With David and Mary having claimed first place last week, it looked as if a new age may have dawned for the so-called “Back Pack”. So sure were they of the Pack’s change of fortune that David and Mary were willing to rename the “Back Pack” into the “Six Pack”. The new name is symbolic of how the members of this Pack are about as efficient as if they’ve downed a six-pack of beers.
A joyfully Peter-free episode began with a barrage of mispronunciations and manglings of the name of the teams’ next destination – Mauritius. You’d think that after Mongolia, India and Kuwait, the teams would have no trouble getting their tongues around a simple word like “Mauritius” but you’d be wrong.
David and Mary announced their intention to go to “Marachi”, Dustin and Kandice wanted to go to “Mauriteeus”, Rob and Kimberly thought it was “Mauridius” and the Lyns showed about as much love for Mauritius as they did for everything else they encounter by calling it “Maureetchus”. “I don’t even know where that is,” Rob said after hearing of his next destination. It’s off the east coast of Arfica in the Idnian Ocean, silly.
The Wins managed the correct pronunciation as did, to my surprise, the Zoolanders. I thought drugs were supposed to scramble your brain! Have the anti-drug advertisements been lying to me all this time? That’s it, I’m going to find some heroin rocks.
At the airport the BQs demonstrated even more gratuitous idiocy for us to laugh at. After asking the travel agent for tickets to the mysterious nation of Mauridius, the ticket agent told them he could get them a flight via London. “London? Where’s that,” asked our pageant princesses. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for the U.S. geography curriculum. The travel agent tried to explain that there were no direct flights to Mauritius and the earliest flight there departed from London but they stared at him blankly as if he had just declared that they should swim there themselves.
Lord, this is like that Youtube video from last year that showed that American pageant girl nattering on about education in Iraq and South Africa except this is even more cringe-inducing because I actually like these two. Why aren’t geography lessons mandatory for participating in beauty pageants? How are you supposed to support world peace if you barely know anything about the world?
The BQs turned away from the surprisingly patient airline employee, who no doubt knew his job security would be in doubt if he started pointing and mocking, and surreptitiously whispered “I don’t think this guy knows what he’s talking about”. No, he only works at the ticket counter of a major airport. Why on earth would he know anything about tickets and flight plans?
As the BQs were informed about the exact same flight at a different counter, the Lyns got in line behind them. “There’s some tension between our two teams,” the BQs informed us in interview. Nooo! I would never have guessed from their warm and friendly interactions!
Tyler and James walked in a short while later and the BQs immediately told the ticket agent that they were with them. Karlyn’s eyes widened, her nostrils flared and a vein began to throb in her forehead. Oh god, here we go. So began ‘Bama bitchfest no. 26 about the ethics of the game and how the BQs were using the rules of the game as their own personal throw toy.
Kandice hasn't been this bored since Miss Ohio's interpretive dance in the Miss USA talent sectionKarlyn then turned her attention to the ticket agent and asked him how he could live with this villainy on his conscience. YES, HOW COULD YOU, RANDOM TICKET AGENT??!! I HOPE YOUR GUILT EATS AWAT AT YOU UNTIL YOUR DYING DAY WHEREUPON PEOPLE WILL SHUN YOUR FUNERAL!!
Since Karlyn was acting like a crazy person on a bad acid trip, Tyler decided to step in and use his experience with ranting crackheads for good. He tried to get her to stop her ragging out the nameless airline employee so she turned her righteous rage towards him. Tyler responded by waving his hands up and down and going “Wooooooo” like he was doing a chicken dance taunt against her.
Taunt taunt taunt!After Tyler and James left, Karlyn once again turned to the hapless ticket agent and stared spouting off his sins until Lyn, the team member with an actual sense of shame, told her to stop it. But why should she, Lyn, when the ticket agent had clearly committed an unspeakable act? Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.
Wow, all that drama and they hadn’t even touched down in Mauritititanius or whatever it’s called. On reaching their destination, teams were given a model boat and told they had to find and locate their next clue inside of it. I’m surprised none of the teams spent any time looking to see if there was any tiny envelope hidden the model.
"Is this some kind of joke? How can I be expected to swim to this boat if I can't even fit in it? It's going to need to be at least...three times as big!"As always, the Six-Pack waited for each other at the airport and tried to stay close. The Lyns, whose total contribution to the alliance has been negative vibes and a whole lot of bitchface, got sick of waiting for the other teams and ditched the Wins and Kentucky to go find the bay on their own. Somehow I think the three teams are not contributing to the alliance in equal amounts.
On learning that she would have to swim to a boat, Mary blanched and confessed her secret fear of fish. They’re terrifying beasts, that’s for certain. David was also not too fond of water due to a childhood incident in which he’d been thrown into a lake to learn how to swim. Sadly, we did not get to hear about Mary’s childhood trauma which led to her fish-phobia.
Feel the TERROR!!At the bay, the BQs were the first to swim to the boat and back again. “Where’s your six-pack now?” Dustin moustache-twirled as she watched the Lyns and Kentucky struggle in the water. She somehow managed to restrain herself from muahahaha-ing all the way to the car.
The Wins also managed to complete the swim quickly but because of their stupid alliance, had to wait for Kentucky and the Lyns to bob to shore. If these two were any less competitive, they’d be your grandma.
Rob and Kimberly weren’t sure how to get to the next route marker, and without Tyler and James to leech onto, decided to follow Dustin and Kandice instead. “They’re not really all that great,” Rob complained of the BQs even as he feasted on the fruits of their labour. Maybe not but you’re the genius following them.
Pissed off at the leeches tailing them, the BQs decided to go Bond on their asses and lose them. They took a different route but even as they were congratulating themselves on losing Rob and Kimberly, they got into a fender bender. Great, just great, girls. Now Phil is never getting his Outsurance bonus.
This is Karlyn's current desktop backgroundStressed at their loss of a coattail to hang onto, Rob and Kimberly engaged in their favourite sport – freestyle sniping. At one point, Rob got so sick of Kimberly that he got out of the car and threatened to leave her there. See how you’ve broken his spirit, Kim? If you prick him, does he not bleed?
The car, as fed up with Rob and Kimberly’s *bleep!* as everyone else is, picked that moment to stop working. I think I love that car. Is it creepy to want to marry inanimate objects? I did once read about a woman who was in love with a wall.
The CBS website thought this picture of Erwin's head was interesting enough to share so I do tooThe BQs reached the postal office first and were faced with a Detour. One option was to search through huge piles of salt for a salt-shaker while the other was to play pirate and follow a map to some masts sitting on a nearby island. The BQs chose the map. Oh lawdy, they can’t even find London on a map and they want to do this?
They managed to locate the right area without much difficulty but fell into a covered pit just next to the masts. Ooh, booby trap! “It’s like Indiana Jones,” they marvelled. Meh, maybe if there’d been poison-tipped wooden spikes at the bottom. Otherwise, I’m rather disappointed in the standard of Mauritian booby traps. Maybe I’ve just watched too much Pirates of the Caribbean.
The rest of the teams all decided to do the needle-in-a-haystack search. I hate those kinds of challenges. It would be less frustrating to drive your car into the sea. To further aggravate the teams, the producers had put in quite a few pepper shakers in the salt piles as well.
Sitting on a huge pile of white powder; it's like a dream come true for Tyler and JamesOne by one, the teams realised what a futile effort it was likely to be and switched Detours. David and Mary were the last to quit the Detour, much to my horror because they were already quite behind by this point.
The BQs checked into the Pit Stop first, followed by Rob and Kimberly and the Zoolanders. The Six-Pack reverted back to form and brought up the rear. Instead of vamoosing, the Wins once again waited for the other members of their alliance, causing much wailing and anger from my side of the TV screen. They drove as one to the Pit Stop until the Lyns decided “each team for themselves” and went off on their own.
Kentucky took a wrong turn and got to the Pit Stop to find a grim-faced Phil waiting for them. Their great luck kicked in once again as it was the second Non-elimination leg. Yay! Phil congratulated them on their second chance (technically, it’s their third, Phil) and warned them they were marked for elimination on the next leg. And this time they can’t get out of it with a Fast Forward…
Next week: A new twist – something called an Intersection. And one of the teams (Lyns) will have (Lyns) to work (Lyns) with the BQs despite their mutual (Lyns) hatred.