The split screen crap is starting to burn my corneas and Msaada explains that each team will have to get from Point A to Point B. Theo then busts in with, "We're fugitives on the run from the lahw." Andy goes on to list rules, give them maps, and explain that they'll have two hours to get to a certain bell tower before the cops and dogs, leaving after a fifteen-minute head start by the kids, can catch them. There will also be a helicopter aiding with the pursuit. If one team makes it, the kids will get the six thousand dollars. If no one makes it, they get no money. Msaada and Theo tells us the exact same shit, Theo telling us, "If nobody makes it, no money, no nuskins [sic]." By the way he trails off, I think, here, rather than trying to be funny with the "nuskins," Theo was trying to say something else he thought might be funny, but his few synapses misfired and this is what came out. Everyone expresses concern about finishing the mission, and about being scared of the dogs. Theo sort of redeems himself, after Andy introduces the dogs, by saying, "The faster you run through the hills, the less you bleed in the dog's mouth." Everyone laughs, if only because they're surprised that for once he's at least making partial sense. It must be like living with a Tourette's sufferer. You never know what to totally ignore, and what to actually listen to. Split-screen mayhem. Really bad sound edits. Multiple shots of dogs. Andy tells the kids to check their watches, since they'll only have fifteen minutes to start out before the cops and dogs come after them...And they're off!

There are suddenly eleven screens open on the TV with shots of leaves and the orange-jumpsuited kids taking off and my nineteen-inch Quasar actually begs me to kick it off its stand. Holly quickly falls; James picks her up, mock-screaming at her. They're so not going to make it. Meanwhile, the cops confer as if it's a real manhunt, showing photos of the kids and describing how much of a head start they've gotten. Kathryn slides down a hill and holds her elbow, groaning dramatically. B/M plays fast and loose with time as within ten TV seconds, not fifteen minutes, the cops and dogs are after the kids. Holly and James fall and get stuck around a three-foot-high tree for an hour. James says "dude" a lot. Foiled by a shrub: If this were real they'd be shot and killed before ever escaping. Theo and Msaada walk, but B/M has no use for them if they're not making funny statements or explaining things to the audience, so we quickly cut away from them. Back to Kathryn and Laterrian as floaty K tells us, "The first thing we decide is that zip tie has to go." They cut the zip tie binding their legs together with a rock. Kathryn pisses B/M off by talking directly to the cameraman, whispering for him to be quiet about this seeming mission illegality. Meanwhile, Holly and James, having (I think) seen Kathryn and Laterrian, also lose their foot bindings. They run down a road. Back to Theo and Msaada. It's very strange and/or stupid as we see a shot of them...with someone in black not thirty feet behind them. Either it's a cop trying to let the mission last longer and merely tag them out later, or a B/M flunky fucking up. Either way it looks pretty stupid. Split-screen crazy montage of T & M falling and making their way through brambles and "harsh" terrain. At one point Msaada gets her dreads caught in a branch and Theo has to help pull her free. Then, displaying his patented cultural sensitivity and all-around people skills, he chaws to the now freed Msaada, "Dude, you look like Lenny Kravitz, yo." Holly and James, now having half shed their orange jumpsuits, stand in a bush, trying to figure out which direction they're supposed to go. I suppose they could just ask the camera crew standing right next to them, but that would be against the rules. Instead of fighting or exhibiting any passion whatsoever, they just laugh at their obvious lost-ness. Boy, when you think back to Holly in the winter games mission compared to this, her claims of being very competitive and caring so much about winning are rendered totally bogus. She cares when she has an opportunity to shine individually, or when other people (the dot-com kids) are trying to steal her "glory." When it comes to helping the team, she couldn't care less.