The Amazing Race: 1/4/05

Cafe Society
61

The water polo was a joke. I was hoping the goalies would at least put up a fight for a couple of shots then let them have it. Hell most of them didn’t even put their arms out of the water. I can tell you after playing water polo that none of those people would have gotten a goal had they been trying.

Did anyone happen to see if Gus and Hera were on more then the once that I saw them on the Morning show today? I did tape it, but I don’t want to fast forward through all the other crap just to see. For those that missed it Gus and Hera said that they had boating experience and they thought in the end it would be easier for them then the water polo.

62

Oooooh, I forgot about the YIELD! I am imagining the Mother of All Meltdowns. Can’t wait!

Thank Og I wasn’t having my coffee while reading this last paragraph. It would be splatted all over my 17-inch flat panel monitor! Too, too funny! And absolutely spot on! I think you’re onto something. That guy should be the official AR Greeter! Let’s start a petition.

63

Edward I did see 'em, but just the one short interview that didn’t say very much about them or the race.

64

Absolutely – as evidenced by the big grin. My god, could she be any cuter? I just love this team.

65

I missed the thread on the Recap Show, but I assume someone mentioned * and the “King of Senegog”…

Words I/victoria long to hear…“for the remaining 6 episodes, the role of “Jonathan” will be performed by Brad Pitt”.

66

Mmm. Phil who?

67

First thing that came to my mind was Al Hrabosky, The Mad Hungarian.

68

One thing I don’t understand:

There are a lot of clips of teams running without there packs. Given the much talked about meltdown by * a few weeks ago, why are we not seeing the packs with teams at all times?

69

I didn’t get a chance to Tivo it, but I did try to watch pretty closely, and I disagree.

What it looked like to me, was that:

  1. Gate starts to open, signalling start of hours of operation.
  2. Teams surge forward.
  3. Gate is opening slowly, so people duck underneath and push the gate upward.
  4. Gate accelerates upward, and clang! smacks into a stop at the upper end…
  5. And bounces back downward, taking out some heads on the way.

So, I could easily be wrong, but I do remember hearing the gate go clang, and sort of shiver on the way back down. I don’t think the gate coming down was done intentionally by any team, just an unintentional consequence.

As for Bolo, I think he was just pissed at Freddy for (in Bolo’s interpretation) accusing him of puling the gate down. Not really giggling about it; more like saying “Freddy’s such a dick, I’m glad it happened to him.”

I believe that there are some places and times (where the teams are involved with doing certain tasks) where the teams can leave their gear with the production staff, who will officially watch over it.

70

That was one of the worst episodes ever…

  1. The bunching at the internet cafe followed by the bunching at the train museum was idiotic and unecessary.

  2. The numbers inside the train museum, I don’t know I just didn’t care for that, they could have easily put them outside

  3. That train ride was…what exactly? A way to put some space between teams based on who was able to out-wrestle for numbers

  4. The lame, lame, lame, lame, lame waterpolo task

  5. I hate eating tasks, especially ones where teams are puking

  6. The faux suspense at the end…well they do that in almost every episode

Hated it.

71

My thoughts on soup.

This is a parallel to the 2 pounds of caviar or whatever from last season. I doubt anyone eats that much of that soup at one sitting normally, and certainly not with that spoon. Not a good eating challenge.

Good eating challenges? The ones where they eat a local but unusual dish in a local setting with local passersby eating and/or looking on. The prime example from a past season was the freshly chopped live octopus, still squirming on the plate in the restaurant, in Japan I believe it was. Some locals easting casually with great relish, while the American struggles through with the added stress of being out-munched by some six year old who’s grown up with the cuisine. A lesser example was the large (ostrich?) egg in Africa last season, with the whole town trying to see what the Americans make of their eggs. Those are good television.

From the Leaderboard:

Lori/Bolo: Hmmm, lessee. Faking a mental handicap, pulling iron gates down on people’s heads, tackling, and then laughing about it. Bolo just scored #2 on the asshole meter (known hereafter as the Jonathon-a-tron.) I’ll tie Lori’s rating to Bolo’s since they’re more or less the same person anyway.

Kris/Jon: I want to dismiss them as just a couple of ex-frat types, but I can’t help but like this team. Good to see them near the head of the pack where they belong. Neither has a Jonathon-a-tron rating, as I have yet to see truly assholish behavior from either of them. Hey, check their bio, Jon’s a water polo player! Not that he needed to be for this challenge.

*/Victimia:Jonathon-a-tron score: #1 as usual. I think choking down then puking up all that soup has given Victimia some brains and cojones! It WOULD be a good idea if he just shut up now! Victimia is excused from the Jonathon-a-tron this week. Anyone who pukes that much and is married to * doesn’t need any more misery from me. But that’s the sum total of my sympathy for her.

Hayden/Aaron Fatigue is taking its toll on this team (All the teams, actually. Did you see how zoned out eveyone looked this episode? They’re really putting them through the wringer.) They’re coming apart at the seams. Hayden scores a shocking #3 on the Jonathon-a-tron for her mistreatment of Aaron during and after the soup challenge. Aaron is excused from the ranking.

Rebecca/Adam:For his support of Kendra after the soup, the good effort in water polo, and general lack of dickheaded behavior, Adam drops his Jonathon-a-tron ranking to #6 this week, but I will not yet drop him off the chart. Did get get a dim sense of actual affection between them? Rebecca is excused from the ranking for being a tough soup competitor.

Freddy/Kendra: Freddy’s Jonathon-a-tron ranking has slipped from #2 to #4 this week. True, he screamed at and threatened other people, but he did just get an iron gate to the skull and was probably still seeing stars. Plus, he readily owned up to his behavior later, and paid further by having to eat his own spew. Kendra’s rating is now at #5 (down at least a notch, IMO), because seeing Freddy choke down his own vomit in order to try and win a million bucks actaully induced something in her that I could swear was genuine human compassion, but don’t quote me on it.

Gus/Hera: Gus is the Boba Fett of TAR6, the participant who received the most build-up for the least payoff. I think he just never took it seriously enough. I think none of the challenges were particularly interesting to a man who’s flown the arctic in an open cockpit plane. It seems to me he just joined to please his daughter, and never much cared if they won, although I DO believe his comments about how their relationship has been strengthened. Did they REALLY think they were going to make up any time by choosing the boat over the pool, knowing full well they were last? I think Gus just got tired and wanted to go home.

72

It’s possible that several tries were edited out. We only saw the “winning” goal for each team that chose the water polo option.

73

I have decided that I really like Aaron, but Hayden is a bitch.

As for Freddie and the gate, I think that it is like when you are at a Department store and someone thinks you are going to hold a heavy door open for them. When you don’t they aren’t prepared for it to hit them. I think someone ahead of them was holding it for themselves and their teammate and simply let go when they had passed. Freddie, thinking it was staying up, simply ran under it to limited success.

74

It’s possible, but this über-leg might have been planned that way from the start. The producers are notorious for adding unexpected twists and turns, as we all know. I do believe they had to quickly reschedule an entire leg once (due to a bombing in Turkey, I think.) What’s interesting is, if TAR6 had aired as originally scheduled (starting 9/25/04) this two-parter would have aired on Oct. 30th and Nov. 6th – not exactly “Holiday Lite” as far as ratings are concerned. :slight_smile: Well, maybe they would have made it a 2-hour episode instead…

Too bad I don’t have frame-by-frame on my NoTaTiVo, I’d like to take a closer look at that gate incident. (What should we call it – “GateGate”?)

I did notice that * & Vic ran quite a long way to the pit stop without their packs. Perhaps Vic decided to entrust them to some shady street person after all!

75

I watched it several times and while they deliberately chose the shot that zoomed out, you could still see that the gate hit the top of its range and bounced down. No one was touching it at the time.

76

I thought about that, but don’t think so. Almost every team said it was easy and scoring a water polo goal isn’t that easy. I think they did it just to show them off in the speedos.

Did anyone else read the Amazing Race site? They said that Gus and Hera finished the river crossing before the last team finished the water polo. How did they get so far behind?

77

My wife had an interesting question. She asked whether they said the teams were up against a championship goalie or just a water polo player.

78

Not necessary to read the AR site – they show G&H crossing the river. Then they show Freddy & Kendra finishing water polo, with the graphic “Currently in last place”.

I guess G&H had bad luck finding a taxi.

79

G&H took the funicular to the pitstop, while F&K ran up the stairs. That might have been the difference.

Best line: * watching Victimia puke her guts out but still calling her a drama queen. What, was she angling for more air time with that fake nausea stunt?

80

It worked.