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We pick up where the leg left off with Amani and Marcus's victory, and where the current leg begins seconds later. Ernie and Cindy came in second, with Jeremy and Sandy in third. Andy and Tommy were the to finish, followed by Bill and Cathi, who still aren't eliminated even after coming in last. However, because Team NFL gets lost in Brussels, Ernie and Cindy are the first team to make it to the Ford Proving Grounds for a Mustang infomercial disguised as a high-speed driving Roadblock. Jeremy catches up to Ernie during the latter's struggle with the slalom part, but fails to pass him. Then it's on to Gent for the two lead teams. Marcus and Tommy compete at the Proving Grounds while Andy battles with the sin of envy and Bill battles with the sin of still being in last place.
For the Detour in Gent, teams have to either build and stock a waffle stand (Ernie/Cindy, Jeremy/Sandy) or build a barrel-raft to search for halves of a clue along the river (Andy/Tommy, Amani/Marcus, and Bill/Cathi after Team Pre-Owned warns them off the waffles). The waffle-making proves time-consuming, so Cindy and Ernie lose a chunk of their lead heading to Muur Van Geraardsbergen, with the snowboarders now closer behind and Marcus and Amani passing up Jeremy and Sandy, who barely finish ahead of the grandparents.
At the Muur, teams witness the release of homing pigeons, which they'll have to meet at a predetermined address so they can retrieve the location of the Pit Stop from a bird's leg. Andy and Tommy are the first to accomplish that, and learn that they're going back to Brussels to "find" the Atomium, that impossible-to-miss iron atom we first saw last week. Jeremy and Sandy steal second place while Ernie and Cindy get totally lost. Andy and Tommy win their sixth leg and a new Mustang each, while other teams struggle with directions. Jeremy and Sandy are team number two, Ernie and Cindy are unhappy to come in third, with Marcus and Amani coming in fourth. Bill and Cathi's tenth leg is their last. Not a bad run at all for a couple of olds, though.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!In the previouslies, Phil comes right out and promises that one of the remaining five teams will be eliminated tonight. Gosh, Phil, why would we ever think otherwise, what with five of the nine episodes thus far ending in Philimination? That's more than half!
After the credits and the ads, we pick up seconds before we left off last week, when Amani and Marcus learned they were team number one and that the leg of the race was starting right now. Like, right now. Amani reads from the clue Phil just handed her that they need to drive themselves to the Ford Proving Ground in Lommel, Belgium. What a coincidence -- I believe Ford is a sponsor this season! In one of the cars which were apparently waiting for the teams outside the park (or "Parc," in this case), Marcus says they're going to fight to the end. Which is a noble sentiment, but they would probably be better off racing than fighting.
The sax sextet has struck up again as Cindy and Ernie hop up to the gazebo. They hug upon being told they're team number two, until Phil's "however" causes Ernie's expression to fall comically to the ground. Phil breaks the news that the leg has already begun and Cindy blares, equally comically, "OH MY GOSH!" She has this weird gift for saying things that aren't funny in a way that still makes me laugh. Off they go to find the cars waiting for them. They drive to the nearest hotel (which is very near indeed) to get directions. Also, please note that Phil didn't ding them for losing their train tickets in the last leg, but then what would he have said? "Ernie and Cindy, you are the second team to arrive. However, you did not present your tickets to the conductor on the train from Cologne to Brussels. However, a conductor never checked for tickets. However, as a result you effectively rode the train for free. However, I guess you paid for the tickets, even if they weren't in your possession. HOWEVER, their loss ate up the entire middle of last week's episode and-- You know what, fuck it, just get out of here."
Jeremy and Sandy are team number three, which is like first place in Jeremy-and-Sandy-World. They take the news that the leg has already begun in stride, but I can't believe they don't find it off-putting that Phil's dialogue on the mat is so obviously dubbed in after the fact.
Andy and Tommy are still doing the task, namely the bodybuilding posedown. They're getting a lot more into it this time, as is the tiny audience. The judges give them some positive feedback and then reveal the scores -- fours across the board, so with twelve points, they're done with the task and have their clue in fourth place. Better yet, now they can put some clothes on.
Amani and Marcus have stopped in at a cell phone store to get directions. Which they get, but alas, the person behind the counter is unable to print out the map she pulled up for them. Driving through a tunnel, Marcus expresses his disappointment at the clerk's inability to either print or speak satisfactory English, but they're hoping for the best.
Bill and Cathi are taking another crack at the posing. They're mainly just concentrating on the moves, and it shows. But now that they're in last place, the judges apparently figure there's no point punishing them further, so they might as well send them on their way with insincere compliments on their improved confidence. One of the judges can even tell from looking at him that Bill works out, and says he's impressed. They read the clue telling them to hurry to the Pit Stop, unaware that this one's a Pit Keep Going. And better yet, they get to put some clothes on.
Jeremy and Sandy get directions and a hard-copy map to the Ford place from a stationery store. Ah, a stationery store! Where they sell paper! Definitely a better call than a cell phone place.
At the Proving Ground in Lommel, Ernie and Cindy drive up to a line of parked Mustangs, with a driver in a blue racing suit standing to each one. There's also a cache of clues in an artfully arranged stack of tires. It's a Roadblock clue that asks the question, "Who wants to play with the ponies?" Aw, and here I thought they were going to get to drive the Mustangs. Phil narrates, "Since opening in 1965, the Lommel Proving Ground has provided a controlled and safe testing environment for some of Ford's most popular vehicles." So I guess the Edsel predated it. Standing calmly on an asphalt lane with a red Mustang zooming up behind him and screeching to a halt to him, close enough that he can reach over and tap it on the hood (which he does), Phil launches into how the Mustang is an American icon, which of course has nothing to do with Ford's sponsorship of the show. For the Roadblock, called "Master Your Mustang," the racers will have to get their car up to 100 miles per hour and then stop it on a dime, cover a slalom course in sixteen seconds or less, and do a double doughnut. Only one of those things will be remotely difficult, but it's not like Ford wants to put on a sequence about how hard it can be to drive their cars. Standing to one of the drivers, who's even taller than he is, Phil says he'll give the racer their clue, while another Mustang burns rubber in circles around them. He seems determined to get run over in the course of explaining this Roadblock, doesn't he?
Cindy cedes this Roadblock to Ernie, who's almost as excited about it as she is. She tells us she's surprised that Marcus and Amani aren't already there, given how they left the bodybuilding task first. She clearly doesn't know Marcus and Amani as well as she thinks. Wearing a helmet on the sidelines just for her own entertainment, she figures out that they're the first ones there while Ernie gets into his own suit, helmet and the shotgun seat of a white 'Stang to one of the test drivers. The car roars off, leaving Cindy sitting in a stack of tires. Ernie explains that the driver took him through the whole long racecourse before giving Ernie a chance, and we get to see the entire range of Ernie's awed, frightened and exhilarated expressions, whereas the driver wears the same complacent half-smile while the car screams all over the course. I guess test drivers aren't terribly excitable fellows. At least the Belgian ones.
Andy and Tommy arrive at the gazebo, and it's kind of weird to see Phil back there when we just saw him at the Proving Ground getting nearly flattened repeatedly by fast-moving muscle cars. He tells the snowboarders that they're team number four and the leg has already begun (and indeed in one team's case, so has the first Roadblock). Off they go, while Andy talks about the humbling experience they just had and their goal to make it to the final three. And if they win every other leg between now and then, so be it.
Ernie is now behind the wheel of the Mustang as the driver tells him in a laid-back accent to get the car up to 100 mph, hammer the brake when he sees two green flags along the straightaway, and jink right to come to a complete stop at the designated spot. Ernie revs the engine and floors it. A little speedometer insert in the corner of the screen says he's up to 100, the driver claps his hands and says, "Now," and Ernie pounds the brake while steering the car through that marked-off rightward swerve at the end of the course, tires squealing. Yow, what a thrill! To do, not to watch. "Very good," the driver says mildly. That guy must be a gas at parties.
Bill and Cathi are being driven in their taxi to the Pit Stop, fully expecting to be eliminated once they get there, but cool with it. Indeed, Phil tells them they're the last team to arrive, but then gives them the "however" and the clue. So given that there's no elimination and no rest time and no Speed Bump imposed for the leg, how exactly is this a Pit Stop, other than the presence of Phil and a mat and a half-dozen Kenny Gs? And if it is, doesn't this bring the number of non-elimination legs to four, rather than the promised three? You know, The Amazing Race, eleven episodes is a perfectly valid number. I'm just saying. Cathi seems a lot happier about their continued survival than does Bill, who looks like he was kind of ready to be done. In the back seat of their car leaving the Pit Keep Going while Bill drives, Cathi says it "wasn't elimination." Yeah, don't say "non-elimination," because that would be something totally different. "We're going to have to put the pedal to the metal...as safely and legally as we can." Of course she would have added that last part even if the cameras hadn't been rolling, why do you ask?
Ernie is backed into the starting block of the slalom course. A flagman waves the green, the driver mutters, "Go," and Ernie floors it while a timer in the corner of the screen ticks off the tenths of seconds. Ernie swings the wheel hard, making wider turns than he should between the cones and burning up precious time. After passing the cones, the driver directs him to a box painted on the asphalt at the end of the course where he needs to stop -- without hitting the car-shaped balloon positioned right in front of it, like it's high-speed parallel parking. Ernie manages that, but it took him 16.9 seconds, so the flagman gives a thumbs-down and the driver says, "Again. Too slow." Ernie backs up to try again. He looks bummed, but I can think of worse ways to spend sixteen seconds (that's what she said).
Amani and Marcus seem to still be in Brussels, or at least some other similar-looking city. Either way, they're aware of being lost. They stop for directions at a gas station and get some from a guy with a blurry face GPS unit. Off they go. And then, as if to prove the superiority of stationery stores when it comes to getting directions, Jeremy and Sandy are shown already arriving at the Proving Ground in second place. Jeremy is more than happy to take this Roadblock. Sandy's probably happy to let him, because what fun would it be if Jeremy were yelling at her from the sidelines the whole time anyway? Never mind that he can't even see the course from the waiting area. He'd find a way.
Ernie's taking another try. Near the end, the driver calmly predicts, "Here you lose," and sure enough, Ernie bumps the car-shaped balloon. Good thing it's not a real car. "Again," the driver says. Ernie just hits it harder time. And the time as well. "Balloon," the driver murmurs laconically, just before Ernie smacks it yet again. Ernie interviews that he was getting frustrated, having to do it fifteen time. The his driver looks frustrated too, but in his completely subdued way that's starting to crack me up.
Jeremy does a perfect job at the speed part, so his driver (with a much fainter accent) directs him to go get in line behind Ernie. Who hits a cone on his latest attempt, and is sent back for another try. But not until Jeremy gets a crack at it, so apparently they get to take turns until one of them finishes. Ernie seems sick at the loss of their substantial lead. His instructor just looks motion-sick. Which is a pretty impressive feat on Ernie's part in its own right, if you think about it.
After the ads, Ernie has to watch Jeremy go for it. He does a better job than Ernie's first attempt, making it into the box in 15.1 seconds, but bumping the car-balloon at the end. Apparently having someone on his ass is what it takes Ernie to pull his head out of it, because he does it right the time. Now all that's left to do is a couple of doughnuts on the pavement, revving the engine while spinning around and sending up clouds of white smoke. "Complete. Well done," Ernie's instructor lies. Right behind him, Jeremy also gets a thumbs-up, only on his second try, completing the course in 13.7 seconds. I also think Jeremy's instructor has a little crush on him. Either that or the tire-smoke blowing into the open windows from Jeremy's doughnuts is making him lightheaded.
Ernie's instructor drives him back to the waiting area and looks glad to be quit of him. Cindy relieves Ernie of his helmet and they open the clue, which is sending them to the city of Gent (which I thought was spelled "Ghent," but I guess the clue writers are running low on H's after all these weeks in northern Europe), specifically the Hoofdbrug, a bridge over a canal to a medieval castle. Jeremy and Sandy are right behind them. Back in their respective normal cars, Ernie says he was in fear for his life, while Jeremy says he never felt power like that before. Plug the product all you want, Jeremy, it doesn't help you in the race.
Amani and Marcus are finally at the Proving Ground in third place, and Marcus takes this one. Andy and Tommy roll up just as Marcus is getting into his jumpsuit. "What are you doing here, you little bodybuilder?" Tommy asks as he runs up to the clues, which I guess is Christian for "how did we catch up to you, loser?" He's taking this one, which Andy doesn't seem thrilled about. Marcus strides over to a black Mustang, boasting, "It's about to go down like four flat tires!" Amani looks a little nervous about this task, or maybe about her husband's poor choice of simile. While Tommy gets ready, Andy admits that he's pretty jealous that Tommy gets to do this one, what with Andy's passion for driving and all. "Probably more than snowboarding," Andy adds. Wow, that's a lot of passion. But they figured Tommy should do this one because of how much he sucked at the poem task last week, so they're saving the "mind ones" for Andy. So this is Tommy's reward for being dumb? Actually, it's not even that, it's Tommy's reward for not being enough of a ham the first time around. No wonder Andy's pissed.
"We can go now," Marcus's instructor tells him, and Marcus zooms down the lane, nailing the landing. Tommy's instructor sends him down the lane in Marcus's wake. "I had some jealousy in my heart today," Andy interviews. Tommy also does well on the speed task, but Andy shouldn't beat himself up. After all, who doesn't have jealousy in their heart sometimes? Seriously, because I'm so envious of them I want to find them and kill them.
Ernie and Cindy are already in the old-fashioned-looking city of Gent, getting directions for "Burgstraat," which is apparently the street that leads to the bridge they need to find. So are Jeremy and Sandy. Back in Lommel, Marcus's first shot at the slalom comes in at 16.5 seconds, so he has to do it again. Tommy makes time on his first attempt, but he hit one of the cones and has to go again. You'd think a snowboarder would know from slaloming a little better. Marcus gives himself one of his trademark pep talks before his second crack at it, and brings it in at 13.8 seconds this time, stopping inches before the car-balloon. He interviews that the adrenalin rush was different from the birth of his kids or catching touchdown passes. You hear that, viewers? Don't have a family or practice your tackling, just buy a Mustang. Marcus does his doughnuts, and is totally jazzed, yelling about how he's ready to drive in NASCAR. Which makes me wonder how many NASCAR drivers played turkey-bloated football games in their backyards last weekend and decided they were ready for the NFL.
Bill and Cathi arrive at the Roadblock in, what else, last place, and Bill takes this. "Have such a great time," she tells him. Marcus is driven happily back to the waiting area, where he gets out and crows at Amani, "Now that's how you drive! From now on, that's how you drive!" Amani reads the clue, pronouncing "Gent" as the opposite of "Lady," but who can blame her with the H missing?
Tommy finishes the slalom in 15.2 seconds, gets a thumbs-up, and launches into his doughnuts. Bill does the 100 MPH part perfectly, like everyone else did, but looks like he just wants to get going again.
Tommy is chauffeured back to the waiting area, where he and Andy open the clue. While Tommy drives to Gent, Andy asks from the back seat how it was, but can't actually stand to hear Tommy talking about it too much. Not that it stops Tommy. Andy interviews about how he bickered with Tommy over it, "Because of this sin that I had in my heart." But then he asked Christ for forgiveness, and Christ gave it. Okay, as a recovering Catholic I know that envy is one of the seven deadly sins and all, but really? Is that, like, a literal thing?
In Gent, Team Control finds the Burgstraat, and a barrel to the bridge railing containing the clues. It's a Detour, and suddenly here's Phil, telling us the Detour is about "two things that Belgium is in no short supply of: water, or waffles." For "Water," the racers will use rope, plastic barrels, and some rough-hewn poles to lash together a makeshift raft, which they'll paddle down the canal until they find two halves of a clue that will add up to a complete one. For "Waffles," they have to put together a waffle stand, then make and dress up eighteen "perfectly formed waffles" to earn their clue from the chef. Ernie and Cindy decide on Waffles. "We don't do well on water tasks," Cindy understates. In fact they skip them entirely whenever possible. They quickly find the neighboring corner where the waffle-stand kits are waiting and get right to work putting one together like it came out of a box from IKEA. Jeremy and Sandy find the clue , and also decide on Waffles. Speaking of breakfast foods, Bill finishes his doughnuts, and appears to have finally given in to his enjoyment, even though he probably does this with his tractor back home all the time.
Ernie and Cindy are discovering the difficulty faced by two people who want to set a roof on a waffle stand when one of them has a maximum vertical reach of a good foot below where said roof is supposed to go. Ernie somehow centers himself under it and holds it in place while Cindy scampers around rushing to get the support poles deployed under the corners. "Just take your time," he snarks with a hundred pounds of lumber balanced on his head. She has to climb the walls to get everything notched in, and after a Raimi-esque montage of more pieces being slotted into place, Cindy test-fires the provided hand-mixer. Groovy.
As Team Control heads over to the chef's stand to check out the demonstration, Jeremy and Sandy run up the street to join them. The four of them look over the dozen-and-a-half rectangular waffles in the display case, each with a different topping configuration (fruit, cream, chocolate, various permutations thereof) and a little Belgian flag stuck in it. Sandy and Jeremy decide to put this part off until their stand is constructed, while Ernie says of the impending waffle-making, "I should be able to do this quite effectively, but you never really can tell once you get into the booth with Cindy." Whoa, where did that come from? Team Pre-Owned is at work on their stand, with the predictable attendant tension, and Ernie gets to work mixing up waffle dough while Cindy questions every move Ernie makes (Ernie's every answer being a form of "because the chef did it this way"). Cindy also wonders how Jeremy and Sandy are getting their stand up so quickly. "I don't know, because they're tall and we're not," Jeremy says diplomatically, if not outright generously, to his munchkin fiancée.
Bill has been returned to the waiting area to reunite with Cathi and open their clue. "Rip it off, let's go," Cathi tells him, probably not for the first time. They have been together almost fifty years, after all. In Gent, newly minted super-driver Marcus parks their car half on the curb, calls the clue-barrel on the bridge a "box," and decides they'll do Waffles. Andy and Tommy see them running off in that direction when they pull up, and the snowboarders are deciding to do the water task. "We love water, we love building," Tommy reasons. Well, who doesn't love those things? Dehydrated people who live outside, that's who.
At the waffle stands, Cindy comments on the mess Ernie's making (Mmmm, waffle drippings), to which Ernie responds that his mess matches the chef's. Team Pre-Owned's batter is too thick, so Sandy adds water. In a post-leg interview, Jeremy admits his embarrassment at never having done waffles before. "I'm more of a pancake maker myself," he explains. Sandy tells him to chill out and enjoy the experience. Yeah, that seems likely. Amani and Marcus show up, take one look at the stands and the difficulties the other two teams are having, and decide to switch to the raft task instead. At least they switched efficiently, with no waffling. What, was I supposed to not say that? Come on. They still arrive at the alley where the raft materials are waiting before the snowboarders do. The materials don't come with instructions, either. "Where's Laurence when you need him?" Marcus wonders, as if Laurence's raft wouldn't go straight to the bottom.
Air is loudly escaping from the waffle currently in Ernie and Cindy's iron. "We'll call that waffle Ernie. He farts," Cindy explains. Get a load of the Bickersons! They're kidding each other, obvi.
The snowboarders have lashed together a rough construction whose seaworthiness they feel ready to test, but Marcus, still working on his with Amani, teases, "You guys are gonna get creamed! Y'all going in, brother!" He mocks them their whole way down to the water, where they launch the narrow raft and climb on. Fortunately they have the balance of snowboarders and are able to get on it without tipping over. They use proper paddles to navigate up the waterway, and soon see a nearby life-ring on a hook with Ziploc bags hanging from it. They row right over to grab one, loving every minute of this. It's almost like a floating Mustang, Andy!
Ernie and Cindy, meanwhile, have finished assembling their waffle display and go to get the judge, who isn't the actual chef but a young blond kid in a black chef's jacket who tells them they don't have it quite right. Ernie and Tommy, meanwhile, have already retrieved the second half of their clue, in full view of the waffle stands. Ernie and Cindy spot a fallen strawberry in their display, and after getting it back in place, they dork out while the judge slowly and suspensefully withdraws a clue from inside his jacket. Cindy happily hugs him, and we cut to Ernie attempting to read from the clue, "Drive yourself to Dee More Van..." The Amazing Editors just give up on him as Phil tells us, over shots of beautiful pastoral Belgian countryside, that they'll now be going to De Muur Van Geraardsbergen, pronouncing the name of the place in a way that would make Hercule Poirot ask Phil to dial it back a little.
They jump in their car just as Andy and Tommy are returning to the dock, where Amani and Marcus are still slowly constructing their raft. The snowboarders read the clue even more slowly, and tote their raft back to where they found the materials, wishing Amani and Marcus good luck. They're feeling good about how as they drive off, as they should. Back at the river, Amani's on the front of the raft, and Marcus eases his massive form onto the back, imparting it with an alarming sternward list. They start paddling, but Amani's end is so high out of the water she can barely get any traction on anything but "Marcus's big size-fifteen feet," which are dangling all the way to the river. No wonder they wanted to take time to make sure they had the raft together right.
Bill and Cathi get to the bridge and agree to do the waffles. Jeremy and Sandy ask for a check of their work, only to be told that "it's not quite right." Team NFL retrieves their first demi-clue. Sandy notices that one of the demo waffles has powdered sugar, so they head back to their own stand to fix it. Bill and Cathi arrive on the scene, and Jeremy tells them it's hard, so they quickly decide to build the raft instead. That should work great, with Cathi's sterling sense of balance. Amani has just retrieved their second clue, and Marcus paddles them back to the dock. Bill and Cathi arrive at the alley and find the materials waiting for them, as well as the snowboarders' discarded raft that they now get to use as a model. Seeing Team NFL docking upstream, Sandy says, "We're in last again." Not counting Bill and Cathi, that is. Team NFL struggles with the pronunciation of the Muur clue and they head out in third place, Marcus pausing to tell Bill and Cathi their raft is strong enough now. I think he's sincerely trying to be helpful, and not trying to get the grandparents out on a raft that will dump them in the drink.
Jeremy and Sandy are sure their display is perfect. The sun has gone behind the buildings across the way, so the day's getting along. If you think about it, everyone's been racing nonstop since the train pulled into Brussels on what is, for us, a week ago but for the racers was just that morning. Sandy, starting to look a little unhinged, suggests switching tasks, but Jeremy says they can't. "We're never gonna get it," Sandy insists, and the Amazing Editors start firing off desperate e-mails to the legal department asking for clearance to use an old En Vogue song on the air.
Team Pre-Owned is still stuck after the ads, which is a very bad sign for them, because usually a commercial break is all it takes to have a breakthrough and it doesn't seem to have worked this time. Worse, Bill and Cathi are already boarding their raft. Amazingly, Cathi manages to not topple off. After Jeremy and Sandy ask for another check and get another no, Jeremy tosses the notebook and says they're screwed, making his six-year-old proud. Sandy picks it up, takes another look at their display, and realizes two of their waffles are swapped. After fixing that, they're done. "I'm glad to see you finally found it," the judge says. They're out of there at last in fourth place, after arriving in second. This is why it sucks to be Jeremy and Sandy.
Cathi has retrieved the first half of the canal clue. Bill calls up to a curious local standing up on the promenade looking down at them, "It's our first date. I'm taking her out on the canal. Cool, huh?" Okay, that's actually pretty funny. Jeremy and Sandy hump back to their car, Jeremy saying, "We were in first, we got passed by three." No, they were in second and now they're in third. This failure to grasp basic math may be another one of their problems.
Ernie and Cindy are driving out of town, following a sign that says "De Muur." "Did we just leave those waffles burning in there?" Cindy asks. Yep. She seems to feel bad about it, like the production is going to let the booth burn to the ground like the Bluths' frozen banana stand.
Andy and Tommy are stopping somewhere out of town for directions. Bill and Cathi now have their complete clue to what Cathi calls "Muir van Gardensburger." Back to their car. Marcus is running on fumes, babbling about the clue's instructions to make his way somewhere. "Well, if you're not making your way here you're making your way home," Amani warns from the back seat. Sandy has found a shortcut on the map and tells a skeptical Jeremy to take the E40. He agrees. Skeptically.
Ernie and Cindy reach De Muur Van Geraardsbergen, still in first. They grab a clue from a wooden rack and read, "Help the pigeon trainer release a flock of homing pigeons." Over a shot of a thick flock of birds taking wing, Phil narrates, "When it comes to international pigeon racing, Belgium is team number one." Is that really the first time they've used that construction on this show? That's actually fairly impressive. Phil exaggerates that each team will be "working with a pigeon trainer" to release hundreds of homing pigeons. The flock will fly to an address where the team will have to meet them, and get their clue from the little message strapped to a birds' leg. After reading that this clue will tell them the location of the Pit Stop, Ernie and Cindy step over to a big semi-trailer stacked high with flat bird cages. I don't know what Phil thought he meant by "working with a pigeon trainer," but they don't have to do more than watch as the trainer opens the little door to release the birds into the sky. Cindy didn't even have to touch them, like she was worried she'd have to. "Pigeons gross me out," she explains. The trainer hands them a little business card with a picture of a pigeon and the address Steenweg op Ukkel 75, Beersel. Now back to their car to find directions. If only they were also homing pigeons.
Andy and Tommy find the pigeon trainer , watch him release another flock, and get their own address, Stoofstrat 52, also in Beersel. Some people just happen to be walking by, and they tell the snowboarders that Beersel is near Brussels. That was easy.
Bill and Cathi are getting on the E40, distracted by a hot air balloon up in the distance. Marcus spots a sign pointing to Muur, and they get out of their car right there. There's an Amazing Flag on a column on a nearby hill, which they climb up to, but there's nothing else up there. Sandy's shortcut must have worked, because Jeremy and Sandy arrive just as Team NFL is coming down, and the latter team is the first to spot the rack of clues. "We walked right past it," Sandy says while Jeremy huffs in annoyance. "Idiots." Both teams read the clue, and Amani and Marcus's flock takes off seconds before Jeremy and Sandy's does. Let's hope they don't get mixed up, especially as both teams compare notes back at the cars and learn that Sandy and Jeremy are going to Stoofstraat 52 (where the snowboarders are going) and Amani and Marcus are going to Steenweg op Ukkel 75 (which is also Team Control's destination). Jeremy confirms that Sandy has a fix on where they're going with her map, and peels out with good luck wishes to Team NFL. Amani and Marcus pass some pigeons on the road, which they hope aren't theirs.
Ernie and Cindy have stopped at a convenience store, where Cindy deploys some high-school French to get directions to Beersel. They seem very nervous about these directions once they're back in the car. Andy and Tommy, meanwhile, have already found their correct address. Seeing the pigeon cages sitting in the driveway of the house like a short, dim beacon, they run around back, where a pigeon-keeper retrieves a bird from one of his cages and holds its leg out for Andy to retrieve. I guess we'll just have to take the show's word for it that these are the same pigeons that were released from Mirror van Gobbledygook and not birds that have actually never left the premises. It's not like an Amazing Red Line ever tracked the flock's progress. Anyway, the message is the tiniest little Amazing Yellow Envelope ever, totally adorable, too small to hold a message of more than 140 characters. There should be some kind of bird-related term for a message that length. Go ahead and brainstorm on that. The clue is actually not words but a miniature photo of a giant metal hexagonal structure that looks like a tremendous atom. From there we cut to the real thing, a collection of shiny metal spheres and tubes towering over Brussels which Phil tells us is the "Atomium, a model of the atomic structure of iron, blown up 165 million times." Okay, sure, that's not random at all. Then I look and find out it was built for the 1958 World's Fair and it all makes sense. Phil says it's the Pit Stop, and announces, "The last team to check in here will be eliminated." Hey, let's not talk crazy now!
The snowboarders leave the house with no idea where to go. In the town, however, they find some kids who know all about it and where it is. "Bing bong," Tommy responds to the ringing of a church-bell.
"Right now where we're going is to meet a pigeon and that pigeon's gonna tell us where to go," Sandy drawls from the back seat of her and Jeremy's car, like that's the most normal thing in the world. They're the to arrive at the house Andy and Tommy just left, and the dude comes out with a fresh bird. Sandy gently retrieves the clue, and Jeremy immediately recognizes the Atomium as...well, something they saw back in Brussels, even if they don't know what it is. Back they go.
Things are not going as well for Ernie and Cindy. She asks him to pull over and ask for directions at an open restaurant, but he just zooms right by. When she asks why, he snaps, "I couldn't park there because people are on my ass! Chill the hell out!" Not a lovely moment. They eventually get there, though, and are directed to take the highway. Back in the car, Cindy explains their plight: "He said that it's thirty minutes away, which is not good, because it was only 45 minutes away from the first place that we left 45 minutes ago." I'm not sure I'm following her geography, but since she says the bottom line is that they're 30 minutes out of their way and we go to the last ad break, it can't be good.
Andy and Tommy, back in Brussels, spot the Atomium first, which is not hard given that it's the height of 165 billion iron atoms. In the failing daylight, we can start to see pinpoints of light shining through the hull of each humongous electron. Phil and a greeter in a snappy Belgian park service uniform that makes her look like a dashing flight attendant meet in front of it to await the arrival of the first team, which are of course Andy and Tommy. While they celebrate coming in first for the sixth time, Phil tells them they each win a brand-new Ford Mustang. Will the coincidences ever end? Andy tells Tommy in the post-leg interviews, "I've gotten over it. You can rub it in all you want."
Bill and Cathi have stopped in town somewhere for directions, which is not good at all, given that they're the only team who has yet to even find the pigeons. A dude with a handlebar mustache gives them wordy, confusing directions that are probably less helpful than none at all. But Amani and Marcus are also lost, on the doorstep of some suburbanites who tell them that they're not in Beersel, but Linkebeek. Oh, if I had a nickel for every time that happened to me.
Ernie and Cindy stop for directions yet again. "We're trying to get to, like, a pigeon place," Cindy explains to the guy they pull up to while Ernie hands over the card with the address on it. "It's here," the guy tells them. What a lucky break. He leads them back to the pigeon-hutch, where they get their tiny Atomium photo in third place. Fortunately everyone in Belgium seems to know where it is, including the people they quiz in a local restaurant.
It's getting darker as Sandy frets about how slowly Jeremy's driving. He's just being careful not to miss their exit. Besides, how much more fast driving does he need to do today? Marcus and Amani get to the pigeon place we just saw Ernie and Cindy leave, and get directions to the Atomium from some guy outside. Getting back into their car, Marcus announces, "I'm tired." I would think. This one day has stretched for this whole episode and half of the last one. Driving back to Brussels through the gathering dusk, Marcus tries to wake himself up by clapping and whooping and pep-talking himself. Of course the best part of these moments is always Amani's patiently indulgent expressions in the background. Amani, even if Marcus can't see you, the camera still can.
Bill and Cathi: still lost. "There's no signage!" Bill gripes. "This is a...lot of fun." I think that remark probably had a very different first draft.
It's getting ever darker as Jeremy and Sandy arrive at the Atomium as team number two, much to their happy surprise. Best ever! Then it's almost fully dark when Ernie and Cindy straggle in. Phil is grim-faced as he says their names, then says, "You guys should be a lot happier than you are now because you are team number three." They're still not happy. Cindy says they were in front again, and once again they blew it. Hey, better than being in the middle and blowing it.
Speaking of which, Amani and Marcus are the to arrive, and are much happier to be team number four than Ernie and Cindy were to be team number three. Post-leg, Marcus interviews that this leg is the football equivalent of a conference championship, and then "it's on to the Super Bowl." And then they go home and watch the season and they both discover how much of their relationship is predicated on Amani keeping her smirking to herself when he talks like this.
That means Bill and Cathi are done, and if they had to go ahead and go through the motions of finding the pigeons and meeting them later to find out they're going to the Atomium, we don't see it. As of now, they're driving straight there in the darkness, Bill saying he's not ashamed of how they did. "I think they're both startled at how long we have managed to stay with it." And they're not the only ones. There's a whole montage of their happiest and dorkiest moments throughout the season, and Bill says that it's been "a hoot" and has improved their relationship.
The moon's shining through the clouds by the time the finally arrive, jogging up to the mat at last. The greeter welcomes them to the Atomium, they politely thank her, and for the third time in the race, Phil tells them they're the last team to arrive. But this is the first time he actually Philiminates them. They say they loved every minute of the race. Phil says they've proven that age won't stop a team from doing well on the race, refraining from telling them they've lasted longer than any other old-people team ever has. Cathi agrees, "Lots of times older Americans are overlooked, and it's like you're invisible. We can make a contribution, we can be competitive, and I think we were." Bill agrees, and adds, "Win, lose or draw, there's not reason for us to ever fall apart." Post-leg, Bill calls it "one more chance to be with my best friend and do some really, really special things in the world. And I would do it all over again, same person, same way." Oh, shit, are they dying? Man, that would be an even bigger downer.
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.