Amazing Race: Week 8

The Episode

For me, this was another great episode, full of suspense and shaking my head at the apparent idiocy of some of the teams. The brave and sure were rewarded, and the foolish were left to sweat it out in a desperate battle to avoid elimination. By this stage of the season, it's impossible not to have opinions about these teams, and so each elimination is bound to generate some sort of reaction inside us.

The Beginning: Teams flew out of India and into Kazakhstan, which, despite Borat's assertions, seems to be populated by ordinary citizens and not incestuous backwater imbeciles. Teams were broken up at the airport, with the three front-running teams acing out Terence and Sarah for the best flight, and then Terence and Sarah acing out Andrew and Dan for the second-best flight. This proved not to matter, as teams were bunched post-flight at a chicken factory, where they all began the Roadblock even-steven.

The Fast Forward: The Roadblock clue also came with a temptation-- directions to the second and final Fast Forward, which allows teams to skip all tasks and proceed directly to the Pit Stop. Both Nick and Starr, and Terence and Sarah decided to try to Fast Forward. It involved traveling to a local restaurant and eating a full portion of a local delicacy. Phil described the local food as the fat from the back end of a sheep, but it basically looked like some very chunky meaty stew.

It turned into a real battle of East Coast versus West Coast, with Manhattanites Terence and Sarah trying to out-eat Californian sunshiners Nick and Starr. Terence let down his peeps by dint of the fact that he is a vegetarian. He did eventually start chowing down the meat, but he let himself be severely psyched out when they fell behind early. In the end, they decided to abandon the task, ceding the FF to Nick and Starr. They went about this in probably the worst way possible-- they saw what the task was and attempted it, but never seemed to be competing 100%. They must have known they weren't going to win before the first bite, but they gave it a half-assed try that cost them precious time.

The Roadblock: I guess in other countries, corporate livestock producers have dropped the facade of "farms" and call themselves "factories," which is much more accurate. In this case, the chicken factory is the site of the Roadblock. The participating team member had to strap on a hazmat suit and wander through the thousands of birds in the factory, looking for one of seven golden eggs hidden beneath the birds on the floor.

It looked like a very simple and easy task, and I doubt it took any one team more than a few minutes to find the egg and move on.

The Detour: Teams got their next clue from a Mongol Warrior, who looked appropriately fierce and had a hunting bird of prey on his gauntleted forearm. Fun fact: those hawks can be used to kill wolves by striking so hard that they break the wolf's back. The Detour options were far less fierce:

In "Play Like Mad," teams had to go learn how to play a couple of local musical instruments, and then go play in a park until they had raised a dollar fifty in local currency. I was surprised to see this task, as one of the few criticisms of the show is that it sometimes creates a situation in which a comparatively wealthy American panhandles from people who are probably much more needy than the American is. However, we never had to worry about it, since all four teams (excepting the fast worwarding Nick and Starr) chose "Act Like A Fool."

The second option had teams put on a cow costume (one of those ones where each person is half the cow) and run a couple of errands, beginning with drinking a glass of "warm and strong" milk (Tina's words), and ending with a butcher stall at a bazaar.

All four teams chose to "Act Like A Fool," and Dallas had a grand time mooing it up at local passersby. Toni and Dallas were the only team to sail through this task without a hitch. Ken and Tina had a bad day. They didn't realize that after drinking milk, their next clue was in the bottom of the glass, so they wasted some time looking for another milk vendor. Then they took off and returned their cow costume, not realizing that they had to keep it on. Despite their mishaps, they had enough of a lead on the trailing teams to arrive at the pit stop in third place. For a team whose marriage is falling apart, they've been getting along reasonably well.

Andrew and Dan arrived at the Detour next, having lost a lot of time due to the fact that they got a clueless driver. They didn't help matters any by asking bystanders for directions, and then moving on if the person they asked for help spoke no English, which was always. Their non-english speaking cabdriver seemed very disinterested in this whole process. They finally hit upon the idea of asking a local to give directons directly to their driver, which put them on the right path.

Terence and Sarah got to the Detour last, since they messed up the Fast Forward, and seemed to get through the tasks without much of a problem.

The Pit Stop: There was some Pit Stop drama when Andrew and Dan arrived, only to learn that they were supposed to get there on foot (they had actually taken a cab). Phil ordered them to return to the Detour location and then come back on foot, which was a little bit of a problem because they didn't have their shoes with them. They had to walk back wearing cow-costume feet. The editing led us to believe that it was a photo-finish between Andrew and Dan, and Terence and Sarah, but it doesn't seem that that was actually the case. Given the slipups by Andrew and Dan, this must have meant that Terence and Sarah were hopelessly behind all along. Here's the finishing order:

1st: Nick and Starr (no change)
2nd: Toni and Dallas (no change)
3rd: Ken and Tina (+1 = biggest improvement)
4th: Andrew and Dan (+1 = biggest improvement)
5th: Terence and Sarah (-2 = biggest slide = eliminated)


The Elimination: Terence and Sarah were brutalized by their bad decision to go for the Fast Forward half-heartedly. I think the show needs a little tinkering here-- failing to get the Fast Forward should be a liability, but not a death sentence. Based on this episode, it's never worth it to go for a Fast Forward unless you're certain you're going to be the first team to arrive at the task.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to see the neurotic runner and his long-suffering girlfriend out of the race. I had picked them to win second place before the season start, but Terence was probably the least pleasant personality of all the remaining racers.

They haven't been as incompetent as Andrew and Dan, but they didn't deserve to last more than one more week, anyhow.


The Pool

Mike continues to dominate the pool, losing a few points against second-place Carl, but not enough to sweat it. For the second week running, Carl had the only positive score in the pool after being only 1 spot off in the elimination, and correctly predicting the Nick/Starr first place finish.

Overall, everyone did very well on the Terence-Sarah elimination. Most people lost only 10 or 20, although once again, it was bad news for both Kim and Paul, who lost 40 points apiece. At least in Kim's case, the damage was mitigated by a Nick/Starr FT bonus of 13 points.

The most damaging scenario for Mike would be an unlikely Nick/Starr elimination next week, so that's what I'm gunning for.

Death to Mike!

1st: Mike 1032 (-20 +13)
2nd: Carl 966 (-10 +13)
3rd: Jen 920 (-10 +0)
4th: Dawn 875 (-10 +0)
5th: Matt 831 (-30 +13)
6th: Mom 826 (-10 +0)
7th: Kim 770 (-40 +13)
8th: Paul 736 (-40 +0)

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