Amazing Race: Sneaky Cab Stealing

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Teams traveled to Austria in this Amazing Race episode, “Choir Boy at Heart.” There was horrible singing, cab stealing, and more shirtless locals. Come join the commentary of Amy, Steve and me in this latest recap.

This episode started out with teams leaving Gdansk, Poland and heading to Vienna, Austria. We were sad that the episode would not be filled with the word Gdansk since that is so fun to say. We did get to hear Marie use “Express Pass” one last time talking about how she was happy they used it. Drink! Unfortunately, that’s the only time she says it in the episode so make it a big drink. The ER docs did mention the Express Pass twice early on in the episode. Will they take over Marie’s job of mentioning it every chance they get? Probably not since she liked to throw it in the other teams’ faces and the ER docs don’t want to let the other teams know they have it. I wonder if the other teams already know by now.

Marie also referred to Jason and Racer Amy as Jamy, which I find stupid. Sometimes couple names can be combined, but that one just sounds dumb so they will still continue to be the team with no name. Racer Amy talked about being bummed coming in second place the last three legs. I would be bummed too since they usually win pretty sweet trips! When the baseball wives left, Kim talked about how they were able to handle the last leg since it wasn’t very physical. As long as it isn’t too hard, they can do well. Amy said, “Yes, as long as it’s not the hardest thing ever.”

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The teams took a train to Vienna. All the teams except Afghanimals and blondes with boobs were on one train going to Vienna via a connection in Warsaw. They had a 4.5 hour layover in Warsaw before the other train to Vienna so the Afghanimals and blondes caught up with all the other teams. When all the teams were waiting for the train to Vienna from Warsaw, they asked the Afghanimals if they u-turned the bearded guys. They lied and said they didn’t. We were all confused about why they would lie. Then I wondered if they wanted to remain a threat to the other teams when the second u-turn shows up in the game and people would think they could still u-turn them. Since they used it, they can’t do it any more. It was the only reason I could come up with. All the teams knew they were lying, but were so annoyed they were lying. Steve didn’t get why the other teams cared so much about them lying.

Paying Attention

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When teams arrived at the Vienna Opera House, they were greeted by a super creepy guy who directed them up many flights of stairs before he gave them their clue which included a detour and a fast forward. For the detour, teams had to pick between assembling a glass chandelier and picking out masquerade masks on dancing partners that matched ones they were wearing. The chandelier one seemed tricky due to all the small pieces and it also seemed like if they got it wrong, the chandelier would come crashing down and they would have to start over. I’m not sure if that would actually happen since no team picked that super hard sounding task. They all decided to go with the mask one or the fast forward. The fast forward consisted of bungee jumping off a tower, but it was weather dependent. Didn’t the fast forwards used to be more difficult? The fast forward now seems as easy as the speed bumps have become. That’s a shame.

Jason/Racer Amy and ER docs both decided to head towards the fast forward while the rest of the teams went to the mask task. While driving to the fast forward, the ER docs decided to just skip it once they realized that Jason/Racer Amy were going to the task and were ahead of them. See? If there was a challenge with the Fast Forward, more teams might go see if they could do better than another team. Now it is just who shows up first. When Jason/Racer Amy got to the top of the tower, they were told it was too windy to jump. Jason wanted to leave. Racer Amy wanted to wait 10 minutes to see if the wind calmed down. I did get to hear a lot of the Boston accent come out in Jason the more he talked about wanting to leave. He talked about how he didn’t want to wait an howa (hour) because he is from Bawston. They finally gave up and headed to the detour that everyone else was doing.

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At the mask detour, a few teams had a couple times where they guessed the wrong masks since they were very similar, but they soon got the correct ones. The Exes were the first team to complete it, but they couldn’t find a taxi. They wasted so much time trying to get one that all teams but Jason/Racer Amy finished up the task and took off in taxis they were able to hail down before the Exes found one to take them to the next place. I felt it was some kind of karma coming back to them. Jason and Racer Amy showed up after all the other teams left, but since the task was easy, it didn’t take long for them to finish up.

Tone Deaf

The next task was a road block where one team member had to learn a German song and sing it with the Vienna Boys’ Choir. They would be judged on their ability to sing the German words and their musicality. Musicality? That sounds subjective. This task was hard. I was talking German while the racers tried to say it and sing it. Nicky of the baseball wives said she knew German from her dad being Czech and speaking it, but she was horrible at singing. Kim agreed. We all agreed. It was bad. When Oklahoma talked about not doing anything like this before, especially in another language, Steve said, “We don’t have German music where we are from.” While the team members practiced, we were given a random shot of the guy mowing the lawn outside. Why? No clue!

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No one passed the road block on the first try. Amy wondered if it was child abuse to make the kids listen and accompany the racer’s singing. She said it was probably also their easiest song. The kids did giggle a lot when they heard people try to sing. We actually got to hear the closest Marie could come to a compliment when she told Tim that he could do it because of his weird memory. Not his good memory, mind you, but his weird memory. Amy asked, “Can she ever say anything 100% nice?” When he was told it wasn’t good enough, Marie did tell Tim he made it further than anyone else so to go “fix it and come back.” Boston Jason said, “Yeah Tim, go fix it!”

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Travis was the first one to complete the road block. The song was really long once the racers were able to sing it all. Such a hard road block! Nicky was the second one to complete it, but I have no idea why. She sounded horrible so that’s why I don’t get what they had to do to complete it. When the baseball wives left, they ran to a cab. Then they saw that it had Jason and Racer Amy’s bags in it, so they ran off to find another cab. The cab driver saw them and decided to just dump the backpacks on the ground saying he didn’t want to wait anymore. They decided to just go find their own cab anyway.

Oklahoma Tim went after all other team members had given it one shot. When he started to sing, he was shut down quickly for being too horrible. He had to go practice more. Steve had chosen Oklahoma as the team going home and we both thought he might be correct. Amy and I had chosen the blondes with boobs who were still there as well.

The Afghanimals were the third team to finish and leave. The Exes were the fourth team to leave the roadblock. After reading the clue, Marie said, “Let’s go steal someone’s cab.” She said this before they even went outside and saw that there was a cab with backpacks already on the ground. Once they saw that cab, they jumped in and took it. While driving, Marie was telling the camera man about her evil scheme, forgetting that the cab driver could hear her. He asked if he did something wrong and if he should go back. She convinced him he didn’t. The Exes said they did it because their cab was so far away. Jason and Racer Amy came out and found their cab gone, they ran out and found another cab. The Exes really didn’t save any time by stealing a cab and Jason and Racer Amy didn’t waste much time finding another cab since all teams stayed in the same order they left the road block all the way to the pit stop.

We did get to learn that Racer Amy said if she learned another team took their taxi then Providence Amy would come out and she would flip out. We were all baffled by this. Amy asked, “Is Providence a tough town?” I wondered what would happen exactly. Steve said, “Here is what we know about Providence Amy: She flips out.” We couldn’t wait for her to come out!

The last two teams left at the road block were Oklahoma and the blondes. We were all rooting for one or the other team to be last since then our prediction would be correct! We wondered how long both teams were at the road block. Steve said that the Oklahoma team should just take the four-hour penalty as soon as they got there because Tim was so bad at it. Ally finally got it on her sixth attempt. Since Tim was the last team there, he did finally do it on the next try. We wondered if it was just a pity pass since they were tired of hearing all the singing. It looked like the Oklahoma guys were going home, but they did finish up just after the blondes.

Pit Stop

For some reason, teams had to go through a labyrinth to find a clue box that told them where the pit stop was, which was at the top of a nearby hill. I don’t know if the show’s producers thought it was super hard and it would trip teams up, but it seemed pretty easy to go through. The harder part seemed to be to the running part up to the pit stop. Many teams were out of breath and hardly jogging when they made it up there, which made me think it was quite a hike to get up there. The ER docs and baseball wives were at the labyrinth at the same time, but the ER docs ran faster so they came in first place. They won a trip to Anguilla. The baseball wives came in second, followed very closely by the Afghanimals.

The Exes showed up at the labyrinth but left their bags in the cab until they got the pit stop clue. While they were headed back to the taxi to pay the driver, Jason and Providence Amy showed up. They ran over to see the bags in the taxi with their old taxi driver so they knew exactly who stole the cab. It didn’t change the order of things, but did make for an interesting pit stop because they both showed up at the same time. Phil told Jason that they snuck up on them. Jason said, “Sneaky. That’s a good word Phil.” Jason and Providence Amy yelled, Marie yelled back, Tim said nothing, Phil just watched and the lady that was next to Phil that welcomed everyone to Austria just looked awkward about the entire situation. Amy said about the girl standing next to Phil, “You are making my hair sparkles sad.”

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The blondes did get to the pit stop before the Oklahoma guys. Both Amy and I were wrong and Steve guessed right. The Oklahoma guys did come in last place and were eliminated. Amy said they were going to have to find another way to get money for their families and mentioned again, this is not the way you make money for your families.

What did you think about the Oklahoma guys going home? What did you think about the cab stealing situation? Do you think the fast forwards should be harder so more teams try to go for them instead of just letting the first team that goes for it, get it (unless it is a weather dependent situation like this one)? Who will be the next team to go home?

 

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