Amazing Race Season 14: "The irony of minorities who hate minorities"

Coming in with a week-late pool update here. This reflects the episode that ran eight days ago, rather than the one that ran last night.

The show pulled out the dreaded double-leg on the road-weary teams as they raced across China. In previous seasons, this has seemed like a lame stunt designed to squeeze an extra week of programming out of an 11 team cast. This season, however, I thought they handled it just right. The teams are frazzled and trying to hold it together. We're heading into the final elimination, so it makes sense that there's a super-tough gauntlet to run to determine the finalists. To have the teams arrive at the mat only to be told that, instead of a rest period, they have to run another leg, is a real challenge of their toughness.

The leg had a couple of interesting challenges, too. The Roadblock required a team member to receive a foot massage, which turned out not to be the walk in the park it sounds like. Judging by the reactions of the roadblockers, it was, by turns, painful and ticklish. No one opted out of the challenge by saying "uncle," although I think they may have considered doing so if it resulted in a time penalty rather than a do-over. Tammy was the only one not to freak out in the chair, for what it's worth. She and Victor also reaped some more rewards for their bilingualism, benefitting from their ability to chat with the locals.

The Detour took place at an Olympic pool, and asked teams to "Sink" or "Swim." In Sink, teams had to bounce on a diving board and dive into the water in synchronicity, hitting the water with their feet at the exact same time. In "Swim," teams had to complete a 400 meter swim in relay fashion, with each team member taking 100 meters at a time. Tammy and Victor tried the synchronized diving, but eventually switched to the swimming task, which did seem to be the better option. Cara/Jaime and Luke/Margie both chose and completed this task without any major problems (Luke and Margie had the best time of any of the four teams).

The Detour is where Jen and Kisha really came undone. They continue a long, embarrassing tradition of black people on reality television who can't seem to do anything in the water. Jen in particular was terrified of getting wet, and her ineffectual dogpaddling nearly justified her fear. They decided to dive, then they decided to swim instead, and then they decided to dive instead, and then they decided to swim instead. Meanwhile, all of the other teams finished up and left the building headed towards the Pit Stop.

Jen and Kisha were particularly unlikable this week, pulling out some of that Cara/Jaime logic which assumes that Chinese people, living and working in China, should know how to speak English. Kisha called Chinese people dumb, asserted that they all look alike, and said that they should at least know how to say "Me no speakie English," that last said in front of some Chinese airport workers who did in fact know how to speak English.

At the end of the leg, we didn't get to see the finishing order, although Cara and Jaime did hit the inter-leg mat first. That means that most of the pool points for this week will be awarded next week.

Finishing Order

1st: Jaime and Cara (+3 = most improved)
2nd: ???
3rd: ???
4th: Kisha and Jen (almost certainly)



The Standings

No points to give out here. No one picked Cara and Jaime to win the leg, so the FT points will be handed out retroactively next week, based on who came in second. We also don't know who is going to hit the mat last, although it seems like it's almost definitely going to be Kisha/Jen. I'll treat it like a non-elimination leg, and run the numbers as though the last place team was eliminated. So, lots of points next week! The numbers below reflect last week's changes.


1st: Kim 896 (-30 +0)
2nd: Carl: 894 (-20 +0)
3rd: Dawn 889 (-10 +0)
5th: Matt 880 (+50 +0)
4th: Experts 832 (-40 +42)
6th: Paul 740 (-40 +0)
7th: Mom 736 (-20 +0)

We remain locked in deadly combat, with four players very, very close to each other for first place. If Kisha/Jen do indeed come in last and then get eliminated, that could be very good news for Paul and I.


Good luck, everyone!