The Amazing Race, season 27: Legs 5 to 9
Nov. 27th, 2015 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsLeg 5:
1. Picking up where the TBC left off, Josh/Tanner (Texas) are giving their Express Pass to Denise/James (mom/son, Alabama), and after being awarded the pass, Denise is shown "dancing" in her car seat :-D Back to race business... the first clue pickup is at a lodge for a Roadblock: "Who wants to gorge themselves?" Cindy/Rick (Chacs) think it's a food task :-) but in this case, they're being asked to swing down into a gorge... and the show finally acknowledges the historical significance of the area to TAR by showing footage of Kevin and Drew swinging in the gorge from the very first episode :-)
2. Back at the orphanage, while everyone else gladly gives their money to the orphans, Chris/Logan (Paparazzi; Logan's the girl :-)) are only going to give $20 of their $175, before eventually being guilted into giving the other $155 :-\ and the U-Turn effectively ends up a non-factor, as the only team to use it, Tiffany/Krista (the cheerleaders), use it on Justin/Diana (Green) and turn out to be in dead last :-\
3. Things don't get better for the Paparazzi at the Roadblock, because they wind up in last after following the Chacs back on to the road after misunderstanding where the task actually is :-\ When they actually finally do the task, Logan is like, "Oh good, he didn't die" :-)
4. Detour is between canoeing in wildlife-laden waters (Green, Texas) and feeding food crocs from an underwater cage. This is where Alabama uses the Express Pass, while the Paparazzi continue to have their meltdown as Chris tries to talk Logan into switching from crocs to canoes :-\
5. In a change of pace, we get two non-Detour-or-Roadblock tasks right before the actual pit stop :-) The first involves walking with lions... Phil comments that "Thankfully, it's not dinner time :-)" (and we even do get a reference to the famous Wizard of Oz song from one of the teams :-)) The idea behind the lion walk is part of reintroducing the lions into the wild (!) One team: "What do they eat?" "...Walkers" :-)
6. The other task is the "footrace" to the pit stop... with baskets of fruit on their heads, prompting Alabama to snark that it's the slowest footrace ever :-) After competing for first and second all leg, Green and Texas find themselves overtaken by Alabama, who end up winning themselves a trip to Slovakia :-) At the back of the pack, Jazmine/Danielle (track stars) first mistake the fruit task as part of the lion task, and then when they do the correct task, they end up having to do it twice after forgetting to look for the skulls, and end up getting bumped out by the Chacs and Paparazzi... Lesson to be learned: Always read the clue! :-) (You too, Paparazzi...)
Leg 6:
1. This leg (and next) brought to you by FitBit :-) First stop is a Roadblock asking "Who's ready to get their heart racing?" It involves bungee jumping from a bridge over the river, sorta like that swing task from last week :-\ with the only difference being that contestants are to record their heart rate as measured by their FitBits...
2. Next stop is Paris, just like back in season 1 :-) First stop, an aerodrome in the 'burbs for a second Roadblock (as usual, for the person who sat out the first one) involving flying in biplanes and looking for the words of the French Revolution slogan, and Green appropriately reference Snoopy and the Red Baron :-) After a montage of contestants reading the clue explanation that calls for anyone guessing wrong to go to the back of the line (hint hint), time to take off :-)
3. Apparently, the guys painting the words in the ground didn't include the accents over the e's at the ends of the words, so we have the contestants saying that the slogan is "Liberty, Eagle-light, Frater-night" :-D That's still better than Logan, who ends up having to wait in queue to go again after only getting Liberte and Egalite... At first she takes it in stride, saying if you have to do something twice, might as well be this one :-) But she probably won't be too happy to discover that the do-over has put the Paparazzi one hour behind, because that's the gap between their train back to Paris and that of all the other preceding teams :-\ Even Texas made that train, despite following a sign saying St. Vrain thinking it's pointing towards the station :-D
4. After a clue pickup from a white phantom (not just a guy with a sheet over his body, I might add :-)), a Detour between setting up a seafood platter at a famous restaurant and rapping in French. And for the latter task, the contestants' attempts to rap are filtered in post to look as if they were actually in a music video :-D (Incidentally, we also find out that Denise calls her son "Spud" :-))
5. Just getting to either task is a big challenge for Alabama, who spend a good chunk of time looking for the "Tornelli Bridge" :-\ And when they finally do get there, it turns out that a 51 year old mother from Alabama? Doesn't do foreign rap very well :-\ as she describes the words as being funky (and not in the good way either)
6. Pit stop is at Arc de Triomphe (just like back in season 1 :-)), or rather just across the street, as Green take their time to realize before finally finding Phil :-) They're still in 1st, but they're flabbergasted that it's yet another TBC leg, and it's revealed that the next (part of the) leg will take place in Rotterdam (SQUEE for me! :-)) Meanwhile, Alabama spend so much time rapping, the Paparazzi manage to overtake them :-\
Leg 7:
1. After 18 attempts (!) Alabama finally get past the rap challenge, and needless to say, they're very grateful to still be racing after a first-to-worst...So, everyone's been spoonfed train tix in the 7pm hour, but Green (being superfans and all :-)) decide to look for earlier arrivals, eventually getting something like 4pm, while Texas do a little sightseeing in Paris :-) + :-\ By the time they get on the train, Texas is starting to wonder if maybe the other teams have gotten earlier trains, as they're sharing their default train with Alabama... Notably, the cheerleaders thought that Rotterdam was in Germany, and the Chacs believe that Rotterdam = Amsterdam, and only realize their error somewhere between R'dam and Schiphol, and have to alight at Schiphol station (which my mom recognized from our big European vaca from a couple years back :-)) to double back... before still arriving in R'dam in 3rd :-)
2. Rotterdam, now with a new railway station :-) The B-roll includes the iconic cube houses, but they don't feature in today's tasks... instead, the first stop is a partial bunching, in which teams look for a red boat, pick a start time for the next morning (5 to 6:30am) and sleep on the boat :-)
3. Next morning's clue directs teams to the Water Taxi at Kop van Zuid, and alludes to something involving step count... Some interpret it mean to take as few steps as possible and take cabs, others just hoof it across the bridge to the south side of the river... Everyone's heading to the Kinderdijk (SQUEE), and because the show just loves funny mispronounciations, it shows one of the contestants pronouncing the last syllable as, well, rhyming with "thick", before being corrected by their cabbie :-D
4. Roadblock: "Who's ready to pick up some sunflowers?" Or in this case, an exact replica of the Van Gogh painting of the same name :-) With emphasis on exact, since some have flowers missing, and others have half of the bottom of the vase obscured... and since the paintings are placed at the various windmills spread across the Kinderdijk, that means plenty of running to keep FitBit happy :-) Joey (/Kelsey, reporters) uniquely gets it on the first try :-) And here's where the FitBit comes in: Subtract the current heartrate from the contestant's highest heartrate from the previous leg, deliver that many tulips to the clue pickup. Texas struggles with the math side of the task, oy vey :-/
5. Next clue pickup is back in town at a distillery, and the Chacs are taking waiting for a bus :-/ After that, Detour's between double dutch (HUH.) and driving a virtual cargo ship. Cheerleaders do the rope (of course they would :-)) and everyone else plays ship captain... Cheerleaders actually finish their task first, but the ship task is right next to the train station, and this will be important...
6. Pit stop requires riding the train to The Hague and taking a tram to the Palace of Peace... seems pretty dodgy to have a train ride immediately preceding the pit stop, but the frequency of Dutch trains means there is some chance of temas being spread out... Joey pronounces Hague as HA-GOO (HUH... probably only does local news :-)) and on top of that, it's called Den Haag on the signboards... All that confusion allows Green to win (again) and get a cash prize of $31k, based on the sums of their step totals in the past legs, plus a 92 minute massage session at the start of the next leg, based on Justin's current heartbeat :-)
7. Things get interesting at the back of the pack, resulting in a pretty hectic final five minutes: the Chacs leave on their train first, but Alabama notes that their train makes fewer stops, and then they're bewildered to see a "+10 min" label appear on the signboard for their train, and THEN the Chacs find themselves on the wrong tram in the Hague... Result: Alabama come up to the mat expecting themselves to be eliminated, and are surprised that they're still in, and the Chacs aren't so lucky...
Leg 8:
1. Next stop: Krakow, Poland :-) After Green get themselves a better flight than everyone else, Detour is between working in a salt mine (Green, Paparazzi, Texas) and doing panhandling with a piano to earn 100 zloty (let's not get pedantic about the pronunciation :-)) Cheerleaders start off slow and so decide to try a different tack: target good looking guys and offer them a kiss on the cheek :-) Another amusing moment: A tourist offering James 20 zloty to make him go away... since Alabama only needs 15, James responds "You're my hero" :-)
2. Regardless of Detour, this is then followed by a trip to a museum that used to be Oskar Schindler's factory, as in Schindler's List... which means a bunch of solemn moments with the racers reflecting on the atrocities of WWII... including a scene involving a big circular room with names from the list on the walls... Pretty poignant stuff, especially with a close up of a plaque saying "He who saves one person, saves the whole world"...
3. Back to actual racing... And since they've just commemorated a person who saved a ton of Jewish people, they get a Roadblock in the Jewish quarter: "Who can handle a big order?" Involves arranging a platter of Jewish food and delivering it to a restaurant :-) Latkes, gefilte fish, and a bunch of other items that everyone has to ask around about :-) James and Kelsey end up helping each other, and they won't be the only ones :-)
4. Pitstop is at a Jewish party right in the restaurant :-) Green win (DUH) and get a trip to Shanghai, China, and the Paparazzi quip about bringing salt to the party :-D At the other end, it's down to cheerleaders and Texas (who had trouble getting a cab to the salt mines), and they're working together to get the right items, with Texas allowing the cheerleaders to have theirs checked first :-) However, we finally have ourselves a proper non-elim, as the cheerleaders get in right ahead of Texas, and the show is rather unsubtle about it being non-elim, with the cheerleaders talking about wanting to stick with their friends from Texas a bit longer right before the reveal :-/ Next leg has both a Speed Bump for Texas, plus a U-Turn (ooh!)
Leg 9:
1. Green were so far ahead last week that at the airport, other teams come across Green and mockingly quip about them not being a myth :-D Time for the almost obligatory India leg, this time taking place in Agra (as in the Taj Mahal!) While waiting at the train station in New Delhi (which is filled with lots of people sleeping there overnight, leading to the obligatory culture shock confessionals), there is lots of discussion between the paparazzi and Green regarding the upcoming U-Turn, including the cheerleaders trying to use the previous U-Turn on Green... This leads to one of the cheerleaders (think it was) doing a mock news report on the train the next morning, even throwing back to reporter Kelsey :-D
2. Roadblock: "Who's ready for laundry day?" The teams get busy hand-washing clothes on the river banks and spreading them out on the sandy ground (HUH), and unlike any previous Speed Bump, Texas' Speed Bump is both Tanner and Josh doing it :-0 It's a pretty tortuous task, and highlights include Joey quipping about his mom doing his laundry :-) and one of the cheerleaders freaking out at a bug :-D
3. After a clue pickup after receiving a blessing at a temple, a Detour between cutting up 90 lbs. of pieces of "white pumpkin" to make into candy before delivering some candy to a store, and delivering 120 empty oil canisters by bike... in one go :-0 (something that has to be seen to be believed, and not just because Green provide their own horn beeping noises while bicycling the canisters :-D) And on top of that, there's a parade procession (!) going on during the oil cans task, prompting a "Bollywood style" quip :-) One thing I notice about the India legs is that it seems many of the tasks (like the pumpkin cutting here) attract a big crowd of locals, which makes me wonder how popular TAR is over there...
4. As promised, the U-Turn at a traffic circle, and after getting some directions, Green gets to it first without using it on anyone... But the reporters do have a backup plan, and that's to mess with Texas :-) Pitstop is at the "midnight garden" near the Taj, and the greeter is an outdoor barber (!) Surprise surprise, Green are first again (that's #6, one for the thumb :-)), getting a trip to Hawaii, followed by the newsies (Reporters, Paparazzi) commiserating with Phil about Green's utter domination (in a confessional, Green even cites Rachel and Dave's own record of eight leg wins... HUH.)
5. With Texas getting a hefty Speed Bump and the U-Turn (a discovery that prompts them to root for Green, HUH...), you'd think the final elimination was a foregone conclusion, but Alabama threatens to make things interesting by getting dropped off at the wrong garden by their cabbie, and having to run quite some distance before finding out where the midnight garden actually is and getting on another cab... and in spite of that setback, Alabama still beats Texas and gets them eliminated, but Texas is being a good sport about it :-)
1. Picking up where the TBC left off, Josh/Tanner (Texas) are giving their Express Pass to Denise/James (mom/son, Alabama), and after being awarded the pass, Denise is shown "dancing" in her car seat :-D Back to race business... the first clue pickup is at a lodge for a Roadblock: "Who wants to gorge themselves?" Cindy/Rick (Chacs) think it's a food task :-) but in this case, they're being asked to swing down into a gorge... and the show finally acknowledges the historical significance of the area to TAR by showing footage of Kevin and Drew swinging in the gorge from the very first episode :-)
2. Back at the orphanage, while everyone else gladly gives their money to the orphans, Chris/Logan (Paparazzi; Logan's the girl :-)) are only going to give $20 of their $175, before eventually being guilted into giving the other $155 :-\ and the U-Turn effectively ends up a non-factor, as the only team to use it, Tiffany/Krista (the cheerleaders), use it on Justin/Diana (Green) and turn out to be in dead last :-\
3. Things don't get better for the Paparazzi at the Roadblock, because they wind up in last after following the Chacs back on to the road after misunderstanding where the task actually is :-\ When they actually finally do the task, Logan is like, "Oh good, he didn't die" :-)
4. Detour is between canoeing in wildlife-laden waters (Green, Texas) and feeding food crocs from an underwater cage. This is where Alabama uses the Express Pass, while the Paparazzi continue to have their meltdown as Chris tries to talk Logan into switching from crocs to canoes :-\
5. In a change of pace, we get two non-Detour-or-Roadblock tasks right before the actual pit stop :-) The first involves walking with lions... Phil comments that "Thankfully, it's not dinner time :-)" (and we even do get a reference to the famous Wizard of Oz song from one of the teams :-)) The idea behind the lion walk is part of reintroducing the lions into the wild (!) One team: "What do they eat?" "...Walkers" :-)
6. The other task is the "footrace" to the pit stop... with baskets of fruit on their heads, prompting Alabama to snark that it's the slowest footrace ever :-) After competing for first and second all leg, Green and Texas find themselves overtaken by Alabama, who end up winning themselves a trip to Slovakia :-) At the back of the pack, Jazmine/Danielle (track stars) first mistake the fruit task as part of the lion task, and then when they do the correct task, they end up having to do it twice after forgetting to look for the skulls, and end up getting bumped out by the Chacs and Paparazzi... Lesson to be learned: Always read the clue! :-) (You too, Paparazzi...)
Leg 6:
1. This leg (and next) brought to you by FitBit :-) First stop is a Roadblock asking "Who's ready to get their heart racing?" It involves bungee jumping from a bridge over the river, sorta like that swing task from last week :-\ with the only difference being that contestants are to record their heart rate as measured by their FitBits...
2. Next stop is Paris, just like back in season 1 :-) First stop, an aerodrome in the 'burbs for a second Roadblock (as usual, for the person who sat out the first one) involving flying in biplanes and looking for the words of the French Revolution slogan, and Green appropriately reference Snoopy and the Red Baron :-) After a montage of contestants reading the clue explanation that calls for anyone guessing wrong to go to the back of the line (hint hint), time to take off :-)
3. Apparently, the guys painting the words in the ground didn't include the accents over the e's at the ends of the words, so we have the contestants saying that the slogan is "Liberty, Eagle-light, Frater-night" :-D That's still better than Logan, who ends up having to wait in queue to go again after only getting Liberte and Egalite... At first she takes it in stride, saying if you have to do something twice, might as well be this one :-) But she probably won't be too happy to discover that the do-over has put the Paparazzi one hour behind, because that's the gap between their train back to Paris and that of all the other preceding teams :-\ Even Texas made that train, despite following a sign saying St. Vrain thinking it's pointing towards the station :-D
4. After a clue pickup from a white phantom (not just a guy with a sheet over his body, I might add :-)), a Detour between setting up a seafood platter at a famous restaurant and rapping in French. And for the latter task, the contestants' attempts to rap are filtered in post to look as if they were actually in a music video :-D (Incidentally, we also find out that Denise calls her son "Spud" :-))
5. Just getting to either task is a big challenge for Alabama, who spend a good chunk of time looking for the "Tornelli Bridge" :-\ And when they finally do get there, it turns out that a 51 year old mother from Alabama? Doesn't do foreign rap very well :-\ as she describes the words as being funky (and not in the good way either)
6. Pit stop is at Arc de Triomphe (just like back in season 1 :-)), or rather just across the street, as Green take their time to realize before finally finding Phil :-) They're still in 1st, but they're flabbergasted that it's yet another TBC leg, and it's revealed that the next (part of the) leg will take place in Rotterdam (SQUEE for me! :-)) Meanwhile, Alabama spend so much time rapping, the Paparazzi manage to overtake them :-\
Leg 7:
1. After 18 attempts (!) Alabama finally get past the rap challenge, and needless to say, they're very grateful to still be racing after a first-to-worst...So, everyone's been spoonfed train tix in the 7pm hour, but Green (being superfans and all :-)) decide to look for earlier arrivals, eventually getting something like 4pm, while Texas do a little sightseeing in Paris :-) + :-\ By the time they get on the train, Texas is starting to wonder if maybe the other teams have gotten earlier trains, as they're sharing their default train with Alabama... Notably, the cheerleaders thought that Rotterdam was in Germany, and the Chacs believe that Rotterdam = Amsterdam, and only realize their error somewhere between R'dam and Schiphol, and have to alight at Schiphol station (which my mom recognized from our big European vaca from a couple years back :-)) to double back... before still arriving in R'dam in 3rd :-)
2. Rotterdam, now with a new railway station :-) The B-roll includes the iconic cube houses, but they don't feature in today's tasks... instead, the first stop is a partial bunching, in which teams look for a red boat, pick a start time for the next morning (5 to 6:30am) and sleep on the boat :-)
3. Next morning's clue directs teams to the Water Taxi at Kop van Zuid, and alludes to something involving step count... Some interpret it mean to take as few steps as possible and take cabs, others just hoof it across the bridge to the south side of the river... Everyone's heading to the Kinderdijk (SQUEE), and because the show just loves funny mispronounciations, it shows one of the contestants pronouncing the last syllable as, well, rhyming with "thick", before being corrected by their cabbie :-D
4. Roadblock: "Who's ready to pick up some sunflowers?" Or in this case, an exact replica of the Van Gogh painting of the same name :-) With emphasis on exact, since some have flowers missing, and others have half of the bottom of the vase obscured... and since the paintings are placed at the various windmills spread across the Kinderdijk, that means plenty of running to keep FitBit happy :-) Joey (/Kelsey, reporters) uniquely gets it on the first try :-) And here's where the FitBit comes in: Subtract the current heartrate from the contestant's highest heartrate from the previous leg, deliver that many tulips to the clue pickup. Texas struggles with the math side of the task, oy vey :-/
5. Next clue pickup is back in town at a distillery, and the Chacs are taking waiting for a bus :-/ After that, Detour's between double dutch (HUH.) and driving a virtual cargo ship. Cheerleaders do the rope (of course they would :-)) and everyone else plays ship captain... Cheerleaders actually finish their task first, but the ship task is right next to the train station, and this will be important...
6. Pit stop requires riding the train to The Hague and taking a tram to the Palace of Peace... seems pretty dodgy to have a train ride immediately preceding the pit stop, but the frequency of Dutch trains means there is some chance of temas being spread out... Joey pronounces Hague as HA-GOO (HUH... probably only does local news :-)) and on top of that, it's called Den Haag on the signboards... All that confusion allows Green to win (again) and get a cash prize of $31k, based on the sums of their step totals in the past legs, plus a 92 minute massage session at the start of the next leg, based on Justin's current heartbeat :-)
7. Things get interesting at the back of the pack, resulting in a pretty hectic final five minutes: the Chacs leave on their train first, but Alabama notes that their train makes fewer stops, and then they're bewildered to see a "+10 min" label appear on the signboard for their train, and THEN the Chacs find themselves on the wrong tram in the Hague... Result: Alabama come up to the mat expecting themselves to be eliminated, and are surprised that they're still in, and the Chacs aren't so lucky...
Leg 8:
1. Next stop: Krakow, Poland :-) After Green get themselves a better flight than everyone else, Detour is between working in a salt mine (Green, Paparazzi, Texas) and doing panhandling with a piano to earn 100 zloty (let's not get pedantic about the pronunciation :-)) Cheerleaders start off slow and so decide to try a different tack: target good looking guys and offer them a kiss on the cheek :-) Another amusing moment: A tourist offering James 20 zloty to make him go away... since Alabama only needs 15, James responds "You're my hero" :-)
2. Regardless of Detour, this is then followed by a trip to a museum that used to be Oskar Schindler's factory, as in Schindler's List... which means a bunch of solemn moments with the racers reflecting on the atrocities of WWII... including a scene involving a big circular room with names from the list on the walls... Pretty poignant stuff, especially with a close up of a plaque saying "He who saves one person, saves the whole world"...
3. Back to actual racing... And since they've just commemorated a person who saved a ton of Jewish people, they get a Roadblock in the Jewish quarter: "Who can handle a big order?" Involves arranging a platter of Jewish food and delivering it to a restaurant :-) Latkes, gefilte fish, and a bunch of other items that everyone has to ask around about :-) James and Kelsey end up helping each other, and they won't be the only ones :-)
4. Pitstop is at a Jewish party right in the restaurant :-) Green win (DUH) and get a trip to Shanghai, China, and the Paparazzi quip about bringing salt to the party :-D At the other end, it's down to cheerleaders and Texas (who had trouble getting a cab to the salt mines), and they're working together to get the right items, with Texas allowing the cheerleaders to have theirs checked first :-) However, we finally have ourselves a proper non-elim, as the cheerleaders get in right ahead of Texas, and the show is rather unsubtle about it being non-elim, with the cheerleaders talking about wanting to stick with their friends from Texas a bit longer right before the reveal :-/ Next leg has both a Speed Bump for Texas, plus a U-Turn (ooh!)
Leg 9:
1. Green were so far ahead last week that at the airport, other teams come across Green and mockingly quip about them not being a myth :-D Time for the almost obligatory India leg, this time taking place in Agra (as in the Taj Mahal!) While waiting at the train station in New Delhi (which is filled with lots of people sleeping there overnight, leading to the obligatory culture shock confessionals), there is lots of discussion between the paparazzi and Green regarding the upcoming U-Turn, including the cheerleaders trying to use the previous U-Turn on Green... This leads to one of the cheerleaders (think it was) doing a mock news report on the train the next morning, even throwing back to reporter Kelsey :-D
2. Roadblock: "Who's ready for laundry day?" The teams get busy hand-washing clothes on the river banks and spreading them out on the sandy ground (HUH), and unlike any previous Speed Bump, Texas' Speed Bump is both Tanner and Josh doing it :-0 It's a pretty tortuous task, and highlights include Joey quipping about his mom doing his laundry :-) and one of the cheerleaders freaking out at a bug :-D
3. After a clue pickup after receiving a blessing at a temple, a Detour between cutting up 90 lbs. of pieces of "white pumpkin" to make into candy before delivering some candy to a store, and delivering 120 empty oil canisters by bike... in one go :-0 (something that has to be seen to be believed, and not just because Green provide their own horn beeping noises while bicycling the canisters :-D) And on top of that, there's a parade procession (!) going on during the oil cans task, prompting a "Bollywood style" quip :-) One thing I notice about the India legs is that it seems many of the tasks (like the pumpkin cutting here) attract a big crowd of locals, which makes me wonder how popular TAR is over there...
4. As promised, the U-Turn at a traffic circle, and after getting some directions, Green gets to it first without using it on anyone... But the reporters do have a backup plan, and that's to mess with Texas :-) Pitstop is at the "midnight garden" near the Taj, and the greeter is an outdoor barber (!) Surprise surprise, Green are first again (that's #6, one for the thumb :-)), getting a trip to Hawaii, followed by the newsies (Reporters, Paparazzi) commiserating with Phil about Green's utter domination (in a confessional, Green even cites Rachel and Dave's own record of eight leg wins... HUH.)
5. With Texas getting a hefty Speed Bump and the U-Turn (a discovery that prompts them to root for Green, HUH...), you'd think the final elimination was a foregone conclusion, but Alabama threatens to make things interesting by getting dropped off at the wrong garden by their cabbie, and having to run quite some distance before finding out where the midnight garden actually is and getting on another cab... and in spite of that setback, Alabama still beats Texas and gets them eliminated, but Texas is being a good sport about it :-)
