Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 1 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Istanbul, Not Constantinople
By M. Giant | Season 21 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.04.2012
Back at the travel office, Abba has noticed that the hundred dollars they got at the beginning of the leg is gone. "Damn, damn, I've never lost a frigging dime in my life," he frets. Which explains how he ended up as an entertainment attorney. Abba explains about how the zipper pocket of his backpack that he keeps cash in was open, so it must have fallen out in the cab. Because if it had fallen out here, in front of other racers, surely someone would have mentioned it to him, right? Because that would be only common decency. James understates that it's a "tricky situation," and outside, he tells Abba not to get too down about it. "It can't happen like this," Abba says like they've already lost, and James says nothing has happened yet; they just need to get a hundred bucks to complete the leg. "It's not gonna stop sucking until we take care of it, so let's take care of it," he says bracingly. So now they have to go begging, in Bangladesh. And they have to walk past a guy sitting on the sidewalk with his arms spread pathetically. Instead of trying to raise cash here, where everyone needs money, they decide to walk to what looks like a nearby business district in hopes of finding people who have some money. In Bangladesh. Unrelated: did these two seriously just spend the whole damn day at a rinky-dink little travel agency?
Most of the other teams are already at the airport. "Come on, let's split this money, I feel guilty," Nadiya tells Lexi, and then they laugh. "So half the guilt's on you." They look quite guilty indeed, verily, tormented by five telltale heartbeats of Andrew Jackson (not really). After the sharing out of cash and culpability, Nadiya adds, "And they're Christians so they'll pray for us." They only wish the cash was Abbie and Ryan's instead of James and Abba's. Because if you're going to steal from someone, you ideally want it to be from a team that annoys you.
Back in town, the metal guys have found a prosperous-looking local woman who's able to fork over some cash when they explain how they lost all their money. It probably doesn't hurt that they look like they've been backpacking in Bangladesh, either. They gratefully hug her, and as Abba narrates, "More locals came up and gave us some cash." One guy tells James that he's his guest in their country. And a hundred dollars' worth of panhandling later, they get into a cab. I wasn't sure how I felt about them raising their whole allowance here in Dhaka when maybe they could have just scraped up cab fare to the airport and gone from there, but it's not like they're going to have a lot of spare time when they get to Istanbul. And I've never begged on a plane, but I can't imagine it goes over too well. "Bangladesh good, not bad?" the driver asks proudly. Team Metal certainly can't argue. It's the Sri Lankans you have to look out for, it turns out. Abba sighs about the day they've already had, and James laughingly looks at his watch, saying they haven't even started the leg yet. Still, well done to all the teams that played a part in draining some money from the local economy. I thought the Speed Bump was supposed to have put an end to that for good. That evening, as everyone's boarding the plane, Abba narrates that the other teams didn't know they were out of cash, and he didn't plan to tell anyone so as not to show weakness. Well, two teams knew.