You know how sometimes, you’re aware as soon as you hear a phrase that it’s going to live on in your vocabulary forever? Kind of like, “I’M PACKIN’ IT!”, only more so? Okay. That’s what happened this week with “My ox is broken!”
I don’t think I will ever love anything on television, in a sick and wrong kind of way, quite like I loved seeing Colin absolutely self-destruct, to the point where he wound up snarling angrily, “My ox is broken!”
Anyway, to provide some context, we start out in New Zealand, where the early Roadblock requires some careful circus performing, and where Colin and Christie are feeling their oats — and when I say “oats,” I’m talking about a very large quantity of oats. Anyway, they experience some flight problems that result in all the teams arriving in Manila at the same time. And right out of the gate, because Colin and Christie have been so very demonstrative about how tough and intense they are, everyone is looking to throw them the Yield. And they do. Chip and Kim, specifically, make Colin stand and stare at an hourglass while everybody else does their task. And then there’s a jeep thing and some other stuff, and then the BEST THING EVER happens.
Colin and Christie arrive in last place at a Detour where they’re supposed to lead an ox around with a plow in the mud, only they fail to figure out that one person is supposed to plow and one is supposed to lead, so Colin just winds up being dragged at random around this field, at which point he has a complete and absolute fucking meltdown, the likes of which you have never seen. In the middle of which he tells Christie that he hates her, and she acts just as obnoxious as he does, so you no longer have to wonder if you should feel sorry for her about putting up with his shit. You shouldn’t. Anyway, along about here, he becomes so frustrated that he barks, “My ox is broken!”
Broken. He has a broken ox.
So they come in last, but it’s an unexpected non-elimination round at this weird juncture, so they don’t get booted. Good Lord, they are a plague on all of us. Anyway, in other news, the Moms have a good leg, Kim really needs to go back to the part where she was trying to do her share of the work, and Brandon? Well, frankly, I love Brandon. He hollers! He loves the Lord! He plows! He does funk dances on boats in New Zealand! Brandon is the best. I like Nicole, too, but she didn’t dance.
Oh, my GOD that was a good episode, in an entire season of good episodes. My TAR feed search in Bloglines has increased tenfold – it seems everybody and their weird brother-in-law is talking about the show and the Broken Ox Incident. And downloading BitTorrents. And listing their picks for Win, Place, Show, and Total Loser.
One blog came up with a new nickname for their team after Christie’s performance – they’re now officially Colon and Crusty. Mean, yes, but I laughed, because she was covered in slimy black mud after her performance at the rice paddy. And, of course, her freak-out performance attempting to egg the jeepney driver into committing vehicular homicide. Oh, and my side still hurts from laughing at her standing on the sidelines telling Colin what he was doing wrong, rather than doing what she was supposed to do, which is lead the damn ox already.
Because why? Because it wasn’t a Roadbloack, Christie, it was a Detour. Two people perfom this type of task, unless your partner is Mirna, or you.
Yes, and that means getting in the mud. And then when she finally did step into the paddy to feel around with her feet for the rope, she took about 4 steps, stopped, looked down, and picked up the soggy, sodden rope. And with what royal hauteur and disdain she held it up for Colin to see. I believe she even said “Oh. Here it is.” or words to that effect.
Ah. And so sweet to see them gloating about how easy the first part of the leg was – Colin can be heard actually saying “cake” or “piece of cake” as he climbs that little bitty cable ladder to the undercarriage of the bridge. What? And of course he was perfectly graceful as he walked across the girders to the person with the clue. Also, Christie will probably regret her little “all the other teams… suck!” comment. Soon, I hope. It was not one of her best moments.
Perfect people are perfectly annoying. Also, they don’t make for very good reality TV unless the element of conflict is introduced by making them, say, the villains of the piece with a little judicious editing and a few juicy “frankenbites” that come back to haunt them.
It’s funny, I liked them well enough in the first 3 episodes, except that Colin even then seemed a bit insufferable. Over on the TWOP forum, their stock has been falling pretty fast – popularity is such a fickle thing, but being an ass is likely to get you on the Z-list at parties no matter how extreme and intense a Racer you are.
When it looked like they’d get eliminated, Christie’s eyes got absolutely huge and tragic… I swear to God, it was like the part in Shrek 2 where Puss in Boots got all Sad Eyed Kitty In the Rain. She was absolutely, heartbreakingly beautiful, even up to her elbows in dried mud.
I will say this for her; she’s totally emotionally invested in the Race. When Phil gave them the “good news” about non-elimination, she broke down completely.
I’m very happy with the rest of teams that remain – they’re flawed and they’ve all made dumb mistakes, so the outcome is still not totally predictable. Colin and Christie’s only mistakes have been minor, but their biggest handicap is… hubris. And a tendency to melt down like a thwarted two-year-old at naptime.
A couple of other observations from the Race RSS-feed: one blog likened Karen’s voice to that of a 10-year old boy on Christmas morning… ALL! THE! TIME! and there have been a number of very happy entries from people in the Philippines in a mixture of Tagalog and English.
Also, one irritation: I’ve been spoiled for part of the finale location because one blogger keeps updating his spoiler post, which includes eyewitness photos of Racers, over and over again to add details or make corrections. I managed to scroll past the spoiler information the first 3 times without seeing too much, but finally the repetition was too much for me to ignore completely, and I caught too much information. GRRRR! There’s this thing called the “excerpt” field… please use it if you’re going to spoil something.
And also because of the RSS-feed I got spoiled for the beginning of TAR6. Again with the GRR.
On the other hand, I won’t have to wait a year and a half for the next installment, so: PURRRR.
And I don’t think I will ever love anything on television quite like the sight of a handsome, exhausted young man absolutely covered in mud and oxenshit breaking down in tears and sobbing “I hate you!”