone Forest. The Cowboys and the Goths are looking for directions. Christina/Ron and the two teams who followed them to the wrong cultural center are belatedly arriving. "Nice, we're good, dude," Justin says as he and Zev run up to the completely filled Double U-Turn sign. Gary and Mallory get to it in fifth, with Jen and Kisha in sixth, and Ron and Christina and their home court advantage in eighth. To Stone Forest!
Margie and Luke, who you'll recall got to this clue first, are burning up time in a hotel lobby getting someone on the phone to direct their cabdriver. Jaime and Cara are on their way to the other Detour, and seem to arrive quickly. "We just gotta do it right the first time;" says the relentlessly positive Cara as they run inside.
Flight Time and Big Easy arrive at the U-Turn sign, where Big Easy takes one look and says, "Huh?" Flight Time says they have to go back, and when Big Easy says they're in last, Flight Time reminds him, "It ain't over, baby." Not until they take another four-hour penalty, at least.
Jaime and Cara finish their second detour on the first try, so they're only in eighth place as they get their clue. En route to Stone Forest at the head of a caravan, Kisha instructs their driver to ditch the other teams, so the caravan is broken and Team Asperger's and Gary/Mallory are cut adrift with drivers who have no idea where they're going. "We left Ron and Christina, this is stupid," Justin says. No stupider than following Ron and Christina was in the first place.
After a quick stop back at the cultural center, Jaime and Cara are on their way to the Stone Forest. The Globetrotters all reach the theater, hoping to "Catch 'em." Something about this building's entrance seems to make people want to say that. Like the cheerleaders, they also seem to succeed on the first try, and head back.
Jaime is pissed off at their driver because he has to stop and get gas. Even Cara is rushing him along, so he must be taking his sweet time. Jaime flashes back to Hawaii. "Our driver stopped for gas there, too." Yep, there it is. Back in the present, Jaime snots that it's a race for everyone but them. "Let's go," she says from the back seat. Flight Time and Big Easy are back at the U-Turn sign, opening their clue to the Stone Forest.
Zev/Justin seem to be lost, and Gary and Mallory are behind them. But the latter team has an Express Pass, remember? "We're not in good shape right now," Justin says. The smart thing to do, if anyone knew for sure they were behind, would have been to U-Turn Gary and Mallory, forcing them to use their Express Pass and thus neutralizing two twists that a lot of people hate anyway.
Jen and Kisha are the first to arrive at the Stone Forest and find the marked path leading into the park. The clue box is under a pagoda-shaped picnic shelter. Kisha reads the Road Block question, "Who's ready for a task 65 million years in the making?" which tells you right away that this is going to have something to do with dinosaurs. Do they get to ride one?
Phil narrates, "Here in Yunnan province, paleontologists have unearthed the oldest and largest dinosaur fossils ever found in China." Then we see him speaking at a normal speed while behind him, a guy assembling one of those wooden dinosaur puzzles in time-lapse photography. Not sure how they did that without a green screen. You know those dinosaur puzzles I'm talking about, right? You do if you know a kid who likes dinosaurs. They're basically little wooden cutouts shaped like dinosaur bones that that have slots in them that allow you to fit them together in the shape of a miniature dinosaur, like . Only the dinosaurs in this task are twenty feet long and made out of plywood. Okay, that's cool. I want to do that. Phil continues, "In this Road Block, teams pay homage to all [the paleontologists'] painstaking work by putting together a life-size dinosaur." They'll each find a "dig site" where a set of "bones" is scattered around a step-stool. There's also a big sign -- one sign -- with a diagram of a Dilophosaurus (a long-tailed, two-legged meat eater) that they'll use for reference as they assemble their models. Phil warns, "They must make sure the dinosaur's joints are properly in place as they go, or a paleontologist will stop them if their dinosaur is unsafe." Because these paleontologists are also structural engineers, apparently. But if they do it right, the paleontologist will give them their clue.
Kisha's doing this one, and they get on a golfcart-train to get there. Ron and Christina get the Stone Forest in second place. Wow, that's a recovery, or else they were just waiting to use their home court advantage until nobody was following them. Margie and Luke are close behind, though. Christina and Margie will be doing this Road Block.
Kisha arrives at the "dig sites," and takes a moment to copy at least part of the diagram onto her note pad before getting to work. As she gets started with a leg, the other two teams show up. Ron calls to Christina in Mandarin, "Work hard, work hard, take your time," which is unusually supportive from him. The first major challenge with these puzzles seems to be getting their pelvises properly oriented. As is so often the case in everyday life.
The Goths arrives at the Stone Garden. "I love dinosaurs," Kent says as he takes this one. Of course he does; he's a Goth, and what's deader than a dinosaur, after all? Margie is trying to reorient her model's hipbone, but once slid together, they don't come back apart easily. Christina's having the same problem. Kent and Vyxsin arrive, and Vyxsin hugs Jen at the waiting area, like they're best buddies. Vyxsin chooses this moment to reveal that they'll have a 30-minute penalty when they get to the Pit Stop at the end of this leg. "We didn't mean to, like, lie, but we kind of fudged around the truth of what happened yesterday," she says, light-pink-faced. Ron takes the opportunity get all sanctimonious to the camera, comparing the Goths to kabuki dancers hiding behind their masks. Whatever, Ron, if I want a morality lesson from you I'll ask your daughter.
On the highway to the Stone Garden, the Globetrotters actually pass the cheerleaders. "It just goes to show that when your taxicab driver decides that he needs to get gas, time can really be made up," Cara says. Too bad they couldn't find a cab driver who was willing to drive until the tank was empty and they were stranded by the side of the road. They'd really zoom to the front then.
Zev/Justin and Gary/Mallory pull up at what is, believe it or not, the building that was the site of the solar task earlier. I'm thinking their confused driver got on the horn with dispatch, who was like, "Pairs of stressed-out Americans who don't know anything, traveling with camera and sound crews? I don't know, we sent a bunch of them to Great Wall Asset Management earlier, try that." Zev gets out, hollering, "Stone Forest?" at anyone who might be passing by. Justin picks up a rock to a tree and then pats the tree to convey the ideas of "stone" and "forest." Amazingly, that seems to get the concept across. Both teams are back on their way, but very worried.
Jet and Cord arrive at the Stone Forest in fifth place. Jet takes this one, as Cord did the last two. I like how that's their only criterion for picking who does what.
Back at the dig site, the hip orientation continues to be a problem for re-racers who aren't Kent (and it is for him as well, he just doesn't know it yet). Jet arrives and runs right out, but a paleontologist stops Kisha, warning, "Not safe." She has to take that section back apart, just as Jet is forcing his dinosaur's hips together, saying, "That's one piece I hope I don't have to take out." It's like assembling prehistoric IKEA furniture. The Globetrotters are arriving, and Flight Time says that since this is probably "strong-arm," Big Easy takes it. "If we can survive this we can survive anything, baby," Flight Time says on the ride to the field, then yells, "We passed them old dirty redheads!" Them old dirty redheads are opening the clue at Stone Forest in seventh place, and Jaime's taking this one.
Out in the field, Christina is trying to hammer her hipbone together with her Amazing Purse. Whatever their language advantages might be in China, her luggage is really taking a beating. Big Easy shows up, to Jet's surprise. The Cheerleaders arrive as well. Kent looks ready to attach his tail segment, but the camera getting a close-up of his dinosaur's underhanging pelvic bones pointing the wrong way thinks otherwise.
Finally, the last two teams arrive. Justin, in eighth place with Zev, says he'll do it, and Gary is taking this as well. "Don't freak out, please," Zev says as they board the golfcart-train. "As long as we don't see the Globetrotters and Jaime and Cara we're okay, Justin says, unaware that those two teams are already ahead of them. So has the Double U-Turn proved a non-issue? I thought so at this point, but I was getting ahead of myself.
Out at the dig site, Christina's getting a "not safe" flag. Jet keeps running back to the diagram, saying he did so more than anyone. He's already starting to hang pairs of ribs on the spine. Jaime, whose pelvic crosspiece is only half-locked in, wonders if it's backwards. Cara calls that she needs to get it the rest of the way in. "If I could get it I would," Jaime snaps back. This is why Cara only provides feedback from a safe distance. Props to the Amazing Cameraman who gets a shot of daylight shining through that empty slot, though. The last two teams arrive, not happy to see the two U-Turned teams ahead of them. Gary and Mallory, realizing that they're among the last teams and taking in what needs to be done, decide to use the Express Pass. Suddenly, just like that, they're in first place, and Mallory reads the clue in a whisper: "Make your way to the Pit Stop, Green Lake Park." Sure enough, Phil says they need to get back to Kunming and the aforementioned Park. "The last team to check in here may be eliminated." On the train ride back, Mallory admonishes her dad, "After burning that Express Pass, we have to get first, okay?" "Okay," Gary practically shrugs, like he's perfectly aware that it's not entirely up to him.
Christina finally gets her hip crosspiece into place by hanging from it with her entire body weight. "That's why it was unsafe, "she sighs wearily. So of course she had to risk pulling the whole thing down on top of herself, in the name of safety. Kent asks for a check on his work, but it's wrong. Not that he gets why. As usual. Margie's busy hanging ribs on the spine, telling us about how her four-year-old grandson "is a huge dinosaur fan. So I'm doing this one for Bryce, who I miss terribly!" Whoa, waterworks! Take a nap, lady! At least she keeps going. Who knew Luke had a kid? Or, more likely, a nephew? Jet asks for a check, and he's the first person to finish his dinosaur. The Heroic Cowboy Theme is duly impressed. Everyone else looks on with disgust as Jet loudly celebrates. Or they're as sick of hearing the Heroic Cowboy Theme as I am.
Over at the waiting area, Flight Time is standing on a rock to make himself even taller, and calling Vyxsin and Cara out about all the U-Turning. Cara tries to throw Vyxsin under that particular bus, leaving out the part where she and Jaime encouraged the Goths to U-Turn the Globetrotters instead of themselves. Vyxsin explains about their thirty-minute penalty, which satisfies him that the Goths, at least, weren't just being mean. "I think the redheads were being mean," he adds. I have to say, an angry Globetrotter is a little unnerving, like a Smurf with fangs. Cara calls out some encouragement to Jaime, who appreciatively responds, "Leave me alone!" Justin is the latest to be told that his hipbone isn't safe. Now he has to climb up on his step-stools to try and force it back apart, which doesn't come easy. Hard to get hips back open once they close on you.
Gary and Mallory return to the visitors' center and start asking around for Green Lake Park. Jet and Cord show up and run right past them, straight to a cab, and into the lead while Gary and Mallory are still trying to figure out what's going on. Aaand their cab is gone, so they have to hire another one. "How much? Fine. Now!" Mallory says to one driver, reminding me of a Smurf with a bazooka.
Justin's hip is still stuck, no matter how much he tries to force it loose while screaming. Story of my life in high school. Margie finishes , so she and Luke are off in third. Meanwhile, at Green Lake Park in Kunming (which is lovely, unsurprisingly), the Cowboys get out of their cab before Gary and Mallory, who spot their hats from a distance. Both teams run for it, but it's Jet and Cord who arrive at the mat first. Phil tells them they're team number one, and it's a week where the Travelocity gnome forgot to go gift-shopping, because they've won five thousand in cash. That's enough for Cord to buy a new hat after he throws his in the air. Gary and Mallory walk up to the mat and learn that they're team number two. "We thought, so, but hey, that's okay," Mallory says with a smile so huge it seems more than okay.
Back at the dinosaur field, they're working on their dinosaurs with varying degrees of success. Jaime has actually mounted hers and appears to be joylessly humping it to get the hips in place, while Justin has resorted to hammering at the jammed crosspiece with his stepstool. And denting the shit out of the latter, so...I think I just ran out of parallels with my adolescence. Kent calls for a check, but his is still wrong. Vyxsin is fretting, "We need to get to the Pit Stop a full thirty minutes before another team or we're out of the race. If he can't get it together, we're, like, in so much trouble." She says it like it's a bad thing. Meanwhile, Kent climbs the step stool to fix the dinosaur's tail -- and promptly falls off of it. A rare commercial outro punctuated with comedy!
Back from the ads, Kent finishes adjusting his tail and calls the paleontologists over for a check. They're still not satisfied. Kent still can't figure out that his hanging pelvis bone is pointing the wrong way. Vyxsin is still worried. Christina realizes that her hip bone is backwards as well, so she has to start taking the whole thing apart. That's the trouble with a bipedal dinosaur; if they were four-legged plant-eaters it would be a lot easier to adjust the load-bearing bones. Jen calls encouragement out to Kisha. While trying to fix the spine, Christina loses control of it and it flips off over her shoulder to the ground. Didn't break, though, which means the dinosaur will be able to walk again. Justin finally gets that crosspiece loose. Kent returns to the diagram, sees his mistake, and goes back to fix it. "Take my wonderful creation all the way apart," he says, dutifully unracking ribs as though he's a frustrated artist (I'm not saying he isn't, but a setback in assembling a wooden dinosaur puzzle isn't what makes him one). Big Easy is manhandling bones. "Do it for the hood!" Flight Time calls out, dusting off yet another old episode title. Jaime is looking worn out, resting her head on her stepstool. "Oh, God, she's losing it," Cara says, as though that's not a daily occurrence. Jaime sheds her sweatshirt, earning an appreciative glance from the paleontologist who doesn't realize that Jaime is unsafe.
Kent and Christina flip their respective pelvi, so now it's just a matter of reassembling the tail, torso, head, and arms all over again. Jaime is trying to get her hipbones together, but there's a gap between joints. "It's not safe? " she asks the paleontologist, who shakes his head. Standing on the top step of her stool, Jaime pulls the piece loose, then topples backward onto the ground, tripping backwards over the spine on the ground and nearly dropping the whole assembly on herself. Good think she's making it safe.
Margie and Luke are team number three.
Kisha says she's ready, and she gets her clue in fourth place. Kent gets his in fifth, and Vyxsin yells that she's so proud of him. Back to the visitor center, where Jen and Kisha discover that their cab has left. Seriously? What is it about Kunming cabs that they can't wait for a damn fare? Clearly they need more bars and grilles in them. Big Easy, Justin, and Jaime continue to work, although she's starting to look pretty defeated. "I can't breathe," she pants. Jen and Kisha watch helplessly as Kent and Vyxsin jump into a cab ahead of them, saying they might still be in it. Only then do Jen and Kisha secure a cab.
Big Easy is probably the only re-racer who doesn't have to use a step-stool to attach the end of the tail. The paleontologist is satisfied with his work, and both Globetrotters whoop in victory. "Sure noisy," Cara drily remarks to Zev at the waiting area. "Double U-Turn that!" one of the Globetrotters crows. Justin and Jaime both look increasingly worried. The Globetrotters head out as Cara says to Zev, "And then there were three." Christina is still building, and so is Justin, and Jaime says, "I don't want to go home." Well, you don't want to go back to India, either, so look on the bright side.
Kent and Vyxsin are the fourth team to arrive at the mat, but they still have that thirty-minute penalty to wait out. "And hopefully," Phil says, "all the other teams won't check in before your penalty is over." Hopeful for whom, exactly? They go sit on the edge of the stone circle while the onscreen clock begins ticking.
Christina, Justin, and Jaime are still building, and Jaime still does not want to go home. An Amazing Cameraman gets all arty, shooting Christina from a distance and then changing focus so we can see a spider on its web in the extreme foreground. The deeply symbolic meaning of this image can be interpreted as, "Christina is taking so long on this that we had time to set up arty deep-focus shots."
Kent and Vyxsin are still in the imaginary penalty box when Kisha and Jen show up as the fifth team. But the sisters are actually in fourth place, due to that penalty. They're pretty happy about it. Kent and Vyxsin talk about how much it would suck to be out now, "right when we are sort of hitting our stride and getting our game back." She's right, they should have been gone last week.
The Globetrotters are arriving at the park, but they still have to find Phil. While they're doing that, Phil calls the Goths over to the mat to check them in, and they scramble over in time to secure fifth place. "Number five is alive!" Vyxsin says. Whoa, a Short Circuit reference! Look out!
Flight Time and Big Easy arrive as Team Number Six, which makes them pretty happy. "Bring it in," Phil says as they hug. "Double-U-Turn that, baby," Big Easy repeats.
Out at the Stone Forest, Christina finishes, so she and Ron are moving on in seventh place. "We're down to two teams," Zev says. He calls encouragement to Justin. Jaime, meanwhile, can't seem to reach her tail segment even perched on top of her step stool. Cara yells encouragement, but Justin's already calling for a check. And...it's wrong. But he only has the ribs out of order, so that's relatively easy to fix. He reorders them while Jaime finishes up -- and she gets a no as well. She's at a loss as to what she did wrong. And Justin's done, so it's not looking good for Team Go Team. Jaime says, "I can't take this whole thing apart. I can't physically do it." Zev and Justin get their clue and head out. Jaime calls to Cara that her middle crosspiece has to come off and flip around, like that's anyone else's fault. "Now I think we definitely are doomed," Cara quietly tells us. Jaime falls off her step stool, but at least she had her arms wrapped around the tail to break her fall. It's all about safety here.
At Green Lake Park, Ron and Christina get out of their cab. Once again, Zev and Justin are right behind them, so it's a footrace. Ron reaches the mat first, just ahead of Justin, but he doesn't actually step on it until Cristina tells him to, a half-second before Justin joins him. Christina beats Zev to the mat, but only barely. It's a photo finish, and Phil tells them they're teams seven and eight, although it's not really clear which is which until the subtitles identify Ron and Christina as the seventh-place team, with Zev and Justin in eighth. And with nine teams left, we know what that means.
Jaime has to finish wrestling those bones, and Cara says, "She's physically exhausted, suffering." Only Cara says it more sympathetically than most people would. Jaime confirms it: "I want to stop being miserable. Pure miserable torture." Has she considered therapy? Oh, she means the dinosaur. Finally she gets her clue and insincerely tells her paleontologist, "Awesome, thanks." They make it to Green Lake Park, and Cara says, "Let's finish this race!" Phil says their names, and again, Cara finishes, "We are the last team to arrive." Cara says. "And I'm sorry to tell you you have been eliminated," Phil adds this time. They take it pretty well. "Thinks just didn't go your way," Phil prompts. Jaime says they never do, like getting to run seventeen more legs of the Amazing Race than most people get to is such a bummer. Post-leg, she interviews, "By the end I was so physically tired and I could only go as fast as I was actually going. And I think Cara at least wanted me to finish it." Which makes Cara seem like the hard-ass, but I think we can all imagine how Jaime would have behaved while watching Cara struggle as much as she did. Rather than pointing that out, Cara agrees that they aren't a quitting team, "And it certainly would have been nice for us to win, but not everyone can win the race. And I do think it was worth it for us to come back." Abrupt cut to club-music credits!
So there you go. The Double U-Turn ended up being a factor after all. And in dropping from second place in their first race to ninth in their second, one has to wonder about Cara's last assertion. Hell, by this point in their first race I still couldn't even tell them apart. One other interesting thing: all of the teams that have been eliminated so far have been from TAR14. So at least things are evened out a little. But watch your backs, Luke/Margie and Jen/Kisha.
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.
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