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
Now Phil's out in the bog, walking along a muddy ditch that some hapless PA is thrashing through in a wetsuit as Phil completes the thought: "Bog snorkeling. This Roadblock requires teams to race in the murky marsh." They'll ride a kiddie train out to the bog, and then put on a mask, snorkel, full wetsuit with hood, and flippers to cannonball into a mud pit. So far, so gross. Then they'll have to jump into some opaque water and do a 100-yard lap down a boggy straightaway -- actually fifty yards and back -- within four minutes. After they've completed that, "the Bog Snorkeling Official will hand them their next clue." The "Bog Snorkeling Official" is an older gentleman in a rather unforgiving wetsuit of his own. Also: "Bog Snorkeling Official"? The two lead teams find the train and board it, Max still obsessed with his lead as always. It's like his precioussss.
Beth figures she and Mona may have lost a few minutes with their unintended small-d detour, but they soon spot the parking lot, with the country singers pulling in just ahead of them. However, the derby moms pass them on the footpath to the clue box and open it in third place. Mona and Jennifer end up taking this one for their respective teams, mainly by default, and run for the next train. On the first one -- which may actually be the same train, so the other two teams might have to wait a while -- Katie vocally dreads "snorkeling in freezing cold water and it's going to be not cool." Max, with his oft-demonstrated empathy that frequently rises to the level of a superpower, mock-grimaces when she's not looking. They jump off the train, and suddenly we're inside a changing tent with Bates & Anthony. "The hardest part for me," Bates volunteers in an interview, "was trying to help squeeze his junk into that wetsuit." TMI, Bates. Anthony's jumping up and down to try to get zipped in, while Max & Katie do a little more straightforward grappling. "You look amazing right now," Max says as Katie finally stomps out of the tent in her flippers without sparing him a glance. But given the face he's making behind her, that's probably for the best that she doesn't.
The other two teams are waiting for the train to come back. Mona interviews that because she had only done five Roadblocks to Beth's six, she had to do this one, but she was a little nervous about it. "They're not gonna make us get in the water, right?" asks Jennifer. So Mona's not the only one.
The Bog Snorkeling Official blows his whistle (like a BOS, naturally), and Anthony cannonballs into the mud. Bates helps haul him out using a long white pole for Anthony to grab onto, and then they step over to a small wooden footbridge that spans the narrow ditch. Anthony jumps off of this and starts swimming. His post-leg interview indicates that the main challenge was getting dirt in his mask and mud up his nose, but at least that allows both him and Bates to make some honker cracks. Anthony reaches the other small bridge at the far end of the lane and turns around to come back, as Max points out to Katie how Anthony is using his feet and advises her to do the same. "This is not part of the honeymoon trip," Katie wants on record. Anthony has barely burned two minutes of his allotted four as he climbs back onto the bridge and out of the bog, and then makes the short dash to the nearby finish sign, next to which a digital timer is set up on a 55-gallon drum. This stops at 2:18, so they earn their next clue by a wide margin. This one tells them, "Drive back to Belfast and find The Thing with the Ring." Bates doesn't know what that is, and we don't get much explanation other than a shot of a large wire sculpture of a figure holding a hoop aloft. We won't be learning much about it; not even its name until later, for reasons that will become apparent at the time.
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