Amazing Race: Awesome Hair

The show tried to be exciting with a double u-turn but all the contestants wasted it. There was a fairly exciting race to the finish line though, but what I found to be the best part of the entire episode was the guy’s hair at the pit stop. Look at it! Awesome.

 

Crowded Bus

The teams stayed in Malawi for this leg. They left the pit stop to travel by bus to Salima with the warning that a double u-turned was ahead. Exciting! You would think, but not on this episode. It was sad instead. While heading out, Justin told a random story about coming out as gay to his sister and how she handled it. Thanks random gay comment!

All the teams got on the same very crowded bus. Cindy kept making comments that it smelled. Very nice. There was some editing where we thought that the NFL team might not make it on the bus, but they did. Fake bus drama!

Biking Through Africa

After getting off the bus, the teams had a roadblock where one team member had to deliver a customer carrying a fish off at one of three addresses, collect money and then return it to the bike dispatcher at the starting point. It wasn’t too difficult a task for most teams, even though there were a few things that got them sidetracked. Laurence and Sandy got lost for a bit but they eventually found the same address they were both headed to together. Andy’s bike had a crank fall off of it so he had to stop and fix that with the help of some locals. Then he was on his way. Nothing seemed to slow Cindy down, even with her fabulous comments about how this part of Africa was primitive and she wondered why the kids weren’t in school.

Amani and Marcus ran into their speed bump before they had to even start the roadblock. They had to put together a slide puzzle of a flag, which stumped them for a bit. Cindy and Andy finished the roadblock before the NFL team got a chance to start on the detour. Marcus decided to do the task. He said he had trained riding bikes before the race. I believe he did his homework on how many times bikes come into play on this race. Good thinking Marcus! That helped him out since they were in last place when they started the road block, but they were not the last team to leave it.

That would be Justin and Jennifer. I knew this would not be a good task for Jennifer since we already learned that she cannot ride a bike very well. She already ran into someone when riding a bike before and she almost fell off her bike and almost launched her customer into the dirt this time around. That wasn’t her biggest problem though. Jennifer’s biggest problem was not taking the clue with her. She finished her task, dropped off the customer and then realized she didn’t have the clue. She couldn’t remember what she had to do next so she waited and waited and waited. She was hoping another team could come to her address and she could follow someone to the next step. She was the last person to drop someone off at her address though so she was waiting for no one.

After what had to be an extremely long amount of time, she finally went back to the start to get the clue from Justin and read that she had to return the money right there at the start. They finally got to move on in the race. I was shocked that neither one of them lost their cool. Neither one of them blamed the other. Jennifer was upset that she had messed up, but Justin said he was just worried that she was okay. Are these the same brother and sister that fought nonstop at the beginning of the race?

Carrying People

The next clue was a detour where the teams had to choose between paddling in a dugout canoe in part of the ocean around some people and then back to shore or carry a bunch of cargo off of a ship to the beach, including eight people. Obviously, everyone chose the canoe detour, except for the NFL team. Crazy Marcus was carrying people while Amani said she felt like she was going to throw up carrying everything else through waist-deep water. Marcus told  her she could throw up later. Good advice!

While that task seemed hard, the canoe race wasn’t too easy either. Some teams worked well together (snowboarders and farmers) and actually steered the canoe in a straight line while most other teams just went around in literal circles. Control Freak team decided that since they sucked at paddling, they were going to use the Express Pass to skip the detour and get the next clue. It told them where to go to get to the Double U-Turn. They had arrived at the canoes right before the snowboarders, but they weren’t too far behind. They knew they had to get to the Double U-Turn before them or else they might have to do the tasks they just tried to bypass and lose their lead. They couldn’t find the place, which was right near where they started. They ran all over the beach and then found it just before the snowboarders. It was a perfect opportunity to u-turn the snowboarders, but they didn’t do it! Really? The snowboarders didn’t u-turn anyone else either. Bah! Boring people.

This trend continued with people not u-turning anyone, including the farmers who sailed right past boring dating couple in the ocean. Neither one u-turned anyone. Oh, the only exciting thing the boring dating couple did this leg was when Jeremy gave the awesome canoeing instructions of “Put the thing in the thing.” Gotcha! Laurence and Zac also struggled with the canoe mostly due to Laurence yelling about Zac not doing it right and Zac calmly telling him to calm down. After they finished, they knew they had to u-turn someone. While it took them a while to finish their task and the NFL team finished the other detour right after them, the NFL team got to U-turn first. Of course, they didn’t U-turn anyone either but they might have thought they were last at that point. When the father/son team ran RIGHT BY Amani and Marcus, they went to the U-turn and selected Amani and Marcus to U-turn. Huh? I had to rewind to make sure that they actually ran by each other. They did! No clue what was going on there. So the double u-turn was wasted this entire round. At least everyone left Justin and Jennifer alone since they were already super far behind. They showed up at the detour after everyone left.

Whining to Pit Stop

After the detour, the teams headed to the pit stop, which was down the road, but they had to walk there. It seemed like quite a trek. The snowboarders were not far behind the Control Freak team. They had the plan to break into a run as soon as they saw Phil. Cindy was whining the entire time she was jogging to the pit stop, even though she wasn’t carrying both backpacks like Ernie was and he was still running faster than her. Didn’t she put Ernie on a routine for six months before the race so he would be ready? Did she not practice either? Maybe she is already perfect. Both teams were neck and neck to the pit stop mat when they saw it with Cindy crying out to the snowboarders, “Please, let us win.” Ug, no sympathy from me! Even though I’m not a fan of the snowboarders, I didn’t want whiner to win so I was glad the snowboarders came in first. Just to make matters worse, they won $15,000 total. Nice!

Then Phil checked in the control freaks for second place, followed by the farmers, NFL teams, Laurence/Zac and boring dating couple. Boring dating couple were still in the water when Laurence/Zac got out of the canoes but they didn’t u-turn them. Maybe they forgot they were there like I do each time Iwatch them in an episode. The final team to arrive was Justin and Jennifer. They were eliminated.

Questions

  1. What do you think about the lack of u-turning done by the teams?
  2. Do you think that Laurence/Zac didn’t register that the NFL team had just walked past them, meaning they finished the detour or did they think they were just about to start the detour?
  3. Can you believe how much Justin and Jennifer have changed since the beginning of the race?

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