Shortcut to Sheep

Out of the Outback we go! We have the usual voice-over crap from Our Host, who wonders if either Blaige or Tara and Will might ever use their fast forward. Well, this is a non-elimination leg, so only a fool would do that. Right?

Chris and Alex set of at 3:35 AM and find they have to get to New Zeland. They must drive their cars to a trailer and then get hauled to an airport to catch one of two charters. Said charters are only half an hour apart. Say good-bye to your lead, knuckleheads. Not that their lead was very much. Blaige is the next team to go at 5:01.

“If we are perfect, no one can touch us!” Blake said. Yea, and if your auntie had balls, she’d be your uncle. You guys are far from perfect.

Tara and Will go three minutes later, closely trailed by Cha Cha Cha. There is a pointless race to the truck followed by an equally pointless race to the town because Chris and Alex have already discovered that there are no flights to take them to New Zealand that day. Upon reaching the town, Tara tries to help the driver get the car out, but Will tells her to relax and let him do all the work. I’m glad I don’t work for him.

At the town of Glendamboe, the Incest Twins decide to head out to the airport anyway, just in case there is some advantage to found there. Tara and Will follow them, but after the long drive, they get worried. “You know Blake and directions,” Will says. Yes, he’s almost as bad as you. They turn around and get into a fight in front of Chris and Alex. They fight and will literally throws his hands in the air and screams “I quit!” The others jut laugh at him and Tara wishes for a new partner. Well, she could get Paul from TAR #1.

They all get on the flights with Blaige and the exes on plane one and Cha Cha Cha and the meatheats on plane two. Then we have various shots of them airport hopping their way to New Zealand, with the only significant thing being learned is that Oswald wears contacts. I wonder why Danny doesn’t? Anyway, on the last leg of the flight, Blake’s infamous outside-the-box thinking actually comes up with a good one. They carry their bags on. This causes the other teams to get pissy because none of them thought of such an obvious thing. Blake stains his arm patting himself on the back, but since their also seated IN the back, the other teams manage to hold them up. Chris and Alex block the aisle and are actually allowed to use the P.A. system to talk B.S. I’m sure that violated some airline rule. Once all of their luggage is off, they permit everyone to depart and we have the usual taxi scramble. Going from expecting to be first and winding up in last causes Blake to temporarily loose his mind and they decide to go for the Fast Forward. This involves a high-speed river race not unlike the high-speed taxi race to Wentworth Station. From there, the teams find they must go to Nevis High-Wire Platform. Needless to say, Will doesn’t like the sound of that.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Blaige gets the FF and discover that the Pit Stop, located at Inverary Sheep Station on the Canterbury Plains. They rush off, dreaming of their big lead which will undoubtedly evaporate early in the next leg.

The other teams find the platform, suspended 430 feet above a river in a gorge. “You don’t see things like that back in Miami,” Oswald says. No, because the highest point in Florida is about half that. The teams are faced with a detour. They can to a tandem bungy jump or hike down. Will is terrified, but with Chris and Alex there, he is shamed into jumping. His eyes are closed all the way down as we hope that the cord is tied too long. Alas, they survive and drive off to the sheep farm.

“Does this mean that we’re back together again?” Will askes, only to get coldly shot down by Tara.

Chris and Alex go with no problem, but it turns out that Oswald doesn’t like heights much either. He holds tight to his partner the whole time, yelling, “Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny!”

“I screamed like a woman!” he says later. Danny is probably used to hearing that from him.

Will and Tara are fighting again, this time because he can’t get the car out of first gear. Tara takes over and figures it out right away and then Will wants to take over the driving again because his masculinity is threatened. Tara, quite rightly, refuses to let him.

Blake and Paige get to the pit stop and discover that they have a trip to Puerto Rico. They request a room with a single bed. Tara and Will get to the sheep farm and he bitches about how he had to do the work navigating them there and he wants all the credit. Then he unilaterally decides that he’s doing the task because it involves doing something with sheep. Unfortunately for Will, it’s not what he was hoping for; it just involves herding three black sheep into a pen. Unfortunately, they are in a crowd of white sheep and don’t seem to want to break out of the pack. After chasing around the ‘sheeps’ (Will’s word for them) Tara suggests he heard them all into the pen and then chase the white ones out. This seems to work and they compete the road block and come in second.

Chris and Alex are next, and Alex fancies himself the “Sheep Whisperer”, but apparently they can’t hear him because he has no more luck than Will did until they hit on the same solution. They finish and Cha Cha Cha show up. After they complete the task and approach the mat, the music rises in a supremely unsuccessful attempt to make us worried, but even Our Host is not that good an actor. It’s a non-elimination leg and they are safe.