Mel unscrambles his letters without too much trouble, so that's him and Mike out of there in sixth place. I would hope a writer would have been able to pull this off. "Is he still behind me? The little guy?" Mel asks as they run back to the cab. He is. "We're second to last," Mark interviews while waiting for Michael to finish his second run. And in the cab, Mike promos, "Just when you think you're out of this race, something happens and you're back in it." Which, somewhere behind them, is more or less what Kris and Amanda are telling each other.

On his second attempt, Michael shaves two seconds off his time, plus he has all seven letters. The unscrambling isn't much of challenge for him either. "It came to mind right away," he says, and they take off. "We're in seventh place right now, but it is Amazing Race and anything can happen," Mark says in the cab. I think he means they might pass someone, but a more likely interpretation is that there's still hope for Kris and Amanda.

Kris takes the "Who's ready to speed read?" clue.

Mel and Mike slump up on to the stage, in sixth place, totally exhausted.

Kris met the time requirement, and got all of his letters, so now it's a matter of unscrambling. It's coming on sunset on that hillside. "Think of how names are spelled here," Amanda encourages from below. "I have no idea how names are spelled here," he responds. They're not spelled Khechov, that's for sure. But he gets it on the second try, and off they go.

The Stuntmen are still in their taxi to the Pit Stop. When they arrive, the driver asks for his 8,000-ruble fare, but all they have is 5,000. Not sure how that happened, unless they either didn't exchange enough money or simply had him follow them around the Siberian village looking for the right house.