This episode served as a perfect preliminary for Thanksgiving, as the four teams acted like extended family members keeping mental note of offenses incurred and grudges to be fanned at a later date. It started off with some extreme high-wire athletics and ended up with a lot of sitting. And, once again, a needle-in-a-haystack task that depended mostly on luck ended up in a non-elimination, this time for Brian and Ericka who lagged behind the whole leg after taking public transport from the airport. (Public transportation almost never lives up to the moment on this show.)
Flight Time took his time coming down the ladder of the ropes course, preventing Meghan and Cheyne from speeding off while Big Easy was still finishing the Detour. Cheyne decided to ditch the Globetrotters after spying a taxi, even as it was Meghan’s idea for the two teams to work together. But the clearest transgression had to be the brothers taking Brian and Ericka’s waiting cab. This, after a dozen “Dude, shut up” arguments while failing to navigate the whitewater rafting.
Usually I identify with sibling squabbling, but I think the problem with the brothers is that I can’t differentiate between them in terms of who’s saying what. Either one could have said, “Prague is a country” or “You’re doing this all wrong.” They’re equally annoying.
But I loved that Meghan showed a personality beyond being a control freak. Big Easy gave her a hard time in his commentary for yelling “Cheyne, Cheyne” over and over again at the opera house. But who can blame her for thinking her partner needed guidance, when he kept holding on to normal-size guitars and violins and mandolins after being told to search for an instrument in miniature. She showed she was smarter than Cheyne when she said that he was rude to have abandoned the Globetrotters on a train platform with nary a word and that the Globetrotters were the kind of guys who would use that kind of slight to only motivate themselves more.
What did you guys think? Did you enjoy the comic fodder of the goings-on at the opera house? Has anyone ever looked more hangdog dejected than Flight Time after being left by Cheyne? Is taking someone else’s cab part of the competition or is it just wrong?