TAR US and Asia: Eps 5 and 6

[spiderbraids]

Asia:
Ep 5
1. Next stop, Legazpi, Phillipines, by way of Manila. We see half of Manas/Sahil (India) shaving his head in response to not being able to take their shampoo on-board and threatening to shave the other guy if they don't do well this leg. Everyone flies to Manila, before taking a bus. Well, most of them are taking a bus, as Manas/Sahil and Hussein/Natasha (Indonesia) take a morning flight, which ends up putting them at the back.
2. Legazpi, and everyone takes jeepneys to some hill, where they then ride ATVs to some ruins, before getting a task to hit a pot while blindfolded. Amusingly, we see Manas/Sahil try throwing the stick at the pot :-D After pot smashing, we have a Detour between learning a local dance (sounds familiar) and grabbing greased up pigs. Only the Richards and Manas/Sahil try the pig task, and even then, only the Richards finish it, and even they call it their biggest mistake of the leg. We also see Ivan/Hilda (Malaysia) struggling with the dance, even though in their own words, they're good at dancing. My mom found Ethan/Khairie (Malaysia)'s comment comparing the dancers to Lady Gaga quite amusing.
3. Following the Detour is an Intersection, a leftover from the US version where two teams work together on a task. Ivan/Hilda's dancing trouble means that Jess/Lani (Singapore) have to wait up first. The Intersection task is basically, clean up a section of beach. Yeah, moving on...
4. Roadblock is to paddle a boat to an array of clue envelopes and pick one that says correct, before heading to the pit stop at Misibis Bay via jet ski and truck. Ethan/Khairie win another leg and get a Philippines beach holiday plus cash, while Manas/Sahil get eliminated. Eh, whatever.

Ep 6
1. Next stop, Invercargill, New Zealand, by way of Christchurch. Ethan/Khairie actually start out last this leg, but get a helicopter to send them to the airport. Everyone gets the same flight, to Christchurch, but they're then split on 3 different connections, with the Richards managing to swap a ticket with some guy to get their connection.
2. Invercargill, where everyone's driving trailer trucks to Te Anau to get a clue from a local fisherman (and since it's not fishing season, he's pretty easy to spot), sending them to some wood-sawing place... which doesn't open until 8:45 the next morning, allowing even Jess/Lani (the lone team on the last connection) to catch up. Bleh for bunching. Incidentally, on the way to Te Anau, at least one team stops at a Caltex for directions. Hooray for product placement :P
3. Next morning, and the wood-sawing task has teams cutting 5 slices together, and then 2 each per person. We see Hussein taking out and blowing a whistle to get Natasha working :-D
Detour is a choice between bungee jumping (a revisit from a previous TARA) and swinging, from about 150 meters (500 ft) in either case. This is then followed by a U-Turn, which Michelle/Claire use on Sunaina/Dimple as payback. S/D think of it as an opportunity to try both detours :-D We also get an amusing cut in which one team is thinking that Hilda is probably struggling at the sawing task... and then we see Hilda actually struggling at the sawing task :-D
4. Next step is a rugby task, because, well, they're in NZ :-) Score a try, and kick a conversion (10 chances to score before getting a 10 minute penalty). Amusingly, we see one of the Richards kick his shoe off while still scoring his conversion (one of only two teams to avoid the penalty). We see Ivan bungee jump, and then decide to switch to the swinging after seeing Hilda concede that she's the weakest among the players. Considering that in at least one previous leg, Ivan actually had to carry her, she's not far off.
5. Roadblock at some snowy mountain: Find a buried object in the snow using a avalanche rescue beacon detector. Amusingly, Hussein and either of Sunaina/Dimple go for the same object :-) Pit stop is at nearby Coronet Peak, and the Richards win the leg and a stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, while Ivan/Hilda get the cut despite being the only other non-penalized team at the rugby (with Ivan scoring).

America:
Ep 5
1. We head into Norway, where teams ride a cable car lift to get their first clue on top of a hill, while Nat/Kat (doctors) note their blood sugar. This leg has a Fast Forward, in which one team does a Christmas tradition. Nat/Kat do this task, but since they know they're heading to a restaurant, they're worried it might be an eating task, and one of them is a vegetarian (!) It turns out to be eating a sheep's head. We see Nat/Kat re-purposing the Globetrotters' "Tastes like money" and then half-joking about getting sick after finishing the head, and we also later see Nick/Vicki (bartender/tattooed hairdresser) go to the task location and have trouble getting what "Fast Forward Taken" means :-D The others (and Nick/Vicki) go to some bridge for a rappeling Roadblock: Rappel down to the water, signal a boat, have them attach the next clue, then rappel back up. We get to see see Vicki spin around while trying to rappel up :-) We also find out that Clair (/Brook, Team Melon) lost her grandma before the race.
2. Next stop, some field in the middle of nowhere for a Detour pickup: Bike to some place, memorize the number of a bike lock, bike back, and unlock said bike lock, or deliver some fish and a chainsaw to some guy by boat. We see Team Melon performing the delivery and kissing the guy they're delivering to, as they apparently have a "kiss count" going. (That tractor guy who gave them directions in England? They kissed that guy too.)
3. Pit stop is some WWII marina. Nat/Kat get a trip to Costa Rica (to go along with their previous leg's Belize trip). We see KevJumba/dad and Jill/Thomas (non-tattooed hairdresser/ad man) getting lost on the way to the pit stop, even crossing the Roadblock bridge while Katie/Rachel (volleyball) are still performing it (!) allowing Gary/Mallory (father/daughter) to finish 2nd, and rather amusingly, Phil signals this by popping his eyebrow twice :-) We see Brook hit her face on their car door (ouch!) before checking in 5th, while Katie/Rachel eventually get eliminated after being in last place for the whole leg.

Ep 6
1. Next destination, St. Petersburg, Russia. We see Nat/Kat comment about how bright it is at 8:30pm and enquire about trains at the local train station. The next train to Stockholm is the next morning at 10:26am, and we skip the rest of the teams opening their envelopes and instead just show them boarding the train. We see Nat/Kat and Brook/Clair sniff each other's footwear. Ew.
2. Stockholm, and everyone gets taxis to the airport. We see Chad yell at Stephanie for being the last to get a cab, and she thinks it's "shady" that Chad seems to blame her for everything. Even though, since everyone also gets the same flight to St. Pete, it doesn't matter that much here. In St. Pete, we see Team Melon making the obvious pun about rushing in Russia :-) KevJumba/dad talking about the culture here... and Nick/Vicki commenting that the city keeps its old buildings instead of blowing them up like in Vegas :-D
3. Detour, between classical music and classical film. The music task entails listening to 3 records (of Russian classical music, natch) and finding the matching sheet music in a room filled with guys playing various piano pieces (cacophony much?) The film task entails trying to find a film clip matching the film being shown on screen (this Russian silent classic), and some of the teams decide to look for clips with war and Russian words in them. Most of the teams finish the latter, with many switching from the music task. We see Steph encourage Chad to stay at the music task, and it pays off. We also have a confessional of Nick reminding himself of his outburst in Ghana, while he's switching tasks with Vicki... twice.
4. Next stop, some square for a clue pickup, sending teams to the sticks for a Roadblock at the general store: Who's ready for a Russian Drag Race? In this case, teams put on a traditional babushka dress, go on a scavenger hunt for potatoes, wheelbarrows and manure, and plant the potatoes in a field, with instruction from real babushkas. Rather amusingly, we see KevJumba kiss the babushkas once he's done. And I thought that was Team Melon's department ;-) We see Mallory get lost trying to find "Duck's End" (where she's supposed to get a wheelbarrow), and it doesn't help that the sign for "Duck's End" is a small English sign placed under a bigger Russian sign. It also doesn't help that some guys try to invite Mallory for some vodka :-) or that Steph decides to throw the shovel straight into the manure for Mallory to pick up :-D We also see babushka Nick getting photographed with a guy taking about American friendship :-) We also have a really funny cut: We cut from Nick saying "Can't deal with this crap"... to someone shoveling "crap" into their wheelbarrow :-D
5. Pit stop is back in St Pete at some cathedral. KevJumba looks around in the cathedral, even as dad thinks it might be in the adjacent park. It does turn out to be in the park, where Jill/Thomas win the leg and a trip to Brazil, and Team Melon also manage to sneak in before KevJumba/dad decide to check the park. Nick/Vicki are last, but it's an NEL.