I missed doing a snarklist last week, so here’s this week’s remarks, hot off the airwaves. As before, the team member in bold did the Roadblock. However, I’ll be saving most of my snark for one team (as you might suspect).
- Kris/Jon
- Jonathan/Victoria
- Lori/Bolo
- Hayden/Aaron
- Freddy/Kendra
- Adam/Rebecca
- Gus/Hera
- Don/Mary Jean
Right. There’s the list, and here’s my two cents’ worth…
The Passive-Agressive Ones
The previews for this episode seemed to show a dust-up in a crowded ticket office between Hayden and Bolo, during a group argument between all the members of their teams. She asks him to lower the testosterone. Lori weighs in with a few well chosen words, as does Aaron. Hayden gets between them, puts her hand on Bolo’s chest (lucky woman!) and says something condescending and insulting about Bolo’s height and says he’s on steroids, which he promptly denies. Lots of people couldn’t wait to see what must have happened next: perhaps even a full-bore girlfight! Ooowee!
Well, the reality was much less riveting; Hayden thought better of buying tickets for her alliance partners, who were behind Lori and Bolo in the lineup, probably because there were lots of seats available, and there was no need to cause unnecessary “commotion.” Apologies were offered and accepted, from all appearances, from both sides. Smiles, laughter, and Bolo offers “And I’m not on steroids,” causing Hayden to break out a huge grin as they share the laugh. It’s a nice resolution to a tense moment. Naturally, this happens after a commercial break. Love that dramatic tension.
There’s a much, much more dramatic and disturbing scene late in the episode, which the editors in all Their wisdom chose NOT to use for the teaser footage. And I thank them. I was already upset, oddly enough, because of the NCIS episode I watched just before. It got to me in the end with a scary and very bloody scene in a car where it cut to commercial just as Tony was about to get his throat cut. As he had spent most of the episode chained to a crazy little importer-exporter-expediter-murderer, there were a lot of gratuitous references to The Defiant Ones. It was a very unsettling episode for a show that doesn’t usually go for the emotional jugular, as it were.
And then on to the Amazing Race, feeling very shaken indeed.
This entire episode was very emotional for me for some reason; it started out with a very solemn and moving little ceremony in the “Slave House” (Maison Des Esclaves) on Ile de Goree’ in Senegal. The first team to depart, Kris and Jon, left at 1252AM, so you know there was going to be a mega-bunch for hours of operation, but surprisingly they were met at the clue box at the Maison and a guide told them the history of the place, and that they would return in the morning, enter the house one team at a time, and leave roses at the open Doorway of No Return. I knew this would be an emotional moment for Gus, but it turns out they were all in a somber mood the next morning and lined up quietly outside to wait, and remained quiet as they left to read the clue, which directed them to a symbol of the end of oppression, the Berlin Wall in Germany.
I was really knocked out by this, for some reason, and also shaking with emotion. Gus wasn’t the only one crying. Kris and Jon “said a little prayer,” surprisingly enough. You could tell some people, even Victoria and that dastardly waste of skin, took a moment to reflect. And it seemed that people were a bit kinder to each other when they had a chance as they ran the typical Race route – taxi to airport or travel agent, get tickets, deplane in Berlin, find the first clue box, get to the Detour tasks. I noted everything down and watched and laughed, but kept thinking about the Maison, and the statue of the freed slaves standing in triumph with their chains broken, dancing on a drum, which was shown several times while they were on Ile de Goree.
After they found the clue box at the intact section of the Berlin Wall, they were directed to another cluebox, near the statue of the Broken Chains by the “Destroyed Church.” Again with the symbolism. I noticed glumly that Don and Mary Jo were bringing up the rear as always, even though they got evenly bunched with everyone onto the same Dakar-Paris-Berlin Air France flights. They were shown bumbling around in the airport trying to find their way out after at least one team was in a taxi on their way to or arriving at the East Side Gallery of the former Wall. They were dead last all rest of the episode, except for a time when they looked like they had a chance to pass up Lori and Bolo, who had blundered by trying to take a train and walk to the Roadblock cluebox, which was at the base of the Teufelsberg, a hill in a woodland park.
There were amusing and light-hearted Detour tasks to choose from; teams either had to stuff bratwurst or serve giant steins of beer and collect coasters with their pictures on them. Jon and Gus and Freddy all freely sampled their wares, too – the beer, that is. So did Bolo… the raw sausage meat, that is. With strands of casing – yes, real intestinal-type casing – that appeared to be lip-smacking good hanging from his chin. Mmm, yummy, that made me lose my appetite for a while.
Through all of this, Victoria and the waste of skin known as her husband Jonathan were relatively quiet and well behaved (for them). They chose to do sausage making – uncharacteristically, they worked well together and agreed on a method for doing it that minimized the chance for error.
He packed the raw meat into the grinder and applied pressure with the lever, and she threaded the casing on to the output and worked the tube o’ meat into big 7 inch… record of the band that sings the blues. No, no, she formed the sausage into links. Seemed to be handling that meat very expertly, too. Awwww! They’re so cute when they’re nice to each other, America!
Jonathan was like a different person, speaking softly, working patiently, and there was a definite moment when Victoria was having trouble with her pack that he went back to check that she was okay and under way. She tossed off a remark that his pack was heavier than hers. Badum-bum! Thanks be to the Editors.
And then it all started to unravel instantly, because as they were leaving the sausage-making place (“it looks like a castle!” Jonathan had exclaimed) another team was just arriving – Adam and Rebecca, I think. Suddenly the screaming began – Jonathan berating Victoria and ordering her to get in the cab, because “THERE’S ANOTHER TEAM!!!!” And from then on, every time they were on screen, they were on scream.
Everyone else seemed to enjoy completing their tasks, except for Lori and Bolo, who had to make a do-over sausage because one of their links wasn’t the regulation 7 inches. And haggard, exhausted looking Don and Mary Jo floundered around at the church, within sight of the Broken Chain and the cluebox, for what seemed like forever. They had forgotten to look for the sculpture, or maybe they thought it was inside the church… anyway, they knew the whole time they were probably the Dead Team Walking, so there wasn’t much drama for them.
In the end, it came down to a race for first – a more ridiculous race than there ever has been since I’ve started watching this show, because after all, it doesn’t matter if you’re first except for the last leg, you just don’t ever want to be last. Sure, every leg this season has featured a nice cruise or trip for first-place finishers, but so what? Just be glad you’re not last.
So. The teams were given very nice Mercedes to drive themselves from the park (where one of them got to race a soapbox-derby car downhill in less than 35 seconds) to a designated drop point in central Berlin, and run or walk from there along a road that was closed to traffic to the Brandenberger Tor. Simple enough.
Victoria and WOS were first leaving the Roadblock, but WOS had a wobbler in the car and started screaming because Victoria couldn’t find the right map to navigate to the drop-off point. Then he pulled over onto the central meridian, screamed some more about her lack of skills “on the ground” or something, and jumped out, demanding that she drive. Meanwhile, Freddy and Kendra, right behind them, calmly navigated right past them, noting “Yep, it’s another team… Jonathan and Victoria, pulled over for some reason.” So they pull in toward the designated drop off point, but because they were following a taxi they paid to guide them, there was some backing, filling, and discombobulation while they got themselves lined up and parked. Meanwhile, Victoria had one of her “Beaker Freakout” panic attacks; after she hopped in the front seat, she started this high-pitched “But I-I-I-I-I can’t reach the pedals!” aria coloratura. Brava, diva, brava. So they switch back, and WOS managed to pull in right behind Freddy.
And then the incident began. I couldn’t believe what happened next, and may have to rewatch it a few more times.
Freddy and Kendra run smoothly down the street, not stressed. They’ve never come in first before tonight, and frankly they looked pretty weak last time. But this week they had a solid, unremarkable leg aside from yet another regrettable – no, unforgiveable – remark from Kendra about being glad to get out of “ghetto Africa.” Ugh. They have relatively small packs and run well with them. They are out front, and Freddy says “We can beat them in a footrace” or some such.
Jonathan and Victoria are in a panic. Do they think they’re about to be eliminated? They have no way of knowing, but they may have thought they had a shot at first place. They start running, rather heavily laden. Victoria kept saying (and had said earlier at the Detour) that her pack is much heavier than Jon’s. They’re yelling, they’re trying to run and catch up to Freddy and Kendra.
Then Jonathan stopped in the street and tried to pay some guy to watch his pack – some random guy sitting at an outdoor restaurant or newstand! Victoria yelled at him and got him moving again. More screaming. More running. Then Jonathan, at a street corner, started screaming “I can’t do it, Victoria, I can’t do it!” while she scampered across to the other side. She could see the cluebox and shouted for him to keep moving, it wasn’t far. And Jonathan crossed the street, ducked around a barrier, and dumped his pack behind a construction fence. And then he took off. Victoria, in full cry, stopped and picked up his pack and started trying to sprint up the street after him.
She bursts into tears, probably because she can see the other team about to step on the mat, and she’s not there with Jonathan. “I can’t do it, I can’t do it, why did you leave it back there? They’d take it!” she was screaming.
Freddy and Kendra are welcomed onto the mat. Jonathan and Victoria can be seen in the background as they come up within 25 feet and wait. She is still crying very loudly.
Cut to a shot of the end of Freddy and Kendra’s welcome from behind, which gets totally ignored because in the foreground, Jonathan is screaming at Victoria for going back and getting his back, she is screaming and crying, and he pushes her backpack very hard, causing her to almost lose balance, and she drops one of their route envelopes. Also, he had ripped his pack from her shoulder first and thrown it down. Crying, she goes to one knee to retrieve it, as Jonathan continues to berate her. I think from the angle, he pushes her pack, not her side or shoulder, but she’s still strapped into it, and so she gets rocked to the side pretty hard.
Cut back to Victoria, stepping onto the mat but still upset. Jonathan, in an excess of bratty behavior, picks up his fallen pack, holds it high, and slam dunks it dramatically onto the mat.
Cut to Phil, who has a very, very stern look on his face and appears to smell something very bad – perhaps the odor of rotten meat now hangs over America’s Meathearts.
Phil checks them in and advises that they are Team Number Two.
In a first for this show (they’ve come close, but never quite this far), there’s a scene on the mat, with berating, recriminations, yelling, the works. Phil stands there grimly, probably wishing for an earpiece to take direction from the producers. Or does he have one already?
Victoria storms off, crying. Jonathan continues to yell and lay blame and complain. Phil looks absolutely craggy with disapproval, and finally advises Jonathan very firmly to go talk to Victoria. However, I don’t think this was the best advice, but it was probably the most tactful way to get that blue haired maniac off my Amazing Bathmat and away from my nice Phil. He has that kind of unhelpful silence that portends a possible sanction or time penalty down the line, almost as if he’s telepathically signalling the Amazing Cameramen – “Are you getting this? The lawyers will need it.”
Jonathan goes over to yell at Victoria some more, and at last they’re off the screen. The rest of the departures from the final Roadblock and arrivals at the Pit Stop proceed uneventfully. In a shocking twist, Don and Mary Jo reach .89 lightspeed and get ahead of the wrestlers… no, that’s science fiction. As expected from their dismal showing right from the bunchy start and the bunchy flight, they’re eliminated as seemed to be their doom from the beginning of the episode (and was pretty much foreordained from the moment they were shown bumbling around trying to find their way out of Berlin Tegel airport).
I’ve been reading the thread at TWOP and all kinds of horror and disgust have broken out over Jonathan’s performance (also quite a lot said over Kendra’s “they just keep breeding” comment, Bolo’s snacking, and Hayden’s rudeness). My take is that the blessed Editors seemed to be showing as little of Jonathan as possible, except when he is uncharacteristically nice and/or pulls something truly horrific to see. I think if there’s NOT a penalty or sanction in his future, that it would be nice if we’re being set up for a very satisfying public meltdown, and an assbooting Philimination galore. Ironic, isn’t it, that some old men used to joke that their wives are “the old ball and chain?” Because Jonathan has put some shackles on his wife that she can’t even see, and he’s the dead weight in the family. He’s totally the reason they failed to stay in front – he was driving back into central Berlin, and his median freakout was the main reason Freddy and Kendra were able to pass them.
I was on the point of posting about the episode on TWOP earlier, but a moderator closed the thread off for a while – Miss Alli is not available, so her substitute, the excellent M. Giant, decided to let everybody cool down, because it was All About The Shove.
Update: thread opened by another moderator, posters warned not to indicate Jonathan with an “*” appended to Victoria’s name anymore. However, they’re free to call him “asshat” or whatever they like. Heh.