Season 20, Episode 5 Im-ferno
“Im-ferno”
The flight attendants kept saying ‘Yeehaw!’ like we’re all just dumb American cowboys,” Solana complained, prompting Jiamin to stride numbly across baggage claim.
“They were saying ‘Nihao,’ which is Mandarin for ‘hello.’ You complete twit,” PB muttered grouchily, a Cubs baseball cap tucked low.
He’d been virtually catatonic since leaving Cortona, likely because he’d been paired with Greta.
Shawn had lucked out with Melange, and Fortune and Erika seemed content together.
The rest was a mixed bag that split up the factions: Jiamin and Aspen; Royce and Solana; Camdon and Tati.
Imogen huddled with Camdon and Royce by the bathrooms, continuing to ignore me, as she’d done since our pilgrimage to China began.
I prayed she wouldn’t quit the show, especially when she knew what was at stake for me.
Hopefully splitting that mammoth cash prize was motivation enough for even Imogen Cuthbert to endure being my partner.
Our bus left the airport for Zhujiajiao, a small village outside of sprawling Shanghai. “They aren’t unpacking the luggage,” Erika observed as we disembarked, no doubt meaning a Tribulation lay ahead.
We’d changed film crews with the location switch, and the only constants in the production team would be Troy and Zara.
Once again we were surrounded by hardworking folks whom we were forbidden from addressing and who would soon vanish before our eyes, puppeteers behind marionettes.
Zara greeted us by four walled pop-up tents on the edge of a gravel lot where the crew was unpacking equipment, and she distributed our new team uniforms, each pair a different color.
Apparently Imogen and I would be riding in black, which suited her funereal mood.
Zhujiajiao was a minor Venice, wide canals weaving through white buildings with bloodred balconies and gently swooping eaves.
Staircases descended straight into the water, as if one could keep walking until submerged below the placid glass.
The stone moon bridges astounded me, triangles whose curving supports formed such pristine crescents that their reflections married with them to make perfect circles.
We followed Zara through the side streets past fleets of local merchants.
Shawn could have marveled at their myriad wares for days—crickets chirping in miniature wooden pagodas, baby turtles the length of a pinky floating in shallow bowls—but we were due at the dock where Ecklund waited.
“Welcome to Zhujiajiao!” he declared jovially.
“Drew, go again without butchering the name of the town.”
“This is why I request a dialect coach, Zara…”
Seven takes later, Zara begged him to simply gesture to Jiamin, who flatly supplied the name. I doubted the pronunciation was normally punctuated by so many exasperated sighs.
Ecklund indicated an armada of small boats tied at the dock below.
“For today’s Tribulation, you’ll row these traditional sampans blindfolded!
Ladies, you’ll direct your partners through the winding canals of…
this quaint Chinese hamlet. And, gents, if you remove the blindfold, your team is automatically disqualified.
The first-place team wins immunity from the next Trial, and you didn’t come all the way to Asia to go home now. ”
Imogen fled to the bathroom while a local PA roughly blindfolded me. I sat in our sampan, PB and Greta already sniping nearby, the whiff of grass and gasoline drifting through my itchy blindfold, until the boat eventually rocked with someone boarding. “Imogen?”
“You good up there?”
“I guess… Should we talk strategy? Maybe codes for right or left?”
“Why do we need codes?”
“Well, the other voices might distract me,” I answered sheepishly.
“Luke, if you can’t recognize my voice by now, I don’t know what to tell you.”
I sighed, resigning myself to silence until the horn sounded out of nowhere. Just as I’d expected, instant chaos followed and I fought to discern Imogen through the din.
“Paddle straight! Luke, it’s a bottleneck…”
“I can’t hear you, Im!”
“Opening at the bridge… We have to beat…”
I lost her instructions amid the ubiquitous splashes, oars swatting for supremacy.
Another boat plowed into ours, and a screech that sounded like Solana pierced my eardrum.
Something else collided against our stern, propelling us forward, almost as if a shark had grabbed us from underneath.
Even blindfolded, I sensed the sun vanish when we entered a cool shadow, acoustics changing as Imogen’s cries crystalized.
“Not THAT way! You’re hitting the bridge!
” was the last plea I heard before we capsized.
The fact that Tatianna had been able to successfully guide Camdon through the canals was less a testament to prowess and more to how poorly the rest of us had done.
“Camdon and Tati are safe from tomorrow’s Trial!
” Ecklund reminded our drenched assembly.
“Everyone else: get your communication under control, because a new era means new rules… You’ll vote as individuals which team goes in, but whoever gets selected will pick their opponent from the losers. So choose wisely.”
While leery glances rippled through the cast, Imogen shoved past everyone to board the bus as soon as cameras went down. I tried to catch her, but Erika halted me. “Let me try,” she whispered, joining Imogen in the coach’s back row.
The bus bled into the rush-hour arteries churning between Shanghai’s skyscrapers, and eventually we arrived at a towering luxury hotel on the famous Nanjing Road.
I instantly recognized the Marco Polo logo, as Barnes always stayed in their Beverly Hills location for LA fundraisers.
No doubt they were paying the network a fortune for the product placement.
Smiling ladies in silver qipaos greeted us with champagne at the glass doors, prompting Melange to glare.
“They’re housing us in five-star lodging. Anybody else suspicious?”
We drifted through the onyx tomb of a lobby, the ceiling decorated with hundreds of dangling white orchids, and took the elevator to a breathtaking penthouse of glass and marble, all bathed in velvety indigos and periwinkles. We stood awestruck before Fortune led the way. “Bedrooms are back here.”
“You psychic now?” PB asked.
“Worked security on a Spice Girls tour in the ’90s. They’ve redone the floors, though.”
As Melange hounded Fortune for details, I noticed a monumental landscape painting in the entry, a cliff made of thick ink strokes that microscopic pilgrims climbed to reach a tiny temple. The Bosch puzzle was too fresh; I’d memorize every detail later.
Shawn found me soon after in the ivory carpeted hall. “No bunks,” he said eagerly.
The spacious bedroom he’d claimed was indeed a far cry from our Italian barracks, complete with two queen beds sporting lush white comforters and silk sheets.
“Only two beds in each room, and while there is a camera in that corner”—he playfully pushed a door open with his hip—“the bathroom is another story.”
He backed into the luminous en suite, beckoning me to follow. I was shocked. While there had occasionally been rewards back in the day, we’d never been housed in sustained luxury like this. Or anything resembling an oasis of privacy. “So… roomies?” He grinned.
As if on cue, I heard Troy interfacing with an interpreter in the hall, and the last thing I needed was him fixating on this story point. I discreetly shut the bathroom door, turning on the shower to scramble the sound for our mic packs.
“I mean, it’s almost like a sign, right?” Shawn whispered. “You wanted us to have more privacy to figure this out, and now look around.”
“Totally.” I nodded nervously. “I’m just wondering if I should abandon PB.”
“He already snagged a room with Aspen. Keep the enemy close, I guess…” Shawn blinked, shifting his weight.
“Luke, I know I was all over the place in Italy, but this isn’t about jumping your bones.
This is me—fully sober this time—saying I want to get to know you more.
We have this whole freakin’ palace to ourselves, and that kind of feels…
I don’t know, magical?” He smiled hesitantly. “But I get it… if it’s too much.”
No matter what we pretended, this was gas on a fire—and wasn’t I currently divorcing the last man I’d shared a hotel room with on this show?
No matter how the game tricked us into thinking time had passed, I hardly knew Shawn.
All I really knew was… he was someone I wanted to protect.
And—I couldn’t deny it—he was someone who might one day make Barnes jealous. “No, I’d love to room with you.”
He blushed, relieved. “Don’t worry. We’ll room slowly…”
He squeezed my hand with such tenderness in his eyes that I kissed his forehead before I even knew what I was doing, as if it was instinct, caught between reason and something else.
Because we weren’t on camera. Because he’d said the right things.
Because I wanted to. And at least for those few stolen minutes, I convinced myself that was okay—until I noticed his eyes had gone glassy, elsewhere.
“Hey, why the about-face?”
“Jet lag,” he said softly. “Go call the kids. Tell them about the baby turtles.”
But their interest in the turtles was fleeting. “When do you see a panda?!”
“Wally, I’ll keep my eyes open but I’m not sure we’ll see any pandas.” Across the room, Zara chuckled and shook her head.
“Stop with the pandas.” Andie bumped her brother. “Daddy, what about the competitions? What was the last one?”
Zara whispered, “Be vague, please.”
“We raced boats today?” I offered, and Andie’s face fell. “What’s that look?”
She shifted in her seat grudgingly. “I wanted to try whatever you’re doing.”
“Whoa, does that mean Daddy’s officially out of the doghouse?”
“Aunt Jenny was telling us what some of the games are like,” Andie replied, curiosity glimmering all over her face. “Do they really swing you through the air?”
“Sometimes… Maybe your aunt and I can find some clips for you to watch?” Both kids lit up, as if I’d promised them a full-time relocation to Disney World.
How had I been so dense not to think of that sooner?
As disastrous as certain episodes were, watching a game of water polo wouldn’t traumatize them.
“Just to be clear, it would be way more fun if you were here with me. I only want to win because of you two. You know that, right?”
“We know, Daddy,” Andie said, leaning into the camera intensely. “So don’t suck!”
I couldn’t help but laugh, elated the kids were not only getting invested in the game but also maybe starting to grasp why I was here. I spent the rest of the call brainstorming kid-friendly Tribulations with Andie and was still ruminating later when a knock came at our bedroom door.
I was careful not to wake Shawn, already fast asleep, curly locks adorably spilling over his pillow.
My smile vanished when I found Imogen at the door, looking like she hadn’t slept since we’d left Tuscany.
“Solana and Tati are having a knock-down-drag-out, so we don’t have much time,” she said, excruciatingly all business.
“I messed up today, I won’t deny it. I was getting used to your…
presence, but being partners freaked me out. ”
“No, I get it, I do…”
“I know how important the money is for getting custody, so I’ll pull my shit together, I promise. Your kids are obviously bigger than any of our stuff.”
Somehow this measured version of her was even more painful than when she’d openly hated me. “I can never properly thank you for that.”
“Besides, I doubt either of us wants to provide more fodder for Troy,” she sighed. “Now let’s talk game before he finds us.”
“Um, based off today, I think there’s a lot more we need to discuss first.”
“God, Luke, don’t dredge it all up—”
“Ignoring the last decade won’t solve anything either. I need to finally apologize for what I did to you and Arjun—”
“Leave him out of it,” she cut me off, so firm yet so fatigued. “Other people getting in the middle, especially Arjun, is where all our troubles started.”
“Okay, it’s just… Imogen, you will never know how sorry I am that I didn’t listen to you every time I should have. Can I at least say that as a blanket statement?”
“Fine. And I’m sorry I slapped you in Italy,” she answered. “Now can we move on? We have more immediate problems. Specifically, your alliance with PB has reached its expiration date.”
“He’s a guaranteed number for us.”
“You’re not on the same team anymore, and he’ll target us, I know it. We only prevent that by aligning with the Medals guys. Add Erika and Shawn, that’s a strong voting bloc.”
“PB’s the only reason I’m still in the game.”
“Well, the game’s changing every day. And Camdon and Royce color within the lines. They’ve never crossed me.” She halted, the unspoken hanging: unlike you.
“But—”
“Luke, history hasn’t exactly proven you the best judge of character.” She inhaled sharply, straining to keep her tone even. “Nobody is invested in you winning now like me, and I need to be in control. For both our sakes.”
I knew there was only one answer. “You’re in the driver’s seat.”
She nodded. “The only person you can trust now is me. Got it?”
That may have been true, but I wasn’t deluded enough to think she trusted me in return. After the disaster of Season 2, she had no reason to.