When I say that "all the competitors … count the bells," that’s not exactly true. The Poker Girls cheat, by getting the answer "62" from Sam and Dan and heading straight to the bell ringer guy. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," I think to myself. "Cheaters never prosper."

Everyone but Brian and Ericka heads to the Detour challenge, while Ericka recounts the bells so many times that I lose count and start feeling sorry for having mocked her.

At the Detour, the contestants have to dress in traditional Dutch costumes, grab bicycles and ride a couple of miles to either a putt-putt golf course set up in a farmer’s field, or to a little party where they will have to learn a traditional Dutch folkdance and eat traditional Dutch hors d’oeuvres. Oh, and if they pick the former, they have to swim across a traditional Dutch canal to get to the golf course; if they pick the latter, they have to hit a traditional Dutch carnival bell with a sledge hammer, making the bell ring.

Sam and Dan, together with Meghan and Cheyne choose golf and it turns out the clubs are wooden shoes attached to long sticks. The Globetrotters, Gary and Matt and the Poker Girls choose the dance contest.

After an extended period of time and drama, Ericka finally counts the bells correctly. She is relieved, but not as much as the bell ringer guy. Brian and Ericka rush right past the bicycles and start walking to the Detour challenge. Yes! Walking! In wooden shoes! No more sympathy from me!

Sam and Dan conquer the putt-putt course in short order and head off to the Pit Stop. Meghan and Cheyne have a little trouble because Meghan hasn’t played golf with wooden shoe clubs before, but she actually masters it pretty quickly and they are second to arrive at the Pit Stop.

Back at the dance, Matt and Gary are going great guns until Matt spies the traditional Dutch hors d’oeuvres, which is herring covered with diced onions. Gary says he doesn’t eat fish. What? They are from Montana, aren’t they? Home to some of the best fly fishing in all the U.S. Oh, well. They abandon the dance and head for the golf course.

Meanwhile, back at the bell ringing game, the Poker Girls are taking turns lifting the sledge hammer up to waist-level and letting it drop, send the bell-ringing thing only about knee-high, when it needs to soar to the roof line to ring the bell. They try this over and over and over and … well, I lose count again.

Gary and Matt finish their round of golf and head to the Pit Stop.

The Globetrotters do the dance, eat the fish and head to the Pit Stop. The Poker Girls give up on ringing the bell and head to the golf course. Ericka and Brian FINALLY arrive and decide to do the dance and eat the fish, which they do with surprising ease. But, being all tuckered out from the long walk, they borrow some bikes from some nearby Dutch people and pedal off to the Pit Stop.

The Poker Girls make almost as many attempts at hitting the big golf ball with the wooden shoe club as they had made trying to ring the bell. By and by they give up and return to the dance which means, of course, that they have to ring the bell before going inside. This time, the TAR producers provide an on-screen counter so nobody, contestants or viewers, will have to count anything else for the rest of the show.

Of course, the Poker Girls still can’t ring the bell and, in fact, are becoming exceedingly arm-weary trying. There is a small break where they hug and tell each other how much they admire the other. Then they decide TO GO BACK TO THE FREAKIN’ GOLF COURSE!!!!! Oh, sorry … I got carried away with all those exclamation points.

Ericka and Brain arrive at the Pit Stop, but Phil tells them they are going to have a 30-minute penalty for walking instead of riding bikes from the bell tower to the Detour.

What? This is — I’m sorry — just stupid. Admittedly, they didn’t follow the instructions. But the error they made didn’t give them an advantage … it put them waaaaay behind the other teams. I don’t like this penalty and if the Poker Girls show up in 29 minutes, I’m writing to the producers.

Back at the golf course (and remember, they have to, again, swim across the canal to get there) they flail away at the golf ball, but by now their arms are so tired they couldn’t flip a card that fills an inside straight flush if it meant winning the World Series of Poker. So they hug and cry some more.

Thirty minutes pass and Phil checks Ericka and Brian into the Pit Stop. Then he somehow magically appears at the golf course (and I think he changed clothes, too.) The Poker Girls — Tiffany and Maria — sort of officially and formally announce to Phil that they don’t think they can finish this leg of the race successfully. "No duh," Phil thinks to himself, "why do you think I came out to the farm field golf course instead of waiting back at the Pit Stop?" But he doesn’t say this, of course.

What did you think of this episode? At what points in the show did you actually get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, feeling bad for Ericka and the Poker Girls? And don’t you think that Phil should have had to swim across the canal, too, to get out to the golf course?

(Photo courtesy of CBS)