Well, this certainly turned out interesting.
Out of respect for those in other time zones…
Nicole is certainly beholden to Brandon now that she made them turn back on the head-shaving thing. C’mon, it’s a million bucks, shave your damn head! My guess was that she has ‘666’ on her skull and is only pretending to be Christian, and didn’t want him to see it.
Also, what’s up with him asking the Lord to help her on that train? Of all the things in Calcutta which the Lord could help with, Brandon wants it to start with Nicole’s bum not getting pinched?!
My favorite line came early in the episode, while they were still in Dubai, also from our favorite Christians: Nicole: They have all those church things here. Brandon: What church things? Nicole: What do call them - mosques? They’re like Starbucks.
Well, paint me green and call me Gumby. C&C Stupid Factory are still around, and my head didn’t explode, or nuthin’. Of course, Nicole made me throw up in my mouth a little. I can’t believe I am actually typing this, but Brandon might be a leetle too good for her, I dare say. Nicole? Sweetiecakes? With half a million dollars you can buy a lot of really nice wigs. Nicer than Dolly Parton’s, even! You know? Just sayin’.
[RIGHT](My god, I am a horrible, bitter person, aren’t I?)[/RIGHT]
Color me honked! Two non-elimination legs in a row! When we could have gotten rid of two very annoying teams! But, NOOOO! We’re stuck with them. Fooey!!! At least we got to see the Yield re- enter the picture. I’m betting it will come into play mightily in the final two episodes.
Why o why must Chip be a noble twit and keep pointing out checkpoints to C&C? At least pretend to be competitive, you silly goof! But kudos for screwing up the instructions and still making it to the roadblock in second place!
I can understand no teams using the yield, because everyone seemed to be totally confused about which teams were in front. And given the mess that traffic is in Calcutta, that’s a reasonable assumption. When the yield was first explained, did Phil point out that a team had to be behind you to be yielded, or can you force a team in front to yield? (And it does sound silly for everyone to say “we will not yield” when they really mean “we won’t make anyone else yield”.)
I was getting deja-vu all through this episode. A teams stiffs their cabbie, who calls the police? Check. A Yield that no one uses? Check. The Sexual Harrassment Trains of India? Double check!
I gotta go against the board and defend B&N for bailing on the Fast Forward (and not just because it turned out to be a non-elim round, which I started to suspect about two minutes before Phil announced it.) Realistically, they won’t win the million dollars. There’s only a 20% chance right now that they’ll win it, and finishing outside first place won’t earn them enough money to quit their day jobs. (Now, if they had jobs that did NOT depend on their hair and they were too prima donna to do it…that would be different.) Too bad Chip & Kim didn’t take the FF – Chip’s reaction would have been priceless!
Oh, of course. It’s not like America has, umm, CHURCHES on every friggin’ corner!!! Now attend to that beam in thine eye…
Not only is my hair not worth one million dollars, neither is the hair of any person who happens to be standing next to me when that deal hits the table. If I was in that situation I’d be grabbing the scissors of the table and removing chunks of my partner’s hair faster than they could say “Supercuts”. Within ten seconds they wouldn’t have a choice except to get their head shaved.
The entertaining thing about that FF being skipped over is the thought process. Colin and Christie were first and couldn’t take it. Chip and Kim thought they were well behind the other teams and so ignored it. Brandon and Nichole say Chip and Kim leave and thought they were after the FF. The Moms and Twins were far enough behind that they didn’t get any direct interaction but they must have saw the box lacking enough to make them think the FF was gone. All the teams outsmarted eachother by knowing that whoever saw that FF was going to just take it.
Colin and Christie didn’t really seem to have much to do this week. Oh he got grouchie but they seemed background this time around. One thing I did notice is that Colin seemed to spend more time following this leg than actually racing. Is he getting worn down? And has Christie begun to reach her snapping point? I did like Colin’s comment that he knew everyone else was going to say something nasty about Calcutta so he didn’t. If he wasn’t so nasty about it I’d almost considder it wit.
Chip and Kim continue to do the Chip and Kim thing. I don’t see their anti-Colin strategy as being particularly effective. Let’s face it, you can’t inflate Colin’s ego any more; if it was any bigger it would explode out of his head and rampage through the streets of Tokyo. They are smart enough to know that getting him eliminated now would be a good thing but the race doesn’t really leave much room for that.
The Moms run what has to be the worst performance for a team completing a leg in the history of the race. About the only error they didn’t make was driving to the airport and they still managed to have some bad luck with taxis with that. I am inclined to so with that they did get scammed by that driver a bit, but they also knew how to cut their losses. They did do an extremely good job with the Roadblock.
The Twins on the other hand seemed to run what had to be their most incompetance free leg of the race yet. They didn’t go wildly out of their way or ignore clues. They are clearly reaching their breaking point but that’s true of pretty much everyone.
Finally the Hair Pair, Brandon and Nichole did give me some entertainment with the most amusing reaction to a non-elimination leg ever. I’d like to think they’ve got it the worse of the three locations to be mugged by Phil (no major tourist drops and not a particularly rich area), but at this point I think we can say that the loss of money is a minor set back that eats up an hour at the beginning of the leg for the team.
In conclusion: "You won’t cut your hair for one million dollars!? It’s hair, not a kidney!"
That was the most introspective moment for me from this episode. They immediatly switched over to the moms commenting on the women dressing beautifully. Which they do, but I didn’t take notice of before that. It’s a depressing slum but the women have gorgeous, colorful and well taken care of clothes. It made me think way too deep for a reality show, and from one comment.
First I thought about the fact that as bad a life gets, people can always keep something of pride that they care about. The I thought about the standard suburban American “mom” thing. Were they saying something polite because they are trained to look for something nice to say, or did they really spontaneouly notice it because they just did?
Well, but what about doing it to better their chances of winning? At that point, they had every reason to believe that it was an elimination round, and they were willing to be eliminated rather than shave their heads. Right now, their odds are affected by having to beg from the people of Calcutta.
And not for nothin’ but how great a model is she? I’ve certainly never heard of her. She’s not known as “that model with the fantastic hair.” And if she is that great a model, she’ll keep getting jobs whether her hair is short or long. Hell, she could even start “the next big thing”, y’know? I just thought it was stupid and vain.
Maybe in a moment of Great Irony, they can make some money at the start of the next leg by selling off pieces of Brandon’s golden locks.
Actually, one other point–apparently B&N are so damned dumb that they didn’t know that hair grows back (Nichole commented how Brandon makes money via his hair). They weren’t being asked to tattoo “METALLICA RULEZ!” across their foreheads, they were asked to do something that would take, what? 2, 3 months to grow back?
I have to agree with KGS about Brandon and Nikki. I imagine there was a bit of vanity involved in their decision to bypass the FF, but even from a dispassionate point of view, they still made the right decision. They have, at best, a 20% chance of winning – maybe less, if you realistically assess their skills versus Chip/Kim and Colin/Christie. On the other hand, they probably have at least as good a chance of at least one of them landing a substantial modeling contract. Why jeopardize future (albeit uncertain) earnings in favor of present (and definitely uncertain) present earnings.
Plus, they went up quite a few notches on my like-o-meter after turning down the FF due to their reaction. No bitter recrimations (unlike SOME teams would have done) or downright quitting (unlike SOME teams did). In particular, it would have been really easy for Brandon to let Nikki shoulder the blame, but he stuck up for his part in the decision. And they’re so excited to be still in it, I can’t help but root for them.
[on preview: Uh, Fenris, you can grow a foot-and-a-half of hair in two or three months? That’s like 1/4" a day. I’m thinking more like 2 or 3 years.]
You’re right. I think I will start calling them C&C Explosive Factory instead. (“Stupid” just sort of rhymed with “Music.”)
You’re right again. And I know people are defending their decision, but to me, that was a no-brainer. Go ahead, Mr. Hindu Clipper Man, shave it off - just watch the moles on my head! But seriously, they may only have a 20% chance of winning the money, but they will have a zero percent chance of winning if they just roll over and play dead. I can picture the conversation at the Pearly Gates:
Brandon: Lord, you gave us a second chance, but it must not have been in Your plan for us to win. Lord: Dude, that’s what you get for not shaving your heads like I asked you to! Don’t you think there was a reason why I convinced everyone else not to take the Fast Forward, you dolt? Ferchrissake!
In fairness to Blue Lagoon and his little Valentine, they really weren’t facing the decision to cut their hair for a million dollars. It was for perhaps a leg up on a slightly better chance at a million dollars. But given this game’s ebbs and flows, what with something coming out of nowhere (flat tires, etc.) to derail your whole effort, being the first on a particular leg isn’t even close to an assurance of overall victory. All that faced them at the time, I think, is the decision whether to bite the bullet and settle for an almost certain last place for the leg or else continue on with a possibly wasted fast forward. It was pretty much damn versus hell.
At this point, I would rather see B&N win and attribute the win to God, rather than see the C&C Anger Management Stupid Factory win. I hate Colin that much.
I can understand the comments about Brandon and Nicole’s livelyhood being affected by shaving their heads, but its not like they were going to be dragged out tomorrow and immediately have to get a new contract. I rather strongly doubt that any modelling contracts Brandon gets are affected by his current hairstyle (except perhaps negetively) and it’s not like female models with short hair a rare exception. Within a month they’d have gone from funny looking to having something to style a little bit and within another two months Brandon could start looking to perm again.
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