Australia 1x07: Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

Previously on Desperately Seeking Clues-an: Dawson continued to be kind of a jerk, the Doctor whined about losing Rose some more, Clark saved perpetual damsel-in-distress Lois, and Krycek pashed Mulder again, but this time went straight for the lips. Oh, and I continued to very slowly morph into Daria Morgendorffer. Also: Seven teams ditched the warmth of South Africa and headed for cold, cold Amsterdam, where the task wasn't a Detour between hookers and pot (or between fishing and that blue-and-white pottery, which could just have easily had the tasks named Hookers and Pot), but was instead eating some deep-fried apples. (Don't worry, it'll seem positively enticing in a little while.) After finishing, they were immediately sent to Prague where a pair of "find the clue" tasks resulted in Hallmark feeling like it was a case of the father, the son, and the holey ghost. Tom became Luke's knight in shining armour, and while we didn't get to see his sword, Luke became a Helper Fairy to make up for it, giving Matt the spare arrows he needed to finish the Road Block. The two all-female teams chose a hugely physical option clearly designed for men, and unsurprisingly were the last two teams to arrive at the Pit Stop, but Alana redefined epic fail at the Road Block and she and Mel were eliminated. Six alpha teams are racing to beta each other, winning the gamma. Who will have to rho, rho, rho their way home... TONIGHT?

Credits. Wait, where was Liberty hiding that puppy? [GIVE A DOG A BOMP.]

Commercials. Okay, so I'm watching SBS's news, and either the newsreader's been in a fight, or he's allergic to his spray tan. Sigh. And he's so pretty, too.

Grand, sweeping music re-introduces us to Prague, as though we hadn't just completely ignored Amsterdam in the suspiciously short "previously on Bohemian Crapsody" segment instead focusing entirely on Melana getting booted and the Lucys having as much success getting help as Steve Fielding did at retaining his senate seat. Grant explains that Prague Castle is "the biggest castle complex in the world", which more than makes up for not having any other castle/fortress Pit Stops yet. Remember when the Pit Stops used to be at a fortress every other week, with random hotels and beaches filling in the blanks and freeing up the Amazing Landmarks for other times in the episode? I kind of miss that, because it seems like lately the only really kickass landmarks we see are the Pit Stops, while all the other clues are at train stations and roadside businesses and the like. They've really got to spread out the awesomeness some more -- I honestly wouldn't mind it if they started having boats and hotel rooftops and the like as Pit Stops again, if they were to start including more than one kickass landmark a season on the regular route again.

But I digress, and Wallace and Grommet are leaving first at 5:31am. Grommet stumbles his way through the jaw-droppingly difficult task of reading the words, "Make your way to the Dancing House in Prague", before Grant thankfully cuts him off to explain that it's a "lopsided building" and a local landmark. It kind of looks like it may have been hit by a few catapulted cannonballs in the construction phase, if last week's substandard theme is to be believed. Teams have to get to the building then search the nearby area for a car containing the clue. But because we're in eastern Europe and eastern Europe's a little slow at embracing capitalism and having Honda on hand to provide new cars for "subtle" product placement and whatnot, the cars just happen to be shitboxes. Grant explains that each car is "a 1982 Czech sedan", but... the Czech Republic wasn't a country in 1982, was it? Wouldn't the cars be Czechoslovakian, not Czech? I realise I'm overthinking this, but factual accuracy is important, guys. (It could be worse though -- Czechoslovakia wasn't formed until 1914, yet one of the Pit Stops from The Amazing Race Asia's visit to Prague was supposedly "built by the king of Czechoslovakia in the 14th century".) Leaving the mat, Grommet notes that since they've got to find a car, they've "gotta drive somewhere" (very astute), which he deems "frickin' interesting". I suspect he's the sort of guy who gets overwhelmed by Sudoku, though. Wallace tells us, "We've been at the front of the pack majority of the time [sic], so we have THE biggest targets on our back at the moment." Luckily, they're using the biggest backpacks in existence as a sort of shield at the moment. They head off in a taxi.

Chris & Bambi depart at a minute to six, narrowly avoiding having to watch the Czech version of Kochie and Mel waking them up. She claims, "There's no reason why we can't come first in this leg, you know, we're getting stronger and stronger as a team as the weeks progress." And we have our first Obviously-Scripted Confessional of the week. Why would she say "as the weeks progress" considering they've only been racing for, by my count, fifteen days at this point? Anyway, having trouble explaining "Dancing House" to a waiting cab driver, Bambi decides to go en pointe to try and mime it. Thank heavens for the ballet-esque music, otherwise this could have been really confusing. Except not. Chris tells us they've "exhausted all possibilities for arguing", and this is exactly how you know they're not one of those Fighting Dating Couples that the American version trots out with monotonous regularity: They eventually give up trying to find new minutiae to argue about.

At 6:12am, Hallmark leave, and the farmers follow a minute later. That's not like Tom to bring up the rear! Matt takes note of the forty bucks they're getting this week, before they all set off in search of the Dancing House. Luke calls the remaining teams "the best of the best", which would imply that the booted teams are "the worst of the best", and he's kind of kidding himself if he thinks Giggle and Cackle were the best at anything. Except maybe falling over. While Hallmark find a cab, the farmers decide to hoof it. Oh, dear. It's never a good sign when Tom and Luke get split up. They realise it's going to be a bit hard to find an English speaker in Prague at this time of the morning -- or at least, one who isn't incapacitated from the night before -- but manage to locate someone who tells them the Dancing House is a fifteen-minute walk away. Walking through an archway, Tom voices over that they've been lucky, but that they've deserved it. NOOOOOOOOO! Don't tempt fate! Matt comments on how the walk is at least good for helping them not feel the effects of the winter weather. You know what's also good? A heated taxi.

Like the one Wallace and Grommet are currently getting out of at the Dancing House. They find the cars instantly, or so the editors make it seem, and they've certainly got an easier job now with the whole group of them than the later teams are going to have with only one or two. Grommet laughs about the cars being from the "1940s" in a confessional, but... you know, he could be more entertaing if it wasn't so obvious he was reading from dummy boards. For one, he could at least have correctly pronounced the word "war". The clue tells teams to get into their chosen crapheap and drive to the Zimni hockey rink. When they get there, they'll have to suit up, slide their way onto the ice, and score a goal. It's hard enough to begin with, given Australia has... what, three ice rinks in the entire country? It's some ridiculously small number like that, last time I checked. So it's not likely anyone is going to have any experience on skates, but just in case they do, they'll have to score their goal against the Czech national goalkeeper. And unlike many of the locals teams have competed against on the American version of this show, this guy isn't going to go easy on them, so they'll have to be mighty lucky if they're going to succeed. As they leave, Wallace asks Grommet if he knows which side he's supposed to be driving on, and Grommet tries to blame his lack of knowledge about Czech road rules on the car being old. Well, of course.

Hallmark have found their way to the Dancing House, as have Chris and Bambi. They decide to team up, and soon find the cars. Hallmark feel the need to explain in a confessional that the cars were Škodas, just in case you thought the show's sponsorship deal meant they were only going to treat Honda with respect. No, they're also going to throw other car companies with fairly decent reputations under the bus. Luke explains that the Škoda "resembles nothing of any sort of car I've ever seen before". I don't know, they kind of look like your basic early-1990s hatchbacks. The only real difference -- as the teams are currently demonstrating -- is that the engines are in the back and the boot is in the front, so it's a bit like a Volkswagen Beetle and a Hyundai Excel had a lovechild and then put it up for adoption. They drive off.

It's now 6:45am, and that can mean only one thing: Dave & Kelly are now leaving. Unlike the other teams, they are advised to take a tram. Oh, dear. This could never end well. (Disclaimer: I am making assumptions about this based on how completely incompetent and slow Melbourne's tram services are.) Dave claims, "We're not the strongest team in the game, but we persevere." Well, he's half-right, at least. Need I remind him of all the times something hasn't gone his way and he's threatened to quit? Even Flo didn't threaten to quit until towards the end of the race. They point out how their age is a hindrance when he's the same age as both farmers combined at 52, and older than the surfers (50), the Lucys (45), and Chris & Bambi (44). Still, he's eight years younger than SuperDad, who is currently kicking their asses, so... it's not their age that's an issue. It's his whininess and inability to cope that's dooming them, not their age. Let me ask you this: Aside from the Road Blocks, when was the last time Dave played a bigger role in their success in a challenge than Kelly? And even then, three of the four Road Blocks he's done to this point have had him treated as ballast, pretty much, with only the archery last week requiring actual skill. He explains that they're "going through a lot of Deep Heat and a lot of Tiger Balm". Elsewhere in the world, the makers of Icy Hot are shopping around for a new advertising agency.

Also elsewhere, though probably in a different elsewhere, the farmers are still walking around. Matt over-enunciates the word "vehicle" as the Music of Supposedly-Wacky Adventures kicks into high gear. They explain that nobody seemed to know exactly how far the Dancing House was, and continue walking, Tom briefly coming to his senses and commenting, "Maybe the walking option wasn't such a great idea." Is walking ever a good idea?

The surfers have arrived at the hockey rink... only to learn that it's closed until 7:30am. Normally, that'd be a sure sign everyone was going to bunch up, but with two teams having less than an hour to get to their cars and drive to the rink, and with the farmers currently walking halfway to Azerbaijan, I don't think that's going to happen somehow.

At 6:57am, the Lucys round out this week's departures, and some time-lapse clouds suddenly take us to after sunrise, where they're still waiting for a cab. They explain that they're now feeling the pressure of being the final all-female team remaining, though Renae can't keep a straight face as she reads the cue cards. Is it just me, or are they making the scripted confessionals really obvious this season? It's almost as bad as The Biggest Loser, though with fewer mentions of the words "myself", "journey", and "thunderthighs". Renae celebrates the closure of their cab's boot with their luggage inside, so either she's very easily amused or she really is feeling the pressure. I suspect it's the latter, since Sam's already giving Grommet a bone, and they can't both be easily amused and have made it this far.

The farmers have found their car and, after Matt reads the clue sounding like he's already lost a few teeth in an ice hockey brawl, immediately decide to name their car Bindi. Why? Well, it's khaki brown, of course. As Ms. Irwin herself would say, it's a "fantazzo-wazzo-tip-top-terrific" idea. (Is it worse that she would actually say that, or that I actually bothered to track down that exact quote from last year's Logies?) Matt comments that they "can't find the boot in this heap of shit", and wonders whether Bindi is even roadworthy, but those are going to be the least of their problems today. (SPOILER!)

Hallmark have reached the rink, and noticing the surfers still outside prompts SuperDad to ask whether the rink is open yet. No, SuperDad, they've been and gone and are now waiting for the valet to bring their car around. OF COURSE IT'S CLOSED. Grommet points out they've "only got ten minutes to wait", and hopes that nobody else is going to get there in time. Cue Chris and Bambi, getting honked all over Prague. He shows a remarkable amount of restraint in not shaking his fist out the window, but probably is only managing to resist based on the cold breeze he'll get when he opens the window. He says something in Greek which isn't subtitled in Greek and therefore means that either it's a string of coarse language or the font they're using for the subtitles (which really needs to be bolded, it's too thin and blending into the image at the moment) doesn't have Greek character support. In any event, they arrive right before the rink opens, and all three teams are let in together. Conveniently, they're just in time to witness someone get completely spontaneously shoved into the plastic wall they have to protect the crowds from angry Canadians. Or perhaps to protect the players themselves from the angry Canadians.

They suit up and they're not even on the ice before Wallace is complaining about how tight his helmet is. It's cutting off all the circulation to that thing on his head. As the Fast Teams take their first skid onto the ice, SuperDad explains, "I had heart tremors. Trying to get balance and move and not fall over and hit a very small black, uh, puck with a stick into a space that is way too small and the goalie should have been much smaller. Uh, yeah, it was pretty rubbish actually." In other words? We've finally found something they suck at. SuperDad gets out into the middle fairly easily, but still becomes the first person to fall over. I have this sneaking suspicion he will not be the last. Meanwhile, Bambi is inching her way out by using her hockey... stick (do those things have actual names?) a bit like an oar. Well, whatever floats your frozen boat. Doesn't stop her from falling, though. You know, just like the real Bambi. Grommet, on the other hand, is skating with confidence and misses, while Wallace gets close enough that the goalie can trip him over by sweeping his thing. It's probably not the first time he's been flat on his back.

The Lucys are at the Dancing House, still looking for their car. Sam complains about being last, but she apparently doesn't know that Dave & Kelly are also still looking. Except not for long. Kelly feels the need to finger-quote when describing the "vee-hick-le". We see them walking down the stairs when there's still three cars left, so apparently the producers sprang for an extra car to make it a easier for the last teams. Good idea, but it doesn't atone for some of the other bad ones we've seen throughout the season. Getting into the car, Dave lives up to the cliche by turning on the wipers instead of the engine. Well, he does love the classics. The Lucys also eventually find their car, after Sam gets justification to be That Person Who Says "I Told You So" To Their Partner. For this episode, at least.

Back at the hockey rink, Grommet takes a shot but instead faceplants. Watching people fall over is going to get old very quickly. And this is coming from someone who has watched more than one episode of Wipeout in its entirety. In fact, it already is. Still, at least the laughing locals are actually relevant this time, even if they sound like squealing pigs. Wallace explains that the basic way to finish the task was to trick the goalie so you could get it past him. Gee, thanks for the heads-up. I don't think I would have gotten that otherwise. I mean, how effective could it possibly be to hit the puck straight at a big guy standing in front of a very narrow goal while he's wearing a large amount of padding and holding a stick he can use to deflect the pucks?

Someone does the Worm to try and get up off the ice, but between the helmet, everybody wearing the same jerseys, and the fact that I don't really care enough to try and figure it out, I can't tell who it is.

SuperDad explains that he "found the ice skating quite challenging", and Luke laughs like it's the understatement of the century. Which it totally is. One point, Luke. (Current total: Hmm, I've lost count. Shall we just say he and Tom are both on sixty-nine and leave it at that?) SuperDad continues, "I thought I actually ruptured my liver at one point." I'm impressed that he can tell his liver apart from all his other internal organs. Or did he pick one at random under the belief that it sounded the funniest? If that's the case, all I have to say is: spleen. After his latest fall, Luke tries to get him to stay still and pass him the puck while he's still skating. It would be a good idea, if only Luke could skate any better. While they're busy recovering, Chris gives Bambi a quick peck on the cheeks and skates on over to take a shot, and manages to remain upright despite Karma doing everything in its power to push him over. But you know who does fall over? Bambi. Again and again. And again. The editors show three shots of her falling over in fairly quick succession, punctuated only by a confessional in which she and Chris banter about whether she's the world's worst skater or just "not the best", which I suppose makes her a triple klutz.

The farmers and Bindi are stalled on the side of the road, wipers akimbo. Tom points out that being stuck "on a main street in a foreign country, and not knowing what side of the road we were supposed to be on to start with" isn't the sort of situation they desired when they woke up this morning. What a shame they didn't spend any time travelling on or within eyesight of Czech roads in the previous leg.

Oh, wait.

Matt explains that the only way they could get Bindi moving, without ducking into a local supermarket to buy some red cordial, was to push her "down the hill into the oncoming traffic". Oh, if only. (I didn't just say that. Say what? Exactly.)

The Lucys are at least aware enough to pay attention to what happened in the last leg, and comment on how "weird" it is to drive on the other side of the road. Really? That's her definition of weird? It's not like they're eating spleen or anything gross like that. They also get the Prague Philhornmonic Orchescar honking them around, right before Sam notices from the backseat that they're driving on the tram tracks. It's good to know somebody will be picking up the slack in Melana's absence. On the other hand, their windscreen is so fogged up at this point that I have no idea how exactly either of them can tell.

The farmers also fail to notice they're on the tracks, even as two trams hurtle towards them in a vain attempt to crush Bindi. And that would be a shame. They wonder if they're supposed to be driving on the tracks, and hear police sirens. Well, I guess that's the answer to that. As they pull over, the cop storms over, yanks Bindi's door open, and demands Tom to get out.

Commercials. It seems the recap of the season finale is going to be my 50th overall, assuming I actually reach the end of the season at this slow pace. Hooray for convenient milestones!

So, basically, the Pre-Commercial Crisis ends up becoming a Pre-Commercial Crisis That Wasn't. (I really need a shortcut for that.) The cop even ends up leading them to the rink, but that doesn't stop Tom from imitating his accent in Bindi.

But before we get to continue with their story, we have to see what time it is on the rocket clock. Apparently, it's still time to watch people falling over. Oh, goody. Wallace complains, "My bum's that wet" after falling over yet again, so either Grommet forgot to dry after his last shower, or Luke's latest attempt at ruining the other teams' chances is to make sure he'll be shitting lube until he sees you at the finish line next Tuesday. Anyway, there are more failed shots, until Grommet scores the first goal of the day. Chris tries immediately afterwards and gets a goal as well, which pretty much means the Czech Republic has no chance of winning the next world championships. Anyway, the clue says to drive to the St. Nicholas Cathedral, where they'll have to photograph "a flagged person of interest". Grant and some ridiculous Bond-theme-esque music add that they'll have to climb up to "this former Soviet spy post" to grab the camera they'll need, then look out one of the windows in the tower to take their photo. Oh, and there are two people waving flags on the streets below -- one in a stereotypical "spy" outfit waving the proper race flag like a spinster aunt waving a feather boa, the other in a suit of armour waving the same eagle flag that was flying at last week's Road Block. Grant adds that they'll only be given the next clue if they photograph the right person. So, you know, try not to photograph the person who's not only out of place but also in the wrong time period. I'm thinking Chris and Bambi might be good at this. (But even more important than all of this? Grant manages to correctly pronounce the word "Soviet". I can't even remember the last time that happened on television. And considering Allan Wu mispronounces place names on the Asian version even after greeters have given him the correct pronunciation to copy from, it's doubly impressive.)

They leave right as Dave and Kelly arrive. Suiting up, they don't even appear to be able to get onto the ice without losing their balance. Resume the falling montage! In other news that's less repetitive, Luke finally manages to score. With the goalie, I mean. AT THE HOCKEY THING. (Wow, you all have filthy minds.) They leave, Luke telling us they've convinced a guy waiting around to lead them to the cathedral. Probably a good move, considering how well everyone else's navigational ability is going to help them in this episode.

The farmers, Bindi, and their tinkly music arrive at the rink, suddenly without their police escort. They feel the need to recap their adventures so far, just in case the editors decided to cut it all out and instead show another five minutes of clips of everyone going splat on the ice. Tom points out that neither of them has ever skated before, because cow-tipping is harder when you can't even stand up on your own, but they seem to be skating with a remarkable degree of skill. And by "remarkable", I mean "any". Matt still falls over when taking his shot, though.

Kelly also lands on her back, as does Dave. You know, in case you haven't been paying attention to their previous inability to cope with the mix of pointy blades and slick surfaces. Dave appears to hurt himself somehow, and hurls his stick off in frustration. Someone squeals in mild terror, but the editors don't let us see who it is. And just to make it that tiny bit worse? The goalie lunges forward and slaps the puck away when he takes too long setting up a goal. Heh. Can we have this goalie come with us for the rest of the season? He won't take up much room. Another blocked attempt later, Dave threatens to "smack this bastard in the face with a stick".

Commercials. Has anybody in recorded history ever eaten pepperoni without it being a topping on a pizza?

You know what's an exciting way to welcome viewers back from ads for Sick Sad World (sorry, "Today Tonight") and detergent? Stock footage. It brings us to the cathedral, where Hallmark are now arriving. Oh, thank God. You know how sometimes there's a task that really isn't that much fun but the editors spend far too much time on it anyway? That's the ice hockey. I was actually desperate enough to see whether it was genuinely taking so much time or whether it just felt like it, and let's put it this way: If you take out the "previously on" clip, the opening credits, and the preview for next week, this episode comes to exactly 40 minutes. Now, Wallace and Grommet got the clue for the hockey task a touch under three minutes into the episode itself. Though it hasn't happened yet in the recap, the last team will leave the rink 23 minutes and 56 seconds into the episode. In other words, over half of a 40-minute episode will be spent watching people falling over and getting laughed at by a local Rent-A-Crowd, and considering there are not one but three commercial breaks in that time it's even longer. Sure, you've got other clips in that time as well, such as the one I'm supposed to be recapping right now. Sure, there is precedent for spreading the teams out with the editing. But all those times happened when teams were genuinely severely spread out. Here, there was less than an hour and a half separating teams as they left the Pit Stop, and the first three teams were bunched at the rink anyway, making the gap even smaller. There's no excuse here, really. And that's exactly why I'm not covering it any more.

Anyway.

So Hallmark are still the first to arrive at the tower. SuperDad re-explains the task for those of you who were busy waiting for Masterchef's regularly-scheduled late finish, and adds that they only had thirty seconds to take their photo once they got to the top of the tower. Or else what? The "Soviet" "guard" (and isn't it lucky one's been stuck in this spy tower all these years?) will call them capitalist pigs until they finish? I thought the foolhardy pursuit of happiness in the form of money was the reason for this show's enduring success. SuperDad decides the best way to see more of the Prague skyline would be to stick half his body through the window of the tall tower, as you do, but it's Luke who has the camera and takes the photo... of the wrong guy. Luckily for the company who has clearly not paid enough for this piece of shameless product placement, considering their brand name is not mentioned once in this entire segment, the lotto numbers distract us from a shot of their delightfully blurry screen as the "guard" tells them "Nyet! You failed.", before giving them a clue anyway. Huh? Luke explains in a confessional that perhaps the guy's name was Mark, but it definitely wasn't a marked flag. It seems fitting that the embarrassing Dad Joke is coming from him instead of SuperDad, somehow. The clue once again confirms that they didn't do the challenge right, and must now face a penalty. Of course. It wouldn't be a Michael McKay race without meaningless stupid penalties. This time, however, the penalty is an actual task instead of just sitting around, which makes it marginally better. They've got to walk back down to the base of the tower, then climb up to the top again, correctly counting the number of stairs to the top. If they get the right answer (304), they'll also get the next clue. If they fail... well, presumably the penalty tasks get stupider and stupider until we're left with walking around Prague in suits of... oh, never mind.

The Lucys arrive at the hockey as Seven's ticker reminds us that there's a much more entertaining tennis match currently underway on their digital channel. I realise they probably wouldn't have anticipated an Aussie making it into the second week of a major tennis tournament based on our recent history in the sport (and why DO the media keep acting like we still care about Lleyton Hewitt?), but couldn't they have at least waited until the commercial break to pimp their coverage? I mean, it's not like Seven spent much money making this show and therefore don't expect decent ratings for it or anything.

There is skating, and Tom also scores with the goalie. (SETTLE DOWN, TOM.) Meanwhile, Hallmark have correctly counted the stairs and get the clue, despite making fun of the "guard" in a confessional. It's this week's Detour, though the usual "two tasks, each with its own pros and cons" have apparently been replaced with "two tasks, one with pros and one with cons" for this week. The choice is between Stack Up and Stack In, and it's almost as if the task designers are deliberately trying to outdo their own wit/stupidity with these task titles every week. Teams picking Stack Up have to drive to the Pilsner Brewery, head to the packaging area, and grab enough slabs of beer from a production line to stack two wooden pallets. But because Pilsner is expensive even when it isn't imported, they'll be contaminating the production line by using slabs of Gambrinus beer instead. Teams choosing Stack In (is that even a real term? Or did the task designers spend too much time getting free taste tests on the factory tour?) also have to drive themselves to the Pilsner brewery, but must instead find the Formanka restaurant. There, they'll have to eat eighteen "traditional Czech sausages made from pig's head, tongue, heart, and liver" (but no spleen) while the organs themselves are plated on the other side of the table just to really hammer home exactly what's going down the hatch. So, basically, it's a Reckless/Chicken choice where the usual fear of heights is replaced by a fear of throwing up. Except that unlike in most other Reckless/Chicken tasks, the Reckless one is the deliberately slow one as well. In layman's terms, it's pretty much just a test to see who's dumb enough to take the sucker bet option. It's kind of like how they used to have the bungy jumps and skydives as Detour options while the other task was always something mundane like hiking or... hiking. I actually sort of miss that a little bit, mainly because it makes the choice of who does which Road Blocks less important when they don't test actual skills. The good news is this is only one of a handful of times the gross-food task has been a Detour option, and the first time an eating Detour has actually involved a gross food since The Amazing Race 4 (as opposed to fondue or cake), which gives teams a chance to avoid it. The bad news is that it's the third eating task in five weeks, after the fortune cookies and the appelbollen, which... meh. And is it weird that the only one of these three food items I haven't eaten myself is the fortune cookies? Because... I have a Dutch background and one of my exes was Czech. So I know exactly what this week's suckers are going to have to go through, and let me just say this: I have never had any issue with any of this show's previous eating challenges. Starfish? Live octopus? Sheep ass fat? I could do it. These sausages? I never want to be in the same building as them again. Ever. And I wasn't even staring at pig organs when I ate them. These sausages are the reason this recap is so late -- and they don't even appear in the episode that much.

Not surprisingly, Hallmark pick Stack Up. Leaving, SuperDad comments multiple times that they "nailed it". Aside from that bit where they fucked up and had to do an entire extra task, obviously. As they leave, the surfers and Chris & Bambi arrive in unison. They pull numbers for the task from a sign, which basically implies that this entire section where they appear to be climbing the tower at the same time is edited out of order. Well, it IS a sequence starring Chris and Bambi. Reaching the top of the tower, Grommet has to point out to Wallace there's more than one tiny window for them to look out of. Which is really going to help, considering Grommet appears to be looking at all those men with flags in the middle of the sky right now. Despite Wallace going to look out one of the other windows, which the editors try and convince us is the one where they can see the right guy, it's Grommet who takes the picture. The exact same clip of the guard holding a camera with his thin fingers that we got with Hallmark is seen again as he tells them, "NYET!" and sends them to count the stairs. As they leave the spy post it looks like they pass a stationary Chris on the stairs, so it seems the numbers are solely because only one team can be in the belfry at a time. Good move, producers. And not just because the outpost is so small with all the assorted paraphernalia that it seems crowded with just one team there. With the guard, two teams, and their crews as well? There wouldn't be room to swing a sickle.

While the surfers start counting, Bambi also photographs the wrong guy. NYET! It's hard to tell, but I think part of the reason everybody so far has found the wrong guy may be because he's standing in kind of a courtyard or something (and is thus easier to see), while the right guy is just randomly on the roadside somewhere. Oh, and the flag is almost twice the size. And actually being waved instead of just being kind of dangled. On the other hand, though, the task is one of those filler-y ones where we're just kind of watching things happen instead of the task actually being very interesting. It's basically just "Team Climbs Up, Team Takes Photo, Team Gets Clue/Penalty Task". Scintillating television. I mean, I'm sure the product placement played a role in its inclusion (even though we never hear the camera brand mentioned by name in the episode itself), but it still needs to be either interesting or closely related to the local culture, ideally both, and it kind of isn't either. Sure, there were Soviet spies in Prague, but... you know, what major city didn't have Soviet spies at some point? Hell, even Hobart probably had at least one. On their way down, they fail to realise that the guy they photographed wasn't the guy they were supposed to photograph, instead blaming the fact that they apparently didn't zoom in far enough. But how are they supposed to zoom in on something halfway across town when they can't even notice their own massive personality flaws?

Wallace and Grommet are still counting the stairs. Wallace explains, "We got halfway up counting the stairs and then we sorta looked down at where we were and we were like, 'Wait, is that one hundred and one or is THAT one hundred and one?'" Well, that depends. Which one was one hundred? Apparently this little confusion is enough for them to get it wrong, guessing 303 instead of 304. The guard rebukes them, "Nyet! Where did you learn to count? Down, run again." Grommet doesn't believe him, apparently under the impression that Soviet guards locked in spy towers for more than two decades have finely-tuned senses of humour. Wallace confessionals, "I felt like wringing his neck." Good luck getting past the thick scarf. It's their own fault, but I can understand the frustration: This isn't the sort of task anybody would want to have to repeat. 304 stairs is about the same as a twenty-storey building, and this is about to be their third time climbing it. Add in that it's harder to go down than it is to go up because the strain is on the thin muscles in the front of one's legs instead of the bigger ones at the back (blame the lack of factual description on my nursing-student sister thinking hamstrings were vegetables), and it's really quite a difficult challenge, even without fucking the count up and having to start again.

Chris & Bambi are counting aloud as they go, and make it to the top with the right total. The "guard" drops his fake Soviet accent like a Tetris piece as he hands over their Detour clue. For whatever stupid reason, Chris decides that the surefire way to finish quickly is to do the challenge that will no doubt require vomiting up large amounts of food even without taking into account the taste of pig spleen rather than the task that amounts to "carry this over there, piece by piece", and even the editors' Snare Drum of Destiny feels the need to mock the decision. But because he's The Man In The Relationship, Bambi agrees with him. Clearly, he knows more about her sausage-eating abilities than we do. Returning to their cab, Bambi begins second-guessing herself. I think we may have finally found a situation where not going with your, um, gut instinct is a good thing.

There is more hockey. Long story short, the Lucys are both at home on their skates, but Dave falls over awkwardly yet AGAIN, and he and Kelly both seem to decide the best thing to do would be to quit and take a penalty.

Commercials. You know, Seven, it's bad enough when you spoil the major twists and the eliminations in this show before they air. It's even worse when you spoil the show WHEN IT'S AIRING.

Dave and Kelly don't take the penalty. Crisis averted. And in news that will surprise nobody who saw Dave's ability to stay upright, it's Kelly who scores the goal pretty much instantaneously. Sam also manages to beat him within seconds, so either the guy was basically told to just spread his legs and let them do their thing (Luke and/or Tom: "Why didn't I think of that?") They're all but tied for last place as they leave the rink, and as I begin to recap the episode properly again. For the record? Wallace, Grommet, SuperDad, Luke, Bambi, Matt, Dave, and Kelly all fell over at least once; Chris, Tom, and the Lucys did not. There's an argument that could be made about the contestants with richer/more urbane backgrounds doing better, but I think Tom's balance and Wallace and Grommet's frequent arse-over-teakettle-falling would prove that to be a crock of shit.

Dave & Kelly appear to have left their Amazing Currency Colostomy Bag on the roof of their car as they get it, but it mysteriously moves to inside the vehicle as they drive off. Damn. Dave whines, "I've done my shoulder, I've done both hips, and my calf is completely destroyed... so, yeah. Great. That was really well... well and truly worth it to be in last place." Good Lord, I don't think we've had a contestant whine this much since Flo. And even then, she seemed like someone who would be kind of fun outside the high-stress environs of the race. Here, Dave just seems like a douche.

Wallace and Grommet are "finally right", in the words of the guard, who doesn't even wait for Grommet to finish writing the answer on the board to share the good news with him. They also pick Stack Up. As they leave, Wallace wishes the incoming farmers "good luck". Matt comments that he likes the stone spiral staircase on the way up, but still confessionals about how much he hated the climb as the farmers reach the guard. It's quite impressive that the editors can now do that "glass is half-full/glass is half-empty" thing without even requiring a second person. Perhaps he can blame it on bonking his head on the wooden frame representing the "window" he'll be looking through. Tom snarks about the search being "just like 'Where's Wally?'". Of course, making this link would help suggest that the guy in with the black and gold flag is the wrong guy, not that it stops them from taking his picture. NYET!

Hallmark are arriving at the brewery for the Detour, still in first place and still in their hockey jerseys. Unlike back in South Africa when they'd both had experience as tradies and still didn't pick the building challenge, this time they've picked Stack Up because of Luke's having worked at a bottle shop. They enter the packaging area tastefully covered in loose-fitting body condoms, and for some reason one of the guys working there puts their first crate on its pallet. They then continue on their own, successfully coming up with the idea to stack the slabs in layers instead of putting them all on top of each other. It sure is lucky Luke knows his way around beer, because I don't know how they would have figured that out otherwise. Luke tells us their plan is to "do everything slowly and methodically, and not make any mistakes", which would make them the tortoises to FBA's hares. Giggle and Cackle would be so proud. SuperDad confessionals, "We haven't won a leg yet. Now's the time for us to win one."

Tower. Matt and Tom finish counting and get it right. Matt says he "would have thrown [the guard] out the window if [he] said no". You mean the window you couldn't even fit your head out of before, Matt? And wouldn't he have said "NYET!", being a "Soviet" and all? Tom dumbs the Detour decision down to "eighteen sausages or a pallet of piss", and now might be a good time to inform non-Australian viewers that "piss" is local slang for "beer". Matt lets him make the choice, and if there was any doubt Tom would pick the one that involved him getting his mouth on some nice meaty sausages, it's gone now. On their way back down the stairs, they pass the incoming Lucys, and Tom tells them, "Don't take a photo of the guy with the big flag". You know, for future reference and shit. (Oddly, Sam is holding the clue envelope for the Detour as she climbs up, but they shouldn't have it yet, having not finished this task. And it can't be edited in from later on because they didn't need to walk back up the stairs after they got it. Que?) Matt adds, "I like to think of myself as a good person. Damsels in distress, that's my weak point." As opposed to all those people who like to think of themselves as genocidal maniacs, presumably. In a confessional, Tom exposits that they didn't think about the situation enough to realise that THEIR Guy With A Flag wasn't THE Guy With A Flag. And as luck would have it, the Lucys find the the right Guy With A Flag, so now the farmers come across as Lying Liars Who Lie. (I need to stop Randomly Capitalising Words, don't I?) Sam explains in a confessional that "it was all very sexy", and the next word we hear is the guard's "Da!" And I've officially forgiven the editors for how long they spent on the hockey. Despite the Lucys bitching about how the farmers "lied" and "tried to screw [them] over", they still maintain enough intelligence to pick Stack Up. Outside, Matt calls it their "Good Samaritan deed for the day", and if my life has taught me anything, it is that nothing brings out the Good Samaritans like a stalled car. But since my life has taught me nothing, the farmers are left to their own devices to push start Bindi. The Lucys have much less trouble starting Rhonda Burchmore, but unfortunately the chip on Sam's shoulder is starting to attract seagulls. Renae says in response, "There's no alliances left in the game anymore, so I think it's just game on." Yes, because when I think about the alliances we've had so far this season, the one that comes to mind is the one between the farmers and the Lucys. Not between the Lucys and Wallace and Grommet, not between the Lucys and Dave and Kelly, not between Momos and Giggle and Cackle, certainly not the one between Tom and Luke.

Dave & Kelly are finally at the cathedral. They spend a lot of time looking over each other's shoulders and failing to see "a flagged interesting person" (though Prague IS known for its flagged boring people), but still manage to find the guy and get the clue.

We splitscreen to Chris and Bambi, still second-guessing themselves about their choice to chow down. Or at least half the team is still second-guessing themselves, while half the team is continuing to demand to find out once and for all whether he's the biggest weiner in the Czech Republic. It doesn't help that Chris's biggest concern is whether it's "rhetorical" to wonder whether they have the "guts" to eat "six sausages". How is he dividing eighteen sausages by two people and getting six? Is he thinking the sound guy is going to help them finish? They arrive at the brewery, and he immediately begins walking bowlegged in order to make it less obvious later on when he has to walk around with sausages stuffed down his pants. The editors include a Metal Hiss of Doom with a zoom in on the restaurant's sign, which can never be a good omen. Bambi re-explains about all of the awful offal in the snags, although the clip we see right as she mentions intestines is the same one we saw when Grant mentioned tongues in the explanation, so... you know. Tasty either way. While Bambi sits expectantly and compares it to "just a souvlaki", no doubt waiting for someone to cut her sausages and forcefeed her (here comes the aero-bleeeeeurgh!), Chris takes a bite and immediately decides that while it might work for Tom and Luke, sausage isn't for him today (Gay/Bisexual/MSM Community: "Wow, we dodged a bullet"), saying "As soon as it went down, I knew, like, I half-handled it. No way she could handle it." I know the obvious assumption to make is that he's saying it with an air of misogyny, but... I don't think that's the reason here. To me at least, it seems likely that Bambi isn't a particularly adventurous eater -- especially with how she was trying to get him to switch before they arrived -- and that she would genuinely be the less capable half of the team with this challenge. Bambi is actually LAUGHING at how bad the sausages could be as they leave, Chris telling her, "You'll taste the intestine and you'll be out of here." And except for her not having to eat anything, he's right. In a confessional, Chris explains that the reason for their switching is that his stomach went "NYET!" Hee.

The farmers and Bindi are stuck and need another push-start. Surely it must be time to call for the replacement vehicle by now. They can call it Bob. A few seconds of Television Time later (so who knows how long it actually was), the "Khaki Warrior" gets pulled over again by a group of cops. Tom deems Bindi "a likely target for the local popo". No, she's too old for him. And female. Oh, you mean the car. Never mind. (I'M SORRY, BUDDHISTS WHO WANT EQUAL MOCKERY.) As Matt wonders how often one team can get pulled over, the cop wants to see the car's documentation. Probably to check it wasn't illegally imported from Slovenia or some shit.

Commercials. It seems the only thing anyone involed in the carbon tax debate can agree on is that there just isn't enough Television Time devoted to bloated windbags. Now, if only we could turn all that gas into energy somehow.

It's another Pre-Commercial Crisis That Wasn't, with the cop basically doing nothing after realising they were just lost tourists, and even giving them freakin' directions. Rather hilariously, the next shot is of Matt pushing Bindi past what the interwebs tells me is a Czech mechanic.

Wallace posits, "I think the eating one's gonna be faster." Only insofar as the sausages would be expelled from his body quicker, even if they were allowed to crack a tinnie. While Grommet says he'll be fine as long as he doesn't have to eat a ridiculous amount, Wallace undercuts his own argument by stating, "I'm not the fastest eater, you know that, and I'll try my best, but that's all I can do". Grommet counters, "Well, we can you can just throw up if we have to, man [sic]. I'll eat it and just throw it all back up." I assure you, the barfing is not voluntary. (Possibly True Fact: Ipecac comes from pig spleen.)

Okay, switching over to Wimbledon actually DOES seem more enticing right now than watching people eat these things.

The local brass band playing the Sucker Symphony welcomes them to the Feast of Failure, where the biggest distraction of the Pig Part Plates is trying to figure out what the assorted organs actually are. Surprisingly, it's not Wallace but Grommet who has trouble downing the sausage. (Wait, maybe that's not so surprising.) Grommet overtakes SuperDad's ice hockey commentary as the new understatement of the century by claiming, "This ain't sausage." (Yes, I know. Ain't ain't a word.) He continues in a talking head, "I thought I had strong guts. [...] I could eat anything, and I tasted this, mate, and I was like, I nearly started dry-retching. It was disgusting." While I marvel at how his stomach is strong enough to only dry-retch, and while the Slovaks prepare a tickertape parade in his honour, he spits out his food and gets up to leave without even consulting Wallace. Awww, somebody needs walkies!

Back at the packaging area, Hallmark are almost done as Chris and Bambi stroll up. The latter pair immediately start arguing about whether having Chris wait for Bambi to finish is really the best strategy for the task. Wallace and Grommet soon join them, and it soon becomes apparent this task is another Watching People Do Stuff task, with the only real interesting moment being Bambi showing she's not nearly as meek as she's been the last few episodes. But we already kind of knew that from The Argument That Continuity Forgot. Still, at least this time it seems like the idea itself was a decent one -- a physical challenge that isn't catered to suit men in the way the Public Herniation task last week was -- but the problem here is that there doesn't seem like there's much of a chance for anybody to gain or lose time unless we get a sprained ankle or something. Regardless of the task, it's always far more interesting if it's at least theoretically possible for the order to change. That doesn't necessarily mean the tasks have to be complex to understand, nor does it mean that the order actually DOES have to change, but if it's not filler there should either be a learning curve involved in the task or a way to "break" the challenge and make it easier and faster to complete, like Melana did by dragging their poor girl across Prague last week. (This is kind of my problem with the overdosing on penalty-based tasks that happened in the most recent season of The Amazing Race Asia, too -- people can't make up time if they're just sitting around.)

The best example so far this season is the first Detour back in Lombok -- both had learning curves (in how to balance the baskets, and in how to schmooze the locals) and both had alternate methods that made them much easier but were perfectly within the rules of the task (Matt's hat, selling multiple bowls at the same time). Sometimes, the task can be completely innocuous and still be brilliant. When the American version went to Hamburg, the final task of the leg before walking across the red-light district to the Pit Stop was to "share" a boot of beer. Simple, right? With the clue for the task displayed as a plaque above the boot-shaped jugs, it's easy to confirm that there was specifically no instruction forcing them to DRINK the beer themselves, and yet team after team (including Those Other Cowboys, who normally don't drink, and a contestant who wasn't old enough at the time to legally be served beer in the United States) wasted their time and sobriety chugging it down instead of doing the obvious thing and giving free refills to the other customers in the bar, or sharing it with the gutter outside. Then again, it's not so surprising considering that girl who tried to blame American stupidity on "The Iraq" and "Everywhere, Like, Such As" finished third in the season.

Anyway, with little to no chance of the order changing at the task, Hallmark are indeed the first to finish. The clue they get tells them they'll now need to drive to Kutná Hora, then find the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist. Grant repeats the information in case Hallmark bores you to sleep, while the graphics shorten the church's long name to "Church At Kutna Hora" just so it fits. Fair enough, but as we'll see it's far from being the only church in town, so... you know. I'm glad the contestants get more information than the viewers do, because otherwise ALL of us would have been mildly confused. Leaving the brewery, SuperDad makes like an 1850s gunslinger, telling Luke to "just gun that engine, boy". It's nice to know it's not just Indonesian cab drivers he calls "boy". They mention that the turn-off to Kutná Hora is "before Prague", and... see, this is why we need to start being told distances between locations again.

The other two teams already at the Detour continue stacking. It's worth noting for later that Chris passes a slab to Bambi then grabs another for himself, and that Wallace and Grommet retrieve slabs from two different areas in quick succession, so there's clearly no rule forcing players to retrieve their slabs one at a time from the same area. Chris and Bambi are soon done, and after getting the clue Chris brags, "We're getting first today. [...] We've earnt it. We've earnt it, I can feel it." Really? I don't want to burst your bubble and all, but with a bit over eight minutes left in the episode and no sign of either a Pit Stop or even of the Road Block, I can feel something entirely different about to happen. Wallace and Grommet get their clue just Television Seconds later.

The farmers arrive and even Bindi squeaks her disapproval of their choosing the sausage task. The wacky music kicks in even before they get to the band at the restaurant, so you know this is going to be good. As Matt informs us, "At home we, uh, make our own sausages when we kill them, and we thought eating eighteen sausages wouldn't be too hard. Uh, but when we got there they were a funky green colour." As opposed to all those wild sausages they kill back home, which are a nice deep burgundy. It does need to be asked, though: Given all the organs shown are either white (the tongue/intestine/spleen/whatever) or somewhere in the "red" family, how come the sausages are green? They both take a bite, finishing each other's sentences in a confessional to call the taste and smell "shocking" and "horrible" respectively, before switching tasks. Leaving, Matt surmises, "If anyone can eat those, they're doing good [sic]." I agree with the sentiment, if not with the grammar.

Meanwhile, Dave and Kelly have arrived, accompanied by more serious music. You know, since they've chosen the smart task and all. While Kelly grapples with the extremely difficult concept of "take them over there", Dave bitches in a confessional about how he "couldn't get a beer at a brewery", calling it "a bloody sad day". I may not be the best person to consult on this, considering two of my three known allergies are hops and grapes (which basically means no beer AND no wine), but... it is kind of a tease. On the other hand, if he wanted free nourishment the option IS available. The Lucys also park and manage to get to the packaging area before the farmers, which I suppose is good because it means the complete inanity of the other task at least serves a purpose. Renae explains that they "got quite competitive", while Kelly whines that Renae was able to start "pluckin' em up like they were nothin'" with her mannish hands.

The farmers enter the packaging centre, and though it looks like the two teams already there are only about halfway through their first pallet, we saw a shot just before they arrived that made it seem like they were halfway through their second. Sigh. The editors are very good at at least maintaining the general continuity of the show, but once the teams are actually at the tasks it seems all bets are off. I don't know what it is -- even though I probably should be able to figure it out by virtue of being a past and future film student -- but part of the issue with this task at least may be the staging of it. With the pallets set up as close together as they are, the usual standard rule of shooting only from within a 180-degree area isn't working. The footage from the production line area itself is perfectly fine, but what they really needed to do here was to shoot the pallet-stacking from the far side, with the production line in the back of the image. Instead, we've got some shots that make it seem like it's behind the pallets and some that make it seem like it's off to the left, which doesn't jibe well with the constant closeups. Here, it's making it look as though the full pallets the earlier teams stacked are these teams' completed first pallets, and that makes it much harder to see who's at what stage of the task. And, remember: If your viewers can't understand what's going on, they'll switch over and watch Neighbours. At least people know that shit's not supposed to make sense. (While I'm sidetracked: Why would they go to all of the trouble of breaking stereotypes with the rest of the Token Gay Kid storyline, then ruin it all by making his first love interest a male nurse?)

Anyway, Matt unloads three in a row, giving two to Tom. Naturally, because the Lucys aren't actually playing the game at all and because Dave objects to anyone who isn't him trying to play the game, this pisses everyone else off. I can't see why none of these people would move around them and grab the slabs from earlier in the production line, seeing as it looks like he's grabbing them at the last available chance anyway. I suspect it's just because neither of these two teams has been doing very well for a while now, and they need a scapegoat. Or, rather, a scape-farmer. (Oh, I'm sorry, "scape-cowboy".) Kelly confessionals, "We were all congested getting in each other's way and it was getting a bit nasty and snaky and pushy," and Dave adds, "It was, wasn't it?" I'm not sure it's a good idea for them to talk about the anger like it was the other teams' fault. I mean, it's certainly not because of the team who was at the FRONT of the queue. Just saying. I'm beginning to think Dave's head is so far up his own ass he can eat his spleen.

Renae also bitches some more about how she got to the production line behind Matt one time and he passed a slab to his own teammate instead of to her. HOW DARE THEY TRY AND FINISH THE TASK QUICKER! And speaking of finsihing quicker? This recap's already a week late. Let's skip past the next minute or so of hypocritical whining and violent threats to the bit where everybody's gotten their clue and the Detour is over. Despite the alleged "cheating", the Lucys finish first in this bunch and the farmers finish last, which means it's all just a big bunch of nothing anyway. But to do so, we also skip over this week's last set of...

Commercials. Dear People of the World, I don't mean to sound slutty, but please use me whenever you want. Sincerely, Grammar.

Hi-ho, Bindi... away!

Dave and Kelly pull into a petrol station to get directions. Dave joins her in going in (probably because the Czech have laws against noise pollution or something), and they both quickly learn that while the map might be written in Czech, that doesn't necessarily mean the poor lady working behind the counter can understand it. Hmmm. Firstly, it's place names written in a language that uses the same Hindu-Arabic characters as English, not freaking Nineteen Eighty-Four written in Cantonese, so it doesn't really matter that much that the map is in Czech. Hence she really just has to show where you are and where you're going. Who knows, perhaps she's just pissed Dave was bitching about how the map was "all written in Czechoslovakian". Back in their car, Dave angrily grinds the generic soft-drink can he's using as a gearstick while whining about how they've just lost some time. Back before the season, Grant spent a fair bit of time in his publicity junket trying to pimp two teams over all others. Obviously, Giggle and Cackle were one. The other? Dave and Kelly, under the justification that every Aussie knows someone like Dave. Unfortunately, not many Aussies actually LIKE the person like Dave they know.

Meanwhile, Bindi needs a firm kick up the spleen. (And the car, too!) Matt manages to muster a trio of locals to help him push it back into the realm of "moving" again, before getting back in and vowing, "I'm gonna burn it when we finish with it." Yeah, but driving it to Athens or Vancouver so it doesn't look out of place is going to use quite a lot of petrol. And time.

Hallmark (remember them?) are now arriving at a church, and begin looking for the clue. Unfortunately, the only thing they actually manage to come across is a locked door. It's nice to know churches are just as welcoming as they always were. Meanwhile, Chris and Bambi have also arrived at a church, and run down a flight of steps to reach the cluebox, hidden in plain sight. With three minutes and twenty seconds left before we find out what happens next week (assuming you didn't get spoiled while setting your set-top box because of the varying episode lengths), it's a Road Block. And, as it turns out, kind of a U-Turn. From inside the church, a choir sings hymns in praise of the show's approach to recycling tasks, while Grant thinks "Let's see you do THIS, Phil!" but instead explains that the task (which only one team member can perform right now, but which the other team member may have performed earlier in the race) is for the chosen team member to climb to the church's attic, then abseil down in the most deliberate display of blasphemy since the Detour in Vietnam had teams coveting each others' oxen. (Oops, "carabao".)

Bambi takes it, and rings the bell to summon the Benedictine monks or whatever. What a load. While she waits patiently for a guy holding a candle to limp down the aisle to her, Chris tries to peek through a hole in the wooden door, then moves away noting, "All right. We're not getting married, so it's not a false alarm. It's all good." Well, that's a relief. Probably not so much for the heterosexual women watching this, but definitely for the rest of us. And wouldn't that have been awkward if the task actually WAS "Marry your teammate"? Especially considering (1) Dave & Kelly already are, (2) Grommet would not have been invited on the Lucys' wedding night spleenanigans, and (3) despite gay marriage being legal in a decreasingly small portion of the world, marrying your own son is still illegal everywhere, even if you're SuperDad.

Back inside, the guy finally reaches Bambi and she follows him back across the church, now at a much faster pace for some reason. She explains that he led her "up these windy stairs, round and round and round, and I'm still not sure what's going to happen next". It's kind of interesting to note that she doesn't know what the task is. I wonder what was actually written in the clue. "Ring the bell"? Seems oddly simple. (Also? Chris is ROCKING the blue tee look in this confessional.) (What? It's totally worth pointing out.) While the choir is singing about the seraphim, our very own little nephilim is let into the church to watch. He's forced to wait in a little rope area, probably so Bambi can't swing her way out just to kick him in the face. Bambi continues narrating, "As soon as we got up there, all of a sudden the ceiling opens up and I had to go through it. I just couldn't believe my eyes that I had to abseil down this, you know, incredible church." Well, that's her. For me, wearing a safety helmet and being attached to a big long rope would have been a little bit of a giveaway. She begins her descent, the choir adding an enviable amount of tackiness to proceedings, and unfortunately her arms are too busy keeping her alive to replicate the statue of Jesus on the crucifix we are shown. When she lands without a splat, Chris calls her "an angel" (let's not go overboard with the religious theme), and the clue the priest gives her tells them to walk to the Pit Stop at the Bone Church (so much for that idea). Most hilariously, while she reads the clue the abseiling rope (which was lowered with Bambi instead of just dangling like every other abseiling rope the show has ever used) just sort of swings around in the non-existent breeze behind her.

Grant and some macabre music inform us that there's "an estimated seventy thousand human skeletons" in the Bone Church, which makes it only about thirty-one percent as disturbing as the contents of Lady Gaga's closet. He adds that "the last team here may be eliminated", but since there's around about one hundred seconds left in the episode and five Road Block performances and six Pit Stop arrivals to squeeze in, with the last three teams seemingly much farther behind than the surfers and Hallmark? I doubt it. Though the start of the conversation appears to have been snipped (with these two? Never!), it seems Chris even has to question whether the Pit Stop is indeed next. He's got a point -- the clue Bambi read just says to walk to the Church, never calling it a Pit Stop.

Meanwhile, Wallace and Grommet arrive at the church, and Grommet decides to take it from the misleading clue. Where is the scaling? "Scale" means "climb", not "drop". Hallmark also arrive and Luke takes it, but he has to wait outside for a bit longer because Wallace and Grommet are currently inside. He tells us he's "really disappointed" about having lost their lead. Diddums. So, to recap: We spent over half of this episode playing hockey, and now we've got to fit a first-come, first-served Road Block plus the accompanying Pit Stop arrivals into eighty-something seconds? Not happening. And why is the final task of the leg a first-come, first-served task anyway? Isn't it better to have a tight finish? Between the time the task itself takes and the safety briefing that goes with it (probably lasting about fifteen minutes), there's no tension in this at all. I kind of feel like the entire point of the task here isn't for the religious imagery but instead to get teams to a point where they can be told to walk to the Pit Stop without it feeling forced. They certainly seem to be trying to get the teams to the Pit Stops in a variety of different forms -- cidomo in Lombok, army jeep in Hue, the gate-entry Road Block in Macau, self-driving in both South Africa legs, walking here, and through any means necessary last week -- and there hasn't been a single "take a taxi to the next Pit Stop" order yet (which I thoroughly approve of), but sometimes the familiar structure is better. I mean, I love it when they get told to walk (because it's easier for people to get lost and thus easier to create actual, non-fake tension with), and I absolutely ADORE that they haven't decided to randomly have a leg without a Detour or a leg without a Road Block, but what would probably have worked better here is if the hockey was the Road Block, possibly tweaked a little bit if necessary, then got to the current Road Block church to find a clue saying "Leave your car and any maps you have where they are and walk to the Pit Stop." It's the same basic leg, but the final few minutes aren't crowded enough to give away the ending.

I realise I'm overthinking this. You may have noticed it's kind of what I do.

Grommet descends, wiith more "dude!"s than present in the entire Ashton Kutcher oeuvre, and for some reason his rope is already in place, which both ruins the surprise element AND means it's kind of a different task for him than it was for Bambi. Grommet explains that he's "not religious" but still enjoyed the chance to help a church unwittingly blaspheme. Meanwhile, Wallace voices over completely randomly and without any reason that it's his "first time in a church". Really? Wow. I'm the sort of person who believes that if God existed, atheists wouldn't, and even I've been in a church. Unless he's, like, Jewish or something and has only ever been in a temple. Tom, Luke, you guys wanna check for us? They read a section of the clue that says "Grant Bowler awaits", which now officially means nobody except the new viewers are about to be surprised.

Both Wallace & Grommet and Chris & Bambi get directions to the Bone Church, and run in through the front gates in two separate shots, never in sight of each other. Not surprisingly for any longtime fans, Grant is waiting at the mat alone without a greeter (though wouldn't you have loved to see what costume they would have come up with for this Pit Stop?), as trumpets herald the arrival of... Chris & Bambi. Shocking, I know. The team with a large lead that wasn't shown getting lost on the way is still in front. Chris kisses the mat (ew, you don't know wh... actually, he knows exactly where that's been), right before Grant confirms -- with what I believe is his first smile of the season -- that they're Team Number One. "That's the good news," he intones. While Chris and Bambi wait expectantly to find out who will be giving them their five grand in vouchers this week, he continues, "The bad news is... it's not over yet." And we are officially To Be Continued, with Wallace and Grommet apparently on the Pit Stop grounds, Hallmark about to start the Road Block, and the three remaining teams driving there from the Detour. The oddest thing is that there's about a tenth of a second of other audio from a male voice (that sounds more like Grommet than Chris) right as Grant says "it's not over yet", which suggests to me that they actually edited that shot in out of continuity. Well, of course. It IS Chris and Bambi.

Next week: Wait, I have to keep recapping this leg? GOD DAMN IT.

Australia 1x06: Prague, Czech Republic

Previously on The Cape Town Of Good Hope: I got sick of writing "Last week. Also:" at the start of every recap. Also: Eight teams made the daunting journey from one city at the very bottom of South Africa to another city at the very bottom of South Africa. Despite the colourful Travel Porn montage when the teams arrived in Cape Town, all the teams themselves seemed to have seen was a sandy beach, a sandy skydive landing area, and a set of sandy sand dunes. Did I mention there was plenty of sand? I mean, not that it wasn't scenic, but the most amazing thing they saw during the episode was the fluffy hair on one of the people helping out at the skeet-shooting Detour. And even then, Wallace and Grommet weren't impressed, and none of the women picked the task. The latest item in the Cavalcade O' Wacky Twists was the Intersection, which had exactly as much value here as it had in all of its previous appearances combined: Zero. In a Detour choice between Guns and Rosé, the Lucys nearly busted an Axl, and while the three faster all-male teams wound up at the gun club together, the two with no rifle experience wound up beating the pants off of the farmers. (SETTLE DOWN, TOM.) There was a gratuitous play for sympathy with a trip to an orphanage, and a gratuitous attempt at tension with a "close" "race" to avoid elimination, but Chris and Bambi managed to generate more than enough of both on their own. In the end, Momos were finally booted, making the anti-Muslim part of Australian society happy but saddening the rest of us non-racists. Seven teams are still racing for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, even though it's much emptier than those American pots. Who will run out of luck... TONIGHT?

Credits. I'm so glad they didn't use Check Yes Juliet as the actual theme music. [RUN BOMPI RUN, DON'T EVER LOOK BACK.]

Commercials. Remember, comments are my muse. (And? I know Luke and Tom are both in relationships with very lucky women. They're not gay, I know. But I don't care. It's a little thing called humour. And television has had a Hide Your Bisexuals agenda for so long it's become a cliche, so... if you're offended, remember that heterosexuality isn't normal. It's just common.)

Grant welcomes us back to the Rhodes Memorial, which he says gives "magnificent views of the city". And what city would that be, I pretend to hear you ask? Cape Town, because Grant isn't quite through bonding with the locals over their shared hatred of the All Blacks. No, no, the rugby team. The South Africans got rid of their racist policies weeks ago. But since someone finally told Grant we've kind of got to keep going with this whole racing malarkey, Wallace and Grommet will depart first at 3:15pm. Wouldn't that imply they got there at 3:15am? Somehow I don't see that happening. Unless the Pit Stop happened right at the end of Daylight Swapping Time. The clue says to ditch the mother continent and head to everybody's favourite drunken uncle, Amsterdam. This is slightly further away from Melbourne than Tittybong, but that doesn't mean we're not going to be seeing it. Grant adds (amidst shots of Dutch things like bicycles and clogs and invading Germans) that they'll then need to "make their way" to the Big Dutch Words That I'm Not Even Going To Try And Spell Despite Having A Dutch Family Because My Fingers Are Still Sore From Typing Nomathamsanqa (Ouch) food stall, which looks like it's basically the Dutch equivalent of Harry's Cafe de Wheels. There, they'll have to fork out the dough to pay for four appelbollen (literally, "apple balls"), and eat two of the "traditional doughnuts" each to get the next clue. And by "traditional doughnuts", they really just mean "cored apples covered in puff pastry, then deep fried".

Just a reminder: Australia gave the world Vegemite, the pie floater, and the deep-fried Mars bar. We're really not in a position to judge.

They learn that they've been given the princely sum of three hundred bucks for this leg, which surely means the producers are expecting someone to get lost and buy some hash brownies instead. Three guesses who. As they head off, I notice for the first time that they're starting at the Rhodes Memorial entrance sign instead of at the memorial itself. Most observant recapper ever. Wallace confessionals, "I think there'd be a lot of people that are surprised we're still here, in this high position." Um, not really. I mean, considering the other teams at the start of the race included Giggle and Cackle, Momos, Ryot & Liberty, and a guy whose own son will tell you he's so old his life insurance policy has expired, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that people would expect the two strong young G-list manbags to be at the front of the pack right now. Sure, they cut their own hair while wearing blindfolds and make even stupider decisions sometimes (by the way, Paris says hi), but... really? You're exactly where most people would have expected. Also? Hee, "high". In their car on the way to the airport, they talk about having never been to Amsterdam. That's surprising. I would have thought they'd have needed to use the windmills as hair dryers by now. Assuming they ever actually washed those things.

At 3:34pm, Tom has just as much trouble pronouncing the name of the stall as the clue writers did spelling it correctly, bursting into adorable laughter before he can finish. Don't worry, Tom, it doesn't matter if you can't say it, you're going to get a pair of balls in your mouth anyway. They might be a little fruitier than you're u... you know what? Scratch that. Matt explains that they're "frothing at the bit to get on to the next leg". I think his metaphors are a little bit stuck between a rock and Tom's crotch in mating season. By which I mean, "during his adult life", given what we've already ascertained based on absolutely no scientific evidence. As they run off to their cars, I feel this strange compulsion to apologise to Tom for thinking he had a gay run before. At least back then his arms weren't waving in the air like he just don't care. Matt tells us he's beginning to enjoy travelling, which would be great had he not had to travel through four continents for it to happen.

3:46pm. Hallmark leave, both giving yet more confessionals about how they're now working together instead of just being A Guy And The Fruit Of His Loins Kind Of Pretending To Like Each Other. And of course, the next step? Playing for the same team. As they arrive at the airport, we see for the first time that Luke is wearing some impressively short shorts. They're so short we can almost see his Netherlands.

While they and the farmers walk around together (SETTLE DOWN, TOM), the surfers get to Lufthansa and learn that there's a flight leaving at 7:05pm and getting to Amsterdam at 9:25am the next morning. What the show doesn't reveal is that since Germans have had issues with both the Dutch and the South Africans in the past, they'll be making a connection in Frankfurt. The weirdest thing is that the Frankfurt flight got spoiled, but absolutely nothing that happened in Europe after that point was until the preview clips practically gave away half of the season. Before the surfers can get their tickets and hide, the farmers notice them and come over to get tickets, as do Hallmark. What's hilarious to me is how comically large the non-farmers' backpacks are. Dear future contestants: If your bag is fatter than you are, and if you are not bulimic, consider packing fewer bowties.

Dave and Kelly take off at 4:56pm, excited about visiting Amsterdam. Why? There's no red wine in Amsterdam. Dave explains in a confessional, "We're here for the travel, the excitement, but we're here for the money. At the end of the day that's, that's life-changing, and we want that." See, Wallace and Grommet? THAT is how you read a script. Kelly tells Dave she hopes "the Road Block's not going to be something in the red-light district", and Dave eagerly volunteers to "take one for the team". Is she really that bad in bed?

Aaaand this is officially no longer fun.

5:36pm. Melana. 5:40pm. Lucys. 5:45pm. Chris and Bambi. Melana get the easy part of the montage, just repeating the "fly to Amsterdam" bit, while the latter two teams have to struggle with the rest of the Big Dutch Words, but they make up for it by getting lost on the way out. They explain in separate confessionals that they're basically the Ken and Gerard of this season with their conflicting lifestyles, except beyond Alana being married and Mel being a bit of a slut (in a good way), they really seem to be pretty similar. Sam tells Renae she's got Nederlander heritage, which I'm sure will come in handy for the Identify Sam's Great-Aunt Astrid challenge. They explain what many of us have known for years, that being nice isn't necessarily going to win you the race, so they're going to "be more ruthless now". As an aside, I love that Cape Town has decided to dispense with frivolity and name the road going to the airport "Airport Approach Road". Hee!

In their car, Bambi asks Chris what appelbollen are, and he points out that it doesn't really matter when the task is "get this down your throat, no matter what it takes", which I suppose is a douchey-but-still-correct way of saying "I don't know either". Chris explains that he feels like he's Bambi's designated whipping post, which is of course code for "beat the dead horse, editors" and causes another flashback to their bickering. Considering they're continually returning to these same two "fights" over and over -- the winery one last week and The Argument That Continuity Forgot -- that neither of them make much sense from what we were shown, and that they're generally tolerable people (even if not necessarily the sort of people I'd spend time with in my own life) the rest of the time, I have to believe the editors are trying to craft a villain where there really isn't one. Sure, he needs to calm down a bit more, but compared to the Annoying Dating Couples we've had in the past they're actually coming off pretty well. The feeling I get is that they're closer to being Joseph And Monica Without A Whiny Chick than they are to being Jonathan And Victoria With Vaguely Mediterranean Accents. He continues on about how he's "being the most rational person as [he] possibly can be [sic]", causing Bambi to smirk so obviously that even he notices. Go, Bambi!

Dave & Kelly have managed to get tickets "as the flight was closing", but we've still got the teams from the montage rushing through the airport. Basically, they arrive at the same counter everyone else went to to get their tickets, and wind up having to treat security like it's an obstacle course. Because security won't freak out at all at the prospect of twelve people with giant backpacks (the six contestants plus a camera guy and a sound guy for each team) rushing through the airport. To make a long story short, or perhaps to make a short story even shorter: They make it, meaning everyone is on the same flight as clearly planned.

The Amazing Red Ribbon stretches its way pretty much due north from Cape Town to Amsterdam, which apparently features tulips and buildings. Oh, and bells for some reason. Leaving the airport, Wallace & Grommet, Melana, Chris & Bambi, and the farmers rush straight for cabs. Tom explains that "going from thirty degrees in Cape Town to six I think it was in the 'Dam" meant only two things: Shrinkage (damn), and even fuglier headgear (yay, at least from a snarking standpoint). In their cab, Matt does appear a bit like he's been booted out of the Physical videoclip, causing Tom to correctly tell him he looks "like such a dork". Matt responds that he's chosen to go for warmth over style, which would be shocking if he wasn't, well, Matt.

Back at the airport, Dave & Kelly are headed for the train, Dave explaining that the trip will only be ten minutes for them compared to half an hour for everyone else. SuperDad & Luke are also boarding the train. (Yet to be seen: The Lucys.) Luke tells us that they waited for everyone else to run past them for taxis before checking the information desk. Actually, it's kind of surprising that so many teams went for cabs. I mean, there's... what, less than a dozen countries that are known to have reliable train networks? In a good way, I mean? The UK, India, everywhere bordering the former West Germany, and Germany itself. That's pretty much it. Maybe Japan. Certainly not Australia. It seems to me that when you're in one of these countries (which would include the Netherlands), it would make a hell of a lot of sense to at least check before dashing off for the nearest taxi. That said, though, when was the last time teams had a choice regarding how to travel, and a taxi wasn't the fastest option? Even when the race does hit these countries nowadays, they seem to either give the teams rental cars or specify how they've got to travel. So... you know. Idiotic, but not entirely unexpected, sadly. Meanwhile, the surfers are at least aware enough to know that Dave and Kelly "bolted for the train station". The Lucys? Not so much. Sam tells Renae, "At least you know everybody's stuck in the traffic."

Except for the teams who took the train, who are already disembarking. It turns out the stall is across the road from some big old building that clearly isn't the train station (since we can see as the teams get off that it has a big glass roof, while this building kind of looks like an eighteenth-century bell tower), but some exceptionally bad camerawork shows there's a band playing what passes for traditional Dutch music (as opposed to the Hermes House Band), so it's all fine. Dave and Kelly narrowly beat Hallmark to the stall, so they'll be the first to start eating. Suck it, idiots in taxis! (SETTLE DOWN, TOM.) The woman behind the counter -- let's call her Henrika -- gives them their doughnuts, and they chow down, Dave explaining that it's the biggest meal they've had in the entire time they've been racing. Kelly confirms, "The first one was super-tasty", but eating the second one was a bit harder. I think they got the mix between local-delicacy and volume-eating exactly right here. Volume-eating tasks are really only fine when the food being eaten is the sort of thing that aren't overly "exotic", and even then they shouldn't go overboard. Here, it's fine -- there's no goat placenta or anything in the applebollen, and two of them is enough to feel full.

Hallmark also arrive before the teams in taxis, but they're far enough behind it's not really much of a race, and Dave and Kelly get the next clue first. Still before the taxi teams rock up to Henrika's Cafe de Wheels. The clue says to take a train to Prague. Yes, that Prague. The one that's halfway across Europe from Amsterdam. Grant adds that the first four teams to finish eating will be given sleeper beds for the overnight ride, while the other three will spend their night in normal seats. You know, I should be annoyed that they're not spending the full episode in the Netherlands, but I'm really not. We got enough of a taste of the country and it's culture that it doesn't feel like a waste -- unlike The Amazing Race Asia's trip to Germany, or The Amazing Race 18's trip to Liechtenstein. And the split seating on the train means good racing in Amsterdam -- say, not rushing for a taxi -- is rewarded, so that's always a bonus. Anyway, when the teams arrive in the Czech capital, they'll need to take a cab to the Powder Tower at the entrance of the Old City to find the clue. Not too hard. Meanwhile, given the theme of the rest of this episode, surely the Slovakians are preparing their catapults. They're all kinds of jazzed about it, but probably mostly because they now have an excuse to overuse the "Czech, Mate" pun to their friends when they get home. Meanwhile, Luke is swaying along to the music, but the band really can't hold a candle to Tom. SuperDad "can feel it exploding", but that doesn't stop them from finishing before The Dumb Teams turn up.

Speaking of The Dumb Teams, the first of them to arrive are the farmers and Melana. Alana whines that she and Mel "could not stand that texture" because "it's so doughy and chewy". Imagine a bread roll, just a plain bread roll, fresh enough to be warm. Now imagine if the bready part on the inside was replaced with the filling of an apple pie. That's basically the texture they're dealing with. It's a bit chewy, like most donuts, but I would think the apple part would counteract that a fair bit. Matt tells us the only thing stopping him from enjoying them was, you know, the fact that he's in a RAAAAAAACE, while Chris & Bambi arrive. Before we see them actually eat the mysterious appelbollen, Henrika gives the farmers their clue. Alana continues to gag on it, unlike Tom, and Bambi reveals she's a sympathy vomitter. Oh, goody. Just before Chris & Bambi finish -- overtaking Melana for the final sleeper seats on the train -- Chris displays a remarkable lack of ability to combine nightclub dancing and traditional Dutch yodelling. The two remaining teams of models are the last two teams to arrive, having not been able to use their questionable good looks to get their way. And it's so rare to actually be able to write that last sentence I'm going to enjoy it for the next little while.

The Lucys just chow down, while Grommet feels the need to bitch and moan about how Wallace is "doing it like a girl". So... he's deepthroating it? Or wasn't he big enough for Paris to do that? (Also? Offensive to girls. And prissy effeminate gay men. Not that I had one call me during the episode just to complain about it or anything.) (Luckily, he's not reading this and isn't aware I just called him prissy.) (I hope.) Wallace points out that it's not like they're in a race or anything, and continues to eat at his own speed. Grommet continues to belabor the point, sexist though it may be, and Wallace snaps at him, "Shut UP!", also ordering him to "meditate or somethin'." Hooray! It's only taken them five and a half episodes to show a sign of actual personality! Shame it's not very likable!

So, anyway, the Lucys get the clue, then the surfers, then Melana. Reading the clue with her mouth full, Mel comments, "I don't know how to say that, St. Tropez?" Oh, you wish. Alana corrects her, pointing out it's the "Czech Republic" with such you-idiot bitchiness in her tone I think she's finally sick of Mel making fun of her all the time. You know, like the rest of us were after the first episode. Leaving Henrika's Cafe de Wheels, Alana nearly gets run over by a cyclist. Oh, Amsterdam, you wacky town. Probably explains all the colourful lotto balls currently invading the screen.

Suddenly, they're all boarding the train. Alana informs us that having seats while the Smart Teams and the two fastest Idiot Teams got beds "suuuucked", while the editors keenly include Chris and Bambi both intimating how "great" it was to know that they were going to be getting more sleep than the others. Grant informs us that the train will be travelling via Berlin, which I suppose makes it handy that that wall's been knocked down, but he manages to not explain that the show will be counting this train ride as the teams visiting Germany for the purposes of their commercials. It's suddenly the middle of the night, and while the teams in the sleeper cabin are taking full advantage of their beds (except for Luke and Tom, because it doesn't look like there's even enough room for spooning), Sam declares it "the train ride from hell". If only there was a group of people who'd experienced worse long-distance train rides from the Netherlands to eastern Europe so we could compare them. Oh, wait, there were. And frankly (Anne Frank-ly?), Sam has no reason to complain. I mean, it looks like they're spending the night with the light on, but really? Not that much of a struggle. They could have packed blindfolds or something. And given it looks like they've got three people on the seats and three on the ground underneath them in this room, not even the cramped space is going to be much of an issue. Plus, it's a train running through Germany, for the most part, so there's not even going to be that much bumping and grinding. (Luke and Tom, as well as Bambi, who wanted to watch so she could tell Chris what a Real Man was like: "I'll say.")

It's the next morning now, and medieval horn-style music accompanies the teams as they take their first look at the Czech Republic. The horns reach a crescendo as the train pulls into the station, the last BLAT perfectly timed with the back door of the train opening. This time absolutely everybody heads for cabs, but Melana seem to be having trouble finding one. Mel snarks, "We're off to a good start." Yeah, because falling from third to seventh while eating the appelbollen was just dandy.

Prague may have been behind the Iron Curtain, but it looks like there was enough iron left over to make a shitload of cars worthy of becoming stock footage.

In their cab, Grommet explains they're "putting a hundred and ten percent in and just being consistent. We're not slacking off, you know, we're keeping our minds pretty focussed." And with a confessional like that surely you'd expect them to be able to find a cluebox that's literally a metre away from them as they pull up in their cab. And parallel with the backseat. On the side they get out of the cab on. On a slightly raised platform. With a camera guy right behind it filming them. And clearly within Grommet's line of eyesight as he scans the area for the clue. Right? Well, no. Now that would be bad enough, but Hallmark, the farmers, Dave & Kelly, and the Lucys all arrive and immediately start following the surfers. Yeah, that's a good way to win a race. For some unknown reason, Grommet decides they all need to go inside the tower. Well, of course. Meanwhile, the cluebox is busy using its little struts to perform a cancan to the tune of Livin' La Vida Loca. It's quite impressive. Matt uses his Super Secret Farmer Knowledge to explain that everyone was acting like sheep. Baa, humbug.

Commercials. Is the Top Design promo Channel Nein's way of punishing Jamie Durie for his brief defection? And between the Jamie's Bunch commercial there and the Block Around The Clock commercial for The Block, why are they giving the shows currently airing on Eleven at the same time as their news bulletin and its lead-in free promotion?

Grommet explains that once they got inside the Powder Tower, the people working inside "had no idea what [the contestants] were doing. Surely that would be enough of a hint, but they still feel the need to rustle through the exhibits in the little museum or whatever it is anyway. Good Lord, they're going to have to dumb the clues down to Hidden Immunity Idol level for next season. Kelly wonders whether it's "worth goin' down and havin' a look around the outskirts", but Dave poo-poos the idea. Remember which one's supposed to be the brains on the team, Dave? Yeah. Maybe you should listen to her right now. In a confessional, Dave calls their search "bedlam". Correct.

Melana arrive, and without the quote-unquote "benefit" of having other teams around to help them waste time, Alana finds the clue instantly. Even though there's another cab in her way. The clue inside it, familiar to anyone who saw the particular episode of The Amazing Race Asia it's been liberally borrowed from, tells them to take a taxi to the Charles Bridge and find the "holey statue". As Grant re-explains the task for us, we get the first clue close-up of the season, with a holy halo effect highlighting the word "holey", which is basically telling the teams that it's a statue with holes, not a statue of a saint or anything. The Exposition Hands, also making what I believe is THEIR first appearance of the season, reach into the statue to find the clue. Chris and Bambi also find the clue. Good for them.

In the tower, Matt has come up with the idea to use their higher vantage point to search for the clue, and appears to find it instantaneously. Everyone runs down to the cluebox, with the farmers third, the surfers fourth, Hallmark fifth, the Lucys sixth, and Dave & Kelly bringing up the rear.

Having not wasted time going up inside the tower, Melana are now at the bridge, and learn that they need to go to one of the statues in the middle. The surfers and Chris and Bambi have also arrived, and quickly realise that there are no flags giving away the clue for people who can't read. Wallace decides to ask a guy dressed as the love child of a knight and a court jester if there's "anything up there", seemingly referring to the building behind him (when all else fails, climb a tower, because that always works), and the guy tells him that there's a display about the history of the bridge. Meanwhile, the farmers and Hallmark are working together, and have at least figured out the meaning of the word "statue", so that's one point for each of them and one point off the surfers and Chris and Bambi. But then Chris realises that they've spelled "holey" with an E in the clue, so he earns his point back. All three of these teams -- Chris and Bambi, the surfers, and Melana -- grab the clue, which is this week's Detour.

This time, the choice is between Chivalry and Delivery, two tasks that may have pros but may also have cons. In Chivalry, you go somewhere unknown to get dressed in a suit of armour each, and waddle to the Old Town Square. Then, you've got to ask the people walking around, "Do you have the key to a damsel's heart?" Once you find the "keymaster", who looks like he's about sixteen years old, you've then got to take the key to the "damsel in distress" who's in such danger at her balcony near the "Prince" that she's waving to the crowd like one of the random family members at the Royal Wedding. After working out that the Prince is actually a hotel, waddle to it and exchange the key for the clue. Basically, they've stolen the lame spy Road Block from The Amazing Race: Family Edition and wrapped it up in chainmail. On the other hand, Delivery has you ride in a cab to St. Agnes' Convent where you have to pick up a litter (or as Grant calls it, a "royal sedan chair") with a little girl in it, then take it through the streets to "her palace", which the clue calls the Kinsky Palace but which the editors show is actually the National Gallery. It's also in Old Town Square, which means you get to laugh at any teams still waddling around in their armour when you finish. So the choice is between Public Humiliation and Public Herniation, pretty much. (And it's a Tortoise/Hare with Public Herniation as the Tortoise and Public Humiliation as the Hare.)

All three teams pick Public Herniation. It doesn't surprise me so much for the others, but I really appreciate that Melana weren't automatically all, "Ew, lifting stuff!" They only really choose it because everyone else is, which is the stupidest possible way to approach a Detour, but still.

Meanwhile, the Lucys are still lost, but at least they're reading the clue correctly, unlike Hallmark and the farmers, who have somehow decided to interpret "the holey statue will lead the way" as "follow a statue's finger off the bridge and over the river". Tom correctly realises that the holey in the clue isn't the religious kind of holy, but SuperDad tells him with a bit of an "I'm glad you're not my son" tone, "Well, that's how you spell holy." I suspect he was the sort of dad who tried to tell Luke that the best reason to enjoy Shakespeare is because Hamlet has a skull in it. Or, at least he would have been, if not for... you know. Tom's still a bit skeptical, because there is a difference between people from the country working slowly and people from the country being stupid, while SuperDad continues, "In the Old... In the Old Testament, that's how you spell holy." Okay, firstly, that's not true. Secondly, the Old Testament is called the Old Testament for a reason. Thirdly, CHECK THE TITLE OF THE GODDAMN BOOK. Tom explains in a confessional, while we watch a brief clip of him scanning the Vltava River from an area that looks like it's not even that close to the bridge (now with that out-of-focus background thing going on), that he was never confident that the group was going the right way. He attributes it to "the Sheep Effect again", but you may know it by its other name: Killer Fatigue. We learn that the Lucys have also followed them down to the riverside, but all three quickly give up and decide it's got to be a bit more obvious than this.

On the bridge, Dave asks the knight-y jester-y guy for help, and he basically tells him exactly where they need to go. They walk over to the statue and can't see anything inside it, mostly because neither of them is actually that tall. Perhaps they should grab one of the crates lined up next to the statue and stand on it or something. I mean, it can't be a coincidence that they're there.

Commercials. Gloria Jean's: Australian owned, loved precisely nowhere.

A camera films the bridge from the safety of a nearby window (and by "window", I mean "hole in the wall") as Dave and Kelly continue to have no idea what to do. Dave eventually lifts himself up so he can see farther into the hole in the statue, and notices the clues. Kelly points out that She Told Him So, and he explains once again that she's the brains of the team. Really? I couldn't tell. Deciding that the princess they'll need to carry for Public Herniation "might be a big fat slob", they pick Public Humiliation. Dave points out he's "always been a little chivalry [sic]", but noticing the Lucys still looking, he vows not to lay down his jacket so they can walk over it. Which is probably good, considering it's cold, not wet. And also because we're now at that point in the race where you won't make enemies by not helping people. At least not in this season, where nobody left is really that petty. Look how quickly they dropped the "Dave and Chris hate each other" thread. Dave exposits that he's "going to keep SOME credibility... but not ALL of it." You know, like most reality TV contestants.

Wait. That's dignity. Never mind.

Unfortunately, the re-appearance of the lotto results turns up over the subtitled answer the knight-y jester-y guy gives when the Lucys ask him where the clue is, but it sounds like he's saying, "What you're looking for is over there." He confirms that "it's over there on the left side", but this does not stop the Lucys from walking off in exactly the wrong direction -- not only away from the clue, but off the bridge entirely. I'm beginning to understand where they keep losing time. The jester makes a "Eh. What do you expect me to do about it?" face to the camera.

Split-screen to the convent, we arrive just before Melana does. Mel explains that, "For some reason, we thought, 'Surely it just must be around the corner that we have to carry this little princess'. Beautiful little thing." With a pause to allow the editors to splice in some footage of them actually lifting the litter for the first time and realising it's not going to be as easy as the clue made it sound, she continues, "But I hate her." As they very slowly begin to move, Mel tells us that the pain was instant and "excruciating". Part of the problem, I think, is that there's only two people lifting these. Every other time I've seen something like this, it always seems like there's four buff men balancing a pole each on their shoulders. With only two people, the only way to carry it is with your arms locked, and the pain in that position would have been absolutely horrible. This really probably would have been a better task for an Intersection, but I suppose they can't risk having the "princesses" tipped out onto their skulls or something. Of course, every time I've seen one of these in the past it's been holding St. Kylie of Minogue inside it, but still. Mel continues to rant, voicing over that she's not sure "how two chicks can lift a million kilos like that".

It's a good thing Bambi has Chris then. They -- or at least Bambi -- seems to be struggling a bit also, but when Wallace and Grommet arrive they correctly realise that it won't take as long and therefore won't be as exhausting if they manage to walk faster. Despite their decision to bring torn jeans on the race, they're really racing pretty well. Which is annoying, because they're so fucking boring it's taken me until Monday morning to get to this point of the recap and we've still got half an episode left to cover. Medieval horns kick in to show firstly Wallace and Grommet powering past the others, then Chris and Bambi passing Melana. Bambi's doing surprisingly well considering it seems to be a task designed without female contestants in mind, working quickly but being willing to take short breaks when she needs to. And Chris doesn't yell at her for not being A Man, either, so his total point score is almost above absolute zero again. But overall it's not a very interesting task, to be honest. I mean, right now there is carrying and then there is resting. And then there is carrying and then there is resting.

I kind of like that they didn't feel like it would be unfair to put a task that would be easier for men to finish into the race, simply because I'm over how much they've adapted the American version of the race in order to finally get an all-female team to win. Instead of changing the race? Cast better. Don't get me wrong, thinking tasks and the like are also great, but a pure brute-force task like this is very welcome every once in a while. When you have too much of the same types of task in a season, you get teams like Eric & Jeremy and Nick & Starr running away with it. Eric & Jeremy got physical task after physical task during their season, as well as a shitload of needle-in-a-haystack challenges, and most of the remaining tasks were as simple as "throw a ball over there" and "jump off a diving board", but it's not a coincidence that they blew the race on the final challenge of the season, which happened to be a mental one. Nick & Starr, on the other hand, won seven out of eleven legs in their season. In the remaining four, they pretty much lost three due to bad taxi drivers, and the fourth was the only self-driving leg in the entire season. (It's also worth noting that while they were smart and fast runners, one of those four legs happened to have a very physical Road Block, which Nick sucked at.) I'd almost count Meghan and Cheyne as one of the teams who dominated their race -- winning seven legs out of twelve -- but take a look at the legs they won. Two of the seven legs ended with a random-luck Road Block (the Japanese gameshow leg and the Don Giovanni leg), they won one leg by virtue of being fourth to sign-up for bunched elevator trips to the cluebox where the Fast Forward clue was given out, two legs had no bunching at all and came right after legs they'd won (in fact, one of them would have been the first leg in history with no position changes had one team not decided that unscrambling a five letter word was too hard), and it's since been confirmed that a judge at the final task miscounted another team's poker chips when they'd had the right amount. In other words, they only really won one leg based on their actual skills. Wallace and Grommet have also done very well -- before this leg, the only times they'd been outside the top three teams to finish a task were the fans and the baccarat (both luck-based tasks) and the money-counting -- but there seems to be a wider variety of tasks here than there was in those seasons, so it feels like they're good at everything instead of getting tasks that are right up their alley all the time.

While Wallace and Grommet switch positions to deal with the "awkward weight", while Melana stand around with their hands on their hips, hoping for the princess to thrust herself to the castle, inch by inch. Nearby, Chris asks a local guy for directions and gets told that it's so far away they'll have to cross a bridge, and that it'll take them "half an hour" carrying the litter. Of course, given Chris is holding a map you'd think either he or Bambi would have had the forethought to take a look before hand to see how far it is. It's not like they don't know where they need to go.

Speaking of bridges, let's head back to the Lucys. They come up with the bright idea to break the fourth wall by asking a Canadian-sounding tourist "where our thing is". The camera shot hides what's actually happening, but it seems clear to me that they've basically held up a clue envelope (with the words "The Amazing Race" printed on it) just because while they're allowed to tell people they're in a race, they can't tell them they're on THE race. She tells them exactly where to find the clue, and they pick Public Humiliation. The two remaining teams both notice them grabbing the clue, and follow. The farmers are up for some Public Humiliation, while Hallmark take advantage of their big arms by choosing Public Herniation. In their cab on the wat to the task, Matt makes another "Look how straight I am!" comment, and Tom remains quiet but makes an "If only they knew..." smile.

Mel drops the back end of the litter, while Alana checks on the girl inside, noting, "She's holding on for dear life." Understandable. Wallace, on the other hand, feels the need to chide their girl for her weight. Because that will help them get her to the "palace" faster. He also blames her for their struggles in a confessional, not realising that the bulk of the difficulty in this challenge is in the position they're carrying her and in how strong the wood needs to be to make sure the person inside doesn't collapse through the floor. They didn't make these litters out of balsa, you know. Bambi also struggles, and Chris tells her to rub them on a nearby wall to "make 'em rough". How will that help? By making callouses? This isn't like sewing a patchwork quilt. Melana finish taking a break and manage to travel a total distance of one step before Mel has to switch positions.

The Lucys arrive at the Old Town Square and begin looking for the armour. Having no luck finding it, they switch to Public Herniation. Sam reads the clue and realises they're going to need a taxi, but Renae decides to ask a guy on the street if he knows where it is. He asks them in German if they speak German (helpfully subtitled in German by the editors, because it's too much work to actually translate foreign languages into English), causing Renae to blow him off saying, "I can't understand you, sorry. I don't speak Dutch." If only they were still in Amsterdam. And had someone on their team with, say, some Nederlander heritage. On her father's side. Renae explains in a confessional that "Prague's a beautiful city, it's just, um, people don't really speak much English, and it kind of frustrates you." They manage to browbeat a taxi driver who isn't free to take them.

Prague has old buildings. And that same road we saw in the last set of stock shots.

Dave and Kelly have found the armoury, and begin getting suited up with the help of a bunch of larger guys in peasant outfits. The farmers rock up before they're fully kitted out, but they still leave first. Dave advises Kelly to "keep [her] legs apart a bit" to avoid an uncomfortable situation. Does he know something about her we don't? Kelly complains, "I'm walking like I've just given birth to something large." Congratulations, it's a Dave! Presumably SuperDad and Luke will each give them a set of greeting cards at the next Pit Stop. They waddle on down to the Old Town Square and begin asking people whether they have the key. Kelly decides to be politically correct and ask a guy with a cane and a guide dog if he has it, but Dave points out that he's blind. Unfortunately, he's not deaf.

The farmers explain in a confessional that their sole reason for picking Public Humiliation was the excuse to get dressed up as knights in shining armour. (SETTLE DOWN, LUKE.) Matt sprints down the street unimpeded by his armour, while Tom's running still becomes even swishier than usual. Both teams continue to search the locals in the crowded square for the keymaster, but neither have any real luck. Dave explains that they "must have asked a couple of thousand tourists", because nothing is more cultural to Prague than people visiting from other countries, and Kelly exposits, "They all thought we were idiots." I'm fairly certain it's not just the people in this square who think that. The farmers run up to a couple getting their photos taken for a wedding, learn that they don't have the key either, and Matt poses for a photo with them anyway. It's not quite a drunken uncle (especially considering we're no longer in Amsterdam), but it has a certain charm.

Hallmark are arriving at the convent to pick up their girl, and seem to be fine with the carrying. Melana are also managing to walk at a reasonable pace... until Mel literally drops the back of their litter. They whine about how they should have done the other task. HOW DARE THE PRODUCERS TRICK YOU INTO DOING A TASK! While Hallmark continue to carry their girl without any dramas or comedies or tragedies or anything even remotely interesting, Alana points out that they've spent too much time on this task to make it a good idea to switch tasks, and has to explain to Mel that the men are having less trouble with the task because they're stronger. Well, she says, "Because they're boys", but there are many guys I know -- and, I'm sure, many guys you know -- who couldn't handle the task. As if to mock the idea that someone is doing better at the task because they have an inbuilt rudder, the editors cut to Bambi telling Chris to walk faster. Heh. Chris might have moments of assholery, but Bambi definitely has enough chutzpah to hold her own.

Sam & Renae are running towards the convent and come across Hallmark carrying their litter. The Lucys ask Hallmark for directions, and then run off in completely the wrong way. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm beginning to sense a theme. In a confessional, Renae blames Hallmark because "they pointed the other direction". This is despite SuperDad and Luke both having their hands full, and despite Luke clearly saying, "Back out that way", referring to... you know, the direction they came from. They're nice guys, but they didn't carry the girl around the block just because she wanted a ride. Sam bitches, "They definitely led us astray", and sarcastically adds a few seconds later, "Good work, boys!" Noticing the girls ignoring their directions, Hallmark drops their litter and Luke tries to call out to Renae, but it's no use. He confessionals, "I don't know what street they were running down and why, but the direction I gave them was 'THIS way, and over THERE'", before pointing out that they're not here to be assholes. Well, SuperDad isn't, at least. And Luke's not here to be THAT kind of asshole. Renae tells Sam, "Obviously they came from where they were going", and... huh?

Old Town Square. Wallace and Grommet arrive, the former calling it "quite a mission" as they drop off their girl, and claiming that his arms were so "dead" he could barely open the clue envelope the girl gives them to reveal this week's Road Block. It doesn't stop him from being the One Team Member performing the task even though the hint asks "Whose aim is true?" Apparently, he's expecting the task to be artificially inseminating pheasants or some other typically Medieval animal. Instead, because the producers couldn't get that past Seven's censors, the task requires teams to get themselves to a "Medieval village", where Grant is walking past a tent like you'd see at a Renaissance fair, except a couple of hundred years more out of date (and yes, even I'm getting sick of having to finger-quote this episode). The village's presence would almost be believable, were it not for the fact that it's been positioned in exactly the same place as the final Pit Stop of The Amazing Race 15 (Strelecky Island, which was also seen in The Amazing Race Asia 2), and were it not for us currently living in the twenty-first century. Anyway, the person doing the task has to use a bow and arrows to hit a target twice to get the next clue from a guy who looks like Bill Bailey. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, you've got to do it "using no more than 40 arrows" (although Grant makes no effort to explain what happens if you don't), and the actual target is much smaller than a normal target (with just the bullseye and the four inner rings surrounding it), and if they hit the NAB logo in the middle, they'll receive a fifty-dollar bonus on what is clearly a prop credit card that will be replaced with some actual cash at the next Pit Stop. It seems odd that they would come up with the idea of having teams deliberately fire deadly projectiles at their sponsor's logo, but my only real opposition to it is that it's making what was otherwise a fairly decent Road Block seem unnecessarily complicated. It may just be because I watched the last season of The Amazing Race Asia and was sick of stupid random penalties about halfway into the second episode (if that), but I find the 40-arrows restriction far more irritating. There's no reason to have teams face mandatory time delays when it's far more interesting just to let them keep trying the task until they finish it. If it's been added because the arrows were too expensive to buy hundreds of on the chance they'll never be used? Hire someone to retrieve them at regular intervals. It's not like there aren't plenty of extras milling around. There's no reason to ruin what would have otherwise been a decent task like this.

Also? There are no flying watermelons.

While Wallace and Grommet head off in search of a cab, Melana have had to stop again. With Mel's arm literally "twinging" in agony and her "ready just to forfeit", she whines about how the producers are forcing her to do this. Alana reminds her that they could have experienced some Public Humiliation instead, and refuses to switch tasks because it means they'd have to carry the girl all the way back to the convent before they can start again. Mel points out that they can just quit the entire race and not have to, but Alana basically tells her to suck it up and deal. (Australia: "About fucking time.") They learn from a local that their final destination is basically just down the road, but Mel still thinks they "can't do it". Alana pointedly asks her if she wants to quit. Oh noes! What will happen?!

Commercials. It's currently 5:17pm on Monday, a few hours before the next episode airs. I'd like to thank Channel Seven for ruining the ending in their EPG listing for the following episode. Fuck you, Seven. This show shouldn't be hard to advertise, and yet you've done such a bad job with this season I'm seriously considering boycotting you and watching everything for the first time as I recap. It's not like I watch anything else on your crappy network.

Mel is still complaining about being unable to finish the task, but she and Alana soon realise that, to quote from one of my favourite teams ever, "It doesn't say how ya gotta do it, it just said 'do it'!" More specifically, the clue for the Detour (which we were shown twice, and which Kelly read part of aloud) reads as follows: "Locate the young Princess at St. Agnes Convent and use the Royal Sedan Chair to deliver her to The Kinsky Palace in the Old Town Square. Once successfully and safely delivered, the..." Note that at no point does it say they must lift the litter or physically carry it. Therefore, Melana decide to both move to the front and use a handle each to drag the litter down the street. Mel brags, "Dragging it was a thousand times easier." Of course it was. Occam was lying. Meanwhile, Luke has to rub some feeling back into SuperDad's arms (the first time he's touched a guy like that while either of them was wearing clothes) to get him to finish. But before they move another step, Luke lends their girl his jacket so she can keep warm. Awwww. Helping People Is Fun! SuperDad explains in a confessional that it had been a couple of days since they'd been able to wash their clothes, "so she may not have liked the way they smelled". I suspect the bigger problem is that to pick the litter up again, Luke has to basically wave his arse a foot away from her face. Or as he would call it back home, "Thursday".

The Lucys have finally arrived at the convent to pick up their litter. They struggle immediately, and Renae explains that she just has to mention Sam's ex to make her pissed, but I have almost twenty minutes of episode left to recap, the next episode finished an hour and a half ago, the Detour tasks aren't great, and most of the teams still Detouring aren't very interesting (especially since Tom and Luke are doing different tasks), so I'm pretty much just going to skip over the remainder of it, since I've discussed it enough already, right? Thanks for understanding.

Chris and Bambi finish. Bambi explains that they "had no stress whatsoever on this Detour, unlike a lot of the other Detours we've had to do." I am shocked but impressed the editors manage to refrain from including a flashback to Winegate. Chris takes the Road Block, being quite good at shooting off. (NOT LIKE THAT, TOM.)

Dave & Kelly have finally found the guy with their key, who is basically wearing a trenchcoat and a lesbian-stereotype hat. Next stop: Finding the Prince. Elsewhere in the square, Matt & Tom try to "widen" their hunt by asking a random old guy if he has the key, but the guy says something in Czech (not subtitled) that sounds like he's basically accusing them of being Hungarian.

Wallace and Grommet have arrived at the Road Block, and he begins firing. It's only now I realise that their fugly hairhelmets have been covered up by some even fuglier beanies. I am the most observant recapper ever. Amidst random Travel Porn that comes across as fake as most porn acting, they find the archery range without much trouble, and Grommet immediately begins trying to backseat drive. Or backseat fire or whatever the right term is. He's being a bossy little prick, is my point. Wallace's first shot soars underneath the target, and we learn for the first time that instead of using some bad clipart like the American version would do, we're getting a simple 0/2 to show how well they're doing. His second arrow also misses, but the third hits the second ring from the outside.

Dave & Kelly find the Prince and get their clue from the damsel, Dave correctly pointing out that this task is basically a bad riff on Rapunzel. I can't wait for the Goldilocks Road Block. But knowing this show, it seems more likely they'll have a volume-eating challenge where they'll have to eat an entire gingerbread house. He also correctly predicts that the task is archery, and takes it.

Wallace gets his second hit, landing just millimetres away from the bullseye. Grommet tells him that since they've got a handy lead, they might as well use up a few more of their arrows trying to get the bonus money before they leave. Wallace re-explains this in a confessional, helpfully and spontaneously putting in a plug for the sponsors (which I suppose is good, considering how all their customers' money is going down the drain), but gives it a couple more shots before bailing. I'm sure you're all very disappointed the strong not-ugly guys who've been winning everything failed to win the bonus, aren't you? One, two, three.... Awwmovingon. The clue reads: "Make your way to the next Pit Stop. Warning: The last team to arrive may end up in the dungeon." I hope they got some additional informaton that told them where the Pit Stop actually, you know, is. I mean, Grant explains to us that it's at the Prague Castle (which makes it the fifth Pit Stop out of six that's also been a Pit Stop on another version, with only the elephant park being new) and all, but they can't hear him. The same medieval horns from the train ride re-tootle to announce that "the last team to arrive here MAY be eliminated."

The farmers get their key, and believe the only reason they struggle to find the damsel is because "[they] couldn't look up in [their] armour". But they still manage to find her, so clearly at least one of them is used to bending over backwards or something. Matt takes the Road Block, but feels the need to lift his helmet up so the camera can confirm he'll be doing the task.

Chris and Bambi are at the Road Block. After his misses the first time, she tells him to "just aim". Ah! So the clue wasn't misleading! In a confessional she tells us, "It really sort of came down to technique, which, funnily enough, I did some archery back in Year 5." Well, of course. Grommet probably wet his pants in Year 2, but we haven't had THAT as a Road Block yet. (Give it time though, they're running out of excuses to justify laughing locals.) When she tells him he needs to hold his front arm straight and flex with the back one, he cheerfully snarks that perhaps she should have done this. And considering it's his fourth Road Block out of six, meaning she's got to do four out of the last six now, maybe he's right. I mean, they can't possibly have even more lame first-come-first-served adventure-sports Road Blocks coming, right? On the other hand, she would have had to resist the temptation to deliberately avoid the target. A few misses later, he is told to think positively and get rid of "all the negative energy". The music reaches a hissing climax, right before he... misfires and somehow gets the arrow to flip around before dropping to the ground right in front of him. Does that count as an attempt? I'm not sure.

Melana are still struggling, but SuperDad & Luke are done. Luke relishes the opportunity to pierce something with some nice long wood (SETTLE DOWN, TOM), and takes the task.

Chris hits the very top of the target, and at the exact point the arrow embeds itself in the target we get a "DING!" sound effect, the score changes to 1/2, and we get that shot of him cheering that's been in every pretty much every preview clip this season, ruining the tension about if, say, their lost key last week was going to cause them to get eliminated.

At the Pit Stop, Grant is waiting with this week's greeter. Now, with the whole medieval vibe they're going for, you'd expect it to be, say, a proper knight or a CGI dragon or maybe a bad Shakespeare impersonator, right? (Don't laugh, he's no less tied to the culture of Prague than any of the other tasks in this episode.) Well, no. It's a random model in a black catsuit. Not surprisingly, given nobody else is even on their way yet, we're here for the arrival of Wallace and Grommet as Team Number One, and for their receipt of the same Kathmandu shooping spree prize they narrowly missed out on in the footrace back in the first South Africa leg. In a post-leg confessional they're proud of their win, Wallace vowing to "take out the next leg too, I suppose". If I know my television, that's either Foreshadowing that they'll win the next leg and make the season even more boring than it's rapidly becoming with the elimination of most of the interesting teams one by one, or Foreshadowing that they'll flame out spectacularly and be eliminated on the next leg, and I'm not sure which.

Chris is down to just having six arrows left, and is freaking out. But more importantly, with my copy of the episode paused where it is, Nick looks exactly like a tanned version of Dr. Nick Riviera. Yeah, maybe the freakout is justified.

Commercials. You know, a couple of months ago I would have told you I was collecting all the Doctor Who DVDs for the sake of completeness. At least the new series, anyway. But now that I'm getting much closer to having the only real vacancies being the volumes with the "farting aliens in Downing Street" and "Daleks helping erect the Empire State Building" two-parters, I'm not so sure.

Chris tells us that with Bambi helping him he was thinking something along the lines of "I used to say I and me, now it's us, now it's we", right before he gets the second arrow. And it's a bullseye, so he also gets free money. Hooray! (Part of this enthusiasm may just be because he's away from the deadly weapons before the other teams arrive, I'll grant you, but still. Good for them.) He continues, "We hit that target. It was not me alone." Will they get a penalty for him not doing it on his own, then? Bambi explains that "this challenge proved that we can actually make it through challenges without screaming and getting frustrated at each other". Have they even raised their voices to each other once this week? It seems like surely they're the first Couple On The Race To Test Their Doomed Relationship to actually manage to repair it. The peasant gives them their clue, as well as the NAB card. It sure is lucky they had credit cards back in the Middle Ages.

Seriously, how slow is Prague traffic? This is the third time we've seen this exact shot now.

Matt and Tom are in a cab, and Matt posits, "If I can't hit this thing twice in five arrows, we're useless." Awwww, don't be hard on yourselves. Well, not you, at least. We already know what makes Tom hard. Arriving at the fake village, his first arrow pierces the easel supporting the smaller target they've got to hit, so it doesn't count. Tom tells us, "The wind was definitely going the wrong way, the bow was definitely bent, I think we just got the dud batch of arrows." Were it not for the fact that I used the same exact line in last week's recap, I'd point out that there are no bent arrows, just bent shooters, but that's really more a comment on how repetitive the tasks in this race have been. Ignoring the tasks in the next episode, the tasks have been pretty similar throughout the season. We've had three "carry this item in some unorthodox local method" Detours (produce in Lombok, chickens in Hue, and the girls here), three adventure-sports Road Blocks (abseiling in Melbourne, bungy jumping and skydiving in South Africa), two "use the clues to arrange these items in a specific order" Road Blocks (coins in Hue and lanterns in Macau), and three tasks in three consecutive episodes where the basic skill is "How good are you with weapons?", four in four if you count the kung fu tile-breaking in Macau (as well as the knopkieries and guns in South Africa and this task). Unless this is for some stupid race-memory task, it's just bad planning.

Dave & Kelly arrive, and Matt still hasn't hit the target even once. Useless! Kelly and Tom watch on as they both perform the task, spending more time talking to each other than actually shooting, it seems. Dave hits the bonus bullseye, while Tom tells us how "it got a little nailbiting" as Matt continued to hit everywhere on the support easel except for the target itself.

Melana have arrived at the end of the Detour with their litter, and while Mel asks a local where the Narodni Galerie is, Alana points out that they're standing right next to the building. The camera zooms out to show it even has a labelled facade, so we've officially had enough Right Here, You Idiots camera shots to last us for the rest of the season. They finish dragging their girl into place. Clue! Mel bitches in response to Alana explaining about her newfound inner strength or whatever, "When are you the motivational one? LET ME GIVE UP!", not realising that she's basically the human personification of a demotivational poster, and Alana is a lolcat by comparison. Alana takes the Road Block because of Mel's apparent arm injury, but why are they even considering it? If Mel does this one, then Alana has to do five out of the last six, and that's not a position any team would ever put themselves in.

Hallmark arrive and Luke gets one with his first arrow. I'm impressed. And so is Tom, probably. Matt, on the other hand, can't even get his final arrow prepared before misfiring, so... you know, so much for "five arrows". Dave hits the target again and gets ready to leave, but not before Matt has to beg him to let him use his spare arrows to avoid the penalty. Dave refuses, and... good for him. I like the farmers and barely tolerate Dave, but when the task says "using no more than 40 arrows", you shouldn't get to avoid the penalty by having other teams help you. What would have happened if Wallace ran out? Or Chris? There was nobody else here when they finished. Do they get punished unfairly for not being in a position where they're able to beg for spare arrows? It seems like a loophole in the task design that shouldn't be there. Either make a new penalty for failing that's much smaller (half an hour would probably do) than the penalty for quitting the task, since they're two separate things and one is definitely less desirable in contestants who get cast than the other, or better yet get rid of the penalty entirely and just structure the tasks so that teams try until they succeed, no matter how long it takes. Luke hits the bullseye to finish the task, and SuperDad brags in a confessional about how "he was really awesome at it". Oh, great. Now that people's parents are using the word awesome it has to officially be retired from the lexicon of today's youth. (Also retired: Shindig. Dy-no-mite. Half of the made-up swear words from Farscape.) Matt begs him for some arrows. Since "there was going to be very little chances for Matt after that [sic]" and if they get eliminated Luke won't get to spend more time with Tom, he gives Matt his spare arrows. All thirty-something of them. Matt only needs "about six" to get both of his hits, though, so now it's a tight race again. And if he'd had a four-hour penalty, that wouldn't have been the case. Just putting it out there. Tom laughs, "I thought he'd do a little better than 46 arrows."

Crowds mill around at Prague Castle for the Changing of the Guard. But that's not important. What is important is that Chris and Bambi are Team Number Two, the former managing to run onto the mat backwards in a way that doesn't look contrived. (Fucking hippies.)

The Lucys are done, and it appears even the editors are sick of the Detour. Sam volunteers Renae for the Road Block. Heh.

Melana are busy arriving at said Road Block. Alana tells us, "For one of the first times on this race, I felt really confident stepping into that Road Block." Which is convenient because it's one of her first Road Blocks, too. After waiting for some geese to pass, she begins shooting, realising that she's "getting bloody close to the blue". Yes, but close doesn't get you the clue, dear.

Dave & Kelly are getting on a tram. Inside, he explains that "the taxis have robbed [them] blind." While the farmers and Hallmark both rush for cabs, it looks like Dave & Kelly disembark pretty quickly and begin walking. All three teams close in on the Pit Stop in a surprisingly uninteresting footrace, or maybe it's just suffering because the rest of the episode has felt remarkably dull for a city with such rich history. I liked the way they dealt with the Amsterdam visit earlier in the epsiode, but it would have been more fun to see a season run by someone who isn't Dutch tackle the Netherlands for an episode (if you're not aware, the executive producer of the American version was born and grew up in the country) than to sit through an episode of boring medieval-themed tasks. And it's not like Amsterdam doesn't have scenery of its own.

Anyway, Hallmark arrive first in this footrace, and right after Grant checks them in as Team Number Three, the farmers sprint in and nearly bowl them over to get on The Amazing Bathmat. They're officially fourth, and while Tom remains disinterested when Jeff pats his back, the moment Luke and Matt quit celebrating together he's over there feeling up Luke's biceps. Awww, he's just like me, except with a hat that would look decent on television. Dave & Kelly? Fifth.

Back at the Road Block, the Lucys have arrived. Alana gets her first arrow, a bullseye, and has to check whether it counts. There's more firing, and more locals watching on pretending this is all very interesting, and then Renae gets a hit of her own. Alana suddenly notices she's almost out of arrows, and there's nobody here she can beg from, since surely Renae won't give her any when they're struggling not to finish last. Hey, look, actual tension! Kind of!

Commercials. Eurovision: The greatest eleventeen hours of teleprompter fuckups every year.

We teleport back to before Renae got her first hit, or so the graphics state. This does not stop Mel from claiming that she deliberately tried not to pressure Alana, or stop the Lucys from getting their clue when she hits their target again. Sam is confused by the "the last team to arrive may end up in the dungeon" bit replacing the usual "the last team to arrive may be eliminated" bit.

Somehow, Alana grabs what is clearly her last arrow from its holder, but when we cut to the next shot (where she gets her second arrow in) there's quite a few left in it. I think what happened here is that they were basically kept here until the Lucys had checked in at the Pit Stop, then told to finish the task properly for the sake of television, so it didn't look like they were getting eliminated by penalty. Not to spoil the ending of the episode or anything. But you've all seen and/or found a torrent for the show by now and know what happens, right? In a solo confessional, Mel says, "Alana was fantastic today. I love it when she goes and she takes control and I can see that little lion inside her go 'Raahhh!'". Yes, because all lions sound like angry tabby cats.

And now for another cab race. Actually, we really haven't seen much of teams in vehicles this season with how the episodes are so filled with tasks. I'm not opposed to the idea of exhausting teams with tasks, but if they either cut out one random task each week (and it's not like there isn't one random task each week that seems to serve no purpose and isn't very entertaining) or made all the episodes 90 minutes so we could get some more footage of stuff like this, we could finally learn why the Lucys keep burning time all over the place or have a reason for why Hallmark can't get ahead of the other all-male teams that isn't "because Luke likes being behind". While Alana is happy with how they're finally working together, Mel deadpans, "I'm happy. Not so happy if we have to spend the night in the dungeon."

Grant and the greeter, who surely must be cold by now, wait at the Pit Stop as the Lucys run up. Gee, there's a shocker. They're Team Number Six. Sad music kicks in as Melana slowly jog up to the mat to be eliminated. Mel explains that their basic goal was just to "make it past the first leg", so clearly they've never seen any of Michael McKay's races before, then. Of the five he produced before this, the only one without a non-elimination in the first episode was the one right after he was being criticised for making the race too easy on teams. They're very proud of themselves, as they should be. I mean, they were obviously never going to beat Hallmark or Wallace and Grommet, but with how hard the race normally is (and how hard this race has been on top of that), any team that survived four eliminations didn't fluke their success. Were it not for FBA's Fast Forward win, they would have won the Macau leg, so it's not like they were bad racers, but this is more of a "we raced well, they raced better" elimination than an "it's our fault we lost" elimination, and it's really not too often we get that situation happening any more. In their final confessional, Alana explains that they hadn't lived together for a while, "at least not in the last decade", so they won't need to see each other again for another ten years. While Alana closes by saying that they've gotten what they wanted out of the race -- to be able to work together -- Mel instead claims their big goal was for Alana to stop being so useless. Fitting.

Next week: More racing, but it's 3:00am and I've just recapped thirty minutes of episode since I woke up yesterday morning and this is one of the longest one-hour recaps I've ever done and I don't particularly care at thisssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.