Heh. I was one of them.
I was wrong. I admit it.
She did nothing to “make it worse” (that we saw). In addition, did you all catch that he lied to the police (“We agreed that he’d only get the full $100 if we came in in the same order”)?
What an asshole.
I agree. When that last cabbie agreed to take less than the metered fare (did he have a choice?), Chip said something to the effect of “See, this is my reward for doing good things in the past for others.” I was thinking, yeah, you generously overpaid the previous cabbie by $20 and now you’ve wormed your way out of this situation where you needed that money. That’s great for you, Chip, but you still screwed this last driver out of $10.
I’m still rooting for Chip and Kim, though. I’d been rooting for Colin and Christie–mainly because I think Christie seems like a good person when she’s not following Colin’s lead. And the two of them had been playing the game pretty smart. Oh, and she’s really hot. But not now, no way. Colin is an ass and I hate the mentality of people like him who think they’re always right. I was really hoping he’d wind up in jail. I hope they don’t win and that their elimination is due to a faulty decision on his part.
I hope Brandon and Nicole are the ones that get the head shaving challenge.
It’s difficult to tell from the TV, but there is a decent chance I have actually been to the pitstop of this race. I was in Dubai in January of this year, and as part of a group, we went on a tour of the dunes off-roading (very fun. Kind of like the desert version of snowmobiling). We also went to a ‘traditional’ bedouin dinner, and that camp setup looked really familiar. OTOH, there could be a ton of them and they might look the same as a matter of course. I prefer to hang on by my thread of belief here.
I was about to yell rip-off on the water-taxi thing when they were going to charge them $10 to get across – it’s normally about 15 cents for a half mile trip – but then I realized that was to hire the whole boat, which is about right. This is the first time I’ve been able to follow the racers along during an episode.
As for Kami and Karli trying to charm the men of Dubai next week – well, prostitution is rather rampant there (!) and they should probably be careful lest this lead to some sort of wacky, Three’s Company-esque misunderstanding.
Wow, this episode was intense! I actually liked Colin and Christie, up until this week (well, she’s still OK). If I were on the show, I’d always check the tires, see how full the gas tank was, and try to negotiate terms whenever possible. Like, “If you get lost/break down, will you still make us pay the full price?” I wonder if Colin had politely asked the cab driver to refund a portion of the money, what would have happened.
Nicole was making a lot of sense this week (she suprised me, I’m beginning to like her), but that airhead Brandon just gets worse each time I see him. I agree I’d like to see him get the shave 
Yeah, Chip is really not very smart. Why tip a man who is already practically robbing him? I wonder if all the other cab drivers insisted on such a high price for the other teams, just because Chip agreed to it so quickly. It’s too bad the nice, more reasonable cab driver was forced to pay for Chip’s stupidity. Is tipping customary over there?
In defense of Chip’s largesse-- acting out his African travel fantasy and tipping generously to everyone he meets is an understandable impulse. Inadvisable, but understandable. Kim earns points by keeping that extra $10 handy until they needed it.
If the worse thing that can be said about Chip is that he was too generous with the money during one leg of the trip, that’s not a bad stain on his character. The only way he earns stupid points is if he doesn’t learn from this mistake.
Wow, Colin. You forgot the #1 rule about travelling in a third world country: When approached by the police, DO EVERYTHING THEY SAY. Oh, and there’s that race thing. I’m positive if it weren’t for the cameras, he would have been in a World Of Hurt. Hell, the LAPD would have arrested him just for getting agitated. (And we know how the LAPD doesn’t give a damn about cameras…)
I’m really, really impressed with the route planners this season – so far, they haven’t been to a single country that previous seasons have gone to (except changing planes, of course.) Until next week, obviously…but where else in Central Asia, besides India, is safe for Americans these days? Nepal? Bangladesh? Kyrgyzstan? I wish our country hadn’t pissed off so many people… 
Good idea on next week’s Fast Forward, with only 2 in the race they’ve gotta cost something. Oh…and you know what would have helped this leg? A Yield. I’m just sayin’.
I’m so looking forward to Colin’s complete and total flameout. It should be spectacularly memorable. But, you know, I’ve still got to give them credit. Colin and Christie keep coming in first over and over and over, no matter how many times they get bunched up. They must be doing SOMETHING right.
After three brilliant episodes in a row I guess they can’t all be winners.
I thought Collin was mildly disturbing and creepy before, but I’ll agree with the posters that said that this episode definitely painted him as the next best thing to an abusive boyfriend. We saw minor bad behavior before but these last two weeks have been a downward spiral for him. I was shocked at how much crap the Tanzanian police took from him. (Tip to Tanzanian police for future reference: feel free to arrest Americans acting like that. We won’t bomb you over it, especially when they’re behaving that way on camera.) He really should have been locked up at least for a few hours to “cool him off” (in quotes since we all know what the real result would have been). Christie should be running away from him and getting a restraining order.
Yeah, Chip really screwed up badly in this episode (and apparently earlier ones but this is the one where it came to a head). However, in the first few episodes of the season he screwed things up badly as well and he learned from his early errors and improved. Hopefully he’ll get better, particularly with a supportive partner like Kim around to keep him in line. They really are the most functional of the teams right now and if they can recover from 0 money then I think they’ll be allright.
Brandon and Nicole continue to work at annoying me further, but not quite working their way up to actual hate like Collin has hit. But this week they really didn’t do much.
The Bowling Moms have to be the team with the worst luck ever. They’re not really doing anything wrong, it’s just that nothing ever seems to go right for them (except for the tiny smattering of luck that has let them hold on to the race). They definitely seem to be better than they were a few weeks ago in the all Egyptian leg, but over and over again they seem to be struck down by sheer bad luck. Compare their runs to the other teams who get the occasional bad break but most of their problems are ones of their own making.
Finally the Twins continue to demonstrate the incompetance that has marked them right from the start. I don’t think they’ll have any problem making money next week if only because of the blond twin factor. The only risk is if it will slow them down past the point that they miss something important (like the Bowling Mom’s would have without their “just enough to stay in the race” luck).
As for next week taking the race back to India, I don’t think it has to do with US popularity overseas otherwise the racers wouldn’t have gone to Egypt or Tanzania. I suspect it has more to do with the fact that they probably have an easy time getting additional crew for the time spent shooting there with India’s well developed entertainment industry. I want Chip and Kim to get the FF just because the idea of the guy with the already shaved head getting it I find amusing.
Speaking of missing Yields, how about missing Roadblocks? I’d guess either something happened to the roadblock for this leg which made it not available when the teams were there or it was rather bland compared to the ten minutes of Collin fighting the Tanzanian police which definitely made for some tense television. The second seems more likely and the roadblock would fit smoothly into the leg at the boat.
The detours the past few weeks have been interesting in that knowing which one was faster wasn’t immediately obvious. Yeah, jumping from the plane was fast, but one for one team. The bees last week had that unknown quality of the bicycle ride out of town, gearing up (something that always should be factored since it seems to always be a major factor in how quickly teams get done) and how long it took to harvest the honey. The urns the week before that were unclear how many trips and how long of donkey ride back and forth. The detour design has been fairly solid this season; it’s all the eating roadblocks that are the problem.
Why oh why does any other team do anything nice for C&C? I bet the team that stopped and gave them a fricking tire is kicking themselves after watching last night’s ep and seeing how their generosity was passed forward. And seeing this abusive asshole land in first place for the 4th time.
The Bowling Moms just aren’t agressive enough to win this race-- they seem to be content to not finish last, and that’s not going to do it with every other team charging ahead at full-speed. They may be able to hang around for the final three, but only if something catastrophic happens and C&C or B&N go down in the next (and last) elimination leg.
2 of the next 3 eps are non-elimination, so by my math we’re going to have 4 teams hustling for the finish line…
I think they count the last leg as a non-elimination leg. So (in all probability) the next two legs are elimination, then a non-elim, then the final.
Missing Roadblock: You don’t suppose the producers edited out the Roadblock in favor of the extended play version of Colin’s tantrum? It just seemed like there wasn’t a lot else happening in this episode, so I can’t figure out why else there wouldn’t be a roadblock.
Colin: Man, he was just wrong to short the cabbie. But what’s worse is how he treats Christie. She asks him, quite reasonably, to just drop it, and he gets mad because she’s not “supporting” him? And she eventually apologizes. That’s just way too close to “I’m sorry for making you hit me, honey.” God. As much as I enjoy seeing Colin do some auto-petard-hiking, the relationship between Colin and Christie just makes me cringe.
Chip: I hope he learned his lesson on the money spending. But more to the point, I loved his voice-overs at the beginning of the episode, commenting on the other teams. I’m thinking, wow! he’s just spot-on in his observations.
Twinks: Are they smart enough to make some spending money next episode? Or will some discreet Mardi Gras style top lifing be enough?
I have a fan club? Cool. Are there groupies involved? Can someone please get Sergei Federov’s people on the phone? Man is foine.
While she’s at it, she needs to work on her bitchslap. And in the event that these two actually win, I hope her very first puchase is an elephant-strength taser with a special Colin-sized bit.
Well … we already know that C&C can’t use it, since they already did. (Tee hee.) So I am hoping for Team Blue Lagoon to use it this time. Betcha Brandon has an ugly scalp. Although, if he has to take his shirt off to have his head shaved, it will be worth it. He’s a cutie, too. (Can he join my fan club?)
I am still inwardly shuddering, ten hours later. shudder shudder If I had been Christie, I think I would have given Colin a well-deserved kick in the dangly bits. She’s “making it more difficult”? She’s standing there, for the love of Og! I’m sure this morning, Christie’s phone is ringing off the hook with offers from women’s shelters and Dr. Phil. I hope to heaven and back she’s dumped him by now.
Did anybody else see those “look at me, I’m a B-movie hooker” smiles the twins had going on in the previews for next week? Something tells me that being young, cute, blonde twins isn’t going to help them as much as they hoped it would.
I will publicly do the dance of joy if Brandon has to shave his head. 
All I can say is if Christie didn’t break up with Colin the minute the Race was over, I hope she does when she sees it on film. She is so in an abusive relationship. It might be functional, but it’s certainly verbally abusive in a very passive-agressive way. Colin is horrible. Even when he’s doing the nice guy, give-me-a-kiss-in-the-elevator bit, he scares me.
I was horrified when I heard them “making up”, which consisted of Christie apologizing for her behavior. It’s so classic for cycle-of-abuse type relationships. The victim of the abuse apologizes for her reaction to the abuse.
I was really hoping she’d just go to Phil and tell him she wanted out.
The Twins have now moved into the special hate I had for Survivor Amazon’s Heidi and Jenna, with their “we’re young and cute” strategy for getting cash in the next leg. I hope something terrible happens to them. Nothing specific, just something bad. Anything bad.
Everyone’s pretty much covered the Colin blowout pretty well, so I won’t rehash it except to say that I laughed when he returned to the airport and one of the Bowling Moms said something to the effect of “Oh so you didn’t win, Colin?” in what I thought was a really snarky way. Priceless. I must, however, mention Colin’s absolute sense of entitlement to the Twins’ driver’s spare tire. I heard no please or thank you when they stopped to help him. I would have left his sorry ass sitting on that lonely road, because they were right: Colin never would have stopped to help them, or any other team. I think Phil wants them to fail; you could see it in his eyes when they got to the pit stop. Which was gorgeous.
I’ve getting a soft spot for the Moms. They just keep on going and haven’t seriously lost their cool since the airport debacle. I wish them well, but not as much well as I still wish Chip and Kim. I was a little uncomfortable when Chip got a bit preachy with Nicole at the airport; sometimes it’s just better to stay out of other people’s problems, as good as your advice may be.
Oh, come on now people. Yes, Colin’s behavior was one of the worst display’s I’ve ever seen. He’s a completer jerkwad and he treats Christie terribly.
However:
I’m afraid that’s wrong. Colin did in fact stop to see if he could help the moms. The driver let the other driver use his cell phone to call for another cab (which was all that could be done).
Isn’t Colin’s behavior bad enough? Do we have to start making stuff up now to hate him? That way lies Mirnathink.
They’re in the middle of the desert with no money and, unlike the Moms when they avoided Philimination, not especially close (that I can see) to an area that attract tourists with money. So, while pseudo-prostitution is not the most creative strategy in the world, I don’t see that they have a lot of other options.
I always watch the “Amazing Race Insider” videos on CBS’s web site so I already knew Colin was a dick.
After the two of them delivered the chairs, Christie wanted to give the kids some gum, and Colin was a total ass about it. More importantly though, Phil even mentioned in his video recap last week how disrespectful Colin is to the natives.
I miss Myrna and Charla, they would have loved the meltdown this week.
You’re absolutely correct. My fault, completely; I forgot all about that.
Not much to add, other than that I was hoping fervently to see Colin cooling his heels in a Tanzanian slammer just long enough to miss his flight. That would’ve been priceless.
Christie, sweetie…kick him to the curb. Not only is he abusive and psychotic…he was willing to risk $1,000,000 over a $50 cab fare. He’s stupid.
And the Moms are alternating between horrible luck (wrong airport, stuck in the sand) with incredible good luck (flights delayed, attraction closed). So the fact they’re still in the game means that their luck is better-than-average, on average.
In Mirna’s defense … she is completely batshit insane, but astoundingly prescient in saying that Colin is a “maniac” and a “criminal.” Because he is. And to add to what light strand said, we’re only seeing what the producers want to show. For all we know, he tortures monkeys for fun during the mandatory rest periods. Og knows he tortures Christie enough.