Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 189 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Gone with the "1"
By M. Giant | Season 19 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2011.12.11
Margaret Mitchell's house is a bit incongruous, what with it being a square, largish residential structure surrounded by downtown skyscrapers. That's historical preservation for you. Ernie and Cindy's cab pulls up and they collect the clue envelope from the Scarlett O'Hara waiting outside. The Roadblock question is "Who gives a damn?" You sure you want to be asking that question this season, The Amazing Race?
Cut to the inside of the house, where Phil tells us, "This is the very room where Pulitzer Prize-winner Margaret Mitchell wrote her bestselling novel, Gone with the Wind." Like she wrote other ones. There are writing desks placed around the room, each with an old Remington 3 typewriter and a stack of vellum on which teams will have to type out the next clue. Seriously, that's it? Ooh, but here's where it gets tricky: "They will soon discover there is no key for the number 1," Phil all but snickers, as the Amazing Editors paste one in next to the 2 in a close-up of the keyboard. "And they will need to use the lower-case "L" in its place." I honestly wonder how long it would take me to remember that. I used to write stories on my mom's old Royal when I was in grade school, and by "write stories" I mean "spend an hour trying to center the title page and chapter headings" and "try to use words that would result in a justified right margin." The remaining racers are all younger than I am, though. It's too bad Bill and Cathi aren't still around. That has nothing to do with typewriters, mind you, I just wish they were still around. There's a guy in a Colonel Sanders suit who will decide if they've typed it perfectly. Phil rips a sheet of paper out of the carriage and declares, "They will have their next clue." I'm really dating myself with my casual use of old-timey terms like "carriage," "sheet," and "paper," aren't I?