Over Before It Even Staah-ted
Updated 2007-03-11 17:00:00
It's sort of fitting that this episode comes on the selection Sunday of the NCAA tournament, because just like the NCAA tournament is a series of single-elimination games, the race isn't one race so much as it is a series of shorter races, and if you do really badly on one of them, you're easily booted. From the opening moments, this is the episode in which Rob and Amber do essentially everything badly, including a bunch of things that don't even really matter that they screwed up anyway, because it was just that kind of a leg. The Detour option they choose befuddles them because they can't spell "Philippines," and then they change Detours and walk the wrong way, and then they get anti-bunched to the very back of the pack, despite the fact that Mirna and Charla would otherwise be behind them. In the end, they've got a lead on Mirna and Charla -- the former of whom, incidentally, is at the height of her obnoxious *****ry -- going into a needle-in-a-haystack Roadblock that just doesn't go well, and is undoubtedly made worse by the fact that Rob is so distracted by being stuck battling for last place. In the end, they finish last in a completely pedestrian ending not at all deserving of the sensational previews, except that IT IS ROB AND AMBER AND OH MY GOD. The irony, of course, is that Uchenna and Mirna, the usual suspects in this regard, have to redraw this ending as a morality play having something to do with karmic punishment for bad deeds, rather than taking the happiness they should take from the fact that it was plain old poor racing, having nothing to do with who's a better person and everything to do with the fact that some people can't spell and can't concentrate once they get behind. Anyway, Rob and Amber are gone, and Mirna and Charla get to stay, and the best thing about the leg was that Danny and Oswald won it. Fortunately, Rob and Amber go out well, smiling and agreeing that they had a very bad leg, and they don't appear to be nearly as unhappy about losing as Mirna is happy about beating them, so maybe that's a net positive for the universe.