Amazing Race: Up All Night

beardsgross

This latest leg had teams hanging out in the midnight sun of Norway while they handled stinky fish, jumped from a bridge into the arctic waters, and did some lovely product placement for Ford trucks. I was most excited about Kim bringing back my favorite phrase about a task being the hardest thing she has ever done since she didn’t say it last episode. That’s three out of four episodes. Let’s hope she keeps it up! Please join the colorful commentary of “Beards in the Wind” courtesy of Amy, Steve and me.

Last episode no one was correct about who was going home. We thought it would be the Oklahoma boys, but it ended up being the NFL team. This episode, none of us could agree on who we thought would be going home. I felt it would be the blondes with the boobs, Amy said it would be a non-elimination leg, and Steve felt it would be the Exes, even though they have an Express Pass. He thought they would screw up somehow and not use it when they should.

Teams Say Odd Things

The episode began with teams learning they had to make their way to Norway and the Arctic Circle. After last week’s airport drama, there was none this week since there was only one flight out and everyone was on it. After the teams landed, they had to take a three-hour ferry ride to their first clue. It then became time for them to share their thoughts.

The blondes with boobs were complaining about being cold, even though their jobs back home involve being on the ice. The cold did seem to affect their speech patterns. Ashley said, “Because we were near the arctic circle, the sun never really went down and we had never been somewhere that the sun never sun set…the sun never sets…never sun sets…sun never sun sets.” Steve asked if she was stoned.

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The beard guys talked about knowing each other forever, liking to do things outdoors and how their beards were low maintenance. They even commented that everyone wants a mustache. Amy and I would beg to differ.

Marie talked about how she is not giving up the Express Pass until she is forced to at the end of the fifth leg. I have been guessing she would do this. She then listed off who she isn’t going to give it to. It seems that only the ER docs have a chance and Marie said it would be the nice thing to do since they were the first team to the mat, but had a penalty. Does Marie want to do the nice thing though? Of course not.

Stinky Fish

After a leg with a fairly easy detour and road block, this leg had two different detours that both seemed time consuming. They also both dealt with stinky fish. One involved stringing together six bundles of 10 fish heads and transporting them in a wheelbarrow to drying racks before properly hanging them up on a marked pole. The other task was picking up 15 dried cods from the 30-foot tall drying racks and pounding them with a huge hammer to make one kilo of fish jerky without the bones. Amy was not a fan of either of these tasks. She said, “I cannot even think about the smell or I will die.” I said I would pick the fish heads one and I would be singing the fish heads song.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/cn73Wtem0No?t=2m1s[/youtube]

Most teams chose the fish heads task. The only teams that decided to hammer some dried cod was the baseball wives and the Oklahoma boys. All teams realized the tasks were a couple kilometers away. Some teams struggled with the metric system and how far away that distance really was from where they were. Some thought they could just run over there while others wanted to get taxis. There weren’t a lot of taxis since it was past 11pm at night, even though it looked like it was the afternoon. The Exes found the one random taxi cab waiting outside of a hotel. All the other teams had to call cabs. The bearded guys decided to make a run for it over the bridge. The Exes made it to the detour first, but the bearded guys were close behind them and made it there before any of the other teams waiting for cabs showed up.

The Exes actually worked together on the task. I was amazed Marie was letting Tim do something instead of just pushing him aside and doing it herself. She became worried when she saw the bearded guys show up. She said, “They will be good at it. They eat and do gross stuff all the time!” All the other teams showed up for the fish head task. The random no-name team were quite helpful to the ER docs. Racer Amy was telling them exactly what they needed to do. I’m not sure they needed the extra instructions, but she provided them. The Afghanimals were not comfortable doing anything related to water. One of the blondes, Ashley said she couldn’t spear the tiny fish heads because they were like a baby. I’m not sure how fish heads are babies.

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The Oklahoma boys finally showed up for the other part of the detour around the time that the Exes were finished spearing fish heads. The baseball wives arrived at the fish racks when it looked like the Oklahoma boys had taken down around half of the 15 fish they needed to remove from the racks. Both the baseball wives and Oklahoma boys did arrive to their task well after the fish head teams. It also seemed to take a while to climb up to grab some fish and carry them back down. The dried fish were unruly so it was difficult to grab more than two or three at a time before bringing them back down to the team mate on the ground that had to hold the dried fish around their neck and arms. Ick.

The fish head teams had to wheelbarrow their speared fish around a bend and up a hill. It seemed to be tiring for all the teams. Marie actually encouraged Tim and said he was made to push the wheelbarrow. I thought he should have had her do it since she is better at everything. During the entire task, Racer Amy of random no-name team was getting turned on by Jason spearing fish heads and pushing the wheelbarrow. She thought he was sexy and called him her “little fisherman.” This drove Steve insane and said he would murder anyone that called him that. Racer Amy is also the complete opposite of my friend, Amy since she was busy saying, “OMG, I’m going to puke” the entire time we were watching the tasks involving the dead fish.

The blondes were the last teams to finish the first part of the fish head task after the bearded guys, ER docs and Afghanimals finished. The Afghanimals had a tough time though since their wheelbarrow had a flat tire.

afghanflattire

The one team that surprised me by having a great time was the blondes. They were running up the hill with the wheelbarrow like it weighed nothing. They were talking about how much fun they were having and the scenery was beautiful. It was as if they were in a different race than the other teams.

The Exes arrived at the drying racks just as the Oklahoma boys were done gathering their fish and heading off to smash them with a hammer. The Exes missed that they needed to put the fish on a marked log. They chose an empty one. They called the fish judge over to check their work around the time the random no-name team showed up, but were told it was not correct. No other feedback was given so they didn’t know what they did wrong. When the no-named team finished up, Marie kept quizzing them asking them what they did differently. The bearded guys showed up and finished while the Exes were retying their fish thinking that’s what they did wrong. Marie asked what they did differently and when the bearded guys said they didn’t have time to compare what the Exes did to what they did, Marie said, “We have an Express Pass!” The bearded guys just laughed and ran off saying, “We don’t need your stinkin’ Express Pass!” Marie wondered why this was happening to her since she is nice to everyone. Wait, what? They almost used their Express Pass, but Marie finally figured out it needed to be on a marked pole. They finished up right after the ER docs and just before the Afghanimals and blondes showed up.

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While most of the teams were heading to the next clue, the Oklahoma guys finally were hitting their dried fish with a hammer after asking each other who wanted to whack it. After talking about whacking it, they discussed taking the meat off and pounding the meat. The Oklahoma guys were about finished by the time the baseball wives showed up. The ladies had difficulty carrying all the fish and all their stuff. It was awkward and heavy. Nicky said she was the cod queen at one point. The Oklahoma guys did help us all out at home by mentioning that the task was hard while they were leaving, which led Kim to say it was the hardest thing they had ever done. Yes! Drink everyone!

baseballfish

The baseball wives had to know they were the last team to complete the detour, but they were both in a really good mood. They just stayed positive and kept going. It was refreshing to see two teams (baseball wives and blondes) just enjoying everything they were doing.

Swingers

After the detour, teams had to take a speedboat out to a bridge and jump off a bridge for the roadblock. They would be hanging from a rope and then release themselves into the cold water so they could swim out and pick up their clue on a buoy.

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The random no-named team and the bearded guys arrived at the roadblock at the same time. Brandon of the bearded guys got into his wet suit quicker so he beat Jason of the random no-named team to the top of the bridge. The other teams caught up pretty quickly. Jason had difficulty reaching his ball to release him into the water. Amy said, “People can make their own comment about the guy not being able to grab his ball.”

Marie was charming as usual when Tim was doing the challenge. She said it looked like it required a lot of upper body strength and she wasn’t confident that he had enough to pull it off. Tim looks like a fit guy and doesn’t seem useless. I wonder what he will think when he watches what she says about him in the show when he’s not around. Of course, she says horrible things around him too and he puts up with it. Why? Amy said, “I don’t see why he is doing this. There has got to be an easier way to make half a million dollars.”

Of course no team had any issues with the task and no one really needed any upper body strength. Jason just had some bad luck with the ropes getting tied up, but everyone else didn’t have those problems.

Haulin’ Rocks

The bearded guys were the first ones to arrive to the next clue after the road block, which involved more Ford product placement. As with every episode, the bearded guys had done something like this before. Earlier in the episode, they mentioned they fish like the people of Norway, they hung from bridges when they were teenagers, and they both worked construction so they were used to wearing the safety vests like they had to put on before getting into the truck. Steve made the comment that the Oklahoma guys were the team that was doing a ton of stuff for the first time in strange lands while the bearded guys were the team that had done it all!

Teams had to wrap some chains around a boulder on a makeshift sled and attach it to the hitch of the truck so they could pull it off their next clue, which was a piece of cloth telling them to go to a Viking House and a bag of Viking coins they had to bring with the pit stop.

The bearded guys and random no-name team finished the task quickly. The Exes arrived next, but took off with only the coins and not the piece of cloth telling them where to go next. They didn’t know they were missing a piece. We all wondered if Steve was going to be correct with the Exes getting eliminated since they didn’t know where to go.

cameracrew

When the blondes showed up, they were dismayed when they got into the pickup truck and saw it was a stick shift. Seriously? Every single season, teams have to drive a stick shift at least once. Why are there any teams that don’t know how to do it? At one point, they were convinced they were going to go backwards off the cliff. One viewpoint showed the camera crew ready to film it, if it happened. It didn’t. The Afghanimals were there working on the task, but the girls didn’t ask them for help. They got to a point where they needed to reverse, but couldn’t figure it out. They asked the Oklahoma guys for help when they arrived. As far behind as the Oklahoma guys were, I have no idea why they said they would help, but they are nice boys so they did it. The Oklahoma guys did finally have a task that they felt comfortable doing though. They got finished before the blondes finished. All teams finished and were out of there before the baseball wives were done with the road block. It was not looking good for the baseball wives and no one had chosen them for the last team!

Viking Pitstop

The bearded guys made it to the pit stop in first place, just ahead of the random no-name team. They each won $5,000. They were also informed that the leg wasn’t over and they were still racing. They were so excited about it! They want to keep racing. Both Amy and I like these better than non-elimination legs, but we knew that Amy was the closest with declaring this a non-elimination leg. Maybe Steve or I will be correct the next episode.

Before the episode ended though, the ER docs were looking for the pit stop when they came across the Exes who were just driving around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go. Marie blurted out that they didn’t know where to go, but then tried to scale it back when she realized they were missing some information. She was trying to get it out of the ER docs. Nicole said she would tell them if they were given the Express Pass. Marie didn’t want to give it up so the ER docs said fine since it was the Exes that needed the information. The ER docs didn’t need the Exes so they were leaving when the episode ended. Oh the cliffhanger….

Do you think Marie will give up the Express Pass? Do you think the baseball wives will catch up in the next episode? Who do you think will finally be eliminated?

 

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