Amazing Race UpdateThis segment featured not one, but two spots where all the teams caught up with each other, which had to make the brothers, who lost a few weeks ago when there were none, a little annoyed.
The obvious highlight of the evening was Joyce's bravery in accepting the shaving of her head. I couldn't help but be impressed with her willingness to do something that obviously upset her a great deal in order to win. It was a shame that there was no prize for winning this leg of the race, especially since it was a long (two hours over two weeks) segment.
Gretchen continues to grate on my nerves. She was foolish enough to accept being put in the howdah atop the elephant, as she ended up adding weight to the load while not being an assistance in pulling it. Then of course, Meredith does reasonably well in the camel ride but all we see is Gretch shaking her head in disgust. I got a hunch that she's going to go out like Ray, muttering about how her partner, who is clearly the only reason they've gotten this far, held her back.
This was the second consecutive week where everybody goes for the same task at the Detour, which makes for less excitement. In most of these Detours, when one or two pairs have gone against the grain they've done quite well--remember the brothers passed Ray and his girlfriend when they chose to suck water out of the ground rather than mash the corn. And Uchenna and Joyce aced the "Balance stuff on your head" challenge while the others were milking goats and picked up a lot of ground. Gretchen and Meredith would have been smarter to try the tie-dying experiment, which didn't sound all that complicated or exhausting.
I was a sorry to see the gay couple go; I've generally liked their cooperation and support for each other. And they went out with class talking about all the wonderful people they'd met along the way. However, I did catch one jarring note when Lynn yelled at the driver of the autorickshaw to "run over that elephant" (the one that Gretchen was riding in). Despite the claims of fraternity, they were still quite competitive. Too bad they didn't grill their driver to make sure he knew his way to the pit stop.
Update: Viking Pundit has his
recap up, while Kris at Dummocrats
sums things up.
