Amazing Race: Instant Karma for Rudeness

blondebellycrawl

Once again, I’ll be recapping this show with Amy and Steve so it includes a little bit about the show and mostly our comments about what is going on while we watch it. The show kicked off in New York City before the teams flew to the U.S. Virgin Islands to jump off cliffs and dig for buried treasure for a really long time. Continue on to read about how everyone was confused by a compass and treasure map coordinates.

I was pretty excited about starting off the 25th season in New York City since I just got back from there yesterday with Steve. They showed the Manhattan skyline before zooming into Central Park and Bethesda Fountain, which is where the show started its first season. I was excited because we only saw a portion of Central Park when visiting, but we did row little boats right next to the fountain. That isn’t where the race started this season though. It started in Times Square, which we also race through one night to make it from dinner to Book of Mormon on time. It was like we were on the Amazing Race!

Anyway, enough about me and onto the show. As they started showing the teams, Amy asked, “Who will I forget immediately?” Then they showed the surfer girl with just one arm and she answered herself, “Not Sharknomz! That’s for sure.”  We weren’t sure how far the food scientists would get in the game since they are total nerds. We felt this even before they went to high five out of the cab and completely missed and almost slapped each other in the face. There were some other teams that weren’t really memorable (dating Asian couple, dating gay couple, Boston firefighters, women cyclists, couple that met on Survivor, mother/daughter flight attendants). We were a bit frightened by the wrestlers. Then we met the blondes. They talked about bringing their 12 pounds of makeup on the race and winning. I couldn’t wait to see it dripping down their face later on. Finally, when we thought we were done being frightened, the dentists showed up. They were both really intense and the husband just scared us.

highfivemiss

After the introductions, we made our picks about who would be eliminated first: Amy picked the food scientists, Steve picked the dating Cambodian/Vietnamese couple and I picked the scary dentists. Amy picked the firefighters to be the overall winner, which I missed since I thought we were just picking the winner of this leg so I picked the women cyclists and Steve picked the couple from Survivor. We were all annoyed by the blondes, but as Steve said, “We want them to lose, but they will end up making it to the end, probably because they’ll convinced the firefighters to do things for them.”

Before the teams took off, we learned about the Save. At the end of the first leg, the first team that made it to the Pit Stop would win it. It could be used to save the team from elimination if they came in last place up and they could keep racing. Does that mean they got rid of non-elimination legs? I guess we’ll find out.  The blondes did have a sound strategy for getting the Save — win the first leg. I don’t know if the other teams thought of that.

Teams had to fly to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. There were two flights with five teams getting on the first flight and the rest getting on the second flight 40 minutes later. The surfers were the first at the airport and wondered if there should be a special desk they could get their tickets. Instead of looking around, they started to make out. When they finally figured out they should look around, they were the third team on the first flight.

makingout

When teams landed, they had to find a sign-up sheet to go on a sea flight. The planes took teams of two at the most. The surfers got there first and we were quite confused as what they signed up under since it really looked like “Dicks Team!!!” Amy did some investigative work and discovered their last name is Dirks. With all the fast flashing to the sign-up sheet on the show, that “r” really looked like a “c”.

dirksnotdicks

When the teams were up in the planes, one of the cyclists did not look so good. She was trying really hard not to puke and said, “I think it is a courtesy not to throw up on the other teams.” Truth.

The real drama started when the last three teams arrived to the sign-up sheet. No one wanted to be the last two teams on the last flight. It was the firefighters, wrestlers and blondes. One of the firefighters started to sign the team name and one of the blondes grabbed the pen out of his hand and signed her team name in the same spot. That left the firefighters and wrestlers on the last plane. I am guessing the firefighters were not going to do anything to help the blondes in the future. The firefighters said that they thought karma might come back to get the blondes.

onearmclimbing

The sea plane took teams to Skull Rock where they had to climb up a rope ladder and then jump off the rock into the water and find their clue bobbing in the bottle before swimming to a boat. Inside the bottle was a treasure map telling them to head over to a pirate ship. Before jumping the dating Asian couple were freaking out about the height. The guy kept making a dry heave noise. The girl said she hated when he makes that noise. Steve asked, “Does he make that sound a lot?” Amy said that guy was gross and never wanted to hear that sound again so she hoped Steve was right and they were going home first.

The pirate gave them a clue that told them to get in some boats that were tied to rope. They had to just pull the boats over via the ropes to shore which was pretty close. It was a pretty simple task and I’m not sure what happened, but I could not stop laughing when the wrestlers capsized and were in the water.

capsizeboat

Once on the islands, the teams found a roadblock where they were given a liquid compass and coordinates to find their own treasure chest in the sand. The shaft of the shovel they were given to dig was also one yard in length, which was important for the clue. The tricky part was the compass which worked differently than a normal compass. Well, that should have been the tricky part, but when one of the guys in the gay couple went to his starting point, he didn’t pay attention to the rest of the clue and started digging right there. When one of the cyclists was supposed to start at an anchor, she went to a bell and declared it was also an anchor. She said, “This looks like a bell, but it is also an anchor.” Steve agreed with that logic and added, “You are a person, but you are also an anchor.” She eventually figured it out.

When the dentists arrived, we learned how important MCAT scores are to treasure hunting! The wife said that her husband had the highest MCAT scores of either one of their medical schools had ever seen so he had to do this road block. Amy asked, “Really? Compass reading for pirate treasure is on the MCAT?” I said it translated well.  He was the first one to figure out how the compass worked. He verified it with the compass on his watch and also where the sun was in the sky. Dentist guy told the surfer dude how the compass worked before he actually found the treasure quickly. Amy said, “Well, apparently treasure hunting is part of medical/dental school!”

The rest of the teams eventually got to the island and were all being confused about the compass or following coordinates. Then there was one of the blondes. The surfer guy was trying to tell her how the compass worked and said, “Where does the sun set?” She said, “The sun sets in the east and rises in the west.” That made the surfer dude and one of the food scientists just look at her like she was an idiot. Amy asked, “Wouldn’t you know directions as a realtor? Like, ‘Sunset view from the west facing windows.'”

The dating gay couple finally found the clue second.  I was surprised it took so long since he was told how to use the compass by the dentist when most of the teams hadn’t arrived yet. Of course, the surfer guy was also shown but was still there trying to find the treasure. The wrestler guy was told how to use the compass by the mom flight attendant and then found his treasure before she did.  Shortly after that, the cyclists and surfers found the treasure chests. A bit more time passed before the flight attendants, dating Asian couple and food scientists all found the treasure at the same time.

That left the blondes, firefighters and Survivor teams still trying to figure stuff out. The sun went down and all three of them were still going at the task for almost four hours. Each one was super close to the actual treasure chest location. They just had no idea, but the producers nicely showed it to us for each team.

treasureactuallocation

The Survivor team decided they wanted to give up and take the four-hour penalty. The only way for it to work was to convince the other two teams to do it too so it was just a footrace to the end. The other teams agreed to do it so they all ran to a taxi. The firefighters were in the middle of climbing into a taxi when the girls started to squeeze in, but the guys pushed them out of the way and got into the cab. The girls could not believe how rude the firefighters were being. Of course, they didn’t.

The clue in the treasure chest told teams how to get to the pit stop, which was a fortress, but Amy called it Fort Orangecicle. It did look like one. The teams checked into the pit stop the same order they left the beach. It was only tense for the last three teams that all left at the same time. The blondes were the last team to arrive and they complained that they came to make friends but the firefighters were rude to them. No one responded to their silliness since they were gone! I guess that karma the firefighters were talking about did happen, sooner than probably they even expected. I said I was sure the blondes were going to annoy us until the end, but Amy said that she was sure another team would step up to do it next week.

What did you think about this first episode? What teams annoyed you? What teams did you like? Do you think you could have figured out the treasure chest road block with the crazy compass? Who do you think will be eliminated next week?

 

 

7 Comments

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.