November 1, 2009

This week's episode of the Amazing Race was an interesting roller coaster ride. Everything started off so smoothly, with all the teams bunched up at the airport, sitting around telling stories and getting along great. It made me think that this season has had far less animosity between teams as any other season. Then everyone made their way to the bell tower to count the bells on the way up, and 5 of the six teams got it right on the very first try, which had me thinking that it was far too easy. Leave it to Ericka to take care of that, however, with her inability to count to 62. How funny would Lance and Keri have been at this Roadblock?

I give credit to Brian for being so supportive of his wife as she struggled through the task. That's what I was talking about last week...the supportive partner. Interesting that when Mika was having trouble with the waterslide, Canaan essentially tried to throw her down the slide and called her a moron, whereas Brian was nothing but supportive, telling Ericka to take her time, and that they would wait all day if they had to.

Which made it all the more appalling when later in the episode, Ericka snapped at Brian as she was complaining about the clogs hurting her feet, "the least you could do is be a little compassionate!" Such a drama queen...and she also declared at the Roadblock that "it was the hardest thing." Wait a minute...climbing stairs and counting bells is "the hardest thing" you've done? I can think of ten harder things you've done on the race alone!

I'm not sure why Sam told Tiffany the number of bells on the way out of the tower. It didn't seem to be a very smart move, even though he justified it by saying that they were a team that could be beaten later on.

Considering the fact that we saw Brian waiting at the bottom of the Bell Tower with his arms in his shirt and shivering, and we later saw the teams out in the howling wind, how cold must it have been for teams to strip down to their underwear, then swim across the river and play golf in that wet underwear. Your next Detour...fighting off hypothermia!

It was very frustrating watching Maria and Tiffany flipping and flopping on which Detour to do. I always get aggravated watching a team go back and forth because it's such a waste of time, but to watch them go to the dancing, then the golf, then the dancing again, and THEN the golf again was just too much. I understand that 71 unsuccesful attempts at the bell-ringing probably meant that it wasn't going to happen, but you commit to one task and go with it...period.

It was even more frustrating to watch them quit. I don't ever recall anyone quitting on The Amazing Race before. People have refused tasks (like last week) and been subject to penalties, or arriving last at the Pit Stop...but I can't remember Phil heading out onto the course because someone wanted to quit. Very disappointing. As soon as I saw that, I remembered a challenge three years ago where two sisters were trying to find a key in a bunch of rolled up bales of hay, and as fruitless as it was, they kept trying for hours, into the night, until Phil came to them and told them that it was too late and they had been eliminated. But they never gave up.

And then, as if my subconscious had seen it coming, there was the preview for next week's episode, where they are bringing back the bales of hay challenge! Wow...cosmic. Should be good next week.