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The race runs its second leg in Chile, but not all of it in Iquique. Ten teams leave in the middle of the night to visit a floating museum, which of course doesn't open until 7:15 AM. That gives Marie plenty of time to get on everyone's nerves with her bossiness, but since she and Tim have an Express Pass to wave in everyone's faces she more or less gets away with it. In the morning, the teams have to board the ship and then research a quote by a famous Chilean sea captain to get their clue. That sends them to a Detour at a salt mine in which they have to either break up salt boulders with hammers and spikes or fill tubs of water with enough salt to allow them to float on their backs while reading a newspaper. Neither of these is physically unchallenging, because the salt for the tubs comes in 25-kg bags and the salt for the other half of the Detour is in the form of boulders to be smashed with hammers and spikes.
Then it's a 1000-mile bus ride to the capital city of Santiago. There's some bus terminal intrigue in which half the teams get on a 1:30 PM bus, while most of the other half gets on a 2:00 PM bus. Rowan & Shane, a.k.a. Team Bingo, pull what they think is a fast one, waiting for a later bus that they think will get them there sooner, only to learn that the later bus will also get them there later. So they really just ended up pulling a really slow one. And this after getting lost on the way to the Detour, too.
When the lead teams show up in Santiago the following afternoon, they find a Roadblock that requires them to shine a customer's shoes, then Tetris all the pieces of the self-contained shoeshine stand into their proper places and roll the whole assembly six blocks to get their clue. This proves more challenging than most teams expected, so most of them end up being required to repack correctly. Meanwhile, on the second bus, Tim & Marie form an alliance with the baseball wives because Tim knows Nicky's husband and Nicky & Kim want the Express Pass. Former football players Chester & Ephraim finish the Roadblock in first place, just ahead of Afghanimals Leo & Jamal, and race them to the Pit Stop at a nature reserve outside town. It's close, especially when Leo has some trouble paying their cabdriver and they have to go back. That puts Team NFL in first place for this leg, and the Afghanimals in second, though they end up bickering on the mat as bitterly as if it were last. Brandon & Adam, who started the leg in tenth but spent the first half of it in the lead, come in third, followed by ER docs Nicole & Travis in fourth and Jason & Amy in fifth.
The second bus arrives after dark, hours later, but the plaza is still busy as they take on the Roadblock. And when Team Bingo catches up with them after all despite taking the third and last bus. Rowan still manages to blow it by temporarily usurping the job and commandeering the gear (and probably ruining the night) of a random shoeshine guy who has nothing to do with the race. Okies Tim & Danny end up in sixth place, with blondes Ally & Ashley in seventh.
Meanwhile, Nicky left her rug at the shoeshine station and has to go back for it, especially since Marie refuses to give her the Express Pass because she doesn't see what's in it for her. After a mortifying scene at the Roadblock checkpoint, Rowan finds a marked shoeshine stand while Nicky is finding her rug, but she still manages to beat him to the final clue while he struggles with packing. Tim & Marie check in as team number eight while Team Bingo and the baseball wives race for last. Ultimately, Nicky & Kim come in ninth, and Team Bingo is Philiminated, deservedly so. Ain't no "Free" space in The Amazing Race.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"Iquique, Chile is known as the City of Eternal Sunshine," Phil narrates, apparently unaware of all the haze and Independence Day-style clouds dominating the b-roll shots of the city. I wonder what spotless mind shot that. "Located on the edge of the Atacama Desert and the Pacific Ocean," Phil adds, "this urban oasis is renowned for its beautiful neoclassical buildings, including Teatro Municipal De Iquique." Oh, now he's bringing the Spanish name for last week's Pit Stop. He's standing outside it as he says, "This is now the start of the second leg in a race around the world."
Because Tim and Marie won the leg, they're also the first to start this one. The bad news for them is that they have to do it at 2:52 AM. The first clue tells them to get to the deck of the Museo Corbeto Esmeralda. That's actually an old sailing ship (or replica thereof) docked in the harbor, and the clue adds that the Officer of the Day there will post their clue. In other words, everyone will effectively be starting the leg at the same time in the morning anyway. In their pre-leg interview, Marie says that everyone thought they would self-destruct right away because they can't stop bickering (and here's a flashback of it happening from last week, before they even got to LAX). As we see them getting directions from some passerby who's just wandering the streets of northern Chile at three in the morning, as you do, Tim adds that they still have both Express Passes and they can always use one of them to dangle in front of other teams to try to extract favors from them. Hard to imagine how that could backfire.
Nicole and Travis, the ER docs, are leaving in second place at 3:02 AM. They probably would have been in first place had they not ignored the part of their clue that told them to make their way on foot to the Pit Stop, but Nicole says that the opportunity for both Express Passes is gone, so it's time to move on. In other words, they both know it's her fault.
Rowan and Shane a.k.a. Team Bingo learn at 3:08 AM that their allowance for this leg is $589. An amount that large can only mean lots of ground transportation, so it looks like they'll be staying in Chile or at least in South America They interview that they're "blue collar actors," which Rowan defines as, "You won't see us on the red carpet. You might see us laying it, though." And that's about all they're going to lay. Meanwhile, Tim & Marie get to the ship and find, believe it or not, a fancy calligraphied sign informing them that the museum opens at 7:15 AM. By which time everyone is sure to be there, for a full ten-team bunch. And they know it, too.
Team NFL, Ephraim and Chester, get their start at 3:13 AM in fourth place. Baseball wives Nicky & Kim are one minute behind them, which means they're effectively together the moment they step off the mat. Ephraim guesses that the museum is probably closed, which Chester thinks is a no-brainer at three in the morning. The football players interview about how large they are (Ephraim stands 6'8" and 280 pounds, while Chester prefers the less specific "We big!") and they laugh at the very idea of running there at three in the morning. Racers are beginning to catch this particular snap, producers. It won't be much longer before they follow it to its logical conclusion: there's also probably no reason to get out of bed and camera-ready at two in the morning just because you say so.
The Blondes V.23.0, Ally & Ashley, have a little trouble with their clue envelope as they get started at 3:20, in sixth place. That happens; envelopes can be tricky and fumbling it a bit doesn't mean you're dumb. But they are in an alliance with Leo & Jamal, which is dumb. Ally says that the Afghanimals refer to them as their "race wives" because they have a deeper commitment than they would with mere "race girlfriends." As for what their relationship will be when both teams are in sequester, I'm sure we'll find out soon. Speaking of the Afghanimals, they open their clue at 4:00 p.m. sharp in seventh place. They're also going on about the whole "race wives" thing, and seem to be doing their very best to revive Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd's "Wild and Crazy Guys" bit for a new millennium. I mean, Afghanistan is the new Czechoslovakia, right?
Nicole & Travis are just now catching up with Tim & Marie outside the museum, and angling for the second Express Pass already by dropping mention of how it's now Nicole's 40th birthday. "We'll see," is all Marie says. Which everyone knows means no.
The three remaining teams who flew into Iquique on the second flight yesterday leave in fairly quick succession: dating couple Jason & Amy at 5:17 AM, Okies Tim & Danny at 5:28 AM, and finally the hirsute Brandon & Adam at 5:34. That last team acts as though their $598 allowance for this leg is all of their money right now. Possibly in the world.
At the dock near the floating museum, it sounds for a moment as though some kind of guide or task judge has shown up to take charge and instruct all the racers on how to arrange their backpacks in the order in which they arrived. This is unusual, because such personnel is generally not provided for this purpose by either the production or by the various venues, unless there are shoe-removal or head-covering regulations that need to be enforced. And then I realize that the person giving orders as though she works here is A) American, B) sporting blonde-and-pink hair, and C) Marie. Apparently she's just telling everyone what to do so as to avoid having someone jump in front of her and Tim, as though that's been a regular issue since Chip's "integrity" meltdown during TAR 4. I guess she can do what she wants as long as everyone wants a second Express Pass from her, but at some point she might as well be tattooing "PLEASE U-TURN ME" on her forehead. Ephraim half-kiddingly protests, and Marie half-seriously asserts her authority, pointing out that he's doing what she said anyway. Maybe, but not because she said it. Jamal refers to her and Tim as "Pinky and No-Brain," complaining in an interview that somebody made them line captains and they were all like, "Riiight." I'm starting to think that Marie's just the kind of person who makes herself line captain wherever she goes.
The sky begins to get light, and the rope is pulled aside some time after sunrise at 7:15. The racers sprint up the pier, Leo & Jamal trying to get around Marie on the path. She stays in the lead while Tim falls behind in the pack that pours onto the gangway so hard that someone warns, "You're going to break the boat." They all wander around the main deck for a minute until somebody spots a posted sign with a little amazing flag logo drawn crudely on the top and the bottom in red and yellow marker. It reads, "During the Battle of Iquique in the War of the Pacific, Chilean National Hero ARTURO PRAT uttered a famous phrase before the sinking of his ship, the Esmeralda." Which I have to say, looks pretty shipshape to me, considering. The clue continues, "Repeat the phrase to the officer -- in Spanish -- to receive your clue." The phrase is nowhere to be seen, but this is clearly going to be another leg in which teams who know Spanish are going to have an advantage.
Brandon & Adam are the first to spot the sign, but everyone else swarms around them so quickly to read it over their shoulders that it hardly matters. After absorbing the information, teams scatter around the ship looking for clues. Shane compares them after the fact to "rats on the deck of a ship," which is not really the correct saying, but the setting is appropriate so we can allow it. But Ally & Ashley and then Brandon & Adam leave the ship entirely to approach some dude who appears to be just standing there in the parking lot watching. Ally & Ashley can't get anything out of him, but Adam knows enough Spanish to say, "The captain of this ship said something…" The local raises a proud fist and cries, "Charge the ship, men!" Ally tells the guy not to tell anyone else who might come and ask him, like he cares. They return to the boat, where teams are frantically taking notes and Marie has already filled nearly a page of a notebook. Adam & Brandon ignore them and go straight to the Officer of the Day standing at his post on the top deck, where Adam says the phrase, complete with accent and fist-pump.
They're handed a clue envelope right away, which doesn't go unnoticed by Ephraim & Chester on the deck below. The clue is telling them to go to the Irlanda Salt Mines to find their clue near the salt-corroded Irlanda 3 road sign, so they abandon the boat like rats (which is the correct simile). As Brandon & Adam are leaving, Marie comes up and orders, "Tell me where it is! I have an Express Pass!" And no people skills whatsoever. Adam just tells her to go talk to a guy in the street like they did, which adroitly splits the difference between handing her the answer and telling her to go fuck herself. Ashley utters a close enough approximation of the phrase to earn a clue for herself and Ally in second place. Meanwhile, Adam & Brandon get into a cab driven by the very guy who taught them Arturo Prat's famous quote. The blondes are in a cab behind them, and Ashley celebrates passing Marie & Tim with a Janice-from-Friends laugh that is just as dealbreaking on an unscripted show.
Meanwhile, other teams are in the back, getting their clue from some guy in a windbreaker who might be the harbormaster. In a split screen, Team NFL, the exes, the ER docs and Team Bingo recite the phrase to the officer and get their clue despite the fact that some of them are clearly saying completely different things. Like, did I hear "open the ship?" The hell?
Brandon & Adam are already arriving at the salt mine, which looks like a deep, wide, open pit in the middle of the desert. Which is good, because who would want to go down into a deep tunnel with Chileans in this decade? The blondes are right behind them and after a short but futile footrace to the clue box, they open an envelope for a Detour. Phil narrates, "This Detour requires teams to ride bikes into the Tarapacá Salt Flat, with the world's largest supply of sodium chloride -- salt [he adds while trickling some onto the ground between his fingers] -- where they must choose between Mining or Brining." I'm quickly falling behind schedule on this recap, because every time I look at that sentence I have to take a walk. For the Brining half of the Detour, the teams will have to pour enough bags of salt into one of ten above-ground wooden tubs to allow them to float in the water while reading the local paper. Sounds pretty relaxing, actually, as long as you don't have any hangnails. For Mining, the racers will have to break open salt boulders (provided) until they find one with a tightly rolled clue cylinder stashed inside. Kudos to the race producers for locating one of those rare geological phenomena where naturally-occurring clues formed inside stone millions of years ago. Brandon & Adam opt for Mining, as do the blondes. "We do look good in bathing suits," Adam interviews, "but we're much better and quicker at smashing stuff." I bet he's half right. They get on their bikes, which is an aspect of the Detour that Ally & Ashley are not so confident about, and start extending their lead along what is clearly a washboard-style dirt path down into the mining pit. You can tell it's bumpy by how they go "A~~a~~a~~h."
The Afghanimals are the to arrive at the Detour clue box, and Jamal is theatrically annoyed by Leo's summary decision to do Mining before he, Jamal, has finished reading the clue. "We're not really that much water creatures so we said let's go ahead and stay away from that," they interview. They get on their bikes and start hollering down the path. They'd better hope that they don't run into a challenge that calls for stealth.
ER docs Travis & Nicole arrive at the Detour clue box in fourth place. They're the first team to choose the Brining option, on the logic that Travis thought it might be nice to celebrate Nicole's birthday with a pleasant little salt bath. Well, it's the thought that counts. Team NFL dismisses that idea out of hand given their size; "It's going to take a mountain full of salt," Ephraim interviews. When Jason & Amy arrive in sixth place, she votes for the Mining choice as well. Even as they're running to the bikes, Jason has his doubts, saying Brining might be easier and wondering if she'll be able to effectively wield the sledgehammer. Meanwhile, Team NFL are already on their bikes. "This is way better than having to run!" one of them yells. Yes, when you're running you can't go " A~~a~~a~~h."
Unfortunately for Team Bingo, they've realized that their cabdriver is lost. "Which direck-shee-oh-nay?" Rowan asks him in yet another display of fluent Spanish. The driver points one way towards the city and the opposite way to the airport and Punta de Lobos, but since he said all that in Spanish they have no idea what he just said, even if it included the information they wanted. They get him to pull off the road and a local guy gives their driver directions in Spanish. As they all pile back into the car, Shane is calling, "Muchas gracias." "Just get in, we can mucho him later," Rowan says. Sure, if you can find him for the mucho-ing.
Brandon & Adam park their bikes and run the rest of the way to the sign pointing to Mining in one direction and Brining in the other, congratulating themselves on going from last place to first. They head on into a wide-open pit where a worker in hardhat and safety glasses is already at work beating up great chunks of rock with a big hammer, and front-end loaders move large lumps of Chile around. So now we know how they get salt out of rocks, but how do they get the rock out of the salt? Brandon tosses a hardhat to Adam -- actually, he tosses it clear over Adam's head. "Good thing that's not part of the challenge," Brandon says while an actual worker looks on unamused, probably thinking about the dead coworker that helmet once belonged to. Once they have all their gear, including a hammer and a metal spike each, they start working over a rock that already had lots of cracks in it. Can't fault that strategy (har har har).
Behind them, the blondes are almost at the signpost, but the Afghanimals are catching up and there's a lot of yelling between the teams about their race-matrimonial status. It's all quite tiresome.
Speaking of tiring things, Brandon & Adam are discovering that this rock-pounding is going to quickly wear them out, as the Afghanimals and the Ice Queens show up in a single noisy unit and join them. Nicole & Travis are still riding their bikes, anticipating being passed at any time by either Chester & Ephraim or Jason & Amy, who are riding along behind them. Part of the problem turns out to be that Nicole has her bike in the wrong gear, and she ends up grinding to a full stop on an uphill slope. Luckily for her, the NFL guys give her tips on gear-shifting as they roll on past. Travis gratefully wishes them good luck and encourages Nicole on. Amy's falling behind Jason, while Nicole continues to struggle and actually falls off her bike. "Switch bikes, aw man," Travis is heard saying as Nicole's handlebar-cam crashes into the dirt. This show is starting to encroach on Mythbusters territory, what with its recurring examples of how sometimes people forget how to ride a bike.
After the ads, the ER docs do indeed switch bikes (which I don't see helping), as we hear them interviewing that this was frustrating for Travis, who rides bikes a lot more. That explains why she had to get tips from another team. Jason and Amy pass them, Amy still having some trouble until they get over the rise. Nicole begs Travis for help as they ride along together, not that there's much he can do; attempting to help push her with one arm just sends her swerving out of reach. "Just because you turn 40 today doesn't mean you're supposed to be an old lady," Travis says. Yes, very helpful.
Chester & Ephraim arrive at the Detour sign, and Jason makes another bid to convince Amy to do Brining. "You can float in the water pretty easily," he says. Is he accusing her of having fake boobs or high body fat? Because neither of those is terribly flattering. Soon, Team NFL joins the others at the Mining Detour and Brandon takes one look at them and says, "That guy's just gonna bite it in half." Chester laughs good-naturedly rather than biting Brandon in half. Meanwhile, Ally & Ashley are already talking about switching tasks, as they've barely scratched the surface of their boulder. Like, literally. By the time Travis & Nicole are parking their bikes, the blondes have made the decision to switch Detours. At least they did that part efficiently.
But Jason & Amy are the first to reach the Brining Detour, where they're glad to see that the large tubs are already filled with water and will require only (or, more accurately, "only") the addition of enough salt to make them sufficiently buoyant that they can read a newspaper. But they decide to change clothes first, even though Phil Tweeted that there were no wardrobe requirements stated in the clue. As Amy puts it in an interview, "I got in my swimsuit… Jason decided to go another route." Going with some spandex shorts, looks like. They soon discover that this task has its own physical demands as well; namely, the salt comes in 25-kilogram sacks that are in high stacks maybe thirty yards from the tubs, and the racers are going to have to carry them. Jason loads up one on one arm and two on the other, while Amy loads one across her shoulders, so technically they're averaging two bags each. Jason interviews about the difficulty of being barefooted while carrying 60-pound bags of salt. (Actually, 25 kg is "only" 55 pounds, and nobody told him to take his shoes off, but whatever). As they start dumping in their first load, Jason tells Amy to hop on in and start stirring. The ER docs are also loading up their bags, and the blondes are of course carrying one bag at a time that according to Ally is still "really stinking heavy," especially when barefoot. Again, no rule against shoes here. Meanwhile, Amy has just made an unpleasant discovery about the water in the tubs: it's cold. What, no heat pumps out here in the salt mines?
Rowan & Shane's cab is just driving down the road all alone, and Rowan says they may be last or lost. Why not both? Rowan comments about how they haven't seen any other teams, taxis or even cars. "So we're either very, very right or very, very wrong." Notice how when racers say that it's almost never the former?
Exes Tim & Marie arrive at the Detour clue in seventh place and decide to go with Brining. Baseball wives Nicky & Kim, in eighth, decide on Brining just before Okies Tim & Danny jog up wondering, "How did they get here before us?" The usual way, most likely. Tim interviews that they carry fifty-pound sacks all day during their eighty-hour weeks in the oil business, so they're Brining it. Who puts oil in sacks, though? I may have just figured out why they're so underpaid.
At the Mining task, Brandon & Adam and Leo & Jamal are chipping away at their boulders, while Chester & Ephraim are just picking up great hunks of rock and crushing them to pieces against each other. Don't worry -- a "Hulk smash" reference is deployed, meeting all FCC requirements. Brandon & Adam shift to a teamwork approach -- both of them working the same crack, which sounds kind of dirty -- and manage to split open their rock to find the red-and-yellow cylinder inside. When Adam unrolls the slip of paper it contains, it's telling them to go back to Iquique to take what Phil calls "a one-thousand-mile bus ride along the coast to the capital of Chile: Santiago." As though there's anything but coast in Chile. Some of us do own globes, Phil. After reaching the capital, they'll have to find Plaza de Armas -- a busy public square that looks to be in the center of town -- to find their clue. Brandon & Adam get on their bikes and get out of there, congratulating themselves on going from last to first. "E.T. it," Adam says, and they touch fingertips in one of the geekier bro-handshakes I've ever seen in my life. And I've been to Comic-Con.
Leo & Jamal manage to split their boulder clean in two, finding a clue cylinder inside. That puts them in second place and they're not quiet about it, either. Nor are they quiet about their sighting of Ally & Ashley schlepping salt-bags in their bikinis at the other Detour. I'm actually kind of amazed they don't hang out to watch.
Amy is pointing out to Jason that with their low body fat, they won't float as quickly as they otherwise might. Of course, most teams will have the same problem. They're still at it, along with the ER docs and the blondes as Tim & Marie arrive at this Detour option. Marie figures they'll be able to make up some time, given that she's the only woman there capable of carrying two bags at a time. Tim backs her up in an interview, saying that when Marie works out she doesn't have a brake -- just "gas pedal only." And also the rest of the time, from what we've seen.
Brandon & Adam have made it back to their cabs and ask their driver to take them to the bus station so they can go to Santiago. Don't worry, the cabbie doesn't end up driving them all the way to the capital. Ephraim finally smashes a relatively small chunk of rock that's only the size of his head and finds the clue inside. And Rowan & Shane arrive at the Detour clue box in last place, but at least they're not lost any more. Shane invites Rowan to call it, but Rowan insists they're a team, so Shane decides they'll do Mining. They hop on their bikes and start riding, but Shane's positive attitude goes unappreciated by Rowan, who is in no kind of shape for this. "I don't want to talk, you're using my air," Rowan pants. "If I need help, I'll ask." As they're leaving, Leo & Jamal are just returning. "Oh my god, they're so screwed," Leo smirks, and they're soon congratulating themselves in their taxi to the bus station. Meanwhile, Tim & Danny and Nicky & Kim are arriving on their bikes at the Brining task and seeing what's what. "Do we have to have bathing suits on?" asks one of the baseball wives, who have just dubbed themselves "Team Bunny," because of how they call each other "Bunny." And here I thought there couldn't be a more demeaning name for that team than "baseball wives."
Brandon & Adam are still in first place when they arrive at the Iquique bus station, present themselves at to the ticket window (where the staff includes a cat stretched out on the counter) and use Adam's Spanish to get tickets for a bus to Santiago that leaves at 1:30 PM. Jamal also uses his Spanish when he and Leo arrive and are surprised to learn that the bus ride is not five hours, but twenty-four. Wow, that sounds super fun. But Jamal tries to find the bright side by skeezing at the ticket agent, "Are there ladies on the bus? Very pretty?" Maybe, but none for you. You're race-married anyway, pal.
Back at the salt mines -- and find me another show where the recapper gets to use the phrase "back at the salt mines" in the literal sense -- Tim & Marie's bickering is getting on the nerves of Ally & Ashley in the adjoining tank as both teams try to mix up the salt in their water. Meanwhile, Jason & Amy have added all the salt they need to, so now they're buoyant enough to float on their backs, using their hands to hold tabloid-sized newspapers up out of the water and read them out loud to the mining supervisor. Jason says in a post-leg interview that they put in so much salt he nearly floated out of the pool and according to Phil's Twitter stream, 33 bags per team is what it took for the water to reach the saturation point. That's 825 kilograms or nearly a ton of salt that each team had to schlep. That's no joke, man.
Jason & Amy are the first team to finish this Detour option and the fourth to finish the Detour, period. Nicole & Travis get their clue in fifth place shortly thereafter, while Tim & Marie are still doing what Tim & Marie do, which is to say, arguing. Marie is yelling that they need to look at the clue to find the answer, and Tim is trying to make the point that they should keep mixing up the salt-sludge at the bottom rather than trying to add more, like a in pitcher of lemonade. "Are we trying to float in a tub of lemonade?" Marie demands like that's the stupidest thing she's ever heard. Tim wearily explains that it's called an analogy, which Marie bitches doesn't make sense. I agree that Kool-Aid would be a better metaphor, but Marie isn't even trying to get along here. You know, between her single-minded drive, her need for rules and control and her attitude with regard to social skills, I'm starting to wonder if maybe she doesn't have some kind of undiagnosed spectrum disorder. Which of course she doesn't, because I just diagnosed it.
Team NFL shows up at the bus station and after checking in with the two teams who got there before them, they get on the 1:30 bus as well. Pretty much what this scene tells us is that it's not yet 1:30.
Tim & Marie do their floaty-reading and get their clue in sixth-place. Getting passed in this fashion is not at all disheartening to the blondes; in fact, Ashley says, "I'm glad they're gone, I don't want to have to listen to them anymore." We check in on Nicky & Kim (mostly Kim) complaining about how hard this is, and then see Ally & Ashley doing their floaty-reading and getting the okay to proceed. The baseball wives continue carefully adding salt like they're baking a large loaf of bread instead of making a miniature Dead Sea. While riding in, Shane calls behind him to ask if Rowan is okay. "Don't make me talk!" Rowan yells. "If I'm not I'll tell you! This is all good air!" So quit'cher bitchin', then. I'm pretty sure Shane isn't making Rowan complain. They reach the Detour and head to the rocks. Meanwhile, Kim has cut-up arms (which has to sting with all this salt) and is cold, so she begs Nicky for a hug so she can feel warm. Her partner obliges and they say "I love you" to each other, and the Chilean salt mine worker looks as though like a couple of wet Americans in bikinis hugging each other isn't the worst thing he's seen all week.
Jason & Amy are getting their tickets on the 1:30 bus, Jason jokingly asking the ticket agent not to sell any more tickets to anyone else. Which doesn't work, because Nicole & Travis also get on that bus. Still not 1:30, clearly.
While Nicky & Kim are still struggling, Tim & Danny read their Spanish-language newspapers -- phonetically, I'm thinking -- and get out of there in eighth place. "I can't do this, Bunny," Kim is meanwhile complaining. I'm getting better at telling those two apart because Kim is the whinier one.
At the bus station, Tim & Marie are out of luck for 1:30 bus tickets to Santiago, because it's finally all booked up. They're sent to another counter and get seats on a 2:00 PM bus instead. Ally & Ashley have arrived at the station in the meantime, and Leo tries to claim to an unsympathetic agent that he needs more tickets for his "bride." They find out about that other bus that's leaving at 2:00 when Marie comes up behind them to demand, "What are you doing?" Leo says they're getting on a 12:30 bus. "There is no 12:30 bus," Marie says. "Then why are you asking?" Leo shoots back. That was actually pretty well played, Leo. And mind your business, Marie. The blondes end up on the 2:00 bus, after which Ally remarks to the camera that Marie is always trying to get everyone in trouble. "I actually feel bad for her. She's probably a very miserable person." She certainly seems miserable to be around.
Rowan & Shane have excavated their clue at the Mining Detour and are officially in ninth place, though Rowan looks like he's sweated enough to fill one of those tanks with water and salt. And Nicky & Kim read their papers to the mining supervisor, then hug each other and him before getting their clue to the bus station in last place. "I can't believe we have to do this fricking bike ride now," Kim says as they're doing the fricking bike ride. The mining supervisor looks like he knows he's having a much better day than they are. But then everybody is.
The first bus to Santiago, with its departure time of 1:30 PM, is just pulling in to the Iquique station. Jason & Amy, Nicole & Travis, Brandon & Adam, Chester & Ephraim and Leo & Jamal all board it. Team NFL is in their seats by the time they realize what they've just let themselves in for: a 24-hour bus ride. "Hey man," Chester says, "The race." On that philosophical note, the bus pulls out.
The second bus arrives in Iquique at 1:56, so it's going to have to pull a pretty quick turnaround to make its scheduled departure of 2:00. Kim is still whining as their cab drops them off, "This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." Please stop spoiling your inevitable elimination, Kim. But they're soon on board the (supposedly) 2:00 PM bus with Ally & Ashley, Tim & Danny and Tim & Marie, as Ally tells us that there are five teams on each bus. But not so fast, because Rowan and Shane are still at the ticket counter inside the station. "What time does it arrive?" Rowan asks, and the young male agent says -- in Spanish -- that the 2:00 bus arrives at 6:00 PM. Rowan is doing the talking, and while he seems to understand enough Spanish to follow what the agent is saying, he doesn't speak enough Spanish to respond in anything but English. It's like an exchange in a Star Wars movie where one character chats in English with a character who's speaking Wookiee or Bothan or astromech or something.
Rowan observes that 2:00 PM today to 6:00 PM tomorrow actually represents more than 24 hours, and the agent admits that this one makes a lot of stops. Rowan asks if there's an earlier bus to Santiago. "The other is 4:00," the agent says in English, with subtitles on the screen confirming that this is in fact what he said. Yes, I don't normally get into such detail with the dialogue, but this is important. Rowan asks if they can get on that one instead and is told they can. Rowan then tells us that while they currently have tickets for the bus that's supposed to leave at 2:00 and arrive at 6:00 tomorrow night, they're going to switch to the 4:00 bus and (supposedly [spoiler!]) get a two-hour jump on the four teams about to leave on the 2:00. Who meanwhile are noticing out the bus windows that Team Bingo is up to something at the ticket counter, and thus they are growing accordingly suspicious. Then we see Tim & Danny back outside this bus, asking Team Bingo if they switched to something else. Rowan ruefully claims they tried to find something faster, and make as if to follow Tim & Danny onto the bus at the last moment -- only to wave the driver on and send the bus off without them as soon as the Okies are safely aboard. They decline to wave at the other teams, though, not wanting to rub it in, which is just as well, considering what's about to happen. Looking out the window, Ally remarks to the Okies, "They totally found something better. Or something that they think will be better." Ally is half right.
Back at the ticket counter, Shane confirms with the agent, "So we'll get in at 4:00, right?" Which the agent confirms as their tickets print off. They figure their bus will show up in about ten minutes, but the agent tells them they've got about a three-hour wait. Rowan asks if they still "get in at 4:00," and the agent says, "4:00, the start is here." Meaning the departure time is 4:00 this afternoon. Rowan asks the natural follow-up question, which is the time they're scheduled to arrive in Santiago. "10:00," the agent says cheerfully. Another, more experienced-looking agent joins the discussion, but the damage is done: the 2:00 bus has already departed without Team Bingo, and is scheduled to arrive in Santiago four hours sooner than the bus they just switched to. This is obviously the result of a miscommunication, and I think the blame is shared equally by Team Bingo -- who are in a foreign country without speaking the language -- and the young male ticket agent, who may be an idiot. He must have thought that Rowan wanted to know when he would "get in" the bus to go rather than "get in" to Santiago. Or something. And who would want to arrive hours later in the first place? In any case, I'm sure Rowan & Shane will be more careful about these kinds of discussions in the future. If they get the chance.
After the ads, Rowan is trying to do damage control, explaining how he and the young male agent misunderstood each other. In Rowan's defense, the agent's supervisor is also looking at her subordinate like he's an idiot. Meanwhile, Shane philosophizes to the camera, "You can't have great success without great failure." Well, you're halfway there, then. The young ticket agent tells Rowan that the bus will leave in an hour; they can get on that one and arrive in Santiago some time between 7:00 and 8:00 the following evening. In other words, one to two hours after the bus they just passed up is scheduled to arrive. "What you gonna do? "Shane figures after they have their tickets. "Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. Just another challenge." But unlike most challenges in this race, this one was avoidable.
After a bit of time-lapse indicating the passage of night, we rejoin the first bus as it arrives in Santiago at 1:49 the following afternoon. Again, the teams disembarking are, in order: Brandon & Adam, Leo & Jamal, Chester & Ephraim, Jason & Amy and Nicole & Travis. They all hurry on foot to Plaza de Armas, which is a bustling, sunlit, public square filled with vendors, folk musicians, art kiosks and all manner of other activity that looks like it's going on even when the cameras aren't rolling. Teams burst into a sprint when they spot the clue box standing amid it all, but Jason & Amy are the first team to actually reach it. "Who's got the knack to pack?" asks the Roadblock clue inside. That's an interesting question, because I don't know any combination of two people who have the same level of packing skill. For instance, my wife routinely goes on five-day business trips carrying a small backpack, whereas I frequently need more luggage than that to go upstairs.
Phil explains, standing to a shoeshine stand, that "This Roadblock requires teams to play the role of a Chilean lustrabotas -- a shoe shiner. First they must polish the shoes of a waiting customer, and then figure out the puzzle of how to put together this complicated stand." It does look tricky, as the customer's seat has self-contained compartments and drawers where all the brushes and polishes and various bits and pieces must be stowed correctly, after which the heavy mat that the stand is parked on, as well as the shoe shiner's chair, must be balanced on the customer's seat. The whole assembly is on wheels, which allows shoe shiners to roll it around -- and also requires the racers to "push it six blocks to the Central Depot Storage Area [a series of garage-style doors running down a narrow alley], where they'll get their clue." Amy takes this one. So does Chester, who figures he's at least got experience bagging groceries. Adam takes this for the hairballs and Jamal drafts Leo for it and Nicole takes it for the ER docs. Because ladies are better at packing, amirite fellas? Amy is the first to actually find one of the actual shoeshine stands, which is "marked" with pairs of sneakers hanging from the pushbar by their thick red-and-yellow laces. Chester takes a seat in front of a customer, and Adam gets to use some more of his Spanish as he remarks on his customer's brand-new shoes. Leo seems to finish polishing first, then Nicole, then Amy. Then they all start packing up the crap, pretty haphazardly in most cases, and Amy starts asking around in Spanish for the address that is their destination: Merced 738. Leo, Adam and Chester also get directions, while Nicole's stuff falls off the seat of the stand where she has loosely and incorrectly piled it. "So tired, oh my gosh," she says as she tries to load it all up again. Well, at least she's not having a rotten time on her birthday any more.
According to a road sign they're passing, the teams on the second bus are 178 miles from Santiago, as Tim & Danny estimate that they'll arrive in about three hours. Danny mentions that they've made "a ton of stops," which could end up being to Rowan & Shane's advantage, if Team Bingo's bus turns out to be more of an express like the first bus clearly was. Meanwhile, Kim calls Marie's Tim back to the row she's sharing with Nicky and says, "Nicky told me that you played baseball at Rutgers." Tim confirms it and asks why she's asking, so Kim namedrops her husband, David DeJesus, who it turns out is an old teammate of Tim's. "Keep this close," Tim tells them, in the presence of rolling cameras and live microphones. He interviews that he played in the minor leagues for six years and that the baseball wives might be a good connection. Surprisingly, Marie seems to be going along with not only an idea of Tim's, but one that involves being nice to someone. She tells Nicky & Kim she would be happy to give them the Express Pass, unless someone else on the race saves their life or something. "Which I don't think they're going to," Marie disclaimers, "because everybody hates us." Tim pins that on Marie, and Marie says she doesn't care. Yes, I've noticed that about her. Marie's take on this is shared in another interview, as Tim says they can trust the baseball wives and Marie adds, "And we can beat 'em." Back on the bus, she tells Nicky and Kim to stick with them and they'll keep them around as long as possible. Even when she's helpful, she's condescending about it.
Leo is the first shoeshine Roadblocker to find the storage garage for the shoeshine stands. He starts unloading the stand for the three supervisors who are waiting there, starting with the shiner's chair, but as soon as they see the random piles under it -- including the under-seat drawer on top of the seat -- they tell him it's all wrong. "The position is not correct," one says, and they shoo him out of the alley to go repack. Either he'll block access for the other teams if he does it here or they don't want to be around him any more than I do.
Chester arrives while Leo is making the stunning discovery that the tall metal drawer not only holds stuff, it slides neatly under the customer's seat when properly packed. He and Adam confer on this as Adam rolls by, and then -- while Adam is in an arcade just around the corner -- Adam's entire load spills noisily to the tile floor. "That's how we do it," he shrugs, bending to collect everything. Former professional grocery-bagger Chester appears to have gotten his packing right on the first try and already has his clue, in first place. He goes running down that arcade, which is barely wider than he is, and Leo soon gets his clue and is in hot pursuit. We've got a race for first going on here.
"I'm dying," Nicole says as she desultorily drags her stand down the square. Well, she's the doctor. Chester joins Ephraim at the waiting area and they read their last clue of the leg, which is sending them to the Pit Stop: The Cascada de las Animas Nature Reserve, a picturesque setting diametrically opposite to their current urban locale. "This national paradise in the Andes Mountains is the Pit Stop for this leg of the race," Phil says from a narrow suspension footbridge. "The last team to check in here may be eliminated." Team NFL goes in search of a cab while Leo comes ululating back into earshot to join Jamal. But the Afghanimals get their cab first. It's either team's leg to lose now. Don't worry, one of them will.
Rowan is trying to keep it positive as the bus carrying him and Shane takes a leisurely cruise through some seaside community. "This is how the race should be," Rowan says. "We're running it, it's not running us. We're running it, we're trying to make it work. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, but, you know, we're not sitting back and, you know, we're trying to do stuff." In an interview, Rowan says that they know about not giving up after Rowan's three-plus decades in show business. "We're not stars by any stretch of the imagination. Whatever it takes." None of this makes any sense except as verbal spackle to cover up the fact that they screwed up and there's not a damn thing they can do about it right now.
Adam delivers his correctly packed shoeshine stand for examination and gets both approval and his clue. He rejoins Brandon, putting the hairballs in third place. Nicole gets her clue in fourth place and rejoins Travis, and Amy brings her clue back to Jason in fifth. "It was hell," she tells him. Yes, dropping from first to fifth in the course of one task generally is.
Up in the mountains, the Afghanimals' cab has just crossed into the nature preserve. thing we know, they're getting their backpacks out of the trunk, while Leo is trying to get cash out to pay the driver and having some trouble finding it quickly. Naturally, Jamal is getting frustrated as Leo continues to rifle through their papers. Especially because Chester & Ephraim have arrived and are efficiently and quickly paying their driver 40,000 pesos. Jamal yells at Leo, "Give him American dollars!" Leo hands the dude fifty bucks and he's all, "This is all?" Because that's only about 25,000 pesos. We see Team NFL concluding their transaction with their driver, and then the Afghanimals come running empty-handed out onto the narrow suspension bridge, hollering, "The Afghanimals are coming!"
Phil's standing behind the mat in the middle of the bridge to a very large and rugged-looking individual, who welcomes them to Cascades de las Animas, Chile. Phil says, "Leo & Jamal, you are the first team to arrive. However, you need to settle your cab bill before I can check you in." So they really did just try and run off after paying five-eighths of their taxi fare? Phil points them in the opposite direction off the bridge from the one they came, because they must have gotten lost trying to find him, while Jamal bitches at Leo, "We lost, because you can't count the money." Leo bitches right back, "You were there when I gave it to him." Jamal insists, "It's your responsibility today. That's it!" Of course Chester & Ephraim show up almost immediately after the Afghanimals' sniping fades from earshot, and although they're quite content to be the second team to arrive, Phil tells them about the Afghanimals' blunder. Which of course makes Team NFL team number one. And the fact that they've won a VIP trip to Turks and Caicos makes them even happier. Let's hope that at some point this season a leg is won by the first team to reach the mat. Not that I'm complaining this time, mind you.
Meanwhile, Leo & Jamal run through the idyllic setting and have a less-than-idyllic interaction with their cabdriver, Jamal acting like it's the driver's fault for not accepting less than the meter. Leo finds him some more cash and hands it over, so the driver's satisfied now. But Jamal isn't, yelling at Leo as they run back, "USC brains, come on, calculate the local currency." Leo says Jamal likes blaming people. They return to the mat on the bridge still pissed and disappointed and Phil says, "Now that you've paid for your cab, you are officially team number two." Leo says they figured, in that way people usually say it when they show up hours after everyone else. "What happened?" Phil asks sternly, as though he's just as disappointed. Leo starts talking about Jamal turning into "this guy yelling in my ear," and Jamal lectures, "Take some responsibility. You're a man." That's still an open question, actually. They soon fall to bickering and Leo asks Jamal, "Are you an enemy or a partner?" Jamal says he's an enemy right now. "That's not gonna work. You're a team," Phil pipes up, clearly wishing this bridge had a trapdoor. Jamal tattles, "USC didn't teach economics." Leo says they taught him manners. Really? If I'd known USC had a major in manners, I would have avoided it at all costs. Jamal rolls his eyes and says, "Hopefully we can learn from this." And they go stomping off the bridge towards what I can only assume is going to be a lot more mutual pissiness.
Marie and her customer are still at it after the ads. Nicky tells her customer, "They look so pretty! Muy bonita!" Ashley gets approval for her shoeshine, as does Danny, who asks, "Bueno?" Good lord, who doesn't speak Spanish in this gang?
Cut to Rowan jogging through the square, and he's getting the goofy bass clarinet soundtrack cue for some reason. I do hope that's not because he isn't the most dashing--ohhhh, it's because he latches onto the first shoeshine guy he sees, who has a completely different kind of shoeshine stand that is not marked in any way. In other words, this is a free-range shoeshine guy with no connection to the race, who has no idea what's going on and is probably not expecting any rushed Americans to descend on his workspace and take over. But Rowan trundles right up to him, and is all, "I need to do shoeshine? Can I do one?" The dude's like, I'm working here, but Rowan prevails upon him to get up from his seat and give Rowan a turn. Nicky is just finishing her shining, and Marie's customer is finally satisfied, either with his shine or with the state of higher-than-usual dudgeon he's put Marie in. Danny loads his chair onto the stand, and Rowan is getting a crash course on the craft from what is turning out to be a very game shoeshine guy.
Ashley and Tim are getting directions to the storage space, and then Marie and Nicky are loading up their respective stands, Nicky talking to herself about how Marie's going to give her the Express Pass and "please don't forget anything," right before the camera gets a nice, clear, ironic shot of the workspace mat she left behind in the middle of the square. As he rolls his stand, Danny tells us, "I used to move furniture for a living. This is really no different than, like, dollying a refrigerator." And he doesn't even have to hook up the icemaker for this. Ashley is having a little more trouble, accidentally dumping all her shit out on the square. Meanwhile, at the non-sanctioned stand Rowan found, he's trying to convince the shoeshine guy to now let him borrow his entire livelihood, pack it up and roll it out. "He's not understanding exactly about this," Rowan explains to the camera, like the shoeshine guy is the problem. Rowan shows him the clue while explaining that he's in a race, and the shoeshine man… agrees. Oh dear. The guy packs everything up for Rowan -- his system seems a bit tighter, with an elastic strap holding the shiner's chair in place -- and kicks it up onto the wheels for Rowan, who starts bumping it along. "Okay, okay, yeah, don't ruin your living, I got it," Rowan says as he hurries off to ruin his own chances in the race.
Danny is the to reach the supervisors at the storage space, and they express their disapproval for his packing job. "I wish I spoke Spanish right now but I don't," he says, clearing that right up. Referring back to the clue, he finds the operative phrase "pack correctly," and starts unloading it all again. Marie comes rolling into the alley, and then so does Nicky, who spills the entire contents of her cart on the ground. "Oh, buddy," Marie says to Nicky in a passable imitation of sympathy. Danny notices that Nicky doesn't have her mat with her, unlike himself and Marie, and remarks, "I really think the rug was part of it." Well, of course it was. Ashley is rolling past the end of the alley where Danny is repacking, and he advises her to go around. As Ashley rolls away to come at the alley from the other direction, Marie snaps at Danny, "Hey, P.S., why did you just tell blonde girl?" Danny's like, what? And Marie says, "Don't tell her that this is the entrance." Too late now. Also, boss your own partner, Marie, not other people's. In the meantime, Ashley has reached the supervisors, who give her the clue and cause her to celebrate so loudly that the others can hear her one block over. She goes running past them wishing them luck, and Danny gives it another shot. He gets his clue this time and then takes time to help Marie and Nicky get rolling again before running back to join Tim. P.S.: Marie doesn't seem to mind his helping people this time, now that she's one of them. Rowan is still rolling along with his random cart and his random shoe shiner, figuring it's a good sign that "the Okie went by me." He needs his good signs where he can get them, because he's gotten nothing but bad ones since he opened the Roadbloack clue.
Meanwhile, Marie is encouraging Nicky on the final roll to the garage, and Ashley comes running back to her partner yelling. "Ally Ally Ally!" The blondes are in sixth place when they meet up again, and Danny and Tim are right behind them, but the Okies get a cab first and thus steal sixth place.
Of the three racers who have yet to complete the Roadblock, Nicky is worried about not having her rug, Marie is waiting with her while the supervisors check their packing jobs and Rowan rolls up with the wrong stand. Nicky reads from the supervisors' gestures that she needs to go back to the beginning and retrieve her mat. And when Marie sees Rowan coming up with an out-of-network stand and a shoeshine guy, she's like, "That's your--? Okay." Because she realized two seconds into her remark that the value of letting somebody continue screw himself for an extra minute or two supersedes even this opportunity to berate someone. The poor shoeshine guy is saying that Rowan brought him here, and Marie notices, "His chairs and everything look a lot different." The shoeshine guy realizes his time is being wasted -- rather belatedly, if you ask me -- and he starts to roll his cart back up the alley so he can get back to work already. But Rowan moves to block him, begging him to stay. Marie just starts yelling at them both, "No, no, no, no! No! No! No!" I'm not sure what she thinks she's accomplishing there; obviously she's not trying to help, but she also isn't going to prevent anything that was ever going to happen without her intervention, so all she's doing is looking like a dick. Yes, we know, she doesn't care.
Rowan gets down on his knees and tells the shoeshine guy that Marie (who is still saying no), "es diablo." Or, as the subtitles helpfully translate, "She's the devil." He keeps begging on behalf of his mother and his father. Marie finally gets her clue as the shoeshine guy relents and agrees to stay a little longer (doing nobody any favors), and she goes running down the alley. Nicky runs along with her, leaving her cart behind and asking Marie for the Express Pass, which Marie says she can't hand over right now. I think she's trying to play it off like she doesn't have time to root through her backpack for it, but she interviews, "Nicky wanted the Express Pass and I thought to myself, if I use it, what do I gain? Nothing that they had to offer really helped in any way." Which is totally worth pissing off the one team who can stand her. Marie tells Nicky to just go back, get her rug and pass Rowan, who is finally learning from the supervisors that he's got the wrong kind of stand. "So I have to go back, get another stand and do another shoeshine," he says as he runs back out to the square. "Very frustrating, I can tell you that." I'm sure the guy whose time he wasted would agree. At least give that dude a tip or something.
Marie meets back up with Tim in eighth place and they get in their cab. On the way, Marie complains to Tim about Rowan calling her the devil in in Spanish. "'She's the devil, she's the devil.' What? Zip it, Bingo." Tim has been waiting for her to take a breath so he can say, "I kind of agree." That brings her up short in mid-rant to glare at him, and he says, "What? You're on my team, I can say that." And it's not like she doesn't know.
Tim & Danny show up at the mat, which has been moved off the bridge since it got dark. I assume that's because the narrow, swinging bridge was no place to stand up the floodlights required to illuminate the space for the cameras. Also the mountain man has donned a hat and poncho. And Tim & Danny are team number six. Then Ally & Ashley come bouncing into view. "Wow, look at you guys, eh?" Phil remarks before telling them they're team number seven. Much hopping up and down ensues.
Kim and Shane are still at the Roadblock waiting area, not sure what's going on. What's going on is that Nicky can't find her rug and we see her walking past a wall of garbage bags, as though someone threw it away, which would make this a very long night for her. Rowan is also trotting through the square, rereading the clue and discovering the words, "Marked shoeshine stand." He finds one and plops down in front of the customer, pretty much literally. I learned from cartoons that Underdog and Shoeshine Boy are one and the same, and that appears to be the case now as well. Nicky is still running around, calling to Kim, "Bunny, this is awful!" Rowan finishes his shoeshine and Nicky finds her rug, which is still siting unattended in the middle of the square, right where she left it. So that's a lucky break for her. She retrieves it while Rowan gets his stand packed up to return to the garage. Which, at least he knows where that is now. But so does Nicky, who beats him there, with her rug now included. While he spills all his shit and has to clean it up, she finally gets her clue. "Did you get it all done?" he asks when she goes by him on her way out while he's repacking. Which she did. Rowan heaves his chair up into place and gets his clue while Nicky & Kim are still hugging, and Shane watches them reunite, having to know that he and Rowan are still in last place. "Warning, the last team to check in may be eliminated," Kim reads from the clue. They get a taxi by the time Rowan & Shane read their clue. Kim hugs Nicky in the back of their cab, and Rowan rushes their driver along. When he and Shane finally get one, that is.
Time & Marie make it to the Pit Stop as team number eight, but the good news for them is they still have both Express Passes. I'm starting to hope they beat John's record and get Philiminated with two of those in their pocket.
Final approach. Nicky & Kim's driver has one of those bobble-headed dashboard dogs that are so popular among Santiago cab drivers. That takes me back. A friend of mine brought one back for me after she lived for most of a year in Santiago, but I got rid of it sometime after it lost its bobble. The baseball wives are all but flogging their cabbie, while Rowan is in a cab somewhere behind them talking about how it's all fate now. Nicky tattles to Kim that Marie refused to give her the Express Pass. And then the baseball wives' driver, Juan, finds the place. They go running all the way into Phil's arms, and beg him to tell them they're not getting eliminated. "You're not eliminated," Phil says obligingly, though the "yet" barely goes unspoken, and he has to shout over their happy squeals that they're team number nine. "But it was a really tough leg, huh?" he observes. Kim says again that it was the hardest thing she's ever done. What she doesn't say is that they wouldn't even be here if another team hadn't screwed up even worse, and more times.
Finally here come Rowan & Shane, hollering all the way to Phil that they're coming. But of course he wastes little time Philiminating them. Rowan & Shane hug, and Shane interviews, "As I've always said, you can't have great success without great failure." But he's just shown that you can have great failure without any success at all. And Rowan talks about how he appreciates Shane more. They exchange awkward "I love you"s and are seen walk-of-shaming back to the bridge arm-in-arm. So that's the second of two teams who probably should have been Philiminated this episode. I figure that the first half of any season of The Amazing Race exists only to let us get to know the teams who will become the final contenders, while quickly weeding out the hapless, the weak, the stupid, the middle-aged, and the dysfunctional. But after they're all gone this season, I'm not sure who's going to be left.
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.
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