This episode kicked off with a short sequence of TK and Rachel praising the Travelocity gnome for its generous gift to them of a trip to Japan. Thank you, Travelocity gnome! You are the kindest, wisest product placement gnome that ever was! TK and Rachel will surely be thrilled to hand over their first-born child to you in gratitude.
TK and Rachel hoped they would be able to keep their lead and experience another saucy encounter with the gnome. TK explained the secret of their success: “When we’re cool and keeping a mellow head, we’re not just doing it because we’re in a race, we’re doing it because we’re baked, man.” OK, they may actually have mentioned something about how that was just the way they were naturally and that it was healthy for their relationship. Healthy for their relationship? HEALTHY FOT THEIR RELATIONSHIP??!! Get your functional relationship off my show, you freaks!
"You know what's funny, man? That taxi is taksi in Lithuanian, man. That's really funny, man, I need some chips, man."Teamwork was a recurring theme. Ronald and Christina resolved to work on their teamwork. I was skeptical, especially when Christina wondered whether he could be as nice to her as he was to the locals and he responded with a “Jigga-what?” expression.
Azaria himself was acting like a know-it-all. He was being all “brother knows best” and bossing Hendekea around like an overbearing father. So like Ronald, basically. As for Nate and Jen, they were sad that half their trip had been spent screaming at each other. Would they finally manage to resolve their issues with each other and work together as a team? Don’t bet on it, folks.
Picturesque Croatia was this week’s destination. Hendekea told us of her Bosnian friend who had taught her some Bosnian (which apparently is understood in Croatia). She proudly said something in Bosnian and revealed that it meant “There’s a party in my pants and everyone’s invited”. I cannot wait until that comes in handy.
At the airport, most people initially lined up behind TK and Rachel outside a not-yet-open office. Kynt and Vyxsin (who looked like they were on their way to a Texas gay pride parade with their neon pink cowboy hats) called the other teams sheep and decided they’d do their own thing. They were lured by the pink logo of a particular travel agency and tried to get some tickets there.
Much line-swapping and second-guessing suddenly ensued. Teams started going back-and-forth between the two offices, hoping for a better deal. Azaria and Hendekea thought they didn’t have to deal with the lines as they had booked a couple of seats on Polish Airlines beforehand but found that deal hadn’t gone through. So they went to stand in one line until Azaria decided the other one looked shinier.
When Hendekea protested that he was making all the decisions, he acted like a condescending twit towards her. They fought a bit about the line-jumping and decision-making and somehow failed to notice that they were buying business class tickets. They only realised that they had broken the rules a couple of minutes before the flight was due to depart and they could not sort out any economy tickets in time. The rest of the teams all flew off to Dubrovnik and left Azaria and Hendekea to stew in their own failure.
Oh come ON, Nate and Jen fight like rabid weasels all the time, but Azaria and Hendekea have ONE FIGHT and they completely screw themselves over? To steal a Jen quote from later on in the episode, life is not fair.
The Siblings did have a small shot. The plane containing TK/Rachel and Nicolas/Donald was badly delayed, so the four of them missed their connecting flight. The Hippies managed to get a decent flight but Nicolas and Donald could not get on that same flight and were stuck in Prague until further notice. Isn’t Nicolas a pilot? Maybe he can convince an airline to lend him a plane and he can fly there himself.
Nate/Jen, Ronald/Christina and the Goths landed in Croatia without incident. They had to make their way to the Dubrovnik harbour. Your language lesson for this week: the Croatian word for ‘fast’ is something like ‘Brazil, and ‘thank you’ is something like ‘Say holla’. I had no idea the Croatians were so hip-hop.
Is Phil raiding Jeff Probst's closet now?The first Roadblock had the chosen teammember find the right stone to fix a wall that was had been partly kablooeyed in the Yugoslav civil war. Vyxsin compared this to Tetris. I hope the producers haven’t turned to video games for challenge inspiration. I don’t think I could handle a Roadblock that involves people running after mushrooms and knocking open blocks with their heads. And let’s not even go into what happens if the producers are Resident Evil fans.
A zipline stood between the teams and the next Route Marker. Ronald about wet himself in fear during the zip. I hope he has as many spare pairs of pants as he does ‘who’s your daddy’ shirts. A Detour was next, which had the teams choose between two paths to the next RM, one physical and quite short, the other longer and more confusing.
Ronald and Christina chose the more physical one which involved rowing a boat. Nate and Jen saw the two of them rowing and Nate scoffed and boasted he’d easily be able to kick their asses. Of course, as soon as he got into the boat, Nate had no idea what to do.
Here’s where the editors got clever. This entire sequence was presented as a microcosm of the two teams’ approach to teamwork and each other. Ronald and Christina had a couple of disagreements in the beginning over which way to face while rowing but eventually figured out how to row in tandem and get to the harbour.
Nate and Jen...did not. They each took an oar but instead of rowing together at the same time, they each rowed to their own rhythm and ended up in their fiftieth screaming match of the season. Let’s just say it was the worst fight at Dubrovnik harbour since the aforementioned civil war.
Afterwards, Jen uttered the most truthful words of the entire race: “Our relationship sucks”. She interviewed that she wasn’t quite sure whether she and Nate would stay together at the end of the race. Not quite sure? God, do you need Dr Phil to brand the words “Break up, you lunkheads!” on your ass?
The Goths were psyched to do the longer Detour option, which featured rappelling. “That strap looks good on you,” said Kynt saucily to Vyxsin. Ohh, they’re into bondage too? No subculture too alternative for our Goths. Vyxsin announced Kynt looked like a little Goth action figure. I can see it now: “Cut-Me-Elmo, coming to a Toys ‘R Us near you. Comes with free plastic razor blade accessory. Batteries not included.”
Flying Goths. Like flying nuns only with more eyeliner and despair.The Pit Stop was the next place to get to after the Detour. Nate and Jen could not get a taxi, supposedly because they were wet. My theory is that the taxi drivers all had a mass psychic realisation that the two of them were annoying twats. So Nate and Jen were forced to see the just-as-wet Ronald and Christina get in a taxi and drive to meet Phil, all while their own drippiness acted like taxi driver kryptonite.
Ronald and Christina arrived first to the Pit Stop, where an overly enthusiastic uniformed dude tried to shoot them. Phil informed them they had won a catamaran. A catamaran? Lame. Ronald was pleased and said, “I know what that is.” Yeah, something way shittier than a trip to Japan is what it is.
And you thought crime in Joburg was bad.A catamaran is, of course, a kind of boat. This is not to be confused with a catty moron which is one of a) Nate, or b) Jen. Said twosome arrived at the mat next only to be told that they had broken a rule: the fools had taken a private car to the Pit Stop even though the clue had explicitly told them to take a taxi. They would have to redo it. Not that it would put them far enough behind to lose but still, heh.
The other three teams had been noticeably MIA up until now. Finally, TK and Rachel landed and proceeded to rock the challenges without any drama. They were particularly good at the stone section. Well, they are stoners.
Nicolas and Donald landed second-last and were shortly followed by Azaria and Hendekea. Nicolas and Don lost quite a bit of time at the Roadblock because Donald was so methodical. Nicolas fretted and told him not to go so slow. Hey, maybe if you didn’t make grandpa do every physical Roadblock, you’d go faster.
What's with the random speedo guy in the background?By the time Nicolas and Donald were in the rowboat, Azaria and Hendekea had caught up enough to see them from the zipline. They decided to do the same Detour, which I think was a mistake. It’s not like they were a particularly physically strong team who could have caught up on the rowing, so taking a chance on the other Detour option might have been the only way they could pass Nicolas and Don.
As it is, Azaria and Hendekea did the rowing. Or rather, Azaria did the rowing, just as Nicolas was doing all the rowing over on his boat. If only Azaria and Hendekea had each picked up an oar, they might have had a shot. Nicolas and Donald got a bit lost trying to hail a taxi and had to slow down on the way to the Pit Stop on account of blocked traffic, but this was just not enough for Azaria and Hendekea to ever catch up.
Sadly, the Siblings checked in last. Any hopes for a Non-elimination were quickly dashed by Phil. Three first-places and one stupid mistake sunk them. This is even worse than when a no-hoper team I like goes home.
The moral of the story: Sometimes, in the rowboat of life, all it takes is one little squabble to tip over. Unless you’re Nate and Jen. In which case, you can beat each other to death with oars and your boat will still stay afloat.