Amazing Race: I’m in Jail!

Seriously? Another non-elimination leg? I know they typically have three a season, but they seem to be so bunched up here that it is just getting ridiculous at this point. Before we get to that though, let’s go to Africa where we learn that tobacco workers are very happy and Laurence still lives in the 1950s.

The teams barely got into Bangkok and they were already off to Lilongwe, Africa. Everyone ended up on the same flight. We also learned the interesting news that Jennifer works with special education kids. Jennifer? The one who freaked out almost immediately on the show is patient with kids? Well, she has calmed down a lot after those first few episodes, but I’m not sold on that fact yet. There must be some trickery involved.

Rolling Tobacco

After teams landed in Africa, they took off to a tobacco factory where they found a roadblock that involved a team member putting on an orange jumpsuit and funny floppy hat before rolling ten 200-lb bags of tobacco on a small  hand truck from one side of a warehouse to another. While they are doing this, the workers were trying to distract them or get in their way. They got bored of this after a while and just started cheering the team members on. No one really got ahead of each other in this part of the race, so I’ll just wrap it up by saying that the boring dating couple finished first and the NFL team finished last. That was mostly based on where people were sitting in the airplane so those that got off last finished the road block last. Marcus did say that he needed to quit doing small people tasks. He was ready to go to “big people country!”

Welcome to 1950s

After that, teams moved onto a detour where they had to either sew pants and a jacket on a rickety sewing machine or build a toy truck out of milk cartons, nails and bottle caps for some school kids. This is where we learned that Laurence is not just an asshat to his son. When he saw the choices, he made the comment that all the women would zip right by them in the sewing task so they should do the other one. He didn’t leave that alone though since when he arrived at the toy truck task, he saw the dating couple there and asked why Sandy wasn’t sewing. She took it to mean because she was a nurse practioner and said that she can sew up people, but not clothes. That’s not what he meant Sandy! He then proceeded to tell Jeremy that he might want to rethink marrying her if she can’t sew. Seriously? I haven’t seen Zac make any of these comments so I hope he has a better head on his shoulders but he isn’t telling his dad to shut up either.

The boring dating couple finished up the detour first and Sandy did play a bit of soccer with the kids while Jeremy got their backpacks, which made them slightly less boring. The brother/sister team and snowboarders also did the task, but didn’t do anything very exciting with it. Over in the other task, the Control Freaks would have probably finished ahead of other people, but their taxi got really lost so they showed up to sew at the same time as the farmers, even though the Control Freaks left the roadblock way ahead of them. Both Cindi and Cindy did a decent job of sewing, even with the machines wanting to break a lot. The NFL team also did sewing and Marcus could show Laurence a thing or two since his grandmother could sew so Marcus knew how to do it too. He seemed to whip through it in no time.

Carrying Beds

After the detour, the teams had to go to a shop to pick up some locally made bed and transport them to a village. They were told in the clue to ask the shop owner to call a driver to help transport them. Some teams did this and others found their own rides. This didn’t seem to matter though. After they were almost to the village, they had to get out and carry their beds for a while down a dirt path to the pit stop. Once at the pit stop, teams were informed they would be sleeping on the beds they carried that night in the village.

The brother/sister team were the first ones to get to the pit stop, but they hadn’t paid their driver so Phil sent them back. At least they didn’t have to carry their beds back and forth. That meant that the snowboarders who arrived second ended up in first place again. Again? They have been in first place four times, but only once have they truly been first. It is crazy. Almost all the other teams paid their driver except for the farmers. When Bill asked if they needed to pay them, Cindi said to do it only if they ask. Err… The dating team was the third team to start walking, but they got passed up by the farmers. The farmers were the fifth team to start walking but since they didn’t pay while the Control Freaks were paying their driver, they got ahead. The brother/sister team managed to race back after paying their driver and made it to the mat right before the farmers. Phil checked them in and then told the farmers to go back to pay. Then, he checked the dating couple in for third place.

While the Control Freaks were walking, Cindy lost her balance and had her bed fall on her head as she collapsed to the ground. Surprisingly, she didn’t freak out and started to laugh since she was in African jail. Ernie laughed too and then part of his bed fell apart. Things love to fall apart on Ernie.  He put it back together and they were on their way. The father/son team showed up somewhere in here and checked into the pit stop in fourth place and the Control Freaks were in fifth. The farmers were racing back to the pit stop after paying their driver as the NFL team was walking. They got to Phil just before them and came in sixth place. The NFL team were told they were in last place, but it was yet another elimination leg so they will continue!

Questions

  1. Are you tired of non-elimination legs? Or are you glad that the NFL team was not eliminated this time?
  2. Did this leg just seem boring overall with no real challenges that messed up teams?
  3. Can we just leave Laurence behind in Africa?

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