Brandon and Nicole then get themselves on standby as well. It certainly looks plausible to me that there could have been confusion over when tickets were being purchased as opposed to when standby was being achieved, to the point where I'm not at all convinced that Nicole was doing anything particularly awful when she told Mirna that Marsha wasn't buying her tickets. Obviously, Nicole at some point discovered she couldn't get on standby that way (thus, waiting in this second line), and that may have caused the dust-up. Either way, it's Mirna. Mirna hasn't exactly earned anyone's loyalty, so whatever.

Anyway, Brandon explains that they have tickets on the 10:30, and they're on standby for the 9:10 and 9:40. Nicole says it's an "emotional roller-coaster." And then, in seriously one of the funniest things they've ever done on this show, we cut to a shot of Brandon and Nicole looking softly upwards, as cranked-up sparkly light on the windows behind them overwhelms the shot and churchy music goes "Aaaaaaaah" in the background. Nicole explains in her voice-over that she's just asking the Lord to keep her calm and focused. And then we slide up from their upturned faces, to see that Brandon and Nicole are staring at the warm, celestial glow of the arrival/departure monitors. Wow. That was so brilliant I think I passed out. Dear Everybody Who Makes This Show: Be my Valentine. Love, Miss Alli.

Charla and Mirna are at the Argentine Airlines counter, trying to work themselves onto the 9:10 flight. "I have to get to the doctor," Charla insists. (God: "What happened to all the fearing?") Unbelievable. Again, you can either bitch self-righteously about other people's lack of honor, or you can lie through your teeth and take advantage of the compassion of airline personnel to get your way. You can either choose to run the race like a racer (my personal preference), or you can run it like a Scout, but you cannot demand that you get to run like a racer and everybody else has to run it like Scouts. That is utter nonsense. Man, I do not like these girls at all. At. All. Charla voices over that they're trying to get help, and she says, "Usually, people help me when they see me." I'm not even going to keep track of the number of times they openly exploit Charla's size and the fact that people feel sorry for her, but I will say it's now pretty well-established that they are openly exploiting Charla's size and the fact that people feel sorry for her, which again is not such a great way of breaking stereotypes or proving how capable she is. She repeats again, "I need a doctoro." "Okay," the lady says, "I will give you a priority." That would be, presumably, a medical priority of some sort. I have to say, I understand about using all your advantages to get ahead, but I would certainly hate to see this show degenerate into people trying to find the sneakiest lie they can come up with to make people help them -- "You've got to get me out of town, my abusive husband is after me" or whatever. I don't find this kind of thing -- the phony medical emergency -- very entertaining or very satisfying. Furthermore, I do believe God makes a note of it in his Great Big Book of Fear This, Blondie.