The Grand Tour Season 3, Episode 4 review: Pick Up Put Downs

The Grand Tour tries to test pickup trucks and comment on dictatorships simultaneously. Here’s what happened in The Grand Tour Season 3, Episode 4.

Whenever Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May test vehicles, they always find a strange way to do it. That was the case on Top Gear, and it’s the case in the latest episode of The Grand Tour.

“Pick Up Put Downs” is about test-driving pickup trucks. There’s no serious conclusion that they’re trying to prove; after all, this Amazon Original isn’t a serious car show. Instead, they’ve decided to see how the trucks hold up as they go through the life cycle of a fictional country.

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How did they get to this particular idea? Who knows. But it results in more of the same insanity that these three are known for.

They try to use their trucks to turn a developing country into a modern one; predictably, Jeremy’s overzealousness ruins that. They take a shot at the United Nations and other aid groups, having a “test” to see if the trucks are good for that by going into a bar. They’re going for the obvious, often politically incorrect jokes here, and some land better than others.

The Grand Tour frames its obligatory drag race as seeing what happens when the trucks have to flee the fake country—but the laughs come not from that spurious premise, but knowing that none of them bothered to secure their cargo. So in no time at all, the drag race turns into watching three trucks’ worth of various household goods flying across a runway.

At the finish line, all they have left is some pieces of crockery, James May’s beloved LEGO, and Clarkson’s copy of The Yes Album (which is roundly mocked by his colleagues as the worst album in history). This is a funny segment, but the humor comes out of the expected interactions the presenters have with each other, not because they’re doing anything that longtime fans wouldn’t expect them to do (or not do, in the case of properly packing their trucks).

Watch it below:

There are some other decent laughs in “Pick Up, Put Downs,” like the group trying to literally topple a dictator by using statues of each other. Who else would be appropriate? But it’s funnier because said statues were made to promote the first season of The Grand Tour. It’s an in-joke with a short joke about Richard Hammond for the umpteenth time.

Along with the season premiere “Motown Flip,” this episode proves that Clarkson, Hammond, and May have settled into a comfortable rhythm. They’re not necessarily groundbreaking or surprising anymore—they know what they do well and they know the personalities they each fill on TV. For those that already know them, this is comfortable humor with a side order of destruction.

It’d be intriguing to see them take more risks and come up with more novel ideas, but it’s clear they know themselves and their audience, and deliver what works for both. The Grand Tour could topple its own regime, but for now, it’ll settle for misfiring weapons and spilling LEGO all over the tarmac. Which is still more than many people do on Fridays.

New episodes of The Grand Tour premiere Fridays exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. For more on all the Amazon original series, visit the Amazon Originals category at Amazon Adviser.