Amazing Race: Week 2

The Episode

Wow! They made the top ten! Fantastic! The underachievers in the pack must be patting themselves on the back already.

After what I felt was an underwhelming season opener last week, the Race came roaring back this week with all of the elements I love-- teams bickering with each other, challenges that allowed some teams to thrive over others, and teams being punished for some really horrible missteps. And while the actual elimination wasn't that suspenseful, there was a pitched battle for first place that came down to split seconds.

Team Battle: Ken and Tina squared off against Terence and Sarah over line placement at the airport. Really, it was more like Terence and Tina trying to out-bitch each other while Sarah and Ken wished they were somewhere else.

Tina had arrived at the airport first and revealed herself as one of those people who takes actual pride in their shameless bullying of customer service personnel the world over. She made the dubious claim that she convinced the airport to use a bigger plane for the next flight to Bolivia, thereby creating more space on what had been a fully booked flight.

Did the airline actually upgrade the plane? It would appear so. Did they do it because Tina said so, as she claims, or would they have done it for any of the other ten panicky teams that happened to arrive at the airport first? It probably had nothing to do with Tina personally. The most important question is, did the change benefit any team over the other? No, because what would have been a 10 way tie on the 11:30 flight instead became a 10 way tie on an early morning flight.

Yet, Tina and Ken immediately began lording it over the other competitors. Tina specifically told Aja and Ty that they owed her in the future (and I can already see the moment, three episodes hence, when Aja aces Tina out of a cab or something, and Tina goes ballistic over the perceived backstab).

This all led up to a battle for first place in line on the first come, first seated flight. Terence and Sarah thought they should be first in line because, well, they had arrived first. Ken and Tina thought that they should magically be waved to the front of the line because they were responsible for the flight's very existence.

It sounds like a no-brainer for Terence and Sarah, but public support from the other teams actually seemed to be in Kentina's favor, which shows you how hugely unpopular Terence has made himself. He also showed himself to be a complete coward, because while he has no problem berating Sarah for chatting up the old hippies, he immediately apologized to footballer Ken for arguing with his wife, and said that he hadn't meant to offend Ken in any way whatsoever. It makes me wonder whether Terence would lay off Sarah if she kicked his ass.

Weirdest moment: One of the first teams to hit the Bolivian beach on the back of a weird beach-buggy thing was mother/son Toni and Dallas. In the first shot of them on the back of the vehicle, there was a huge blur over Toni's crotch. Kim and I were amused at the idea of Toni letting it all hang out while sitting next to her son on camera, but it later turned out to be water droplets on the camera, creating all sort of random non-censorship blurs (and I do thank the water droplet that blurred out Terence's head-- let's have more of that!). I suppose the CBS censors can't be too careful the week after accidentally airing Marcus the hunk's junk on a primetime Survivor airing: http://defamer.com/5056586/first-high+def-survivor-episode-also-provides-first-cbs-full+frontal-nudity

The sharpest knife in the drawer: Mark and Bill arrived at the Detour in the middle of the pack and decided to "play to their strengths" by choosing the mental task over the more physical one. They managed to zip through a dos computer listing of cargo containers until they found the one with their serial number, go to the section that the computer indicated, and identify their container, all while resisting the frustration that the task was designed to elicit. They also came up with the idea of writing down all the possible place names at the roadblock, a strategy that seemed to be handed down, through mimicry, to all the other teams. When Ken and Tina just barely beat them out for first place, they were amazingly gracious.

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer: Kelly and Christy were very, very confused this episode. At the Detour, they misread their clue, and after moving the boat (which was correct), they started looking all over the beach for their cargo container (which pertained to the other Detour option). They finished moving the boat, and then decided, in an act of heroic optimism, that they should dig in the sand for their container. After nearly all the other teams had bypassed them, they reluctantly abandoned the idea that there was buried treasure waiting for them, and they moved on. In the cab, they told the camera, in unison, that they had learned to read the clue. Then they promptly sent the cab away from the Roadblock while holding a clue that told them not to. After finishing the Roadblock, they were left trying to flag a cab down on a highway, which caused them to slip a little further. How these mistakes didn't cost them the game, I don't know.

Funny moments:
-- Frat boys Andrew and Dan deciding that they should choose the more physical detour option, laboring under the mistaken impression that they are very manly. They gave a sincere interview about how they frequently lift weights. These guys are Lambda Lambda Lambda men all the way.
-- The cab driver beaned Terence on the head with the trunk of the cab while closing it. Cowardly Terence freaked out, not at the cab driver of course, but at Sarah, who was expressing concern. When she asked him what happened, he shouted "Do you not see the blood on my forehead?" "No, I don't see any blood," she replied, looking more closely. In the cab, he angrily demanded that she blow on his owie to make the hurt go away.
-- Nick pimped out his sister Starr at the beach detour, by suggesting that she kiss the local helpers assigned to them on the task. "You'll get another when the job is done," he promised the locals.


Elimination: Anthony and Stephanie, the half-hearted anonymous team best known for her bronxy accent. They fell victim not to any particular mistake, but rather to a general slow-pokeyness. They fell slightly behind when they got a bum cab out of the airport (Anthony decided they should push the cab rather than get another one), and never caught up. I bet the big city mortgage brokers will have lots in common with the old hippie beekeepers from Oregon in the Hotel of Eliminated Teams. Like, they can talk about... well... slowness. They have that much in common, at least.


The top 10 teams finished up like this. The number shows how they improved or slipped over the previous episode:

1st: Ken and Tina (+1)
2nd: Mark and Bill (+2)
3rd: Terence and Sarah (no change)
4th: Aja and Ty (+4 = biggest improvement)
5th: Toni and Dallas (+1)
6th: Nick and Starr (-5 = biggest slide)
7th: Kelly and Christie (-2)
8th: Andrew and Dan (+1)
9th: Marisa and Brooke (+1)
10th: Anthony and Stephanie (-1)


The Pool

Many of you failed to submit a FT (fastest team) pick, which I hope means that you consciously decided to re-up your pick from last week, and didn't just forget to send it in. Whatever the reason, the FT picks were very fractured, with no team garnering more than two votes of confidence from our pool players. This meant big points for me; as the only person to go with Kentina, I pulled down a whopping 40 bonus points.

The big winner for the week was Dawn, who was the only person to correctly predict Anthony and Stephanie would be eliminated in this second week. Her 50 point bonus puts her into a tie for second with Mike. The big losers were Paul and Jen, both of whom just lost their first place pick. Ouch! Carl hangs onto the top of the leaderboard after losing only 10 points.


1st: Carl 1058 (-10 +0)
2nd: Mike 1026 (-40 +0)
2nd: Dawn 1026 (+50 +0)
4th: Jennifer 960 (-90 +0)
5th: Matt 958 (-10 +0)
6th: Paul 956 (-90 +0)
7th: Kim 944 (-50 +0)
8th: Mom 920 (-20 +0)