Never, Ever Choose Paint-by-Number!

Without further ado, here is my re-cap of last night's leg of The Amazing Race:

Okay, I missed last week's episode, so I felt a little disconnected from where things were at last night. With the gay guys gone, that left seven teams still in the running: Dating couple Peter & Sarah, dating couple Rob & Kimberly, models/recovering addicts (and just generally hot guys) James & Tyler, friends Karlyn & Lyn, coalminer and wife Dave & Mary, beauty queens Dustin & someone (Kandice maybe?), and brothers Erwin & Godwin.

The teams kicked off the leg by learning they were going to fly somewhere - I think it was India. Yep, definitely India. And almost the entire first half-hour of the show was dedicated to watching the teams working to score the best flights to their destination city. I'm not sure why so much time was devoted to watching them dicker with travel agents, trying to hide information from one another, and desperately trying to switch flights once they realized there were quicker connections. We usually get a glimpse of that each week, so why we had to sit through thirty minutes of it this week, I'm really not sure. It got kind of boring. And somehow, the Barbies and Peter & Sarah, who initially seemed to have the worst tickets, ended up in India first. Go figure.

I don't know how much I actually missed last week, but I seemed to be getting new insight into a few of the teams. It felt like a lot had changed. For one thing, after the last episode I saw, I detested Rob and strongly felt Kimberly should ditch him once the race is over. By contrast, I thought Peter & Sarah seemed like they had a strong bond, and I admired how supportive he was of her and her struggle to compete with the blown hydraulic knee of her prosthetic leg.

However, this week, Rob & Kimberly seemed to be getting along much better, and he seemed to have undergone a major attitude adjustment. I even found myself thinking he was kinda cute. On the other hand, Peter must've taken a nasty pill, as he not only bickered with other teams and did everything he could to make everyone on the race hate him, he also did his darndest to alienate Sarah (who could possibly be the most patient woman on the face of the Earth). It's quite obvious the girl is doing everything she can on a bum leg, and she's doing pretty friggin' well too, as far as I can see. Every week, they've finished in the top three I believe, and last night they landed on the mat in first place. But not without Peter ragging on her first for slowing him up, and trying to lay blame on her for missing a bus. He just seemed to be really annoying and cruel - almost as if he and Rob switched bodies or something! From what I've seen, Sarah seems to move more quickly on one leg than most of the other women do on two, so how Peter feels he has the right to blame her for anything, I do not know. What an ass.

At the roadblock, teams had to choose between wrestling crocodiles or filling in a huge, intricate pattern with a coloured powder made from wild rice. Most teams chose to wrestle the crocodiles, which appeared to be a fairly simple task, as their contact with the crocs was actually quite minimal and they also had the help of two professional wranglers, who did most of the work. Somehow, though, my hot boys had a bonehead moment and chose to do the big kid version of a paint-by-number. Throughout much of the race, I've thought Tyler & James have made smart decisions, and when they get behind, they usually make up time by picking physical tasks that they excel at. Not this week, and it almost cost them. Fortunately, Dave & Mary also picked the slow task of filling in the big pattern with coloured powder, so that gave my boys a better shot at finishing ahead of last place.

The detour, which they crammed into the last ten minutes of the show, had one team member taking India's driver's ed course and completing an on-road test to received their Indian driver's license. I'm not sure why they crunched this all into the last few minutes, because it provided the very few light, humourous moments of the night. You could tell a few of the guys were having a hard time keeping a straight face as their instuctor ordered them to blow their horns at children and animals, demonstrating with a big bicycle which he honked loudly in their faces. And the look on Rob's face when the instructor told him that under no circumstances should he ever drink & drive at the same time was absolutely priceless. Their road tests were a little more challenging it seemed, but because they barely showed them, it was hard to tell. However, we did get to hear several of the guys describing India's traffic as "absolute chaos". I think I probably would have freaked and driven into a cow or something.

Thanks to their dumbass decision to do the gigantic paint-by-number activity, my boys finished in 6th place, followed only by Dave & Mary. The coalminer and his wife got lucky with a non-elimination leg; however, Phil did pull out one of those big twists he promised in the first episode. He announced to the couple that they would not lose their belongings or their money, as has been customary in the past few seasons, but that they must finish in first place on the next leg or else they will suffer a thirty-minute penalty. It doesn't exactly spell doom for them, but sitting aside for a half-hour while other teams arrive at the pitstop could prove costly. And they haven't exactly been a first-place kind of team thus far. It'll be interesting to see how they respond to the challenge.

I keep waiting each week for this show to pick up in entertainment value, but I was left feeling a bit disappointed yet again. Oh, and another thing I took note of was how the pompous American attitude seeped out of the racers as they curled up their noses when around the Indian people, and grumbled about how they wanted to go to a rich country. And they wonder why other countries hate them! Idiot-sticks!

Well, that's all for now - have a good day, gang!