Monday, March 5, 2012

Amazing Race 20, Leg 3

First off, I just want to say that the sooner Brendan and Rachel get eliminated, the better. I'm going to call them the Drama Team.
Second off, according the AR lore, the Border Agents will NOT win the whole race, because no one who wins the third leg has ever won the whole thing. I think I'm glad about this - those guys just rub me the wrong way.
Third, I suspect that the reason we didn't see much of the twins was because the Race producers knew they were out in this leg.
I was stunned that Team Army used their express pass and still came in 4th place. Bad move. Given how slow the twins and divorcees were at everything, I think Team Army could've saved the pass and still placed well within the pack. They will regret that move later, methinks.
Also, I was shocked at how many people chose to stack watermelons! Obviously these people have never tried to take fruit from the piles at the supermarket. As I told Dale, there's too much variation in natural fruit - at least the harps are an objective task. Once you master the stringing, it's just repetition. But with the watermelons, each melon must be placed perfectly, and placing 385 melons is a LOT of work.
Going on with the challenges, Dale and I were surprised that 1) no one else incurred the 2 hour penalty by breaking all the bottles and 2) this wasn't a non elimination round. It was such a tough round it seemed like a good choice for non elimination.
But then we got to the surprising tough finish. At first, when they were showing the divorcees and twins working on the tasks, I assumed the editing just made it look close and that the divorcees had already lost. But then they came together at the bottle challenge! I was rooting for Ralph and Vanessa. Yes, she was a little spiteful towards Rachel at the watermelon stand, but really, can you blame her? I want to slap Rachel across the face whenever she says anything. So when Ralph and Vanessa outran the twins, I was thrilled.
One final comparison. Vanessa and Rachel both had to run for the mat, and both collapsed on it. But Rachel turned her collapse into an Oscar tryout for Most Melodramatic, weeping even after she found out they were fine, while Vanessa pulled herself together and stood up like a real woman.

1 comment:

David said...

I was also surprised at the number of folks who wanted to do a physically demanding task outside when they could have done one with air-conditioning and (Johnny Cash-themed) harp music. I think the express pass couple ended up being 6th, not second or fourth. Teams almost never use that well.
And who knew bottle head dancing was a thing!! So awesome.
The "Teachers" need to give up their secret identities. It's not doing anything for them. The annoying "Michael Jordan-esque" border patrol agents and Team Army of One might still ignore them because their women, but they might form an alliance with them as part of the broader TEAM USA mentality. Probably not, but stranger things have happened on the race.