Now the teams are on the planes, and in case you don't feel like scrolling back to see who's on which flight, the first one has Maria|Tiffany (or Team Inside Straight, as I'm going to be calling them for reasons that will become increasingly apparent), Marcy|Ron, Meghan|Cheyne, Gary|Matt, Flight Time|Big Easy, and Zev|Justin. The next flight will carry Sam|Dan, Mika|Canaan, Garrett|Jessica, Brian|Ericka, and Lance|Keri. Both planes are soon in the air, with their flight paths being traced by Amazing Red and Green Lines to Tokyo. "Once there," Phil says, "They must travel by taxi and find a television studio at the base of the Tokyo Tower." The Tokyo Tower is very 20th-Century Japanese, in the sense that it looks exactly like a smaller red Eiffel Tower.

The first flight lands at 3:55 and the six lead teams scamper through the airport. Most of them make the first shuttle train, but Maria and Tiffany, with the kind of rolling suitcases that worked out so well for the Flight Attendants last season, get lost in the terminal and just miss it. Maria gets way too upset about it, even when Tiffany says it's okay. "No it's not," Maria says, "because I feel like we're making all these mistakes that we don't need to be making." How many mistakes have they made to date? Because I count two: missing the shuttle train and lying to the other teams about who they are, and I'm not sure they're even counting that second one. Maria just gets more irritated the more Tiffany tries to remain upbeat, like they're the first team in history who ever failed to hold onto a lead. Well, they certainly seem like a well-oiled competitive machine, don't they? But then I guess it's not like poker is a team sport.

Zev and Justin seem to get their cab first, followed by the Globetrotters, who do a bit of Speedy Gonzales for their driver. "Different language, different language," Big Easy says. I didn't learn as much Japanese in college as I hoped to and I remember even less, but I think the phrase they're looking for is "Motto hayakitte kudasai." Which means either "faster, please" or "louder, please," either one of which would probably work for their purposes.