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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
The Amazing Red Line cuts across the rest of Indonesia and the Indian Ocean via Singapore to Dhaka, where scenes of cobra tamers, terrifying traffic, passengers on the tops of trains, and people engaging in homey activities like cooking dinner six inches from a moving train are already stressing me out. Most of the teams emerge from the terminal onto the dirty, chaotic streets and immediately experience low-level panic at how hard it's going to be to get a cab. All, that is, except for Rob & Kelley, who stroll across the quiet, antiseptic interior of the air terminal to a taxi window, then walk calmly into a waiting van outside. "It's going to be fun trying to get around this place," Rob says. "No, it isn't, "says Kelley, already over it. But at least they're "Currently in 1st Place."
Of the teams who decided to hunt their cabs in the wild, Abbie and Ryan are the first to actually bag one. They describe it as Third World and comment on how aggressive the other motorists are, all of whom seem to be male. Natalie and Nadiya compare the scene to Third World Grand Theft Auto, "minus the nice cars. I thought we weren't saying "Third World" any more, at least since Kendra from TAR6? Jaymes & James, on the other hand, compare it to a symphony or a ballet. They must be Phillip Glass fans. James & Abba call their cab ride the best wooden roller coaster ever, and Josh & Brent say they're among their peeps when they spot a goat herder leading his charges down the road on leashes. Or maybe he's just a paid goat walker, walking other people's goats. Trey & Lexi's driver has to stop for gas -- natural gas, judging by the hoses he has to hook up under the hood -- and Lexi talks about being at the mercy of things you can't control, while Trey has again been struck mute. And Gary & Will's driver appears to be lost, although he claims it's a short cut. Will says something about the luck of the draw, and Gary rudely tells him to shut up. As for Rob & Kelley, their taxi van has taken them to the hospital landfill. But at least they didn't have to scramble for it.
Seeing a guy proudly waving a bundle of dead poultry from the top of a passing truck, Ryan apparently decides it's now safe to declare the place "funky monkey," a sentiment with which Abbie fully agrees. Shortly thereafter they arrive at Rubel Model Auto Mobiles (thanks to the sign for being in both English and "Squiggly"), just ahead of the twins, who fret about "these two idiots" getting there before them. Ryan collects their clue from a bucket placed inside the skeleton of a trashed bus seat sitting outside the gate to the yard, and reads, "Who wants to fill in the gaps?" Now Phil's walking through the busy yard, explaining how this Roadblock calls for teams to "repair one of the more than 15,000 buses that do battle on the congested streets of Dhaka every day." This over shots of said buses playing chicken within inches of each other on hard areas that can only generously be called "streets," a term which implies some level of organization. The repairs will consist of using body putty to fill in a dented area on the side of the bus, which is marked off about three feet on a side, then sand it so it's ready to be painted, and then take three pairs of seats from another bus and carry them all the way across the yard to the area where seats are apparently refurbished. And then they'll get their clue, even though the buses will still not technically be repaired.
There's a brief mention of a Fast Forward, which both teams decline to attempt, and then Ryan and Natalie decide to take this on. They proceed into the yard, which looks like a flayed-open Star Wars Sandcrawler, but with buses and dudes instead of droids and Jawas. All manner of welding and lifting and replacing is happening, on buses that are so bashed-up they'd probably be cubed here in the States. Probably a different insurance environment in Bangladesh, though.
Jaymes & James show up and also decide not to risk the Fast Forward, apparently by prior agreement. James is taking this one. "This is definitely a boys' challenge," Nadiya says while waiting on the sidelines with Abbie. We'll see. Ryan explains and demonstrates how the putty had to be mixed just so, with yellow stuff from a tube needing to be squeezed onto a metal palette that he's already smeared with gray goo. Natalie is already spreading the yellow stuff smoothly into place, using a putty knife that's essentially a metal rectangle. Nadiya says what I think is, "We're the only brownies, we have to win." I kind of hope not, though. James, meanwhile, is having trouble getting the lid off his putty can. Just pretend it's a shirt, James.
Rob & Kelley arrive in fourth place and also skip the Fast Forward. Which is just as well, because they do their own body work on the monster trucks back home, so Rob's got this more than covered. James finally gets his putty can open. "We took a long time to open it too," Nadiya says to Jaymes at the waiting area, accompanied by the Finger-Bells Of Bald-Faced Lying.
James and Abba are the fifth team to get to the repair yard, but the first to opt for the Fast Forward, which seems like it must be some kind of record. "Provide a vital service to the people of Dhaka," Abba reads from the clue, which sounds very noble and community-minded. And then a lid is disenchantingly taken off a bucket full of wet, dead rats. From another dump, Phil tells us that "in Bangladesh, rats destroy one and a half to two million tons of food each year." Yikes, who's giving rats explosives in the first place? Phil tells us that the team doing the Fast Forward will be "ratcatching assistants." Actually, they'll be rounding up the easiest kind of rats to catch, which is dead ones. James and Abba will have to travel around town visiting three different locations that serve as rat depositories, collect rat corpses from the buckets into provided sacks, and deliver them to the supervisor to get the clue sending them directly to this race's Pit Stop. I should also mention that Phil uses the word "e-rat-icated." Oh, Phil.
Josh & Brent get to the Roadblock in sixth place, and Josh takes it. Inside the yard, Ryan is getting irritated at Nadiya's incessant cheering for Natalie. Trey & Lexi show up in seventh place, and Trey volunteers to take it. Gary & Will finally show up, in last place as usual, and Gary will be doing the Detour. As he gets set up, Will tells us they thought they would be in the front of the pack today. I actually wish that were the case, because it would have been entertaining to watch them fall all the way back to last again. On the bright side, he says Gary's good at this, while he couldn't even reach. "Yeah, they'd have to bring a stool," Kelley agrees. Or a U-Turn???
James and Abba show up at a place where a dude's sitting at a wooden card table with gloves, a bag, and a small map of pickup locations. "Rats," James says before they go hiking off in search of some dead ones. First stop: New City Restaurant. Restaurant? That's not encouraging.
At the repair yard, Ryan requests and receives approval of his putty application thus far. The bad news is that in the process, he's gotten so much sweat and putty on his clue as to make it unreadable. So at Abbie's suggestion, he goes over to offer James his help with sanding in exchange for getting a look at James's undamaged clue. Jaymes, James and Abbie talk about how great alliances are, even though it looked like all James got out of it were a few verbal tips before Ryan goes to tie a big scarf around his face as protection from the dust he's about to generate.
Natalie gets some nonverbal guidance from a task judge in the form of hand gestures, but Rob's just about ready to start sanding, it looks like. Lexi, unimpressed with Trey's bumpy work so far, tells him to come over and check out Rob's work. Indeed, as Trey and then Gary observe, Rob is spreading the putty in smooth, thin layers rather than slathering it on thickly, the better to minimize sanding when the time comes. Admittedly I haven't done much body work, but I've done so many repairs on the walls in my postwar house that some rooms are made entirely of joint compound.
James and Abba find some local kids who are willing to lead them to the first location, New City Restaurant, but they complain about how hard it was. Sorry this Forward isn't so Fast, whiners.
Chippendale James is struggling with his putty work, which is looking like nine square feet of bad road. This is not the kind of bodybuilding he's used to doing. He says he doesn't see any chance of finishing, but Jaymes tells him to stay calm. Rob, the fourth person to start the task, is the second to get approval to start sanding. Nadiya asks the task judge as he goes by, "You have a girlfriend? My sister's single." Rather than asking Natalie out, he tells her she can sand, leaving both twins overjoyed. James is not only embarrassed at being beaten by a girl, he realizes that he's going to have to chip off his poorly applied putty to start over. One of the twins sees this and yells, "Crazy American!" I've always thought it a shame that we don't hear that phrase on this show nearly enough. Too bad it had to come from another team. But at least James is back in his comfort zone, which is taking things off.
After the ads, a highly frustrated James manages to calm down with help from Abbie. Good to see he got something out of that alliance after all. His second draft is already looking better. Josh gets some negative feedback from the judge on his work so far, but Gary is much more annoyed by Will's positive feedback. Apparently the heat is baking the putty on faster than he can work with it, so he pulls a James and starts scraping it off to start over. Trey has to do the same thing after a judge finds his work wanting as well.
James and Abba get to New City Restaurant with the help of their small guides, and start transferring rats one at a time from the bucket to the bag with their gloved hands. They're cool about it, though, joking in an interview that their business is full of rats. "There's that drummer, I remember him," James cracks. Can't wait for the blockbuster White Lion tell-all book, suddenly. Also, after this? New City Restaurant's business will be booming.
At the Roadblock, actual professionals who do this for a living are sanding entire buses, covered in white dust (the color the putty changes to when it dries). Nadiya is cheering Natalie on from inside another parked bus, going on about how they're the only remaining all-female team. And then she starts chanting, "Long, strong and hard! Long, strong, and hard!" Jaymes mischievously joins in from another bus, until he remembers they're in a Muslim country and should probably watch their mouths. But Nadiya keeps yelling that Natalie needs to "keep it up" and "show these boys how you do it," to the point where Team Grabbie is getting irritated. Have they really not been around the twins at a Roadblock before this? This cheering is SOP for them.
Finally Ryan is told that his sanding is satisfactory, and he can go schlep his seats. Nadiya assures Natalie, "Everybody's struggling." From his nearly finished workspace, Rob volunteers, "Not me, I'm not struggling." Ryan boards the bus and makes a big show of how heavy a pair of seats is, saying the girls will never be able to do it. Because Ryan is the apex of fitness whose strength could never be matched by a mere woman. With Abbie's guidance, he carries the seats across the yard to the refurbishing area, where a guy is sitting with a stack of clues tantalizingly in his lap. Ryan has to get two more rows of seats before he can collect one, though, and Rob's already done sanding. He gets on the bus and loads up two at a time, while Ryan continues carrying his single row, taking breaks along the way.
Ryan gets a kiss from Abbie and also receives his clue, which tells them to go to Kawran Bazar Shootkir market. I wonder if that's a chain? Not that there's one in my town. When they get there, they'll have to find a specific stall stocked with large white sacks that have Amazing Flags painted indifferently down the sides of them. Inside each bag is a mess of small, stinky, fly-ridden, gray-brown, dried fish, which they'll have to search through to find one that Phil claims has "race colors," although it just looks orange to me. When they've done that, they can swap it for their clue. They're out of there in first place, Ryan saying that task was "so hard." But was it long and strong?
Rob finishes his Roadblock and gives the clue man a one-armed hug and says "love you" before he and Kelley move on in second place. Natalie is done sanding, so now she gets to start moving bus seats. The first pair of which she scoops up like it ain't no thing. In other words, shut up, Ryan. "That's your flavor? You like that?" Jaymes teases the task judge as Natalie powers on past. She throws her last seats on the pile like a desk onto a bonfire, and they have their clue in third place.
Josh is done applying putty, so now he gets to start sanding. And so does James. He wears his dust-scarf over his head with his goggles holding them in place Lawrence of Arabia style, and if you don't think the musical score picked up that cue, you're no more a superfan than Gary is. Lexi tries to get a clearly exhausted Trey to keep his energy up, while Gary complains about the poor surface he has to work with, and about Will's input. "I don't wanna hear you," he says. I'm starting to think Gary would be happier if he were doing the race alone. I know Will would be.
James and Abba get to their second stop with a slightly larger group of guides, and collect those into their bag as well. "Trick or Treat," Abba says. Kids, do not ring Abba's doorbell on Wednesday night. After they get back on their way, we hear a crack and a splat, and Abba limps out from behind a parked truck with one brown shoe and one black one, because apparently he just stepped through some boards covering a shallow ditch flowing with raw sewage. "There goes my hepatitis," he says, half-kidding, and we see him rinsing the outside of his boot with bottled water. That should take care of it. The worst part is that now he's going to be called "Poop-Foot," because a person clearly attracts undignified nicknames if he's willing to go around being called "Abba."
At the bus yard, the judge signals to Josh that he's done sanding, unsolicited. Josh is thrilled to be moving on to seat removal. Gary asks for a check and gets a no, and Lexi sends the judge down to Trey, who's still filling in cracks. James, on the other hand, has finished sanding, so he gets to get onto the now nearly empty bus, whooping, "What'choo got for me?" as he goes after his first row of seats. Brent scampers along to Josh, who allows that yes, a pair of bus seats is fairly heavy. Trey gets to start sanding, and he begins double-fisting it, with the sheet in each hand while Lexi cheers him on. Gary is also clear to start sanding. Brent & Josh get their fifth-place clue, and the Chippendales get theirs in sixth. Moving along quickly now.
At the market, Abbie and Ryan sift through a smelly bag for their fish, making lame diving and fishing puns all the while. Eventually Abbie finds it and they get their clue, "Currently in 2nd Place." Looks like James and Abba have pulled ahead. This clue is for a Detour, with the choices being "Pound the Metal" and "Pound the Cotton." From a blacksmith's stall bristling with a variety of wicked implements that are either garden tools or weaponry (and it's not a bright line; I seriously saw a chrome-plated hoe for sale at a karate tournament not long ago), Phil explains that for "Pound the Metal," the teams will use sledgehammers to pound a glowing iron rod until it becomes a sharp spike. They'll only be providing the brute force while an actual blacksmith holds the rod and guides their strikes, but in between they'll also have to work the hand-pumped bellows to keep the forge hot. Good thing it's a fairly simple spike, because if they had to make a suit of armor they'd still be there today. For the other Detour option, "Pound the Cotton," the teams will use the "Bengali" method to make a mattress, which entails using bamboo rods to beat clumped-up cotton into a light, feathery texture, then stuff it into cloth lining that they'll have to sew up. Abbie says she can do the latter, so that's what Team Grabbie is doing. Ryan says this is great, given that Abbie apparently went to Fashion Institute for a year. They head over to a work area, which again is out in the open, on a rooftop, in fact, but with a cloth canopy overhead. A wooden pallet will serve as their workspace, where they spread out the lining to beat the cotton on top of. Ryan is happy to let Abbie take the lead on this one, except for how she wants to pound while he spreads; Ryan insists on traditional gender roles for that particular division of labor. A watching local joins me in smirking.
Rob & Kelley and the twins make it to the crowded area outside the market at almost the same time. Kelley points out to Rob, "The Sri Lankans are right there," and advises they go in the opposite direction. Which would be a solid strategy, except for how the twins find the right stall . They dig through a bag full of more flies than fish, and after finding the right one, Natalie overrules Nadiya's mattress choice, saying, "Let's just pound the shit." They're off in search of the blacksmith's to pound the shit.
After finding the fish stall later than they otherwise would have, Rob has Kelley root through a bag, where she finds the orange fish quickly and in fourth place. They're also doing the metal task.
Abbie and Ryan have beaten their cotton into submission, and Abbie guides Ryan through her rather slick process of rolling the lining up around the stuff and then unrolling it so that a mattress somehow results. "One year of Fashion Institute pays off." Ryan keeps singing while she starts sewing. Does he have to keep saying it was one year? He makes her sound like a drop-out.
Natalie and Nadiya find the blacksmith shop and commence wielding their great fucking hammers. As previously mentioned, there's a blacksmith sitting on the other side of the anvil from them, holding the rod and pointing out exactly where on the red-hot iron he wants them to hit. Of all the foolhardy activities we've seen people engage in on The Amazing Race over the years, I think this blacksmith might be undertaking the most dangerous. Luckily for him, the only people they seem to be accidentally hitting is each other. Natalie interviews that none of the gathering crowd had probably ever seen a woman pick up a "huge bloody hammer." Indeed, other than the racers, and the chef we saw earlier whose kitchen was a railroad embankment, I don't think we've seen any women in this episode at all.
Rob and Kelley find another station and start banging away, while the twins cheer each other on to hurry. Rob gives Kelley some tips as they swing their hammers, so apparently he not only does his own body work, he smelts his own exhaust manifolds as well.
Oh, here's another woman, busily smashing bricks with a smaller hammer. Apparently everything gets reclaimed in Bangladesh somehow or other. Either that, or she's just in a really bad mood. James and Abba walk past her as they approach the third rat-stop, where they top off their sack and proceed back to the ratcatcher. Their group of guides has gotten so much bigger by now that Abba interviews about their happy entourage making him feel like the Pied Piper. Well, except for how the Pied Piper was a musician-- oh, wait. No, this is different because the Pied Piper got rid of-- Okay, never mind, carry on. I just wish James would treat the kids to a rendition of White Lion's number-umpteen hit from nineteen eighty-something, "When the Children Cry." They deliver the rats to the boss ratcatcher, who counts them and gives them their clue, which tells them to go to Shambazar Chan Mia Ghat. That's all we learn about the Pit Stop for now, because it doesn't officially exist for the Amazing Editors until non-Fast Forward teams are en route there. In the back of the taxi, Abba bathes his bare foot with Purell, which I'm sure the driver appreciates almost as much as James appreciates his holding off on this until they were done with the task.
Trey finishes sanding in seventh place, putting Gary & Will in last again, if "again" is the right word. Still, Will is showing some optimism so cockeyed he can see the back of his own head, as Trey moves his seats and gets his and Lexi's clue. Gary is allowed to be done sanding shortly afterward, probably just so the mechanics can get these people out of their hair. I mean, I can still see the bus's ribs under his sanding job. By now Trey and Lexi are back in their taxi. Gary says he and Will are going to come back yet again, which I would just ignore, except that Trey and Lexi's taxi keeps dying no matter how many times the driver restarts it and no matter how much Sprite he pours under the hood (or, more likely, water in a used Sprite bottle). Gary and Will see them stranded as they ride past, which gives them what Gary calls "new blood." And Lexi says this could take hours and wonders what they should do. Uh get a new cab? But after the ads, they manage to get it push-started and back on the road.
The Pit Stop looks to be on a riverfront area surrounded by activity on all sides, including the side facing the riverbank. Lots of human-powered boats going by, is what I'm saying. James and Abba get to the mat, where the greeter standing to Phil with a day-glo orange beard tells them "Shagotom (Hello)" and welcomes them to Dhaka. Phil tells them they've won a trip to the St. James Club in Antigua. Seems like they should also be offered a trip to the St. Abba Club as well, just to be fair. Abba says they came to win and are now one step closer. Plus, what better way to emphasize the narrative of Team Metal as lone wolves than to watch them run an almost entirely different leg than everyone else?
Abbie finishes sewing their mattress, and they ask for approval. In response, the judge just picks up several big handfuls of leftover cotton and drops them back on the ground, in the international sign for "your mattress sucks." They figure out that means they'll need to open it up and stuff more in. Be sure to do it long, strong, and hard.
The monster truckers and the twins are now fine-tuning their work, each using their sledgehammers to hit the smaller hammer where their blacksmith is placing it to show them where to go. The twins get an okay, and celebrate while their blacksmith bangs out a few finishing touches before giving them their clue. Rob & Kelley appear to finish almost immediately thereafter, and the two teams read the clues sending them to the Pit Stop in second and third place. It gets a little complicated here, because Phil says they first have to get to what he heroically refers to as Keronigonj Kholamora Launch Ghat, where they'll take a riverboat to Old Dhaka (there's a new Dhaka?), specifically a place called Swarighat. And then they have to go on foot to the Pit Stop, which is still Shambazar Chan Mia Ghat. "The last team to check in here may be eliminated," Phil says from the midst of all the activity in the area. After three elimination legs in a row? Not likely. Both blacksmithing teams run off in search of their drivers.
The Chippendales reach the market and start searching through a bag, Jaymes gagging as he sticks his whole head in there. Theirs seems to have the loudest flies so far. Josh & Brent show up and spot them. While rummaging around, Jaymes says, "This is like when you can't find the scoop in the protein shake." The goat farmers join the hunt, and actually find their fish , holding it up so the Chippendales can see it. They find their own fish soon thereafter, and the two teams head off to the cotton task in fifth and sixth place.
Abbie and Ryan finish re-sewing their mattress. While the judge is checking their work, Abbie says, "I'd sleep here tonight." Then the judge gives them a thumbs-up, Ryan hugs him aggressively, and I realize Abbie was being serious.
Josh and Brent are at the cotton task, bickering about whether or not Josh is knocking cotton out of their workspace. Jaymes & James soon join them, but without the bickering.
The twins have found their driver, and rush him to where they catch the riverboat, chanting his name, Babu, the whole way. Rob & Kelley look for someone who can take them to the river, and when that proves too challenging, they revise their goals to finding someone who speaks English. And then they'll go from there.
On the way to the market, Trey and Lexi's taxi passes Gary and Will's, much to Gary's obvious frustration. You'd think he'd be used to it by now. Team Austin also finds their fish before the substitute teachers get out of their cab at the market, and decide to pound metal. The substitutes get their gold fish and their clue in last place, and since Gary's weak right now, he decides they should do the cotton task. Too bad there isn't always a cotton task.
Despite finishing the Detour in fourth place, Abbie and Ryan are now in second place as they approach the location where they have to catch the riverboat, Abbie helpfully holding the clue in such a way so that I can see how to spell Keronigonj Kholamora Launch Ghat. They soon board the boat, whose pilot tells them they'll be casting off in a minute or less. So it must be only seconds later when the twins show up and get on board, much to Team Grabbie's annoyance. Either that or the boats in Bangladesh don't run exactly on time, which hardly seems possible.
Rob & Kelley, after more searching, finally find a taxi. At the cotton task, Jaymes sportscasts, "It's the Beekmans against the Ja/mses." The Chippendales are regretting their choice of a sewing task, so much so that Jaymes interviews, "If you get a mattress that says 'Made in Bangladesh,' make sure it doesn't say 'by Jaymes & James." At the task, James says this gives them new appreciation for their wardrobe department (as shown by how they rip it all off), and Brent volunteers that Josh used to sew his own costumes back in his drag queen days. Wait, what? Doesn't that seem like something that would be for Josh to tell? Jaymes is impressed, and asks Josh what his drag queen name was. Josh modestly says that his costumes always fell apart, but that "someone is sleeping on an Aquadisiac mattress tonight." Indeed, because they get their clue and are off to the Pit Stop in fifth place. The Chippendales, on the other hand, get the dreaded "too much left over" gesture. Not enough material covered by fabric, as is usually the case with Chippendales.
Trey & Lexi are at the blacksmith station, where Lexi guesses that the substitute teachers must have gone to the cotton task. "I guess they were scared of Trey's muscles," Lexi says. The Chippendales are indeed happy to see Gary and Will show up at the mattress area because it means they're not in last place, and Jaymes refers to them as "Jack and the Beanstalk." That's not bad, actually. He's clearly not worried. "Once you fight for last and win, you ain't scared of it," he says. Like a near-death experience.
The riverboat carrying Team Grabbie and the twins sails along, each team worried about beating the other like there wasn't a Fast Forward that has already made their impending footrace from one ghat to another irrelevant. Natalie calls Abbie "the craziest couple here, who are almost psychotic. And they are like in crazy good shape." I don't know, Ryan seemed to have more trouble with those seats than she did. Anyway, the boat docks at Swarighat, where the teams rush off the boat and start running around in search of Phil. But the first team to find them is Ryan and Abbie, who show up with such a small lead on the twins that the orange-bearded greeter says "Shagotom" to all four of them at the same time. After all that, they're team number two and team number three. They take the news with no excitement whatsoever
Kelley and Rob get out of their taxi and get on a boat to Swarighat, or so they think. They're on a long, open boat rather than one of the big ferries, and as they cast off, the goat famers show up on the bank and Josh calls to them, "Hey, Georgia! Do we have to take that boat?" Rob hollers back that they're lost, more truthfully than he realizes. The goat farmers ask around and end up getting on a similar boat.
Trey and Lexi finish the "Pound the Metal" task, mostly Trey. Now they're in sixth place, because the Chippendales and the substitute teachers are still busy sewing up their mattresses. But the Chippendales finish , so they're in seventh. And despite being in last, Gary says he didn't give up the other day and he's not giving up today. Two legs ago, though, that was different.
Rob and Kelley are enjoying their boat ride, and watching kids dive off a concrete pylon into the river. They spot Phil from the boat and head in that direction, oblivious to the sad shot of forlorn Swarighat, still unvisited by them, with a red subtitle and everything. They're pretty gleeful to find Phil, but he has other ideas, telling them that they were supposed to take their boat to Swarighat instead of here, and "you will need to complete the course before I can check you in." That's about second-last thing you ever want to hear Phil say.
After the break, Rob and Kelly hurry dejectedly off the mat, Rob already blaming the boat driver for their mistake. They go back and he yells at him for bringing them to the wrong place. "People don't listen," he bitches as they reboard the boat. Rob, at some point you're going to have to realize that all these people bringing you to the wrong place have one thing in common, and that's you. Take some responsibility, for the love of Grave Digger.
Josh & Brent disembark at Swarighat, where Trey & Lexi just showed up by cab. Oops. Brent points them back down the river to where they have to catch the boat back to here, warning, "Ooh, it's a long way." So they get on the goat farmers' boat to ride it back to the first boat launch, so they can ride it back here. Lexi looks unhappy, but better to hear it from another team than from Phil, right? Almost as if in reward for their good deed, Josh & Brent make it to the mat as team number four.
Jaymes & James catch their boat in the right place, and then we're back with Gary & Will, who have finished their mattress at last, in last.
The monster truckers' boat driver finally gets them to Swarighat, where Rob once again rolls out the classic chestnut, "You just cost me a million dollars." I propose a new rule: anyone who says that to a local driver gets a thirty-minute penalty -- the first time. Additional offenses mean a longer one.
Team Austin has arrived at Keronigonj Kholamora Launch Ghat, the place where they were supposed to catch their boat in the first place. They get off, check with someone, and then get back on. From their boat, the Chippendales wave at some kids swimming from the riverbank, which looks like a lot more fun to them than it would to an epidemiologist. Rob & Kelley make it back to the mat and Phil tells them that they're now team number five. Is Rob now going to go track down the boat driver and clarify that he only cost them one ranking in a meaningless leg? Rob now enlists the Emmy-winner in front of him as a cheerleader for him and his wife, asking, "What do we got?" Phil obligingly says they have heart, and asks how big Rob's heart is. "It must be about three hundred pounds," Rob says. I don't think that's big so much as enlarged.
Jaymes & James make it in as team number six, which they're both pretty happy about. Trey & Lexi arrive at Swarighat for the second time, this time by boat. Which is when they run into Gary & Will, who just showed up by taxi, much as Team Austin did. Trey tells them they're in the wrong place and shrugs sadly before pointing them to where they'll need to catch a boat. "All right, we're out now," Gary says as he and Will head back. What happened to never giving up? Trey & Lexi are pretty happy to make it in as team number seven. And as Gary & Will take a boat ride to Swarighat, we see them interview how they're both such huge fans, but just getting on the show wasn't enough; they wanted to win. Well, obviously that was never going to happen. And they can't have been good for the show, which has had to spend the last four weeks creating the impression that its biggest fans are loser idiots. Everybody jump on that bandwagon.
Gary seems to realize that they let down the fans they were supposedly representing, and they finally make it to the mat when the sun's getting low in the sky. The greeter welcomes them to Dhaka, and Phil says they're the last team to arrive. But there have already been three elimination legs in a row, so maybe--nah, they're Philiminated. They emote disappointment theatrically. "We gave it the best shot we had," Will says, which is the saddest part of all. "Aabar dekha hobe (Goodbye)," the orange-bearded greeter says, already understandably tired of them. They interview that they wouldn't trade anything for this experience, which was the greatest of their life. At least they don't say there wasn't anyone else they'd have rather done this with, because obviously that would have been a Bald-Faced Lie, and finger-bells don't really fit the mood at the end of a Philimination episode.
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.