No Melting Mat, But Plenty of Bickering While the Stunt Guys Go Home

Well, after the much-hyped "mat meltdown" previews, it didn’t live up to the billing for me, although what led up to the arguments at the Mat seemed pretty childish and really rough for the Race! Luke and Jen got pretty physical going after the clue boxes, and it ended up with really bad feelings for both teams. Will they manage to settle down and behave like competitive adults or keep up the schoolyard fighting? We’ll see ....

The teams begin from Bangkok, Thailand and are told to fly to Guilin, China and then taxi to Qing Xui Lu to a hair salon and look for the clue box. Margie & Luke, leaving the Pit Stop first, find a flight leaving at 11:20 a.m. and no other teams can catch that flight. Tammy & Victor were excited about going to China - Tammy can speak fluent Chinese and they’re finally going to be able to communicate. It seemed like an omen when Jen said "With only five teams left, it’s getting tight and if someone’s in front of me I’m gonna knock ‘em over."

Tammy & Victor and Cara & Jamie caught up to Margie & Luke at the Guangzhou airport for their connecting flight, which was delayed. Kisha & Jen were on another flight leaving at 9:10 and ended up being first out of that airport. They were a bit worried, though, saying "We haven’t seen another team all day, we don’t know what the hell is going on." While Tammy & Victor easily tell their driver where they want to go, Luke says he’d like to go to a country where everyone is deaf, so they could have the advantage.

Kisha & Jen ended up with a cabbie who couldn’t find the hair salon and let them off in the wrong spot, killing what lead they had. Tammy & Victor see them and hope to pass them up, but their cabbie can’t find the salon either. Tammy laughs that "Even if we can speak the language, it just means we can understand that he doesn’t know where he’s going." Cara & Jamie have a great driver and are first to clue box, which tells them to go to the #24 Bridge. Tammy & Victor find the salon right after and are hot on the trail of the Redheads. Kisha & Jen jumped in another cab and said" We don’t trust Margie & Luke, they gave us wrong directions before." Margie & Luke get to the salon just before Kisha & Jen, and together they roam around like blind rats, with neither team seeing the clue box (and Luke could have stepped on it, he was so close). As they meander around, they manage to spot it from a couple doors down at the same time and took off running - and here comes the schoolyard behavior. Luke got there a hair before Jen, who pushed him a little (I think from the momentum of running, it didn’t look purposeful at all). Luke tries to keep Jen from getting her clue and Luke brought up his elbow and got really close to biffing Jen in the head. (Like getting the clue an extra second or two before Jen would really give them an advantage!) Jen calls him a bitch (and while I like Margie & Luke, I’m blaming Luke for this one, he maybe wasn’t a bitch, but he was acting like a real butthead). After his Mom tells him that the girls called him a bitch, Luke said "calling the deaf guy a bitch is not nice." (You know, Luke, you can’t have it both ways. Either you’re just like everyone else except you can’t hear, or you deserve special treatment. If the deaf guy acts like a bitch, he can be called a bitch!) Each team is yapping up a storm in their cabs, blaming the other team. Yeah, whatever. Get over yourselves, play nice kids!

At the bridge, Tammy & Victor and Cara & Jamie get their clues and find a Roadblock.
"In it, one team member had to take a raft out to the middle of the Li River and, with the help of a local, train birds known as cormorants to retrieve fish. Once they got their cormorant to return with a fish ten times, they would receive their next clue." Tammy and Jamie elect to try the task and as they take a boat out to the rafts, round two begins for Kisha & Jen and Margie & Luke, as they get to the clue box at the same time at the bridge. Jen is in front this time and Luke bumps into her at clue box and knocks her into it. (There. Now you’re even, each one of you got the clue first. Now settle down & race nice!) The complaining continues, as Kisha & Jen tell Victor as they pass his boat that "Luke pushed me into the clue box." (Wah, wah wah).

Mark & Michael left a good 4 hours behind all the other teams and are just getting to the salon, where they must perform the speed bump task. They have to wash and dry two little old ladies’ hair. Obviously they couldn’t go into the salon without being licensed in China, and the stunt guys get to perform their task out in front of the salon on the street. (Really, I think that was just the producer's way of giving back to the locals, by letting them laugh at the two little Americans "massaging the scalps" of two poor Chinese ladies). The ladies sit in chairs with a little towel on their shoulders and the guys just dump shampoo on their dry hair and start scrubbing. Mark said "It’s like I’m giving my Mom a shampoo," and if that’s how they do it at their house, it’s definitely wierd!

Back in the water, Tammy’s birds are not cooperating in finding fish. Victor tells her to stop speaking English and speak Chinese to the birds. Jamie is pretty grossed out with the fish but was surprised that "they could teach the birds to get them and not eat the fish. If somebody put filet mignon in my mouth, I’d eat it." (Hear, hear, sister!) Jamie’s birds were fighting over the fish. Luke doesn’t see his bird coming and puts his hand out holding a fish and the bird bites him on the hand. Luke says "dumb bird" (yes, that’s right Luke - the deaf guy isn’t dumb for holding out a fish that birds are trained to go after). Tammy’s birds don’t seem into their work and keep flying away. Jen gets done first with Jamie a close second.

The clue instructs the teams to go to the Ancient South Gate. Jen mentions on the way that "I really believe in karma" with Luke getting bit by the bird. Thanks to her birds, Tammy lost the lead and they finished last at the task, but since Margie & Luke had the slowest boat pusher (no engines, they used long poles to push off from the bottom of the river) they left the task in third place. As Victor jumps into his waiting cab, he tries to get an advantage and tells Margie & Luke’s cabbie in Chinese to "slow down - you’re driving too fast."

Mark & Michael get done with their Speed Bump and take off from the salon, hoping to catch another team at the #24 Bridge. No such luck, and here’s where we realize that unless something really drastic happens to another team (like Luke throwing Jen off a bridge) they’re pretty much toast. And after hearing Mark say "fowl is fish" (referring to the clue at the Roadblock saying "Who’s ready for some fowl play?") I’m figuring that gives us the clue as to why they kept getting themselves in trouble with the rules - a little ditzy, guys.

At the Ancient South Gate, the clue is a Detour: Choreography or Calligraphy. "In Choreography, teams had to make their way to the central island, and join a group of locals performing their morning dance routine, a popular form of exercise in Guilin. After learning the dance, the team had to perform it for a pair of judges who would hand them their next clue after they executed the steps correctly. In Calligraphy, teams had to make their way across the twin bridges and find the first of four calligraphy stations. Once there, they had to copy a series of Chinese characters that form the name of their next artist’s station. When they successfully reached the fourth and final station, the artist would hand them their next clue." Cara & Jamie race off to choreography, with Jamie saying "I have the most atrocious handwriting - in college I couldn’t even read my own notes."

As Cara & Jamie learned the dance, they joked that their teachers were "manhandling us" as the couple pushed them into position. Still thinking this would be a piece of cake, they stated "We’re cheerleaders. We pick up choreography at a quicker pace, this is our advantage." So much for an advantage, they were stepping on other dancers and crashing into couples as they did the routine. Their teachers were having a great time on the sidelines laughing at them. After two attempts they are told they still don’t have it right, and Jamie is getting frustrated with the judge, who doesn’t speak English (imagine!) and can’t tell her what they’re doing wrong. (I keep wondering how long it will take to sink in to Jamie’s head that other countries speak different languages and it is not unusual for them not to speak English!) They stomp off to switch tasks, but decide to give it another shot by dancing until the music stops, not when they’ve been through the routine once. This was what they were doing wrong and they finally get their clue.

At the calligraphy station, Tammy & Victor are chattering in Chinese as the teams try to copy what he is drawing. They get done and tell the calligrapher to stamp them first, which the calligrapher goes along with - after all, he can understand them! Tammy & Victor try to garner sympathy from the artist, telling him that "if we don’t win our parents will cry themselves to death." The drawing wasn’t really that difficult, but finding the next station was the problem, and since Tammy & Victor easily found out where to go, Kisha & Jen and Margie & Luke stayed right on their tails and followed them through the challenge.

Mark is in the boat covered up with a blanket and looking quite comfortable while Michael throws fish to his bird. I know it’s fun watching the birds retrieve the fish, but Michael was tossing the fish really far from the boat and wasting a lot of precious time. Maybe he knew they were done for and figured he’d have fun while he could.

Tammy & Victor finish the calligraphy task first and get their clue to go to the Pit Stop on foot. Margie & Luke and Kisha & Jen are close behind. Phil sees them all running and mentions it to the Chinese couple eating noodles and sipping tea at a table next to Phil, and they are more impressed with their lunch than the fact that a bunch of crazy Americans are barreling toward them. Kisha & Jen make it to the Mat first (running is their specialty, after all), with Tammy & Victor second and Margie & Luke third.

Phil looks at the teams and mentions that "things are getting a little more tense now, as we get closer to the finish." Victor smiles and agrees, but says "it’s a good spirited competition." This whole time, Margie is signing to Luke not to say anything, and Luke arguing that "I’m angry," After Victor’s remark, though, Margie blurts out that Jen "bashed into Luke" shoving him from behind - twice! - and then called him a bitch. Kisha & Jen babbled back to Phil, giving their side of the story about what happened. (Victor and Tammy are beginning to look worried, standing between the two teams on the Mat. Victor is probably thinking that he should keep his thoughts to himself from now on!) Luke gets pissed and walks away but Phil calls him back to "get your side of the story." He signs that "it’s my turn to talk now" and Kisha gives what is described as a "nervous giggle." This sets Margie off again, and she yells "don’t laugh at my son when he signs." Kisha says no, she smiles during tense situations, but Margie gets more pissed. "He’s signing and they’re laughing at him." Phil tries to calm her down and says "I don’t think that’s what they meant" but Margie’s on a roll and starts lecturing. "He’s lived with this his whole life and he doesn’t need it from people like you. You should understand oppression because you’re black and you’ve lived with it." Nice comment, empathetic, but lost on the sisters. You can’t make good points while screaming at someone (should have learned that from Jamie through the whole Race!) Of course, all this while they’re showing replays of the clue box battles, slow motion and all. Every time I saw the clips it fortified my feeling that all that drama and yelling was just overblown and ridiculous.

Cara & Jamie finally get their clue after the dance and made it to the Mat in fourth place. Cara asked Phil "were there five on this leg?" and felt very relieved when Phil confirmed it. Mark & Michael are shown doing the dance and looking hilarious with the teachers giggling even more than when watching the Redheads. Of course, they couldn’t make up the penalty time and ended up eliminated. They were nice enough guys, but their dumb mistakes and lack of knowledge of the rules eventually killed their chances. (And I really don’t mind - Michael’s nipples were starting to bother me. They’re really pointy and it was just ... weird.)

It’s getting interesting and close to the finish. Who’s got the best shot? Will Cara & Jamie actually be able to make it through the next leg so they can race in their own country (but don’t send Jamie down south, she’ll probably yell at people’s accents down there too!) Can Kisha & Jen and Margie & Luke play nice, or will they start a war in another country? Will Tammy & Victor keep up their good relationship and cruise in to win? The end is near!

1 - Kisha & Jen
2 - Tammy & Victor
3 - Margie & Luke
4 - Cara & Jaime
5 - Mark & Michael - Eliminated