Amazing Race 5/3 - "Man, They Should Have Used Fake Names"

Cafe Society
21

Wow. Fantastic finish. Other than the manufactured ties we’ve seen before this has to be the closest finish ever. Too bad that with four teams left and a visit from (the law firm of) Bunch, Bunch, Bunch and Yield, it was painfully obvious that it was going to be NEL so since the post-NEL muggings never matter BJ and Tyler are going to the final three. I hope BJ steps on a nail.

Apparently no penalty for Team Gonad for screwing with peoples’ taxi reservations, since a penalty here would have to have been announced with the NEL mugging. Also no penalty for the apparent speeding by (was it) MoJo (?) to pass Team Hippie.

I really want to continue to like MoJo because despite the intermittent snapping of Monica’s mind at little to no provocation, they’ve been pretty successful. But the constant sniping, the insistence on arguing after the Yield was up and Joseph’s emerging arrogance (because who’d know better than Joseph how to instruct Monica in the fine art of the digeredoo?) they’re starting to pluck my last nerve. So since previews always lie and they’re pissing me off, they’re through to the final three. But good for them, beating the dirty filthy hippies in the race to the mat.

Team Gonad. Eric inches ever so slightly out of the closet, drops the tiniest of pearls, by expressly comparing his relationship with Jeremy to the romantic relationship of MoJo. Sure, Eric can claim it was all a joke, but in humor there is often a glimmer of truth. Undoubtedly he enjoyed being strapped to the skydiving instructor and having his behind pressed up against the guy’s naughty bits. Pity the poor woman strapped to the dirty filthy hippie though.

Ray and Yolanda, awesome leg, they actually managed to find everything and completed theDetour in very good time. Wet seemed like the ideal choice, being shorter and not involving the needle in haystack element of searching for the aborigine musicians, but I’d forgotten that Yolanda says she can’t swim. I loved Ray playing the digeredoo; did you notice how his eyes were about to cross? Nice semi-subtle fart joke from Yolanda too. All of which adds up to I’m pulling for them to take it down.

Which means of course they’ll be the next to go. Team Gonad will return to form in the next leg and move on, with MoJo and the dirty filthy hippies, to the final three.

Loved the greeter, and loved Phil’s repeated askance glances at him during the whipping demo.

22

Oh, and I forgot to mention:

My birthday was a couple weeks ago and some friends got me one of these cakes. i’m pretty sure that the crunchy part in the middle is in fact chocolate-covered crack.

23

I’m really starting to hate how someone whines that it wasn’t ‘fair’ that they got yielded. Suck it up, you big baby!

Loved the kharmic payback for the Frat Boys.

I’m hoping BJ can charm his way into a decent pair of shoes from another guest at the resort - hey, they scammed $300 by begging on the flight last time, so who knows?

I need to rewatch my tape and see just how close it was. Monica was definitely behind, but someone went around the bridge and waded throught the water and that must have cost them precious steps - it must have been one of the Hippies.

Love the New and Improved Ray & Yolanda. She was so pretty when she laughed at the Detour, at Ray and herself playing the digeredoo. Much better than screaming, “Hurry up! Do it right!” in a nasty tone like we’ve seen racers do in past years.
And what a great prize! I’d rather win a Mercedes for year than a cruise.

24

Oh my. I think I’m getting the vapors. I don’t think I remember a three-way race for the finish that ended so closely that they had to resort to slo-mo to show it to us.

Also–also, I’m ashamed to admit that I painfully mis-estimated the relative difficulty of the Detour choices this week. How could walking a mile possibly take more time than driving on-road and driving off-road and locating people by sound and playing a match-up game and learning to play a musical instrument? I thought “Wet” was a no-brainer, yet Joseph and Monica apparently made up 40 minutes with their Detour choice.

Taxi Assessment

Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
John & Scott and Lisa & Joni and Wanda & Desiree and Danielle & Dani and David & Lori and Lake & Michelle and Fran & Barry- Outta here.

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.
No one this week.

"Rapido! Por Favor?" - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Ray & Yolanda (holding steady) - Another solid leg from this team–despite their spat a couple eps ago, they seem to be getting stronger as the Race progresses. A first place this leg, which is good. However, the first was only because of the Detour choice, and the Detour choice was only because Yolanda claims she can’t swim. No extra points from me for accidentally picking the right Detour. I still think this is the weakest of the remaining teams, but the gap is much closer than I thought is was just a couple weeks ago, and with the rest of the teams seemingly rattled by the inter-team conflict, I would be far from suprised to see Ray & Yolanda sneak into the final three.

In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Joseph & Monica (holding steady) - Criminy. It’s a game, and a team’s morality, or lack thereof, does not turn on whether or not they utilize a completely legitimate game tactic. Moreover, focusing on who done you wrong removes focus from things like winning the game, so being self-righteously pissed off is only counter-productive. Still, they chose what turned out to be the right Detour choice and made up some time, so good on them.
BJ & Tyler (holding steady) - This team (or Tyler, at least) seemed more rattled about the Yield conflict that Monica and Joseph turned out to be. Despite what I said above, you can’t realistically use a tactic that singles out another team and expect that team not to be pissed. It doesn’t take a dedicated student of human nature to figure that out. So now they’re seriously focused on this spat, and less focused on winning. I note that they came in last due to BJ’s tactical mistake of trying to take a shortcut, but since they’re missing all their possessions anyway, I’ll give them a pass.

Cruisin’ with Earl - or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
Eric & Jeremy (holding steady) - Still looking like the ultimate winners. If the last leg comes down to a sprint to the mat, we’ve already seen who’s gonna win. I’m not so pleased about their Boston Robesque taxi strategy, but since they bumbled it, I’m just gonna point and laugh.

Next week: The last elimination…

[sub]Props to Mullinator and his Raj Ratings.[/sub]

25

Gah! The Yield is in the rules of the race! It’s not “unfair” to use! That bugs me more than any other aspect. Yes–it’s kinda personal. Yes, you have a right to be pissed at somebody who yields you. But it is not, in any way, unfair. Cut that out. Although I laughed hysterically when I realized they were overshooting the yield time by arguing.

When BJ & Tyler were looking for the termite mounds, BJ said “Don’t touch them, they’ll eat all the wood in your body,” to which Tyler responded “My peg leg!” I don’t know why, but I’m still giggling about that.

Instant karma for Eric and Jeremy. I think they probably have enough of a sense of humor to see the irony, but I still think they should have gotten a penalty. Taking somebody else’s cab is one thing, this was entirely different.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROCKLE!!!

26

I hate MoJO even more too, and I didn’t even see it. I forgot to set my vcr, just read the recap on cbs.com. How did the hippies lose their pants and shoes?? No underwear?? Huh?

Yea, Bibliocat, one of them thought it would be a shortcut so he went over the rocks, and it took longer than it did for Monica, so they got beat by MoJo.

Man, I can’t wait to see what Carissa says in her column about Monica next week. The Wee One can’t stand her.

Speaking of which. I’m leaving for Montreal this saturday for 2 weeks. Should I tape it for next tuesday? and then for the finale the following sunday or tuesday again??

27

We do have TV, you know :wink: It is on CTV, Wednesday, at 8.

28

But I don’t know if I will have tv, I don’t think I will actually. There’s nothing better to do in Montreal than watch TAR?? :wink: There’s got to be. I’ll find it. Maybe I can run around that underground city like they did last year.

And i just realized it’s wednesday, not tuesday. I knew there wasn’t something right about that sentence.

29

And this is a problem … why, exactly?

30

Well, let’s see :[ol]
[li]it is the middle of the week[/li][li]you’ll be here for two weeks[/li][li]it is only for an hour (two for the finale)[/li][li]people don’t start to go out until ten anyway[/li][/ol]

So, to conclude, you should be able to make the time for your weekly TAR fix.

31

Here is how I rank the teams in order of likability at this point:

  1. Raylanda - mostly cute, mostly nice to each other, mostly nice to other racers and by far the least annoying team
  2. Hippies - high poseur factor; exhaustingly not as funny as they think. But they keep up the positive attitude pretty well, and are occasionally legitimately funny (“My peg leg!”)
  3. Gonads - as someone said last week, they are so deep in the closet that they could turn around and see Narnia. I hope Joseph does get pissed at the flirting with Monica. And cancelling the cabs was underhanded in exactly the way that using a Yield is not.
  4. Mojo - just get them out of here. I don’t want them on my TV anymore. They are unhappy, rude, mean, and whiny. I sentence them to live the rest of their lives together.
32

I have the tape, so if you wanted to meet in an undisclosed location…

Team Hippie were in a state of undress because they did the Detour in pretty much the same clothes they had been wearing so their fugly orange cords (and how did I not notice before this week that they had matching fugly orange cords?) were soaking wet and weighed a ton. They took off the heavy clothes for the sprint to the finish and lost. Team Hippie established their freeball status as far back as Germany, when BJ gave us all nightmares by announcing that he needed a changing room for his lederhosen because he was going commando.

However, since they apparently have the ability to generate fugly clothes out of their filthy hippie bodies (because where else to they keep finding those goddamn awful hats) they will probably spontaneously generate some shoes.

Gee, I wonder if any teams will give them money this time?

33

One does wonder if karma in this case was the heavy hand of production, applying an instant penalty by calling and canceling E&J’s cab. And whether they knew about it. They certainly didn’t seem surprised that their cab didn’t come, and they certainly got what they deserved right on the spot.

The hippies took the wet detour option, which meant that BJ took his pants off and did the detour in his (black boxer briefs) underwear. Tyler, who’s been running the entire race commando (as we learned back when they went to change into lederhosen many legs ago), had to just roll his orange corduroy (??) pants up for the detour, so they were soaking wet and dripping. BJ kept his shoes off in the car, presumably so they could dry out, and since he was driving and there were three cars all together headed for the pit stop – the hippies, the gonads, and MoJo – he didn’t have a chance to put them on so had to run barefoot for the mat. And then he took a “shortcut” across some rocks that resulted in them coming in last.

So now the hippies have for clothing, between them, one pair of black boxer briefs, one pair of orange corduroy pants, one pair of shoes (not sure about socks), and two shirts. Period. One can only hope that BJ can find some pants and shoes since something tells me that even with a camera crew in tow, airlines may not approve of a man getting on their flight barefoot in his underwear.

34

I think Ray will probably take pity and give BJ some pants–after all, they’re coming up on the final legs, the less he has to carry, the better.

35

Based on the photos we’ve seen posted around the net, I think one of the Gonads will, because clearly they’ve been waiting all race for an opportunity to get a BJ in their pants.

36

They may as well just use this as the first clue, with the last team leaving at midnight:

37

Booooo! Hisssssss! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

38

I may be alone, but I have no problem with the frat boys cancelling the cabs, as long as the folks at TAR determine there was no rules violation then as far as I am concerned all is fair in love and TAR (within the stated rules).

The only team I loike are Ray and Yolanda and that is sort of by default, the other three teams just grate in different ways.

39

I’m sure there are rules prohibiting people from grabbing other contestants and such. I think cancelling a pre-arranged cab is worse than that - it both causes a delay for the team and is not immediately evident. If you steal my cab or if you grab me to hold me back, at least I see it happening and know I have to respond (or if the cab was taken before I got there, I might at least have a suspicion that such a thing happened based on knowing who was ahead of me and when the cab was due). On the other hand, how much time do I waste before realizing that I need to make alternate cab arrangements?

Count me among those who were hoping to see some penalty applied to the Frat Boys for that one. And, even though it is on a preview, which means that nothing bad happens to them, I am looking forward to the hypocritical whining Monica having her 19th weeping breakdown next week.

Just to balance out Otto’s hate-in, I reaffirm my fondness for Team THC, although “TTOW” has got to go, and like right now. I mean, Tyler clearly has a conscience (witness the cab situation and the yielding incident). That may be a detriment to racing, but it certainly bumps him way up on my appreciation for him as a human.

40

If the TAR folks don’t sayit is against the rules then it is within the rules and therefore it is good game playing on their part is all I am saying. Sure it has a very detrimental effect on the other teams, but so it goes. That just makes it a very effective strategy. The rules against physical contact I am sure are not so much motivated by “fairness” as much as by a desire to keep teams from physically intimdating other teams as well as zero-tolerance for any physical violence.