No one else has started this week’s thread? We’re falling apart, I tell you! How do you like the difference between Mel and Mike and the redheads? I don’t know how good Mel and Mike’s chances are, but the more I see of them, the more I like them.
Team Grace (the redheads) keep showing this ugly, ugly streak when they’re under stress. That’s really dropped them in my estimation. At this point, I’m rooting for two teams: Mel & Mike and Margie & Luke. There’s no one that I seriously hate and hope DOESN’T win. Although the Stunt Brothers irk me for undefined reasons.
Luke breaking down when faced with the poverty of India was really endearing. I’m really tied up between his team and Mel & Mike.
I wondered if their taxi driver disappearing for a while had anything to do with the way they were treating him. I could see myself thinking, “Hmmm. These women are being loud, rude, and generally unpleasant. Why should I help them become rich again?”
Mel, on the other hand, impressed me when he said that even a million dollars was no excuse for treating a human being badly. I like his take on morality.
Oh, and even though it may have cost them the race, how cool would it be to be able to tell your relatives, children, grandchildren, friends and random strangers on the street that you actually painted an elephant in India?
Agreed! That looked like it would be a really neat thing to try. The gentleman, however, asked a very good question. What if the elephant doesn’t want to be painted?
o/ It's not easy being grey... o/
:Throws a bucket of camel fodder over jayjay:
Can’t say I’m too keen on sending a bunch of relatively well off Americans into the streets of India to beg for money. Even if something good was done with the money they turned in it just seemed crass.
Especially after the mandatory weeping over how horrible the poverty was.
Someone forgot rule #1 of The Amazing Race.Never take the elephant-in-a-haystack Detour
Did anyone else think it was great that Mel beat everyone else in the Roadblock?
Too many potential titles in this episode. They could have also used…
“I carried the hay with my boobies.”
or…
“I have no problem dancing with a horse.”
India! Always good for some pathos and poignant observations on how lucky we Americans have it. (Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but it’s become rather predictable.) Nose flutes are a bonus, though.
Aaaaand… I’ll take it as a personal shout-out that, in the taxi scenes, we had a) a driver Stopping for Gas, b) teams making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, c) Mark & Mike’s taxi In the Passing Lane, and d) Tammy & Victor’s taxi driver generally kickin’ butt. No flat tire or official detainment, but I’ll overlook the omission.
Anyway, time for the…
Taxi Assessment
Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
Jennifer and Preston - Working out their relationship in Sequesterville.
Linda and Steve - Probably secretly glad they’re not Racing any more.
Brad and Victoria - Taking the long way back home, with plenty of layovers.
Amanda and Kris - Probably washing more than their fair share of dishes in Sequesterville.
Christie and Jodi (down from “Flat Tire”) - The only surprise to this elimination was just how close this team came to clipping Mark & Mike. If Christie & Jodi hadn’t had a taxi lag right out of the airport, they actually would have edged into sixth place. Also, note to CBS editors: if you really want to maintain suspense about who’s eliminated, you might consider not showing a post-leg interview in which one team member rather sadly professes that being on the Race has proved such-and-such. That’s pretty obvious post-elimination talk. And, seriously, when legs are designed with pretty straightforward “go here, do this” type tasks, it’s awfully hard to catch up when you’re performing an extra task. The driving-around-town added some uncertainty in this episode (with Christie & Jodi catching the short end of the stick, unfortunately), but episodes like this one are crying out for some more cerebral, puzzle-type tasks that force some time seperation among teams.
Flat Tire - or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
No one, really.
Stopping for Gas - or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Mark and Michael (holding steady) - OK, so Mark & Mike are still in the Race, but only by the seat of their pants. You know why? Let me quote: “In Movers, teams had to travel to the Sanganeri Gate where they needed to choose a cycle rickshaw loaded high with barrels. Then, they had to transport the barrels by pedaling one and a half miles through the congested streets of Jaipur to Zorawar Singh Gate and search through their containers for a small metal elephant that they could exchange for their next clue.” First of all, in what world does “a” mean “two”? Second of all, these guys can’t find their left hands if you marked their rights with a Sharpie. Choosing a task because a portion of it is physical and ignoring the rest is not a winning strategy, guys.
"Rapido! Por Favor?" - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Cara and Jaime (holding steady) - You carried hay with your boobies? Really? Not to be crass or anything, but I think this is the kind of delightful stupidity I’ll have to occasionally refer back to in the future. But let me stop here for now, lest I’m overcome with the giggles.
LaKisha and Jennifer (holding steady) - Another team sporting an innovative hay-carrying contrivance. And, y’know, it struck me that Cara & Jaime and LaKisha & Jennifer are essentially the same team. They’re not making huge mistakes, so they’ve not been eliminated, but neither are they doing all that well–and ceratinly seem to be no threat to win it all. If push comes to shove, I’d make LaKisha & Jennifer the alternate pick for final three over Cara & Jaime, but both teams are going to have to depend on one of the better teams making a mistake.
In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Mel and Mike (holding steady) - A very impressive leg this time out, particularly considering Mel’s performance on the camel-feeding task. I’ve said repeatedly that Mel’s age is a detriment to this team, and I still think so, but this season’s TAR seems to have cut back on the purely physical tasks, substituting “stacking wood” and “carrying water” for “ascending a sheer rock cliff.” That reduces the advantage of teams consisting of hulking brutes, and increases the advantage of teams smart enough to realize that traditional camel-feeding tools probably include neither buckets nor boobies. Whether this makes the Race more or less exciting is an exercise left to the viewer; however, I’m now more comfortable predicting Mel & Mike as the third team in the final three.
Cruisin’ with Earl - or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
Margie and Luke (holding steady) - A little off the pace this episode, but this team was essentailly tied for third, well out of any elimination trouble–which is the point of the earlier legs. I’m still bullish on this team reaching the final three.
Tammy and Victor (holding steady) - Tammy & Victor climb back into first this week. Apparently they had some sort of kick-ass taxi driver (appropriate that they’re ranked in this category, then, yes?), so luck certainly played a role in their standings this episode, but Tammy & Victor also smoothly navigated the tricky “find the red phone” task and the “use something more appropriate than your boobies to carry camel feed” task. They claim to be working well together after their Romanian jaunt, but my niggling worry is that we’ve yet to see their reaction to being behind (as they inevitably will be at some point). That may be their Achilles’ heel, but so far they’re looking pretty good.
[sub]Props to Mullinator and his Raj Ratings.[/sub]
Nitpick: I maintain that “read the fucking clue, you moron,” is TAR Rule #1. “Never take the elephant-in-a-haystack Detour” is TAR Rule #2. Although, since Mark and Mike violated both, the criticism is more than apt.
Well, most teams wept. Victor smiled and waved out the taxi window.
I’m none too impressed at how long it took some teams to notice the bright red phones where one would not expect to see bright red phones and consider that they might just have something to do with getting the next clue.
In their defense…I think this may have been the first time a clue wasn’t marked with a yellow striped flag. They may have been conditioned to ignore anything that wasn’t yellow striped.
I was pondering that there are no bickering hateful couples this year – no Flo & Zach; no Jonathan & Victoria. And then I noticed: there are no couples, period. The last 7 teams were 3 siblings, 2 friends, 2 parent/child. Kinda odd.
Two things:
Why was it ‘call one of these numbers’ for the clue? What did that add to the challenge?
and
Wouldn’t it have been neat if the infomation in the phone was, in fact, delivered in uh…hindu, is it? And figuring out that they needed to get their taxi drivers – or a bystander, I guess – to come to the phone and translate for them was part of the challenge.
Ah - so Victor’s proclivity to assume anything red is a clue helped him this time!
You’re right, of course. I was thinking of the second rule #1.
I hope I’m not becoming the official TAR nitpicker, but shouldn’t taking two bikes be a penalty? What if every team had chosen that task? The last team would have shown up and there wouldn’t be any bikes left. I wonder if they at least thought “every bike must have an elephant, so we only have to search through 9 barrels.” By that time they might not have known which ones came off which bike.
Maybe they thought the phones were for the two mystic holy men in case of some kind of mystic holy emergency.
“Camel born with two heads - sector seven! All units scramble!”
Hindi; one of many languages of India. When Victor had to dash off to get his taxi driver to “translate”, I thought that was exactly what they were doing. Turns out he just couldn’t penetrate the accent.
Speaking of which, Lakisha & Jennifer got a break when their driver correctly translated “autumn football” (or something like that) to “amber fort”.
I think it was because the “operators standing by” were live, and since there were two phones, they needed at least two operators. The teams had to choose a number (as opposed to using a direct line) in the hopes of having some wacky busy-signal hijinks. Alas, none materialized.
That we saw.