The teams are sent to Osaka, Japan. TK and Rachel leave in first place but rely on a hotel travel desk (it appears) to reserve their tickets. The desk seems to confuse "leaving for Osaka first" with "getting to Osaka first," and they wind up with a flight with two connections. The other three teams do their research on the internet or at the airport, so they get a flight that leaves a little later but only connects once. As a result, TK and Rachel are barely seen in the episode, so far behind are they. In Japan, the Roadblock sends Jen, Christina, and Nick into cabs they have to drive themselves, with confusing and obviously frustrating results. Nate and Jen and Ron and Christina are running neck-and-neck, with Don and Nick a little behind, for the rest of the leg. The Detour asks the teams to choose between smelling all the flowers in a mostly-artificial-flower shop to find isolated real flowers and using cell phones to control soccer-playing robots. (No, I am not on any medication, thank you.) Nate and Jen and Ron and Chris choose the flowers, while Nick coaches his grandfather through the finer points of robot fighting. Ultimately, cab problems and Chris"s ability to speak Japanese result in Ron and Chris eking out the win over Nate and Jen, to Jen"s continuing frustration. And also to my terror that this is a "they never come in first...until the last leg!" storyline, which will make me cry. When TK and Rachel finally get to Osaka, they run quickly through the tasks in the dark as they talk lovingly about their relationship in voice-over, and they"re really making it look like an elimination. But of course, it isn"t, so next week, TK and Rachel start out three hours behind and face the Speed Bump. Dun!