Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 110 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Smithing and Sewing
By M. Giant | Season 21 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2012.10.21
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The teams are flying to Dhaka, Bangladesh, but first they all have to spend the night in Indonesia, meaning everyone's on the same flight. There are hints at fallout over the previous leg's mutual U-Turn between Rob & Kelley and Gary & Will, but nothing comes of it at first.
With varying levels of difficulty, the teams get to a bus repair yard, where a Roadblock requires them to patch up the sides of buses and remove seats. James & Abba skip this and go for the Fast Forward, in which they have to become apprentice rat-catchers, collecting dead rodents from specified locations. While repairing his bus, Ryan damages his clue to the point of unreadability, and ends up helping James from the Chippendales with his bodywork in exchange for a look at his. It's help that proves sorely needed, as James ends up sucking at the task so much he has to chip the Bondo back off. But at least Gary and Trey have a similar problem, while everyone gets irritated with Nadiya's relentless cheering of Natalie.
From there, with Abbie and Ryan in the lead, they have to go to a market and dig through bags of smelly dried fish for the clue to the Detour. Team Grabbie selects the option where they (and later the Goat Farmers and the Chippendales and the substitute teachers) have to start with cotton and finish with a mattress, while the twins, the monster truckers, Team Austin go with the one where they have to forge an iron spike blacksmith-style. Leaving the Roadblock, Trey & Lexi have such dire taxi problems they end up behind even Gary & Will (briefly), while James & Abba easily win the leg, although Abba's a little concerned about having stepped in raw sewage along the way.
Natalie and Nadiya are the first team to actually finish all the tasks and begin the arduous journey to the Pit Stop, although they end up on the same boat as Abbie & Ryan. The latter team ends up as team number two and the twins in third, followed at some distance by Josh & Brent and then Rob & Kelley, who have to get to the mat twice thanks to poor following of directions. Jaymes & James come in sixth, which is better than they expected at the mattress task. Trey & Lexi are team number seven thanks to some helpful boat directions from Josh & Brent, and Gary & Will finally come in last, as they should, and they're finally done, as they should be.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Phil starts by telling us that Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with most of its people living on the island of Java. Since that appears to also be the majority of the landmass, this makes sense. Phil is back at the "prestigious international school" in the center of Bangil, last week's Pit Stop and the beginning of this week's leg, which will be the fourth of the race. Abbie and her grabby boyfriend Ryan (hence, Team Grabbie) won the previous leg, and are starting this one at 9:52 PM, well after dark. The clue they rip open tells them to fly to Bangladesh, which Phil says is a 2,600 mile flight north, specifically to the capital city of Dhaka. After landing, they'll have to go to a bus repair yard to find their next clue. Abbie and Ryan dork out before starting their leg, and then Abbie says in their taxi that it's nice to have a lead, even if it's only a few minutes. I'm sure they'll be able to hold onto it all the way across the Indian Ocean, too.
Indeed, Trey and Lexi are leaving at 9:54 PM. Lexi says they're doing better than they expected given their lack of travel experience, but now she thinks they're due for a first-place finish. Yes, that's how that works. An unfamiliar voice in the back seat of the cab next to her says, "Mistakes will kill you." Wait, is Trey actually talking? Or is the sound guy using him as a ventriloquist's dummy?
Abbie and Ryan get to a travel agency, where they learn that the earliest flight to Bangladesh will be on Singapore Air at 10:00 the following morning. So much for that lead. Trey and Lexi soon join them and get the news that everyone will be on the same flight. So with that established, we cut right to that plane the next morning with all eight teams boarding it, six of them without benefit of departure times shown on the screen. Gary, one of the substitute teachers, claims that his and Will's totally luck-based survival of the previous leg was "probably the greatest comeback ever." First of all, that wasn't a comeback, it was benefiting from another team's misfortune. And secondly, the greatest comeback ever was Brian and Greg in that footrace across Africa way back in like Season Seven. You know the one. Some superfan, Gary. As for the U-Turning they suffered in the previous leg, they don't officially know who did it, but they suspect Rob & Kelley, the monster truckers. So their plan is to...feign ignorance. Strong course of action there .As for the perps themselves. Rob says he plans to lie to "David and Goliath" and stay ahead of them so they don't get U-Turned back (which already happened, not that it did anything). I think one of those two plans is going to be more difficult than the other, and it's going to be the lying.