Afterwards, everyone expressed sorrow for Bilal and Sa'eed's unexpected departure, but the sadness lasted all of two seconds as we powered on with the race the next morning. Teams had to ride in a sidecar and direct their driver on a motorbike to North Bank Road for the next clue. But before we could get going on this leg of the race, we needed to take a look at a leg in the race (see what I did there? I used leg in two different ways!). Yes, there were problems with Sarah's prosthetic leg: it was leaking hydraulic fluid -- a problem that Mr. Superman Prosthetic Maker Peter couldn't fix (as evidenced in what may have been the series' first ever black-and-white flashback sequence). The good news was that Sarah could still run on her artificial limb. The bad news was that it was a hell of a lot harder. Either way, it didn't really matter because she and Peter arrived at the next clue first, and guess what? It was the first Detour of the season! Oh glorious revelation!

For this Detour, teams had to choose between "Labor" or "Leisure." In "Labor," duos had to choose a pedicab, go to a market, and use traditional Chinese bricks and methods to pave a forty-five square foot portion of sidewalk with a set pattern. The trick was that the obvious brick pattern was surrounded by a border of larger slabs that was easy to overlook.

In "Leisure," teams had to choose a pedicab and travel two miles to a park where they'd have to participate in a relaxation exercise in unison to receive the next clue. What they didn't know was that the relaxation exercise involved balancing a ball on a paddle, a difficult task for uncoordinated jerks like me.

Well, most everyone opted to do "Labor," and sure enough, everyone overlooked the gray bricks that needed to be laid down first. As a result, no one's patterns fit the designated areas properly -- just another ingenious complication on behalf of the producers. I have to admit that it was slightly awesome watching all the teams struggle to figure out what the hell to do. But sadly, the party came to an end, as it will often, when the sober models showed up. The guys quickly realized there was another set of bricks to be used, and soon everyone followed their lead, effectively ending the parade of myopia.

Meanwhile, the Cheerleaders and the gay guys (remember them?) decided to buck the trend and go for Leisure, which could only lead to exciting things. And as for Vipul and Arti, well, somehow they managed to drive their sidecar off to the Gobi desert or something because next thing we knew, they were completely lost. I don't know how they managed to do this -- everyone else seemed to find the Detour just fine, but as we went to commercial, it became clear that they were far, far away from the other teams. Our lovable Indian-Americans in peril! Say it ain't so!

The good news for them was that they did manage to get directions, but they were still stuck in last place and showed no signs of catching up. At the front of the pack, Tyler and James completed the Detour and learned their next destination: take a taxi to Juyongguan where they'd find the Pit Stop -- or as I like to call it, the place where people should be eliminated.

Funny thing about this Pit Stop: it was located on the Great Wall of China, and in order for teams to reach it, they'd have to scale a wall -- another nice touch. Well, the models zipped off to the Pit Stop with Peter and Sarah not far behind. As soon as they were gone, the single-moms commenced another bitch session, amusingly complaining that Peter "tries to micromanage so much..." Bring on the hatred!

While Lyn and Karlyn struggled with their pattern (and this was after they learned of the twist), Sarah and Peter took over someone's taxi, saying that they had an emergency and pointing to her artificial leg. Ah so. They're that kind of team. Consider my empathy used up. What's next? Will Sarah sneak onto a plane by saying she needs to see "El Doctoro?"

Unfortunately for the junkie models, they had no fake limbs to use to their advantage, and as a result, no taxis wanted to stop for them. Oh well. Off to the opium dens!

Back at the Detour, a second wave of Labor folk tried to figure out the pattern, and since everyone from the first round had already left, we now got to re-live all the excitement as teams once again overlooked the gray bricks. This time around, the hillbillies and Robberly found themselves duped by the challenge, and just as you'd expect, much bickering was had by all. Rob in particular bristled at Kimberly's nagging ways, telling us he simply didn't like her when they "take tones with each other." Dammit, he's a human being! Human beings don't take tones with other human beings! Only monsters do that!!! And that's what they were: AWFUL AWFUL MONSTERS!!! By the way, it's official: I think they're Kimberob now.

Elsewhere in the city, the Kellie and Jamie cheered (literally) their pedicab driver, and just behind them, Tom and Terry took their lead and joined in. Goodbye communism. Hello cheerocracy!

The two teams finally arrived at the Leisure challenge and immediately got to work attempting the relaxation exercise, which meant we got to see lots of silly antics involving balls flying everywhere. But enough about Tom and Terry (rimshot!).

Posted by B-side on September 18, 2006 10:19 PM