“The Grand Tour”‘s long-awaited Madagascar Special [titled “A Massive Hunt”] was finally released on Amazon Prime and we wade through the offering today.
The special begins with an introduction of where they are – the French territory of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean – while James and Richard are engaged in a game of petanque [ a French version of bocce] before we are introduced to the cars the boys – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – will be using in the episode. Jeremy has a Bentley Continental GT, Richard has a Ford Focus RS [with Hammond explaining that “it brings out the yob in me”] and James has a Caterham Seven Fireblade.
First up is the obligatory drag race on a 12-kilometer elevated roadway specially-built to avoid the cliffside rockfalls that had plagued the normal seaside road around Reunion Island. The drag race was, of course, won by the V8-powered Bentley.
The boys then move on from the race to the episode quest – that of a notable pirate of yore and proceed to recount his backstory which includes buried pirate treasure, a coded message and a mysterious location of said treasure – which will be their stated mission for the episode. James then sets about trying to decipher the coded message while Richard and Jeremy keep themselves busy by sitting on a beach talking about sharks, going fishing and finally, pestering James.
They then travel to Tamatave, Madagascar, where they pick up their modified cars they will require for the quest. James has merely attached oversized rear tires to the Caterham, Richard has painted his black, added a pirate theme, a roll cage, snorkels and tank treads where the tires used to be while Jeremy has had his painted neon green, added a winch, motorcycle headlamps, steel underplating and snorkels.
They set off toward the small village of Libertalia, 100 miles to the north of Tamatave, where James has decreed that the treasure must lie. They arrive at La Cigale Hotel and shortly after begin their journey toward the suspected location of the treasure – the even smaller village of Seratambe – but first, James gets dusty driving in the open cockpit-Caterham and Richard’s right front track disengages, requiring a three-hour repair.
The boys then board the first of six [!] ferries they will use in the entirety of the episode, to a muddy location where James gets pelted by noxious mud and Richard’s right front track quits again. After another ferry transfer, to another location, the Bentley gets beached, requiring Richard to winch him free – before, inevitably – Hammond’s right front track falls off again.
After three more ferry transfers, the trio arrives in Libertalia [near Seranambe] where they proceed to struggle with a muddy/sandy/rocky road as Richard again has his right front track fail only this time, he holds up a wedding party on their way to celebrating their impending nuptials. He finally replaces them with the original tires from the Focus.
Before they can arrive in Seranambe, James gets his car in the way of local traffic and must have it winched up a tree to get it out of the way and Richard’s clutch gives out – dooming his car to its final death and forcing him to walk and take a tuk-tuk for the remainder of the episode.
Jeremy’s Bentley overheats before they arrive in Seranambe so Richard and James locate the supposed treasure location and dig a hole in the middle of a soccer field only to discover nothing since they figure out the treasure must be located on a nearby island called, appropriately enough, Pirate Island.
They take the final ferry of the episode out to Pirate Island where Richard uses a metal detector on the beach to try and locate the treasure, James concocts a trailer holding multiple metal detectors and Jeremy builds a bar before planting explosives in the sand to locate the treasure.
Richard finally locates the treasure which turns out to be the Holy Grail.
Overall, there were the usual predictable, scripted elements in the Madagascar Special [aka “A Massive Hunt”] but since we had been forced to wait so long for the actual episode to finally be released, we will overlook them just because we are so happy to see the boys back in action – especially in this horrible Covid-19-infested year that has been 2020.
AutoSportsNation awards the Grand Tour’s Madagascar Special/”A Massive Hunt” a 91 out of 100.
