Gary and Mallory are running toward the mud field. In the two-piece female version of the diaper, Mallory calls it "like Miss America all over again only I'm fifty pounds heavier." I...don't think so. Mallory's about four feet tall, so if she were carrying an extra fifty pounds we'd probably know. Alternately, I hate to think what she'd look like fifty pounds lighter than she is now. In any case, they join the dirty, chaotic scene in the mud pit.

Ron and Christina are driving up to the mountains, Christina looking forward to the purification ritual. "Hopefully that'll bring us a lot of peace that was much needed," she tells us in her ongoing quest to find a subtle way to tell her dad to shut up already. The Globetrotters are right with them. Soon they're changed into their white uniforms and are back outside while the black-belted Shinto priest shows them the incense, candles, and bells they'll be dealing with. "You've got your fanny pack, right?" Ron asks Christina as they also arrive on the scene, which is a dead giveaway of fanny-pack hijinx to come. The sensei leads the Globetrotters through the prayer ritual, and they get into it as always, more than matching the master in volume and energy. As they're led off to another clearing to do the thing with the bo staffs, Ron and Christina take their place.

Margie and Luke find the clue box at the railway station in sixth, with the Cowboys right behind them. Team Go Team is still in last place, with Cara being as patient as she can outside the dojo while waiting for Jaime to finish. "I just hope she's not, like, having any sort of frustrations," Cara said. Hoping Jaime's not frustrated? Way to wish death on your partner there. Inside, Jaime has become the only one who can't seem to get her arrow launched.

The sun's getting low over the mud pit. "Not my first time in a pit of mud," Mallory admits, "but probably my first time in this outfit." Not that anyone's outfit is visible any more; everyone's so uniformly coated by this point that without the subtitles they'd be all but unrecognizable. Justin finds a frog, and runs it over to the grand master on the sidelines. He hands Justin a clue, and gets a muddy chest-bump from Zev for his trouble. Now it's off to the Pit Stop, which this week is in the city of Kurihama, specifically a monument to the landing of Commodore Matthew Perry, the U.S. Ambassador who arrived there on July 14, 1853. I know all of this as a keen student of history, and also because the inscription on the monument says so. Of course, the monument doesn't say that Commodore Perry's first words to the greeting delegation were, "Could this place be any further east?" Phil remembers to add that the last team to check in may be eliminated. Zev and Justin run off, while Mallory continues crawling through the mud asking for help from Jesus and getting playfully annoyed with the people who keep splashing mud on her already-covered self. Gary finds the frog, and they're out of there in second place. While running off, Mallory promises them a pair of redheads later. The mud-throwers whoop, whether they understood her or not.