Amazing Race Week 6: Leaving the Race in an Upright Position

Amazing Race Week 5:

Once again, here is a week-late pool update. This doesn't pertain to last night's episode, but to the previous episode, in which teams raced through India. In general, there were no performance surprises, with the strongest team finishing first, the weakest team finishing last, and everyone else in the middle.

One interesting thing about India is that the combination of horrific poverty, uncomfortable crowding, and heat always seem to unnerve some of our teams. Revealed as a sensitive and good person was Luke, who was sobbing at the sight of children foraging for food amongst garbage. Revealed as an insensitive and bad person was Cara (or was it Jaime?), who shed tears along the same stretch of city for the stray animals rather than the people. She also went ballistic when her cab driver couldn't wait around for her in the middle of a busy Indian street, and accused him of stealing all of her belongings when he actually seemed to be parking nearby and coming back to collect her on foot.

Other quick highlights:

Old Mel proved to be one of the best water/hay haulers in a task that asked racers to feed a pack of hungry camels.

Christie and Jodi, battling against an elephant painting Speedbump due to last week's non-elimination, didn't do anything to make up any time.

Mark and Michael proved once again that their sense of direction is as elusive as their sense of height, while Tammy and Victor were full of smarmy pride at their willingness to participate in a goofy costumed dance for rupees.

Finishing Order

1st: Tammy and Victor (+1)
2nd: Mel and Mike (+2)
3rd: Kisha and Jen (+3 = most improved)
4th: Margie and Luke (-3 = biggest slide)
5th: Jaime and Cara (-2)
6th: Mark and Michael (-1)
7th: Christie and Jodi (no change = eliminated )


The Standings

This week we basically reran the numbers from last week, with Tammy and Victor worth the bonus points for Fastest Team, and Christie and Jodi repeating the last place performance from the previous leg.

1st: Carl: 974 (+50 +10)
2nd: Kim 956 (-40 +10)
3rd: Experts 920 (+50 +0)
4th: Dawn 897 (-60 +10)
5th: Paul 850 (-40 +10)
6th: Matt 800 (-10 +0)
7th: Mom 786 (-10 +0)

Carl and the Experts have really made out on the Christie/Jodie double point situation. Carl overtook Kim for the lead this week, while the Experts jumped up into 3rd place. This caused Kim to slide one rank, Dawn to slide two, and Paul to slide one. Luckily for me, my Mom is keeping me company down at the bottom of the pool. Dawn had it really rough, since she just got tagged for 60 points twice in a row, and also lost her predicted first place finishers. That means that only Paul and Kim have live first place team predictions.

Good luck, everyone!