Nice Couples Finish Last - Bye Bye Marcy & Ron!

While they were nice people, Marcy & Ron went at a challenge in a backasswards fashion and ended up in last place and got eliminated. It really is a shame because people like Lance & Keri (he of the monster ego and her with the annoying Fran-Drescher like voice) are still in it - but with the way they’re going, they’re not long for this Race either. They seemed to forget the most important mantra of the Race: Read your clue!

The last leg of the Race had a Pit Stop on a boat - and to begin this leg, the boat moved, but the teams were not told where they moved to (which was My Tho). I didn’t see any of the teams asking the locals where they were, which struck me as really odd ... but then, it could just be the editing. We hear from Big Easy who says his Dad passed away two days before the Race began - not sure if it was the airing of the Race or the actual Race - and if it was the actual Race, I guess BE didn’t stick around for the funeral (or he was Jewish and they got it done in one day). He wants to win it for his Dad. Marcy tells us that her Dad was an Air Force general who got shot down in Vietnam and ended up being rescued, but gets emotional talking about the Vietnam War and how nice the Vietnamese people are - “and thinking about all the people who died here.”

The first clue told the teams to “taxi to Ho Chi Minh City” and go to the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theater, where their “next clue awaited in the mouth of a water dragon.” Gary & Matt left first but got stuck in traffic (which was mostly mopeds) and Big Easy & Flight Time beat them to the theater. It was fun watching the teams try to grab the clues - there were dragons swimming around in a 2-foot deep pool, and one team member had to try and grab the “tongue” of the dragon for their clue. The dragons spit water and seemed to dodge away just as the teams grabbed at them. Everyone was getting pretty wet and some teams had ideas on how to grab their clues - Meghan & Cheyne ducked down and “snuck up” on the dragons (I guess if the dragons couldn’t see them ....), and Mika & Canaan tried to join ‘em and danced alongside the pool to the music. How they figured that would help, I don't know!

One by one they grabbed their clues and inside found a bullet, which they unscrewed and rolled open a postage stamp with a building on it. It was the post office and the teams had to figure out that they had to find this building to get their next clue ... and they all did except for Lance & Keri, who left their brains in the boat, obviously. First, they decided they were in Ho Chi Minh City to begin (never mind the clue said “taxi to Ho Chi Minh City”) and started running around looking for the puppet theater. They finally meet a local who tells them it’s a two-hour trip to where they need to go. After getting their bullet from the dragon, they now think that they have to give the bullet to someone at the theater to get their yellow and black clue envelope. Everyone else is hopping into cabs, with no clue envelope in their hands, but Lance & Keri are going back into the theater looking for one anyway. Finally it dawns on them to open the bullet and they figure out where they need to go - but once getting there, they go inside the post office and totally miss the clue box sitting in front of the building. They were almost a Keystone Kops routine - but nowhere near as funny, because Lance decided it was always Keri’s fault. Lance needs to get busted in the chops.

Once at the post office, the clue was a Detour, “having to choose between Child’s Play and Word Play. In Child’s Play, teams traveled to a local park and chose a concrete animal from a kiosk. Then, they had to transport the heavy and unwieldy animal along the bumpy pathways of the park, picking up five different-colored balloons from vendors along the way. After delivering the animals and the balloons to the children’s playground, they would receive their next clue. In Word Play, teams traveled to a hotel and located the observation deck. Then, scanning the crowded intersection below, they had to identify six Vietnamese letters moving with the congested traffic. Once they checked with the security guard that they had the correct six letters, they had to leave the hotel and get assistance from the locals to unscramble them to spell DOCLAP, the well-known Vietnamese word for independence. “

All the teams except Marcy & Ron tried Child’s Play. Zev & Justin find a local to go with them to talk to the cab driver and help them find their way around. Flight Time & Big Easy grab a sheep, thinking it’s lower to the ground and will transport easier, and take off to get their balloons. Big Easy wants to go faster but Flight Time tells him to cool it because he’s afraid of breaking the sheep. Zev & Justin decided to take a (very tall) giraffe, and ended up in trouble when the giraffe tipped over and hit the street. They had to collect all the pieces before moving on. Maria & Tiffany’s cart broke as they went over a curb, and Sam & Dan, nice guys, stopped to help them try and fix it. After a couple of minutes, the girls told them to just go ahead and they’d go back for another cart. Niceness all around!

Mika & Canaan finished the task and after putting their animal in its stall, Canaan (the nice Christian boy, remember) simply snatched the clue from the lady standing there, no thank you, kiss my foot, or acknowledgment that she was even a human being. I guess they don’t preach niceness to strangers at his Christian church. After Brian & Ericka got done, they clasp hands and show the knuckles and say “Team Zebra,” which I thought was cute. (Okay, I’m easy).

Marcy & Ron, in the meantime, get their letters (after a little bump in the road thinking the “D” was an “O”) and instead of grabbing the first person they see to help them unscramble the word, they decide to look around at street signs to see if they can decipher it themselves. They wasted a lot of time before they finally decided to ask people, and ended up going through a few locals before they figured it out.

Lance, in the meantime, got all worked up while carting around the animal and ended up letting a balloon go, and of course, it was Keri’s fault. In the taxi, she finally got fed up, asking Lance “what, I’m the direction queen?” and demanded an apology, and got one .... er, sorta. Lance offered, “'All right, well, if that's the case, I'm sorry.'' You could see how verklempt he was for upsetting Keri...NOT.

The next clue had the teams “travel to Dien Co 008 at the busy intersection of Durong Vinh Vien and Durong Ly Thurong Kiet.” Once there, their clue was a Roadblock. “In it, one team member had to break down two VCRs using a set of provided tools and toss the parts into separate piles.” Big Easy started unscrewing the VCR and Cheyne and Matt soon joined him and it was a race to see who could get their parts apart faster. Big Easy managed to get done and hold the lead, getting the clue and finding out they had to head to the Reunification Palace, which was the Pit Stop for this leg of the Race. They had major problems finding a taxi that knew where it was, and that allowed Meghan & Cheyne to get going ahead of them, and Flight Time & Big Easy told their driver to follow Meghan & Cheyne’s cab. Meghan & Cheyne knew it would be a losing battle in a footrace with the Globetrotters but were determined to give it their all - but in the end, the long legs and athleticism won out and the basketball guys ended up in first.

Tiffany got a laugh at the Roadblock when she grabbed the electric screwdriver and said “now how do I make this thing go?” As Lance was ripping apart his VCRs (which he did with his bare hands, he didn’t take the time to unscrew anything) Keri was yelling encouragement and I decided that she has one of the most annoying voices on the planet. She needs to do all the challenges so I don’t have to listen to her yelling at Lance any more. And Lance needs to put a sock in it so I don’t have to hear his asinine comments any more. Lance proves his jerkishness once again at the Mat, where this little conversation takes place: Phil - “Lance, you’re the most competitive person on this Race.” Lance - “If you want, I’ll wrestle you right here.” Zev then pipes up - “We’ll do it for you, Phil.” I like this Duck Whisperer guy, and now he’s offering to take on Lance for Phil - endears him to me even more!

So here’s how the teams ended up:
1 - Flight Time & Big Easy
2 - Meghan & Cheyne
3 - Gary & Matt
4 - Brian & Ericka
5 - Sam & Dan
6 - Maria & Tiffany
7 - Mika & Canaan
8 - Zev & Justin
9 - Lance & Keri
10 - Marcy & Ron (eliminated)

So is it just me, or do you wish that Lance would fall off a cliff too? Are you rooting for Zev & Justin? With all the jockeying for position, who seems to have the best shot at actually winning the million? We’ll find out more next week!