Amazing Race: Week 3

The Episode

The nine remaining teams flew to Bolivia, where they camped out in a field-leveling bunch-up that left them all waiting for a hidden clue in the classifieds section of the morning newspaper.

After the clue directed them to visit to a hat shop, the teams were presented with their Detour options, "Musical March" and "Bumpy Ride."

Only Andrew and Dan, and Marisa and Brooke took the "Musical March" option, which led them to collect band members from one plaza and then lead them, in a musical procession, to a second plaza.

"Bumpy Ride," the other option, involved riding a wooden bicycle (that looked more like a scooter) down some heavily cobbled streets. The other seven teams chose this option.

After the Detour, no one opted to use the "U Turn," which would have forced a team to perform both Detour options rather than just one.

The Roadblock was a lot of fun, and I also loved that different teams finished in dramatically different times, based on an actual skill set rather than luck.

The roadblocking individual from each team had to practice a choreographed set of fake wrestling moves, and perform six distinct moves with a female wrestling partner (a cholita) without making a mistake.

Some teams were paying close attention and got it right on the first try, which allowed them to surge ahead in the standings.

Sarah, Marisa, and Kelly all needed two attempts to do it right. Hapless comic geek Mark took three tries, and he had to take a break in-between to get some extra air from an oxygen tank. He wants to be known as a geek suffering from the high altitude, but it was hard not to see a nerd with an inhaler.

In the end, Mark and Bill arrived at the Pit Stop in 8th place, ahead of divorcees Christie and Kelly. However, they had misread a clue earlier in the leg, taking a taxi cab instead of walking at one point. As such, they had to sit for a 30 minute penalty. It looked like it only took about five minutes or so for Kelly and Christie to arrive, and so the geeks were ganked.





Team Battle: Kelly and Christie got into it with Nick and Starr in a big way this week. The premise of their bad blood involved a weird accusation leveled against Starr-- Kelly and Christie claimed that she had thrown a sports bra belonging to one of them out the window. Starr denied it, but Kelly and Christie didn't believe her. This led to Nick and Starr wanting to U-Turn Kelly and Christie. Not wanting to use their only potential U-Turn this early in the game, they tried to talk Aja and Ty into doing it, but this only heightened the enmity between the teams. A skeptical Aja and Ty refused to act as pawns, and so the U-Turn went unused. In retrospect, the U-Turn would have probably been effective in getting Kelly and Christie bounced from the race, assuming the Detours took at least a half hour each to complete.

A feud based on some kind of gamesmanship always has a chance to morph into a grudging respect. But when it's something personal like this -- and really, what's more personal than a sports bra?-- it will probably lead to simmering hatred for all eternity. That's just the way it works.

Funny Moments:
-- Kelly (or was it Christie?) totally wiping out on her wooden bicycle, almost taking out an innocent bystander in the process
-- Toni glowing with pride as her son Dallas tossed around his cholita opponent in the ring
-- Smarmy Nick approaching Kelly and Christie to "open a dialogue" and getting completely brushed off when they don't buy his smarm
-- The teams descending en masse on the delivery of newspapers. They looked like a bunch of hoboes fighting over a chicken dinner


Elimination: I think everyone will be sorry to see Mark and Bill go-- there were a standout team, and also a very nice team, which is a rare combination. As one of the less physical teams, they were bound to live or die by their wits, and their wits, frankly, let them down. Misreading the clue was a deal-killer, and Mark's inability to learn the wrestling moves only compounded the situation. Something tells me that if they had to learn the moves for a wrestling video game with a keyboard, they would have smoked everybody. Sadly, it was not to be.



The top 9 teams finished up like this. The number shows how they improved or slipped over the previous episode:

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


The Pool

Wow, Ken and Tina pulled off first place for the second week running. Who was smart enough to pick up some bonus points by picking them for FT? Mom, Dawn, and Carl, that's who. They got 16 points apiece for their prescience.

The pool is neatly divided into two halves-- the winners and the losers, with a large 72 point gap separating us. Riding high is Carl, who has led the pool since week one and now has earned our enmity. Jen had the best week of anyone after correctly predicting that Mark and Bill would go out this week. Right now, there's a four way battle for first, and a 4 way battle for last. I hope next week shakes things up!


1st: Carl 1014 (-60 +16)
2nd: Jen 1010 (+50 +0)
3rd: Dawn 1002 (-40 +16)
4th: Mike 986 (-40 +0)
5th: Kim 914 (-30 +0)
6th: Paul 906 (-50 +0)
7th: Matt 898 (-60 +0)
8th: Mom 866 (-70 +16)

Don't forget to send me your FT picks, and good luck everyone!