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Still in Copenhagen, the race starts with a Roadblock where racers have to memorize a Hans Christian Andersen poem inscribed on the base of the author's statue, then ride a bicycle with a map on the wheel to a theater where they have to recite the poem from memory for a costumed critic. Cindy and Amani both do brilliantly and proceed to the task at Legoland Park, where they have to assemble their clue out of Legos while on an amusement park ride. Cathi gets lost en route to the theater, while Tommy and Sandy both have to go back and try the Roadblock again after phoning it in, but they all eventually get it. The carnival ride is pretty rough on Amani and Sandy; worse, Jeremy and Sandy lose some pieces and have to start over. And Bill and Cathi get lost again, which costs them some time. From Legoland, they drive on to Hamburg and take a train to Brussels via Cologne. Ernie and Cindy hold onto their commanding lead all the way to Hamburg, when the train arrives late enough for everyone to catch it -- and Ernie and Cindy have lost their tickets from Cologne to Brussels, and can't afford new ones. They board the second train anyway and get away with it, so it was a lot of stress about nothing, at least on Cindy's part.
In Brussels, everyone has to strip down and oil up to pose with bodybuilders in front of some pretty tough judges. Amani and Marcus are the first team to get it right the first time, and make it to the Pit Stop in first place, closely followed by Team Control. Jeremy and Sandy are in third place after racking up the highest score, with the snowboarders and the grandparents still stuck behind trying to get it right. As for which one of them gets Philiminated, we never find out -- because Marcus and Amani have barely hit the mat when they're hit by the news that they're still racing. And we're hit by the dreaded "To Be Continued."
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"Copenhagen, Denmark has the cleanest urban waterfront in the world," Phil announces. Really? How have they proven that? I do have to admit that it looks pretty clean, but it also looks about three blocks long, which must make it easier to maintain. Phil's speaking to us from the rail of Havet Ship, the Pit Stop of the leg and the start of this one -- which happens right about now. Phil reminds us that Ernie and Cindy won the leg, so of course they're leaving first, at 9:01 AM. The clue is telling them to drive themselves to Copenhagen's statue of Hans Christian Andersen, "who many scholars consider the most prolific fairy tale writer in history," according to Phil. The photo of him looks more like your creepiest uncle, unfortunately. Except the statue of that uncle has yellow clue envelopes between its feet instead of candy in its pockets. Apparently the statue is outside City Hall, which I corroborated personally (using Google Street View, of course). ,/P>
As they get back into the same product-placed car they used during the leg, Cindy interviews that her parents came to the U.S. from China and were probably hoping she'd marry a Chinese man, but she figures they'll see that Ernie makes her happy. And if not, well, not to go all Lou Dobbs on you, but a good way to increase the odds that your daughter will marry a Chinese guy is to keep her in China. I believe they have some there. Ernie and Cindy drive right to the statue and grab a clue from to its foot. "Who's ready to take a fairy tale ride?" asks the introductory Roadblock question. Then Phil's walking around the statue, which has a row of odd-looking bicycles parked to it, as he says the racers will have to memorize a poem by Hans Christian Andersen, get on one of those bikes, and use the map printed on the front wheel to get to a place called Theater Museet, which sounds a lot to my monoglot ears like a theater museum. When they get there, they'll have to perform -- not just recite, but perform -- the poem from memory for a creepy-looking drama critic in period costume sitting in the second row of the tiny theater. If he's satisfied, he gives them their clue; if not -- if he says something like "I need more performance" and then sends them all the way back to the statue to start all over.
Cindy gets right to work memorizing the poem engraved on the base of the statue: "To move, to breathe, to fly, to float/To gain all while you give/To roam the roads of lands remote/To travel is to live." A little on the nose, but okay. And let's hope it sticks in her head better than the Confucius proverb did back in Taiwan: Which could be tricky, because a whole tour group has shown up and are taking turns having themselves photographed while sitting on the statue's base, making the poem impossible to read. Something tells me Cindy wouldn't be able to get away with saying, "To move, to br--shin, other shin--float." Some slick splitscreen editing tricks later, Cindy walks around the corner of the building, finds the bikes, and soon spots the theater on the wheel-map. She helmets up and she's on her way, reciting the poem as she goes, and agreeing heartily with the sentiment. Like anyone who goes on the Amazing Race is going to say, "Travel, meh." Upon arriving at the theater, she tells the skinny, bespectacled dude in glasses, top hat, and frock coat how dapper he looks and takes the stage, launching into a "performance" that would embarrass a junior high school student. But he's looking for quantity of performance, not quality, so after a suspenseful pause he applauds and cries, "Bravo!" She gets her clue and while biking back, she says it felt like the audition of her life. It probably should be the last one.
Bill and Cathi are the to leave, at 10:34 AM, so unless the bunny task took an hour and a half last week, it really wasn't necessary for Ernie and Cindy to U-Turn them at all. But now we're flashing back much further than that, to their first leg when they spent an entire afternoon lost in Taiwan looking for the second clue of the race and we all assumed they were done. And yet here they are in the top five, beginning the ninth leg in second place. I have to hand it to them, they're taking the "token" out of "token grandparents." Cathi says they don't like to think about that first leg, and they're still nervous every time they open a clue, but they've been able to keep it together better. As a demonstration of this, we see Bill sitting behind the wheel and musing thoughtfully about ice cream.
Andy and Tommy are of course leaving in third place, at 10:35 AM. That is, if Andy can get the clue envelope open. "Are you Copen-hangin in there?" Tommy asks Andy once they're back in their car. "Copin' and hangin'," Andy says. Jokes like this are the real reason Hamlet was always so depressed.
Cindy has already returned to Ernie at the HCA statue before any of the other teams have even shown up. They open the clue she got at the theater, which tells them to drive to Legoland. Phil says that's in Billund, Denmark, "the birthplace of Legos." Of course it is. We see lots of shots of big stuff made out of Legos as Phil says that they'll need to find the Pirate Carousel ride, which looks like one of those rides in the spinning teacup family, and there they'll get their clue.
After they leave, Bill and Cathi arrive in second place, and Cathi's taking this one. Andy and Tommy get there in third, and this one's Tommy's. Cathi's busily memorizing the poem as Bill tells us that Cathi was an English teacher, so he mock-threateningly says, "I think she better do it right!" Too bad she was never a geography teacher, because she's not able to find the theater on her wheel map, even though the Amazing Editors can (and helpfully pop it out in an onscreen bubble), so she figures she'll just go ask somebody at a nearby hotel. While Tommy finishes memorizing the poem and checking his wheel-map, Cathi gets directions from the hotel clerk. She should have brought the bike in to have him show her on that.
Amani and Marcus are leaving at 11:43, in fourth place. As they get going, Marcus interviews about how proud he is of Amani. She modestly says she's not Peyton Manning, but can hold her ground. Well, who among us is Peyton Manning, after all? Seriously, I'm asking. Is he a football player or something? They get to the statue and she takes on the Roadblock. While she tries to memorize the poem, Marcus keeps calling out numbers and nonsense phrases, on the theory that distracting her now will pay off later. Like the mental equivalent of swinging two bats in the on-deck circle, I guess. He keeps doing it all the way up to the point where she gets on her bike and rides off, while Bill and Andy laugh. It must be refreshing to see another team interfere with itself so they don't have to.
Tommy has stopped for directions, and learns that according to the map, he's currently some distance northeast of his bike's tire. "Was it still spinning when you were looking at it?" Andy asks him in a post-leg interview. Cathi realizes she's gone the wrong way and has to turn around and go back. And thus it is that Amani, who was just in fourth place a minute ago, is the second racer to arrive at the theater. She gives a rather more heartfelt (and much less cheesy) performance than Cindy and gets a bravo and a clue, so she's heading back while Cathi and Tommy are both stopped for directions yet again. She rides back up to the statue, to the amazement of everyone still waiting there. "Oh my God, are you serious?" Marcus boggles. "You don't know who you run with, darling," she coolly pants as she opens the clue sending them to Legoland. Even Andy and Bill are impressed. In the car, Marcus has an appropriate football metaphor to deploy. Of course.
Cathi finds the theater at last, and goes into her performance. She's doing fine, but when she says "untold" instead of "remote," the critic's heretofore rapt face falls and he interrupts, "I'm sorry, it was not satisfactory." Now she has to go back. But at least now she knows where she's going, unlike Tommy, who doesn't even know what street he's on.
Jeremy and Sandy are only now starting their leg, in fifth and last place, at 12:08 PM. That has to hurt. Jeremy interviews about how hard it's been being away from home and his six-year-old son, who is the best thing that's ever happened to him. As we see them spotting the statue and running over to it, he continues that he wants to win the race for his son. And so he assigns Sandy to do the Roadblock. Cathi rolls back up, and Bill's all happy to see her until she says she has to go back. She checks the poem again and zooms off past Sandy. "Hopefully she'll get it right this time," Bill says. Hopefully your English-teacher wife will cut you some slack for your improper use of the word "hopefully."
Ernie and Cindy are driving across the Danish countryside wondering where Legoland is, but the front gate constructed from brightly colored plastic bricks is a pretty clear sign that they've arrived. They enter the theme park (which is not closed for the occasion) and soon find the pirate area, with boat rides and stuff like that, and the Pirate Carousel is right there. Would you get on an amusement park ride built entirely out of Legos? I wouldn't. They're handed their clue in the form of a blue plastic Lego box so they can get started. Now here's Phil, telling us, "The Lego company was created in the 1930s." As he holds up a yellow 2x4 brick up to the camera, he adds, "it now produces over 50 million pieces every day." And since I have a seven-year-old son, most of those are in my house. Teams will have to assemble the Lego kits they were just handed while riding the Pirate Carousel, using the turning wheel in the center of the car as their work surface. And they only get to work on it while the ride is in motion. All the pieces are long, skinny white ones with part of a picture on one side, so the finished product will be a rectangle with a photo of a train station and the letters "Hamburg Hbf" printed on it. constituting their clue. Ernie and Cindy sit in one of the cars, wait for it to start, and open the box to start taking pieces out while the ride gathers speed. It looks pretty tricky, but they soon get the sense that they're going to have a train station to go to by the time they're done.
Cathi is parking her bike back at the theater just as Tommy is arriving for the first time and Sandy is leaving the statue. Cathi gives it another try, taking her time and getting it right this time, so she gets her clue and a kiss on her hand while Tommy waits out in the lobby. "You have to do drama," she warns him before getting back on her bike to hurry back. Then Tommy goes out and dully recites the poem standing still with his hands on his hips. The critic watches with what looks like real disappointment. Sandy arrives and waits anxiously in the lobby for her turn while Tommy is told, "More drama, please! I need you to bring life to the words!" Tommy gets on his bike and leaves, snarking, "Drama for your mama!" while Sandy heads inside. Drama for your mama? Burn!
Sandy recites the poem like she's reading a PowerPoint presentation, and is sent back to get more drama as well. Cathi is back at the statue, saying, "Okay, Legoland, here we come. I don't know where it is." They head out just before Tommy rolls back up and reads the poem off the statue again like he's angry at it. "I don't think I've seen Tommy like this," Andy tells Jeremy at the waiting area. And he didn't even hear Tommy say "your mama." Tommy leaves again, but at least he knows where the theater is now. Sandy also returns, and Jeremy tells her to go as fast as she can, which she says she is. Back at the theater, Tommy does the poem again, cheesing it up a little more this time, pacing around and waving his arms and miming a telescope on the word "remote." Good enough, and he has his clue. Sandy also sells it a bit harder this time, but just a bit. Lucky for her the critic just wants to be done working for the day, because she's done with the Roadblock.
Ernie and Cindy are working on their Lego puzzle when they have to pause and raise their hands in the air while the ride stops. "Hamburg! Hamburg!" Cindy dorks, chair-dancing excitedly. But they still have to get the rest of the thing together.
Tommy skids his bike to a stop back at the statue, so he and Andy are heading to Legoland in fourth place. Jeremy and Sandy take off behind them. And I can't believe that in a task that involved five different bicycles, none of them broke.
Ernie and Cindy complete their puzzle, get off the ride, and show it to the operator, a young guy in a Lego-striped pirate shirt, earring, and do-rag, who checks their work and tells them it's correct. Phil says teams now have to drive across the border to Germany (with no navigational help from the Amazing Red Line like we get), and look for their clue at the Hamburg train station. Running back to their car, Cindy expresses surprise that they're driving to Hamburg. Well, Germany and Denmark actually are much closer together than they look in the piss-poor excuse for the map of Europe that resides in most Americans' heads.
Amani and Marcus are the to get to the theme park ride, and Amani is not excited about being spun around. "It just messes up my day," she says. She's regretting not taking her motion pill. They dump the whole contents of the Lego box onto the wheel at the beginning, which proves unwise given how at least three of the pieces slip off onto the floor of the car as the ride gets going. They also figure out they're going to the Hamburg train station but don't finish the puzzle before the first forced stop. Amani worries that she's going to throw up. Marcus just happens to notice a paper bag on the floor of the car, marked with the international symbol of a person kneeling before the porcelain altar. "I hate to throw up on any kids, though," Amani says. Close-up of the Lego pirate guy shaking his head at the camera. He seems to agree.
Bill and Cathi are lost on the road. Shades of Taipei.
"Anybody got any Pepto-Bismol?" Marcus calls out to no one while waiting for the ride to restart. Once it does, Amani has to struggle with both her gorge and Marcus wanting to put a piece in the wrong place. By the stop, Marcus is also seriously contemplating that bag on the floor. What, no football metaphor for throwing up?
Reggae music accompanies our visit to the snowboarders' car. Andy has a map unfolded across the entire backs of both front seats, from floor to ceiling. "I don't know if the map is big enough, actually, it's kind of hard to find stuff," he says, poking his head around the edge like the curtains at The Tonight Show. "You know what they say about people with big maps," Tommy says. "A lot of places to go." Edgy!
Jeremy and Sandy marvel about a bridge they're driving over. They're in last, but this is the first time we've seen the bridge, which doesn't seem like a good sign for them. But they're actually fine; it's the four-mile span that goes over the Great Belt (the body of water connecting the North and Baltic Seas), so everyone else had to drive over it as well. They probably just weren't as telegenically impressed with it. Bill and Cathi, meanwhile, stop at a pizza-pasta place for directions, only to not be able to understand a word the guy says to them. You'd think the owner of an Italian restaurant in Denmark would speak a little more clearly. Marcus fans Amani to keep her cool while they wait for the ride to restart. They soon finish, wait out the rest of the ride, and disembark. "Hi, little man. Have fun. About made me sick," Marcus tells a kid who's about to board. The Lego pirate guy also approves their work, so they're moving on, Marcus carrying Amani's bag while she recovers. They're exiting the park just as Andy and Tommy are pulling up outside. After hearing Marcus's warning about needing a barf bag, the snowboarders are excited about "getting thrown around," not to mention the whole Lego thing, as Andy interviews that he was a "Legomaniac" as a kid. Well, who wasn't?
Jeremy and Sandy arrive . More B-roll of large-scale Lego constructions (a roller coaster, model trains, and a Space Shuttle), and the snowboarders are on the ride and waiting to go when Jeremy and Sandy join them and climb into a separate car. Sandy's the least excited of all of them: "I'm gonna puke," she announces before she's even sitting down. As the ride starts, both teams dump out their boxes, but only one team does a decent job of keeping track of their pieces. Can you guess which team loses one out of their car entirely, so it's sitting out on the giant turntable? And can you guess which other team is actually enjoying this? I'll give you a clue: it's the same team that's actually made progress by the time the ride stops for the first time and they all have to put their hands up. The teams exchange "Arrr"s during the pause and Jeremy wishes for his son's help with this. I'm sure he misses his kid, but they're shitty team players when it comes to Legos at that age.
Ernie and Cindy cross the border into Germany. Cindy shares that Ernie lived in a little town in Bavaria for a year, which I'm sure will come in handy. Ernie gets confused on the difference between a dialect and an accent, but Cindy's there to straighten him out.
Jeremy's got "Hamburg," on their puzzle, and Sandy's got an urge to hurl. "It was the worst thing that we've had to do," Sandy interviews. On the other hand, Andy says that snowboarders are immune to motion sickness. "Spin to win," he says. Jeremy and Sandy are still missing a piece, and when the ride it stops, all three male racers currently on the ride are just waiting for Sandy to throw up already.
Bill and Cathi go into a hotel God knows where and ask for directions and a map to Legoland. They're soon on their way, possibly in the right direction this time. Andy and Tommy click the top and bottom halves of their puzzle together, and then spend the rest of their ride making their car spin faster and faking puke noises for Sandy's benefit. They get to run off at the pause, while Jeremy and Sandy have to start all over as a result of their missing piece. Sandy doesn't take it well, to say the least. Nurse, heal thyself!
After the ads, Jeremy gets out of the car to get a new kit while Sandy puts the pieces back in the box and continues to try to not throw up. At least she's motivated to get done quickly now.
Ernie and Cindy get to the Hamburg train station, and there's an oddly familiar object standing outside: an old-school, red-and-yellow clue box! They finally found one! Or else they dumped that giant U-Turn sign into the Baltic Sea to make room for it. Looking at it makes me almost as nostalgic as if it were a blue London police box. The clue inside is telling them to take a train to Brussels, Belgium. So here's Phil's voice and the Amazing Red Dotted Line which traces a winding route from Hamburg through Cologne and on to Brussels, which of course Phil doesn't fail to mention is in "their third country of the leg." They'll have to find their clue at the European Parliament Building, in the saddlebag of a red-and-yellow bicycle chained to the fence. Thanks for coming back for one stop, clue box! It was nice to see you again! Inside the station, Team Control finds a ticket counter and learns that the train leaves at 12:30 AM, which should give everyone plenty of time to catch up. "Ugh, so bummed," Cindy groans. And she doesn't even know that they've walked off and left a pair of tickets on the floor. Nice close-up of them, though. She's going to be even more bummed when those turn up missing.
Jeremy and Sandy have finished their Lego-building, and get in their car to drive to Germany. Bill and Cathi get there in last place, board the ride, and get going. "It's gonna be a treat," Cathi gripes.
Andy and Tommy arrive at the Hamburg train station in second place, having passed Team NFL somewhere along the way. Bill and Cathi finish the Lego-building. "Okay, we got our money's worth," Bill grumps. Leaving the park, Bill wants a hot dog while Cathi wants a Slurpee, so clearly their stomachs are recovering rapidly. "Let's go, kiddo," she says on the way to their car. Bill mocks them both a little for their big talk about motion sickness. "My crackers were about ready to come out," he admits after the fact. Good thing everyone got through that. Vomit is surprisingly hard to get out of Legos, especially the long skinny ones. I suspect.
Amani and Marcus have finally reached the Hamburg train station. They must have taken their time getting there, because they're not even inside when Jeremy and Sandy pull up in their car. Team Pre-Owned gets their clue in fourth place.Ernie and Cindy have finally realized that they're missing some tickets. It's about 8:35, going by the time on the big station clock, as they go back to the ticket office to look for the missing slips, and Cindy explains that they don't have their Cologne-Brussels tickets any more. Worse yet, at the electronic ticket kiosk, they're discovering that replacing them would cost 77 Euros, which they don't have. Ouch. Walking away, Cindy starts to get choked up, but Ernie sweetly tells her it'll be okay. "We're toast," she says. Hey, people have survived worse this season. Not for long, but they survived it.
Bill and Cathi are at the ticket counter when they're ambushed by Sandy and Andy, who distract them a bit with some teasing and the news that everyone's getting on the same train out. When the train arrives, they all pile on, and are pretty happy to find sleeping compartments waiting for them. Except Marcus, who's not sure he'll fit, and Cindy, who's worried about talking to the conductor. "I hope my coffin's bigger than this," Marcus says with his feet hanging over the bed. Like he'll care. The train pulls out, and as the conductor makes her way down the passage, Ernie and Cindy explain their situation to her, but there's nothing she can do to help them. "So we go from a four-hour lead to having no tickets," Cindy says. "It's insane. This could be a game-ender." Ernie agrees that they "screwed up big-time." Well, again, they're certainly not the first team to do so.
Early the morning, the sun is just now up and Cindy doesn't look like she slept all night, given that they're about to pull into Cologne with no tickets to get on the train there. "I'm very disappointed in myself," Cindy says. Ernie looks at her like, "Wait, what?" It says a lot about their relationship that he's not more relieved that this one isn't his fault.
The other teams are waiting to pull in, looking out the window at such graffiti as "WELCOME TO COLOGNE." That's straight-up gangsta. Bill reminds us that from here they'll catch a train to Brussels. He and Cathi are the first ones off the train, with the others getting off in a big knot, although Cindy and Ernie push impatiently through the crowd. Everyone hurries over to the train and gets on, including Team Control. Cindy goes over the possibilities: "Either they don't check for tickets and we're fine, or they check for tickets and we say we lost it in the run." Solid plan. Tommy re-explains the situation to us, with a little analysis of Team Control's dynamic thrown in: "Ernie seems like he stays pretty calm and lets Cindy do the stressing out." Fortunately, Cindy also has a plan C: "Or I'll hide in the bathroom." That one works well just around the house too, I find.
On to Brussels, Belgium, land of castles and row houses and what looks like a big giant stainless-steel molecule. They're about to pull into the station, and nobody ever checked anyone's tickets. At all. "The whole lost ticket situation flew out the window, no issue any more," Cindy explains. Okay, but we'll see what Phil has to say about that on the mat, otherwise I don't know why we wasted so much time on a subplot that amounts to nothing. "We were worrying for a little bit," Cindy says, then amends that to, "I was worrying for a little bit." Ernie just smiles. He seems to know he's got a pretty good gig here.
The train pulls in and everyone jumps off looking for taxis. What they find is a long, long line of people waiting at the taxi stand, and almost as a single entity they teams all essentially go "fuck that" and run out to the road to try to catch one upstream. Bill and Cathi get a cab first, and Bill apologizes to the driver for jumping the line. Like he cares. Andy and Tommy are off in second place. "In the back of the cab, Cathi says, "We're just hoping that we get there quickly, and I think we did." Yep, there they are. They hop out. Andy and Tommy arrive shortly thereafter, followed by the other teams. Bill is the first to spot the bicycle, and they grab a clue and find a secluded spot behind a support column to open it. "Bodybuilding posedown," Cathi reads. Over shots of bodybuilders posing on a stage, Phil informs us that Jean-Claude Van Damme is "Belgium's most famous bodybuilder." And there's a photo of him posing on a beach, like, thirty years ago, so young that even Belgium's most famous bodybuilder -- or possibly even its most famous person, for that matter -- is barely recognizable. "Teams now have a chance to walk in the shoes of the Muscles from Brussels by showing off their physiques in a specific routine to score points." Only without shoes or, really physiques. They'll have to put on tiny orange bikinis (bikini briefs for the dudes), spray each other down with "competition oil," and then learn a series of poses from a professional bodybuilder, which they'll have to perform in front of three judges who will score their performance. There's an amusing throwaway shot of Phil mugging shirtless between the bodybuilders on the stage and the judges at the table as he narrates that the teams will need to score a total of 12 points or higher to earn their clue. Twelve out of how many? That seems relevant.
Andy and Tommy find the clue in the bicycle in second place, Ernie and Cindy in third, Amani and Marcus in fourth, and Jeremy and Sandy in last, as usual. Back to their cabs, where they ride to a place downtown called "Concert Noble." Inside the building, Bill and Cathi find the curtained off dressing areas off the front lobby and we hear, but don't see, as they react with predictable horror. "I'm going to be in clothes that I wouldn't take a shower in," Cathi says. "Speedo time! Tommy sings from behind the curtain. We also hear but don't see Cindy going in and wailing at Cathi, "What are you wearing?" "What you're going to be wearing, hon," Cathi says, and emerges in what she thinks is the smallest bikini she's ever worn. "You look better than we do," she tells the waiting bodybuilders. Maybe, but Bill and Cathi look better in those tiny outfits than I will in my sixties. They might even look better in them than I would now.
Jeremy and Sandy arrive at the concert hall , and Amani and Marcus show up just in time to see their fellow racers wandering half-naked through the lobby. Luke, the bodybuilder that Bill and Cathi selected to teach them, starts showing them how to spray the tan on while the snowboarders watch. Tommy interviews that he wasn't comfortable in the tiny Speedo, like anyone would be who either doesn't do this regularly or has the exquisite lack of self-awareness that seems to go with old fat guys who wear them on public beaches. Cindy comes out in her bikini, and she's clearly having a rougher race than I thought because she's looking all bruised up from the waist down like a derby girl. Maybe that Legoland ride yesterday bashed her around more than I realized. Andy hurries Tommy through the application of his tan-oil. Amani doesn't even want to come out in her bikini, leaving Marcus standing out there in his thong trying to coax her out. "We're good, you look sexy," he tells her, not incorrectly. Amani interviews that she doesn't know if she's ever worn a bikini. "Ever. Ever!"
All the teams are painting each other up, Ernie seeming to enjoy watching the snowboarders at it a bit too much. Cathi says while Bill paints her, "Our kids are just gonna die when they see us in this little clothing. I'm gonna die, so you know, it's gonna be a family death." Heh. Ernie feels pretty good about having his tan on. Now that everyone's properly pigmented, it's time to start learning the poses. It's about as embarrassing as you might imagine. "My business is hanging out," Cindy says while in a wide-legged crouch. Andy's snowboarding injuries are getting in the way of some of the poses for him, making it difficult to throw his shoulders back like he's supposed to. Amani just wants to get it right the first time so she doesn't have to do it again. Marcus confesses to being a little clumsy, but Amani's happy to help coach him, Full Monty-style.
Ernie and Cindy are the first to go out onstage to give it a try. With their instructor behind them on the stage, they go through the poses while a small audience sits behind three glowering musclemen in tank tops who sit at a table looking unimpressed. They reveal their scores: 3, 2, and 4, a total of 9. Not good enough to get a clue. The judges give them some notes for the time, most of which are regarding Ernie's "detail." "So frustrating," Cindy interviews, while Ernie nods in thoughtful agreement. Andy and Tommy go , and Tommy says it's not something he would ever do. They look it, too. Their scores are a pathetic 1, 2, and 1. They also get some feedback from the judges, to work on the order of the poses and try to smile. The other three teams are still prepping. Amani decides Marcus is ready, even though he isn't feeling it yet. But as soon as he comes onstage, he says it felt like entering an arena. A nearly empty one, but he seems to be able to use just about anything as NFL methadone. They go through the poses and Marcus interviews that he got into it. Even Amani seems to be enjoying herself. Their scores: 4, 4, and 4, so they have enough points to get the clue.
It's sending them to the Pit Stop, a place called Parc Elizabeth. It looks like a lovely place with a high gazebo, and Phil's there saying that the park's "symmetrical shape represents the royal monogram of Leopold the Second, and it is now the Pit Stop for this leg of the race. The last team to check in here may be eliminated." That all makes sense, except for the part where LtS is symmetrical. Amani and Marcus run from the stage, screaming happily. The snowboarders are giving it another try, while Team Control's instructor tells them to watch them and not do it so slowly. Amani and Marcus come rushing out of the venue, fully dressed again and looking for their cabdriver, Martin. They soon find him, but unfortunately he doesn't know where Parc Elizabeth is. Inside, Bill and Cathi are waiting to go on, and Bill is just now realizing they'll be on a stage. He doesn't seem happy about it, either. Andy and Tommy limp to the finish of their routine, ending on two different poses, and get a 2, a 2, and a 1. In the wings, Ernie thinks the snowboarders' failure could be their chance to get ahead.
Amani and Marcus, meanwhile, who finished the task minutes ago, haven't even gotten away from the building. They have someone in an office checking the internet for directions for them. Ernie and Cindy are back onstage, and really making a lot of faces as they go through the routine this time. Ernie interviews about one guy in the audience he locked eyes with: "I think at that point he was a little intimidated," he deadpans. They finish up and get a big round of applause from the audience, as well as three fours from the judges, so they're done. High fives all around. They get their clue in second place from the judges' table while Amani is still waiting for her directions. It would be embarrassing if they got passed now.
Bill and Cathi are taking their turn, and the judges are actually looking annoyed with their performance. And in fact, the grandparents only get three points total. But like all the other team, they receive some constructive criticism. "Learn the routine more," one judge says. "Try to hit the poses," another says. "Try to be less embarrassingly sucky," they all barely prevent themselves from saying. Amani and Marcus finally have their directions and run back out to their cab. Once they're underway at last, Marcus says, "I haven't been that nervous since I was in the principal's office in third grade." Ernie and Cindy are back to their cab, and their driver does know where Parc Elizabeth is, so this could be close. Jeremy and Sandy do their posedown and perform so well they earn two fours and a five, for the highest total score yet. Finally, something they're the best at.
The grandparents and the snowboarders are still doing practice run-throughs. Then, back to the two teams who are en route to the Pit Stop: Ernie says they're looking for the gazebo, and in case you've just tuned in, Marcus explains, "There are only five teams still racing and we're very fortunate to be one of those five. We've had some blunders along the way. Nevertheless we've stayed in it. The comeback kids, we're calling ourselves." The guy who's constantly auditioning for an NFL color commentary job, I'm calling Marcus. Cindy's just happy that the leg is almost over (jinx!). Team NFL is arriving at the park, and they can see the gazebo out the window, but Team Control is also very close. Marcus prays to be in first place. And there's Phil, waiting on the large gazebo while a saxophone sextet plays a cheesy tune, poorly. A little research tells me that saxophone inventor Adolphe Sax is also from Belgium, but he's dead and still not as famous as JCVD. Amani and Marcus climb up and jump on the mat just as they finish up the tune. From behind them, the soprano player welcomes them to Parc Elizabeth in Brussels. For the first time, Phil tells them they're team number one. "Well deserved," he remarks, adding that they've won a trip to Panama. Amani: "Wow." Phil says that as the first team to arrive, they'll be the first team to leave on the leg. Which starts? Right now! Phil whips a clue out of his jacket, hands it over, and...To be continued. So that's four episodes out of nine this season where no one got eliminated. I know I'm on record defending the non-elimination legs, but this is getting silly. Either get more teams or have fewer legs, and I don't care which. Okay, actually that's a lie. I definitely want fewer legs.
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.