Tickets, who’s got tickets

Episode #10 wasn’t a race, it was more like people trying to find tickets for a sold-out show :

Oswald and Danny recalled their money situation. Oswald told us that: “Mister Moneybags over here, forgets he’s in a race on a budget.” Hearing Danny laugh about it and seeing the incident replayed in Black and white indicates it should come back to haunt them.

They went to the airline offices and were lucky not to be thrown out of there. The Malaysian airlines had a no T-Shirt dress code they weren’t following. In the China airlines office, the employees’office wasn’t designed to accommodate customers. Nevetheless, they were alone on the early flight out of Kuala Lumpur, giving them an hour lead in Hong Kong. They gave the cousins their Malaysian airlines boarding code with Oswald saying: “They have shared information with us. It goes back to the whole issue of Karma.”

Arriving first in Hong Kong, they had the option to use another fast forward. It was a fun ride and it gave them a nice prize for first place. They spent their last $20 on the toll before the Jockey club pit stop. How lucky were they that they didn’t have to pay for all the taxis and the ferry the other teams took? Already, Danny had to convince one cab driver to accept less than the total fare. It won’t always work.

Oswald said he was playing to win a million, it seems Danny will have cost them the game by buying papers and lemonade. Another fateful shopping spree!

Dustin and Kandice had an unkind portrayal in the recap: The cousins were shown proclaiming that they wanted to run a clean race while Phil said the Beauty Queens had other plans. Phil added: “Will their decision to yield Eric and Danielle come back to haunt them? Saying that: “The yield is part of the game”seemed like a weak excuse. Will there be a “Yield Karma” as Mirna suggested?

At the airport, the girls saw the other three teams gang up on them. Mirna got the other two teams to agree to work on excluding the Blondes from the final 3. Plans like that usually fail so that it’s a good sign for the Blondes. They had to fight to keep their place on stand-by since Oswald and Danny had given their boarding code to the cousins. The Blondes found Mirna very manipulative and said she deserved the pushyness award of the year.

They got second place when they stuck with their decision to do the Kung-Fu detour. Dustin gave a karate chop to an actor, laughing with Kandice about it. On the ferry to Hong Kong island, Kandice told us: “The thing with Charla and Mirna wasn’t fun…” Dustin concluded: “But we’re having fun now. They did the rest of the tasks efficiently and appeared to finish well ahead of their rivals in third place. Second place wasn’t bad at all.

Some people hate the Beauty Queens and like the cousins while others love the Beauty Queens and hate the cousins. It is interesting that the editors chose to portray these two teams in such a similar manner in this episode Both teams fought for their airline tickets, both had fun on the tasks and both spend a lot of energy on a meaningless leg. In opposition, the other two teams almost seemed above the fray or at least not so desperate. Oswald had his “We didn’t try to bamboozle you” comment and Eric swallowed the bitter pill almost philosophically: “We’ll make other arrangements…we’ll try to catch up.”

Between the two women teams, it seems that the Beauty Queens’ enjoyment of the race and of the locals has been consistently shown. Their aggressiveness has been solely limited to a few teams on the race, not to the people around it. We’ve seen them having a consistent edit throughout both seasons so even accusation of phoneyness seem to be unjustified. They seem to have a better portrayal and it could indicate a better outcome, unless the two women team get so focused on their rivalry, they forget the third team.

Charla and Mirna were in a fighting mood and were ready to flex some muscle…cerebral muscle Mirna indicated. They forced their way into the China air offices: Despite a “wait for me upstairs” by the agent they begged their way in and then insisted on closing the door despite the request from the employee to keep it open.”Kick some people off” demanded Mirna to Desmond.

Seeing the other two teams trying to convince Desmond they were first, Mirna had another spiteful comment: “Take your padded bras and the stuff you have stuffed in there and take it elsewhere.” After Oswald explained the situation, Mirna went to Eric: “We’ve been screwed over one too many times by the geeky, bubbly girls. The final three: You guys, us, Danny and Oswald. No more bubbly, phoneyness. It’s gonna be a fun final three.” Later, Mirna was draped over the Malaysian airlines counter to prevent the Beauty Queens from getting their tickets. That aggressivenes got them on the flight ahead of Eric and Danielle.

Racing a clean race indeed!

At least, they had fun with Charla’s wheels in the airport corridors. After some hesitation, they decided to do the Kung-Fu fighting Detour and had fun with the actors. Again Mirna mentionned wanting to fight the Beauty Queens. At least, finishing the detour, she had nice words for her cousin: “Charla is out to prove on the race that she can break down what people’s expectations are of her. The detour was very hard but she did a great job with it.”

After that fun detour, they gave wrong directions to their taxi driver who brought them to Hong Kong island where they took the star ferry towards Kowloon. They learned of their mistake when passengers told them that they weren’t going towards Hong Kong island but had actually just left its port! They had to do a ferry U-turn. They were later shown to have more problems finding Victoria Park and again on the way to the Jockey club’s infield entrance.

The cousins have had some good showings in a few episodes but their abrasive behavior has often been underlined. This episode had a combination of both. The good was the detour and the roadblock, the bad was the airport and the mistakes in navigation. A winner usually gets a more consistent edit.

Eric and Danielle were once again victim to the stand-by rules even if they were second at the customer counter and were the third team on the list behind the BQs and the Cha-Chas. Danielle was right to say that “Charla and Mirna should be on this plane.” That was the plane that had them in last place and detouring through Ho Chi Minh city on the way to Hong Kong. Maybe some Karma is being set up against the cousins this time.

After that new airport debacle, the couple was never in it. They complained a lot but stayed focused enough to apparantly cut into the 2 1/2 hour deficit they had on the cousins. Danielle wasn’t too happy with the “impolite” Mirna: “We will stop being nice, because nice doesn’t get you far.” Eric was again heard mentionning they had to be careful with their money, in contrast to the Cha-Chas. His thriftiness is a better way to race on a budget.

The couple was catching up until Eric refused to ask for directions to Victoria Park. Danielle told us that “Eric doesn’t like to listen to me. He was mad that I could actually be right.” They rode around in a circle again on the way to the Jockey club even if Eric said he knew where it was. Eric wasn’t sure if continuing to race was a good thing but he finally admitted: “I was wrong. Danielle was right in this case, we should have gotten a taxi earlier…We’re a team. We have our work cut out for us. I gotta keep Danielle strong.” Danielle also had a final confessional: “Being in this race is really important to me and I want to show that I’m stronger than people think I am…I want to make it to top three and I want to win.”

If the women teams were portrayed in a similar way, there was an opposition between Oswald and Danny and Eric and Danielle. The gay couple had all the luck going for them, from the early flight on China air, to the fast forward and finally having just enough money to cover the last expense. Eric and Danielle had a lot of bad luck that pushed them out of it. In this race, things have a way to change quickly as the team in first on one leg often finds itself in last on the next. It’s a miserable game this race and it seems that Eric and Danielle had all the misery they could possibly have had ever since they got taken off that plane in Africa. Are they due for a comeback? It certainly appears that their edit still has momentum now that Eric has realized Danielle can be right and that they are a team. Watch out for this team.