The Krodie Files: When Two Sleeping Bags Became One

Another W for #TeamKrodie, and the emergence of #Blodie.

The drama continued this week on the Amazing Race. We recapped all the #TeamKrodie action, investigated the emergence of #Blodie, and picked our Week 4 Winners and Losers.

Daniel: If #Blodie is any indication, Scott is going to be the biggest loser this week.

Just a quick recap of last week’s episode for the few of you who may care. #TeamKrodie took the lead thanks to an innate ability to blow up tiles with rocks and Kurt’s mastery of the Spanish language. Keith’s favorites, the Vine Brothers, were eliminated and proved that being a certified genius doesn’t mean jack on The Amazing Race. We’re now down to nine teams and our boys could not be in a better spot.

As for my predictions. I nailed the #TeamKrodie win pick but blew it pretty hard in my loser prediction of Dana and Matt, who somehow finished fourth. This week, I’m going to pick Tyler and Korey to win. Apart from Kurt and Brodie, they probably have the best team dynamic of the bunch and they’ve been strong players all season. I also I actually like them as people too and hope they stick around. To lose, I’m picking Erin and Joslyn. I just Googled to see what the current standings are, saw them near the bottom and realized I’d completely forgotten about them as a team, so they seem like the perfect pick to get the boot.

Daniel: Looks like every team is aware of the blossoming romance between Brodie and Blair. If there’s one thing we know about Brodie, it’s that he’s not subtle when it comes to the ladies, so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that #Blodie is the gossip of the teams. Brodie is truly smitten. He’s gushing. I hope this doesn’t end in heartbreak for someone.

Keith: I have to say that the little “romance rumor” segment seemed like total scripted bullshit. Sorry, not sorry to be that guy.

Simon: You can’t script true love, Keith. Question: Does it get more authentic than this?

Blodie Vine

Answer: Oh wait, that was more scripted than Queen Elizabeth II’s last high tea ceremony.

Katie: While Blair is talking about Brodie’s crush and smiling coyly, the editors do a zoom in on an unrelated shot Brodie changing his shorts. Don’t worry guys, he’s sponsored by Under Armour. Probably.

Keith: Nevermind, after people talk more about the romance, it is readily apparent they are all just jackholes.

Daniel: So we start the show by leaving the Americas for the first time. Teams receive the first clue at a giant water fountain in Geneva, which means the teams’ offensive butchering of Spanish is sadly over. And somehow #TeamKrodie, which was supposedly the first team to get to leave, is all of a sudden in sixth place. The show gives absolutely no hint as to how that happened whatsoever.

Katie: You know those middle school parties where everyone is hanging out in your cousin’s basement, drinking back-of-your-dad’s-liquor cabinet booze and mingling, and there are just two kids in the corner just making out with hormonal abandon?

That’s how I imagine every race member felt sharing an actual cave with #Blodie while they snuggled in their sleeping bags. Korey and Tyler obviously had a blast joking about it, but… where does the night go from there? Kurt’s probably used to it, but poor Scott is probably stuck on Blair’s other side just humming to himself.

Dana and Matt sleep on opposite sides of the cave and nobody addresses it.

Daniel: And the change in language is already proving difficult for the teams. Now we get to hear “merci beaucoup” ad nauseum and there are no English speakers around to help teams along the way when they get lost. This is why you take Latin and not Spanish in high school, folks.

Simon: Early favorite for my winner: French. French, leaving nearly illiterate Americans in its deadly vowel-heavy wake for more than two centuries.

Okay, that is the coolest thing. Some of the teams just made Swiss army knives and got to keep them. Meanwhile, #TeamKrodie crushes the weird bench newspaper challenge to retake the lead! And then they give the answer to two other teams! Spirit of the Game be damned, I want to see some killer instinct!

Katie: My loser this week is the American education system. Was I the only one throwing things at the screen when the contestants were struggling not only with international flags but with figuring out that the large map they were staring at was, you know, a map?

The challenge asks racers to match countries with their flags – challenging for most people, I’ll grant them that. Shout out to Cole for using his FIFA video game knowledge to match flags.

But they’re also given a promenade filled with flags, and a map with highlighted details about where each map was. If any of them looked at the map and then at the promenade, they could match them in the first 10 minutes. Yet figuring this “trick” out was the huge competitive advantage Korey gained? Nope, I’m out. /rant.

Daniel: This is apropos of nothing, but I would absolutely destroy this flag roadblock. Just want you all to know that.

Keith: Although, to be fair, Korey got dinged for confusing Luxembourg and Netherlands. That’s like knocking someone for confusing BJ Sefton and Phil Murray. They are the exact same.

Katie: A rough episode for female friendship. As much as I disliked the models, I was torn watching Jessica cry as all the other teams banded together and left her to finish the challenge. On the one hand, it’s a heartbreaking reality that one team has to be last, and it benefits the other teams to leave you in their snowy Swiss dust to walk forlornly among flagpoles. On the other hand, how dare you still look hot when you cry.

Keith: Jessica’s emotional breakdown here is just…what reality TV is for, right? Now she has to survive and then totally screw someone over later.

Simon: I’m so glad you mentioned that Keith. My winner for this week is: CBS, for continuing to make entertainment out of capturing people at their most unlikable moments in high-stress situations. They’ve been doing this successfully since Richard won the first season of Survivor. Yay hate-watching cast members and rejoicing when they get the hook.

Jessica’s somehow still made-up face goes from pouty in a cute way, to pouty like she’s a four year-old whose parents turned Frozen off after the third time through on a Sunday afternoon. No one likes that kid, and I felt like the entire Amazing Race audience just wrote her off in that moment. Somewhere, someone who has been producing this show is looking at Jessica’s face and murmuring, “Easiest money I ever made.”

Daniel: Burnie with those words of wisdom, “As long as we’re in front, we’re still winning.” Let’s get this guy in a sports commentary booth.

Oh dang, this is intense. Eight of the nine teams are on the same train. It’s gonna be an eight way foot race for first. That has to benefit our boys, right?

And it does! #TeamKrodie takes first place for the second straight week! Tyler and Korey are a close second. #TeamKrodie wins a combined $6,000 for their troubles.

Katie: At what point do we get to be legitimately concerned about Scott’s health doing all this running? He may be able to put together the perfect Swiss Army knife and emotionally support his flirtatious daughter, but he’s not ever outrunning #TeamKrodie, and they know it.

Keith: He didn’t even outrun Sheri….

“It’s alright, you can let your tears go.” That line makes Phil sound like a malevolent figure in a Brothers Grimm story, feasting on the misery of beautiful maidens.

Daniel: My loser for this week is Cole. Yes, he finished with the group of teams to not be eliminated. But there is no one who will be hit harder by the elimination of the models. Before #Blodie was even a glimmer in Scott’s eye, Cole and the models hit it off and promised to be the first relationship on the show. Cole even got a lap full of model butt on the bench challenge, so things appeared to be going to the next level. That’s all gone now. Romantics are big losers as a result of this as well. All of our hopes now lie with Brodie and Blair.

My winner of the week is the European transport system. Gone are the days in The Race of teams barking bastardized versions of their too-slow cab driver’s natural languages. And did you see how prompt those train departures were? In another part of the world, maybe the models make that last train and they’re still on the show. But not in France. No, in France, trains leave when they are supposed to and the merciless nature of The Amazing Race is allowed to wreak its full havoc.

Simon: I was so ready to name the counter that #TeamRoosterTeeth brought with them my winner. That’s incredible foresight, right? I mean, run down the list of things you need to survive on the road in all sorts of weather conditions and climates, that holds up for very athletic activities, and fits in a backpack. If you listed in your top 10 items, I mean, wow.

But then of course, there’s the whole human error thing. I am decidedly not feeling the Burnie.

Katie: Winner: Kurt’s fanny-pack and Jesuit t-shirt look.

I did not realize that contestants got such cool swag. It doesn’t even matter if the models are gone; Kurt is rocking this look like it’s his job. I loved it so much, I created a few sartorial options he can use throughout the rest of his time on the race:

Katie: He can thank me later.

Patrick: Winners: Social Darwinism.

Losers: Any chance the dancer team had at finding happiness in life. Seriously, they are just festering pits of emotional waste.

Keith: My winner here is the casting director who chooses the people to stand with Phil at the end of each leg. I didn’t think we would top the random dancing dude, but with just a single line and a beard that has definitely seen some shit, this guy and his accordion-playing Silent Bob sidekick changed the game.

My loser might be me, since Katie jacked the meme gig from me, BUT I’m going to pick park chess players. JUST MOVE, BRO. LIKE GO PLAY IN THE MILLIONS OF OTHER PLACES WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE THAT COULD SUPPORT A CHESS GAME. There was a massive Harry-Potter-style chessboard, get it together. Not a good look for the park chess players of the world. Or at least Switzerland.

Second loser was the #Blodie hashtag. They thought “Get it trending” was a good enough line to make it the episode title? Weak in comparison to past efforts.

Simon: My loser this week, despite the fact that he won this week with his extremely well-dressed and debonair partner, is Brodie’s Grasp on Reality. With the cameras clearly trained on him and Blair, lying side-by-side like an awkward high school camping trip, and with the entire room watching, it was impossible not to understand their little moment was going to be everyone’s business.

And then, in the confessional interview, instead of owning it the way you’d expect a well-traveled celebrity approaching his 30s would be, we get this grand slam:

Dude. We were all there. You guys want to smooch. It’s okay to be honest with a few million people about that.

Patrick: Britney wrote “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” about this hat. Cole’s sexuality is going to hit him like a ton of bricks. (Interpret that how you will.)

Patrick: The Middle School Dance that was Brodie’s courtship of Blair in Four Acts

Act I: When you see the girl that you think you might, maybe, have a shot with and you get nervous/excited/a little bit terrified.

Act II: When you realize you have no game plan other than standing awkwardly in a circle of people and making furtive eye contact.

Act III: Treading water… treading water… treading water…

Act IV: Remembering that regardless of what happens, your night is going to end with you and your boys deep in the cut on a bunch of pizza bagels, Dr. Pepper, and maybe Taco Bell if Jimmy’s older brother will drive, then eventually falling asleep in Jimmy’s basement watching someone play Halo.

Simon: Pat’s Tony is gonna look sweet on the Ultiworld Shelf of Accomplishments. Eat your heart out, Arthur Miller.

Patrick’s Power Rankings: Wars Brodie And Kurt Are Glad That Switzerland Stayed Neutral In

Thirty Years’ War – The ever shifting fault lines of this conflict are hard enough to understand without the Swiss confederacy dividing into two ideologically opposed sides and entering the fray. That sort of disruption in Switzerland’s prosperous early-modern period could have torn their burgeoning economy apart and undermined all of the infrastructural efforts that produced the amazing urban environments and transportation networks travelers to this lovely alpine country still enjoy today. I think we can all be thankful for this one.

WWI – Kurt: “The balanced nature of the conflict forced the major powers of Europe into long periods of standstill. This bought enough time for American to enter the struggle and tilt the balance of power in favor of the Triple Entente . If the Swiss had followed their fellow central European nations onto the Triple Alliance , a combined Swiss-Austria Hungarian line could have crippled Italy, posed a threat to southern France, and changed much of world history as we know it. Brodie: “And also chocolate.”

Second Punic War – Enough elephants died crossing the Alps when Hannibal Barca lead the forces of Carthage into Northern Italy. We don’t need more of the lives of those majestic creatures on our historical conscience.

Mexican-American War – Really just not their place to get involved in that one.

War of Spanish Succession – This stain on the reputation of European history was already a needless clusterfuck by itself, and it certainly didn’t need a bunch of uppity Swiss pikeman inserting their neo-europa notions of confederacy all up in everyone’s face.