TAR: Taipei casting

We have our finalists and whoever would have guessed that the two intergenerational teams would have made it this far?

We know hippies and bickering weasels have an uncanny knack for doing well but how long has it been since a [grand]parent/child hasn't bit the big one within the first four episodes?

The most deliciously wicked part was that Nate and Jen's terrible leg happened on her birthday. Congrats on getting one year older. It's a pity your emotional maturity is still that of a twelve-year-old.

Big in Japan

Japan is the land of progress and technology, but not of maintenance and repair. The first destination was a building with a great big hole in the middle of it, for Pete's sake. With all they spend on giant mechanized cyborgs and schoolgirl outfits, it's no wonder they can't afford to get that hole fixed.

The teams had to find something called the floating observatory, which was located at the top of the building. Something called a floating observatory would tend to be somewhere in the air, wouldn't it? The most challenging part of this task (for most teams, that is) was the elevator ride up, if Nate's screams of ecstasy were anything to go by.

TK and Rachel got off to a very bad start to their Speedbump-threatened leg by not only starting three hours behind everyone else but having difficulty in finding the first clue. Rachel had a feeling it was somewhere in the gardens surrounding the building while TK just wanted to get as high as possible. Typical.

While the Hippies faffed about in the building, the other teams were already well on their way to the airport. The next destination was the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, or Tip-pie as Jen called it. How can you think of pies at a time like this, Jen? Focus!

Chris was confident of her and Ronald's chances at making the final three. "We're smarter than Nicolas and Don, and Nate and Jen," she announced. I don't know about the Nicolas and Don part but Nate and Jen were more than happy to prove her point. "We know nothing about Taiwan but we really love Thai food," Jen said. That faint sound you hear is Jen's high school geography teacher popping open a bottle of vodka.

Playing dumb

Chris wasn't content merely to own Nate and Jen in the general knowledge stakes. She finagled herself a couple of tickets on the best flight to Taiwan and convinced the woman at the counter to play dumb about that flight to Nate and Jen.

Nate and Jen were suspicious, possibly because Chris was grinning like she'd just learned the secret ingredient in Coca-Cola. Jen wondered if Chris was up to something but Chris claimed innocence with all the sincerity of a bad politician. Nate and Jen believed her because of the aforementioned Chris-is-smarter-than-them thing.

Jen lamented how Ronald and Chris were always one step ahead of them. I'll say. Nate and Jen are like Elmer Fudd without the speech impediment.

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