Previously on The Amazing Race: Uchenna and Joyce were fucking awesome, and snagged the Fast Forward to vault into first place, while the sneering, nasty queers who give the rest of us a bad name were thankfully eliminated. See ya, Lynn and Alex! Please don't represent my people anymore!
Jodhpur, India - 11:24 PM. Uchenna and Joyce take off from the mat, and we learn that the teams have to make their way to Istanbul, Turkey. Wait, the teams actually have to book the flights themselves? Wow, that messes with my whole perception of this season, namely: "Hey, here's what flight you're going to be on, stupid." Uchenna and Joyce head off to find a travel agency and get tickets for 10:20 AM to Delhi, where they will have to arrange any further flights (eventually, all the teams will do this).
11:26 PM. Ron/Kelly and Rob/Amber depart. Two minutes? Ouch. Guess that Fast Forward didn't give Uchenna and Joyce much of a leg up. If only there were some way to increase their lead! We also learn that all of the teams will be receiving $82 for this leg of the race.
11:33 PM. Meredith and Gretchen are the last to depart. Man, they have got to be the luckiest team in the history of this show. Never have I seen someone make it to the final four based entirely on the incompetence of other teams. Plus, it looks like Gretchen's scabs have finally healed. So that's good, except for the fact that when she's fit and rested, Gretchen tends to wail like an air-raid siren. Maybe another wound would calm her down a bit?
Once in Delhi, everyone starts frantically checking for early flights to Istanbul, and they all manage to find one that leaves at 4:45 AM and arrives in Istanbul at 8:45 AM. Then, a bright light shone down from the heavens, and the Angel of Karma descended. He smiled, pointed at the television, and was gone in a flash. Huh. That was weird. I turned back to the screen just in time to catch Rob casually mention to Gretchen: "Hey, did you get on the earlier flight to Istanbul?" Hmmmm? Did I miss something? What earlier flight? Why, the mythical flight that Rob invented to shake up the other teams. He describes all this in an interview with his usual self-satisfied smirk that makes me want to jam a squirrel in him. He goes back and gloats to Amber about this masterful stroke, and they have a good giggle over how dumb everyone else is. Drat, if only I could remember what comes after "What goes around..." Oh, well. I'm sure it'll come to me. Indeed, Rob's plan works perfectly, as Meredith/Gretchen and Uchenna/Joyce start fretting that they don't have the best flight. Uchenna borrows a cell phone to call around and discovers...an earlier flight! This one leaves at 8 PM, connects through Dubai, and gets into Istanbul at 6:20 AM, more than two hours before the one that Rob The Strategist is on. To their credit, Rob and Amber do look for better flight options for themselves (and Ron/Kelly), but are told by multiple airline agents that the flight they're on is the best. I'm not sure what happened here. Either A) Rob only asked about direct flights, and ignored the possibility of a better flight through a connecting city, B) The agents were mistaken (or lying, since he was asking about other carriers) about there not being other flight options, C) Uchenna/Joyce and Meredith/Gretchen got the last seats on the early flight and there really wasn't a better option, or D) God hates Rob. Heh, it's probably all of the above. All the teams get on their flights, and Rob/Amber and Ron/Kelly are a bit puzzled that the other two teams have apparently vanished, but are happy to have a sizeable lead over them. Snerk.
Istanbul! Hagia Sophia! Everything's really pretty! Uchenna/Joyce and Meredith/Gretchen land and get directions to take a train to a ferry, the ferry to a smaller boat, and the smaller boat to the island called Kiz Kulesi. Once there, they have to search the tower and nearby grounds for a Travelocity gnome that they will have to carry around for the rest of the leg. Normally, I'd be sickened by such gross product placement, but at least they're doing this at an actual landmark of Turkey. Compared to TAR6's "task" in Hungary that required the teams to go into a coffee shop and log onto AOL, which I can fucking do at the local Starbucks, this is pretty tolerable. Also, each of the gnomes has an icon on the bottom, and the team that picks the airplane icon will win a fantabulous prize at the end of the leg. Meredith and Gretchen are moving kind of slow (I know, I'm shocked too), so Uchenna and Joyce manage to get a comfortable lead. Nobody has any trouble finding a gnome, and the teams boat back to the mainland, where they grab a taxi to the next clue, which is a Detour. The Detour is Columns or Kilos. In Columns, you use a grid map to check four columns for a number. Then you hoist up a locked box and put in different combinations of the numbers to open it. In Kilos, you get a scale from a local man, and weigh people until you have a sum of 2500 kilos (5500 pounds). It's a good Detour, in that it's not immediately obvious which is better. In the end, I'd have to say Kilos would be quicker, but Columns is closer, so who knows? Both the lead teams pick Kilos.
Hahahahaha!!! The second flight is just landing (1 hour and 57 minutes after the other one - looks like they made up some time in the air). Rob and Amber get on the train pretty quickly, but Ron and Kelly hesitate for a few minutes, and wind up missing it and having to wait for another one. On the way to Kiz Kulesi, Rob asks the ferryman if any teams have been there before him, and gets the bad news that two have already been by. He pitches a fit. I laugh my ass off. All is well. Amber easily finds a gnome, they boat back to the dock, and decide to take the ferry again, rather than getting a taxi like all the other teams. That probably cost them some time. Not that I'm gleefully cackling about it or anything. On the ferry, Rob and Amber spy Ron and Kelly just arriving at the island. Ron and Kelly learn that not only do they not have a comfortable lead, but they are now firmly entrenched in last place. Whoopsie.
Ron and Kelly get their gnome, get back, and hop into a taxi. As they take in the sights of Turkey, Ron mentions (pretty much just in passing, it seems to me) that there's so much he still has to do before settling down. Kelly and her biological clock can't let this pass without comment, so she accuses him of being afraid of commitment. He naturally points out that he committed himself to the military, and she counters this point by saying he wormed his way out of that by becoming a POW. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?!?! What a goddamn bitch. He reacts a lot more kindly than I would, just kind of sarcastically blowing her off. Seriously, is she retarded? There is just no scenario in which what she said was OK. After I pick my jaw up off the ground, I make a mental note to buy one of these as soon as possible.
There's not much to say about the Kilos detour except that Meredith and Gretchen initially cannot find the man with the scales, and fall further behind. Uchenna and Joyce have no problems getting people to hop on the scale, and get their next clue which leads them to Rumeli Hisari, a ridiculously beautiful fortress where they encounter this week's Roadblock. The Roadblock looks pretty exhausting. The person who does it has to climb up a 25-foot rope ladder, climb a staircase to a tower, search the tower area for a key, then rappel back down to open a book with the key. Uchenna takes it for his team, and does fine, except for a bit of trouble finding the key. Back at the bottom, the unlocked book directs him and Joyce to the pit stop, which is inside the fortress. They run up to Phil and the adorable-as-always greeter and are welcomed as Team #1. Their gnome does not have the airplane icon, but still! Hooray! They had a fantastic day.
Meredith and Gretchen finally finish up with Kilos, and get to the fortress. Gretchen takes the Roadblock, and good for her. I give her a hard time because she's loud and can be obnoxious, but I do have to admire the way she throws herself into the tasks. I can only hope I can do half the things she's done on this race when I'm her age. She has some problems trying to get up the rope ladder, but eventually makes it. She spots a key, gets back down with no trouble, and unlocks the book. Welcome, Meredith and Gretchen. You are Team #2, and for once, you deserve it. Their gnome is not the winner, either.
The rest wraps up rather quickly. Rob and Amber pick Kilos. Ron and Kelly choose Columns. They both finish easily, and head for the Roadblock, and Rob/Amber arrive first. Rob and Ron take the Roadblock for their teams, but Rob/Amber have too substantial a lead and arrive at the mat as Team #3 while Ron is still searching for the key at the top of the tower. In a shocking development, Rob and Amber's gnome is not the winner either. I'm not being sarcastic. I fully expected them to get it. It's like an early birthday present or something. Awww, thanks, Amazing Race! Ron and Kelly finally finish and are told they are the last team to arrive, but in a not-at-all shocking development, are spared by non-elimination. All of their money and possessions are taken away, a penalty which has yet to have any effect on any team, ever. Plus, in an even less shocking development for viewers who can count to four, their gnome has the winning icon on the bottom. They win $20,000 to spend on Travelocity, and are told they are going to spend the night at the Four Seasons rather than in the fortress. How nice. That ought to buck up their spirits as they consider the prospect of spending even more time together.
Next week on The Amazing Race: Uchenna continues his quest to become my secret boyfriend. Joyce and Meredith (almost literally) blow a gasket.
Overall Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment