Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT D.C. Follies
By M. Giant | Season 22 | Episode 11 | Aired on 05.05.2013
Faux-Bond music plays as the "agents" stroll around the perimeter of the Tidal Basin. Max is not really upholding the atmosphere, running up to them one after another and loudly asking in a near-panic, "Where can I get a good half-smoke with chili?" Considering how mad Daniel Craig's Bond gets when a fellow agent so much as touches their ear, I don't think he'd be too impressed with Max's performance. The first few just say they can't help him. Bates is having a similar experience, but enjoying it more, as usual. At the waiting area, Katie remarks to Anthony how stressful this is. Anthony does not seem stressed out, also as usual. One of the agents shuts down Max with a Trump-like hand gesture and a barked-out, "You're not part of my operation." Wow, way to get into it, random fake agent guy. Bates thinks he's found the right guy when one of them starts to transfer his briefcase to his other hand, but he was just psyching him out. Max has made his way all the way around to the bridge opposite the Jefferson Memorial, but is still getting nowhere agent-wise.
Beth & Mona seem pretty good-natured about the photo op letdown. "Logically, we assumed Barack Obama was there and made time in his schedule to take a picture with Mona and I," Beth laughs afterward. They get their clue-pictures and hail a taxi to the Tidal Basin with a squeal of tires.
Now Max has gotten all the way across the bridge, but he hasn't found his contact yet. Bates has better luck, as the last man to whom he says "I did not dress warm enough for this weather" responds, "Perhaps you'd like to borrow my gloves." There's also a subtitle of this in Courier, like the line is being printed on an old Dymo label maker that we all know spies love so much. Bates gratefully accepts the new briefcase and is about to return to Anthony, but the contact has more information for him, also in totally unnecessary subtitles: "The key to opening the briefcase is in the order you finished in in New Zealand, Indonesia and Vietnam." Max is still having no luck, and later describes witnessing Bates's handoff occurring before his as "brutal." As Max continues approaching agents. Bates sets his briefcase down on the stone railing of the bridge and starts paging through a little notebook. He's making me very nervous that he's going to drop it and everything else into the Tidal Basin, because it's not like he has an unblemished record when it comes to holding onto stuff. But he's finding what he needs in the copious notes that he and Anthony have apparently been taking all through the race. Bates figures out that the combination should be 1, 7, 4, but the case isn't opening for him. Max is now out of Katie's sight, as she says, "We're gonna be in last place because he's an idiot." Wow, harsh much? Is it his fault if he simply hasn't encountered the one agent with their briefcase? Rechecking his notes, Bates finds his mistake, corrects the combo and pops open the latches. He pulls the clue out of it and goes running back to where he left Anthony, to Katie's highly vocal frustration. The brothers are now in first place as Anthony reads from the new clue, "Make your way to the home of the Nats." Bates doesn't know what that is, but fortunately Anthony does: the Washington Nationals baseball team. I assume they're relatively new, because I was only vaguely aware of their existence before now. But then, I'm so ignorant about sports that I'd never heard of Bates or Anthony before this season either.
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