At the airport, the four lead teams are getting on the 9:30 AM plane, talking about how they had to check their luggage, because the plane was so small. As they get on the plane, Lynn is already loudly chicken-counting about how the plane is carrying only people who ate the meat, despite the fact that he, of course, did not eat jack. "It just goes to show that if you want to win this race, you can't give up on anything, and that's why we're on the first flight," Kelly snots in a voice-over. Which is idiotic, obviously, because the people who skipped the meat are not all going to be eliminated, so evidently there will be teams that will get a chance to go on who didn't eat the meat. It's very unfortunate when people get ahead of themselves. Especially when they don't seem that...speedy to begin with.

And here come Rob and Amber in their car, with him saying as they approach the airport, "There's a chance we can still get on this flight. I hope it's still here." So presumably it's somewhere in the vicinity of 9:30 or just after. They go inside, and he says, "9:30? Please? Please?" The guy tells them yes, they can get on the plane. They thank him profusely, and Rob chuckles up that the "very nice people are going to hold the flight" for them. Indeed, as often happens on this show in the case of plane-holding and other requests for favor, the kindness of service people is going to pay off big-time. Rob and Amber run for the plane. (The angelic intervention of service personnel is one of my favorite traditions, incidentally, dating back to the first season, when it appeared that a ticket agent actually bumped people off of a plane to make room for racing teams.)

And here we are inside that very plane, where Alex is rolling his head around talking about how happy he is that Rob and Amber didn't make it. "Survive that," Lynn says, pulling out a line he has clearly been waiting days and days to use, because he had to wait for a time when Rob and Amber weren't...you know, kicking his ass. Which took a while. Sadly, he is about to learn that you always want to wait on your gloating until the doors have closed and you are in the air. Because otherwise, you risk...this. We cut to Rob and Amber walking out to the plane, as Rob talks about how pleased he is that they keep managing to jump up to the front in every leg. "Oh, I can't wait to see the look on their face!" Amber laughs, and on the one hand, she is being completely insufferable, but on the other hand, so are the people who hate her, and if you do view this as a game, as I think she does, then there's no question you would find this moment pretty damn funny. It's kind of like the way I try to think of Lex every time something like this happens. Oh, hello, memories of Lex. Stack of greenbacks...you betrayed your friends...ahhhh. Looks good on you, Inky.