Esquire SUV. "We're going to their hometown," Brennan says unhappily. "They've already got a big advantage over us. We might have to use any possible advantage we can get." Extreme-extreme close-up of Rob's cheek, complete with The Non-Smiling Dimple Of Agonizing Stress. Cut immediately to Rob, in a convenience store, still in the dumb white booties (can't he take them OFF now?), walking up and trying to buy (actually, rent) somebody's cell phone for three hundred bucks. The first guy? Nothing doing. Second guy? Nope. First lady? Nope. Second lady? Ahhh, she's in her car, but she rolls the window down obligingly. (She can't see his shoes, I think, and that makes the difference. No one would do business with a man wearing all black except for cream-colored boots with a three-inch sole on them. He looks like a cross between Marcel Marceau and Peggy Fleming.) He promises to mail the phone back to her in a day or two, and the deal is done. She shows him how to work it. No, how to work the phone! Jeez.
In the Esquire SUV, Rob works on booking flights to New York. He's now grabbed the pen that you will notice takes the place of the usual gum-chewing. Once he's lined up the flights, we get The Great Esquire Crisis Of Conscience. Having reserved the seats, Rob realizes that he could use the phone to call back and reserve additional seats, and he seems to have reason to think this would result in Danza being told there was no space when they showed up. Rob looks grim as he explains this to his partner. As they chew over it, Rob says, "I don't want to do that, dude. That's..." Close-up cheek shot. This is shot really oddly, like it's a Hitchcockian moment of Heroic Struggle With One's Inner Demons. Seriously, van Munster, it's only a cell phone. "It's dirty play," Rob says finally. "It's cheap play. I don't want to do that." Brennan: "This is the last leg." Rob: "I know it is. I know you feel the same way I do, you want to win, but you want to play hard and fair, too, and not pull underhanded crap." He repeats one more time, "I don't want to do that." Brennan: "They'd do it." Rob: "I know they'd do it."
Cut to LPFrank, benefiting as we speak from the Esquire lack of underhandedness while taking a break from his own, you know, scheming against them. He takes this opportunity to comment that he'd love to get on the same flight as the boys just so that they can see that the "underhanded cute stuff that they always try to do" didn't work. Uh huh. Obviously, they don't show you everything on a show like this, but I would defy you to name much in the way of "underhanded cute stuff" Esquire has done on this entire trip. It's been the robot brain foiling you lately, LPFrank, so get over it. He goes on to say, "I never really dug those guys anyway, you know, I never really dug them at all, so...I'd really love to beat them." Well, Negative Energy Frank, we'll see.













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