Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 139 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Franked Again
By M. Giant | Season 21 | Episode 9 | Aired on 2012.11.25
Josh & Brent arrive in the field, and Brent says this one is Josh's turn. But running to the ditch in the wet grass, he slips and hurts his ankle. "Walk it off, walk it off!" Brent hollers sympathetically. Josh stands on the bank for a moment, resigned to the fact that he's going to get wet, but he makes it across, although that landing couldn't have been good for his ankle. I don't know why so few teams can hold onto a full set of working legs this season. Too bad Amy & Daniel didn't last longer, you know? The shoes make it back across, and on Josh's return vault he almost comes up short, but manages to grab a handful of grass and hauls himself onto the bank without toppling back into the water. "I'll massage your foot all night," Brent promises as Josh limps back with the clogs. Thanks for that image.
Abbie & Ryan return to the U-Turn sign, currently and decisively in last place, and sadly wander off to get a taxi. They're soon in a cab in the failing light, with leisure to bitch about the betrayal of the Chippendales. Ryan says, "It speaks volumes about them and how they'll establish relationships and friendships and then stab you in the back." Apart from everything else wrong with that comment, no one stabbed you in the back, Ryan. They'd have to be behind you to do that.
Josh & Brent make it to the mat as team number four, "Which means you are still in the race," Phil says. "I can't say you look exactly happy about the idea of being team number four," he observes. Josh says they hated to leave Abbie and Ryan behind, so Phil kindly offers to eliminate these two instead. But Josh has finally come to his senses enough to decline, though not as forcefully as Brent does. "We believe that the person who deserves to win the race will win the race," says Brent, clearly a new viewer. "And if was Ryan and Abbie's time to go, then that's what happened, and we're still in it, and we're still running. We're going hard right to the end." "Promise?" Phil asks. Brent promises Phil, and asks Josh to promise him, which Josh does. I'm not sure I buy it. But did you see how I didn't touch that "going hard right to the end" line?
Ryan shoes up at the ditch and asks, "Is there a demonstration?" As a near-final humiliation, on top of everything else he's suffered today, he lands waist-deep in the water on his first attempt. And his second. The "strongest team," ladies and gentlemen. From the sidelines, Abbie runs down the litany of the day's frustrations: "From getting to a flight thirty minutes early and them closing the doors on us for no reason to sitting on the tarmac and a plane basically breaking down today, it's like we can't catch a break." Ryan's third attempt gets his feet just barely on the bank, and he pushes back on the pole behind him to get his balance onto land. "And then the topper was our friends U-Turning us," Abbie concludes. "It sucks." Ryan manages to get back onto the right side of the ditch, and they jog through town to the mat, where it's getting dark enough that crickets are chirping and owls are hooting. I can't read the clock tower behind them because it's not fully in the shot, but it looks like it might be after ten PM already. At least it's stopped raining, though, not that it does Ryan any good, standing there before Phil and the Dutch milkmaid in his wet pants as the final-final humiliation.