It also looked like there was a fast forward after the salon. I thought I saw a green clue.
It is somewhat scary. They apparently think the rather tedious stuff they are showing in the episodes it the interesting stuff. What does that make the stuff they are cutting? 
Jamie’s the one with the huge rack. Cara (as we’ve seen from the underwear-run) is only modestly endowed.
I’d say Luke was wrong for retaliating the way he did at the second clue box, but Jen was 100% in the wrong the first time, and even more out of line for calling him a “bitch”. I’d have been pissed, too (though Luke should’ve listened to his mom and not acted out on it). I still like M&L but J&K are dead to me.
See I’d disagree (respectfully). What I saw was: he got there first and used his body to stay between the box and her. She then decided to go around (but how far ‘around’ do you have to go? She probably could’ve put more space between her and him) Again he stepped to his left to prevent this. Then there was his arm, but just the above is enough for me to say Luke raised tensions first.
When I play sports (Hockey, soccer, or basketball), a lot of the one-on-one battles involve this little bit of body-mechanics. Keep yourself between your opponent and the ball. That’s what I saw Luke doing. But that’s just me. I agree with zut, if they continue to harp on this instead of running the Race they’re not gonna be focused.
I agree with you. If you watch it, Luke looks like he’s boxing her out (although it may not have been intentional since they were coming from different directions). She puts her hands on him as she is jumping around him, but she does not move him at all. He then throws an elbow that almost catches Jen in the face. I agree with Jen’s assessment of him, and I thought she maintained her composure very well at the second clue box, after he checked her into it.
I also had to laugh when he was in the car, talking about the incident with his mother, and appearing to suggest that it might come to blows between them. Yeah, buddy, I think you’d get your ass handed to you.
All that aside, however, I’ve always found the jockeying around the clue box to be humorously unnecessary, since the few extra seconds it would take to wait while the person in front of you gets their clue out would never make a difference.
I think blocking someone out is a legit tactic. Get to the box first, you should get the clue first. If someone is reaching over the top, you can’t take the clue out until their arm is out of your way.
Although the whole thing is way, way too trivial to even worry about. At the end of the Race, or even the Leg, it’s not going to make the difference.
(The Amazing Hissyfit over a few seconds at the Clue Box is made even funnier because they all walked right past it at least once. We’ve seen the “where’s the Clue Box” thing before, but has there ever been a case where someone was that close without seeing it?)
There might be a lesson to learn from the finish. As soon as it turned into a footrace, I was thinking Tammy & Victor would have it. Kisha & Jen legged it out, though. If it comes down to a sprint at the finish, they’ve got that going for them. Might even be wise for them to shadow another team, knowing they can outrun them at the end.
But while I agree with this, I think it’s more fundamental than that. He’s deaf–he can’t hear what’s going on behind him; all he feels is suddenly two hands behind him clutch at his clothing and then an arm reach around to push him aside. I’m perfectly comfortable giving him the benefit of the doubt that his one-arm was primarily a reflexive maneuver, not a purely competitive one.
My intention is not to play the victim card here, but how you or I would react is often going to be different than how someone who’s visually-impaired or (in Luke’s case) hearing-impaired would. YMMV (even my wife didn’t agree with me completely), but I think it’s too easy to project our behavior in a situation where sensory deprivation plays a real part (the same goes, to a lesser degree, to the whole laughing business, too). That in no way justifies his shoving her at the next clue station, but Luke’s overreaction to me paled next to Jen’s bitchiness and insensitivity.
I’d perhaps buy that if it were in fact “sudden” or out of the blue. Here, however, I think it was perfectly clear to him that he was racing against another team to get to the clue box first, and that he knew perfectly well he was going to just edge another team out. There shouldn’t have been any surprise to him that they made contact - he’s deaf, not blind. And the arm reaching around him was reaching for the clue box, not reaching to push him out of the way.
Hence, throwing an elbow was a bitch move.
I agree that Luke was to blame for the nastiness both times. I actually thought Jen did as good a job as possible NOT to plow into Luke after he threw himself in front of her at the first incident adn clearly he elbowed her out of the way almost catching her in the face.
But let us all not forget the monumental stupidity leading up to that. The fact that hey couldn’t find the cloue box they were standing RIGHT NEXT TO, and I think one of them ws even leaning on it for a second.
Of all the teams I think I want Tammy and Victor to win. They are not my favorite team ever, but I don’t find them terrible or loathsome. They play the game well and it would not be a poor result if they won.
I agree with this, and I thought that it would have been most appropriate for the other two teams to let them take first place in the last leg since they all acknowledged that they were simply following them around to the calligraphy stations.
This is exactly what Kisha & Jen’s strategy is–attaching themselves to other teams, keeping pace with them through the leg, then outrunning them at the very end. They articulated exactly that idea a few episodes ago. And, really, it’s not such a bad strategy through most of the Race: as long as you can be sure of beating at least one team, you can be sure that you’re not eliminated. Problem is, this is probably not such a good strategy on the final leg, where the two best teams are going to be trying their damnedest to ditch you.
I guess I mostly agree with you, but there’s a time to race fast and a time to race smart. There’s no particular need to be the Very First One at the cluebox, particularly if the subsequent hip-checking and chest-thumping winds up interfering with your decision-making and overall performance. It’s not really whether Luke or Jen was to blame, it’s that both of them were being knuckleheads and unwilling to back down. That distraction will hurt them both (although Luke more, I suspect).
And that also makes me wonder: I thought there was a rule preventing teams from interfering with each other. This little dustup was relatively evenly balanced and quickly concluded, but where’s the dividing line? What if Luke had shoved just a little harder, or Jen had clouted him on the ear? Where does no harm-no foul become a penalty?
I used to be indifferent to Luke and Margie, now I really can’t stand them. What the hell is wrong with her? Her little mat tirade was way stupid an over-the-top. What a silly tortured soul. Who gives two hoots about deaf people? Do people really mock them passed fifth grade? Give me a freakin’ break. As for Luke, he elbowed her out for no reason at all, and then pushed her. He shouldn’t be touching other contestants, yet less pushing them around, especially when it’s over a clue. Wait 10 nanoseconds, and the next person is going to get it anyway.
But I am getting over my Victor hate. I’d be good with either sibling pair going all the way. It just confirms my feeling that siblings have a real leg-up in this game. Mostly because they don’t have to be nice to each-other, they aren’t working on their relationship, and they aren’t overly protective.
I remember learning about the cormorants in a children’s book - The Story About Ping. I think I remember the fishing line around their throats, too.
I wish Kisha & Jen had just said they were laughing at Luke acting like a whiny baby, not because he was deaf.
I guess I’m pulling for Victor and Tammy at this point. I’m not that emotionally invested in any of them.
Yeah, that’s pretty much my problem. It’s why I took a couple seasons off from the Race and stopped watching Survivor what seems like eons ago–I just couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about the contestants anymore. I think everybody worth watching has already been on some show or another.
I agree – I think the subtitles gave non-Chinese, like me, a lot of insight into the culture. Like Victor’s claim (used for the title) that “their parents will cry themselves to death”. I thought that was hilarious.
Also notice that their language facility didn’t get them to 1st place.
My take on the kerfuffle: the 1st time, Jen’s momentum ran her into Luke, who used his arm to ward off what he thought was an attack. A misunderstanding. The second time was just a stupid escalation. (This is how wars start.) And what the hell diff does one second at a clue box make?
And…western music and dance? In China? WTF?
Ah, The Story About Ping. The story that I got in kindergarten that cause my parents to call me Ping every time I was late for something. Memories. 
It’s a great book, though.
I’ve come around to hoping that Tammy and Victor win. I didn’t think that the clue box tussle, and ensuing hissyfits made either Kisha/Jen or Margie/Luke look particularly good. And more importantly, they now both seem more focused on “getting” the other team than winning. I watched a post pit stop video clip on CBS today with Phil talking to Kisha/Jen and Tammy/Victor. Margie and Luke were gone at that point. Tammy and Victor seemed quite bewildered by the whole thing, having seen none of what went on. I think poor Phil was trying to calm everyone down.
I thought the whole whiny baby kerfuffle was embarrassing for both sides. But one of Lakisha or Jen said flat out in the cab that she was going to laugh at Luke just to piss him off, so for her to later declare that she wasn’t laughing at him was laughable in and of itself.
Luke is gay? Did we learn that for sure?
I get the impression that Victor is gay.
Although it tends to refute the allegation that she was laughing because he was deaf.
Victor’s not gay because he’s not allowed to be gay. His parents would cry themselves to death.