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The teams have to fly to Asuncion, Paraguay, but not everyone is able to get on the same flight, which burns up a good ten minutes of the episode. Other Rachel & Dave, Art & JJ, Bopper & Mark, and Nary & Jamie are on the first flight, and the Border Patrol Agents are the first to find the Detour clue in an outdoor yard store. Then teams have to either stack a giant pyramid of watermelons at a fruit market, or string (but not tune) a harp at a concert hall. The whole lead group goes with the melon-stacking option, and tensions rise between partners under the hot, humid conditions -- particularly with Other Rachel & Dave. But the pyramids slowly rise, and Art and JJ are the first to complete the Detour before anyone from the second group of teams even shows up -- and in their wake, the other teams' pyramids collapse before they're completed, prompting them all to switch Detours, although Other Rachel and Dave disagree about whether to use their Express Pass.
As for the second group, Kerri and Stacy don't even stick around at the melon market after they realize Team Kentucky not only lied about the melon-stacking being easy, but took their cab. Vanessa makes some catty remarks about Rachel that drives her and Brendon away. Soon most of the teams are stringing harps in an air-conditioned theater. At the Roadblock, Art has some difficulty mastering a dance with a bottle on his head, but he and JJ still the first team to complete the Roadblock, before anyone else has even finished the Detour. Sure enough, they win the leg handily, and are happy to tell you all about it.
Other Rachel and Dave skip the harp-stringing with their Express Pass, but Dave fails the Roadblock and they end up with a two-hour penalty. Brendon and Rachel are the first team to finish the harp-stringing, while Joey "Fitness" and Danny beat Vanessa and Ralph at the melon-stacking. Elliot's musical experience somehow proves not only unhelpful but detrimental to himself and Andrew, so they almost decide to switch to the melons -- which Ralph and Vanessa are totally screwed on.
Brendon and Rachel are the third team to arrive at the mat, with Team Jersey right behind them, but Other Rachel and Dave are still waiting out their penalty, so they're actually second and third. And then Team Kentucky shows up in fourth and Nary & Jamie team number five, while the last few seconds of Other Rachel and Dave's penalty ticks away, putting them in sixth. For the first time, a team fails to complete a task and stays in the race. Probably the first time an Express Pass actually saved someone, too.
As the leg drags on into the evening, Kerri and Staci come in seventh while Vanessa and Ralph and Elliot and Andrew limp to the ends of their respective Detours. Both teams are pretty surprised to see each other at the Roadblock. Ralph and Andrew go head to head for survival, and Ralph actually passes Andrew. But not by much, and it's only a few blocks to the Pit Stop. Vanessa and Ralph drag themselves to the mat just head of the Twins, who are Philiminated. Being a twin on this show is a rough gig these days, isn't it?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Buenos Aires certainly looks lovely in the opening sequence, in which Phil tells us that Argentina's capital city dates back almost five hundred years. "And in this affluent neighborhood, El Gomera, [stands] an enormous, 200-year-old rubber tree." We didn't get this good a look at the tree last week, but it's really impressive. I bet a rubber tree that big would bounce really high. It's also the start of the third leg. Other Rachel and Dave won the last leg, so now they get to be the first to start this one, at 12:22 AM. The clue tells them to fly to the Corazón de América, Paraguay. Specifically, Phil and the subtitles tell us they need to fly to the city of Asunción. There, they'll go to a yard equipment supply store called Metalurgica Punta de Rieles -- which looks like a sprawling yard packed with playground and grilling equipment -- and find their clue. They have $200 for this leg. Other Rachel and Dave talk about how winning two legs in a row might make them a target. Like the other teams are armed or something.
Art and JJ are leaving at 12:25 AM. JJ says it's good to be going to another Spanish-speaking country, "Where we can really dominate." They talk about the team just ahead of them being a good team: "We think alike. We both do the same thing, we both protect America." Did Major Dave sign off on that sentiment? JJ says they'll stick together and dominate the whole season. He does like to talk about dominating, doesn't he?
Other Rachel and Dave reach the airport and see an 8:45 flight to Asunción listed on the board. The Border Patrol agents show up soon after and both teams go to the ticket counter to try to get seats. Alas, the flight is full and they have to go to the check-in counters to get on standby. This is the kind of moment that tells you we're going to spend a fair chunk of the episode in the airport.
thing you know, all the other teams are at the airport as well, Rachel looking more ridiculous than usual in a bedazzled green headband. Nary and Jamie have found out about the standby flight and wave the other teams over to the counter where they are. JJ is deeply offended by this conduct on the part of the "teachers." Yes, lest we forget, Nary and Jamie are federal agents running the race undercover, because of how they figure people like teachers. This would be a flawed argument even if there weren't another team of agents on this race. I mean, for federal agents they obviously don't hang around many Republicans. JJ sees Nary and Jamie's helpfulness as a sign of himself being screwed over by people he's helped, even though there's no evidence of his having helped anyone and it's not like any of these other teams are going to get on the flight before he and Art do. Shouldn't he be looking forward to having more people in Paraguay to dominate? He whine-terviews, "We're basically gonna run the race for ya? That's not going to happen any more." Any more? And would his attitude be different if he knew that Nary and Jamie also protect America?
We do see other teams trying to finagle seats, some of them making half-serious suggestions that their ticket agents predictably rebuff. But later, a ticket agent comes up and tells just Art, JJ, Other Rachel, and Dave that they have seats for "four people only." So their camera and sound crews ride in the overhead luggage bins, then? As they head to the counter to buy their seats, they're not worried about this making them a target. "I'll put a target on my back all day long," Art says with naked contempt. "Michael Jordan wasn't afraid to put a target on his back and he won, what, six championships?" Yes, Art, you and Michael Jordan. Two peas in a pod.
Soon, however, Team Undercover and Team Kentucky are on the flight as well. "Team Kentucky coming lay-yood and pray-yood," Bopper drawls as he and Mark board. But could you be a little more southern? Meanwhile, in the concourse, Rachel realizes that the first four teams are on the standby flight. "Where else are they?" she demands when Brendon asks how she knows. Other teams' efforts to join them prove futile and the 8:45 flight takes off with just the first four teams on board. Looks like everyone else will be taking off at 10:40 on a Pluna flight. "I'm not calm Brendon," Rachel says. Yes, I've noticed that about her. "This is a race and I'm not about to lose it to some doof-heads." As though she hasn't been losing to doof-heads on CBS for two years. The second flight leaves at 10:40 with a lot of the teams expressing frustration at being in the back of the pack. "But I'll tell you what," Ralph interviews, "We're still gonna play hard." Given what happens later, he's probably not referring to being on a later plane.
An Amazing Red and an Amazing Green Line zoom north to Asunción. The first flight touches down amid bright, sunny B-roll of statues and other city landmarks, and soon the four lead teams are racing for taxis. Mark is having trouble reading the destination on his clue to a potential driver while the other teams cab up. "We are the team to beat," JJ says in their taxi, now that they've demonstrated the wide range of skills, teamwork, and stamina it takes to be in the first cab out of the Asunción airport. Bopper and Mark just decide to have their driver follow the Border Patrol agents, because that's easier than figuring out how to pronounce "Metalurgica Punta de Rieles." Nary and Jamie are off in third, with Other Rachel and Dave in fourth. "Drive it like you stole it, baby," Bopper tells his driver, who glances back in the mirror thinking either, "Wow, Americans really do talk like that?" or "I thought Charles Napier was dead?"
Art and JJ's cab delivers them to Metalurgica Punta de Rieles. JJ takes one look at the jumble inside the fence and says, "We gotta find the clue in this mess? Holy smokes." They're not only in the lead, they're dominating at whining. For some reason, the only means of entry for the racers are a set of playground slides laid over the fence that they have to slide down. Despite all their bitching, they soon find a clue inside one of the barbecue grills. It's a Detour, with the options being "Stacked Up" or "Strung Out." Phil explains, "Teams must now make their way to Paraguay's favorite fruit market, or work with Paraguay's favorite musical instrument." Sometimes the writers strain to make the Detours seem connected, and sometimes they just throw their hands up. For "Stacked Up," the racers will go to the largest fruit market in Paraguay "and join the workforce in the busy watermelon season." Each team will have to build a perfectly shaped pyramid of melons, ten melons on a side at its base. So that's a hundred melons at the bottom, 81 in the second tier, on up to the single watermelon on top bringing the total to 385. Judging from the similar-looking melon-structures we see all over the market like the eggs of an alien invasion force, this is apparently SOP at this market, although it looks like most of the pros get to do this work in the shade. "When the vendor is satisfied with the mountain of melons, he'll hand over the clue," Phil says while a guy somehow stacks melons in time-lapse behind him and the guy holding the clue. For "Strung Out," they'll head to an auditorium and string one of many harps set out on a stage. The harp, as you know, is the national instrument of Paraguay... I guess because all the other instruments were taken. There's an "ongoing demonstration" that will show them how to attach 36 strings. When it's ready to be tuned, the conductor will give them their clue. So they don't even have to tune the harps themselves? Lame.
Art and JJ decide to do "Stacked Up" and leave just as Bopper and Mark are arriving, so we get to see twice as many grown men with large backpacks awkwardly going down slides. Bopper and Mark are also doing "Stacked Up." Team Undercover and Other Rachel and Dave show up and start searching as well. Nary and Jamie are the third team to find the clue and Other Rachel and Dave are close behind. They're both doing "Stacked Up" as well. But how will those poor harps ever get strung?
Art and JJ arrive at the fruit market, where they take in the pre-existing pyramids, empty pallets waiting to have pyramids built on them and dump trucks full of watermelons. They load up a hand truck with watermelons and get to work. JJ interviews, "We catch the bad guys, and we catch the dopers and the alien smugglers. We know we can do the manual labor. We're not afraid of getting dirty and sweaty and grimy and gutting out. We know we can get that done." Cool, thanks JJ. Let us know if you can think of any other ways you are awesome. No, later is fine.
Despite being the last team to leave the yard store, Other Rachel and Dave are somehow the team to reach the fruit market. In fact, we're going to see a lot of undocumented ranking changes during transit between tasks throughout this episode, but Team Undercover and Team Kentucky are right behind them. They all get to work. Bopper says this is his first time stacking watermelons, but there's a first time for everything and several of them comment on the heat. "It's hotter than new love, baby," Bopper says colorfully. Dave tosses Other Rachel a watermelon and, after catching it with her abdomen, she says, "I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to have babies after this." Soon they're all laying out the bases of their pyramids and it's not going as smoothly for the new arrivals as it is for Art ad JJ. Mark tosses Bopper a melon, but it goes high and bounces off his head. "Bust me right in the head with it, man," Bopper complains. Claire from TAR17 thinks, "Yeah, that must have sucked."
The second flight to Asunción has landed with the other five teams. Brendon and Rachel are the first team to get a cab, so they're now in fifth place. Cousins Kerri and Stacy are in the sixth-place cab and twins Elliot and Andrew are close behind, with Huge-Tiny couple Ralph and Vanessa in eighth and Joey "Fitness" and Danny in last, which they aren't thrilled about. You'd think they'd be used to it. Up at the Detour, Mark snacks on a handful of pulp from a dropped melon, while Other Rachel tries to get Dave to take a drink of water. Dave reminds us he was in Iraq for a year (and thus needs none of your water!) and as we see them start to bicker about whether or not Dave is encouraging to Other Rachel, she interviews that they haven't spent this much time together in a long time. "When he comes down on me it doesn't make me want to do things." Yeah, they're not working well together at all. Maybe he should stop coming down on her and try a different verb.
Team Big Brother arrives at the yard store, and they're still searching when Kerri and Stacy slide in. They're still the team to find a clue, though. Kerri and Stacy find their sixth-place clue with little difficulty and their cab cuts off some traffic as it pulls out to follow Team Big Brother's. Then the twins arrive, showing up just ahead of the last two teams. They find their clue in seventh place and Joey "Fitness" finds the eighth-place clue. Ralph and Vanessa get out of there in last place. "I love you. It's not over until we hit the mat," she says as they leave. And oftentimes not even then, if it's TAR19.
Art and JJ appear to be on the fifth or sixth tier of their pyramid, which means they're more than halfway done. Nary and Jamie are also making good progress, although one of their melons shifts ominously. A melon in their rack, I mean. I mean the melon in their stack of melons. Jeez. The other teams are also making progress, but the thing you know the Border Patrol agents are done. The other teams pause to watch them finish and celebrate, as teams always seem to do for some reason with particularly challenging tasks. They get their clue, which is sending them to a place called Plaza de la Democracia. In their cab on the way there, Art cracks to JJ, "Stacking watermelons in Paraguay was on my bucket list. Gone." JJ congratulates himself and Art: "We dominated -- we got the right flight, we did the right challenge, we did it perfectly. We gotta get this clue and we've got to get it done. We've gotta finish first today. There's no excuse for not finishing first." So if they do win the leg, that's just expected and not cause for a lot of bragging and gloating, right?
Back at the market, the locals are watching and filming with their cell phones when suddenly one entire side of Nary and Jamie's incomplete pyramid collapses. Bopper and Mark lose a whole corner. The locals laugh heartily, as a whole face slides off of Other Rachel and Dave's when they're only a few melons from being done. Up ahead, JJ says he loves being on the race. "I love it, I love it, I love it." So romantic, with Art's arm around him in the back of the cab. The other three teams behind them at the Detour are having a bad enough time, however, that it's time for a commercial break.
Nary and Jamie and Bopper and Mark are surveying the damage to their respective pyramids and realizing there's no easy fix for either one of them. Other Rachel decides it's time for her and Dave to leave. Dave wants to use their Express Pass, but Other Rachel flatly refuses. Dave interviews, "You're essentially guaranteed to finish first." Yes, ask Ernie and Cindy about that. As they leave, Nary and Jamie are also making the decision to switch Detours, but Mark has to all but drag Bopper away. Which they discuss as quietly and calmly as all of the other things they say.
Kerri and Stacy are the first team from the second flight to show up at the fruit market and they encounter Bopper and Mark outside. Team Kentucky assures the cousins that the stacking task is not that hard -- it only took them two hours. And then Bopper and Mark claim the ladies' taxi. By the time Kerri and Stacy enter the market and see several incomplete pyramids, standing there in various stages of collapse, they realize they've been had. "Damn and Kentucky just took our cab," Stacy says. In an interview, Mark congratulates Bopper, "You finally played the game like I told you to." They both seem pretty amused with the whole situation, whereas the cousins are emphatically not. In fact, after they secure a new cab, Stacy writes the word BETS on a piece of notepaper, holds it up to the camera and rips it in half, meaning all bets are off. Shudder!
At the Plaza de la Democracia, Art and JJ open a Roadblock clue that asks, "Who's ready to use their head?" Amid dancers with unlabeled green wine bottles balanced on their heads and a band playing in the square, Phil says that teams will now participate in a traditional Paraguayan tradition: the bottle dance. They'll have to get through a whole routine without dropping the bottle that's balanced on their heads. Each team gets a table of fifty bottles with which to attempt the task and if they break them all, they'll have to take a two-hour penalty. Standing to a woman with five bottles stacked on her head one atop the other, Phil says that after the racers have completed the dance without breaking the bottle on their head, she'll hand them their clue. With five bottles on her head? Couldn't she just put the clue down somewhere and back away to a safe distance of, say, five bottle-heights?
Art is taking this. As JJ tells us, "Art's got a big, fat head, so this is gonna be good for him." Art watches the routine, which culminates in lying face-down on the ground with the bottle still balanced on your head and says, "This is insane." Art makes a couple of attempts, but those bottles are trickier than you think. And I'm saying this as someone who has actually danced with a bottle balanced on my head. In front of a paying audience, no less. Yes, I was one of the bottle dancers in Fiddler on the Roof in high school. But we got to wear hats, which helped. Also, those bottles were empty and these have water in them. And finally, those bottles were real glass and not candy-glass, like these apparently are. They seem to have a tendency to break before they even hit the ground, so they're clearly the kind of stunt-bottle that actors break over each other's heads in the movies. That may make this task safer for everyone involved, but it also means it's all but impossible to catch one intact once it starts to fall. "Come on, use your head, Art!" JJ yells from the sidelines. "You owe me!" Art snarls back, his head dripping. JJ just cackles at him.
Back at the fruit market, Danny is tossing melons to Joey "Fitness," who might be catching most of them -- it's hard to tell. Brendon and Rachel open a tailgate and release a flood of melons from their truck. Ralph and Vanessa show up and, out of nowhere, Vanessa decides to fuck with Team Big Brother, first by snatching melons out of their truck while Brendon and Rachel are reading their clue and then by trying to block their hand truck in with hers. Ralph doesn't want to play that way, to his credit. And since Brendon clumsily dumps half the melons off his hand truck, they don't really need to. In an interview, Brendon and Rachel complain about Vanessa and Ralph "talking smack" about them during the Detour, which seems to be the half-true. For instance, while Rachel's bent over a load of melons in her black stretch pants, Vanessa loudly taunts, "I can see her whole ass, ha, ha." What is she, ten? Ralph reminds her to stay on task. Vanessa pretends like she's trying, but Rachel's entire ass is just too distracting. That takes some doing, to out-Mean Girl Rachel. Rachel decides it's time to leave. "Cut our losses and go," as if it's a purely strategic decision. Vanessa points out their departure to Ralph, who tells her to focus on their own work. Tell her, Ralph. In an interview, Rachel admits that Vanessa's taunting was part of the reason they left: "Let them bury themselves and we'll cut bait and move on." I would be entirely on Team Big Brother's side in this incident and I'm never on their side, but then Brendon and Rachel enjoy their moral high ground in the taxi to the other Detour option by bitching about Vanessa in the worst possible terms. "Her disgusting smile is painted on just like her overdone makeup," Rachel says. Dammit, after seeing that line in last week's preview, I was all set to expound on Rachel's Annoying Habit #1: Her ugly attacks on other women, but now I kind of can't because Vanessa started it. Thanks a lump, Vanessa. Looks like I'm going to have to settle for #13: Rachel's raging hypocrisy.
At Plaza de la Democracia, Art has reached the climax of the dance routine, where he balances on his stomach with his chin, hands and feet hovering inches above the paving stones. The Roadblock completed, they get their clue, which is directs them to the Pit Stop. Phil says that means traveling on foot to "this renowned monument at Escalinanta de Antiquera." It's a statue of an angel on a column at the top of a flight of white stone steps with Phil and the mat positioned on a landing about halfway up. The last team to check in may be eliminated. The Border Patrol agents get directions from the local cops and hike to the monument. They jog up the two flights of stairs from the street, which nearly wears them out. Alien smugglers, take note: if you're fleeing the Border Patrol, run uphill. It's the opposite of fleeing a bear. Phil's there in front of the mat, standing to a local model in a short dress and an Angelina-like stance. She welcomes them to Asunción. "Wow, you're really pretty," Art informs her. They're team number one and they share a big hug. They've won a trip to the Bahamas. Art says this was a perfect day. "We smoked everybody." JJ adds, "We really don't think that we should be anything but number one. Every day. We're just gonna win. That's it. We're just gonna win." Cool, I'll see you at the end of the season, then.
Across town is a small, dome-roofed auditorium. Elliot and Andrew, being the first team to have selected "Strung Out" as their choice of Detour, are the first to show up. But Bopper and Mark aren't far behind and Nary and Jamie aren't far behind them. Inside, a whole harp orchestra is plucking away at a jaunty tune. But there are also unstrung harps, with the strings attached at the bottom end and tangled in knots above. The racers will have to disentangle the strings before they can start threading them to the top of the harp. Elliot, the twin who is in a rock band, figures this won't be a problem. "If it's anything like stringing a guitar, I think I'll be all right." And if he's not, he might be screwed. I mean, the tuner heads look similar, but I've also strung guitars and yet I've never had to use the long narrow rod this task seems to require. And if I did, I'd be spending a lot more time driving back and forth to the guitar shop. Kerri and Stacy show up surprisingly quickly, saying, "This could be a game-changer." Somehow, despite being among the first to leave the watermelon task, Other Rachel and Dave get there after everyone else. They take one look at all the teams already there and decide to use the Express Pass, although now it's just to stay in the race rather to win the leg. Scary how quickly that happened. They swap it for the clue and soon they're off to Plaza de la Democracia, "Currently in 2nd place." Dave is all "I told you so," saying they should have used it right away. But this way they saw so much more of the city!
Brendon and Rachel arrive at the auditorium and she thinks they made the right choice. "How can you feel stressed when this music is so beautiful?" she asks Brendon. He agrees that it's not nearly as stressful. This is the most functional I've ever seen them.
Meanwhile, Joey "Fitness" and Danny are schlepping melons, while congratulating themselves on having a Detour that uses their strength. Meanwhile, Ralph and Vanessa suffer a minor collapse of one corner when they're on their fourth tier. Not a good sign.
At the auditorium, racers are discovering their talent for stringing harps. Kerri tells us she and Stacy both played the flute in school and Rachel tells Brendon she's good at this. "I believe you!" Brendon says defensively. Bopper compares it to fixing a gas throttle and, what with getting the hang of it and the air-conditioning, he tells Mark they should have done this a long time ago. Then we get to hear Bopper loudly sing a whole verse of "Folsom Prison Blues" while he works. Did they get clearance for that? Is there a harp arrangement? Elliot and Andrew, however, are bickering and sniping at each other. Turns out guitar-stringing experience is useless, if not actively detrimental, to figuring out how to string a harp. Not that we ever get a decent close-up that illustrates exactly what's involved here.
Other Rachel and Dave reach the bottle-dancing Roadblock and she nominates Dave to take this one. It doesn't go well, with him losing bottles and trying to catch them with his feet and shit as they tumble to the ground. He's soon drenched. "I have an odd-shaped head," he explains as he fetches a fresh bottle from his table. On the sidelines, Rachel says they might take a two-hour penalty. He tells her it isn't going to work. Soon he's down to two bottles, and then one, which smashes on the stones. They open the clue and read, "Warning, the last team to check in may be eliminated." Off to the Pit Stop. "Today was not our day," Dave understates. Harps are strung, watermelons are stacked and Other Rachel and Dave come down the stairs to the mat, apparently having overshot the Pit Stop by a block or so. Phil tells them they're the second team to arrive, but they need to wait out their two-hour penalty on a bench off to the side. At least it's in the shade. As the clock on the screen starts counting down from two hours, Dave interviews, "Today was a complete failure on us as a team. We're hopefully still in it." Hopefully indeed.
At the auditorium, Brendon and Rachel are doing so well that they're the first team to finish stringing their harp. Which is surprising, because as we've seen on Big Brother, they normally do their best at challenges when they're surrounded by people who hate them and want them gone. Rachel hops onto Brendon, like she does (that's only Annoying Habit, like #48, and thus barely worth commenting on) and they jump into their cab, now in third place. Bopper, however, just has two strings left. "Ol' Magic-Finger Bopper," he dubs himself, which should make him popular back home. They get approval and have their clue in fourth place. Andrew tells Elliot, "You are killing us right now! Absolutely killing us!" Teamwork!
At the fruit market, it's getting later in the afternoon as the two teams still there work on their upper tiers. Team Jersey's pyramid is neat and square, but Ralph and Vanessa's looks more like a random pile, which does not bode well for its longevity. Indeed, melons are rolling off it as we speak, triggering flashbacks of the tragic melon-slides that have taken so many lives in the Andes. Ralph watches as Joey "Fitness" puts the "star on the Christmas tree," and the team from New York gets their clue in fifth place. Behind them, Ralph and Vanessa suffer another collapse. "We tried, angel," Ralph says, but Vanessa doesn't want to quit. She seems to think that switching Detours and quitting are pretty much the same thing. "If I take one out, the while thing's gonna come down," Ralph argues. Or even if he doesn't, as we see when the whole thing starts to come down without his touching it.
Kerri and Stacy are almost done stringing and so are Nary and Jamie, but Elliot and Andrew are still just harping at each other. The cousins finish the Detour in sixth place and Team Undercover in seventh. That leaves Elliot and Andrew there alone, and when they realize they missed a string -- and not for the first time -- Andrew says they should switch Detours. Meanwhile, at the fruit market, Ralph gingerly balances one melon on the top of their haphazard pyramid, but as soon as he lets go, the whole thing collapses on all four sides. It's actually kind of spectacular, in a totally depressing way. "That's not repairable," he says. Andrew and Elliot are wondering what to do about finding a cab to the fruit market, and Vanessa says they've already lost. "We have to take apart the whole thing," Ralph says. And Elliot hurls his backpack to the ground in frustration. No breakables in there, I hope.
After the ads, Elliot and Andrew are considering going back inside to finish the harp task. Ralph and Vanessa are also trying to make a decision. Andrew decides, "I'm going back and I'm gonna get it done. I don't care if it takes me all day." Interesting use of the first-person singular there. Think that might have anything to do with the difficulties they've been having? Ralph says they'll have to start over and Vanessa stands there defeated while he begins dismantling. "It's all right. Keep throwing me watermelons," he says. Or start throwing them, as the case may be. Back in the auditorium, Eliot says, "It is what it is, but we're gonna finish." I like how people have stopped pretending "it is what it is" is anything other than a family-friendly swear word. Back at the market, Ralph asks Vanessa if she wants to quit, but she still doesn't. As she says in an interview, Ralph has a thirteen-year-old daughter and they have to show her it's not okay to quit. Just like Vanessa never quit stalking Ralph. "Hell or high water, we're gonna finish it," she vows They kiss and get to work.
Rachel and Dave are still waiting on the bench, with 47 minutes left in their penalty and hoping other teams are also screwed. You know you're in trouble when that's your strategy. Meanwhile, Brendan and Rachel have arrived at the Plaza de la Democracia. Rachel starts doing the task, just as Team Jersey shows up. Joey "Fitness" is taking this one. Then it's Bopper and Mark, and Mark is doing this. Soon, they're all attempting the task. Rachel seems to get almost to the end before smashing her bottle. "Sorry. Do you have a broom?" she asks someone. Well, if someone didn't, this plaza would be very crunchy. Joey "Fitness" gets to the same point and fails as well. Now here are Nary and Jamie, currently in sixth and Nary's doing this. Then it's Kerri and Stacy, and it's Kerri's turn. We see them both attempting it, but Rachel is done, finishing up with her best Event Hostess smile and pausing to take a bow and bounce her own melons up and down before collecting the clue. She not only finished quickly, she's mostly dry, so she obviously did well. They're now in third place as they read the clue sending them to the Pit Stop on foot. Hence Rachel's Annoying Habit #21: Doing well at challenges and thus putting me in a position to have to spend more time putting up with Rachel's Annoying Habits #1-20.
Mark and Kerri both drop their bottle and the entire bottom falls out of Nary's while it's on her head. See? This is hard. As Team Big Brother leaves the Roadblock, Rachel spots Team Jersey breathing down their neck. Brendon spurs them into a run. Rachel's suddenly crying and nearly getting run over by traffic (which is horrible, because I hate it when Rachel cries for no reason), but they're the to make it to the mat. Rachel crouches dramatically on the mat like she's trying to cough out her diaphragm (both of them, possibly) while Brendon encouragingly tells her she just killed a Detour and a Roadblock. Of course he does; that's why she's crying, so he will. Joey "Fitness" and Danny join them on the mat, looking not much less winded. Rachel's happy to hear they're the third team to arrive, but because of the penalty, they're officially team number two and Joey "Fitness" and Danny are team number three. Other Rachel and Dave, with thirty minutes still on their penalty, watch them celebrate from the bench just hoping to stay in the race at this point. To win the first two legs only to get beaten in the third by Team Big Brother and Team Jersey has to sting.
Mark is the to finish the Detour, and Nary looks like she's close, but Kerri drops her bottle on the final move. Team Kentucky gets their clue just ahead of Nary and both teams read that they need to get to the Pit Stop. Where, according to the onscreen clock, Other Rachel and Dave have five minutes left to wait. Both teams head off that way, with six blocks to go. Other Rachel and Dave stand up from the bench, with only eighteen seconds left, but that's just enough time for Team Kentucky and Team Undercover to gain the mat, almost simultaneously. "You girls rocked today!" Bopper says, high-fiving Nary. Phil asks them to scootch over to make room for Other Rachel and Dave, then checks in Bopper and Mark as team number four, Nary and Jamie as team number five and Other Rachel and Dave team number six. Phil tells the latter team, "This is the first time ever on The Amazing Race that a team has not completed a challenge on a leg and stayed in the Amazing Race." That calls for some clarification, which Phil provided on Twitter this week. Yes, Boston Rob also quit the Meatblock challenge in TAR7, and convinced other teams to do the same, but what Phil means here is not just that Other Rachel and Dave didn't complete a task; they didn't complete either task today. Or any task. They completed fuck all. Other Rachel claps at their historic accomplishment, but Dave just has this kind of pissy half-smile that's worse than a glower. He interviews, "The leg was a complete and utter failure, and Rachel and I can only improve from this point forward." On the mat, Bopper twangs about how they're still here, and Dave can't entirely suppress an actual smile. After all, they're still here too. Sure, their Express Pass is gone, along with their aura of invincibility, but they're going to be a lot more rested than all the other teams tomorrow.
Elliot and Andrew are still stringing, with less bickering this time. Ralph tells Vanessa they'll be here until midnight. "You down?" "I'm down," she says gamely. Yes, she was a dick to Rachel earlier for no apparent reason, but they're paying that karmic debt now. Both teams continue working. The sun goes down, clouds pass in front of the moon, and Kerri and Stacy are checked in as team number seven. Any other leg, they'd be done now. But there are still two teams out there in the field: Ralph and Vanessa and the twins, still working alone on their respective Detours. The twins get final approval on their harp, just as Ralph has two melons left to stack and soon Elliot and Andrew are en route to Plaza de la Democracia in eighth place. "That was disheartening," Andrew says in the cab. Ralph places the last melon on his pile and the crowd of locals with nothing better to do applauds. Now there are two teams on their way to the Plaza.
Which seems dark and quiet as church bells toll a late hour. Have the dancers and musicians and broken glass-sweepers all gone home? Not, it's still on. Elliot and Andrew find the clue box. Elliot is taking this one and we see him attempting what is clearly not his first bottle, because he's already wet. In their cab to the Roadblock, Ralph says they don't think anybody took longer than they did. "I'm pretty sure we're dead last." Elliot drenches himself again, and Andrew yells from the sidelines to get his balance before attempting any steps. Still in the cab, Vanessa vows that if they're going to "finish dirty and disgusting and take hours to do so, fine -- but we're gonna finish." Unlike some other teams in the past who might have already quit by this point, if not before. But then they arrive at the plaza and see the twins there, and suddenly it's not a death-slog to the end any more. Both teams thought they were just going to drag themselves to certain Philimination, but that can't be the case for both of them, can it? Their combined shock triggers a smash-cut to black so dramatic I expect a "to be continued."
But no, it was just the last commercial break. "Your head's harder than mine," Vanessa tells Ralph. He goes out and joins Elliot and soon the two large tattooed men are breaking bottles on their heads side by side. Elliot seems to be closing in on the finish, but his bottle falls just as he's trying to stretch out on the ground. And the time too, as Vanessa marvels that Ralph's doing it as if she can't believe it herself. Sure enough, Ralph finishes and as he gets his clue, he snatches up the tiny little lead dancer in a big bear-hug. He rejoins Vanessa and gets a big kiss from her before they leave for the Pit Stop. But their lead isn't a wide one; as they run down the street, Elliot finishes. So even though the twins are in last place, they're only a block behind Ralph and Vanessa on a six-block run and the twins seem to be running a lot faster. Ralph tries to hurry Vanessa along, but she says she's going to throw up. The downside of being the Tiny in a Huge-Tiny team. Soon both teams spot the mat, and Vanessa literally crawls to it. Once she's on her feet, Phil addresses them while Vanessa looks behind them for the approaching twins and tells them they're team number eight. "Just staying in the race," Phil tells them, which is kind of a giveaway that this isn't going to be non-elimination. Sure enough, when a very sweaty Elliot and Andrew make it to the mat, they are Philiminated. They commemorate the moment by attempting to high-five and missing. That's their problem in a nutshell. But thanks, boys, for thoroughly debunking the myth that twins have some preternatural, telepathic connection with each other that the rest of us can never hope to understand. They wish good luck to Ralph and Vanessa, who have dialed back their celebratory mood quite a bit. Andrew admits that he's devastated and Elliot feels like he let his brother down. "No you didn't," Andrew quickly insists. He says they'll look back on it and laugh, and he interviews that it's been tough but amazing. "We both like to have our way and that definitely showed and we're just gonna take out this whole experience and remember it. Not that many people have a chance to do this and it was ours." And then they jog away from the mat, either because they're less exhausted than I thought or because they want to get away from this embarrassing scene as quickly as possible.
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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