Amazing Race Week 7: Mel and Mike go to the Beach

This week, teams left India for Phuket, Thailand, where they completed some very physical challenges in some very hot weather.

There was no roadblock (at least no televised Roadblock). Instead, there were a couple of clue obstacles, the first of which was to find a gorilla statue based only on a photograph. Everyone but Mel and Mike quickly found someone who directed them to the Phuket Zoo, while Mel and Mike allowed their cab driver to take them to the beach instead.

At the zoo, teams posed with a tiger in a way that would be completely illegal in the US, because a) it's cruel to the tiger, and b) there's no real guarantee that the racers would be safe. I would love to see the clause in the waiver form that covered this one.

Teams then headed to an ancient spice shop, where cheerleaders Jaime and Cara continued to fail to get over the fact that people in other countries don't all speak English. They spent most of the leg screaming at cab drivers, the spice store owner, and any pedestrian who was foolish enough to stop and try to help them. Whether it was because of serendipitous karma, or karma in the form of the spice shop owner purposefully screwing with them I can't say, but the cheerleaders took a very long time to get to the random drawer that had their next clue in it.

There were two Detour options. In the first, teams had to convey a rickshaw for two miles through the hot city streets, and in the second, teams had to prepare a fishing boat by filling 47 barrels with water and moving another 53 barrels to the cargo area of the ship.

Midgets Mark and Michael arrived at the first detour option with a healthy lead over the other teams. In their typical bungling fashion, they tried their best to blow this enormous lead by hiding some tire pumps in a box, and then paying their cab driver to lead them through the streets. Each decision cost them a 30 minute penalty, meaning that they had to sit for a full hour while waiting to see whether other teams would beat them to the mat.

Because of this, the reliable Tammy and Victor checked in at the Pit Stop in first place after Victor took the lead by carrying the rickshaw the entire way. Tammy has made a lot of hay over being treated as an equal member of the team, so I'm not sure why she didn't take a turn at the rickshaw carrying. All the other teams switched off, including Margie and Luke. Margie was overcome by the heat, but proved herself to be the racer with the most mettle by waiting until she was safely checked in at the Pit Stop before allowing herself to pass out. That's why I hope Margie and Luke outperform Tammy and Victor in this race. As a sidenote, there is something very endearing about Luke in distress, and so I hope the show continues to torture the poor guy for all of our viewing pleasure.

The end of the show came down to Mel and Mike trying to overcome their early wrong turn by overtaking sisters Jen and Lakisha at the boat preparation detour. I think it's pretty clear that this was the wrong detour option, and so we can count that as two bad decisions by Mel and Mike. In the end, their smart multi-tasking during the detour couldn't beat Jen and Lakisha's lead. So, the affable gay father/son duo was eliminated in 6th place, exceeding the expectations of almost all of us.



Finishing Order

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


The Standings

Four players split FT points for predicting that Tammy and Victor would take top honors this week.

1st: Kim 956 (-10 +10)
2nd: Carl: 934 (-50 +10)
3rd: Experts 870 (-50 +0)
4th: Dawn 867 (-30 +0)
5th: Paul 820 (-40 +10)
6th: Matt 780 (-30 +10)
7th: Mom 776 (-10 +0)

Kim recaptured the lead after ceding it to Carl last week. Other than that, there was a general tightening of the rest of the pool in the battle for third place.


Good luck, everyone!