Yeah I mean has Mika not watched the show before? Water and heights are going to figure in somehow, somewhere, probably several times. If you’re *that *afraid, that you are willing to lose $1 million, then why even go on the show in the first place?
You kidding me?
Little miss Pouting America did shit for their team in the Hookah challenge. “It looks right to me” bullshit. Fucking go look at them carefully, help your fucking partner. All she did was bitch that it looks right and they should get it for doing nothing at all to change/improve their hookahs. I fucking woulda punched her face for saying retarded shit like that.
I’m glad the globetrotters are still alive. Can’t believe they got stuck on the time thing so long but the dude thought the hands and the date window were the three numbers, not that bad a guess if you weren’t thinking straight. Unless the date window showed something like 10+ number which wouldn’t have made sense. He was doing 8 for little hand 7 for big hand and X for date window. And i agree it was a sleaze ball move to taunt Mika, but it’s a game so I guess it’s part of the game.
Another surprising thing is that none of them other than the gay brothers thought a calculator would be needed on the trip… that’s one thing i would take most definitely, to calculate tips and what not. Not like i can’t do the math on paper but come on calculators are needed for a lot of things in tasks ive seen in the past, like adding numbers from various locations and getting the sum from them.
I hope the first place team loses steam, not really fair that they get two firsts just cuz they took the Fast Forward. I hate the lame 2 FF’s per season rule. Need more for the back of the pack to gamble on when needed to gain ground.
Bwuh to both of these. How was it a roadblock only guys can perform? Of the four women left, the three that didn’t do it all had great “excuses” for skipping it. Cheyne had rafting experience while Ericka and Mika are scared of water. The poker girls had no choice but to send a woman and she did just fine.
And did we watch the same episode? What shoving? She flipped out anytime he got near her because during her hissy fit she acted like Canaan was some kind of predator or something.
It was a freaking waterslide. And an exclosed waterslide at that. OK fine, you’re afraid of heights and water. In an enclosed waterslide, you have no idea how high up you are and waterslides end in three feet of water. You may as well have a freakout every time you take a shower. That girl needed taunting if only because he started asking Canaan “Why do you hate me” after (likely) several hours of her having a hissy fit.
On an unrelated note, I have to give credit to the Amazing Editors when they zoomed in on Canaan’s bugged out eyes after Mika said “It’s so hot, I wish I was naked.”
Something that bothered me: didn’t the various teams just abandon their briefcases there once they got the clues? Why didn’t it occur to either of the Globertrotters to simply look at the opened cases and see what combination was on the lock?
pretty sure they’d call that cheating and then incur a time penalty. The Globetrotters aren’t idiots to bend the rules and cheat. Perhaps they coulda asked the teams leaving for a number and hope someone would actually help. Doubt they would but that’s more of a realistic option than actually looking at the numbers.
Another reason could be that the Globetrotters didn’t think the numbers were all the same for all the teams. Not sure about that one though.
There was a team not too many seasons ago who chose the Fast Forward, which involved eating quite a bit of sheep… stuff. I remember there being a lot of meat, lots of local folk sitting around a table drunkenly but amiably glaring at the contestants - and half a sheep’s head for good measure, sitting on a plate at your table staring at you. The guy was a vegetarian, and if I recall correctly, his refusal to eat more than a few bites cost them the race.
Can’t remember many more details. Why did they not just give up the FF and do the regular tasks? Anyone remember?
(And FTR I’m terrified of heights, not fond of water… but I totally would have done that “leap of faith”!)
I was surprised at the Globetrotters’ behavior (but not disgusted as some are), until I saw that they were the only team left and they needed Mika to cave or else be eliminated. I gave them a pass at that point. Again, million dollars, competition, etc. I still love how they let their challenges and differences go as soon as they are over and don’t carry the emotional weight with them.
The poker girls do not annoy me as much as they did at the beginning. Perhaps they have mellowed, or I have mellowed, or something.
Mostly just a station-keeping leg; not much chance to move up in the standings, but there are always chances to falter. And the obfuscated clues continue. I wonder if they got to keep the watch.
Bear with me, folks. My first attempt at the…
Taxi Assessment:
Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
Eric and Lisa and Garrett and Jessica and Marcy and Ron and Zev and Justin and Lance and Keri - Gone until season’s end.
Mika and Canaan (down from “Flat Tire”) - If not this week, then it was gonna happen soon. This equals their best finish of the season. Why did Mika even come on the Race. Maybe it was her plan all along to spend a few relaxing weeks in sequesterville. The Six Roadblocks rule was gonna kick in soon, and poor Mika might have had to do something even more unbearable than herding ducks. And Canaan was the textbook example of how not to help someone get over a phobia.
Flat Tire - or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
No one this week.
Stopping for Gas - or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Maria and Tiffany (holding steady) - The Gold Detour was the only chance to make up ground in this leg, and it played to their strength. Still, second place is out of character for this team, and there’s bound to be a flight on the next leg so they won’t be able to carry the advantage to the next country. Or, maybe they’re starting to peak at the right time. I need to see more than one good leg to move them up.
"Rapido! Por Favor?" - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Sam and Dan (holding steady) - There’s not much point in carrying a calculator around if you don’t know how to use it. Their fate is tied in with Maria & Tiffany. Both teams have caught some breaks and helped each other. I don’t see them both making it to the top three, and when one of them goes, the other will follow. The brothers get the edge for now because they could probably win if it came to a final sprint.
Gary and Matt (down from “Passing Lane”) - Every time I see this team, they seem to be reasonably competent at whatever the task is. And yet, when I look at the results, they’ve settled into fourth and fifth for the last few legs. Row a boat, build a dozen hookahs, there’s nothing they can’t do. But they haven’t excelled at anything lately, either. I don’t see any big mistakes in this team’s future; they’re safe only as long as other teams keep making some.
In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Brian and Ericka (up from “Rapido!”) - If one bad leg doesn’t move Maria & Tiffany up the Assessment, then one bad leg shouldn’t doom this pair. In fact, I moved them up a notch because their results have been good; nothing worse than fourth in the past four legs. This is the hardest team for me to rank. Ericka seems to be getting more fragile just when she needs to be getting stronger; but Brian is racing well and she seems content to come along. Their fate rests on how well she handles any Roadblocks. The previews showed her freaking out a bit, which almost guarantees that they’re safe.
Herbert and Nathaniel (down from “Cruisin’”) - Do it for the hood. Go to the Persian Gulf, row out to a yacht and have a sheik hand you a Rolex. Keep it real, yo. They survived this leg because of two meltdowns; the one Mika had at the waterslide and the one Big Easy didn’t have with the briefcase. Asking for a calculator was sweet. Trying to scare Mika into not going down the slide was sour.
Cruisin’ with Earl - or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
Meghan and Cheyne (holding steady) - The Fast Forward paid off in spades; almost a two hour head start for this leg, and they didn’t see another team all day. They lose that at the next bunching point, but the other teams have had two competitive legs to let the Killer Fatigue start to build up. Meghan and Cheyne have been able to coast a bit and build up their reserves.
[sub]Props to zut and his props to Mullinator and his Raj Ratings.[/sub]
I think the Globetrotters were incredibly shrewd to play on Mika’s fear the way they did. I don’t know if I would have thought to do that. It’s a race for a million bucks and you do what you can to stay ahead. I was laughing my ass off when Big Easy started discouraging her. Smart play and great TV. That move has now cemented the Globetrotters’ position as my favorite team now that Justin and Zev are gone, with Pinky and the Brain in 2nd place.
Also, it seems like this is the point in the season that the real Race begins. Maria and Tiffany, for all their flaws, have been improving–I wouldn’t count them out. It seems like we’ve weeded out all the teams with fatal flaws at this point, and we can move on to the good stuff.
I disagree that the Globetrotters were taunting. Perhaps you might think it was mean to endorse her fears and reinforce her trepidation about the task, but that’s not taunting. And for anyone with a lick, a scintilla, an iota, a tiny, tiny, tiny speck of internal fortitude, their comments would have backfired. She was not going to go down that slide if you paid her a million dollars. If that was the final leg and all the teams and Phil were waiting at the bottom for her to claim the vicotry, she was not going to go down that slide. One gets the sense of her as a person who has never faced up to a challenge in life.
A couple of other things I forgot about in my previous post: I was really shocked to see how many people struggled with the simple math involved in the gold conversion challenge. I think the producers ought to work a few more mental challenges at road blocks into the competition, because that was pathetic.
I was also really annoyed with Miss America at the hookah challenge, because she was the opposite of helpful in a really puzzling way. She was completely dismissive of the possibility that the colors mattered, but she insisted that he try stupid things like turning the little bowl part upside down! Hey, rather than be at a complete loss, go ahead and try the thing that you didn’t think mattered. Because it did.
Also apparently unhelpful at the hookah challenge was Mika, who was only shown to sit there and sweat while Canaan did all the work.
Excellent summary. The brattiest part of her behavior, in my opinion, was that she genuinely seemed to feel that it was unreasonable, unfair, and just plain mean to expect her to do this. I honestly wonder if a tiny part of her thought she might get a pass if she blinked those pretty eyes enough.
Also kudos to Robot Arm for an excellent taxi assessment!! Wear your Phil hat proudly.
I’ve started to watch the earlier seasons of the show on Youtube because I love it so much, and because I keep missing references you guys make in these threads. I’m trying to imagine Mika making it through the first episode of Season 1. There’s no way. The best part of the early seasons is it generally gave teams a choice to avoid the scary stuff, but avoiding the scary stuff was almost NEVER a good idea. She’d have hiked down the canyon instead of doing the zipline and been eliminated on the first leg.
Thanks, babe, but that’s Phil wearing a me hat, and don’t you forget it.
Yeah, totally – I was impressed with how he freely admitted he’d screwed up (how much of that behavior do we see in reality TV – or IRL for that matter?) and then they both cheerfully moved on.
I wonder if the producers will screen differently in the future?
Thirding this – and agreeing with Hentor that I actually thought it might backfire on them and cause her to go down the slide. (But, so what, once they were at the bottom I bet they could outrun PhobiaGirl and her BF.)
Plus – the 'Trotters didn’t necessarily know how long Mika had been sitting up at the top of the slide. (Neither do we, for that matter – any guesses how long that actually took to play out?) They’re ready to move on with the game, none of this plastic freakout BS – race, or get out of the way.
I’m glad they’re still in it, and hope they can recover some ground. Still rooting for them and for Pinky and the Brain.
Beauty Queen is annoying – her whining during the hookah challenge made me want to smack her.
I thought I picked up a teasing note in the Globetrotters voice. Then again, he had a million dollars riding on her not going down that slide. I try to be a nice person, but I don’t think I would have helped her much myself. What got me was when she stamped her foot like a petulant little girl and still refused. Yes, Canaan made a huge mistaken when he came up behind her and tried to push her down the slide, but she was behaving like a spoiled brat. I found this quote in their bio on The Amazing Race’s website very telling, “She claims to excel in high pressure situations, but admits to often breaking down in tears when she gets upset.” The two of them are also an aspiring singer and songwriter. Something tells me they’re going to have to wake up and smell the coffee one of these days. It’s funny that the couple that talk about their Christianity on screen turned out to be the one stymied by the Leap of Faith.
Ah, you’re right. Please forgive me. Remember that there is freedom in forgiveness. (Anyone else think that Canaan is hoping that there’s getting laid in forgiveness as well?)
I’ll bet that they had skipped the Leap of Faith completely, any time penalty they incurred wouldn’t have been enough to put them behind the Globetrotters.
So, in a way, it was mean that Canaan was expecting her to go down a mostly enclosed waterslide with her eyes closed.
YES! I was so thinking that as they were doing their walk of shame at the end.
Earlier in the episode Mika also mentioned that she doesn’t even like to run. I think she expects to go through life like Cleopatra or something, being carried aloft by her Christian manservants and sprinkled with rose petals while they peel grapes for her. Oh yeah, she’s definitely a good candidate for TAR. Incidentally, I’m sure the producers put her on precisely beause of her phobias… “let’s see if this chick rises to the occasion and conquers her fears, or crashes and burns”.
Wouldn’t surprise me. I know a number of people like that (and not just women). They won the genetic lottery and are very pretty, and so they’ve been able to use their looks as currency their whole lives. When they actually end up having to face something that doesn’t give a crap what they look like (like a giant water slide), they’re lost.
I have a “cousin” (my aunt is his ex-step-grandmother, but she all but raised him) who’s like that, and is just starting to discover that the farther he gets from 18, the less mileage he gets from simply being “pretty and witty”. His Facebook updates are pretty much a long calendar of bitterness and boredom at this point…at least in part from my aunt and her husband trying to get him to take some responsibility for his life.
The other thing I noticed (I’ve been rewatching the earlier episodes is how pampered the racers are:
Spoon-fed cars, spoon-fed flights, luxury resorts for pit-stops, and worst of all, enough money to fund hotels for overnight mid-leg stops.
In Season 1, the teams (mostly) camped out in Paris under a Ferris Wheel and a pit-stop was a campfire and tents in an Oasis somewhere. In the second season, one team bolluxed up the airport stuff so badly that they added an extra continent to their travel (hint: it’s NEVER faster to fly 8 hours out of your way because you think it’s “a better hub”), they slept on beaches, etc. I miss that. I miss airport drama that’s real airport drama (spoon fed flights don’t lead to airport drama)
I also miss the “eat/sleep/mingle” sequences: Drew/Kevin/Momily/Loud Pushy Frank dancing with the locals while the Guidos pouted, Tara and that Bouncer Guy “strategerizing” while her husband/partner looked on, Chip & Rechien ‘coming out’ to everyone else (who already knew–matching wedding bands guys–and professional virgins Chuck and Millie being totally offended by it), etc. I know some of it’s online now, but I still miss it in the show.
I’m not saying the “good old days” were always better–this season and last were way, WAY better than say, Jonathon & Victoria’s season or the dreaded “Family Edition” (“Find the REALLY BIG office chair in southern Arkansas (or where ever). Look at it. Boy, it’s a BIG chair! Now go find a specific gas station. Not a hidden one or anything, just a Product Placement Gas Station to get your next clue.”-no. really. ), but the first season Amazing Race, for whatever reason was perfect. Perfect casting, perfect tasks. Everything just clicked and to me, the first season is the yardstick that all other seasons are measured against. (note, I didn’t see the first season when it aired–I started around season 3). Hell, there’s been a steady improvement over the last few seasons: less “freakshow” casting, somewhat better tasks, etc.