At the airline counter, a voice-over from Chris says that she's going to try to get on the first flight "and make sure no one else gets on that first flight." She and her dad receive confirmed tickets. She and her dad even get free upgrades because they're on full-fare tickets. Note that the agent doesn't say they're being upgraded because of a lack of space in economy; she says they're being upgraded because if you pay full fare for an economy ticket (which, remember, almost nobody pays full fare by walking up to a counter five minutes before they want to leave), you can get a free upgrade, probably anytime there's clearly going to be room in business/first class. Christina adds, "If there are other requests, can you please tell them it's full?" Immediately (or so it appears), the counter lady walks over to Nate and Jen and tells them there are no seats. Nate and Jen, based on whatever they've seen, immediately are onto Chris, and they tell the lady to please not listen to Ron and Chris. (Nate and Jen would later give interviews saying that they were originally told that there were indeed seats, which is why they're so freaked out when they see Chris talking to the lady, and then they see the lady come back over and announce that there aren't seats anymore.) Jen calls over to Chris, "Are you sure you didn't say anything?" "I didn't say anything," Chris lies. Nate and Jen are told again that the flight is full. Of course, this leads to bickering between Nate and Jen, since that's their response to all stress. Please listen to me, why are you acting like this, why were you ever born, go die, etc. etc. etc. "I just can't believe you're being this mean to me on my birthday," says Jen.

HA HA HA!

Finally, TK and Rachel spot the clue box, which is good, because that could have taken a really long time. They agree that they missed it because they were "freaking out," and now they finally see the clue and read it. "Thank God we didn't go back down," TK notes. True, that.

At the airport, Nick and Don learn of a 1:15 flight on China Air to replace their current 1:35 PM. Nate and Jen, too, are referred to China Air. Jen gripes that it's very irritating how Ron and Chris are always "one step in front" of her and Nate. Races are very irritating in that way, I'm told. People always running ahead of you! Bitches. So the only team to leave on the 1:00 PM flight out of Osaka headed for Taipei is Ron and Chris. Chris proudly brags as they're waiting at the gate that her father is "afraid to play dirty," but as far as she's concerned, all's fair in racing, so any advantage she can get, she'll go for. I'd respect her attitude somewhat more if she owned up to it with the other teams -- it's the mealy-mouthed "What, I didn't do anything? I believe in playing clean!" that kind of rankles, not the scheming itself. Furthermore, it's really hard to have any idea whether what Christina did had anything to do with what happened. It wasn't clear to me who the people at the counter worked for -- they weren't all wearing the same uniforms, so I don't know whether they had a dog in the fight of which flight people got on or not. Christina certainly seemed to believe she was responsible, and as I said, Nate and Jen have claimed in later interviews that they were initially told there were seats available. But honestly, I think the show would have shown more evidence that Chris actually wrested their seats away from them, if that had happened. Hard to say, but I lean toward no.