Old Tower Restaurant of Doom. Colin and Christie pull up in their taxi and head inside. So suppose it's roughly dinnertime, Russia time, when they get there. The last three days or so have consisted of (1) a twenty-hour bus ride; (2) a flight from Buenos Aires to Sao Paolo; (3) a flight from Sao Paolo to Paris; (4) a flight from Paris to St. Petersburg; (5) running around St. Petersburg; and (6) a shot of vodka. That's three flights and twenty bus hours logged in a couple of days, with a six-hour jetlag issue and a bolt of booze. I can tell you right off the bat that at this point, I would already be in extremely rough shape. Just saying. Anyway, Christie opens the clue, which is a Roadblock that gives as its hint, "Who's got a taste for the good life?" Phil, strolling around the restaurant, explains about Roadblocks, and says that in this Roadblock, the person has to eat a kilogram of caviar. And how much is a kilogram? Well, it's 2.2 pounds. Of caviar. Which is usually eaten as a shmear on something like a little toast point. Seriously? Just not the way caviar is meant to be eaten. But in any event, when you finish your caviar, the waiter will give you the next clue. Colin and Christie seem to have some idea of what this will involve, because when she asks if he can do it, he says, "I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it go down my throat." You'll want to keep that little line in mind.

She agrees to do the Roadblock. Inside, she approaches the bowl. "This whole thing?" she says in some disbelief. The waiter says yes. Still standing up, Christie removes her winter hat and dips a spoon into the bowl. Already offering hints, Colin says, "Just take your time." She lifts it toward her mouth and hesitates, already psyching herself out. She puts a big spoonful in her mouth and starts to gag, but swallows it. "It's okay," he says. "Don't try to eat so much at once." I don't really think that's very good advice. She asks him to pour her some juice. He hands her some. She takes another spoonful, and then takes another gulp of juice. See? She's on the right track, as later people's experience will demonstrate. Despite the fact that she appears to be doing fine, he starts to give her further advice, in this case telling her to mix the caviar into the juice. Ew, no. That's a horrible idea. She takes another big spoonful, and she gags, but she chases it with a drink and gets on with it. Driving up the pressure and thus the likelihood of her psyching herself out, Colin says to her in a very consciously "look how controlled I'm being" manner, "Do you want to try to mix it with the juice? Why don't you want to try to do that?" Keeping in mind that she's doing all right up to this point, it really seems counterproductive for him to be hounding her about doing it differently. I think it would have been far wiser of him to be really chill at this point, more like, "You're doing great, this is no problem -- just keep it up just like that, and you'll be done." She really doesn't look like she needs advice on how to do it differently, and I think the more he makes it sound like she isn't doing it right, the more it turns into a crisis, and it looked to me like having it turn into a crisis was the psychological point you wanted to avoid reaching in this situation.