MONDO EXTRAS

We see that Meredith and Gretchen head for this pit stop in their taxi, but they have no money for their driver. Gretchen digs through her little bag, looking for something to offer. She offers the driver a calculator, which he turns down. Math stinks. (Hee hee, sorry, Mom!) Gretchen also notes that she has an orange, a compass, and a watch. Give him the orange! Just kidding. I love it when Meredith says to her, "Say something to him." "Veeer-gin Mary bless you!" Gretchen says, touching the guy's head. And that is just so goofy that I have to find it spastically endearing at some level. And then Gretchen starts to kick herself for eating today rather than, I guess, saving their money for the cab. When they get to the pit stop, Meredith gives the driver something -- might be an inexpensive watch -- and tells him it's worth $20 in the U.S. The driver reaches out and gregariously claps Meredith on the shoulder with a grin, and Meredith shoulder-claps him back. And then Gretchen and the driver share a little hug. Aw! At the mat, they explain to Phil that they basically had to find someone who would bring them in spite of the fact that they didn't have any money, so they gave him everything they could. Meredith talks about how wonderful they've found all the people in Argentina to be. And then Susan and Patrick are Philiminated. And...yeah, it's uncomfortable, in the sense that you kind of sense that their hostility is not game-related.

The next morning, the teams headed out for "a doozy" in the form of a trip to Johannesburg. (Which, by the way, is totally not the capital of South Africa -- I am stupid.) Everyone angled for flights. Lynn and Alex are seen begging for money while Rob watches them, talking about how much he'd like to Yield them -- as he calls them, "Frick and Frack." Hee. "You'd rather get Alex and Lynn than anybody else?" Amber asks, a little surprised. "Yeah," he says. "Besides us, I think they may be the strongest. They're on top of things, you know?" Again, this is the part of Rob's personality I like -- he's not too blinded by personal dislike to recognize that Lynn and Alex are also playing well. I'm not sure Lynn and Alex would do the same. I'm not sure Lynn's analysis of Rob and Amber extends beyond, "Those bitches."

Johannesburg. Apparently, the act of getting into the SUVs was fairly difficult, because these teams do not specialize in being unrelentingly awesome. Rob and Amber once again have trouble opening the trunk of their SUV, and they get a lead from Gretchen about where the latch is. If I were the other teams, I would take advantage of this bizarre blind spot while I could, I have to say. They don't have that many, but that certainly seems to be one. Of course, everyone is also distracted by the fact that the steering wheel was on the wrong side -- which primarily seems to have caused problems with use of the turn signal versus use of the wipers. "What's up with these windshield wipers?" Greg asks from the back seat as Brian runs them on what appears to be a clear day. "My blinker's on the wrong side," Brian says sheepishly. "I've been changing lanes with my windshield wipers." Similarly, Rob runs the wipers as he complains about the stick and the clutch being on the wrong side, as well as the wipers and turn signal. "The wipers...they're killin' me," he says. "Why do you keep using the wipers?" Amber asks him. "'Cause I'm tryin' to change lanes," Rob says flatly, which is pretty funny. Because...of course! You would. It seems for a moment that Amber is a little slow on the uptake, as she says, "Why would you use the wipers to change lanes?" "'Cause it's on the wrong side!" Rob says impatiently, and then you see that Amber is laughing and reaching up to chuck his shoulder from the back seat, and it appears that she's fucking with him, which is awesome, because it means she knows she can fuck with him, and if a guy like that has a girlfriend who knows fucking with him is okay, that goes a long way toward making his personality far less gross. Deana also has a hell of a time with the driving, and seems barely able to get the car to move. I'm thinking Ray can't drive stick, because otherwise, I can't imagine why he would have let this go this long. She almost gets them flattened, too, which I'm glad didn't happen, because it would have made them oddly sympathetic in some way. Meredith tries to turn around, but he seems to drift into his old habit of driving on the right side, to the point where he almost crashes right into somebody. The music would like you to think that was funny, rather than...you know, death-defying.